was in third year on average, far beyond the year 79. Adolescents were all owned by the same curiosities and concerns about sexual life, a dimension that we began to meet and we wanted to live fully, with the enthusiasm of someone just found the treasure that has been looking for all his life. They were, fortunately, times in which taboos tore or had torn and with the unstoppable advance of the times and the overwhelming thrust of previous generations, those that marked the decades of 60 and 70.
In the religious school where they studied, gender was an issue that was addressed in the classes of Natural Sciences and Biology, but also in religion classes, in these, inevitably, set out the position of the Church on sexual morality, and always seemed to have answers for everything. To complement the contents given in class, the priests managed to documentaries that we regularly projected the audiovisual room. These documentaries, most provided by embassies, dealt with adolescence, sexual life, and went on film. At the time the video was a rarity that took the form of betamax and had come very recently. Although in the audiovisual room had four monitors that shaped a brand new closed circuit television, film and projectors still had the floor.
This was not avoided, however, that students take to school to learn alternative printed material and report to their way of how things were. Well, it was clear that the priests were never going to talk about sexual poses showing live footage, much less, send exercises.
An evening of many that we had to religion after the noon recess, took us to the audiovisual room. And once there, the priest told us that would turn a film called First Love
. The novelty: it was not a documentary but a fiction film.
He started the film, spoken in a foreign tongue was neither English, nor German, which I know some single words, or the easily recognizable French, Italian or Portuguese. I, fond of vexillology and heraldry, I recognized the shield in Poland at the front of the school where they studied the stars, a group of teenagers. The film, however, focused on one: a boy who falls in love with a girl named Monika. Monika
was a slim girl, I think freckles and long blonde hair. The film is not presented in a sudden appearance and imposing, but would show little by little, like a mystery that gradually unfolds. First he looked back, then turned her head but her hair could be seen only part of his face ... And the young Pole was falling in love with Monika ... Like us.
And boy was devoted to the conquest of his beloved. And we all follow the story with interest. No one was bored, nobody made any noise or said jokingly. All we kept silent stare, anxious to know the outcome. And so we were, when suddenly he stopped the screening and the lights.
was time out, reported the padrecillo. Someone he said, then disguised as a logical question: "Is the end to see tomorrow father? "But the priest let cool to shake his head:" We must now return the movie to the Polish embassy. "
"Father, we were!" "Yes, we were!" "We were!" Echoed through the hall, a chorus of dissonant voices and overlapping. But the priest came to say no. No one could. It was time to leave, period.
And we went to our homes. However, we did not feel discouraged. It was our, no hope, but we'd end up seeing the movie, the priest explained to the embassy officials what happened and that the Poles would include and would agree.
next day, early in the morning, as soon as we sat in class (we had to Biology), Professor Guy-a common name to which we referred to simply nicknamed Little Bird, "we did leave the room and form in the courtyard. Then we said we were going to the audiovisual room. And the smiles
populated our faces. Monika's name was pronounced with enthusiastic gestures and comments took up the thread of the plot. And we got to the room. And we feel happy, as seldom willing to watch the culmination of the romance and the happy ending of the story, that our hopes tempered with a dose of fantasy sex.
The lights, the projector began to walk y. .. Damn! It was a documentary on energy sources ... And Monika? Simply because they had already sent back a vile dungeon behind the Iron Curtain. Could not be. We could not accept it. And therefore we could not accept the claim that started aloud first-class thugs, then the ever-clowns this time it got serious, "and finally the shyest put our grain of sand:" Monika! "" Monica! "," Monica! "," Monika !"... An impassioned claim that the insignificant Bird could not quell. And things went well until, attracted by the scandal, appeared elongated in charge of discipline, armed with his classical rod, symbol of authority, which stretched the length of his being. The appearance of his face always grumpy enough to silence any discipline. And this time was no exception.
But the subject that was not content with the silence that prevails in the room. Had to pay for the scandal. And we did it with classic strenuous exercise to the guy liked to submit: running, jumping, frogs ... A kilotlón that gave us the feeling of being brainwashed suffering in which we said "Monika no more! "" Forget about Monika! "" Forget about Monika! "
was not easily forgotten. In addition, the curiosity to know the end of the story helped to keep alive the memory. In my school, junior year was divided into four sections: A, B, C and D. We were in Section A. People in the B, C and D if they had seen the entire movie on previous days. However, no one took pity on us, never released the final. At first it seemed they were being generous with us. But then we discover the bitter truth: they played with our pain telling simultaneously a myriad of outcomes, which in their collective Tsui Pen Borges garden forking paths. Worst of all is that the final accounts of the course were lavish in details that made us regret the loss well: namely, all outcomes were adorned with sparkling descriptions of the sexual exploits of Monica and all the things he did to her leg.
And time passed. First day passed, then weeks. Monika's name continued to be listening, however, although less and less strength. Even at the beginning of next school year yet platonic love our group gave a rattle, when to start projecting a documentary, someone still dared to say, but without raising too much the voice, the sweet name of Monika. Life finally took its course and ended up displacing other muses the young Polish hearts of those who were teenagers then.
a couple of years ago I met again with the people in my class, but so far I've asked if any of them had a chance to see again Monika. Most likely not.
In any case, I did I saw Monika.
happened many, many years later, one evening in Mannheim. I was sitting watching TV, not so much in search of entertainment, como de mantener el entrenamiento permanente del oído ante la lengua alemana. Zapeando entre los pocos canales de la señal abierta, di con una película. Los muchachos que protagonizaban el filme se me hicieron conocidos ¿Había visto esa película antes? Y de pronto un detalle me iluminó: el escudo de Polonia en la fachada de la escuela. ¡Eran ellos, los amigos de Monika! Pero... ¿Y Monika...? ¿Y el enamorado adolescente que buscaba su amor? Intuí que eso debía ser una serie, o de una serie de películas con el mismo grupo de chicos, porque la trama iba en una dirección completamente distinta de un guión centrado en un romance...
Hasta que en un momento ella apareció.
Sí, Monika, the same teen long blonde hair. He walked across the field, taken the hand of her lover: the boy had managed to conquer. They said words of love. And they kissed ...
And nothing else. Then the movie turned his attention to the main plot, and soon after ended.
