CAMAGÜEY.- My first book, donated on Three Kings Day many years ago, was The Count of Monte Cristo. At first, I did not realize the transcendental nature of that gift. Then, not by chance, I had the opportunity to tour the walls of the prison fortress of the Château d'If on the small island in the Bay of Marseille, where I met Edmund Dantes and his story with Mercedes that I have never forgotten despite time and the avatars.
Another time I visited the remains of the castle of Rochafrida in Casilla-La Mancha to continue upstream along the Guadiana until I was amazed by the windmills against which Don Quixote broke lances. On the other side of the continent and beyond Borneo, while I was waiting for an escape from the endless summer rains in the jungles, I got up close to more than one of the Malaysian Tiger's henchmen, who by the way is kept there as a national hero.
Without going so far, the pilot Antoine de Saint Exupéry left me shocked with that strange legend that was invented about the little prince boy while he was repairing his plane somewhere on our planet. Nor have I told you about that marine anguish in which I found myself involved thinking that as long as the timbers of the boat in which I was traveling were held by the pegs, I would continue on board suffering the evils that have to be suffered, because when the waves undid the raft I would have to swim. Homer wrote it as I lived it on some page of The Odyssey and when I was already recovering from that shipwreck, Emily Bronte made her servant tell me about a family mess that occurred at the Wuthering Heights farm, an event that was well known to her because she had worked there.
These stories could last infinitely because without a passport, time machine or spaceship I have been able to coexist and live in the most important episodes of history, travel the world geography and see them face to face with fabulous real characters products of the fantasy of the author, thanks to that love of reading that began with the Count of Montecristi and consolidated my presence in the library, laboratory of all these realities and fantasies that we assimilate as lived.
Reading books, any of their subjects, represents not only pleasure and wisdom. It is the cornerstone of civilization and of the formation of the person in his relationships with himself, his family and society without borders.
Benemérito who said in a burst of light that a library is not a set of read books, but a company, a refuge and a life project. With these memories, Adelante celebrates the Julio Antonio Mella Provincial Library on its 60th anniversary, and not only for what Camagüey's culture owes to it; we well know that journalism has deposited in good hands its memories forged day by day for much more than a century.
I don't remember since when I began to frequent the Library. It must have been for the bohemian era of our profession, life measured in late-night hours and the search for embers that would allow us to ignite the journalism we needed from 1960 on.
It was at this stage that, from the newsroom, we discovered the fabulous collections of newspapers and books of all genres and also the presence of a host of young librarians who, since then, and still, share with us this story that will seem like a legend to those who do not they met them.
It was that time (do you remember, Cheni?), when journalism was studied on the street or in the library. There was no choice. And there they were like ants looking for us everything they thought we might need.
Sometime we will have to convene those of then for the count. To the tenacious, patient, capable, tireless librarians in love with life and the profession that they were beginning to know and taught us to admire.
Sometimes I am dazzled by a reflection of nostalgia when I climb the large lonely staircase that takes me to the space where I have taken refuge for years. I have had the sensation of finding my humble friend Nilandia, silent behind her table; to the beautiful Versia coming to meet me from the Rare and Valuable Funds warehouse, to the unrepeatable Cheni who educated me in the search for files and catalogs... I know they are somewhere waiting for the silent embrace capable of reviving all this history that today seems fleeting.
I love you as always my unforgettable friends. I take advantage of this anniversary of the world that you supported and bequeathed to others, to my eternal gratitude for having allowed me to know you and for collaborating with my profession. I love you and I keep you present as the first day my dear Noemí, Blanquita, Zoa, Carmen, Magdalena, Martha and so many who forged with their presence this Provincial Library that is today the beautiful cultural heritage of the country and an inextinguishable fire in the work of journalists then and today.
Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez