4 L'Omosessuale (1)

4 L'Omosessuale (1)

I, Carlo Piero Guercio, write these words with the intention that they should be found after my death, when neither scorn nor loss of reputation may dog my steps nor blemish me. The circumstance of life leaves it impossible that this testament of my nature should find its way into the world before I have drawn my last breath, and until that time I shall be condemned to wear the mask decreed by misfortune.

I have been reduced to eternal and infinite silence, I have not even told the chaplain in confession. I know in advance what I will be told; that it is a perversion, an abomination in the sight of God, that I must fight the good fight, that I must marry and lead the life of a normal man, that I have a choice.

I have not told a doctor. I know in advance that I will be called an invert, that I am in some strange way in love with myself, that I am sick and can be cured, that my mother is responsible, that I am an effeminate even though I am as strong as an ox and fully capable of lifting my own weight above my head, that I. must marry and lead the life of a normal man, that I have a choice.

What could I say to such priests and doctors? I would say to the priest that God made me as I am, that I had no choice, that He must have made me like this for a purpose, that He knows the ultimate reasons for all things and that therefore it must be all to the good that I am as I am, even if we cannot know what that good is. I can say to the priest that if God is the reason for all things, then God is to blame and I should not be condemned.

And the priest will say, `This is a matter of the Devil and not of God,' and I will reply, `Did God not make the Devil? Is He not omniscient? How can I be blamed for what He knew would occur from the very commencement of time?'

And the priest will refer me to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and tell me that God's mysteries are not to be understood by us. He will tell me that we are commanded to be fruitful and multiply.

I would say to the doctor, `I have been like this from the first, it is nature that has moulded me, how am I supped to change? How can I decide to desire women, any more than I can suddenly decide to enjoy eating anchovies, which I have always stated? I have been to the Casa Rosette, and I loathed it, and afterwards I felt sick. I felt cheapened. I felt I was a traitor. I had to do it to appear normal.'

And the doctor will say, `How can this be natural? Nature serves its interests by making us reproduce. This is against nature. Nature wants us to be fruitful and multiply.'

There is no air in this world that I am fated to inhabit, I am a plant suffocated by lack of air and light, I have had my roots clipped and my leaves painted with poison. I am exploding with the fire of love and there is no one to accept it or nourish it. I am a foreigner within my own nation, an alien in my own race, I am as detested as cancer when I am as purely flesh as any priest or doctor.

According to Dante my like is confined to the third ring of the Seventh Circle of Nether Hell, in the improbable company of usurers. He gives me a desert of naked spirits scourged by flakes of fire, he makes me run in circles, perpetually and in futility, looking for the ones whose bodies I've defiled. You see how it is; I have been driven to search everywhere just to find myself mentioned. I am mentioned almost nowhere, but where I find myself, I find myself condemned. And how remarkable it is, you doctors and priests, that Dante pitied us when God did not. Dante said, `It makes me heartsick only to think of them.'

And Dante was right, I have always run in circles, futilely, looking for the warmth of bodies, scorned by God who seated me, and all my life has been a desert and a rain of flakes of flame.

Yes, I have read everything, looking for evidence that I exist, that I am a possibility. And do you know where I found myself? Do you know where I found out that I was, in another vanished world, beautiful and true? It was in the writings of a Greek.

Ironical. I am an Italian soldier oppressing the only people whose ancestors bestowed upon my kind the right to embody a most perfect form of love.

I joined the Army because the men are young and beautiful, I admit it. And also because I got the idea from Plato. I am probably the only soldier in history who has taken up arms because of a philosopher. You see, I had been searching for a vocation in which my affliction could be of use, and I had been ignorant of the love of Achilles and Patroclus, and other such ancient Greekeries. In short, I read The Symposium, and found Aristophanes explaining that there were three sexes; the men and women who loved each other, the men who loved men, and the women who loved women. It was a revelation to conceive that I was of a different sex, it was an idea that made some sense. And I found Phaedrus explaining that `if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best

governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at one another's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The eeriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the soul of heroes, Love of his own nature infuses into the lover. Love will make men dare to die for their beloved - Love alone.'

I knew that in the Army there would be those that I could love, albeit never touch. I would find someone to love, and I would be ennobled by this love. I would not desert him in battle, he would make me an inspired hero. I would have someone to impress, someone whose admiration would give me that which I cannot give myself; esteem, and honour. I would dare to die for him, and if I died I would know that I was dross which some inscrutable alchemy had transmuted into gold.

It was a wild idea, romantic and implausible, and the odd thing is that it worked. But finally it brought me incalculable grief.