TRISTANA'S DEFENCE

V. is a woman I met some two weeks ago and I can’t help writing about her. I decided I would name her Tristana instead. She has an incredible life, more astonishing than the life of most fictional characters I know… A sad story at the same time, still incredible and touching. She used to be a translator in Rotterdam. She was raised by a dictatorial, militaristic father who made her run and exercise when she didn't want to, have martial arts and boxing classes, and an affective (not at all affectionate, but cold and distant if not abusive) mother – she only got to know her mother wasn’t her biological mother aged 16. Tristana’s biological mother was a neighbour of hers, in fact. One of her brothers became a mercenary. Tristana says her brother "has no heart" and she can’t understand how he could have had a daughter either (knowing she could become an orphan easily).

Tristana had a daughter herself at 19, who is now 13. She had her daughter home alone, 10 months(!) into her pregnancy and she single-handedly decided to have a shower after labour (while waiting for the midwife to finally arrive…), then she passed out on the bathtub and "forgot to cut the baby's umbilical cord"... She is not to blame, she was just a kid not knowing what was happening with her own body. Before, she remembers labour’s time: she was walking on the corridor and felt her baby coming, had to hold the head of the baby and "her daughter still has green marks bellow her eyebrows because of Tristana’s fingers holding her in, back then", while getting back to bed so that the baby would not fall on the floor and be massively injured. Just a week after her daughter was born, Tristana travelled alone to Malta with her baby. The two of them kept travelling together during the whole childhood of Tristana’s daughter. They still do. And they naively but insanely love each other. Somehow, together they form a rock island carved out of affection, an island as beautiful as Malta  –  at least that's what I thought while listening to Tristana's amazing adventures. She did not repeat the story of the past and I kept thinking how strong she was.