While other Italian cities share stories of flash mobs of singing citizens on social media, the city of Bergamo is pervaded with silence, only broken by the sound of ambulance sirens. There are a few attempts at celebrating life, but no one is singing. Bergamo is counting its dead.
This needs to be stressed: the passage of the Coronavirus through Bergamo is leaving in its wake a list of names and faces which will not be reported on the media, but which every inhabitant here cannot help noticing and missing. This is the region which has been worst hit by this epidemic. And this is evident in the coffins which are laid out in churches, the crematoriums which are working 24/7, the undertakers who cannot keep up with their work.
This is also evident in the statistics: while in 2019 the number of deaths registered in Bergamo city were 23, there have been more than 300 deaths registered during the second week of March this year. So no, Bergamo will not sing. The citizens would rather leave candles at their windows, as if bidding their last farewell to their loved ones, a relative, a friend, an acquaintance whose life has been claimed by the virus.
The number of infections should finally start to decrease as a result of the restrictive measures which have been put into action in Bergamo and the surrounding cities, established well before the Roman decree. Not because the region is more special than others, but rather because the inhabitants of the region are committed to respecting the rules. Quite simply, people in the region are living in fear. Nothing is more convincing than the primordial feeling of raw fear.
In Bergamo everyone stays at home, mainly because everyone can witness first-hand the devastation of this pandemic. People are staying in their houses to pray (even those who are not in the habit of praying are doing so in their heart of hearts) so that the churches will finally no longer be full of coffins, and the hospitals will not be full of people hooked up to equipment which is keeping them breathing. People are staying at home because there is no more space in hospitals and the medical staff (already at critical levels) is overworked, at breaking point. People are staying in their homes because the sound of the sirens is not so loud through the closed windows, and this will allow them to sleep a few more hours, nightmare free.
When all this is over, the city will celebrate. But more than that, it will remember. Only then maybe Bergamo will sing, but it will be a lament, not a song of liberation.
Via Prima Bergamo
