Christof Migone

Buby

“Buby” is bookended by recordings I did of my father in the hospital shortly before he died in early 2016, just a couple of months shy of his 92nd birthday. The recordings capture his laboured breathing, faint mumblings, plus occasional snorts and gargles.

He spent the bulk of his career as a translator and simultaneous interpreter for various branches of the United Nations. Given his lifelong predilection for languages it was uncanny that one the first manifestations of the rapid decline of his last days was his ability to communicate. The main impediments were slurred speech and illegible handwriting. They were accompanied at times with auditory and visual hallucinations, and general paranoid delirium.

The ominous drone sans dénouement that constitutes the bulk of the piece attempts to capture our somewhat fraught relationship. One tainted by his unconscionable kidnapping of my brother and me from one continent and hemisphere to another, from Switzerland to Argentina. We didn’t see our mother again for seven years, the bulk of our teens. This event caused a long-lasting tension between us that was left mostly unspoken. It rarely surfaced, but never faded.

The piece is titled after his family nickname.

For Raúl Carlos Migone (1924-2016).

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