Nico

Mom and I were on vacation in Ibiza, in an old finca. I had salmonella and she took care of me like a real mother, cooking me rice and boiling fresh water. On July 13, she went down to town to go shopping and buy water. She pushed her bicycle 7 km under the blazing July sun, with two ten‑liter cans of drinking water, plus food and bread. I remember her arrival, I was sitting in the shade, very ill, she sank into the chair next to me, outside. On July 14 she typed the lyrics to her last song. For four days, she took great care of me, until the 18th when, like a ceremonial, in front of the Egyptian eye of Horus, giant and made of small square pieces of glass, arranged in a mosaic, she made herself beautiful and spent an hour wrapping her head in a black scarf. She asked me to reinflate the front tire of her bicycle. I tried but, seeing me staggering, she then said to me: ‘Go and lie down, darling.’ She inflated it herself.

It was precisely one o’clock when she took the road for the last time. She wore her sunglasses, had a book by Mark Twain, Roughing It, in the pocket of her black coat, and enough money to buy a stick of hash and have a drink somewhere. My mother waved at me, saying, ‘See you later, darling.’ I saw her go down the rocky dirt path and disappear behind the pines.”

Nico died on this day, 38 years ago in Ibiza

Nico

Nico

Nico

Photo by Herbert Tobias, 1956.