Call Me Zebra: A Coming-of-Age Trip Across the Mediterranean

by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi

As a remedy, I whispered the great poet Pitarra’s words, which were later repeated by the novelist Roig, both of whom my father had translated and transcribed. I said: “Al fossar de les moreres no s’hi enterra cap traïdor!” There are no traitors buried in the Grave of the Mulberries! On September 11, 1989, the year we had arrived in Barcelona, Pitarra’s quote had been inscribed into a concave metal memorial in an empty square in La Ribera. At the top of the slender, curved memorial, a single flame burns night and day in honor of the Catalan heroes who fell on September 11, 1714, when Barcelona was besieged during the War of Spanish Succession. I thought of other September elevenths, of the thread of violence that connects us all: September 11, 1697 (the ruthless Battle of Zenta, which precipitated the collapse of the Ottoman Empire); September 11, 1973 (the dark date of the U.S.-backed Chilean coup d’état, which led to the rise of the bloody dictator Pinochet—at that, I saluted Morales); and, finally, September 11, 2001 (the al-Qaeda attack on the United States, which gave the squint-eyed, red-faced Bush an opening to launch another reckless war