Ibrahim Al-Koni, Currently Living In

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1 Trafika Europe 6 with European Arab focus EDITOR’S WELCOME

The term Arabesque can refer to two distinct decorative styles, as it shifts from the ancient Islamic world to Renaissance Europe. So too, Arab authors in Europe may find their styles and concerns evolving, consonant with their complex, intercultural role. In the present climate, it’s also worth recalling that Arab writers have been enlivening European letters for quite some decades. The six contemporary European-Arab writers who make up the focus of this issue represent quite a range – from hip family drama to mystical tales, from semi-fictionalizedreportage to popular song. What these authors all share is a keen awareness of their role between cultures – a perspective well worth sampling in the light of current events. Faïza Guène, a product of the Paris banlieues, has been hailed as “the defining new voice of a generation” (The Guardian) for the savvy she brings to French culture from her Algerian origins. Ibrahim al-Koni, currently living in

editor’s welcome

i Spain, writes in an Arabic still immersed in the folklore and spirit-view of his nomadic, Tuareg upbringing. Tahar Ben Jelloun, originally from Morocco, is the first Arab author ever to garner the coveted Prix Goncourt, among other high French honors. A committed spokesman against tyranny, he is, as he puts it, “first and foremost a storyteller, a novelist, and a fabulator who plays with words and with the imaginary” (The New Yorker). In this latest work excerpted here, he intuits an inner narrative of his real- life friend, undergoing a challenging medical procedure. French-Algerian lyricist, poet and performer Alima Hamel plumbs the depths of her cultural dual heritage in the rich tapestry of song. Be sure to click at the titles of the lyrics you find here, to hear her stunning songs in original French, mixed with some Algerian dialect. Syrian-UK author Zaheer Omareen focuses his notable efforts also as an artist, editor and curator to shine a light on an entrenching culture of violence pervading the land of his birth. Finally, Moroccan-born Najat El Hachmi has become a celebrated Catalan author, writing in Catalan and representing her adopted culture abroad, while exploring the delicate line of otherness she continues to navigate. Our European-Arab focus is counterpointed by some

ii editor’s welcome (cont’d)

whopping works from elsewhere in Europe. Top Hungarian playwright György Spiró storms into the limelight with his magisterial novel, Captivity, excerpted here. This nearly- 900-page bildungsroman about first-century Jewish life has just been named one of the 10 Best fiction books of 2015 by The Wall Street Journal – we spoke with him about this work here (13 minutes). Bulgarian poet Georgi Gospodinov’s The Physics of Sorrow, in English by Angela Rodel, has just been longlisted by PEN as one of the best translations of 2015. We interviewed him about this tantalizing sort-of novel, and its reflections on present-day Bulgaria,here (35 minutes). Russian Sergei Lebedev delivers a mesmerizing, intensely lyrical foray into injustices buried in the past of the Soviet countryside. Italian transplant Catherine McNamara bring us a tale of disappearance in the Italian Dolomites. We get a first-ever glimpse in English of a seminal work of Danish experimental fiction from the strange and masterful Per Højholt – this novel’s ostensible subject is a flock of ambulating ears, capable solely of self-hearing, which grew from a silence that briefly fell across Europe in 1915 – and this issue is rounded out by poetry from Ukrainian Vasyl Lozynsky. Wow. Can there be a better holiday than this? Enjoy! By the way, you can learn more about the authors & works in a separate section at the end of this issue.

iii Our first book collection is here! Trafika Europe: Essential New European Literature, Vol. I Choice offerings from the first year of the Trafika Europe quarterly journal, with sumptuous black-and-white photographs of Europe from former ASCAP Director of Photography Mark Chester – an excellent gift item! Published by Penn State University Press These fourteen selections—from seven women and seven men, seven poets and seven fiction writers—represent some of the most accomplished writing in new translation from Europe today; this volume opens a window onto some emerging contours of European identity.

Click here for more details and to purchase in our online shop

“[D]raws rarely heard and distinctive voices from the gorgeous polyphonic chant of European literature. Occitan, Catalan, Faroese, Shetland Scots, Icelandic, Armenian and more—the languages toll like bells ringing in counterpoint to accustomed strains. These ‘trajectories of longing’, beautifully told with particulars strange and familiar, will stir your soul.

—Tess Lewis, former Board Member, National Book Critics Circle Contents editor’s welcome______i

european arab authors

Faïza Guène: Men Don’t Cry (novel excerpt)______2 Ibrahim al-Koni: The Scarecrow (excerpts)______18 _chapter iii - the scarecrow______21 _chapter vii - wantahet______32 Tahar Ben Jelloun: Ablation (novel excerpt)______52 _chapter iii - The Decision______55 _chapter iv - The Operation______63 _chapter v - Depression______67 Alima Hamel: Lyrics & Poems______82 Zaher Omareen: Tales of the Orontes River______102 _blood brothers______105 _the birthmark______113 Najat El Hachmi: The Foreign Daughter (excerpt)______120

v other authors featured in this issue

György Spiró: Captivity (novel excerpt)______144 Georgi Gospodinov: The Physics of Sorrow (excerpts)__ 190 _prologue______193 _the bread of sorrow______195 _a past-time machine______199 Sergei Lebedev: Oblivion (novel excerpt)______210 Catherine McNamara: Astragal (short story)______230 Per Højholt: Auricula (novel excerpt)______244 Vasyl Lozynsky: Five Poems______266

About the Authors and Works______276 A Note on the Artwork______288 Acknowledgments______290

vi Men Don’t Cry Faïza Guène

Faïza Guène MEN DON’T CRY (novel excerpt) 2 Men Don’t Cry Faïza Guène

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Faïza Guène MEN DON’T CRY (novel excerpt)

“What makes you say that? You don’t think we love you?” Dounia rolled her eyes and shrugged. Then, she took a swig of lemonade straight from the bottle, which my mother hated more than anything else. “And what about the glasses in the kitchen, are they just for decoration?” “It’s all right, okay, I haven’t got Aids.” “Tffffou!”

4 MEN DON’T CRY chapter ii - dounia Translated by Sarah Ardizzone

uring her teenage a boyfriend, a cat, a bedroom years, Dounia had she didn’t share with anybody D a best friend: Julie else, and she got to throw Guérin. That was when the parties in her dad’s garage on troubles began. Julie set in her birthday. motion the psychological A s f a r a s D o u n i a w a s c o n c e r n e d , process of my sister’s Julie was living the dream. ‘Christine-isation’. My sister was mesmerised Julie was popular with all the by this, to the point that she boys at the lycée: she was was happy to play the-friend- skinny, wore designer clothes in-the-shadows, the one who and kept a diary. Her parents gets told: “Hey! Look after my sent her to summer camp in bag!” the Languedoc-Roussillon. Her I should point out that my mum let her go to night-time sister’s life was the exact concerts and pin up posters of opposite of Julie Guérin’s. an American boy band in her bedroom. I don’t remember Dounia wore a brace for the singers’ names, but they the three years she was at were black and bare-chested. the lycée, as well as a pair of glasses. She didn’t know Julie also had platform shoes,

5 faïza guène what to do with her long frizzy And then, one day: “Mum, brown hair, so she braided why don’t you ever say ‘I love and coiled it tightly. Next, she you’? Julie’s mum says it to twisted it in a thousand and her all the time.” one messy ways to form a sort My mother was so taken aback of up-do. She was overweight, that for a moment she was and hid her body under baggy lost for words. Her big brown polo shirts and sweatpants. khôl-lined eyes bulged. She wasn’t allowed to go out, she shared her bedroom “What makes you say that? with my other sister, and as You don’t think we love you?” for posters, boyfriends, or Dounia rolled her eyes and holidays in the Languedoc- shrugged. Then, she took a Roussillon – let alone parties swig of lemonade straight in our dad’s garage – they from the bottle, which my were all out of the question. mother hated more than So Dounia’s last resort was anything else. a diary, oh yes, because of course there was no danger “And what about the glasses of my father reading it. in the kitchen, are they just for decoration?” Spending time with Julie made Dounia feel that she “It’s all right, okay, I haven’t was growing wings. She would got Aids.” say things like: “At least Julie’s “Tffffou!” allowed to…” and “Julie’s so lucky…” Dounia was becoming insolent. And my mother, as

6 men don’t cry usual, produced her weapon of school because he needed of personal mass destruction: me to look after my brothers the blame game. and sisters. He raised us to be good people!” Aim. Fire! “D’you really think you raise “Your grandfather was a your children to be good revolutionary who fought to people by locking them up?” free his country. A brave and courageous man. We were ten “Nobody’s locking you up!” children fed on dry bread and “Yes they are! You never let we walked barefoot without me do anything. I’m not even complaining. You only have allowed to wear jeans!” to look at everything he did to raise us. Do you think we “Is that what’s making you fretted about whether he unhappy? Because we don’t loved us?” want you dressing like a cowboy?” “All right, mum, I know that story of yours off by heart. “It’s called fashion! You don’t You weren’t allowed to play understand. Take Julie’s mum, outside. And he took you out she’s got a young attitude, of school at thirteen. So what when she’s with her daughter, kind of life is that anyway? A you’d think they were two horror movie?” girlfriends…” “That’s got nothing to do with “Two giiiiirlfriends?” it! We were living in a different My mother loves dragging era then. And he took me out out a syllable to exaggerate

7 faïza guène her astonishment: it’s the the war, we used to dream dramatist in her. at night of eating meat. We experienced real hunger. “Do you think I had children Now, thanks to God, I’m well to make myself some new covered.” friends? Tfffou! That’s not being a mother. It’s being “Julie’s mum never asks her frightened.” to cook or do the washing up. You’d think it was the only “What I’m trying to say is, thing that mattered in life.” Julie’s mum’s modern. She works in an office and she “Your sister, Mina, loves drives a car.” helping me in the kitchen, but you–” “Are you talking about Julie’s mother or Julie’s father, “Here we go again! You can’t eh? Do you think I’d follow help comparing us…” the example of a woman “And what about when you who buys cigarettes for her get married? Eh? You want me daughter? A woman who sending you to your husband’s kills her daughter? And who house when you haven’t learnt borrows her trousers?” anything?” “Why wouldn’t she? They’re “Who cares? I’ll never get the same size…” married, anyway.” “Fine, so I’m fat. Where’s the A butcher’s knife plunged problem? I’m not a model. Let into her gut would have had me tell you, when we were less effect on my mother. refugees in Morocco during The stand-offs became

8 men don’t cry increasingly frequent. Before My mother wore her sardonic that, we’d never heard any smile in full view of Dounia. doors slam in the house. But “Now do you see? If your then came a period when they friend Julie’s life was as good slammed so often that my as you make it out to be, she father, fuming, took the door wouldn’t have wanted to die!” to the girls’ bedroom off its hinges and hung up a curtain Heavy silence, a hate-filled in its place. stare. Dounia tossed her hair and, for the finishing touch, “Now trying slamming the stormed off to the bedroom curtain!” with no door. My mother even thought about “You’ve got no heart, mum. having Dounia exorcised. In No heart.” the end, she banned her from wasting time with that Julie of If there had been a door, ill omen, who was the cause Dounia would have slammed it of so much trouble. again, for sure. It was a scene worthy of the Mexican soaps “She’s cursed, that girl. dubbed into Arabic that my Cursed!” mother can’t get enough of. To After her parents’ divorce, be honest, Dounia and mum Julie tried to commit knocked spots off the drama suicide, and everyone in the queens in the telenovelas… neighbourhood felt sorry for In the years that followed, her. Everyone, that is, but the situation with Dounia one. only grew worse. The outside

9 faïza guène world was full of Julie Guérins, later and later at night, and my parents’ attempts without explaining herself at cocooning their daughter to anyone, and giving very were in vain. Threats and little away about her life. She punishments didn’t work any almost never ate at table with more either. My mother, who us any more, but kept herself was so wily when it came to to herself, her nose buried the blame game, had fired all in her books. She studied her cartridges. Her sudden hard, always came first in palpitations or mounting everything and, after passing blood pressure didn’t change her baccalauréat with top anything. marks, she began studying law as well as finding time to We had already lost Dounia. hold down a job. As for the Hombre, he became The transformation had resigned to it. He avoided begun. Within a few months, confrontation and started her curves had disappeared, behaving as if his daughter her brace as well, she had no longer existed, he didn’t traded her pair of clever-clogs even respond to my mother’s glasses for contact lenses, calls for help: “Do something, paid for a straightening Abdelkader!” He took to treatment on her hair, and mending the bicycles of local even started wearing make children from the hideout of up. She had become distant, his hut, at the bottom of the dry, colourless, but I had garden. already guessed that outside Dounia would return home the house she was a very

10 men don’t cry different Dounia. hens, washing the laundry in the oued and fetching drinking The summer she turned water from the well!” twenty, she announced that she would no longer be joining “That’s enough of your stupid us for our traditional family ideas! You know perfectly well holidays back in the bled. they don’t live like that any more. They’re doing better This decision marked a than we are. The Algerians are breaking point for my parents. the Americans of North Africa. Up until then, they had both D’you want to know what I lived in the hope that it was think? If you hadn’t brought all a passing phase. me here, I’d see my family “It’s what’s called an every day, and in my garden adolescent crisis.” I’d have planted lemon trees “What’s that? A virus? A and almond trees instead of disease?” watching Stop signs and rusty washing machines sprouting.” “It’s the kind of disease you can only catch in Europe! If you I was just a kid busy playing at hadn’t brought me here – and the Trojan War in the garden, we’d raised them in Algeria but I can remember clearly instead – Dounia would never that when my sister distanced have caught this adolescent herself something snapped in crisis!” our family. “Yes, but if I hadn’t brought I loved Dounia, because she you here, then right now you’d asked my opinion about a heap be milking a cow, feeding the of things and also because she

11 faïza guène had a bulging wallet. There pair of Adidas Stan Smiths for were so many notes sticking starting my new school. out of it, I thought she was Dounia had a new group a millionaire. She bought me of girlfriends who were my first game console and customers at the brasserie. paid for me to go on trips to They drank white wine and the cinema from time to time. left lipstick smears on the rims While forging a brilliant of their glasses. I remember university career, she was a them laughing while exhaling waitress at a stylish brassiere their cigarette smoke, which in the centre of town, called seemed to fill every nook La Cour des Miracles. and cranny of the room. They wore short skirts and one of One Saturday, she took me them kept asking another there after I’d promised not to one: “D’you think he’ll call me say anything to our parents. back? Hey? D’you think he’ll She didn’t want them finding call me back?” out, because she still felt guilty about it back then. For A group of twenty year-old my father, who wasn’t short Julie Guérins had helped my on fixed ideas, a waitress was sister to reveal her inner a prostitute with a tray in her ‘Christine’. hand and an apron round I bet mum wouldn’t like these her waist. I kept the secret, girls, I remember thinking to out of loyalty of course, but myself, as I watched them. also because I was dreaming about her getting me that And then, on my way back

12 men don’t cry from the toilets, I saw Dounia mention it to anyone, hey? hastily put down a glass of wine Promise?” and pass a lit cigarette to one “All right, promise, I won’t say of the Julies sitting around the anything.” table. “Don’t make that face!” she said, looking embarrassed. “…” Then she mimed ‘shhh!’ with “Dounia?” a finger to her lips, followed by a conspiratorial wink. Aged “What?” ten, I was shocked. “D’you eat pork as well?” After leaving La Cour des “Pork? Are you out of your Miracles, I was silent in the mind? You’re sick!” bus. “Dounia?” “Why aren’t you talking, Mourad?” “What now?” “No reason.” “Will you buy me my pair of Stan Smiths?” “Is it because you saw me drinking?” “OK, I get it. So the deal is, don’t say a word to anyone I feigned interest in what was and we’ll go to the sports going on at the back of the shop next week!” bus. I felt betrayed. And then she gave me that “Yes. And smoking too!” conspiratorial wink again, “It’s your own fault, you pee which was starting to get on too fast… Anyway, don’t my nerves.

13 faïza guène

Six years went by like that. seventeen over six, while the Dounia passed with flying Hombre went out into the colours and fulfilled her garden and started nervously ambition of becoming a pulling out the long grass by lawyer. Despite the tense the path. atmosphere at home, my It was too much for my mother wanted to bring us mother. Apart from a bit together over a special meal. of tactlessness, she didn’t Food, always. understand what she’d done to deserve this. Her way of celebrating her daughter’s success. Deep “I’ve done everything to down she was proud, even if make my children happy! Her problem is that she’d she told Dounia, who had just like to have been born into a announced that a few days different family! She’s always earlier she’d been called to been jealous of other people! the bar in Nice: “I don’t see She wishes she was a French what all the fuss is about, girl! That’s the truth of it!” when at your age you’re still not married…!” Mina, who had been close to Dounia in childhood, barely The tagine of chicken with spoke to her any more. She olives had gone cold. Dounia was increasingly bitter about was hopping mad and decided the sister she considered as not to show up. My mother the root of all our troubles. was on the verge of having one of her turns, her blood This was particularly the case pressure had shot up to on one day in September 2001,

14 men don’t cry

Tuesday 11th September In the driver’s seat sat some 2001, to be precise. I was kind of hotshot lawyer. He sixteen with a layer of fluff wore an enormous watch, above my lips. I remember which hung off his hairy skinny that I’d wanted to shave that wrist and could have told the morning and then, in the end, time all the way to the other I’d decided to wait a while end of the street. On his longer before becoming a nose, a pair of sunglasses only man. meant for skiing. I thought he looked ridiculous, but it was The whole world was in a disconcerting because he kept state of shock, and so were glancing in my direction and I we. Far away from New York, had no way of telling whether another dramatic scene he could see that I could see was being enacted, a large- him. By way of a reply, he scale catastrophe, a sort of waved at me. I closed the attack on family life. Playing curtain hastily. the part of the twin towers: my two parents, seemingly “At least he understands me. indestructible. Playing the You don’t understand me, and part of the nineteen terrorists: you never will.” Dounia. Dounia’s shrill voice rang out in She had packed her bags. the hallway while my mother’s Outside, in front of the house, hand gestures betrayed her was a car with its engine sense of powerlessness. running and the boot open. Mina was so jittery that her I peeked through the living lips were trembling. room curtains.

15 faïza guène

“You’re the one who doesn’t you’d have slammed the understand anything. Aren’t brakes on my life. That’s the you ashamed of doing this truth. I’m taking charge here, to our parents? You have to I’m free! I won’t let you choose make everybody suffer, with a husband for me or lock me your filthy selfishness. Push up inside this house.” off with your guy then, you That was when the first filthy sell-out. And leave us tower fell. Crash! Mina, who in peace. We’re better off was close at hand, managed without you.” to cushion my mother’s fall “My daughter! Why are you and then call out: “Quickly, doing this! Why?” Mourad! A glass of water! A glass of water!” My mother pressed her hand so hard to her chest that I O f c o u r s e, y o u ’v e g o t t o p i c t u r e thought it would go all the all this happening in the style way through to her heart. of a Mexican telenovela. My father, who had remained “It’s not like anybody’s going impassive up until that point, to miss me, if I leave. You’ve finally spoke: never loved me.” “If you leave this house, you’re “It’s the devil who’s whispering never coming back.” you evil things! Don’t leave, my daughter!” “I’ve already chosen between you and Daniel, and it’s him!” “Let her walk away, mum. She can clear off out of here.” Crash. The second tower collapsed. On a chair in the “If I’d let you have your way, living room, but it still counts.

16 men don’t cry

Dounia walked away, with tears in her eyes, and never looked back, her slimmed down body dragging a suitcase that seemed to weigh a hundred kilos. Instinctively, I made to help her, but my father restrained me by the shoulder. I watched her disappear into the car with her hundred kilo suitcase, with Daniel, his hairy wrist and his enormous watch that could tell the time all the way to the moon. That was how Dounia left us, after waiting in vain for my parents to love her in the right way. Nobody saw her again for almost ten years.

17 The Scarecrow Ibrahim al-Koni

Ibrahim al-Koni THE SCARECROW (excerpts) 18 The Scarecrow Ibrahim al-Koni

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Ibrahim al-Koni THE SCARECROW (excerpts)

The prophecy was inscribed on soft gazelle-skin parchment wrapped in a piece of faded linen and fastened with straps of colored leather. Her messenger brought it at twilight. He said his mistress refused to accept any fee for this prophecy until the cure was effected.

20 THE SCARECROW chapter iii - the scarecrow Translated by William M Hutchins

hey reached the wasteland and take revenge oasis at dusk but did for their tyranny. These legions T not breach the walls returned to their homes in the or traverse the Western Spirit World bearing booty Hammada Gate till sunset’s and loot. Simpletons—people gloom had mastered the ear th. who had never ever suspected Then they crept through the that other creatures might land, which was enveloped share the desert world— in threadbare darkness simply assumed, however, that was not concentrated that their tribe had been in tenebrous recesses but attacked in a treacherous remained mysterious, excited raid by some neighboring whispered enticements in tribe. The pious ancestors weak souls, and opened a were also pleased to emerge portal to the nether reaches, in the dark gloom from their which released a morose spiritual world. They disguised creature disguised in human themselves in the rough raiment to lay a trap for attire of wayfarers before mankind. The Spirit World’s visiting their descendants in foot soldiers rallied their allies this or that hamlet, where to form legions of armies to their offspring whiled away combat the people of the the night entertaining them

21 ibrahim al-koni the way desert people honor In the desert gloom, creatures travelers, till morning drew were generated in people’s nigh and light threatened to souls—creatures those people assail the wasteland just as did not recognize. Then drowsiness was assailing their with all the impetuousness hosts. Then the guests slipped of ecstatics, they liberated away and melted into the open themselves from their souls, countryside, leaving their which they pawned to other descendants some treasures people in order to gull them stuffed into a knapsack. of their souls and to downplay their own disgrace, referring In the tenebrous depths’ to this sacrificial offering as void, other night creatures “passion.” materialized, but they deliberately chose their In the gloom of the barren former bodies to terrorize continent, inanimate objects their relatives. They emerged exchanged roles and beings to frighten and harm their migrated to the bodies of former enemies. other creatures. Then the desert itself migrated from In these dark recesses the desert’s patch of ground. Wantahet awoke to devise the project of the eternal ruse. On nights when no moon was He, however, unlike all the visible and lights were slow dark recesses’ other denizens, to appear, cunning strategists waited till day to accost the were cautious at crossroads, tribes—the better to deceive because they knew from them. experience that talking to strangers after dusk is a

22 the scarecrow danger that always risks being The third sprang aside and a trap, an evil, or a snare. then leaped with a gracious bound that mimicked an avian dance and perhaps also 2 the ecstasy of folks who are They hovered around him obsessed by longing and who like jinni specters, addressing go into a trance when people him with incantations. The sing. He recited, “We have first shouted as if performing come to entrust the matter to a sorrowful ballad, “We, destiny’s hand. We have come master, are a people who to court danger!” have been unable to select a The fourth specter shot off, head of state. Therefore we fleeing toward the right for have entrusted the affair to a long distance. Then he its master, to the entity we returned only to flee to the refer to in our stupid language left for a longer distance. On as a Spirit World.” both laps, darkness swallowed The second sang, “We obeyed him. All the same, he returned the report that eternity sent from the Spirit World with a us as a prophecy. So we set talisman: “You, master, from forth, rolled in the dust of today forward are the master emptiness, and washed our of this oasis. May all the nooks hearts with separation’s hear the news and may the water. Then we were told Spirit World bear witness that our only recourse lay in that we have conveyed the following the example of our prophecy.” ancestors.” Stillness descended on the

23 ibrahim al-koni area, and the mysterious 3 being returned from his exile to govern the oasis. Then In the oasis, griots and gossips the creatures restrained have related the story of the their tongues so they could scarecrow. They said that an eavesdrop on this creature’s alien migrant sorcerer, when whispers in a pantomime he came from the Unknown of lost time. The detestable and settled in the oasis, guffaws, the lethal laughter, disguised himself in rough and the suppressed cackling haircloth—as members of that people of the oasis had this coterie always like to do. often heard when they passed Then he claimed he was a the scarecrow in the fields metalsmith whose specialties and that they glossed as the were using metal tools to voice of the Unknown—this carve poles, saw planks, mysterious, mischievous and turn trees into saddles. rattle—immediately burst Not long after the new from the chest of the twilight immigrant rented a workshop specter. Then the stillness in the metalsmiths’ market, was at once shaken, and the residents became convinced place became chaotic. The that the man’s boast was not mysterious being, whom only accurate but that he was people had known but never even being modest, because seen, fled and settled in the his saddles differed from any farthest cornerof the austere they knew in markets in the tract spread beneath the oases or had purchased from moon. blacksmith shops. His were unique for their captivating

24 the scarecrow carving. People had also The secret behind the smith’s never seen any as skillfully renown among far-flung crafted. Thus his renown peoples was his expertise, but spread in a short time, and it was a different story inside the oasis’s nobles—who had the oasis walls. Clever men never lost their yearning for have long realized that there the traditions of mounted is no honor for a soothsayer or warriors—and other real diviner in a land where people cavaliers, who were leaders do not recognize prophecy of tribes scattered through and that a product does not neighboring deserts, headed succeed in a land where local to his workshop. Traders people view it dismissively or from passing caravans also disdainfully. So if merchants flocked to his door to buy all and mounted warriors from the saddles he had in stock. neighboring tribes had not Then the merchants carried purchased the clever artisan’s them to the deserts of the saddles, the man would not South and the cities of the have enjoyed any share of the North. So the cunning artisan respect he deserved. Indeed offered evidence to slothful the market for his products tribesmen and slugabeds of would have remained tepid the oasis that anyone who for a long time in a land where perfected a task while alive people hid their past and piled would inevitably be rewarded their old saddles in the corners by the Spirit World, which of their houses, allowing them would convey his fame to the to be destroyed by moths and farthest corners. grit. They had also traded in their purebred Mahri camels

25 ibrahim al-koni

(on which tribes prided secluded herself, and rejected themselves, celebrating them suitors and prospective in poems) for matted, morose, husbands. She lived alone in behemoth camels with bodies the oasis, occupying her time like an elephant—beasts fit with crooning plaintive ballads only for transporting heavy and supervising the herd of loads. livestock she had inherited from her deceased lord. But communities also knew that anyone who was loved This herd was devastated by by the Spirit World and who a calamity that led her to the harbored its secret inside metalsmiths’ market, where him would inevitably succeed she fell under the influence in a pursuit—even if he lost of the sorcerer. in some other one he had It was said that she claimed perfected for the public at first she thought some good when people did not epidemic had infected her acknowledge his skill. livestock. Wise herdsmen, however, informed her that the calamity was caused not by 4 some mysterious epidemic but A captivating widow, whose by the ravages of the vermin beloved husband died on a that creep across the face of business trip to the forestlands, the wasteland. She consulted was said to have inspired the a clairvoyant, who confirmed sorcerer to construct that that the Spirit World was not abominable scarecrow. She responsible for this bloodshed. had gone into mourning, He spoke cryptically about

26 the scarecrow evil intentions and concluded pebbles—as digestive juices that the crime demonstrated spilled from them, mixed the existence of a culprit. So with cud. The skins had been she proceeded to set up scary flayed from the body and cut figures around her livestock’s into many pieces as if the corral to frighten away wild perpetrator had intentionally beasts. These resembled the destroyed them to ward off effigies that farmers set up suspicion and to destroy the in their fields to scare away traces of his heinous deed. birds but did not save her At first suspicions centered on herd from destruction. Every wild beasts. Many people told morning she would discover her that the gully the spring’s the disappearance of one waters had created at the base or two head of livestock of the eastern section of the overnight. Outside the palm- city wall frequently attracted stalk fence she would find reptiles, vermin, and wild the remaining vestiges of this beasts from the wasteland and nocturnal bloodbath. There that it was certainly not out of were pools of blood that the question that dieb jackals the dirt had absorbed till it had slipped in from there too. hardened and coagulated When she asked why jackals and skeletons with their would prefer her animals to bones stripped clean of flesh the herds of other people, with alarming efficiency—as they ignored this question if it had been trimmed off and claimed this aspect of the with a knife. Intestines were mystery pertained exclusively strewn about—split open to the Spirit World, because and begrimed with dirt and

27 ibrahim al-koni creatures like jackals held no making only as a cover for grudge against her and did the dread craft that arrogant not descend on the oasis to people typically conceal slay one person’s livestock whenever they migrate instead of another’s—except from their homelands. This to deliver a message. She tactician would not have would need to appease the succeeded in his carpentry Spirit World with sacrificial and in fashioning poles had offerings if she wanted to it not been for his mastery of save herself and her flocks that other craft—from which from this calamity. tribes were never secure because veils of mystery The poor woman hurried to the always encompassed it; its temple and slaughtered a ewe masters practiced deferential on the tomb’s threshold, but rites and demonstrated their the ghoul attacked the corral apprehension and wariness that same night and slew two many times. of the nanny goats that gave the most bountiful amounts On that day, the widow heard of milk. So she despaired. She a boast of the type that flows despaired without knowing from the mouths of migrants. that despair is the only amulet It is said that, after hearing the capable of conquering every beautiful woman’s recital, the calamity. clever artisan offered, “With She despaired, and her my own hands I will build you despair led her to the scion a scarecrow unlike any ever of the foreigners. In the oasis seen in the oases. I shall give they said he practiced saddle my lady an idol so sacred

28 the scarecrow that not even flies will dare Will a man do something to a approach it—if my lady will woman she does not want— allow me to carry her to the even if he is alone with her in fields in my arms and carry the fields? Fool, you should her back as well.” realize that the fool we call ‘man’ is merely a puppet that At first the belle did not only does with a woman what understand what he meant the woman want s. Which is the by saying he would “carry lesser of the two evils: letting her to the fields” in his your herds be destroyed when arms. She suspected the their destruction entails your matter was some sort of joke own, or going to the fields to that foreigners enjoy or an play with a doll called ‘man’?” innocent caprice that citizens encounter in the conduct of The beautiful woman artisans and that the tribes hesitated for a time, but her know in the eccentricities hesitation did not last long of poets. She was offended, because the nightly massacres however, and bolted away of her flocks drove her to the after doubt whispered in cunning artisan. her breast and she grasped the hidden meaning of this allusion. She confided his 5 offer to her girlfriends, who Once the scarecrow was winked at each other, laughed, erected in the fields to guard mocked her, and told their over the herd’s corral, the grannies who then asked her, unidentified enemy vanished. “What’s the harm in that?

29 ibrahim al-koni

The enemy did not merely workshop. Others said that vanish; people were astounded slaughtering the entire herd to find a rascal’s corpse was merely a sorcerer’s trick stretched out beside the corral the astute artisan had used to a few days later. On the slain conquer the poor widow, with man’s neck they found blue whom he had fallen in love the marks that clearly showed the first day. Her livestock corral wretch had been strangled. had seemed the best way to Then they spread a rumor win her, because sorcerers that this scarecrow differed know better than anyone from all the others, because else that a person’s heart it had a real creature hidden is a pawn of his wealth and inside it. Some went even that a creature’s weak point further and contended that is what he possesses. When this august body contained spiteful people pointed out the person of the sorcerer the scarecrow’s true nature himself, who had constructed in hopes of smoking out the this fearsome puppet with cunning strategist, they were wooden poles that he clad surprised to hear him say, with camel skin. Finally he “The scarecrow is twofold. stretched strips of fabric and One scarecrow frightens away scraps of linen over the hollow the wasteland’s beasts and body. Then, as darkness fell, predatory birds. The second the despicable man glided terrifies human jackals, who through the twilight gloom to would not be scared if it enter his vile hideout, where weren’t the real thing.” Then he spent the night, to emerge he released an evil laugh, at dawn and slip back to his which was muffled and as

30 the scarecrow hoarse as the rattle of a evidence of the culprit’s man choking or the hiss of a existence (to which the seer serpent. This was the laugh had alluded), and to dispel they heard repeatedly from doubts concerning his own the mouth of his detestable plot. dummy once it was erected in If narrators differed about the an empty place in the fields. circumstances of the puppet’s Sages, trying to be fair to this erection and the puppet ignoble man, said that the master’s intentions, they scion of strangers had not agreed that the specter who wished to cause any harm, emerged to meet the Council for if his work had not been of Elders on that ill-omened beneficial, he would not have evening was none other than freed the oasis from the evil the scarecrow from the fields. of the rascal whose body was They offered as evidence the dumped at the feet of the disappearance of the sorcerer scarecrow when it was first of the Unknown from his erected. Mean-spirited men, workshop and the fact that however, considered this no one saw him in the oasis action a crime of the most thereafter. repulsive sort and asserted that, since the damn rotter had feared he might be discovered, he had tempted to the site an innocent fool, whom he had killed with his own hands to provide people

31 ibrahim al-koni

chapter vii - wantahet

It is related that the hero— nearby. He flung his supplies once he was liberated from on the mat and stretched possession by the jinn— out a lean, dark hand marked retreated to a corner of his with veins, creases, and old house and wept for his dead scratches, to examine the slave there for days. The bloody eyes—even though herbalist came to treat his his feverish patient never bloody eyes, which he had stopped pounding the hide almost plucked out during his with his mysterious beats, temporary insanity on that which he paired with a vague ill-omened day. He found his dance and an inaudible tune. patient swaying side to side When he loosened the like a person in an ecstatic bandage wrapping the eyes, trance. His veil was dangling he found that the linen had down, revealing the lower adhered to the eyelids as the half of his face. From his blood dried. Then he, too, chest rose a muffled, painful began to sway back and forth, wail, and with his fist he was as if mimicking the hero, pounding a monotonous beat and released a long, barely on the house floor—which audible moan. He plunged his was covered with skins—as if fingers into a container filled keeping time to an unknown with a dark, viscous liquid and tune no one else could hear. began to anoint his patient’s The herbalist hovered around eyes. He continued to moan him for a time and then knelt his mysterious song till he

32 the scarecrow finished freeing the scrap of spawned by the wasteland, cloth from the dried blood. but a messenger from the He pulled the cloth away, Spirit World.” and then the damage to the He tossed the rag aside and eyes was obvious. They were drew a leather pouch from his bloody and swollen, as if a satchel. He untied its ribbon wild beast’s fangs had ravaged very slowly and sprinkled dark them. powder into his palm. Then The herbalist scooted back and he spread this suspect dust sighed deeply. He remarked around the eyes, and the like a diviner repeating a maniac responded for the first prophecy: “When a herbalist time by ceasing his muffled is perplexed about the cure, moaning, even though his fist a patient is left with the continued to pound the mat choice between a sorcerer or with the same beat. a diviner.” “I haven’t concealed anything He dipped a piece of black from my master. I shared my linen in another container, doubts with him about the which was filled with a green affliction the first day.” liquid, and began to massage The feverish hero resumed his patient’s eyes with that. his moaning, swaying, and He added, “It doesn’t harm drumming. the herbalist to acknowledge his inability to effect a cure The herbalist soaked another when he sees that the malady piece of cloth in a liquid from resisting him isn’t—like another container and then ordinary diseases—an enemy wrapped the cloth around the

33 ibrahim al-koni invalid’s head. arrived in the desert. Secret pains afflicted man one day, He started to bandage the and the herbalist couldn’t find eyes carefully and remarked a cure for them in the desert’s in the same enigmatic tone, herbs. So man was about to “I wasn’t stingy with advice go extinct. Then the spiritual for my master yesterday. worlds collaborated and sent I haven’t been stingy with the sorcerer to the wasteland. advice for my master today. When man was afflicted by My master would do himself other, even more mysterious a favor if he went to the diseases, and was threatened diviner or sorcerer today, not by annihilation once more, tomorrow. The stubbornness the Spirit World intervened of heroes, master, is useless and man found that the in combatting diseases from soothsayer had settled in the Spirit World.” the wasteland—as if he had He emitted a long, sprouted from the belly of the heartrending groan, and dirt like grass or truffles or tears formed in his eyes. He had fallen from the sky like traveled far away—the way rain or specters of jinn.” lovers, hermits, wayfarers, poets, and ecstatics do. He hummed as if singing a stanza 2 of poetry from an ancient He went to visit the female epic. diviner. “Physical pains afflicted man She appeared and sat with him one day, and the herbalist in the Chamber of Sacrificial

34 the scarecrow

Offerings. “Enemies’ gloating for the judicious man today is a She said with a diviner’s treasure that will help him on tongue: “The pains of the morrow.” heroes are the calamity of hypochondriacs.” “The matter would be easy, my lady, if this gloating was “And the sympathy of that of enemies. The gloating noblemen is the calamity of of boon companions, my heroes.” lady, leaves an aftertaste “I thought that the sympathy in the throat bitterer than of the nobles was always a colocynth.” balsam.” “But this is also the Law of “A balsam for the masses things.” and for foreigners but a fatal “You’re right, but I don’t blow to the hearts of the elite know why we acknowledge men commoners refer to as all the laws, accepting even heroes.” the harshest of them, and yet “Are you sure about this or do disparage the Law that makes you merely suspect it?” yesterday’s boon companion “Actually, this is the normal the first to deliver a blow course of events, my lady. when calamity strikes.” We have typically grown “This is the wisdom of the accustomed to finding people Spirit World.” gloating whenever calamities “But this is a cruel wisdom, strike our homes.” my lady; it is a wisdom crueler

35 ibrahim al-koni than any other.” the matter. This is what’s worst about wisdom.” “The Spirit World does not offer us its wisdom gratis. The “But let’s drop the question Spirit World has given it to us of wisdom and search for the on the understanding that we cure.” will pay the full retail price.” “The truth is that my only “But that’s the cruelest reason for approaching the possible price.” sanctuary has been to search for a cure.” “We should trust no one.” “My tongue may possibly “Tribes customarily teach reveal something that this lesson to their children embarrasses me.” without understanding it.” “I will give my lady everything “The phrase is brief, as you I possess if my lady will show observed, but exposes our life me the sun’s disc.” to danger if we understand it too late.” “My tongue may possibly reveal something that “I don’t understand wisdom’s embarrasses me.” utility when understanding it too late is a precondition for “I will give my lady everything. it.” I will give her even the title ‘hero,’ which became part of “True wisdom is only me, if my lady can show me the understood after it is too sun for a single day, a single late.” hour, or a single instant.” “This is what’s worst about

36 the scarecrow

“My tongue may possibly keep surprising us with one reveal something that marvel after another? Or— embarrasses me.” does the secret of prophecy rest in its marvelous quality? Would prophecy lose its magic 3 if marvel were not its mate? “In the urine of a woman who But he knew better than to ask has known only her husband too many questions. He knew is found the cure.” that what is covert is the Spirit The prophecy was inscribed World’s share and that he had on soft gazelle-skin parchment no right to question a matter wrapped in a piece of faded that time had not brought to linen and fastened with the badlands. He knew that straps of colored leather. stubborn resistance to a sign Her messenger brought it at differs from a hero’s stubborn twilight. He said his mistress resistance to enemies with refused to accept any fee for spear s or swords. He knew that this prophecy until the cure obtaining a prophecy’s text was effected. was easier than expounding it and that the exegesis of “In the urine of a woman who a prophecy was easier than has known only her husband searching for the secret is found the cure.” behind a prophecy. What correlation does the Spirit But ...how could he find a World see between women’s woman in this desert who had liquids and sorceries that blind known only her husband? In the eye? Why does prophecy an oasis where nations mixed

37 ibrahim al-koni together, where a babel of in poems and whose conjugal foreign tongues was heard, faithfulness her female where human nature was up companions lauded did not for grabs—would he be able live in the homelands of the to locate a woman protected ancient epics, but slept beside by the amulet of faithfulness? him? Wasn’t his wife the only Would he discover anywhere creature whose chastity would in the desert even one woman never be doubted—not even who had never cheated on by the dread Spirit World— her husband—if not with her after people’s tongues had body surely at least in her spoken of it and crowned her heart? Would the Spirit World head with chastity? generously provide news from the Spirit World without inserting into the message 4 an impossible condition? Man’s liquid caused the dispute Didn’t the Spirit World say between the sorceress and her prophetically that woman neighbor. Ancient cautionary could deceive even herself— tales report that the sorceress as she was always happy to heard her neighbor disparage do—but could not deceive the the value of this liquid and call Spirit World a single time? it polluted. So she scolded But.... and cautioned her. But like any other chatterbox, this But why look so far? Why neighbor gave free rein to her would he need to hunt far tongue in women’s gatherings away when the creature and thoroughly lambasted whose chastity was discussed

38 the scarecrow and slandered the magical fever and began to struggle liquid. It was said that she with bouts of insanity. took great delight in vilifying it Finally the herbalist admitted and spat in disgust whenever h e c o u l d n o t c u r e h e r—a s e v e r y her girlfriends mentioned it. desert apothecary does when The sorceress’s patience with he realizes that a condition’s her neighbor was exhausted, etiology is mysterious. He told and she decided to teach the woman that herbalists the fool a lesson that only a were created to treat physical practitioner of sorcery can ills the wasteland spawns, but deliver. She wandered in the that wasteland inhabitants northern badlands by night would be obliged to search and conversed with the for a cure for Spirit World heaven’s stars. Lovers tarrying illnesses from the masters in the wastelands heard her of the Spirit World. Then the loud debate with jinn demons arrogant neighbor woman but did not fathom the reason was forced to descend from for the dispute till some days her high horse a second time; later when ischuria afflicted she summoned the sorceress. her wretched neighbor, and this human liquid was retained The sorceress entered her by her haughty body. neighbor’s tent and was surprised to find there— The herbalist drew many herbs instead of her neighbor—a from his satchel and gave her specter ...a shriveled, pale, lots of liquids to drink, but her unkempt female jinni, whose urine retention persisted. So large, protruding eyeballs the woman was burning with glowed with anxiety, pain,

39 ibrahim al-koni and insanity. In her pupils person suffering from urine was that distressing sign seen retention will give everything only in the eyes of people her hand possesses to the whom time has afflicted with person who can expel from an unexpected calamity so her body a single drop of the that they find themselves one liquid that purifies man’s standing before the house body from man’s defilement.” of destruction without ever “I am happy to hear a tongue yielding to an unknown des tiny describe man’s water as or believing that death might sacred today after I heard it be so easy. accuse urine yesterday of all The sorceress stood by her types of impurity.” longtime neighbor’s head “Man, my lady, is a dull-witted and remarked, “What do you child who does not realize suppose a person in whom that fire burns till it scorches human liquid is retained will his fingers.” give if one day a person is found who can expel from “Man won’t be wise, man the body poisoned by this won’t be happy, till he pollution a single drop of the recognizes the contrary in its sacred liquid that purifies man contrary.” from his defilements?” “It is pointless to think the The neighbor woman collapsed haughty fellow will learn that and howled at the top of her before the day he receives a lungs. Wallowing in the dirt punishing lesson.” at the feet of the longtime “Isn’t it astonishing that sorceress, she begged, “A

40 the scarecrow you described man’s water as fervently as the miserable yesterday as impure and today wretch kneeling at your feet.” characterize it as sacred?” “In man’s water resides man’s “I would not have admitted cure!” that, my lady, if time had “You’re right, my lady.” not taught me such a severe lesson.” “What is man’s water, which fools refer to as urine? Isn’t “Know, then, that man’s man’s water life itself?” water is like a chameleon’s saliva, which is lethal poison “Man’s water is life!” for vipers but the strongest antidote for sorcery in man’s body.” 5 “I have heard that the He came to the temple chameleon overpowers the escorted by two of his slaves, sorceries of foreigners.” who seated him on the mat in the Chamber of Sacrificial “The water that exits from Offerings. Then he ordered the body is a secret like the them to leave. Alone, he sat chameleon’s saliva. It literally erect at the center of the kills grass because it is a chamber, scouting the stillness herbicide, but purifies bodies and fending off demons in the of their poisons.” abyss of darkness. Even so, he “No creature who exists in did not hear the footsteps of the desert could possibly the lady in the thawb. believe my lady’s statement He did not hear her footstep

41 ibrahim al-koni but did hear her voice. “I never fingers. expected to see the token of He spoke with the nobility of the disease still around the the last of the nobles. “Had it eyes of the hero of heroes not been for my longstanding after the prophecy.” confidence in it, I would “How futile!” have doubted the truth of prophecy.” “I am not disappointed about losing any hope of receiving “Is it right for a champion of a payment for the prophecy, the intellect to doubt the Spirit because the wealth of diviners World and instead believe a is not a gift from the physical woman’s word?” world but a prophecy from “I admit, my lady, that this the Spirit World. What has would be inappropriate. I shaken me is a husband’s acknowledge to my lady that disillusionment with his wife’s this would be sheer stupidity. chastity.” But what does a man have He moaned expansively, and left when he is deceived by his fingers trembled violently. a wife whose nobility has Slender fingers, which no been discussed by the tribes longer resembled those that and whose chastity has been had earned him the title of celebrated in extremely hero, extended and slipped beautiful verses by poets?” through the fuzz of the leather “The ultimate wisdom is not mat’s thick hair in an attempt to believe a woman. The to stifle his emotion and to ultimate wisdom is never to mask the trembling of his trust a woman.”

42 the scarecrow

“Was woman born to be an singly.” artiste?” “We always badmouth time’s “All women are artistes. treachery but do not swallow Woman is a born artiste.”” the bitterness of this treachery till time betrays us.” “Time has slung its catastrophes at me on three “Did you believe that heroism occasions in one span. The consists of withstanding first was the day we elevated the thrusts of spears or the above us the Spirit World’s blades of swords? Today, do emissary, who stripped me of you believe that true heroism all my titles. The second was means bearing the blows of the day I imagined that one the age—not those of people man could rescue another armed with weapons?” from an ailment, affliction, or “That’s true. The masses puff any other loathsome condition us up with their cheap praise. and therefore accepted for Then we believe the lie and my affliction medicine that strut among people with all blinded me and confined me the arrogance of peacocks. to the abode of tenebrous We do not discover the fraud darkness. Now time has till the Spirit World frowns struck me for a third time and and inflicts punishment on stolen from my bedchamber the empty lands.” a beloved whose chastity was proverbial among the tribes.” “Here, at last, you speak with the tongue of wisdom.” “Catastrophes refuse to descend to the campsites “But why doesn’t wisdom

43 ibrahim al-koni come before it is too late?” shouted in a voice that was totally unlike any he had ever “This is the nature of wisdom. used: “I have come to hear This is the secret of wisdom.” the truth from you now.” He was silent, and so was she. Pallor assailed her entire face, After a lengthy pause she and its beauty retreated in repeated to herself, “This is alarm. Worr y ’s shadow peered the secret of wisdom.” from her captivating eyes. She muttered, “What do you want 6 to hear?” The day of the confrontation, “I want to hear what must be the disclosure began with heard.” a stern question. “Do you “What’s the point of hearing understand that a man can what you will hate to hear?” bear being betrayed by a “I want to double my pain. bosom friend but not by a Perhaps the draft of poison I sweetheart?” consume will prove poison’s She drew the scarf around antidote.” her captivating cheeks, She looked down at the earth. which were draining of color Anxiety disappeared from and losing their beautiful her eyes, where enigmatic complexion. mystery now settled. Anger overwhelmed him, She gazed up at him suddenly. immediately robbing him Then mystery turned to of a wise man’s dignity. He defiance in the wink of an eye.

44 the scarecrow

She spoke calmly, almost I wouldn’t be hearing what I coldly. She addressed him am now!” with the composure that has “Don’t think I acted this way always been the hallmark to satisfy some caprice or of the brave. “He was a in response to the desire of wayfarer!” a woman whose husband is “What are you saying?” away. I did it as retribution!” “He came as a wayfarer. “Did you say ‘retribution’?” So I offered him the only “Yes. Absolutely. A woman hospitality a woman can offer does not lie in the same a man.” bedchamber with another man “What are you saying?” unless she is plotting some revenge. Don’t believe what is “I told myself that the said about the phenomenon transient paradise belongs of flirtatious women.” to the transient, as the Law has taught us, and that the “What revenge are you paradise of the male transient discussing?” is a woman.” She shot him a spiteful glance. “Are you lying?” Looks like this escape a woman unintentionally and glow like “I offered him a treasure that sparks from a flint, but are has always been man’s safe immediately extinguished deposit with woman!” when the woman regains her “If only I had lost my sense of self-control. She deleted the hearing and not my sight so spiteful look and replaced it

45 ibrahim al-koni with captivating seduction her from her father’s home.” when she pelted him with this “You speak about your father’s cutting question: “Have you home the way inhabitants of forgotten that you abducted the desert speak about the me from my father’s home?” alleged paradise.” He lifted his hand to the “You may doubt whether cloth bandaging his eyes and the paradise the desert’s grasped the piece of linen as inhabitants sing about exists, if intending to rip it off and but beware of doubting the toss it far away. He swayed father’s paradise!” back and forth like a man in mourning. Suddenly he “Amazing!” became still. “A father’s home is a nest for Then he asked, “Did I do the virgin. If she leaves it one something the first peoples day, she will never return. didn’t? Did I violate the Law If she leaves it one day, she we inherited from our fathers? loses the way back to it—and Did I perform some foul deed loses herself as well.” when I took you from a tent “I’ve never heard anything that was a prison for you?” like what you’re saying.” “That tent you term a prison “Woman watches for was my only safe nook.” opportunities for revenge, “I’m amazed by what I hear.” because she hasn’t found the treasure they deceitfully told “Know that a woman never her she would find in man’s forgives her man for taking arms—happiness!”

46 the scarecrow

“Happiness?” realm of the desert. Successive generations have reported “This fairy tale definitely does that many other advocates not exist beside a man.” preceded the advocate of “I doubt that this fairy tale revenge to the desert. exists anywhere.” The advocate of revenge was “Woman is the only creature the last partisan to enter the who knows where this treasure barren land but surpassed is found.” all others in sovereignty and “You’re talking about sorcery. happiness? Who can say He is said to have found his decisively where happiness predecessors embracing one hides?” another and pretending to be “Man’s happiness is with a fond of each other by day but woman, but a woman’s exists competing to plot conspiracies elsewhere.” against each other once night fell. Thus the desert’s “Amazing!” very pillars rocked with their “Man’s happiness is with a ignominy. Then the desert’s woman, but a woman’s exists inhabitants were in an uproar elsewhere.” because of this chaos. The cunning strategist climbed a mountain and from it spied 7 on his rivals in sorcery. The Revenge.... advocate of anger darted at his companions’ faces like a raging Revenge is a way of life in the

47 ibrahim al-koni dust cloud. The advocate of rags and approached his rivals envy smirked while fashioning at noon, when they were snares behind his back. The hugging and pretending to like advocate of hatred was taking each other while performing advantage of his two foes’ rituals of mutual respect. He distraction while bracing to told them he was a mamluk of deliver his own blow with a the leader and had come as a hand held out of sight. messenger from His Majesty to deliver an invitation to The advocate of revenge a banquet grander than chuckled, then the summit any the desert had ever trembled, and the mountain’s witnessed throughout its long rocks shook. This wily history. They stared at him strategist told himself that his suspiciously at first. Then the adversaries posed no threat advocate of anger darted at to him, because they had only this messenger, demanding a been provided with a limited sign from him. Before the wily knowledge of the science of strategist responded to this duplicity. He characterized demand, the advocate of envy them out loud as playful tikes jumped up and pointed at the and empty puppets the winds mount’s bridle, which was tossed about. Then... embellished with gold galloons Then the cunning strategist and set with rows of precious decided to enter the playing stones. He asked, “How could field to teach these fools some a slave have a treasure like tricky moves. that bridle? When have slaves He donned a slave’s tattered ridden beasts adorned with treasures? I wager, wretch, the

48 the scarecrow donkey also belongs to your plain. The wily strategist master!” The wily strategist seated them on a carpet of prostrated himself till incomparable beauty, served them dishes more delicious his turban touched the than any people had ever naked land’s dirt and asked tasted, and poured them reverentially, “Does a mamluk a beverage so ambrosial in our desert own anything they sang ecstatically. besides his dreams, master?” They became excited with So the fools chuckled together desire and embraced each for a long time. Then the other according to banquet advocate of hatred remarked, etiquette. When the wily “You’re right, wretch. We’re strategist determined that sure a slave doesn’t even the Day of Retribution had possess his tongue, because arrived, he rose to address his master can rip it out by them with a vengeful tongue the roots the moment he for which these fools were feels angry.” They guffawed totally unprepared. together again. Then the emissary announced, “Does the advocate of anger recall the day he approached “My master provided me with my tent as a traveler and I the gold bridle as a sign for gave him shelter, fed him, and you.” Doubts dissipated in supplied him generously from hearts that had never known my stocks? Does the advocate a ny t h i n g b u t d o u b t s , a n d t h e s e of blameworthy anger master sorcerers raced each remember how he returned other to attend the leader’s the favor before leaving my banquet on the neighboring

49 ibrahim al-koni dwelling by strangling me person protected by good with his bare hands after intentions could be harmed an innocent piece of advice by a chokehold, a dagger from me awakened volcanic thrust, or the slash of a sword? wrath in his breast? Advocate Cowards, don’t you know that of envy, do you recall that I innocents don’t die? Don’t you accompanied you in a caravan know why innocent people to the forestlands and that my become immortal? Listen to a commercial success there and secret you’ll never hear again. the enthusiastic reception for Innocent people do not die, my wares hurt your feelings so because they harbor in their badly that on the way home hear ts a ghoul named revenge. you waited for me to fall asleep Innocent people do not die and then stabbed me with an before they take their revenge. enchanted dagger, plundered Innocent people do not even all my possessions, and fled die if they take revenge, from that place, thinking you because revenge is the Law could flee from punishment? that prevents disorders As for you, advocate of hatred, and restores everything to on your behalf I repaid a major equilibrium, because it is a debt and freed you from the talisman borrowed from the captivity of a clan determined will of the Spirit World—not to take you as a slave to their from the inhabitants of the encampments for your failure wasteland.” to repay it. Then you slit my The cunning strategist pulled throat with your blade to the dread carpet out from reward me for my good deed. under their bodies, and the Did you fools assume that a fools fell together into a

50 the scarecrow bottomless abyss. Successive generations have said that tribes gave the name “Wantahet” to the advocate of revenge. Other communities dubbed him the “Master of Deceit.” Some nations have lauded his heroism, but other lineages have satirized his wily ignobility in their epic poems. Some clans have applauded his spirit of vengeance and repeated a statement attributed to this cunning strategist that he had decided to do no evil because he was certain that the evil would inevitably turn to good, thanks to the Law of Contradictory Effect, and never to do any good, because the good would inevitably turn into evil. It is also said that Wantahet’s faith in vengeance was responsible for turning this wily strategist into an immortal being.

51 Ablation Tahar Ben Jelloun

Tahar Ben Jelloun ABLATION (novel excerpt) 52 Ablation Tahar Ben Jelloun

53

Tahar Ben Jelloun ABLATION (novel excerpt)

I have the feeling of having been put to the side, into a reserve, in a cave. I am in a second-hand store: used furniture, piled-up dinner sets, lifeless mirrors, lamp shades without lights, plastic knick- knacks, some bad paintings, designs, reproductions destroyed by the humidity, moth-eaten carpets, an overly expensive Saint-Louis jug, a 60’s jukebox… and then me. Left there on a shelf, I shrivel up and make myself small.

54 ABLATION chapters iii, iv, v Translated by Clayton McKee

chapter iii - The Decision blation, noun – the its trap. We mathematicians action of entirely or learn rather early on about A partially removing ourselves that we are on a an organ… Removing, taking time limit and that it is pure out, subtract with the goal illusion to believe we can of eliminating a malicious alter that timeline. Me, I have disease, relieve and then not mastered anything big in suffer the consequences. A my life — but this time, I am bit of a man, a tiny little bit alone facing myself. I should damaged. The damage will decide. No one will do it for not be seen. No-one will me. As usual, I procrastinate. verify if I am whole or not. Catherine always helped me My imagination is playing a lot in moments like this. games with me; it’s going It’s crazy that I would miss faster than my thoughts. It her. One day after a doctor’s precedes me and presents me appointment she told me: “He with a spectacle where I don’t suspects a small problem in recognize myself; however, I my left breast. He suggests make an effort not to fall into surgery, a radical solution

55 tahar ben jalloun to stop the spread of the about the paralysis of erectile disease and then a breast function. My empty body will replacement…” She explained no longer be oxygenated, this in an everyday tone as if etc. When a patient chooses she were not been concerned. prostatectomy, the doctors On the day of the procedure, prepare them psychologically. I spent a long time in the Professor J. F. personally spoke hospital hallways imagining to me about this. He took care her with one breast. A few of me and reassured me: “We months later, after recovery, will take care of things one she triumphantly entered my at a time. It’s lucky that we office, opened her shirt, and met each other. There will said: “This summer, I will be be some inconveniences but topless on every beach that all will eventually return to you take me to.” We laughed normal. It’s important to be and celebrated. The aesthetic patient and to tell yourself surgery imitates nature’s it could have been worse…” perfection. It was impossible He showed me the results of to tell which breast was fake. the multidisciplinary doctors’ meeting which expressed the It was me and no-one else need for surgery. that made the final decision. Ablation, or, to use the proper I asked several of my doctor term: a total prostatectomy. friends and they all agreed I had been told everything with the decision for surgery. about the surgery and I That is, until I ran into one knew perfectly what the of my former university procedure implicated, even professors on a bus; he made

56 ablation me question everything. At advancement.” He also named seventy years old, he was a bunch of people who had still in shape. He invited me gambled on this method. I to have a coffee. I talked to listened to him but I couldn’t him about my operation and I stop from thinking of Damien. asked for his opinion. He said Damien was a friend of mine very formally: “My friend, you who spend ten years treating are young, do curietherapy! his spreading disease, only to Today, doctors operate less end up suffering horribly and and less and they preserve dying. I was never a poker erectile function. That is player. My father taught me important. Yes, I know there to be prudent. Sometimes, I is a risk. The cancer can come view it as a fault. There is a back; but, you will continue fine line between prudence to have a normal sex life and and cowardice. But daring to I would even say a good one. gamble on this operation was I know what I am talking well beyond my ability. about.” I went back to see Professor He repeated the word, J.F. to interrogate him about separating the syllables: “cur- this famous curietherapy. He ie-the-ra-py! With this process, confirmed what my professor radiation is put into the body had said, but he added: to treat the prostate. The “Your case is different; there radiation kills the cancerous is something evil in your cells. Afterwards, you won’t prostate. You need to have it have any unpleasantness. fully eradicated. You have an It’s a wonderful medical extremely aggressive type of

57 tahar ben jalloun cancer and the curietherapy summarize the situation, this will not work. This treatment patient has a Gleason tumor is for cases when the cancer is 7 (3+4) T2A Nx Mx with a not as far along as yours and, starting Prostate Specific in some cases, where there Antigen at 3.37 ng/ml… would not even be a need to I then read the report from treat the cancer. But, it’s up to the multidisciplinary meeting. you to decide. I will meet with you and Dr. Laplace. If he says No risks. I didn’t want to take that curietherapy is possible, any risks. After curietherapy, then we will do curietherapy; if there is a relapse, they if not, ablation…” He wrote can’t do anything else… They a letter about me for Dr. can’t operate. The situation Laplace. becomes more complicated and the cancer spreads. I didn’t go to the meeting with Dr. Laplace. I opened the Cancer… The word is tough letter and read it: to pronounce. They talk to you about tumors… but Dear Colleague, really it’s another way to I am writing you in regards to say: you die…1 Laughing your opinion about a possible nervously is the only way to curietherapy treatment for my take the joke. Even before patient Mr. Lefranc. With this the operation, the doctors letter you will find a copy of tell you about perineum re- the multidisciplinary meeting education sessions. Two notes from our center and 1 Tumors in French is tumeurs. If you prostate biopsy results. To separate the word into tu meurs, it translates as “you die”.

58 ablation or three “sessions before did she choose this job in prostatectomy.” For this, they particular? But after all, it’s ask you to buy a re-educating not my problem… Such a anal probe called Incare 9890. pretty woman…” And during A pretty woman, smelling of a this time, slowly, in your fresh, fruity perfume, tiny and head, you become a eunuch. smiling, puts you on a table, On that, the dictionary is ass in the air, and she starts quite eloquent: “A castrated putting the probe in your man who guards women anus, asking you to breath, in harems; a man who has then to stop breathing so undergone a castration; a man that your sphincter will get without virility…” After the used to obeying you. Your surgery, would I be castrated? penis disappears. In this Emasculated? Ready to be put position, you prefer to close to service for some emir with your eyes rather than watch many wives for the rest of what is happening. The pretty my life… No! Definitely not! woman speaks sweetly to you; Stay calm. I believed that you listen to her: “After the this condition only existed in procedure, your urethra will stories from the Middle Ages. not be able to control your Never had I thought that there bladder… These exercises will were eunuchs living among help you recover faster…” You us. Nothing betrays their ask yourself: “Why does this secret. How do you recognize girl, so sweet and delicate, a eunuch? Maybe the voice is spend her days facing anuses different. suspended in the air? Why “We are taking out your

59 tahar ben jalloun prostate; nothing else. say to yourself there aren’t Don’t worry!” I take in the even ants by which you could information and I say nothing. follow the back and forth. Disciplined and confident No, the sun has been cleaned overall, I prepare to live a several times a day. It shines. year “without”. I obsess It is impeccable. It smells of over this absence even if I cleanser. Then they imagine am persuaded that it’s not you on another bench in a permanent. I live with a garden. It’s cold outside. loss. No, loss is too strong People pass without looking at of a word; however, there is you; each one vacant of their something dead in this story; destiny. Your own destiny has not only sex, but also certain something strange. You say habits and attitudes. Without to yourself, inevitably: “Why a prostate, you put yourself to me? What have I done wrong the side, in an eternal waiting in my life to deserve this? Is it room where you can ignore divine or human punishment? what you are waiting for and Is it the vengeance of a certain for as long as you need. Put woman that I did not truly to the side, disposed, placed love? Why do I feel guilty? in authority and, like an After all, I didn’t do anything unclaimed package, at the end wrong…” It’s stupid, but it’s of a year and a day, they get human. rid of you. You see yourself I look around me. Athletes in seated on a bench under a good shape pass by in a rush. pale light and you watch the They stink of good health. I sun that is so proper you don’t want to be like them. I

60 ablation learned at an early age that thinking about the games with I should never envy other the girls next door. Rubbing people. To each their own. each other’s bodies while Everyone has his or her own trying to make it look like we destiny. For all of the gold in were playing something else. the world, I wouldn’t switch Carefreeness, laughter, shouts places with any tough, big, of joy, and then their breasts handsome man kissing a came in, followed by peach wonderful woman. No. I’m fuzz. She wouldn’t give it all fine like this. I tell myself away, but she liked to feel my that maybe he will contract penis against her body, even a silent disease or maybe he before marrying me. It was a will be hit by a tree in a storm wonderful time with vacations and die or maybe be trapped to Bretagne where my parents by an avalanche because he owned a nice house on Bréhat is the kind of guy who likes Island. We wouldn’t say to ski. Definitely not; destiny anything, but we played at cannot be changed. It doesn’t love without seriousness and do anything to construct it without consequences. Why either. I look at the floor and I did we so often believe that leave for the past. I remember preadolescence was so easy? my first morning woods. I It is just an illusion of time. was always afraid my mom I make a mental jump and pass would notice. I would run from one phase of my life to to the bathroom and splash the next; always connecting cold water on it to make it the phases to drama-free sex. go down. Then, I switch to Neither drama nor neurosis.

61 tahar ben jalloun

Yet, I consulted therapists; I was in analysis for five years. I even read Freud and Lacan. Nothing alarming. I was a satisfied man. I didn’t know of any problems tied to my sexuality. I am a normal guy, simple and direct, who is prone to humor and laughter. Without that, love is sad. Love becomes something stubborn or simply conventional. For a long time, I played a romantic. I wrote poems and drew angels. I felt it was kind of ridiculous, but my girlfriends at the time loved that naiveté.

62 ablation

chapter iv - The Operation slept really well the day science and my body knew it. before the operation. A They came to get me early nurse came to shave my I in the morning. I was naked pubis and the surrounding in a blue hospital gown with area. I told her: “I could have a hygiene cap on my head. done that.” She responded: I looked at the sky which “That’s ok. I’m used to it.” was white. I thought of the I became hairless. I put on people who were enjoying compression socks to prevent their first days of vacation. I thrombosis. Professor J.F. remembered that this year, came to see me that evening. I was supposed to go to an He was reassuring, told me island called Maurice. I knew a joke, and wished me a this place very well. I told good night. I can’t remember myself that I would go there if I prayed. I thought of my for my recovery, maybe kids and I wasn’t worried. I accompanied by a friend. In had written to my oldest the operation wing, people are son and sent my will to my active. I think I hear someone lawyer, Lambert. He has my say: “It’s a friend of the boss.” total confidence. Despite The anesthesiologist’s hands my calm, it wasn’t a normal work around my face; then night. I had the impression nothing more. An absence. that everything had resigned A digression. A blank spot in me. I delivered myself to in my life. Slightly dead, like

63 tahar ben jalloun they say. This isn’t the first am well taken care of. Nurses time that I’ve been put under. and nurse’s assistants check I fear waking up with that on me. Two of them wash me unquenchable thirst that without moving me from my accompanies anesthesia. A bed and without the slightest few hours later, I wake up fake humility. I am simply a calmly. I drink a few drops of body. I feel comfortable in the water. My lips are hard and care of their tender hands. I dry. My tongue is heavy, but desire to kiss them, to give overall, I feel fine. I just want them a gift, to thank them. to sleep. How do these women do their job for such bad pay? At When they bring me back to night, the nurses on duty stop the room, I discover that I by and wake me up to give am connected to a bunch of me my medicine every three tubes: a catheter is pushed hours. In the morning, their into my penis and I have two replacements come to see if drains, one on each side of I slept well or if I am feeling the 7– to 8-centimeter-long better… scar located in the middle of my pubis. An IV is in the fold It isn’t until the next day that of my elbow; another tube I felt something was missing. supplies oxygen to my nose. They speak generally about It’s tough to move. As soon as “ablation” as something that I move, I pull all of the tubes escapes, an exterior limb. and hoses. They put a button The prostate is interior. I in my hand that I can push if imagine Professor J.F.’s hands I want a dose of morphine. I detaching it, then removing

64 ablation it without force. I watch the direction. It was important operation in my head; I feel that I didn’t tense up. I was lighter. I tell myself they took afraid that I would not be out everything including the able to piss anymore, or on tough part that contained the contrary, to not be able cancer. I feel reassured. I did to hold my bladder. In fact, not think I was sick at any things seemed pretty simple. point in time. A friend told Professor J.F. prescribed me me to undergo the procedure anticoagulants and told me to done by robots. It seemed keep my compression socks. popular in America. I thought They took out my catheter. I about it; a robot is controlled pissed blood. I felt bad. That’s by human hand. It becomes all. an extension of the human. After about a week, I left the I preferred Professor J.F.’s hospital. Professor J.F. warned hands to do the job. The me that I was going to have robot is just a technique used some moments of depression. to impress the patient and I thought back to what they to gain more money for the call “secondary benefits” of clinic. disease. I was going to profit Then came the day that I from my condition in order had been warned about: the to spoil myself. I would be day when they take out my surrounded by friends. My catheter. This could only be kids and my granddaughter painful. I imagined this thing were worried, but I reassured passing through my urethra them. but this time in the opposite

65 tahar ben jalloun

Depression came later, when I work. I didn’t read any of the found myself alone in my large books that people had given apartment. I asked my oldest me — detective fiction, so- son to live with me for a few called light reading. I became days. He couldn’t because allergic to newspapers and of work; he was making a informational magazines. It all film in Corsica. He called me seemed vain and unimportant; often. On this occasion, I I felt diminished. But it wasn’t realized how tough loneliness visible. In the end, it was only could be. I started listening me who could know what to opera. I had a pile of brought me down. They unwrapped CDs. My recovery removed my organ. There passed by with music. There was nothing put in its place. A was sadness in the air. I was hole, wide open. Depression incapable of going back to my starts with this observation.

66 ablation

chapter v - Depression epression. I waited held me back. Unable to for it, I imagined it, move, to get up and to go, D I designed it, and like every other day, to the then I forgot about it. The bathroom and then the fact that it was prepared kitchen to make coffee. for changed nothing when Time passed. I looked at the it came. It was like an floor, the carpet, the sheets, irritation on your skin after objects around me. Some taking certain medications. unread newspapers lay on Eruption of spots, abnormal the floor along with an open redness, exacerbated jitters. book and some black velvet I slept, more or less. I had heels, embroidered with become used to fighting my my monogram. Catherine demons all day and all night. had given them to me for a In this state, I was available. I laugh — I kept them because didn’t doubt myself that the I liked them. They were worn fall would happen so slowly, out but I couldn’t part with without noise and without them. For a good hour, I clamor. thought about those heels that I wore as slippers. My One morning, it came to me spirit was empty, my head without warning. I woke up, heavy. My arms sank to my then, seated on the edge of sides. It was a pain to move my bed, I realized I couldn’t my hands. I read the title of move. It was as if something

67 tahar ben jalloun a newspaper article upside the office was at a standstill. down. “Marine Le Pen could One day, I would have to pick come back for a second tour.” it back up. Mathematicians A photo put an image to the are stubborn. I learned to words: Marine in the arms drown in their mystery. One of her father. Surprisingly, of my professors once told I asked myself: Who is this me: “Mathematics is like woman? Certainly I knew who philosophy or poetry; each she was, but this morning, word should be in its proper she seemed strange, like an place.” I know. I already said intrusion on my life. With it. I repeat myself. my right foot, I pushed away Nothing else affected me. I the paper. My eyes focus on felt distanced from math and a book. I strain to see the poetry. I was in the process of title, Out with the Phantom, becoming illiterate. Words, by Philip Roth. It was a gift one after the other, left from Professor J.F. me. They went elsewhere. The telephone rang on the I had no control over them. other side of the apartment. I searched for some. I The more it rang, the more stumbled over others; then, I felt that I was incapable I would second guess myself. of getting out of bed. Who My language impoverished could be calling at this hour? so quickly. Ruthless. They Besides my kids, I didn’t know say that people empty w h o c o u l d h a v e n e e d e d m e o n themselves of their blood that morning. My sick leave during depression; but me, I prolonged. My research at emptied myself of my words.

68 ablation

I fall. I let myself fall. I sink. I clock. Everything is frozen hit rock bottom. I don’t resist. and I am at the bottom of I say nothing. I am damaged. the hole — a well, or a pit. They damaged me because Animal bones, dirty rocks, I wouldn’t be able to do it extinguished candles, dirt, otherwise. I grin and bear it. and the suffocating smell Stagnant water traverses my of piss. Yes, I will eventually body. I have no strange words need to leave here, quit this to pronounce. My tongue is hole and emerge, like a tired heavy. My tongue fell down. swimmer who decides to Nothing could get it moving return to dry land. again. It’s the hollowness, So, what happens? This all the large hole, that sucks me is a part of the recovery in. I don’t have bad thoughts. from the operation. I repeat I know it is important to go that to myself. A small bit through it and that after of depression after the all of this, depression will ablation; or maybe worse: distance itself from me. I will depression after too much not triumph over depression pressure. Nothing gives but it will abandon me. What anything away to me. No state will I recuperate into? need to panic. Just some I do not dare to imagine. patience and perseverance. My wanderings in the void I have to piss. A bit later, my of my current life occupies pajama pants are wet. My me rather well, so I am not sheets are stained. I should suffering or doing poorly. move. Go! Get up! I count I look at the time on my alarm to three… One, two… three.

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Nothing happens. desire nothing, neither food nor coffee. I am sleeping but My mother always told me my eyes are open. Tiring. this when she didn’t feel It’s been two hours since I well: “Some rubble has last moved. This has never fallen on me. I am covered happened to me before. I in dust…” Like her, I feel think about Catherine. I miss covered with rocks and her terribly. If she were here, sand. Heavy rocks are on my I would not be in this state. shoulder and my neck; alas, Emptiness, nothingness, an the reason I was unable to imaginary wind. I smell bad. get up earlier. How do I get If I could shower in this spot, rid of this weight? How do it would do me good. No. I I liberate myself and move need to get up. I slide off the on to something else? I see bed and fall to the ground, my my penis reduced to a hole head laying in a newspaper. I only there for urination. No succeed at standing upright sensation. Not the slightest and I painfully advance to the result. Raising my eyes, I bathroom. Tears stream down focus on a reproduction of my checks. It is impossible to “The Turkish Baths.” The stop them. I fear falling down eroticism in this image really and breaking my arm or my appeared to me for the first hip. I am not old enough to time. The painting no longer do that. Yet, my legs aren’t interests me. My eyes are carrying me well. Everything tired. I extend my hand as if in me is shaky. I finally turn searching for help or support on the shower; the water to pull me away from there. I

70 ablation flows over my clothes. I let I look around me. Everything it spray me even though the is where it should be. My water is cold. I feel that it body escapes. A friend from is helping me. I sit in the a conference at the Louvre shower as the water splashes sent me an invitation to see onto my head. In the process an exhibition at the Musée of getting up, I bang into the d’Orsay called Degas and wall. I hang onto the shower the Nude. It attracts my curtain. At last I get out, attention. The date has take off my pajamas, and passed. The proposition is dry myself with a towel. I tempting. I usually don’t miss tell myself: if I can make a big exhibitions. My season coffee, I am saved. I drink a pass for La Comédie Française coffee, then another. I am is also lying around here, butt naked. The neighbors expired. I have not filled out can see me. I am laughing at the form with the date for a them. There’s nothing to see. reservation. Just beside that Instead of returning to the lay a notice from the post bedroom, I sit in the living office—a voluminous packet room. I calm myself. Black- or a registered letter. I have and-white images parade in not taken the time to verify. front of me. I am outside of It waits on the small table by my body. I no longer exist. I the front door, surrounded feel well. by other envelopes which should have been responded I awake one morning with to and posted. During this a set plan: to no longer live time, I forget. I put a lot of with the memory of my life.

71 tahar ben jalloun things to the side. I need women: some lie on their more of a desire to make an backs, others sit facing effort. My tastes distance forward or crouched, others themselves and are replaced dry their legs, do their hair, by something I have always scrub themselves, but their hated: indifference. I have hairiness is not evident. I the feeling of having been would know. Degas painted put to the side, into a reser ve, women as if he were viewing in a cave. I am in a second- them through a keyhole. hand store: used furniture, At that time, bodies were piled-up dinner sets, lifeless covered, full of grace. I note mirrors, lamp shades without that I have no desire at all lights, plastic knick-knacks, for these creatures. Erosion some bad paintings, designs, does its job. I would like to reproductions destroyed by be dissolved like in a bad the humidity, moth-eaten dream where everything carpets, an overly expensive is liquid. The whirlwind of Saint-Louis jug, a 60’s emptiness is accompanied by jukebox… and then me. Left carnival music. An accordion there on a shelf, I shrivel up harasses me and I can’t and make myself small. I hide escape it. At the present myself. I no longer speak. time, it seemed necessary I breathe painfully. I don’t to save my solitude. I hold even feel sadness or grief. I it and I know neither the have no emotion; except the beauty painted by Degas emotion of nothing. nor that of Caravaggio nor the splendor of Vivaldi. I I really like Degas and his

72 ablation learned disillusionment on hospital gave me a brochure the job and have reached titled “Information for Before the stage where my serenity Radical Prostatectomy.” is my real lifesaver. I remove It explained everything myself from the world and with illustrations to aid wait for this to happen. understanding. It is lying I listen to the weather around on my desk so I reread without feeling concerned. it for courage. In the section Showers at the end of about sexuality, it clarifies: the day or foreshadowed “The libido will not be thunderstorms. Don’t go out modified by the operation. without an umbrella!... A Sexuality is not limited to wet man is taken by surprise sexual acts. Treatments exist by the rain while he goes today to treat sexual setback to meet up with a woman from radical prostatectomy.” that may not even show up. OK, the only thing left is to be Nothing is certain. optimistic and believe that Some scattered showers things will return to normal. are predicted. I draw the Yet, without a prostate, you curtains. It’s somber outside. look at yourself differently. I know pain and suffering. I You weigh both sides of feel that the slope is steep, the situation. You imagine the suspected tendency. I unheard-of things. You no still have some serenity, also longer master your anxieties some discernment. and fears. Be optimistic and be confident… what a Before the operation, the challenge. I am not doing

73 tahar ben jalloun well but death never once Captive, Elegant, Screw, occurred to me. My worries Tireless, Insatiable, Petite, come from elsewhere, maybe Round, Large, Winter Sun… even from childhood. I was I give up when I feel signs of always worried; it was in my tiredness that often precede genes. It passed from father sleep. I’ve conquered my to son. insomnia. While I am drifting off, the last visit I made to One sleepless night, I see my uncle in his hospital everything in black. In bed came to my mind. the evening, I spoke with He had trouble speaking; Professor J.F. We had spoken amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for a long time, but now, I (Charcot or Lou Gehrig’s review all the women that Disease) attacked, among I loved, all those I kind of other things, his vocal cords. loved, those I only had sex I leaned in towards him to with, and those I fell crazily understand what he wanted in love with. Those aren’t to say: “I’m leaving this world that many. Catherine comes without regrets because I to mind. I see all of them in drank a lot and I fucked my erotic positions. I recall our fair share…” I thought he was evening of pleasure. I started going to tell me his last will counting and giving them and testament or give me names… Gazelle, Caramel, some advice to follow. But, Cinnamon, Source, Spiritual, on his last breath, he was Famished, Brown Riddle, still thinking about his track Russian Riddle, Embellished, record. I loved him a lot. I Cat on a Hot Tin roof,

74 ablation fear I’m starting to resemble note? I hesitate. What is him… there to say to my family, my friends, or my colleagues? I To die. To choose the time, shot myself because I can no the place, and the manner, longer get it up? What then? discrete or spectacular. Do people kill themselves To leave a note or to go for that? For something so silently without leaving small! Not just for that, but anything behind. Suicide, for a bunch of reasons that among other things, is accumulate and make life mundane and without major unlivable. Kill yourself now? consequences. I will depart Now that the hardest and and leave everything in most humiliating part is over? order. It is an inherited habit It pained me to think of those from my father who never horrible diapers that I had to permitted untidiness. I will change multiple times a day. give my clothes to Catholic It makes me nauseous just Services, my books to the thinking about it. There, that central research library, my would have been the perfect photos to my oldest son, my time to refuse this inhumane non-published poems to my treatment. A treatment granddaughter who at 12 has that no dignified man can already written some nice accept without suffering, things, my records will stay without being taken over by where they are because no shame, a silent shame, cold, one still uses 33s… insidious. I functioned with Will I leave behind a suicide a spirit completely occupied

75 tahar ben jalloun by what happened between of pride. The word “non- my thighs. The diaper powerful” is violent, strong, overflowed with warm liquid dramatic. Painfully, I think of and oozed over my legs. The a Mauro Bolognini film, “Le underpants became so heavy Bel Antonio” (1960). In the and prohibited movement. film, Marcello Mastroianni is Rushing to the bathrooms unable to know intimately the of a café, taking off the old beautiful Claudia Cardinale. and replacing it with the I also see again parts of new, changing underwear, “The Sun Also Rises” (1957) throwing it all in the trash, based on the book by Ernest washing your hands, drying Hemingway. Tyrone Power, yourself, and trying to leave following a battle wound, is looking tidy; all of that takes reduced to nothing in front at least a few hours. One of the sublime Ava Gardner. time, seated at a table on the He abandons this woman top floor of La Défense, I had whom he loves and tends to been tempted to jump into his painful love life… the void but the windows Evenings at my house, I were obviously bolted. In thought about different fact, I had not really decided. ways to kill myself. I thought Killing yourself because of famous authors who power changed hands, killed themselves: Ernest this exists. You slide into a Hemingway and Romain depression whose only way Gary. A bullet in the mouth. out is death. It is a question I don’t have a gun, so that of dignity, of self love, and idea is out; also, it takes a

76 ablation lot of courage to pull the years old, as soon as a girl trigger. I had read in some approached me, as soon article somewhere that as her skin touched mine, I two guys were not able to would ejaculate. I often had accept their sudden illness. stains on my pants around Sexual impotence, for them, my zipper. I would wait an was the worst catastrophe. hour and then make love. They decided to choose their One day, my “girlfriend” death. Certain newspaper told me: “You know, to avoid articles brought up the idea that, jerk off right before we that each of them, while see each other. You will be living, refused to tell anyone more relaxed and we can about their decision. From take the time to have a good the time they were no longer fuck.” Expert advice. It was here, what did it matter to a married woman who loved them that the world was up- to get laid in the evenings. to-date on their infirmity? A mature woman who first introduced me to physical While reviewing various love without weighing it cases, I discovered that down with emotions. She Cesare Pavese, a famous was marvelous because she Italian poet, killed himself, made everything simple. not because of a supposed She told me she loved her impotence, but because of husband but she needed to premature ejaculation. If have sex all the time. She was that was worthy of suicide, direct, joyful, and slightly lots of guys would be crazy. killing themselves… At 20

77 tahar ben jalloun

My friend, Professor J.F., understand why he was still called me every evening. He feeling guilty, a real weight asked me regularly to eat on his shoulders, he told me. at his place or to go see a To calm him down a bit, I play together. I knew he was told him I had never thought worried, especially about my about suicide because I was depression. One evening, he persuaded that my potency himself felt depressed. He would come back. It was just wasn’t happy with his wife. a matter of time and some He frequently told me about patience. The opposite to his desire to leave her. She what I was actually thinking treated him badly in public in that moment. and yelled at him for the I would regularly pass my littlest things. He would box evenings seated in front it up and lower his head. of the mirror so I could He confessed to me that he interrogate myself about had had one of his patient’s my current state of mind. suicide pressing on his Out of nowhere, it was all conscience. It was his wife’s done. Never again would I cousin. After undergoing the be able to, as some people same operation as me, he was informally say, intimately unable to push through the know a woman. Ah, the dark moments that happen scream of a woman in during recovery. He threw pleasure who begs for more! himself into the Seine. While Some women shout, others telling me this, Professor J.F. unleash themselves, others w a s s t i l l e m o t i o n a l . H e d i d n o t cling with all of their might

78 ablation to the man’s body that they of the stories in 1001 Nights want him entirely in them. is a story of disloyalty. The It is best not to talk about prince’s wife, profiting from those who, for some obscure his leave on a hunting trip, reason, fake pleasure. cheats on him with a black slave whose prowess, and Listen. Being hit by all of the his overly large penis, render senses of female orgasms is a her husband’s conjugal pleasure that men savor with duties as unsatisfying and sweet pride. It replenishes a insignificant. Taken by man’s desire and maintains surprise in the middle of the h i s r o l e a s “m a s t e r.” T h e p e n i s act, she is executed along is the real boss. It commands with her zealous lover. This the man and decides what to is the origin of the prince’s do. The mind must follow, decision from that moment not get distracted, not think on to spend one night with about other things, but a virgin and then cut off her focus entirely and, above head the next day at sunrise. everything else, remain When no virgins are left in dedicated to the supreme the town, he is brought none act: achieve orgasm after other than Scheherazade, orgasm. the daughter of the king’s While continuing to document closest vizier. She presents myself on this subject, I fell herself to the the prince on a surprising commentary and she proposes to tell on 1001 Nights. According to him stories before sleeping the author, the starting point together. The big literary

79 tahar ben jalloun principle is hidden there: of by Arabic morality who stories in exchange for life. cursed the work. Her stories Literature and life. Literature relegated morality into the is life earned day by day safekeeping of censorship. until the thousandth and You could say without first night when the woman fear that if the prince of triumphs over the cruelty Baghdad’s penis had been of the prince and saves her as exceptional as the slave’s, head, as well as the head of the world literature canon all woman in the town. would be deprived of one of its major works… Therefore, if the prince’s “boss” had been able to perform and keep sufficient stiffness to please his wife, there would have been no cheating and no murder rituals every morning until Scheherazade showed up. Scheherazade, whose mouth gave birth to some of the cruelest, most racist, atrociously misogynistic, wicked, and ambivalent stories, and not placing the most extravagant sexual practices to the side, was for a long time disapproved

80 ablation

81 Lyrics & Poems Alima Hamel

Alima Hamel Lyrics & Poems 82 Lyrics & Poems Alima Hamel

83

Alima Hamel Lyrics & Poems translated by anna navrotskaya

From this day forth, I will fall no more on your tomb I will run in the woods with our sons From this day forth, I will think no more that you are in love Simply with God 84 Flowers at the Walls (listen here)

he blue of the Kasbah’s dissenting Red is deceit White is my word too filthifying TGreen the color of religion Yellow is my Van Gogh yellow The blue of the sky is my blood Pink is the smell of petroleum The faun is what fits me like a glove The orange - an oriental cliché And also purple too I am to Africa as green is to mint Brown a color adjacent to black in the darkfield of my sight To black in the darkfield of my rhymes. How full I am of colors, like my brothers at the wall, doling out We are the flowers at the walls

85 alima hamel

A Fresh Bread Roll

86 lyrics & poems My mother is lying It is with no lungs It is with no cries It is with no throat It is with no body. She is lying She isn’t looking She is floating around me She keeps her old hands occupied in the kitchen She is making the bread As one’s making a lie With care Expertise of twenty years ago Expertise of always The ingredients, she is not measuring The recipe, she knows by heart A fresh bread roll and a lie is inside She’s calling me and I’m coming there My mother, I’m looking at her Her face still so youthful Her unbound hair dyed with care She’s calling me and I’m coming there Her belly’s bent over the sink I am right near I am just behind I cannot hear her I cannot hear her…breathing Then I’m plunging my eyes into her neck A voice from me’s crying against us I’m plunging my eyes into her pulse A voice from me’s crying against the cough.

87 alima hamel

From This Day Forth (listen here)

88 lyrics & poems

From this day forth, I will fall no more on your tomb I will run in the woods with our sons From this day forth, I will think no more that you are in love Simply with God From this day forth, my Muslim lady I will be gazing at you from my garden From this day forth, my Muslim lady Along the cypresses out there far away O Naima, o Naima, o Naima The day we can laugh together is finally here O Naima, o Naima, o Naima The day crying is over has finally come From this day forth, I will dust off my feet Before laying down the flowers From this day forth, I will be the oldest among our sisters Of our mother who are here still From this day forth, my Muslim lady I will be gazing at you from my garden From this day forth, my Muslim lady Along the cypresses out there far away O Naima, o Naima, o Naima The day we can laugh together is finally here O Naima, o Naima, o Naima The day crying is over has finally come

89 alima hamel

With a Teaspoon (listen here)

The head is shaking under a veil in black A thousand pieces of wax are mixed and mingled She is collecting them below with a teaspoon Then getting up, putting her veil back on.

90 lyrics & poems

My head is shaking under a veil in black Drop by drop, the white of my eyes is flowing Crystallizing, cracking A thousand pieces of wax are mixed and mingled Weary it’s me she gathers Weary it’s her I gather with a teaspoon

Step by step, the bones of my ankles are fractured Fossilized and weakened A thousand pieces of ivory are shattered Weary it’s me she gathers Weary it’s her I gather with a teaspoon Little by little, the blood in me turns frozen Civilized and darkened A thousand black clouds are growing angry Weary it’s me she gathers Weary it’s her I gather with a teaspoon

One by one, delusions from my soul are leaving Wandering and howling A thousands stifled cries from me are breaking out Weary it’s me she gathers Weary it’s her I gather with a teaspoon

The head is shaking under a veil in black A thousand pieces of wax are mixed and mingled She is collecting them below with a teaspoon Then getting up, putting her veil back on.

91 alima hamel

L’art est mi amor (mis à mort)

92 lyrics & poems

The rat is trembling backstage Under the curtain he is crawling With funny steps he’s going on the boards Hiding a little in the dark

And with a heavy heart, the rat Is feeling like a rat this evening He feels it might be the last time He’s going on the stage

He thinks of other rats He thinks of his arrival as a rat And then he thinks of art Especially of art Of art that made him living Of art that gave him joy Of art that brought believing

That late one ought to trust The king has not departed That late one ought to trust In art he is not believing That late one ought to trust that art is mis à mort

93 alima hamel

The Quartet of Ladies

94 lyrics & poems

The quartet of ladies has finally arrived To the room full of resonance Of the resonance that on Sundays is inviting God In prison We are in the prayer room It is here we’re going to be lost In soliloquies and swirls In whispers of endless words Only several droplets… It is here we’re going to end up. In the room of the Lord, we’ll be truly inspired Aren’t we women imprisoned? The quartet of ladies has finally arrived The clock shows almost nine They are here early Sitting, as if waiting on Sunday for a bus Will it come Will it not? I was also too early Only several steps from them, so I believe We were waiting for each other with the patience of teen girls Whose trembling hearts gave away the emerging rebellion We were wise, overwhelmed, even prior to our encounter. They were four, in my quartet of ladies Seventy-five, forty-seven, about thirty and twenty-one-years- old Greetings, my ladies, for months I’ve been waiting for you I am happy to meet you, for there’s a lot I have to learn.

95 alima hamel

Black Coffee (listen here)

96 lyrics & poems

Black coffee for these fellows Before their fingers, before their heart Another then another It’s in here that all is argued without end Appointments, our juniors’ marriages, garlic, sheep El Watan or La Liberté on every table Folded in two with darkened pages For ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years Me, I’ve stayed there hidden, watched you carefully For ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years Me, I’ve stayed there hidden, watched you carefully Oooh oooh man, I’d love to be there by your side Oooh oooh man, I’d love to be there by your side To chitchat, play dominoes, to blather, indolent To smoke your rhymes, drink coffee by your side, To stay there the whole day, in fig trees’ shadow In your Algiers paradise the finest coffeehouse of the world. Admire times gone by and times that are going by…

Stay there, gentlemen, stay there, I must tell you… Just a few words of no importance Talk about this weather and the war! Stay there, gentlemen, stay there, I must tell you… I won’t bother you, nor make you feel ashamed But maybe… I will make you laugh! Oooh oooh man, I’d love to be there by your side Oooh oooh man, I’d love to be there by your side

97 alima hamel

Vegetal (watch the music video here)

98 lyrics & poems

Living grows Blossom loving Rouge Sexual Erotic, oh a wish Open, delightful and sane Exquisite by day and by night Evergreen fragrant Idling like silence Joyful vegetal Original pause Speechless fortunate Delicate fruit of all beauty Prolific nature Nightly possessed Insomniac round Pleasure eternal Blossom loving Oblivious light A flower hovering over the pain

99 alima hamel

Aimé Césaire has arrived

100 lyrics & poems

There, in the strange unlocked dust of our pole, he is dragging on, the cat behind the bus, he is considering the consequences. It’d be worth examining the question, question of merit, question of principle, of appropriateness, of recoiling, of looking, of circumstances, of time, of decay.

To forget the blood without ever achieving it, to run without the salt of our salty, prized, destroyed seas. Go back into yourself.

Fold down the manners, double the distance, oh, is that your case, what is all that? Caesura in time, the statements are free, vain, or crying, distorted.

Aimé Césaire, I am free to give you a smile.

101 Tales of the Orontes River Zaher Omareen

Zaher Omareen Tales of the Orontes River

102 Tales of the Orontes River Zaher Omareen

103

Zaher Omareen Tales of the Orontes River

Dr Mukhtar arrived, sleepy-eyed, straight from his bed, wearing his white jellabiya. As soon as he walked in your grandad took him aside and said to him ‘Doctor, just say yes to whatever Abu Ahmed asks you – we don’t want any trouble – that woman’s life’s in danger.’

104 Tales of the Orontes River Translated by Alice Guthrie

blood brothers o where did your dad and eventually someone or take you today? Round other must’ve recommended S to Dr Mukhtar’s? to your auntie that she treat them with coffee. Well, she –Yeah . . . but I’m not sure really went for it: she was about that doctor, he seemed constantly stuffing coffee a bit weird to me! up that boy’s back passage, –Why? honestly – practically every –He told Dad there was five minutes! But it certainly nothing wrong with me – he didn’t work, I mean he was was like ‘He’s just malingering. really afflicted, poor lad, he Get him married, that’ll cure was in a miserable state. So him.’ eventually I went with her to take him over to Dr Mukhtar’s –Oh sweetie, he was only place. joking! Dr Mukhtar’s probably t h e c l e v e r e s t b l o k e i n t h e w h o l e –So what did he say? I bet city – and the funniest. He’s a he just told them to get him total joker, he’s been cracking married! people up all his life. Back –Well, no – he got your in the day I remember your cousin to lie on his front, and cousin had really bad piles,

105 zaher omareen he started to examine him. he joking with her, or blaming Your auntie was so worried her? He looked over at her, about her son that she was and then he teased her even actually in floods of tears, she more: ‘What’ve you done to was in a right state, bless her this boy’s backside? It’s turned . . . and suddenly she cried into a cup of coffee – who told out, ‘Doctor, for God’s sake, you to do this abominable what can you see?’ Of course thing?’ And we all laughed our she was too upset to notice heads off. how she said it, but honestly –Uh-huh, and what else did it sounded exactly like what he do? women say when someone’s reading their coffee cup – –Well he’s a brilliant doctor, and sure enough the doctor he can treat anything. I went straight into this perfect honestly can’t remember mime: he narrowed his eyes anymore what he specialised and looked down at the in, originally – maybe he was affected area with the exact a urologist and nephrologist, gesture of someone staring you know, treating kidney into a cup of coffee grounds and bladder stuff? But your held out at arm’s length, like grandad always used to take this, you know? And then he us to him, no matter what was said to her: ‘Well, Hajja, there wrong with us: belly aches, are two paths ahead of you: headaches, diabetes, blood one is open, and the other pressure – he’s a proper all- is closed.’ She found this rounder, that one. language totally weird – was And during the Events that

106 tales of orontes river bloke never stopped, honestly to be found – not even a – he crept around from house nurse to help Om Ahmed, to house, secretly treating the poor thing. There simply was wounded . . . He almost got no one to deliver the baby. caught by the security forces And ya haram, her husband a few times, but luckily he was was beside himself! He could spared. see her life slipping through his fingers as he just looked Anyway, this one particular on, utterly powerless . . . time, we heard someone knocking on the door in the So Abu Ahmed came round to middle of the night, and it ours, and your grandad said turned out to be our neighbour to him: ‘Your only option is Dr Abu Ahmed, whose wife was Mukhtar. I’ve been informed in labour. The poor woman that he’s hiding near here at had been in excruciating one of our friends’ houses. I’ll pain for hours and hours and get my son to jump from roof hours already, she was really to roof over to their place, and having a very tough time of get him to come and see her.’ it – there were complications, Well, that prospect wasn’t something was clearly wrong, easy for Abu Ahmed. How it seemed like maybe the could he let a man examine baby was stuck. Well, it was his wife? Over his dead body! the middle of February, half No way, not for a thousand two in the morning, and the swords . . . city was on lockdown, under curfew. And there was no And so of course we all doctor or midwife anywhere started begging Abu Ahmed

107 zaher omareen to be more open-minded. His so the blood mixed together, eldest daughter, especially, and then each of them would was really really pleading with lick it off their thumb – and him, and crying, but he just after that they would be said, ‘Let her die before she considered blood kin, and so gets looked at by a bloke!’ they wouldn’t be permissible partners for each other Anyway, in the end your anymore and wouldn’t need granny went in and had a to be covered up. Basically word with Abu Ahmed. She it’s a silly old-school custom, opened the door just a foot a superstitious thing people or so and talked to him from used to do. behind it, to preserve her dignity. She said to him ‘I’ll go –Right, so then what with you, to help the doctor, happened? and I’ll get him to become a – Dr Mukhtar arrived, sleepy- blood brother to her before eyed, straight from his bed, he delivers the child, so that wearing his white jellabiya. it’s all halal and nothing haram As soon as he walked in your happens.’ grandad took him aside and In those days, you see, blood said to him ‘Doctor, just say kinship could be forged yes to whatever Abu Ahmed between two people: they asks you – we don’t want any would each make a little cut in trouble – that woman’s life’s one of their thumbs, and then in danger.’ Well, the doctor they’d press them together had this expression he always and sort of rub them a bit, used about people, ‘He’s a

108 tales of orontes river freaky one, that one!’ – it was daughter all went off to deliver one of his catchphrases – and Om Ahmed’s baby. Once he understood straight away Om Ahmed had got herself that it applied to Abu Ahmed. appropriately covered and And I can tell you, Abu Ahmed veiled, with her daughter’s certainly got straight to the help, your granny was the point – he barked at the first to go into the room. As doctor: ‘Before you go in there she went in she handed the and see my woman I want you doctor a knife. ‘What’s this to become her blood brother for?’ he said. ‘Are we planning because of halal and haram.’ to slaughter the woman, or Doctor Mukhtar just nodded, deliver her baby?’ ‘It’s so but his eyes were almost you can cut your thumb, and popping out of his head with become blood kin with Om the effort of suppressing his Ahmed.’ ‘I’ll do it in a minute,’ rage and contempt for this said the doctor, ‘let’s just see nonsense. He was a God- what’s going on in there first fearing man, but, in another – the woman’s roaring her of his frequently repeated head off in agony right now: catchphrases, ‘nonsense and do you really think this is the I are two parallel lines that right moment for that?’ never intersect – and if they Your granny could tell the ever do, then God help us all.’ doctor was irritated, and No, he didn’t suffer fools, that hearing the blood-curdling man, that’s for sure! noises Om Ahmed was belting So anyway, Dr Mukhtar, your out she realised she’d better granny and Om Ahmed’s draw the line there, and she

109 zaher omareen said no more about it. When He said to her: ‘You’re taking Om Ahmed saw the doctor your sweet time, aren’t you?’ her heart nearly stopped Then he turned to the girl and beating – she got even more said ‘Empty out that basin of worked up than she had been. water a second, can you, and In her whole adult life, the give it to me.’ And then, as only man who’d ever seen your granny tells it, ‘Suddenly, her face uncovered was her before our eyes, the doctor husband. Her face froze, a tied that piece of red cloth blueish tinge came over her, over his white jellabiya around and her contractions just his hips – like a belly-dancer’s stopped altogether! Well, sash! – and picked up the basin after a while the doctor knew and started drumming on it as that her labour had halted for he danced around the bed like real, the baby was in danger, a madman, singing a nursery and he had to try something rhyme in this weird falsetto: different to get things moving “Oh my Indian neighbour, again. come and see what I’ve got! I’ve got a big black dog, who Dr Mukhtar looked around wants to eat me up!” Well, Om him: there was no surgical Ahmed was already in quite equipment, and no medicines, an altered state from her just a basin of hot water and a labour pains, of course, and piece of cloth. And Om Ahmed so can you imagine the fright was so afraid of the doctor, Dr Mukhtar gave her, dancing and in such extreme agony, like a woman and gyrating that she couldn’t even get any his hips like a belly-dancer? sound out anymore.

110 tales of orontes river

She went into hysterics, she What a question! A woman actually burst out laughing! married to a sweet bloke like And she laughed so hard that you, well, it’s a chance not to suddenly her waters broke, be missed, to become blood and that baby just slipped out kin . . . What a question, God of her belly like a prayer to forgive you . . . You and I have the prophet!’ each gained a relation today, what a bonus!’ –Yeah, and then what happened? ‘God bless you, doctor,’ answered Abu Ahmed. ‘In –Doctor Mukhtar came out your honour, I’m going to of the room with his jellabiya name the child Mukhtar.’ covered in blood, and said The doctor looked at him and to Abu Ahmed ‘Mabrouk, didn’t say anything more. He brother, you’ve got a son.’ didn’t know what to say. He Abu Ahmed drew himself up chuckled, and he left. and immediately asked the doctor, ‘Tell me doctor, don’t Mukhtar, Abu Ahmed’s son, is take this the wrong way, but about twenty years old now. I’m asking you to tell me in He’s taken over his dad’s job God’s name, did you become at the wholesale market, blood kin with my woman after the poor old thing got before you delivered the hard of hearing. Whenever baby or not?’ Making himself he gets ill he goes to see Dr seem very serious, the doctor Mukhtar, and he always calls answered, ‘But of course, him ‘Uncle.’ And every time Hajji, how could I not have? Dr Mukhtar goes through the

111 zaher omareen wholesale market and Abu Ahmed is sitting behind the table he enjoys saying to the lad in front of everyone, in a booming voice, ‘Send my warmest wishes to your mum . . .’ And he walks on as if he hasn’t done anything at all. But in fact everyone in the market’s stifling their laughter at the whole story . . . and the father acts like he’s not listening to any of it . . . Yalla now little one, get up to bed, you’ve got school tomorrow.

112 tales of orontes river

the birthmark ou’re even more –Oh alright, alright – so we headstrong than had a neighbour called Om Y Salamu the hammam- Salah, in your grandad’s worker, you are! Your dad’s old neighbourhood: her told you a thousand times husband Salamu worked at not to touch your face when the hammam in the main you’re helping him grill market. Every morning meat. Look at you – even he’d go off to work in after washing your face, it’s the hammam, and he still all sooty! wouldn’t get home til late at night. As far back –But Mum, who is this as I can remember, right Salamu the hammam- in my earliest memories, worker, anyway? absolutely everyone in the –Who’s this and who’s that neighbourhood used to call – can’t you think of any thing him Abu Daughters. Yep, to amuse yourself with poor old Salamu, living in apart from hassling me with absolute poverty, and with your constant questions? five daughters. But what –But for God’s sake, you’re beautiful girls they were, constantly shaming me you should’ve seen them – about being like him, so every one of them was a who is he? proper ‘piece of the moon,’

113 zaher omareen you know? Their dad, on examined her, because the other hand, well he there weren’t any doctors to was short, swarthy, with examine pregnant women a big square head, and as then. stubborn as a mule. But the –Why not? girls, my God, they took after their mum. Blue eyes, –Now’s not the time to blond hair, lovely figures. go into that, let’s stick to Of course in those days, finishing the story . . . So though, a man who didn’t the point is that Om Raouf have a son was considered examined Salamu’s wife, not to have any children at and then addressed her as all! Everyone shamed poor Om Salah – as if she was old Salamu about it, and already the mother of a boy called him Abu Daughters. called Salah – and said ‘I can Anyway, time passed and feel it in my waters: your eventually Salamu’s wife son Salah al-Deen is finally got pregnant again. on his way.’ Om Raouf was a religious woman, and –Yeah, and I bet she had very intelligent, and she’d another girl, right? delivered all the babies –Hang on, let me tell you in the neighbourhood – the whole story . . . So yeah, she knew what she was as I was saying, when she talking about. So the newly realised she was pregnant crowned Om Salah tore off again our neighbour Om to find her husband and Raouf went round and waste no time in bringing

114 tales of orontes river him this major news. Well, got a chill out there. And the bloke was overcome, his wife didn’t need to ask and he flipped out, basically twice for anything, that’s – he got so carried away for sure! that he bought two giant –Right, and so then what trays of Nightingale Nest happened? pastries and shared them out among the neighbours, –Well, Om Salah got a e v e n t h o u g h h e w a s r e a l l y u p craving for pomegranates. against it financially – yeah, And you should’ve seen they were absolutely dirt how Salamu ran around poor, that family. I swear like a maniac getting those to God, the way Salamu pomegranates for his treated Om Salah was so pregnant wife. Well, to cut indulgent – we’d never seen a long story short, the dark anything like it. I remember Events started – and bless seeing him – your grandad’s you, may your eyes only roof overlooked theirs, you ever see bright light, son. see? – so in the worst days Anyone who was able to run of deep-frozen midwinter away from the soldiers fled, your aunties and I used to and anyone who couldn’t see Salamu up on his roof, get away was mowed down standing on one of those in front of their family, or— little bathing stools from Well, unmentionable filthy the hammam – cos he was things were done, ya lateef so short! – and hanging out . . . The soldiers’d storm the the washing, in case his wife houses and smash and loot

115 zaher omareen and plunder everything . death is what God’s written . . They’d leave a trail of for you, then at least die tragedy and destruction here in my arms and under in their wake . . . And the my roof.’ only men left alive in their Anyway, so your granny homes were over fifty. went to open the door, Well, winter set in that year because during the Events like you wouldn’t believe: the old women always it was cold enough to snap opened the door, while the iron nails. And what did men hid themselves. And we hear, in the bleak dark guess who she saw on the middle of one of those black doorstep? nights? A knock at the door. Your uncles jumped up in a –Who? The army? frenzy – one of them hid in –No, she found Salamu the water tank, one of them there – he was looking in the kitchen loft between for pomegranates for his sacks of grain, and one of pregnant wife! Your granny them wriggled in under the said to him, ‘If only I had junk up on the roof. We some, Salamu! I promise were all saying ‘Please God, you, if I had any at all they’d don’t let it be the army.’ be yours, I’d give them to –Why hadn’t my uncles run you with all my blessings, away like everyone else? I wouldn’t scrimp at all . . . but why don’t you go and –Because your grandad see if our neighbours the didn’t let them. He said ‘If Siqa family have got some?

116 tales of orontes river

You might be lucky.’ God, I’m begging you not to go, for the hundredth Salamu said, ‘I’ve knocked time! I rue the wretched on every door in the day I got pregnant! God neighbourhood already, to strike me down if I let you be honest – so I’m gonna go – I promise you, I don’t try the Salim family in even fancy a pomegranate Hamadia: they’ve got a big anymore, as God is my orchard over there, maybe witness I’ve lost my appetite they’ve still got a few dried for them, I swear!’ pomegranates left.’ I tell you son, to this day I Your granny threw her hands can hear him answer her: up in horror and said to him, ‘Don’t you bloody lie to me ‘Oh lord, Salamu, have you – I’ve been watching you, lost your mind, love? All this all week you’ve been sifting bombing and killing going through the rubbish for old on, and you’re heading over bits of pomegranate peel there? What on Earth are and sniffing it – and then you doing?’ Right at that this morning I found a bit moment we saw a frantic under our bed!’ Your uncles Om Salah come flying out heard the uproar from the of their house, running inside the house, so they towards her husband, came out into the street puffing and panting and and got hold of Salamu, heaving her huge belly to take him home. But he along, and yelling at him as really dug his heels in. All she went ‘In the name of he could think about were

117 zaher omareen the pomegranates he was had to let him go. He broke going to get from the Salim away from them and ran family in Hamadia, so that off towards Hamadia, and his little boy Salah wouldn’t Om Salah went back to her be born with a pomegranate house crying and wailing and birthmark on his body. cursing Abu Pomegranate and the day she’d conceived Well, they tried everything a child with him. they could think of to convince him not to go, –So did he bring her the they really grappled with pomegranates then? him about it every which –What pomegranates, way – but he was he was son? He never came back utterly stubborn, to the at all, with or without any end, and also he really lost pomegranates! That night his manners, he got totally was the last we ever saw unbearable, you know, of him. Some people say shouting and swearing, that he was taken away insulting people. We were with the group who were afraid that the night patrol executed against the wall would hear the commotion of the old French Palace; – and we had three men others say a sniper got him hidden in our house, you near the Roman arches know, we had to be careful and his body was dumped not to cause ourselves an in the Orontes; and other even bigger problem by people say he was taken trying to solve this one. to Tadmor prison, and died So in the end your uncles

118 tales of orontes river there . . . And then other and wash your hands right people say they saw him in now and get to sleep, so Mezze prison . . . and no you’re not late for school one actually knows for sure tomorrow. what happened to him. –And what happened to Om Salah? – Om Salah . . . she gave bir th a month after that, and yes, God blessed her with a boy – she gave birth to her little Salah al-Deen. And it’s so strange, what happens in life – the baby was born with a red birthmark on his neck that looked just like a pomegranate. And so people say that Salamu the hammam-worker was right, may he rest in peace – he had an intuitive heart, but his stubborn head killed him. So anyway, let me smell your hands – yep, see? They still smell of barbecue. Go

119 The Foreign Daughter Najat El Hachmi

Najat El Hachmi THE FOREIGN DAUGHTER (novel excerpt)

120 The Foreign Daughter Najat El Hachmi

121

Najat El Hachmi THE FOREIGN DAUGHTER (novel excerpt)

When I’ve mixed the ingredients, I place the earthenware bowl on the ground so I can knead with my whole body. I can’t imagine a more sensual act than kneeling like that with my toes firmly gripping the floor. However, it’s not an invention of mine, that’s how I’ve always seen my mother make bread. And all the women over there, whether or not they had a table in their kitchen.

122 THE FOREIGN DAUGHTER Translated by Peter Bush

will no longer answer to you. From now on I will only answer to myself. To myself or whoever, but never again to those I of you who only accept me if I am meek and submissive.

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here was a hoar-frost day just beginning, of my life early this morning. that was just beginning, that, T The dew froze over however hard, I had to do it. If the slurry-scented fields as I let her enter my thoughts, if I tossed and turned on my only surreptitiously, it would squeaky spring bed that was b e l i k e l o o k i n g b a c k a n d t u r n i n g so ridiculously short and into a pillar of salt. I whiffed narrow in my dingy bedroom the damp, stale air, and if I in the old part of town. My smelled it awhile I could trace mother sleeps very lightly, has the breath I’d been exhaling such good hearing she must over the last few hours, the have heard. I thought about emanations from my own her whenever I turned and body. I tried to distract myself the bobbly sheets rucked up. analysing the making and I was sure that all the sounds breaking of everything that reaching her from my room had come out of me and was meant she always knew my now stone dead. Driven by every movement, every twist insomnia, I was swept along and turn of my body, even by a spiral of fleeting thoughts when I hardly moved, the way that took me from one place I breathed, even my insides to another, to another and rumbling. In bed, clutching then another. And so on to my pillow with tensed fingers, infinity. The way my brain to remind myself that I works, a brain that’s restless shouldn’t think about her, I and volatile, comes to the kept repeating that this was rescue, now and then. Diverts the most difficult part of the me, makes the hours not drag

124 the foreign daughter so. Tonight was like that, on and loudly, and it soothed me occasion, very occasionally. to think she was asleep, that At times they seemed the turmoil she’d suffer in eternal, unbearable, and the course of the day would suffocatingly claustrophobic; be less painful if she’d been more than once I almost got able to rest. Perhaps this will up and fled on the spot. I be the one last night before can’t stand anymore, I told many when she will no longer myself, blindly touching the sleep, and will no longer live Formica bedside table. A cold, the way she has lived till now. gleaming antiquated Formica, When the alarm went off I engrained as if it were wood did what I always do. I washed from a real tree. Where have my face and put the coffeepot you ever seen a grey tree? on to boil. I glanced round I’ve always thought it was a the kitchen and realised pretentious little table with that in the future it would those rusty legs. Formica be heartening to remember that’s not engrained, that’s all every detail, that after a time smooth and synthetic, seems I will start wondering: what more real and worthier. These were the cupboard doors thoughts struck me early this like?; what material were the morning as I put my fingers on handles?; what was the colour the cold surface and curbed of the floor-tiles? I scrutinised the impulse to run away everything so as to remember immediately. Behind the wall that long, narrow kitchen separating me from her, my forever. Its yellow furniture, mother was breathing deeply the cheap, tacky compound

125 najat el hachmi surface next to the sink. heard mother performing her The fridge just beyond that, ablutions in the bathroom. I also yellowed by time. That imagined her wiping water on is the colour of the kitchen, her arms, up to her elbows, the colour of the house, the repeating gestures she’d colour of my life here, a bland, rehearsed so often from soulless yellow, not a single childhood that they no longer delicate shade, a dull yellow. seemed like a skill she’d I stared at everything and honed but something innate, felt a bit like Evelyn in The that belonged to her, that was Dubliners, except that nobody embedded in her character. is mistreating me. I put the When the milk began to rise heavy Italian metal coffeepot I removed it from the burner down, the item Mumna and replaced it with the small bought one day in the market metal jug of water for the when it was on special offer bread. I let it cool slightly as and gave to mother knowing I poured the usual flour into she needed one so badly. For the bowl, at a glance, making a few seconds I told myself a heap and starting to control I’m not abandoning her as the amount like mother does, much as I think I am, that, or almost. Of course, I will although there’s only me and never bake bread like hers, her, she in fact knows a lot but she has stopped moaning of people who appreciate her so much about my lack of and will sympathise with her knowhow. I make a hole in as they have done before. I the middle of the mound of started to heat the milk when I flour and throw in salt and the

126 the foreign daughter yeast I enjoyed crumbling up. mound up, feeling the dough The cool feel of the leaven just form and stick to my palms, to out of the fridge and the way the delicate skin joining one it sticks together as I knead finger to the next, to each fold provokes a strange pleasure of my hands, all this rushes in in my fingertips. I am sure and out of me in a flash. What the sensations from this tiny reaches my hands first sinks area of my skin go to a very deep into every corner of my precise part of my brain that body, and I feel them, though then spreads them all around. I don’t know their names and That’s what I’m like, and how I can’t imagine their shape and work, not that I intend telling shiver all over but in a way anyone. Finding pleasure in nobody sees or notices before things that in themselves I appear to spread in every have no reason to create any, direction. This must be what multiplying the moment of they call communing with pleasure exponentially and the world, an inner, private transferring it to every corner ecstasy. I’ve always had to of my being must simply seem strive to conceal this over- a suspicious, quite abnormal the-top sensuality. If I could carry on. I don’t know if other I’d change myself so I felt people are like this, but I’m things less intensely. When not going to risk enquiring. If I’ve mixed the ingredients, I the leaven has this effect on place the earthenware bowl me, pouring the tepid water on the ground so I can knead into the hollow I made in the with my whole body. I can’t flour, starting to break the imagine a more sensual act

127 najat el hachmi than kneeling like that with my me, although my mother toes firmly gripping the floor. never kissed me like that, all However, it’s not an invention of a sudden, for no reason of mine, that’s how I’ve always whatsoever, nor I her. She seen my mother make bread. and I never kiss each other. And all the women over there, We don’t kiss today either, whether or not they had a naturally, today changes table in their kitchen. nothing. I’ve switched off the burner and poured the two As the coffeepot began to hot liquids into the teapot for bubble up, mother’s voice the coffee. Teapot is hardly the suddenly scared me with word, but neither is coffeepot. her usual morning greeting. For a few seconds I dither I quickly broke off my inner over this translation: what musing, so abruptly I was should you call the teapot for exhausted. We don’t greet coffee. Thaglasht, abarrad, each other with kisses, so dramatically different in we don’t do that. When I our-her language, and I am remember her down there, unable to find the right word. in our village, waking up in All of a sudden, this banal, the grandparents’ house and insignificant lexical slippage greeting every single woman reminds me how distant I with a few kisses on the cheek, am from her, from her world or head if it’s grandmother, or and from her way of seeing hand if it’s grandfather, I can’t and understanding things. pretend these scenes didn’t However hard I translate, feel uncomfortable. Especially h owe ve r I t r y t o p o u r t h e wo r d s as the other women kissed

128 the foreign daughter of one language into another, said her prayers yet, her face I will never succeed, there will is wet and her head bare. I always be differences. Though tried to remember her tiny translation is a pleasant curls that still linger on even diversion, and at least a though she’d tamed her hair palpable way to attempt with her narrow, tortoiseshell to bring our realities closer comb and the usual olive oil. together, and one I’ve found The parting down the middle useful ever since we came of her head allows her hair here. Of course, I was thinking to display her broad, regal about that to avoid thinking forehead. The forehead of a about her, my mother, or woman from the Rif, the face staring at her for one last of a true Tamazight from head time and revealing what my to toe, a fine lady if ever there intentions were, in case she was one. Always admirable saw I was saying goodbye. and admired, inside and out. I’m surprised she doesn’t Her integrity is known to every have an inkling about my woman in the city, to every plans, because she’s a woman Moroccan woman, that is. who knows everything, who The others couldn’t care less dreams about who will be sick about a headscarf-wearing and who will die, and the sex immigrant. A reputation that of the babes who are yet to crosses continents, renown be born. that crosses continents when one of those gossipers I looked at her out of the mentions her to their family corner of my eye as I put the in a Sunday phone-call. I’m sugar in my coffee. She’d not

129 najat el hachmi always revisiting this image point in time? Why worry over I find so amusing: the voices such a homely word. of women from such small I found it hard to swallow villages, with such small lives, the irqqusen, the scraps of crossing continents along bread soaked in oil, there telephone cables. So much was an unbearable pain in technology to chat about my throat, the kind you feel so much trivia on a Sunday when you want to cry but afternoon. stop yourself because it I don’t know what she told would be out of place. She me while we were having got up, leaving me to collect breakfast, I was striving so the dishes, and disappeared hard to capture her as she is down the dark passageway. now, so I would remember I thought: goodbye, mother, her like that forever, I paid thanks for everything, though no attention to what she was I thought that in Catalan, not saying. I wanted to register in her language. A thought the way she grasped the that suddenly didn’t ring true. pieces of bread in a pincer-like There are thoughts I have only movement of her first three had or can only recall having fingers while she rested the had in the language that is not other two on the surface of hers. the soft dough in the frying There was still a chill in the air pan. Yes, I know, it’s not a when I walked down Baixada frying pan, it’s an imsajja or de l’Eraime. I could have imsajjar, because the final r opted for Carrer del Cloquer, is silent, but so what at this

130 the foreign daughter past the Episcopal Museum that was my haven for hours and then along Carrer de la on end. However, I wasn’t Ramada to La Rambla, before thrilled by the idea of seeing heading up Carrer Morgades, its closed doors and headed first past the Post Office and to Corretgers. I stopped in local magistrates’ court, then front of the Convent of the the municipal market till I Congregation of the Blessed reached Jacint Verdaguer. Sacrament, the Sisters of But I decided I wanted to Perpetual Adoration, who enjoy the narrow old streets have always intrigued me in the old part of town and I and still seem an unknown wandered for a while smelling quantity. Well, not really its antique odour that’s been always, initially I had no idea mine for so many years. That’s what a convent or a nun was, precisely why I loathe that let alone an enclosed nun. smell. I’ve made it mine, I’ve What could a frizzy-haired so assimilated it that it has young girl from the dusty become part of myself, but North African countryside these are impassive streets know about such an exotic altogether indifferent to my reality? For years the building presence, to our presence that meant nothing to me, was is so recent. For a moment I just another of the city’s old almost turned right towards buildings, stone upon stone Plaça Don Miquel de Clariana that resisted the passing years. and took a look at the Bojons All I knew about inside was Palace which, till not very long the angel bread a mysterious ago, was home to the library hand gave you from behind

131 najat el hachmi the concierge’s shutter, a uneven flagstones and stare at hand and an arm inside a the small, simple notice with reddish sleeve that supplied its typed message: concierge us with the thin pastry full of here from… Silently I also bid the holes left by the hosts. those cloistered strangers At first I never wondered farewell. why that woman didn’t leave I thought for a moment about her hiding-place, or what the Order, what I’d read on lay behind those doors that the subject when I discovered were so firmly shut. However, them, and about their founder, at some point, perhaps in and these reminiscences a religious class or from a helped me to stop thinking comment someone made, I about my mother. And what if learned of the existence of she left home early and finds this kind of nunnery. Women me at a standstill here, and who lived inside a building asks me to show her my bag that they never left, or almost and discovers that, although never. It still intrigues me, for it is the one I always take to a long time I’ve been unable school, today I’m not carrying to walk past the Convent books but clothes to last good of the Blessed Sacrament long time, my toothbrush, without feeling the need to passport and residence step inside and ask them a permit, and the hard-backed thousand questions about the notebook where I jot down kind of life they lead. I never whatever comes to mind? have. Just like this very minute In my short-lived fantasy, when I come to a halt on the mother also rummaged in

132 the foreign daughter my purse and found my train Verdaguer and can’t avoid ticket. Then drama in the feeling the resentment of the middle of the street, a fainting poor as I walk by the houses fit, demanding explanations, of the rich, or the people who begging me not to leave. seem to be so when compared to our limited economic However, none of any of that means. Resentment and happened. fascination for the different I went on as far as the Plaça lives of my secondary school Major and crossed over to companions, the ones who Verdaguer. I gave the sand- wear designer jeans and sport free esplanade a cursory hairstyles that keep pace glance and briefly recalled how with fashion, who go skiing in I used to wander between the winter, have foreign holidays market stalls every Saturday in summer, whose parents pay there was. Every Saturday in for their weekend outings, term-time, every Tuesday and driving licences and who only Saturday if it was the holidays. have to do one thing: study. The strident cries of the stall- Why are you so surprised? holders, the changing colours That’s normal life, yours is the of the garments they sell, the one which doesn’t fit, you are general chaos. That was why the intruder. You are the one I was so intent on carving whose mother cleans their an orderly path through the houses, and is lucky to do market, zig-zagging down the that, because someone allows alleyways, so keen not to miss her into her house with that a thing. But now I’m past Jacint parting in the middle of her

133 najat el hachmi hair, regal Rif forehead and I was quite a different person, headscarf. They’ve been more I’d carry this pungent stench than generous and hospitable wherever I went. But then I towards you. You’ve no reason saw a frizzy head slip through to complain, as you speak the door and started to their language as well or worry in case somebody saw better than they do, they’ve me. A Moroccan, of course, almost forgotten where you someone who knows who I am come from and who you are, and what I do by the minute, almost. who will scrutinise me so later they can tell each other they I said goodbye to them all as spotted me in such and such a I reached the station square place and then tell their wives and went into the building and their wives will talk about with the faded salmon-pink it among themselves until one walls and red lettered station pays a visit to our house and name. speaking to my mother will I waited on the platform my happen to mention it without heart racing. All at once the making any big deal: no girl smell of the slurry filled my is as well behaved as yours, nose and now lodged there. I we’ve never seen her do wondered if this was the city’s anything silly, she never says revenge, to fill my nostrils a word to anyone. By anyone with its characteristic stink they mean I never speak to that I could never now throw men, however much they aim off; even though my life was remarks at me in the street, so different far from here, or however much they chase

134 the foreign daughter me, I always ignore them. My I don’t need to re-read The reputation is spotless. My Fear of Freedom, I don’t need reputation is my mother’s. to analyse my behaviour. I boarded the train in I imagined one of these frizzy- determined fashion, albeit haired, moustachioed men trembling, and sat down seeing me waiting for the train, forcefully on the filthy seat. I and how that would reach my coped with the stale stink of mother’s ears. However, by the unaired carriage for the that time it won’t matter, by lengthy trip and imagined I that time I’ll be faraway where was Laura leaving the enclosed I couldn’t care less about the city1 and kept telling myself nasty gossip or high repute I that was that, the Plain of Vic might enjoy with Moroccans. was behind me now. If the train Or whoever. By that time I’ll had moved more speedily, if be somebody else and in a it hadn’t slowed down on the place where I mean nothing bridge and I hadn’t seen myself to anyone. And I will be happy. plunging into the depths of the wooded valley perhaps I wouldn’t have turned back.

1 Laura is the protagonist of the classic Catalan novel from 1931, Laura in the City of the Saints, by Miquel Llort. She leaves Barcelona to marry a rich farmer and live in Comarquinal, a city based on Vic. Laura is unhappy in the stifling Catholic, rural atmosphere and eventually leaves her husband and the city.

135 najat el hachmi

Right there, on the bridge reduced it bearing in mind I where no more than two would never be going back. trains can cross at once, my When we are likely to be away head went into one of those from home for longer, we use endless spirals that assail me less so the dough ferments from time to time. A single more slowly, but that morning thought, repeating, repeating, I’d acted routinely, as if I repeating itself like a restless was returning at midday. My hammer, each repetition thoughts spiralled and I kept bringing an element that blaming myself for this slip, a makes it ever more painful. silly slip that meant that when These spirals are paralysing my mother got home she’d but rush me to the brink. The find the dough had spilt over fact I can see them eddy and the sides of the bowl. With am perfectly aware how they each loop in my thoughts, a work and observe them as single idea thumped away: if if from the outside, doesn’t I had to explain all the bread- mean I am able to do anything baking process in this Catalan to stop them. That makes language in which I think, I them even more distressing. wouldn’t be able to, I’d lack In this instance, while on the the words, because when I bridge I became obsessed do that for my own benefit by the stupid idea that in all the description is packed my plans to leave home, my with words from my mother’s mother’s home, I’d made one language that nobody else can huge, unforgivable mistake: understand. Only a person I’d used the usual amount of like me, who’d had a mother yeast for the bread, I hadn’t like mine and learned this

136 the foreign daughter language which is foreign to If I thought about A. I’d us and internalised it as I have immediately feel a dull pain to the point that it is the main in my chest, a heavy weight language she thinks in, is only pressing on my thorax, one kind of person I could speak that made me feel small and to as I sometimes speak to shrank me by the minute. I’d myself, scrambling the two often think about him simply languages. And although I’d to hurt myself and curb any known how to speak to the desire I might harbour to do locals for years without any the first thing that came to problems, I suddenly realised me, whatever took my fancy. that in the city where I was I’d opened myself wide to going to live now, where I him, I’d split myself open wanted to be myself and not in his presence. In images need to explain who I was, it was as if the skin down very probably nobody would the middle of my body had understand me. For that always been pulled taut, in an reason alone, for a ridiculous imaginary, unbroken line from thought that had come into my forehead to my vagina, a my head, that I didn’t try out line, like the river close to my on anyone, I decided to get grandparents’ house, that off the train, change platform surfaced at certain points, as and wait for the next one. To it was doing now, from my return home, I told myself, navel to the bottom of my which in my mother ’s language belly where I can trace its also means to die. tremulous, bright chestnut brown. It is the same line our women (our? Are you

137 najat el hachmi talking like them now? As when they were young. My if you were one of them?) mother never had tattoos, used to tattoo on the middle and I certainly didn’t, but I of their foreheads, on the can see that line quite clearly middle of their chins down to running down me, from top their necks, and, in the case to bottom. Like a scar that of the most daring, as far was formed at some stage as the start of their breasts. and made me the way I am, They tattooed themselves with so much inside me that when they were happy, only emerges in exceptional illiterate Muslims who had circumstances. I sense that appropriated the religion of at some point, years ago, it Mohammed and transformed was the other way round, it into something of their own, that this skin accompanied an amalgam of pagan and me, protected me, wrapped Muslim rites. They have now round me and was something stopped tattooing themselves comforting that gave me because the television pundits strength and drive to go out said it was a sinful, forbidden into the world as if it were practice, haram. And now all mine, and I alone could not only have they stopped embrace it. At some stage – tattooing themselves with that I could never recall – this the last vestiges of a written skin had closed protectively language that for centuries around me. has only been written on Once, and only once, did I feel their skins, some have even myself splitting in the right undergone painful operations place and I peeled it back to to remove the patterns etched reveal to A. everything I was

138 the foreign daughter concealing. Hey, look, this is course. That’s to say, I’m the what I have, what I am, what theoretical one, he has his I’d like to be, what frightens own life elsewhere, a happy, me, what makes me happy, well organised life we never what makes me cry, what I mention. long for, what I desire. It’s all When I wanted to hurt myself, in here, as you see it. And he, I’d summon these thoughts. It who wanted me, didn’t want wasn’t to feel self-pity, but to me like that, so insufferably bring out the pain that served intense, and I sealed my skin to punish me for everything I back in place, as if nothing had done and not done. had happened. All I retain from that is a different image I would stand very still in front of my body: apart from the of the mirror and think about line scarred down the centre, all that to justify my passivity I always saw myself now with in respect of everything a deep gash across the middle happening around me, how of my head. I sometimes I listened to what was being touch it in case I find it soaked decided on my behalf and in thick blood. Obviously A. reacted as if they were talking never knew anything about about someone else. You’ll any of that, and the last time never be the courageous kind, we met we said goodbye as I’d tell myself shut up like that we always did, after spending in the bathroom, because hours talking about the he didn’t want you, and the poetry of the troubadours. mirror reflected the face of a A. and I are experts on love, starving stranger, with gaunt on the theoretical sort, of cheek-bones and darker lips.

139 najat el hachmi

I combed my hair that was her own path in life. smooth, at last.Under control, I put down the book that at last. Anyone who’d met me always seems the work of then would never have known a lunatic, an individual’s I used to have volumes of thick pathological raving rather curly hair that framed my face than any plausible way to like a bonfire. Not now, not understand human nature, anymore, after the chemical and I review the line down the treatments, softeners, middle of my body yet again. creams, driers and irons; As I always touch it on my chin now I had straight hair that and follow it down, I almost wasn’t unruly at all. Pleasant always end up triggering an and placid. Just like mother orgasm. The idea is tempting, always dreamed I would have if it weren’t for the guests in and like I thought I’d dreamed our living-room. of them too, our shared ideal, our common struggle against We heard the doorbell ring a frizzy inheritance. just before five o’clock and my mother leapt out of bed I turned away from the mirror like an out-of-place spring. and sat back on the toilet. I Her siesta is sacred. Whatever picked up the book, Thus happens, in good times and Spake Zarathustra. I laughed foul, whether it’s hot or cold, at myself, spiritedly, look at whether we’re having all the what you’re reading, I said. luck in the world or feeling Your situation is headline under siege. Happy or sad, stuff: Moroccan (?) girl reads exhausted or energetic, after Nietzsche shut in the lavatory lunch, once she’s washed for and does nothing to decide

140 the foreign daughter afternoon prayers, tidied the told me to put the water on kitchen a bit and ordered me to boil, and, stretched out on to finish the job, my mother the mtarbath in the dining- would go to bed, stretching room, deep into my reading out on her side, knees bent, of Ramona, adéu,2 I poked with one hand under the out my feet to track down pillow supporting her head. slippers that had the strange She shut her eyes, and was off, habit of pointing their toes was asleep, now breathing in in opposite directions all of peaceful, measured fashion. their own accord when I was When the bell rang, I imagined on those warm, foamy seats. her leaping up and making I wasn’t worried about my that first gesture, the most headscarf - that was never a important of all, putting her move I made. I arranged the hands to her head to see large cushions tidily along the what had happened to her wall, with their velvety shapes headscarf in the free-for- and such Moroccan scenes all she imagined sleep must that looked straight from a have been. Quick and deft, I Chinese plate. was certain she would rapidly I had filled the pan with water undo the knot on the nape of to boil and grabbed the mint her neck and place the piece and was now sorting it stem of cloth back over her hair, leaving only a couple of inches 2 Ramona, adéu, a novel by Montserrat Roig, from 1972, that exposed, a reminder of her portrays three generations in the life body’s prized jewel. of a family living in Barcelona from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1960s, Before opening the door she mainly from the perspective of the women.

141 najat el hachmi by stem, making a bunch in my stumbling, never allowing the hand, snipping off the stalk slightest space for silence: ends that had gone brown how are you? Labas? Mlih? where they’d been cut, placing How’s the family? How’s the perfect bunch under the your health? And so on and tap and energetically shaking so forth. In fact, they are all off the water into the sink. questions that in the end From the kitchen I could hear lead to the single response the ladies chattering, the that covers every possible ancient litany they repeated response: thanks to God. whenever they met. Clasping Alhamdu li Allah. Everything hands they held under their is fine because everything chins as they kissed. One depends on the will of God. cheek, then the other, and So why waste so much time another and another, every asking those questions? Why cheek that was there. The the vacuous, pointless litany? loud kisses our women gave, In that sense I’ve always been infinite if they’d not seen a poor giver of greetings. I each other for a long time, truncated when encounters don’t give the stock reply, I were more frequent, but take the lady’s hand, give the always repeated, bounced minimal kisses her frantic to- off cheeks, lips smacking and-fro will allow and struggle against cheeks or in the air to ask how she is. Worst of all, as they rehearsed their polite I’m incapable of giving thanks formulas with each movement to God, thanks for what? Who that, not knowing how, the is God? Where is he? How do two kissers alternated without you know he exists? Don’t you

142 the foreign daughter see that it’s a huge invention might bring you such and such dreamt up by people who for a thing, or send down this or centuries have been trying that scourge. Consequently, to: 1) give a meaning to their the richness of my language existence, and 2) control you suddenly diminished the poor, ingenuous illiterates, moment I stopped believing and dominate everyone in God. I now know I need who finds life slightly scary, only half the words to say namely, everybody. However, whatever I want to say. naturally, I say nothing to these women swathed in their robes who always end up finding a moral to their stories, which is yet another reason to fear God or whatever. I’m just happy that years ago I eradicated all the expressions in our- their language that remit to this superior, supreme being who is unknown to me. I don’t say bi ismi Allah, in the name of God, when I start a meal, or Insha’Allah hoping that something will happen, or Istagfiru Allah when someone sneezes, let alone use any expression wishing that God

143 Captivity György Spiró

György Spiró CAPTIVITY (novel excerpt) 144 Captivity György Spiró

145

György Spiró CAPTIVITY (novel excerpt)

Uri recalled almost nothing about being dragged away for the first time—only the smell of chicken droppings, his father placing him on his shoulders and carrying him long distances, which felt so good that he would dream about it even now, at the age of seventeen. In his dream, he wished he would wake up to see his father standing above him, saying “Come on, my boy, hop on my shoulders again.”

146 CAPTIVITY Translated by Tim Wilkinson

ou’re setting off for stern bearded features, his Jerusalem the day prominent cheekbones, his “Yafter tomorrow!” deeply set eyes; the little square thrown onto the wall Uri woke up with a start. happened to be gleaming just His father was standing over above Uri’s disheveled, greasy him. hair. His father was standing Uri raised himself up on his there somberly, no longer rags, picked up the scroll that looking at him but gazing at the had slipped from his hand yard. He turned on his heels to the floor, and looked up and pushed aside the carpet apologetically from where that hung over the doorway, he was sitting. An awkward so forcefully that it conveyed smile played across his lips, his deep-seated disgust at his as it did whenever he was son, at his own position, with caught doing something, and Creation in general. he always was caught, even if Uri had not yet fully regained it wasn’t anything bad. consciousness; he was merely His father fidgeted a bit in ashamed of what his father the gloomy nook, the gray had caught him doing: falling February afternoon throwing asleep while reading. He had light from the yard on his a habit of taking a nap in the

147 györgy spiró afternoon, and even though burrowing into the T iber ’s mud he had nothing to do and and merging with the murky was quite free to withdraw halos in the yard. The dream to his hovel and go to sleep cannot have been altogether whenever he wanted, he felt disagreeable, because a guilty about it nevertheless. pleasant feeling lingered, a It was as if reading were a hopeful image, though there penance, a humiliating duty, was no point trying to recall for some ancient sin that he it. It was as though his real had not even committed. Yet living was done in his dreams. he liked reading; it was the There were people sauntering only thing that he really liked around in the yard, but too far to do. off to recognize; he saw them only in blurred outline. At this Scroll in hand, he got up to hour of the day they were his feet, stretched his aching probably women, because the back, turned his head around menfolk were still going about and cracked his neck, shrugged their business. his shoulders repeatedly, bent down, then gazed out the Uri had poor eyes. window. His leg was bad too. Ever since Uri shivered in the damp he was small, walking had hurt and chilly darkness of Rome his feet and ankles. His back in early February. Images usually hurt also. His right hip from his dreams were still had turned out bigger than drifting around in his mind, the left, but it was his eyes sinking ever deeper like fish that were plagued worst of

148 captivity all; he was very near-sighted. had not become pregnant It had not always been so. Up again after the second girl was to the age of ten or eleven born, so the teacher realized he had been able to do all that Joseph was in a difficult the things the other boys his position. age could do, but at some That evening his father had point he dropped out of their interrogated him. games, moved less assuredly, squinted, and leaning ever “Is it true that you don’t see closer to the scroll when he well?” he asked pointedly. read. It had not bothered him He walked over to the furthest at first, coming on so gradually corner in the main room and that he had barely noticed; asked how many fingers he it was just that he often had was holding up. The main headaches. room was not all that big, but Eusebius, the teacher who even so, the hand was a long took care of him and ten or way off, and it was dim as fifteen other boys in the house well. The oil lamp was barely of prayer (that was what the flickering, but it gave off a lot community paid him for), told of fumes, and that too was Joseph that, in his opinion, bothersome. Uri sighed and Uri had poor eyesight. Joseph chose at random, “Two.” From had protested: no one in his the silence that followed, he family had poor eyesight, his could tell that he had guessed son included. The teacher just wrong. shook his head. Joseph’s first- That was when relations born was his only son, his wife

149 györgy spiró with his father started to go From that point on, his downhill. father had avoided him. He did not want to see that his He had always been the son could not see. Doctors precious boy, the only whole claimed that dried gum person Joseph had managed from the balsam tree had a to sire. He was the favorite. beneficial effect on cataracts His father had been proud and shortsightedness, and as that his son knew how to read Joseph had once traded in, and write before other boys among other things, balsam his age; he had boasted about and dates, and was at that him and had also started moment still receiving them instructing him in the logic of in shipments from Judaea, business, as if he were already he instructed Uri to place an adult. over his eyes every evening His father repeated the a poultice soaked in a watery experiment half a year later. solution of powdered balsam Uri confessed then that he gum. Uri diligently applied could not see how many the compresses and was fingers his father was holding nauseated by the smell of up. the balsam, but his eyesight “Because you don’t want to did not improve. Another six see!” Joseph had shouted months, and Uri still could angrily. not see how many fingers his father was showing. Joseph That sentence had haunted hinted that he should stop Uri ever since. with the poultices, since

150 captivity balsam was expensive. beginning nor end. Uri was relieved and also Houses on the far side of despondent. the Tiber—the Transtiberim in Latin, though the Jewish He could read all right; population referred to it indeed, if he screwed his eyes simply as Far Side, as if up tight he could even see they were looking back at further away as well, and if themselves with pity from he looked through a funneled somewhere else, from hand he could even see for the true Rome, even a bit quite a distance, albeit only disparagingly—had originally over a tiny area, but honestly been built contiguous with quite a long distance. He tried their yards. They had formed that out a lot when he was a single elongated, complex, alone, because, bit by bit, he erratic, winding system of retreated to the little hovel, dwellings and alleys on the rarely even stepping out into old-time Far Side. Because the the courtyard, which he could Jews constructed their houses see quite well, everything as they had in Palestine, with being so close. He would stare the windows and doorways out at the yard through the opening only onto the inner cracks between his fingers, courtyard, all that existed which also helped him to see to the outside world was an the far-off corners. interconnected wall. As a It was a spacious courtyard, result, what had come into impossible to tell where it existence was an endless, ended; in truth it had neither seemingly impervious single-

151 györgy spiró story zigzagging system drinking water because the of fortifications, spiked at aqueducts supplied Far Side irregular intervals with strong with polluted water, good for g a t e s , b o t h s e c r e t i v e a n d e x o t i c nothing more than irrigation, to anyone not familiar with if at all. Requests had been this part of the Transtiberim. made from one generation to Yet it was well known that the next, but they were not the Jews lived a wretched granted better water by the existence: leprous Jews would City, and in districts that were beg around the Porta Capena, blessed with a better water at the beginning of the Appian supply outsiders had to pay Way, for all to see, and many the locals good money for found themselves in that what the latter received free part of town, given that the of charge. The water of the main gateway to commerce Tiber was drinkable in theory, on the southern side of the but the Jews considered it city was outside the nearby unclean, especially when, from Via Ostiensis. Produce was time to time, it overflowed cheaper there than around with corpses, so they did not the Forum, so half of Rome drink it or even wash with it. shopped there. It would They preferred water from also have been obvious that cisterns, and there were some haggard people with stooped benighted souls who, obeying backs swarmed around with the religious precepts of their their pitchers, bearded and ancestors more strictly than in worn sandals and frayed most, considered water from togas: they were going for any other district impure,

152 captivity so their families were also to them from a distance, and prohibited from using it. the afflicted were obliged to There might well have been smash to pieces the single- something to it, though, use clay vessels provided to because the water in those them by the community, and, lead pipes left a grayish scum to the great delight of pottery on the children’s skin, who merchants, to bury the pieces turned out slower and dimmer three feet underground. That than the others. aside, they were free to move around, even go beyond the Lepers, incidentally, were walls of the Jewish quarter to treated decently; they beg like any other sick person. were not expelled from the They too were obliged to go to community but had a fairly the house of prayer, but not spacious pen designated as only were priests forbidden their dwelling place, minimal to touch them, they were not rations were provided, and even supposed to see them, they counted on tzedakah, or lest they become unclean charitable funds, or at least themselves, so the lepers on a charity bowl of victuals had to stand throughout the for immediate relief, which services in a dark corner that even the most destitute and was walled off by planks; needy visitors can count on they arrived earlier than the from a Jewish community priest and left well after. anywhere. But because Because there were so few lepers were impure, their priests, their cleanliness family was not allowed direct was safeguarded by the contact and could only shout

153 györgy spiró most ancient and stringent decisions, so many of Rome’s regulations. As descendants Levites asked to be sent back of Aaron, they were sent from to Jerusalem, and the Roman Judaea to Rome for the more municipal administration important festivals to confer was only too happy to oblige. blessings, and afterwards they In their place, others came would return to Jerusalem. In from the ranks of the lower the course of time they also priesthood and the lower sent out a few Levites, who Levites (for it seems that, could not themselves become even there, not everything priests but could act as priests’ went so swimmingly for all assistants: it was they who priests and Levites), and blew the shofar, they who after a bit of administrative did the singing and played the maneuvering they were music, they who collected the generally allowed into Rome, taxes. The ritual butchers and especially if wealthy Jewish slaughterers also came from families vouched for their their ranks, so there were subsistence. The officials of more of them in Rome than the magistracy could breathe there were priests. easily, because they would not be obliged to hand out Apart from their religious free grain to the newcomers activities, the priestly families and their families. After all, and Levites had no say in people like that arrived with the life of a community. family; indeed that was largely Unlike back East, the rich the point of leaving the Holy and respected families in City and traveling out to the Rome did not cede important

154 captivity impure diaspora. But after a no more than thirty or forty few weeks or months they thousand, the majority of would get fed up with the them the gradually liberated climate in Rome and go back progeny of the slaves who to Jerusalem; then either were sporadically carried somebody else would be off to Rome. They did have sent to replace them or not. synagogues, however, twelve In time, a few Levite families of them, one of which was on settled down and got rich, the Appian Way, where they mostly through the ritually also had an underground pure oil and wine that they cemetery, a catacomb. imported from Judaea and Counting on eventual Galilee. resurrection as they did, they did not incinerate their dead Rome’s non-Jews were not like the foolish Latini. Seven of very interested, to tell the the prayer houses were along truth, in how the population the road to Ostia alone, the on the right side of the Tiber thoroughfare by which goods lived. delivered by sea reached There were many small Rome by land. ethnic enclaves in Rome, and The first of the temples, outsiders had no awareness named for Marcus Agrippa, into them, and the Jewish the Roman potentate who had enclave was not among the given patronage to the Jews, larger and most important was built almost a century ones either: in a city of around before and was still standing. one million, it accounted for Although Uri’s family did not

155 györgy spiró go there, Joseph had showed first converted to Judaism. it to his young boy, telling him Later on, to simplify matters, the tale of the first convoy of women were imported from Jewish captives who refused the Jewish part of the empire. to work until the Roman Herod the Great, king of the slaveholders accepted the Jews and a friend of Marcus Sabbath as the slaves day Agrippa’s, established good of rest; they would follow relations with Emperor the law laid down by their Augustus and managed to religion at all costs, and they finagle permission to ship wanted their own temple. A women in to Rome. There number of them were killed were prostitutes and thieves on account of those demands, and women with the clap but even still the rest would among them, but they were not relent. Uri clapped his Jewish and there was no need hands in delight at hearing to bother converting them. this, and he resolved to be Shipping them cost money, that brave if ever needed. however, his father recounted, He also rejoiced when his and that is something that no father related that the lords state power likes. Herod the had paired their males and Great and Emperor Augustus females off to boost the realized that, and before long ranks of their slaves, but the this fount of women dried up. Jewish men would only go Under Roman law, the along with it if any non-Jewish descendants of slaves were women with whom they supposed to inherit their were designated to multiply

156 captivity master’s religion, but the it homage in practice more Jews were unwilling to zealously than did the Greeks. propagate on those terms, The female slaves, incidentally, so an exception had to be were glad to turn Jewish: made. Non-Jewish slaves they knew that Jews, unlike were not granted the same Greeks or Romans, would concessions, so they loathed never abandon a child. There the Jews, which was nothing were even some male slaves new; ever since Alexander the who converted, calculating Great conquered the East, that the Jewish communities non-Jews who lived there had would contribute to their always resented the Jews and manumission, and there the special treatment that were indeed some cases of they demanded, appealing Jewish converts freed in this each time to prerogatives that manner. The only thing that they had won under Persian may have given them pause rule. It was one thing if they was circumcision, a painful all fell, Greeks and Jews alike, procedure for an adult, and under foreign—Persian— not without danger. The dominion, but another thing women, though, were not altogether if the Jews came threatened with clitoral under Greek sway but for resection, since the Roman centuries refused to accept it. Jews did not demand it, so Since both the Greeks and the there were droves of Syrian, Jews had fallen under Roman Greek, Arab, Abyssinian, dominion, the Jews regarded Egyptian, German, Gallic, Rome as a Babylon, paying Hispanic, Thracian, Illyrian,

157 györgy spiró and female slaves of other part of the husband’s family origins who became Jewish in forever, with no ties of any Rome, to the greater glory of kind to their parents’ family— the One and Only God, giving on that score, Roman and birth to Jewish children in the Jewish laws were in accord. zigzag ghetto of Far Side. And A girl who converted to the since the Transtiberim—which bosom of the One and Only was not even fenced in at that God could only be thankful time, already considered part that her parents had not cast of the city by government her out as prey for wolves or bodies, albeit unofficially— men, or strangled her at birth. was inhabited not only by That is how a Jewish Diaspora Jews but also by people of took root in the capital of the various conquered nations, empire. for the surplus daughters who became Jewish converts Joseph considered it an it was often only a matter injustice that he must live moving a few houses away, on foreign soil, as technically so they were even able to visit speaking everyone who did their parental households, not live in the Holy Land should they so wish. Not that was unclean, and that was they had much wish to: their a blemish no water could non-Jewish families were wash away. But, then, it was generally more than happy not the first time this had to be rid of them, and they happened in Jewish history, made that quite clear. In any he said, and he pointed out case, the women became to Uri that the Roman Jews

158 captivity were much better off than Rome’s Jews were rich, and those back home, as they well an even greater number were knew it; they acted rather like getting poorer. There might a sizable permanent legation have even been a connection in Rome, and if they traded of sorts between the two shrewdly, and Rome and Jewry phenomena. were bounded by ever more The original Far Side stood threads, as was predestined right in the center of the Jewish by necessity, they were only quarter, with new houses doing what the Creator had built around it, but in recent seemingly intended them to years rich entrepreneurs had do. started building multistory The winding interior tenement blocks. Joseph courtyard had originally feared that, one of these days, been a single labyrinthine their own ramshackle shed system. Fortification had would be cleared away, along arisen spontaneously in the with the small huts around it, open space—although the and replaced by four- or five- wealthiest, as is the custom story buildings. That is what wherever Mammon is master, had happened in the non- were separated from the Jewish areas immediately next communal yard with high to Far Side, where Egyptians, walls and indeed had special Syrians and Greeks from Asia guards to protect them—may Minor lived just as wretchedly money be cursed eternally— as most Jews, and they went especially now, because an around the Jewish area just as ever increasing number of comfortably as in their own.

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The reason the yards had thousand cubits, which is only become a single, capricious, a few hundred paces. They erratic space was because, wanted to visit neighbors, to on holy days, Jews were not chat and gossip, none of which allowed to wander more is prohibited on a holy day as than two thousand cubits long as no work is being done. from their home. A cubit Chitchat is hardly working, measured roughly forty-five as the Creator himself is centimeters, but it might be well aware, and he no doubt somewhat longer or shorter jabbers with his archangels, depending on the size of the since everyone knows he forearm, since a cubit was the got his own work done in six measure from the elbow to days. So people joined their the fingertips. In other words, yards together, which meant on holy days Jews were not that they were able to cover supposed to go more than a not two thousand but ten meager half-mile from their thousand cubits, festival or home. not, without leaving their own yard, or at least that was what And the Jews had lots of holy they told their Creator, who days, starting with the four had to accept the perfection main festivals every year, of their reasoning. This is how each of which lasted for quite the Law was outwitted by a few days. Then there was the Jews of Rome, much like the Sabbath, each week from the other approximately five sundown Friday to sundown million Jews in the world at Saturday. Even then, people the time; that is to say, they wanted to go more than two

160 captivity adhered to the Law because pronounced it in those days, they respected it to the letter. with the nasal before the “s” disappearing and the word A special ordinance was laid clipped, the end result being down on this crafty sanction, the “Trastevere,” the name by a joint ruling, with various fine which this district would still sub-clauses, one pertaining to be known two thousand years Rome. It stipulated that the later). The whole of Rome one-time Far Side counted as was unclean, Far Side too, a single courtyard, and people according to those who sought were allowed to do within it a return to the basic principles anything they would do in of the faith, themselves being their own home, even on the impure, just like every Jew in Sabbath or festivals. There was the Diaspora. But be that as it fierce debate over whether may, the inhabitants of the old the ruling also applied to new Far Side continued to reap the housing constructed outside benefit of the blessed ruling. the walls of Far Side, with some arguing that the whole In this labyrinth of a yard that of Jerusalem counted as one was Far Side, there was no combined courtyard, and need to resort to that pious it was permitted to deliver deceit that almost every Jew in certain things within it, even Judaea committed, before the on the Sabbath, whereas holy day began, by setting out others opposed, saying that a meal two thousand cubits Rome was not a Jewish city, away to signal that this was the nor was Transtiberim (or boundary of a household, so Traseteberin, as they generally when the holy day was in force

161 györgy spiró they were permitted to go a and the scriptures of the further two thousand cubits prophets, but the essence was from those provisions. This nevertheless the communal way, too, they were adhering meal, the costs of which were to the Law—whichever suited covered by the communal them. That trick could not be tax. Festal food could not employed in Rome, because be skimpy; there had to be any food left out would have meat and wine on the menu, been instantly stolen. The likewise vegetables and fruit, outside world corrupts the to say nothing of unleavened inner; intensive Jewish society bread. Poor families would was wrecked by pantheistic have very little to eat for the (hence godless) Roman rest of the week, but on the society, and lamentations Sabbath they could eat their could be wallowed in on fill, and for free, through the that account. It was typical go o d o f f i c e s o f t h e c o m m u n i t y. Latin stupidity that their first The rationale, therefore, emperor was still under the for this singular form of misapprehension that Jews architecture may have been eat nothing on the Sabbath, primarily religious—to be as if it were a day of fasting! more specific, an injunction Even after decades this was against death by starvation— still raising eyebrows among but neither was the fortified Rome’s Jews, who prayed on structure entirely irrational. the Sabbath in their houses of prayer and listened to When the Emperor Tiberius interpretations of the Torah decided, fifteen years before,

162 captivity that adherents to the cult kindly Roman notable who of Isis and the Jewish faith was their patron, the freed should clear out of Rome, the Joseph being a client, the Roman mob got wind of the father and family were able news and tried to lay siege to return to their ransacked, to this mysterious system of wrecked home. walls, but because they had Apart from the four thousand no grasp of the whole, they unmarried Jewish men who were unable to force their were called up for military way in. The Jews defended service and taken off to themselves by firing arrows Sardinia, supposedly to ward and throwing javelins from off gangs of robbers—though the flat rooftops. the climate and homesickness They had to leave their homes finished more of them off— in Rome all the same, with virtually all of the Jews with Joseph fleeing with his wife families drif ted back, bit by bit; and three-year-old Uri. in total, a couple of hundred were killed by the robbers in They withdrew to the hill the country , and the Emperor village of Ariccia, twenty miles Tiberius was no longer issuing from Rome, to a stable with such strict edicts. a leaky roof. Joseph cleaned out the manure and plowed, The houses were repaired, the his wife strewed straw and furnishings slowly made good. litter, and Uri spent the whole Not that there was much to day chasing poultry. But six replace, given how poor the months later, thanks to the Jews of Rome already were.

163 györgy spiró

Uri recalled almost nothing back the valuables that had about being dragged away been deposited with them, for the first time—only the and to this day the family still smell of chicken droppings, ate out of such vessels, as the his father placing him on his father would sometimes note, shoulders and carrying him though that did not hinder long distances, which felt so Sarah in her lamentations. good that he would dream T h e s e d a y s , h i s f a t h e r n o l o n g e r about it even now, at the age looked up, but dourly spooned of seventeen. In his dream, he in his food. If he ever looked wished he would wake up to at his wife, at the repulsive see his father standing above sight of her kerchief-covered him, saying “Come on, my boy, head, profound disgust shot hop on my shoulders again.” from his eyes: it was not the All that had remained of the thieves he hated, but her. And temporary exile was that his he held his tongue. Divorce mother, Sarah, would still cry was difficult for a Jew in out from time to time at the Rome: there were so few of memory of an elegant utensil them. Divorce was easy in she had once owned. It had Judaea, and that was not just been tucked away and not hearsay but written law: If returned by the non-Jewish anyone found another woman freemen, also clients of their more beautiful than his wife, patron. She would moan on that was, in itself, sufficient and on about that. The truth grounds for divorce. A man is that several of them had could divorce, and he could been honest enough to hand even drive his wife away if

164 captivity she undressed, which was not purchase costly carpets for prohibited between a married the Temple in Jerusalem. They couple on certain occasions. absconded with the money, of But then, Judaea was not a course, and an incensed Fulvia border castle for Jewry but reported this to the emperor, the body of the nation, and all and Tiberius in turn flew into sorts of things were possible a rage. there. In Rome, Jews could From other variations that Uri marry their cousins, unlike the heard, however, he suspected Latini, because their numbers it was only a pretext for were scant. In Judaea and expelling the Jews from Rome, Galilee it counted as incest and on account of Germanicus. was forbidden. On the other hand, a Roman widow was Germanicus, the famous under no obligation to marry general, was a nephew and her dead husband’s brother, adopted son of the emperor’s, which was still compulsory in but Tiberius took offense Palestine. at him and packed him off to the Eastern provinces. Uri’s father never spoke about Germanicus had made the that half year of privation. The mistake of setting off from story went around that the Syria to Alexandria, even whole exile was caused by though Egypt was a no-go four vile, thieving Jews who, area for all Romans of any by some means, were able rank, seeing that Egypt, as to win over Fulvia, wife of every street urchin in Rome Saturninus, the senator, and knew, was Rome’s bread to wheedle cash from her to

165 györgy spiró basket; it was the source poisoned. The rumor was that of the free grain, of which the emperor had dismissed Jews who had been granted the previous governor of citizenship also partook. Judaea, Valerius Gratus, for Anyone who disturbed Egypt meeting with Germanicus, would bring serious famine although it would have been down on Rome. Anthony had difficult for him not to meet been the last to try it, but his with the emperor’s adopted navy was defeated at Actium son when he was wandering by Octavian, who became the around Judaea. The matter Emperor Augustus. He then was of little importance, prohibited Roman senators one governor being much and legionnaires from visiting the same as another viewed Egypt. Tiberius must have from Rome. But this particular presumed that Germanicus, event did become noteworthy passing through Judaea, had because the emperor waited cut a deal with the Jews living seven years before relieving there that they would stand Gratus, which was not a sign by him if a war were to break of forgetfulness but rather, out with Egypt. Indeed, it is according to political analysts, quite certain that this was precisely the opposite: he his thinking. Otherwise, why never forgot and sooner or not expel Egyptians, who later would take vengeance lived separately from the for sure. It was unusual, by Jews in Transtiberim, along the way, for Emperor Tiberius with the Jews? Germanicus, to replace procurators and subsequently, was fatally prefects, choosing rather to

166 captivity leave them in place on the are just as up on Roman gossip principle that “a well-fed tick as any other nation, and they sucks less blood than a hungry have just as many worthy one.” political commentators. It may well be, though, that Uri was interested in history; the previous prefect got mixed all tales with twists and turns up somehow in the Sejanus interested him, and he read affair. countless works of Greek and Latin authors in his little Agrippina the Elder is another alcove. There he was left alone oft-cited example. She was and could spend the whole Germanicus’s very popular day musing and piecing things widow who, fourteen years together. The images he saw in after her husband died, his waking dreams were sharp was starved to death by and bright, almost palpable. Tiberius. It wasn’t like that, Imagination is a great thing, interjects another political if someone has it. commentator: banished to the island of Pandataria, He could read Greek, because Agrippina went on a hunger their neighbors in the Jewish strike, a centurion poked out quarter had Greek as their one of her eyes, then she mother tongue, and most was force-fed, on Tiberius’s Jewish boys in Rome answered orders, but incompetently, to a Greek name. They brought and that’s what caused her it from Palestine, where death. What does it matter? Hellenization had proved She was murdered. The Jews most successful in the area of

167 györgy spiró language, and they had passed the Hebrew texts had been it on to their successors in translated into Greek for the Rome. Cultured Latini spoke congregation in the house of more polished Greek, but this prayer. A Greek translation was also Greek; Jews spoke of the Old Testament was the same Greek as the Greeks already in existence: the themselves, it was impossible Septuagint, which seventy- to tell them apart from their two scholars translated in pronunciation. seventy-two days on the island of Pharos in Alexandria Joseph and his family were about two centuries before. exceptional in that they At home, left to themselves, also spoke Aramaic at everyone would read aloud home, which was related from this Greek Torah. It was to Hebrew, the original but not permitted to recite the by then extinct language of Holy Scriptures by heart, the Holy Scriptures. There lest one commit the grave was a somewhat calculated error of misremembering a dimension to this: Joseph had text and saying something the view that as long as it was other than what was written; necessary to do business with that might have unforeseen commercial agents who spoke consequences for the whole only Aramaic, his children of Creation. In the house of should learn it too. prayer, on the other hand, Rome’s Jews had, for Hebrew texts were translated some time, spoken neither impromptu in front of the Aramaic nor Hebrew, and assembled community, and of course a person was not

168 captivity forbidden to learn by heart the religion of her husband that day’s reading from the and son. Septuagint, provided he If Sarah was not originally pretend to understand the Jewish—as her religious Hebrew and translate from overzealousness suggested, that. because fresh coverts were It did not occur to Uri as a child always that way—then she that his mother’s knowledge must have been born a of Aramaic was somehow slave and Joseph must have unusual, and that other emancipated her. Given mothers spoke better Greek Joseph’s business acumen, than she did. It was only as an he would have chosen a adolescent that he reflected slave girl who spoke Aramaic, on the fact that his mother which meant she would have was called Sarah, which was come from Syria or Babylon. a name, as he was well aware Uri assumed that his father, by then, often bestowed on who had been orphaned at proselytized women who had a young age, could not have converted to the Jewish faith. been prosperous enough to By that time, however, he land a Jewish girl, for even was not on good terms with if he had waived a dowry he his father, so he did not ask would not have been much of if Sarah was Jewish by birth, a catch, and so he had been and there was no way he was obliged to marry a slave girl. going to ask his mother, with Under the laws of Palestine, whom he had never had a this meant that he, Uri, as the good relationship. She took son of a proselytized slave such care to abide strictly by girl, would be of very lowly

169 györgy spiró status over there in the Old understood. Country, because his mother’s The Jews had a habit of writing descent would apply to him Latin with Greek letters, too. He might not be a slave which came readily to them. or new convert, and he would They learned the Hebrew count as an Israelite, but one alphabet as well, of course, of least esteemed. It was a which they called Assyrian stroke of luck to have been lettering, so that they would born a Jew in Rome, where at least be able to read the only the paternal lineage was Sh’ma for themselves in taken into account. their daily prayers and, when For Uri, learning Latin was not necessary, the psalms, if called easy. upon in the house of prayer. Occasionally elements of all The young people of the three alphabets would be Jewish quarter spoke only mixed up in a single sentence, a broken Latin; they rarely even a single word. Uri was crossed over to the other fond of that sort of mixture, bank of the Tiber, where Rome and he did not transpose Latin itself lay. They contented or Greek texts into Hebrew themselves with the frenetic lettering out of negligence or life of Far Side, and they could ignorance or even just for fun. get by perfectly well with He devised abbreviations in all their native Greek any time three languages for himself, they ventured over. Even the to copy things more quickly if non-Jewish inhabitants of Far he was loaned a particularly Side spoke Greek, or else they interesting scroll for a few spoke a language that no else days. He would omit vowels

170 captivity or diacritical marks, so that his Gaius was the forename of shorthand was legible to no their patron, while Joseph one apart from himself, and had adopted Lucius from the a few months later, not even patron’s father, who had freed himself. He would write pure Joseph’s father. That was Hebrew texts with the left the custom; the forenames hand from right to left, Greek of Jewish freemen, which and Latin with the right hand was often the only name from left to right, and he had they had, was the same as no idea why that was. He was their patron’s, as a result of amazed when he discovered, which the Jews of Rome had from a scroll, that systems of primarily Latin and, second of Latin and Greek shorthand all, Greek names and virtually already existed; others had none had a Semitic name. The invented them just like him; very fact that Joseph’s father he happily learned those too. gave him a Semitic name is significant; he found slavery Gaius Theodorus. When he hard to endure and longed was small, he had first written to be in Palestine, though he down his official name this had never seen it, as he too way, then as Uriel, which was a slave born in Rome, and means “the Lord is my light,” indeed his father before him. was only used within the family; no one else knew what The Jews of Rome, then, had he was called at home. Latin and Greek names, but they were still Jews; they did Officially, his father was not not eat unkosher food, they Joseph either, but Lucius observed the Sabbath and Ioses. the festivals, and they prayed

171 györgy spiró sedulously and in accordance look through, and when he with the rules. was wearing it on his nose and looking through the If ever he was not reading holes he did get a nice, if very or copying, by screwing up restricted, view. The view his unaided eyes Uri could was nice because everything see roughly as far as three was sharper and more stable, doors along in the zigzagged, relatively speaking, than when crisscross yard, and between he had simply peeked through his fingers up to six or seven his forefinger and thumb; in doors along. He wanted to fact, it just as good as when have keen eyesight, as his he looked through the splayed father’s remark had cut him fingers of both hands held in to the quick and still rankled; front of his eyes. there were times when, trying his eyes out in the morning, he The plank had the extra may have seen more clearly, advantage that it could be perhaps, but by evening he held in place with just one had to conclude that he was hand, but he dared not show still not seeing well enough. himself outside his own hovel with the nose-board, because Not long before, he had people would have laughed. fabricated a contraption for Indeed, he did not even dare himself out of a wooden to stand close to the window, board that could rest on the with the device on his nose ridge of the nose, so that he or not, because it was known did not have to look through throughout the yard, just his fingers all the time: he like everything was known, bored two small holes to that he was in the habit of

172 captivity hanging around and gazing heard saying that this person out; in fact he was mocked or that had been struck down on that account, and even his in that manner by the wrath of father had told him to lay off: the Lord. Blind people, unless “Spying is despicable,” was they were trachomatous, were what he said, so Uri would not segregated; they were not spend long periods of time regarded as unclean, merely loafing deep in his alcove, as unfortunate. Uri brooded for far as he could get from the days and weeks and months on window, and he hoped no end about whether the Lord one outside could make him had marked him to be blind, out in the gloom. There was or of it was simply a case of his a story told about a weak- having so much else to do that eyed but rich Latini who was he was not paying attention, able to see everything clearly or maybe even Satan, or more by skillfully holding a ground likely Fate, intervening to diamond before his eyes and cause this affliction. Uri held looking through it. But Uri had an assortment of Judeo-Latin- never encountered anything Greek notions about it because of the kind; indeed, he had he had read a lot. What he never seen a gemstone at all. really did not understand was why he had not been He feared going totally blind. born blind from the outset, Blindness was not common if that was his fate. Had the in the labyrinthine yard, and Lord changed his mind after anyone who went blind did he was already underway? not roam around outside, but What sort of considerations people could sometimes be could be driving Him, he

173 györgy spiró wondered? Uri raked through nothing else, nothing handed his childhood but could not down in the oral tradition, identify a single transgression and that was also the official so massive that he would have position of the high priests to be inexorably blinded on in Jerusalem: the Creator its account; when he looked had generously created the back, even with the best will world, and mankind as part of in the world toward the Lord, it, that it should exist, but he he could find nothing in his had no further say thereafter; actions. everyone was free to do with his life as he wished, within The most obvious explanation the bounds of the Law, though was also the boldest: the naturally anyone who broke Lord did not concern himself the Law would be smitten with anyone, even his Chosen down. People; all that had been entrusted to him was the task Man lived as best he could, of the Creation and getting then died, and there was no the stone tablets delivered hell, no heaven, the way the by Moses to his people. primitive Jews imagined over That explanation was not there in Palestine; there was something that came from any no transmigration of souls, as original thinking on Uri’s part; the primitive Pharisees also the Lord Almighty was cast in believed, as no one rises up the same terms collectively from the dead, or only after by the Zadokite sect of the coming of the Messiah, but Roman Jews, also called the that was still a long way off. Sadducees, who accepted only “We have not suffered enough the five books of Moses and yet to be forcibly washed,”

174 captivity his father had said once, weightless and painless, and as had gullible Palestinian human bodies that had been Jewish “people of the land,” restored by magic would float the spiritually impoverished and fly even without wings, am ha’aretz, with their as he pictured himself doing purblind, narrow-minded, in his most delightful dreams and pernicious notions, as, so to speak, a foretaste which commercial travelers of existence after the Last returning to Rome’s Jewish Judgment. It was rational, quarter from Palestine would even natural, for that to be often recall, disapprovingly, so, because if there were no with a shudder. resurrection with Judgment Day and the end of time, an Uri, in his hovel, spent a lot of individual’s life would not time mulling over resurrection, have the slightest meaning at coming to the conclusion that all. if the Creator had just a touch of compassion He would make Uri passed his time either with resurrection possible, and he, his eyes screwed up, gazing Uri, would meet with many out at the life of the yard, fair, clever, and wise people happy at least that he could who had lived before he was see at all, or else he read. born, and would also live after H e d i d n o t n e e d t o b e i n s t r u c t e d he was dead, and they would in anything; he would have carry on a timeless discourse, been able to instruct others, rich in ideas, in a fragrant and but he had no desire to do so, radiant space without time, even though his father had after the Last Judgment, also asked him. If he did not where bodies become

175 györgy spiró count as a fully able-bodied properly, though admittedly man, let the community draw they allowed him to whistle at least some use from him, superbly through the gap and anyway teachers were that could be formed with paid, which was not a point his tongue, and sometimes to be sneezed at. His teacher, people would greatly admire Eusebius, who was fond of Uri that, but he would rather have and rated his abilities highly, had normal teeth. had also encouraged him, but Other boys the same age were in vain: Uri hated anything to not going bald, as he had been do with the community. since sixteen. Others could see well, he Others were not born freaks, couldn’t. as he was. It might not have Others did not have a head been visible to everyone, but and feet and back that ached that is what he felt like, and with pain. that is what he became. Others were able to chew well, It was not solely on account whereas he could only chew of his physical problems, on the right side, because the however, that he shut himself teeth on the left side did not away in his hovel. clench and had started to come Around five years ago, loose, which was a sign that he when his eyesight had been was going to lose them. It was better, not long after his bar terrible, on the other hand, mitzvah, or, in other words, that the permanent incisors his ceremonial initiation into projected so far forward that manhood by the synagogue, he could not close his mouth

176 captivity he often went on strolls on and wore it hidden under his the other side of the Tiber. In tunic, slung low on his neck so Rome, Jews could go wherever it would not be stolen, and he they pleased, and Uri, thanks would feel for it compulsively to his grandfather, who had at frequent intervals. scraped together the money If he showed it at the biggest from his work as a slave to distribution center on the pay for his manumission, got Campus Martius, he would married, begot a son, then receive the monthly ration of died straight after—thanks to grain that was due to paupers him, the grandson, Uri, had of unemployed Roman been born a Roman citizen. freedmen, the libertines who Jewish though he was, he were capable only of beget ting was a Roman citizen with full children—plebeians, as they rights, so he did not pay the were also called. Meat he taxes that were imposed on would obtain on the right non-Romans and non-Italians. side of the Tiber, at home, as Indeed, he was given money on the other side it was not by Rome: through his patron’s possible to procure kosher intervention, he was awarded meat; that was also where the tessera, which he was he drew the wine ration. entitled to under the law since There were a few taverns on the age of fourteen, although that side that let it be known the magistrate was perfectly that they also held stocks of able to string this out for kosher food and drink, but years if some big shot did not the public was banned from snap at them. He had drilled those taverns by the Roman a hole in the small lead token gerousia or synedrion, or

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Sanhedrin as it was called in from Palestine to the Roman Judaea, the council which met communities, as the use of at irregular intervals to decide Italian oil was judged a capital on the affairs of the various offense, upheld time and time congregations, as it had an again by the leadership of interest in seeing that one the congregations, given that and all purchased the produce substantial numbers of wine of the official Transtiberian and oil importers were to be Jewish slaughtermen, and found among the elders of should only drink wine that this collective leadership. was sold by the powerful Uri self-righteously consumed Jewish wine victualers of a good deal less of the Rome. It was possible to make ration than he was entitled an even bigger profit on wine by its regulators, so that he than on meat because drinking too, along with his father, wine was compulsory on feast could consider himself a days; wine victualers also sold breadwinner. On the days his the two-handled flasks, fired ration was be handed to him, from white clay and freed of the whole family would be impurities, from which the with him, which is to say his wine was supposed to be father, mother, and two sisters; drunk. Romans, both Jews together they would all carry and non-Jews alike, drank their allotment back home. a lot of wine because wine The wealthier among them did not loosen the bowels, would go with a handcart; whereas water often did. they rest would take sacks Somehow, the same victualers and wicker baskets, because who shipped pure olive oil a handcart was too expensive.

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At times like that, Uri was were Jews with a tessera happy that, through chance, who had kept a low profile in thanks to a grandfather he the vicinity of Rome during had never seen, he was able those months, but brazenly to help his family. His father stole back into the City. The had also never seen his father, municipal administrators, long because Joseph was just a few faced, had to dispense their months old when Thaddeus allocation, because without an died at the age of twenty- order of exclusion they were five—five years earlier than obliged to do so. There were the average life span for a some banished Jews, it was slave (those long years of said, who threatened to bring hard labor he had sweat out a lawsuit against the reluctant to pay his redemption bond official, and in the end the cannot have done his health official had given way, even any good). though he could have called out the sentinels to arrest the If a Jew was scheduled to hectoring Jew. The world was receive his monthly grain ratio crazy; it always had been, and on a Saturday, or a Jewish it would remain so until the feast day, he was allowed, coming of the Messiah. under one of the still-active decrees of Augustus Caesar, of In truth, Joseph could have blessed memory, to go pick it been a Roman citizen himself, up on a Monday, or whenever because three children of his the holiday ended; the decree had been born there, and had not been repealed by Augustus’s decree that the Tiberius, even after he had parents of three children expelled the Jews. There should be awarded citizenship

179 györgy spiró was still in effect. Uri had might be. Did his father fear tried to persuade his father another expulsion? to apply for citizenship, on Often Uri would take a stroll account of his children; he on his own over to the far would no doubt be granted it bank of the Tiber to Rome, with his patron’s intervention, the “true Rome,” and gaze which would mean that he too around. He made his way could have a tessera. there from beyond the river. Joseph, however, was For some strange reason, the unwilling to do that. Jews always lived beyond some river or other; their Things are fine the way they very names, the Hebrew, one are, Joseph said. Uri kept from beyond the river, said nagging until his father finally as much. In Babylon they had said he would rather work for also lived on the far bank of the money, because some ver y the Euphrates, before they big issue might come up one were allowed to head home, day, some really important to the West. business, and he would call for Gaius Lucius’s assistance on He sauntered around and that, but until that happened stared out with nothing to do, he did not want to pester him, being unfit for physical labor. lest they resent him for asking People finally gave up on unnecessary favors. him when the congregation’s members persuaded Joseph Uri saw that it was no use to try him out as a roofer: arguing and never brought the that was easy work. Uri was matter up again. He wondered acrophobic, though, with no what the very big business

180 captivity head for heights, and on the another word he left his son very first day of work he fell of f to rant on for a few minutes and broke his right arm. The longer, jumping up and down arm healed, and in any case and even threatening to sign his left arm was fortunately on as a longshoreman. the nimbler one; he already He was not serious about wrote Hebrew and Aramaic that; with his aching legs and with the left hand, and now lousy back he would not have he took the opportunity to lasted a day lugging those learn to write Greek and Latin loads. Aside from tanning, with it, as well. Ever since that that was the lowliest work accident, his father was left in a Jew would undertake. The peace. pay was bad, but if you had When Joseph came up with a tessera it was possible to lime burning, also a good sustain a family with several profession, but Uri rebelled children on the handouts and and started yelling: not only the extra income from dock would he not be a limeburner, work. That was to say nothing he would never be a about pilfering a bit of the glassblower either, he would cargo when the supervisor rather die. That shook Joseph, was not watching, and he who had himself started out would not be looking, so long as a glassblower, or rather as a as he also got a share of the goldsmith, because Jews were swag. the only ones in the Roman In principle, a Jewish worker Empire who were able to blow was not supposed, on glass around figures of filigree religious grounds, to steal gold thread, and without

181 györgy spiró from a Jewish consignment, All the same, even among but a non-Jewish one was Jews, to be a docker was a fair game. It might be hard to lowly profession. Because tell, though, what came from they also had to unload Jews in Judaea or Alexandria impure goods, even the and what had not. Anyway, priests got a taste to expedite goods were no longer Jewish purification, although no one if they were not destined for got around the dues for ritual a Jew; the destination would bathing, which did not exist in taint them. Wages were Palestine, and even in Rome low, families were big, and there was not a mikveh, a necessity teaches a man to ritual bath, in every house of steal; the Lord Almighty does prayer. not support those things, but The goods were taken up they were deaf to the Word of the Tiber from Ostia by skiffs the Lord; to harm those who and flat-bottomed lighters, deny Him can be construed bringing goods day and night, as a divine action. The Jewish colliding as if they were longshoreman, therefore, wrestling one another, with filched as much as the rest, a small trade war raging for as much as they were able. landing spots. On both banks B e s i d e s , h o w m a n y h a d a l r e a d y of the Tiber, as the loading filched from a consignment and unloading went on day while it was en route! And and night, inns and brothels that was nothing compared to prospered. Everyone was those who deviously pushed drunk on shore and on the up the prices. No shortage of boats, Jews and non-Jews them, to be sure! alike, and there was no way

182 captivity of knowing who was what, need to impose quarantine. because they all yelled and At times like that, the poor swore in Greek. It is true that in some congregations would block and tackle devices had deny they had corpses, so been introduced on the docks, that breadwinners could but the bulk of freight handling keep working, and only later nevertheless proceeded by would they report a death. h a n d . B a l e s w e r e u n l o a d e d a n d The archisynagogoses took lugged to be swallowed by the a strong stance against this, enormous city without a trace as did Levites, who were and then discharged into the well-paid experts at burial. sewers, which likewise flowed An uproar would arise over into the Tiber. No wonder the this every other day or so, as Jews took care not to drink would be expected anywhere from it, and, as for washing, that persons lived surrounded they never washed in it, and by other persons, bound during epidemics the dockers together. were segregated. Joseph made one last try to Infectious diseases were obtain a man’s work for his diagnosed in Palestine son. according a well-known The post of grammateus formula: if on three successive had fallen vacant in their days, three corpses out of community. community of five hundred were carried off three separate The grammateus was a scribe, times, then it was the plague. a notary and secretary, the If it was fewer, then it was not archisynagogos’s right-hand the plague, and there was no man, a man of influence,

183 györgy spiró because he was in a position equal rank to men, unlike in to whisper or suggest anything Palestine, where women were to a community leader at any of no account. time; he could be of some The route was a long one, use and also do a great deal not because of the distance, of harm. Fortunatus, the for there could have been no previous grammateus, had more than three or four stadia, been ill and forgetful when he a mile or so, between Far Side died, but nevertheless many and the cemetery, which lay members of the congregation just beyond the city gate, but had accompanied his body because it was necessary to to the catacomb, located on stop seven times on the way, the Appian Way. Joseph and first at the Jewish bridge, the Uri too had been present at Pons Cestius, as the section the burial ceremony at the on the near side of the island terraced entrance to the was officially known, or the cemetery, as if it were a tiny, Pons Fabricius, further away; semicircular amphitheater. at each stop, someone, each A Jewish assembly like this time a different person, seven was not large by Roman times over, would expound at standards, and if one of its length on the virtues of the number should die, the five or deceased. six hundred menfolk, a small Not that the burial was town’s worth, would be there notable for this, but in the at his burial, and it was also congregation that day there permitted for women and also happened to be a priest children to attend, because in from Jerusalem by the name Rome women were of virtually

184 captivity of Philippos. He was spending so that the living and the Passover in Rome, and he dead would not be deprived was staying until Shavuot, of each other’s company for or Pentecost, and since he long. He read out the prayer, was there, he thought he those present wept and said would bless the people on amen, then they shepherded the occasion of the burial. the priest away and only A priestly blessing was a big pulled the tumbril into the deal, because that blessing cemetery once Philippos was could only be said by a priest; long gone. The body, wrapped Uri too would get a chill every in white shroud, was carried time it was recited at some through the gate by the Levite big feast by a suitable person, attendants, who been gazing a descendant of Aaron. off and leaning listlessly Philippos was not permitted on their spades during the anywhere near the body. speech. Members of the Not only was he forbidden to family rent their garments see the tumbrel that carried as they entered the gate to the corpse; it was not even see into the niche where the supposed to cast its shadow body was placed, onto which on him because it would have vault or rectangular hollow made him unclean. Philippos scooped into the stone of the blessed the mourners in the catacomb wall they should crescent entryway to the place the thin marble plate cemetery, likewise speaking they had brought along with highly of the deceased, them, on which stood just the expressing hope that a general name, Fortunatus, and that resurrection was not far away, he had lived sixty-four years

185 györgy spiró and been a grammateus. Not much later, he realized Fortunatus’s eldest son went that his father had marked down with the Torah scroll, him to step into Fortunatus’s tucking his head into his shoes, and he wanted to shoulders to pass under the prepare him mentally. low entrance, the other family His father’s emotional members held a lit torch and blackmail felt demeaning and oil lamps so they could see sneaky, but he had nothing anything in the underground against a notary’s work. It passages. was a cushy job; there was no Joseph made an unexpected need to spend all day, every request at this point: that Uri day in the house of prayer; only return to the catacomb the only bad thing was that when he, the father, was you were the servant of the buried, but never again. He archisynagogos and could not asked that Sarah and the girls talk back. stay outside. He also asked An archisynagogos was not that nothing be put on the a priest but a layperson who sepulchral plaque apart from had a position of esteem in a menorah; no name, no age, the congregation, on account nothing else. Let no bird be of his wealth, for instance, and painted or engraved on the he was generally elected to plaque, nor shofar, nor wine look after communal affairs flask, no lulav, no etrog— for a five-year term. Annianus, nothing. the current archisynagogos, Uri was shaken that his father was an uptight, hysterical was speaking about death. man, and difficult to get

186 captivity along with. But on the other and at nights he would have hand, a grammateus was such terrible dreams that he well paid, twice as much as would have to quickly rinse a teacher and four times as out his tunic in the morning. much as a limeburner. True, a Neither Sarah nor Joseph glassblower was much better made any remark about the paid, and the more shrewd tunic that was left out to dry merchants made even more, on the line, as if they had not but a grammateus was a good noticed. prospect and could take his One evening Joseph pick of the girls. By the time announced furiously that he was twenty, virtually every Honoratus wanted to put up Jewish young man in Rome his idiot son of sixteen for the was married, so Uri still had post of grammateus, even a year. As a grammateus he though he could barely write would have free choice of and knew no other language single girls older than twelve, but Greek and could not count and there were lots of those, either. Honoratus was a rich and every father dreaded that and influential man, the owner his daughter would remain of three tenement buildings a spinster. Uri loathed the in the Syrian quarter, and thought of marriage, but he his wife was a cousin of the conceded that it was a fate he banker Tullius Basileus. The could not escape. For days he only sort of person who might was thrilled to have his choice knock Honoratus’s son off his among potential brides; he perch was someone like Uri. would cast a leisurely eye over girls, sizing up their charms, Uri said nothing, just nodded.

187 györgy spiró

Gaudentius, the son, was good-for-nothing in life. so dumb that he stood no Joseph took a new lease on life chance of getting the job as and once again started to pay grammateus. visits to influential members Joseph smiled happily, taking of the assembly. Uri’s silence as a sign of Then the influential members agreement. He left no stone of the assembly, on Annianus’s unturned; yet it was still advice, decided that the next the idiot who was named son born to Honoratus should grammateus, with the favor be the grammateus, and of Annianus. until that son was conceived Uri relaxed. Being a notary for and born, let the post be a hysterical archisynagogos discharged by others, who was not such a great deal; would relieve each other marriage could also wait. every three months. Joseph was assured that Uri was Then two months later, highly placed on the list of Gaudentius, Honoratus’s substitutes, even if he was idiot son, died unexpectedly, blind as a bat. Joseph had a having lived just sixteen years, few salty words of his own, two months, and three days, as a result of which Gaius as was nicely engraved on his Theodorus, son of Lucius sepulchral plaque. Uri, in his Ioses, was removed from the cubbyhole, said prayers for list. From that point on, Uri him; he genuinely felt sorry was left in peace and out of for the blockhead and could harm’s way, and when he was not help it if, by the grace of not reading in his alcove, he the Lord, he had been seen as

188 captivity sauntered over to the true Rome. There was much he saw and heard, and he would gladly have reported on these rambles to his father, but his father avoided talking with him. He would gladly have reported on them to his friends, but he had no friends. He was mocked on account of his physical defects, hated because he wrote, read, and calculated better than them and even so did not work. He would have carried on with these pleasant, solitary wanderings for the rest of his life, scraping by on handouts from the state and his patron, dipping into books, parasitically, carefree and undemanding, had something not happened.

189 The Physics of Sorrow Georgi Gospodinov

Georgi Gospodinov THE PHYSICS OF SORROW (novel excerpts)

190 The Physics of Sorrow Georgi Gospodinov

191

Georgi Gospodinov THE PHYSICS OF SORROW (novel excerpts)

I don’t know how to count that negative time in the womb. I am as big as an olive, weighing a gram and a half. They still don’t know my sex. My tail is gradually retracting. The animal in me is taking leave, waving at me with its vanishing tail.

192 THE PHYSICS OF SORROW Translated by Angela Rodel

prologue was born at the end of pox, measles, and so on. August 1913 as a human I was born two hours before being of the male sex. I I dawn like a fruit fly. I’ll die don’t know the exact date. this evening after sundown. They waited a few days to see whether I would survive I was born on January 1, and then put me down in the 1968, as a human being of registry. That’s what they the male sex. I remember did with everyone. Summer all of 1968 in detail from work was winding down, beginning to end. I don’t they still had to harvest this remember anything of the and that from the fields, year we’re in now. I don’t the cow had calved, they even know its number. were fussing over her. The I have always been born. I Great War was about to still remember the beginning start. I sweated through it of the Ice Age and the end right alongside all the other of the Cold War. The sight of childhood illnesses, chicken the dying dinosaurs (in both

193 georgi gospodinov epochs) is one of the most in and raise me, but they unbearable things I have wouldn’t give me up. I cried seen. whole nights from hunger. They gave me bread dipped I haven’t been born yet. in wine as a pacifier. I am forthcoming. I am minus seven months old. I I remember being born as don’t know how to count a rose bush, a partridge, that negative time in the as ginkgo biloba, a snail, a womb. I am as big as an cloud in June (that memory olive, weighing a gram and is brief), a purple autumnal a half. They still don’t know crocus near Halensee, an my sex. My tail is gradually early-blooming cherry frozen retracting. The animal in by a late April snow, as me is taking leave, waving snow freezing a hoodwinked at me with its vanishing tail. cherry tree... Looks like I’ve been chosen We am. for a human being. It’s dark and cozy here, I’m tied to something that moves. I was born on September 6, 1944, as a human being of the male sex. Wartime. A week later my father left for the front. My mother’s milk dried up. A childless auntie wanted to take me

194 the physics of sorrow

the bread of sorrow The Sorcerer

And then a sorcerer grabbed first time I’m alone at the the cap off my head, stuck his fair and with money to boot. finger straight through it and Step right up, ladies and made a hole about yea big. gents... See the fearsome I started bawling, how could python, ten feet long from I go home with my cap torn head to tail, and as long like that? He laughed, blew again from tail to head... on it, and marvel of marvels, it was good as new. Now Daaang, what’s this twenty- that’s one mighty powerful foot-long snake?... Hang on sorcerer. there you, where do you think you’re going, you owe Come on, Grandpa, that was me a fiver... Well, I only got a magician, I hear myself say. five and I’m not gonna waste Back then they were it on some snake... sorcerers, my grandfather Across the way they’re says, later they became selling pomades, medicinal magicians. clay, and hair dyes. But I’m already there, twelve Dyyyyyyye for your years old, the year must be ringletsssss, brains for your 1925. There’s the fiver I’m nitwitssss... clutching in my hand, sweaty, I can feel its edge. For the And who is that guy with

195 georgi gospodinov all the sniffling grannies Stop. Agop’s. Syrup. Written gathered around him? in large, syrupy pink letters. I swallow hard. Should I drink ...Nikolcho, the prisoner of one?... war, finally made it back home, and heard that his Come and get your rock bride had married another, candyyyyyy... The devil is Nikolcho met her at the well tempting me, disguised as an and cut her head clean off, as Armenian granny. If you’re in her head sailed through the the know, here is where you’ll air it sp o ke, oh Nikol c ho, what go... So what now? Syrup or have you done... Time for the rock candy? I stand in the waterworks, grannies... middle, swallowing hard, completely unable to decide. And the grannies bawl My grandfather in me cannot their eyes out... Now buy a decide. So that’s where I get songbook to find out what the indecisiveness that will terrible mistake he made, constantly torment me. I see slaying his innocent wife... myself sitting there, scrawny, A songbook hawker. Geez, lanky, with a skinned knee, what could that mistake in the cap that will soon be have been?... punctured by the sorcerer, People, people, jostling me, gawking and tempted by I clutch the money, just the world offering itself all don’t let anybody steal it, around me. I step yet further my father had said when he aside, see myself from a gave it to me. bird’s-eye view, everyone is scurrying around me,

196 the physics of sorrow

I’m standing there, and my with laughter. I try to shout grandfather is standing something, but all that can there, the two of us in one be heard is a mooing from body. somewhere in my throat. Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Whoosh, a hand grabs the cap off my head. I’ve reached Harry Stoev has come to the the sorcerer’s little table. fair, Harry Stoev has come Easy now, I’m not going to back from America... cry, I know very well what A husky man in a city-slicker will happen. Now there’s the suit rends the crowd, which sorcerer’s finger coming out whispers respectfully and the other side of the cloth, greets him. Harry Stoev—the man oh man, what a hole. The new Dan Kolov, the Bulgarian crowd around me roars with dream. His legs are worth a laughter. Someone smacks million U.S. dollars, someone my bare neck so hard that behind me says. He puts ’em tears spring into my eyes. I in a chokehold with his legs, wait, but the sorcerer seems they can’t move a muscle. to have forgotten how the Well, that’s why they call rest of the story goes, he it his death grip, whispers sets my torn cap aside, brings another. his hand to my lips, pinches his fingers and turns them I clearly imagine the and, horror of horrors, my strangled wrestlers, tossed mouth is locked. I can’t open down on the mat one next to it. I’ve gone mute, the crowd the other, and start feeling around me is now roaring the shortage of air, as if I’ve

197 georgi gospodinov fallen into Harr y Stoev ’s hold. Armenian granny’s rock I rush to escape, while the candy, Harry Stoev’s death crowd takes off after him. grip, and sink into the tent. And then from somewhere With the Minotaur. behind me I hear: From this point on, the Step right up, ladies and thread of my grandfather’s gents... A child with a bull’s memory stretches thin, yet head. A neverbefore-seen doesn’t snap. He claims that wonder. The little Minotaur he didn’t dare go in, yet I from the Labyrinth, only manage to. He’s kept it to twelve years old... You can himself. Since I’m here, in his eat up your fiver, drink up memory, could I even keep your fiver, or spend your fiver going if he hadn’t been here to see a marvel you’ll talk before me? I’m not sure, but about your whole life long. something isn’t right. I’m already inside the labyrinth, According to my grandfather’s which turns out to be a big, memory, he didn’t go in half-darkened tent. What I here. But now I’m at the see is very different from Fair of this memory, I am my favorite book of Greek he, and it irresistibly draws myths and the black-and- me in. I hand over my fiver, white illustrations in which say farewell to the python I first saw the Minotaur- and its deceitful twenty feet, monster. They have nothing to Agop’s ice-cold syrup, in common whatsoever. This to the story of Nikolcho Minotaur isn’t scary, but sad. the prisoner-of-war, to the A melancholy Minotaur.

198 the physics of sorrow

a past-time machine

The last time I went back to guerrilla commander. It T., I noticed some strange was most often saddled things. They had restored with the task of being the monument from the Georgi Dimitrov or some 1980s on the town square. other (local) communists. A I could have sworn it universal monument. It had wasn’t there a week ago. I its overcoat, noble forelock, remembered that monument and high forehead— the well. A man with a long minimum requirements for granite garment, perhaps every hero back then. Now a cassock, an overcoat or they’ve cleaned it up and I a royal mantle. And with could even see that a fresh the most nondescript face wreath of braided carnations you’ll ever see. On all with two red ribbons had just important historical dates been placed at its base. I also it somehow inexplicably noticed that the newspapers took on the features of the arrived a day late, the shop corresponding hero who was clerks had become sullen to be honored. On February like back in the day, there 19, it became Vasil Levski, on was no Internet, while the June 2 Hristo Botev. It was stores sold only two types also a Bulgarian tsar, most of salami and frankfurters. often Simeon, sometimes Given all of this, plus my a monk from Mount Athos, fruitless experiments on sometimes a partisan

199 georgi gospodinov the elementary particles of was always a split-second the past, I was gripped by a late, a hundredth of a beat gnawing suspicion, which I behind, which was almost tried to defang by turning it inaudible to the ears up into a supposedly made-up on the platform, but which story. set Comrade Brunekov, the singing teacher, on pins He opened his eyes with and needles, and all of us the vague sense that he in the band registered that was awakening into another alarming pause, that crack dream. Could his empathy, in the music. In the end, the which has shown no sign of cymbal would nevertheless itself over the past twenty crash and the simultaneous years, be reawakening? sigh of relief added yet Outside he could hear the another note to the march. high school marching band, But that was so many years sounding exactly like it did ago... back then, he could have sworn that they were playing Now the music was again the very same instruments he thundering down below, all remembered from his school guns ablaze. In the end, it days. He himself had once seemed that he had managed played the tuba, standing in to do what he had been tr ying the back row next to Nasko to do for years—to bring with the cymbals, Nasko the back part of the past, just Candy Nut with the Blubber- a little slice, to enter into it Butt, as his full nickname and never leave it again. Your went. Mr. Blubber-Butt body can’t escape from the

200 the physics of sorrow memory and you remain in quickly and went downstairs. your childhood forever. To a They were all real, three- certain extent, it’s merciful. dimensional, living, the men with crew cuts, the women He also might be going crazy, cold-curled, they smelled of everything might just be strong, cheap cologne, green in his head. He got up and apples, and once-ubiquitous slowly went over to the “Ideal” soap. window. He stood there for a moment before drawing They must be shooting a film, aside the tatty curtain, then how could he have fallen for abruptly yanks it away. Down it? Somewhere here the whole below school kids really cinematographic machinery were marching around, in would reveal itself. The the same uniforms as fifty trucks with the generators, years ago, men and women the cameras, the dollies, and in suits and long gray slider tracks ...He carefully trench coats were standing looked around. There was around them. The marching no sign of any equipment, band was doing its routine, they had hidden it that while the sun showered its well. But still, a bearded glimmering rays into the director with a megaphone brass instruments, which would have to appear out of had been shined with putzing somewhere shouting “Cut!” polish in advance. He hadn’t and making everyone go thought about putzing in back for a second take. The ages. A little farther on stood demonstration continued, the platform. He got dressed however, the music was

201 georgi gospodinov playing, the band had one of those stupid co- marched quite a ways ahead. p r o d u c t i o n s . H e c o u l d n ’t h e l p On the platform, bored himself, he turned toward an people in dark suits waved elderly man wearing a suit to the enthusiastic squads of that looked like it had been marchers. Twenty or so kids sewn in the ’70s with a pin in blue neckerchiefs broke on his lapel. away from the parading “Excuse me, but what are ranks and, guided by their they filming?” teaches, ran over to the platform holding bouquets “What are they filming? of carnations. The dark suits Who’s filming?” The man took the carnations, patted looked around anxiously. the children on the heads “Uhh ...it must be some and kept waving. There were movie. What’s with this carnations everywhere, ...demonstration?” just like back in the day, he thought to himself. They “Don’t you know? Today is were perfect for every September ninth.” occasion—party meetings, That really was the date, demonstrations, weddings, but it hadn’t been a national and funerals. In the latter holiday for the past twenty case, you had to make sure years at least. Bewildered, they were an even number. he begged the man’s pardon The set designers had done a and stepped away from the good job. They clearly had a crowd. He now noticed that nice, fat budget, yet another his clothes also differed quite

202 the physics of sorrow a bit from the other s’. A gainst just like back in the day. the backdrop of the sober The funnel is an ingenious brown of their trench coats invention, his father had and suits, their macramé loved to say, the cone gives a sweater-vests, and the older sense of height and volume, women’s headscarves, he yet the inside holds a much looked as if coming from smaller amount, the ideal another, hostile—or so he shape for commerce. He thought—world. His short bought himself a funnel. It red jacket stood out like a was made of a piece of old sore thumb, while his jeans newspap er. Jus t like in the old and sneakers, in all their days, he thought yet again on casualness, looked strange that day. Once upon a time, amid the sharp creases all everything could be made around him. He ducked off from old newspaper—from a to the right, wanting to painter’s cap to a lampshade. stroll for a bit through the As a rule, everything could deserted side streets. The be made from everything warm September sun was you had at hand. He could shining. The faint scent of read parts of words, numbers roasted peppers wafted and percentage signs on the from somewhere. Flags were scrap of newspaper, which hanging from some of the was certainly from back windows. On one corner, then, with that unmistakable a swarthy grubby man of ink and font. If this is a indeterminate age was selling movie shoot, they really funnels of sunflower seeds, have thought of everything

203 georgi gospodinov down to the smallest detail. it on me. It’s back at the He was the only thing that hotel. How long have you didn’t fit the set at all. been here? Two days. We’ll be forced to take your down Carried away by such to the station. You have not thoughts, he didn’t notice completed the obligatory the two uniformed men who registration with the had been following him for local office of the Interior the last few minutes, without Ministry, you’re sauntering bothering to hide it. When about in provocative attire they suddenly jumped out in on a national holiday, not front of him, they gave him a taking part in the event. good scare. Then he noticed He let them stuff him into that the the Lada, Jesus, where did uniforms they were wearing they dig this thing up, and were not exactly like modern drove off. There most likely police uniforms. With those weren’t any cameras in the ridiculous jackets and big car and he thought that here peaked caps, those belt they would finally put their buckles, well yes, they were cards on the table. He smiled gendarmes from the socialist and with a wink asked the era. This reassured him a bit, sergeant who was sitting anything could happen in a next to the driver: When will movie, and could happen like they show the movie? The in the movies, without any cops looked at each other, particular consequences. then the sergeant turned Your passport? I don’t have around and with a well-

204 the physics of sorrow aimed swing punched the him took a bottle of brand- arrestee between the eyes. name whiskey and two glasses out of his desk drawer The building they brought with a practiced gesture. him to had just been built, but architecturally it recreated There was something late Happy Socialism from familiar about that face, soft, the 1980s, roughly hewn babyish, looking ready to marble, wood and frosted start bawling at any minute. glass. Blood trickled down “Baby Cakes, is that you?” from his split brow. The man who came out of the building “It’s me, Swift-Footed Stag.” wearing a suit immediately My (I didn’t know it was me, ordered them to get him God damn it) schoolmate medical attention, a nurse Baby appeared from somewhere, put on a Band-Aid, found Cakes, one of the gang back some ice, and led him into an then, the eternal butt of our office with a leather couch. jokes, we didn’t even give him an Indian name. He “Sorry, they got a bit carried carried Chingachook’s bow away. I had explicitly told and quiver of arrows. them not to touch a hair on your head. They can be real “So you’ve bought up the brutes sometimes, just like whole town of T., you’re the back in the day. Just don’t one...” tell me you don’t remember “ W h e n d i d y o u g e t h e r e , w h e n me”—the man across from did you learn all the gossip?

205 georgi gospodinov

Yes, I occupy several posts, changed here mayor, party secretary, chief in any case. I’m creating the of the gendarmerie.” world’s largest museum. “And why did you have to A museum of the past, of arrest me?” socialism, call it what you will. The whole town, every “Oh, I have more than day, round-the-clock, a total enough reasons. But above museum. Actually, ‘museum’ all, I wanted to see you, isn’t exactly the right word, shame on you for coming everything is live. Everyone here and not giving me a keeps being whatever he was call ...Because of the good then, and we pay him for it. old days. You’ve rented out I foot the bill for everything. a house to write in, and just We don’t pay them much, imagine the coincidence, the but we don’t ask much of same one you used to live in. them, either. Just for them I’m happy that you look back to stay the same. They’re fondly on those years.” nostalgic for the olden days “What’s with that baloney in any case. We’ve cut off downtown, are you shooting the Internet, TV, we sell some kind of a movie? You newspapers only from back haven’t become a director, then, actually we reprint the too, now have you?” “No, it’s old editions far more serious than that. in reverse order, we’ve I’ve launched a project. In imposed penalties for short, I’m turning time back telling political jokes, we’ve thirty years. Nothing has

206 the physics of sorrow reintroduced the people’s go back in time. I’ve built the militia, party meetings, ultimate time machine. I even demonstrations. I invited have visitors from abroad. those who had been secret Come on now, cheers, and service informers to get back welcome back!” to work. I also pay a few “Cheers. So what about the folks who used to grumble whiskey?” against the government to keep doing it. Those sorts of “From Corecom, the hard- things create atmosphere. currency store. Like I said, we’ve thought of everything.” In short, you don’t do a damn thing, you loaf around all day “And why are you doing it? If and take home a paycheck it’s for the money, there are in the end. Just like back more conventional ways of then. But I’m merciless if making a buck.” someone breaks the rules, “I’ve got money, although I my gendarmes are like the never turn it down. That’s ones back in the day. You not the reason, though ...Let got a first-hand taste of me be frank with you,” he that, incidentally. People refilled our glasses, “I don’t are happy. Do you have any feel like living in modern idea how bad unemployment times. Nothing but shit...” in the neighboring towns is? Rich clients come here “There was plenty of shit and order themselves a back then, too.” demonstration or a party “Maybe, but to me it smelled meeting. Everyone wants to good. The world is already

207 georgi gospodinov bugging out big time, there’s we brought back those old no way you haven’t noticed. bottles of Vero dish soap. I want to invite you to join We’ve already got a few in. I want you to come up manufacturing workshops up with ...days, everyday life. I and running here in town.” know that’s a tall order. The “This is a nightmare, okay, holidays are easy, those I I’m going to wake up now...” can manage. But these folks I have the worrisome feeling need a script for daily life. that I can’t control the plot I’ve already got some clients of the story or even my own interested in that.” He went lines. over to the bookshelf and pulled out a few of my books. “No, this is a story that you “I’ve got them all. You gave just think you’re writing, but me the idea to a certain actually, you’re inside it. I’ve extent, I’m indebted to you.” known you since childhood, you’ve always been a space “Oh no,” I try to protest. “I cadet, it’s not hard for you never gave you the idea of to flit off somewhere.” bloodying up my brow.” “Am I under arrest?” “That whole inventory of “Let’s just say you’ve been socialism was a brilliant idea, invited to join in your own along with the stories from project. Don’t forget that back then, too. I use them it’s your idea, I’m only the as a handbook, we recreate manager.” a lot of those things. People drink Altai soda and cider, He takes a sip from the glass, I barely touch my lips to

208 the physics of sorrow mine. “Quite dangerous,” Anti- Gaustine’s voice adds. “We’ve got some more “Incidentally, the Yellow serious plans as well. The House is not far from here Doctor will arrive shortly, at all and if we open the I’ve given him the Yellow window, we’ll hear a very House, we’ve fixed it up. familiar...” He’ll be doing experiments there. Regression therapy I didn’t hear whether he ...regeneration of cell said “voice” or “howl,” memory ...a sanatorium for because I got up and hurled the past, gentle electroshock myself through the window stimulation ...He’ll explain it headfirst. That always helps to you better himself. But with nightmares. we urgently need fabricators of the past.” For a moment it crosses my mind that some Anti- Gaustine has implanted himself in Baby Cakes. And my every thought occurs to him sinisterly turned upside- down. For the first time, I want to stop, to give up, to jump ahead in time. Turning back is not always innocent. The past can be a dangerous place.

209 Oblivion Sergei Lebedev

Sergei Lebedev OBLIVION (novel excerpt)

210 Oblivion Sergei Lebedev

211

Sergei Lebedev OBLIVION (novel excerpt)

In August came the unremitting thudding— straw was placed under the trees, but the apples were too heavy, too ripe, and the straw did not soften the blow completely; apples fell, during the day the sound was muffled, but at night it seemed that a chronometer was beating in the garden, that a different time was beginning, the time of ripeness.

212 OBLIVION Translated by Antonina W Bouis

few days later I saw too thick in the gardens, the houses on a knoll; windows had been shut up A that was the village too long ago, the nails were of exiles. The houses seemed falling out of the wood; and transported by a mirage, an most importantly, there was optical illusion; as if actually every indication that people they were somewhere had stopped caring about thousands of kilometers from the place where they lived. here, near a small river and Besides which, I couldn’t woods, and it was the play of understand how there was light in the atmosphere this dirt, how there were weeds far north that placed them here in the tundra; where on a knoll where they could did the soil come from? not be. At the well, which is always I left the dinghy and took a kept clean in villages, dogs path that zigzagged up the had dug themselves a hill. The village, a dozen hollow, a dusty hole full of houses, did not seem fur and scraps of bone; a completely abandoned: torn wire hung down, easy clearly someone had walked to brush against, the pole down the road, splotches of was so crooked I longed to spilled water dried in the straighten it; every object sand. But the weeds were in the village asked for

213 Sergei Lebedev human help: supporting, neglect, take on its image, straightening, sawing, lifting. become identical to it. People here seemed to have One garden was tended: forgotten all the verbs for strangely, it was entirely creative activity, the sound planted with potatoes, of a hammer or the song of leaving only a narrow walk a saw, and had forgotten to the house, every bed filled about themselves, too: being with potatoes, as if nothing there was intolerable. There else grew anywhere in the is a special color, the color of village. Someone was inside old fence boards that have the house, smoke came out been splashed all winter with of the crumbling chimney the snowy mush underfoot, that dropped pieces of brick and in the spring the mud onto the mossy roof, but the dries, turning earthy-gray; windows were shuttered the color of carelessness tight. and indifference. The whole v i l l a g e w a s s p e c k l e d w i t h i t , a s Behind the house there was if it had been sown over many a creaking, grinding noise, years of drizzle; someone metal on stone, ringing had hung a lantern by the and then grinding again; gate and now its glass cover the blue twilight that made was filled with rainwater the air thicken as it grew and the canvas wick bore colder without losing its filigree rust crystals. What transparency settled on the was intolerable was not the village, and each screech neglect itself but that life caused goose bumps, warning could accommodate itself to me not to come closer—only

214 oblivion forged steel could sound I went into that small like that. Three apple trees fallow garden, engulfed in by the house—how much the bitter-ash smoke that effort had it taken to grow comes from a badly built or them here!—had gone wild, deteriorating stove; it was all their force going into getting colder and the leaves offshoots and foliage, and fell less frequently, as if their the branches untouched twigs were growing torpid. by buds dropped brown Behind the house, at a leaves onto the ground; grinding machine made from the color of dead leaves, a converted foot-operated the color of rotting apples sewing machine, sat a was everywhere, giving the shaggy old man; I saw him house and ground an aging, from the back, broad and debilitated air. Old pruning hunched, half covered by cuts painted with pitch long tangled gray hair, with remained on the trees, but apple leaves nestled in them; the pitch had cracked and I thought at first that he was fallen off, and even though a werewolf with claws, but the tree had grown a tight then I realized they were leathery circle around the fingernails, yellow, curved, cuts, the trunks were already broken or crookedly cut. crumbling and the roots The old man was sharpening were probably dying off. The an axe on a long handle, a wires holding branches that lumberjack’s axe; it was threatened to fall off dug too badly chipped, someone had hard into the wood, cutting used it to chop up boards the bark. of an old structure and kept

215 Sergei Lebedev hitting nails; long streams and shaggy, was carving a of reddish sparks caused by boat frame; the wooden the uneven blade edge on piece had a bend with an the whetstone flew in the inconvenient elbow, and the air, illuminating nothing but old man clumsily moved his merely sewing through the long knife along it. dark; the wheels turned and I greeted them. The three old the dried belts creaked. men turned to me, dropping The old man, the sharpening their work. I still couldn’t wheel—rougher than needed make out their faces: their for fine sharpening—and the hair fell over their eyes. axe; I went farther along, not Their fingernails belonged to ready to call out to the man, animals or birds, and their when I saw a second one. hair grew so thickly it could He was on the porch steps, have been moss or weeds. bent over a fishing net on his The old men were silent and knees, and the same kind of uncomprehending. Telling thick, unkempt hair covered them apart by their clothing his face. The old man was was difficult: their padded mending the net, unwinding jackets and trousers had rough thread from a spool not been washed in so long the size of his hand, making they had taken on the same loops with a curved faceted indefinite color of grime, and needle and muttering to new spots vanished among himself—his beard stirred the old; the one with the axe as if a mouse had moved had a scar across his palm, into it. A third old man, also the one mending the net had on the porch, just as gray

216 oblivion a thimble that had become because the days of their ingrown on a finger of his lives resembled one another, left hand and in the finger of and the days did not bring the right, a fish hook that had new impressions but merely jabbed his calloused skin, subtracted old ones from yellow as candle stearin, was their memory. hanging as if from the lip of “The dogs got themselves an old fish; and the one who lost,” the fisherman had been whittling wore a repeated, and the other two darkened ring. replied, “Lost.” “The dogs got themselves Their voices were like old lost,” said the fisherman. things being used after a The man spoke as if they long hiatus; the sounds did were still just three; as if not fit together properly, they had always lived the hanging on by hook or crook, three of them and a fourth dangling like a loose button. never was and never could They sounded like dead men be, and thus I did not fit into who had acquired new flesh his field of comprehension but could not adjust the new and he might not figure out voice to the old words. for several days that there The man with the axe leaned was a stranger among them. against his sharpener, the Their solitude together was fishermen stuck the needle older than they were, time in his jacket, and the whittler had vanished within it, and put the knife away inside his the old men had aged not boot. Wind came from the only with the years but higher reaches of the river,

217 Sergei Lebedev the wind moved the old land on both sides, if they men’s hair, pushing it from understood where I was and their eyes. who they were. The men were blind; their They were brothers, and no minds were damaged and longer able to see, they came their gazes were stopped like to resemble one another even a rundown clock. The lens, more. Their faces fell into cornea, iris, the entire eye neglect; the unconsciousness was whole, the visual core that annihilated their of the brain was whole, but lives also annihilated their the mind refused to allow distinguishing features. All the visible world in, refused that was left in their faces to see. The eyes were those was what had been placed of a sleeping man whose lids there by their parents’ were lifted without rousing blood: their faces had been him, and the pupils were like taken over by their fathers, binoculars turned inward, grandfathers, and great- into the head, the dark grandfathers, and it seemed cosmos of dreams that is not those figures would start accessible to the waking. coming out, opening the flesh like a door, and exiting I waited, not knowing what one at a time, and once the time of day was in their heads, last one was out, gaping if they had any time at all, emptiness would replace the at what point they lost their face. sight, if they remembered the house, the apple trees, The old men finally the village, the river, the understood that a stranger

218 oblivion had come to the village; they and each one’s memory surrounded me and ran their would not be enough for a hands over my face and body; complete description of the I stood and thought that I events, so they often spoke had truly reached the limit simultaneously, creating a of memory; the blindness collected field of memory of the exiled old men, the that lived only in words. blindness of Grandfather II I asked about the apple all combined; this place did trees, impossible to imagine not exist in geography, an here near the Arctic Circle, accidental traveler would planted in permafrost that not find this village, he would would not allow roots to miss it; this was a country penetrate, and they told me inhabited by people from that the whole village stood the days of Grandfather II, on soil that was brought in, an entire country that had stolen—the exiles were not protected itself from the allowed to leave their place present through blindness of exile. and then became trapped For a dozen years the people in it. While the old men secretly took boats to the molded my appearance for upper reaches, where there themselves with their hands, were forests and soil, they I thought about how not to chopped down trees, made linger here and destroy the rafts to float them down to insularity of this world. build huts and sent soil on Essentially, the old men had the rafts as well; it took ten one memory for the three years before the first garden of them; separate them, bed appeared in the village—

219 Sergei Lebedev before that, the exiles had on fertile soil, some of the lived on imported food exiles were taken to town, products and by hunting. that is, to the camp where The authorities had set up Grandfather II had once a cordon on the river to been warden, where they overturn the rafts—they started a botanical garden, allowed them to cut down planting flowers in heated trees but not to take away soil; greenhouses to show how the reindeer herders even new life was burgeoning in wondered if the exiles ate the Far North, and in the the soil, they were bringing polar night prisoners in so much, and they couldn’t the barracks could see the understand what for, since glowing glass cubes behind for nomads soil could not three layers of barbed wire. give birth to anything but The garden was part of the reindeer moss. The villagers camp economy, and the might have given up on the locals hated it for devouring idea but most of them were heat and light, a garden for kulak peasants and they put baskets of red flowers to their entire organizing force, greet official airplanes that their passion for life into a instantly turned to glass calculated gathering of soil, in the frost; high-ranking real soil, without pity for guards brought the flowers themselves or others; they home later, and anything left called the local soil mud, over was taken to the statue which it was, a runny liquid of Lenin. of mud on ice. A war ensued over the right Later, when the village stood to work in the garden, in

220 oblivion the steamy heat of the ten people to bring back to greenhouse, and the criminals the camp. won; the guards couldn’t do The garden had trees—apple, anything about it; the only cherry, plum; in winter they gardener who knew the job, were wrapped in burlap, a former custodian of an with straw piled around the arboretum, was soon killed trunks, but the burlap and by a live wire, and the garden straw were stolen to make began to fail; prisoners clothing warmer; they had started eating the flowers, to keep a watchman by chopping them up with a the trees. They were still knife like greens and boiling too small to bear fruit, so them in tin cans. The camp when high-ranking visitors administrators, who could came, fruits were hung on not retreat—the botanical the branches in any season; garden was now celebrated the fruits were counted, in the ministry, they so that the staff would not promised to send specialists, appropriate any before expand the garden, and turn returning them in compliance it into a museum of polar with an inventory list. agronomy and gardening— the administrators decided One time a guest decided to to gather the peasant exiles eat an apple and discovered and staff the garden with the thin thread that tied them. They simply sent a its stem to the branch, and convoy of guards to the exile angrily threw the small village and, without arresting Golden Chinese apple, them, the leader picked out glowing like a paper lantern,

221 Sergei Lebedev somewhere into the grass; shape of it—the rounded the official was insulted, he ripeness—sated their hungry had believed with childlike palms that had forgotten sincerity that he was in a everything but tools; the polar paradise where trees exiles passed around the bear fruit twelve months a apple, as if it had just been year, and while he was used born in the straw, passed to human trickery, and an it around and consumed it expert on faking reports with their eyes—a case when himself, he was unpleasantly a metaphor becomes the surprised to see that even literal description of what nature can be involved in happens: the apple was deceit. He walked around a spiritual nourishment, food few more trees, muttering for the eyes, and there was “I didn’t expect this,” “I enough for all of them. didn’t expect this,” as if the One of the peasants, who was trees had pinned the fruit on considered a sage, though themselves like false medals this word is imprecise, was in order to greet him; one a reader and interpreter of of the exiles assigned to the the Scriptures, the kind of garden later picked up the man who becomes a leader apple the guest had tossed. of a small peasant sect of They wanted to eat the somewhat twisted fanatics. apple, it was the first fruit If any of the educated the exiles had held in their prisoners talked to him hands in many years; they about paleontological finds, were not trusted to hang the about animals from other fruits on the trees. The very eras whose remains allow

222 oblivion us to recreate the history I could understand the of the earth and disprove peasant, even though I did the Bible, he would reply: not know peasant labor; I “The Lord thought about grew up together with the you learned men as well dacha apple trees and lived when He created the world, half the year by the apple he threw in some toys to calendar; I remember my keep you busy.” Among his childhood when the spring fellow villagers who were frosts occurred, and bonfires exiled with him, his intellect were lit in all the orchards, was revered, for he had a the light frosty fog mixing unique way of understanding with smoke hugging the appearances and reality. This windless ground, and the reader, this sect member- trembling, flowing, warmed to-be, understood what air enveloped the trees, had occurred: just as Christ protecting the buds. On a had fed thousands with five cold night smells unleash loaves, he said, so are we, their invisible fans, but on many, eating from one fruit a night like that the apple and it is not diminished. For it blossoms smelled of the not to be diminished ever, let bonfires, and it seemed us save it and send it back to that it was the fragrance of the village—they stubbornly the stars, the fragrance of called the settlement in the promise. tundra the village—and let In August came the them plant it in the soil so unremitting thudding— the fruit shall beget more straw was placed under the fruit. trees, but the apples were

223 Sergei Lebedev too heavy, too ripe, and the with the apple—Seth begat straw did not soften the Enos, Enos begat Cainan. blow completely; apples So the old peasant ordered fell, during the day the them to send the apple to sound was muffled, but the exile village in order that at night it seemed that a apples would grow there, he chronometer was beating in was trying to spark the time the garden, that a different of the new village, the way time was beginning, the you start a motor, the village time of ripeness. And that arose on carted-in soil, when I later read about the to put down roots in the Transfiguration of the Lord, place where it appeared by this incident helped me to accident, by the will of those understand it as much as who sent the exiles; some I could: that old image of settlements, even though a the apple orchard in August hundred years old, stand on on the threshold between bare earth, as if the huts had summer and autumn; the just been knocked together, Transfiguration occurred while others accumulate when His time had come. time, grow into it. The apple is the fruit of And now the three old men time; and even though it told me: we had a reason for is not said that Adam and sharpening the axe today. Eve had eaten of the apple, We’ve decided to chop what other fruit could have down three old apple trees: embodied the unknown fruit they no longer give fruit, we of the tree of knowledge in a have no firewood, and we painting? Human time began

224 oblivion don’t have the strength to woods or fields; in swamps take apart the houses. Chop the darkness resembles mud down the trees for us—you splashing into your face, are a stranger, they don’t permeating your clothes; mean anything to you; you it seems that if you spit, it will leave, and we will have won’t be saliva but a gob fire and warmth. of the darkness filling your mouth. It had been pouring The old man handed me the for two days, the swamp soil axe with its long handle; could not absorb any more an old tub with iron hoops liquid, everything around was placed under the roof me slurped, bubbled, and gutter, and since I didn’t dripped, the yellow spot know what to do, I moved of light from my flashlight, toward it and leaned on it; which I turned on from time a memory appeared in the to time, caught toadstools tub and apples, prompting bloated by the rain, and the answer. I felt I was trapped in an One autumn night I was endless witches’ circle; the walking to the stop on the rain washed everything that narrow gauge line used to had accumulated over the carry peat from the Bryansk long September dry spell, swamps; the work train and the trees, earth, and passed the stop early in the water gave off a rank swamp morning and I could take it smell, rotting and unclean, to the big railroad. and even the rain smelled of Night in the swamp is it. On an ordinary night you different from night in the feel the movement of time—

225 Sergei Lebedev is it past midnight, is it far A woman was on duty; it was to sunrise—you can feel the after three in the morning, night flow through you, but the work train came at at night in the swamp time five. I don’t remember how seems paralyzed, frozen, she looked: she must have without light. merged with her job, coming out to the trains night and The window of the booth by day, checking if the brakes the crossing was lit, of course, were sparking, flashing in but it was the dead light of the driver’s eye as a figure a fluorescent bulb, and I in a raincoat or padded had walked for such a long jacket, existing in mutual time in the dark that I had indifference—the train goes come to think of myself as so fast that you couldn’t make a swamp monster, dragging out the friendly wave and water grasses behind me; sometimes it was the horn I was almost afraid of the that reminded her that she light, afraid that I had turned was visible; she let me in, sat into darkness, that I had me near the stove and went caught it like a cold, and now off to the corner of the tiny if someone turned a lamp on room to the heavy, bursting me, I would dribble out the wooden barrel. There was so door like dirty water; I felt much joy in her movement, a hot, I shivered, as if I had foretaste of care for me, that swallowed something slimy I followed her: What was in and disgusting along with the barrel? the swamp air and the drops of rain. She picked up the warped and darkened lid, covered

226 oblivion with white whiskers of mold, even thought I could be. turned back a layer of wet, The apples did not promise sticky straw, and then a layer strength or eternal youth— of rotted currant leaves. but only a happy passion for life; they smelled of hops The barrel was full of without the crudeness of pickled apples of a silvery hops, clean, sharp, fresh, moonlit yellow, their infant- and my lips were anticipating like wrinkles making them their cool, sparkling, acidic look like newborn planets; flavor. I stepped back, the vat of apples emitted a dull light, I told the old men that the glow of a long-past I would not chop down summer; the light dissolved the trees and promised to the swamp darkness that I gather driftwood by the had dragged into the building, river; then they said, cut and delicately, tenderly lit the our hair, and the fisherman edge of her face, and I saw handed me scissors, just like that my hostess was much the ones on the wall at the older than I first thought; dacha when Grandfather morning—the morning had II suggested cutting off all come and for a second I my hair; darkened, charcoal thought I was a traveler who colored, and ancient—you found shelter with a hermit could tell from the shape of goddess guarding the apple the scissors, which made me planets, keeping them far think people in the past cut from people, and if she were fabric differently, touched to give me an apple I would objects differently, saw become someone I never differently.

227 Sergei Lebedev

I froze; I thought that I did not ask them about cutting their hair would be the island; the past seemed preparing them for death; very fragile and unstable to they also asked for soap, me; touch something in the and imagining its fragrance past and there would be a of artificial freshness, collapse of honed memory chemical cleanliness—the and the heart that had lived last cleanliness for them—I with pain would grieve again. felt fear; but then I washed The old men were silent, each of them in the barrel and I left; words of farewell with rain water, cut off their would not have reached long matted hair, and the them. The dinghy picked up old men, changed into white the bank current and sailed cotton underwear, started past quickly, the houses touching one another, using on the shore vanished in one another as mirrors. the twilight, the big apple I brought them driftwood, moon cast shimmering light sawed and chopped it into on the water, and I pointed logs; the old men sat, getting the dinghy’s nose along the used to their new selves, and moonlight path. they couldn’t, the power of I sailed all night; the river adjusting had waned in them, carried the boat over so they just listened to the shallows and whirlpools, whine of the saw, the ringing over the backs of fish; in sound of the axe on the tarry the morning when a cold fog wood, and those sounds— rose from the river bays, I the sounds of beginnings, saw the island. work, construction—seemed to reach them less and less.

228 oblivion

229 Astragal Catherine McNamara

Catherine McNamara ASTRAGAL (short story)

230 Astragal Catherine McNamara

231

Catherine McNamara ASTRAGAL (short story)

The tail cocked upward then the blades levelled and two long skis touched the snow and bore the weight of the machine. The hatch swung open and a man advanced in a crouch. The rescue men in red jackets had appeared at the rim of trees carrying a silver-wrapped package on a stretcher. His heart was thrown about. Stefano careered out onto the deck. Frieda followed with dizzy paces. ‘They radioed in,’ Stefano said to him. ‘Someone just let them know at the hotel. She’s fallen quite a way but they’ve found a pulse. It’s very weak.’

232 ASTRAGAL

It was still early when they He had not seen the girl, he called him. Not long after said. It was sharpening before lunch, as the day began to him, this scene. He looked at turn. From his window he the two women with their had seen them sunning and fraught faces. It was true he smoking on the terrace, and had watched over the terrace the procession of children and playing area before, and pulling sleds, with the ski slope he thought he had seen his thrust through black pines at granddaughter’s blue hat. the rear. He had gone back to But how could he be certain? his manuscript. But when they He stood and paced to the found him he was stretched window. on the bed in a milky doze. His They were saying it had wife and daughter were in the happened so quickly. She room shouting and shaking had been there one minute, him, asking him Had he seen with her sled tramping up her? Had he seen where she the little rise, then gone the had gone? Hadn’t he been next. The women spoke over looking from the window each other in a contrapuntal earlier? For his granddaughter way, almost a sing-song that had disappeared from the made his heart go ragged. The playing area and they were girl had never socialised well, conducting a search. It had his daughter said; there’d happened, Magda sobbed, been a kidnapping the other before their very eyes.

233 Catherine McNamara year, added his wife aghast, a He rolled his hands around businessman’s son from Turin. his head. He looked at his He sat down on his chair where notebook and pen on the desk, the child had last night crawled his text still innocent of these into his lap, such a miniscule, instants. He watched a skier lightly-haired being. drift down the run. The view of the mountain above was They said her sled was not to severed by the window frame. be found and the carabinieri A group of men dressed in red were already halting cars and and black were in a circle on checking the village. Alpine the snow now, with a dog on a rescuers had been called lead. The dog looked playful, in. They would soon arrive the men firm. He saw his son- from their station in the next in-law among them wearing a valley. Children were usually quilted jacket. They all looked found in the first few hours, over to where the sun was said his daughter heaving, as dropping behind the ridge, though the chatter helped. diminishing all aspects of The hotel manager had sent detail and light. them upstairs and told them to wait for news. His wife and daughter joined him at the window. ‘If she hasn’t been kidnapped – ’ repeated his wife in an For a moment he forgot why outburst. ‘There is always they were standing here in that chance.’ such silence: there were fewer children playing, and Luna ‘Mother, don’t be stupid! Why was not among them. Where on earth?’

234 astragal was she now? Yesterday she deck behind the hotel. The had hurtled into him with manager’s wife appeared, her silver moonboots full offering coffee and Tyrolese of crystals and her face so cakes. There were groups fresh. She’d thrown down her of people at a distance; woollen hat and her fine hair clearly they were watched had been flattened in damp and felt for. Children played runnels to her scalp and a on the snow in a restricted doughy, insoluble smell had area near the steps and the risen to him. hotel manager came out in shirtsleeves, eyes raised to ‘I’ve got to go down there,’ the dimming sky. The coffee said his daughter. ‘Look at arrived and the manager’s Stefano. I have to at least be wife swept back inside. The with him.’ building façade had fallen to They took the elevator and a dense grey and far off, in walked through the lobby spears of light, the opposite with its deer trophies and peaks still burned above the vases of dried wildflowers and village of Astragal where women in scalloped pinafores. Stefano had driven them to an Everything moved past them. osteria last night. But down He felt the hardware of his here it was the lifeless cold hip and he noted extravagant of the afternoon, a coverlet joints of wood supporting the before dark. ceiling that were weighted They watched the playful dog and veined. He followed the heading towards the ring of two women onto the broad trees, the men in a solid hike

235 Catherine McNamara behind, one man who turned moving towards them, his around with a radio in hand. steps awkward in city shoes. His son-in-law stood alone on The young man tried to half- the snow as the line of men jog but his feet caught in the shrank and their red jackets snow, at times perforating the disappeared one by one into surface and plunging as far as the dark strip beneath the his shins. They watched him trees. His daughter went over struggling. His wife beside to a bench by the wall. He and him began a gruff crying. his old wife stood there. ‘What if they never find her?’ ‘How has it come to this,’ she she said. ‘We were all there. said. ‘How can such a thing What was the child thinking? happen here in this expensive Who could have taken her?’ place?’ ‘No one has taken her,’ he He looked at the woman he said. had married, her breasts ‘Then why, why would a child above her middle and her wander into the woods? Just crisp curls. tell me that. Into the cold with A pair of carabinieri stepped all of this fresh snow?’ outside onto the terrace His daughter had taken Luna with the hotel manager, who to see many doctors. It had indicated his daughter. The been suggested that there was old people were ignored. One a slowness, a slight disability. officer took out a notebook. She scarcely spoke, her mouth His daughter’s husband was so clipped and small. turned around and began

236 astragal

‘We were sitting there,’ his the throbbing apricot in her wife went on. ‘The three of us. chest. Then they had taken If Stefano had just put away the bundle away and he’d felt his phone for a moment. If a holiness removed from him. Frieda hadn’t been talking all Luna and her gust of love had along to that woman with the come after his daughter’s long fur coat. We would have seen years of singlehood. Frieda her walking away. We would had been left by a handful of have seen what happened to men and she’d met Stefano her before our very eyes.’ on a holiday to Tanzania. She had returned to Milan wearing He poured an entire sachet noisy earrings carved out of of sugar into the cold coffee, stained teak. She had told felt it pool within him. them she was engaged to be Magda wiped her face. His married. granddaughter’s hands were fledgling pink birds that liked They watched Stefano reach to pluck the long hairs on his the timber steps, sweating and arm, brush over his cheeks his glasses fogged. The young and cup his eyes in a panel of man stood there breathing darkness. in white shreds. He saw that Magda wished to go to What do you see, Grandfather him. He saw the very instant darling? Tell me the colours Magda’s thoughts devolved in that you see. her limbs. His wife was never He had held her when she wordless for long. had been hours old, with ‘Did they see anything? Do her bug-like unreeling and

237 Catherine McNamara they think she is in there? wandered off on her own.’ When will they be back?’ He shook his head. Stefano wiped his forehead ‘Oh, him,’ Magda said. ‘A fine and upper lip with the back writer he is. He was asleep of his hand. His trousers when we found him. No were wet to the knees and chance he saw a thing.’ his leather shoes soaked. He looked over to Frieda speaking Stefano stared down at with the carabinieri. his soaked shoes, bracing himself on the stair rail. They ‘They think there might be heard a dog barking and all tracks,’ he said. ‘That’s what three looked across. The they were saying. They were few remaining voices on the following them.’ terrace grew quiet. The dark ‘Into the woods? In there?’ trees flowed together, their Magda went on. ‘What tips a blue stubble. possessed her? What got into ‘You should get out of those the child’s head? Who could wet things,’ Magda said. ‘I imagine any of this? We just can’t understand this. I can’t drove up here for a simple understand what is happening holiday.’ to us today.’ She turned away Stefano looked up at him. and walked inside. ‘You didn’t see anything from He saw his son-in-law still had the window, Sir? Frieda said something to say to him. The she saw you looking earlier. hotel manager appeared in the They think she might have doorway again. He advanced

238 astragal a few steps, looked at them but found he couldn’t talk. He and then across to the trees had been asleep through all of before retreating. this. He’d been dozing when the child had ceased playing, ‘They were angry we didn’t when her gaze had travelled call earlier,’ Stefano said. away. What had called her ‘They said there wasn’t much from beyond the border of light left now. There was one pine trees, down the savage who was quite vocal. I didn’t incline? And all of this had think it was necessary. I don’t been visible from his window. want Frieda to know this.’ Her little steps, one after the The young man bent down as other, her passage into the he spoke, eyes fixed on the shadow, under the branches timber. ‘They said we should with their brown skirts and have alerted them first. Not spiralling arms. He looked up the carabinieri. They said we in a rage to the first folds of were stupid for thinking she the peak and the summit in a might have been kidnapped. crust of white pleats. Stupid, the guy said. It was ‘I need to join Frieda now,’ your wife’s first thought, Stefano continued. ‘And speak I’m sorry. Frieda and I just with the officers. Though it went along with it. They said seems clear we did the wrong we should have called them thing by her. Sir, I’m infinitely straightaway. Then there sorry. They didn’t seem to might have been more time hold much hope.’ to find her.’ His son-in-law hoisted He listened to his son-in-law,

239 Catherine McNamara himself onto the deck and between these in plunging walked over to his daughter cracks. The mass reared into who was speaking with the the sky’s blue palette, its two uniformed men. The tip an incandescent flare as group moved inside to the the sun sank downward and restaurant and he could see the planet revolved. It was them arrange themselves at a terrible cycle, he thought, one of the windows. Frieda each day symphonic and looked pale and dumbstruck. turbulent, yet the hours so A waitress brought him meagre and convulsed. He out a glass of grappa on a had thought that there might wooden tray painted with be a oneness up here, far from alpine flowers. He threw its the city, a few words of grace caustic tang into his body. written at every man’s core. Suspended above the ski run But he stared over the callous the chairlift lay idle for the physics of the mountain and night. Its cable drew upward its spiritless geology. His eyes with each double seat deathly followed the ravine knifed still, pressed against the dirty through the trees. white, pylons riveted to the Magda came outside in her bedrock in steep ascension. heavy coat. Each one was open-armed, imploring. ‘You’re not going to make yourself ill standing out here?’ Now his eyes dragged over She had brought him his big the immense compartments jacket. ‘The child wouldn’t of the mountain’s structure want that either.’ and the shadow deepening

240 astragal

He put on his jacket and they her waist, encircling it; stood together. consecrating himself to her mound. ‘I’ve had a couple of drinks,’ she said. ‘Are you ready for ‘It was not so terrible,’ she this?’ said. ‘In my way I felt loved by you.’ She walked stiffly over to the railing and spoke back to him. He listened to her surrendering ‘I’d rather it were one of us, her thoughts. For decades he you know. I’ve been sitting had never troubled himself upstairs thinking it should over her, and he knew the have been one of us. Either way he cared for her had been of us. You could go on without indistinct. In those middle me.’ years he had loved her with a bestial desire, she had been He thought of Magda’s body a raft to topple and grind to on the rocks, tugged out of the floor. Then, for an age, he icy water, her purple flesh had ignored her body; it had and rolled eyes. It was true, grown florid and creased as it the image was easier. He was stood before him. ashamed. With Luna, the idea would not come to him and They heard a sound from the his mouth ran dry. other end of the valley. At first it was muffled, and might have ‘Do you remember how we been a low aeroplane, but were?’ Magda asked him. ‘You soon enough they saw it was do, don’t you?’ a helicopter approaching. The He did. He remembered craft dropped steeply over the

241 Catherine McNamara hotel and agitated above the fallen quite a way but they’ve arena of snow before them. found a pulse. It’s very weak.’ The hotel manager rushed Stefano and Frieda staggered onto the terrace, now wearing across the snow which was a gold-buttoned waistcoat, icy and hardened now. The nodding to the pair of them. men parcelled the stretcher Frieda and Stefano drew inside the helicopter and one together at the window. of them motioned the pair The tail cocked upward then to keep their heads down. the blades levelled and two He saw his daughter climb long skis touched the snow on board, but Stefano was and bore the weight of the absorbed by the group as they machine. The hatch swung fastened the door. Instantly open and a man advanced the craft was airborne and in a crouch. The rescue men cutting across the valley, in red jackets had appeared lifting towards the ridges, at the rim of trees carrying buzzing into the dusk. One of a silver-wrapped package the men was rewarding the on a stretcher. His heart dog while the others began was thrown about. Stefano trudging back to the car park. careered out onto the deck. Stefano stood there, wiping Frieda followed with dizzy his eyes. The hotel manager paces. went down the steps. ‘They radioed in,’ Stefano Magda returned to him. Her said to him. ‘Someone just let face was wet. them know at the hotel. She’s ‘We have no time left, do we?

242 astragal

You or I. We do not.’ He was frozen now. His fingers had no feeling left in them, his feet were burning, each toe hammered in his shoes. The last cusp of the mountain peak had gone purple and the crests circling the valley were drenched in red. ‘There is a chapel at Santa Fosca, on the road to Astragal,’ his wife said. ‘It is a tiny, unadorned place. Let us go there and pray for this child.’

243 Auricula Per Højholt

Per Højholt AURICULA (novel excerpt)

244 Auricula Per Højholt

245

Per Højholt AURICULA (novel excerpt)

Later, over coffee and in consultation with the parents, it was concluded that at most one was dealing with a form of involuntary parody on the ear’s part and so they let it go.

246 AURICULA the silence of 1915 Translated by Kerri Pierce

The silence of 1915 occurred unwittingly experienced had on September 7 and encompassed all of Europe? encompassed Western Europe Naturally, it could have been and the countries from the a subject of conversation Baltic north to the Balkan directly afterward, but the south. The event was few witnesses were so unduly unexpected, so there are no scattered – most of them actual records. Many people living in out of the way places did not even notice, it was so where silence was already short-lived and random, even their trusted companion – though they had participated that the topic was quickly in it. There was neither time changed. The news media, for, nor question of, resistance. which aside from participating Silence happened, catching in the silence also received Europe between two breaths incredulous inquiries, and with one leg suspended, immediately realized that the so to speak, after which event would be impossible to everyone and everything verify and could lead who continued on as if nothing had knows where, and so they happened. After all, how was hushed it up. Anyone seeking anyone to know that the enlightenment on the subject silence they had just now, after so many years, will

247 per højholt have come up empty-handed. following seconds, Europe A Bulgarian agronomic journal was dead still. Every European briefly mentions it in an aside heart was caught betweenc to a discussion of windmills in one beat and the next, every the northeastern provinces, clock between a tick and a and the pseudonymous tock, breakers all along the Ludwig Renn affords the coast abruptly drew back and phenomenon misplaced irony the next swell simply did not in his 1936 novel Vor grossen surge. A ridiculous windstill Wandlungen. It is also worth bid every European leaf quiet mentioning that on the French and many steps taken side of things there was an remained uncompleted. attempt in 1921 to recreate Thanks to a million different the event on its sixth causes, purely by chance no anniversary, though the effort one in Europe made a sound. remained a local undertaking, An unprecedented, utterly thwarted by a dog in unglimpsed snapshot. When Containcourt and doves in one considers the array of Honfleur. In 1944, however, coincidences and the experiment was coincidences’ coincidence and successfully conducted as the mind-blowing number of fiction in Argentina. The correspondences this event original silence, explored here must have required, it is for the very first time, difficult to contradict Jorge occurred in the middle of the Guillèn, who in 1928, while afternoon just after 4:09 p.m. living in Murcia, though in At that moment, and in the 1915 in Switzerland, sug gested

248 auricula that this silence was probably included sexual liaisons, not the first of its kind. In 1931 he too many, perhaps, but added, in reference to the considering the enormous French undertaking of ten territory under discussion a years earlier, that it would number, probably a few probably also be the last, thousand by all accounts. excepting of course that one. Every one of the billions of Nonetheless, no one who has sperm that on September 7 at considered the subject can 4:09 p.m. soundlessly entirely avoid the thought campaigned for a much more that a like silence could occur limited quantity of eggs in a at any time. However, the modest number of women 1915 silence left traces that were doubtlessly effected very few people were in a during those epochal seconds position to discover, despite before they either withered the fact that these traces away or fulfilled a purpose appeared on the scene within their progenitor did not the same rather short space necessarily intend, by the of time, namely the following aforementioned silence. In summer, for their appearance the blink of an eye, when occurred in so many different silence happened, immediately parts of the world that no following those thousands of possible form of ejaculations, hearing heard documentation could account itself almost metaphorically, for what actually was the and this exorbitant listening, case. The events encompassed impotently directed at its own by the 1915 silence must have device, probably had little to

249 per højholt no effect on animal semen or human sexual intercourse, on plants’ prosaic pollen, but whereupon the capacity of a substantial one on human the lovers’ ears for self- males. In the same year that hearing increases dramatically, Guillèn’s presumption was in some cases so remarkably established, Jørgen Møller that the lovers, despite their M.D. remarked in an article heartfelt and apparently on the ear that “among soundless undertaking, could humans the outer ear’s not help but notice that for a physiological value is split second their ears heard remarkably small; nonetheless, themselves. That this it appears to slightly amplify occurrence collided a moment sound and to possess some later with their more or less value in pinpointing a sound’s conscious awareness of the direction.” At the same time, outer ear’s superfluity Dr. Møller suggests that prompted the lovers to reject among most mammals, whose the outer ear in the orgasm’s outer ear is much more fully final seconds. Naturally, this developed than a human one, rejection was not physiological, the benefit is obviously but mental, which meant that greater. The difference it was easily transferrable to between the benefit a human the sperm, which then began derives from his outer ear and its journey up to the egg, the that enjoyed by the higher journey’s eagerly anticipated mammals is, therefore, sliding, end. This brings us back to the and this difference blurs no aforementioned traces silence less than all others during left in 1915, since a number

250 auricula of women who gave birth in afterbirth. Waste management the first half of June the reluctantly mentions following year, which was also scattered colonies in the a leap year, not only gave birth sewers. One can certainly to a child but also to an ear surmise that some ears were (outer). The ear was of natural not able to slip away when size and characterized to a the chance presented, and so normal extent by the parents. had to escape with a later The only visible difference birth or simply stay put. Since was that where the ear would the ear is only capable of self- typically be connected via a hearing, however, there is no cranium’s bone and cartilage disadvantage to its remaining structure was a fused scar, a put, either for the mother or fold whose insignificance the ear. In Seem near Ribe, brought to mind a according to a report given by hermaphrodite’s genitalia. If the local midwife to the the ear had come equipped district medical officer, it so with, say, the human being’s happened that immediately complicated inner workings, after the birth, as the ear in it would have had to learn to question was trying to sneak play the hermit crab and find away, it was mistaken for the an object fit to contain its fully developed child’s half-shape. Most ears simply unevolved twin, stalled by slipped away during the usual some fatal process or other. hullabaloo following a child’s Later, over coffee and in birth, while others liberated consultation with the parents, themselves by clinging to the it was concluded that at most

251 per højholt one was dealing with a form in 1915 they suddenly of involuntary parody on the appeared by the thousands. ear’s part and so they let it go. Since they could only hear In Cologne another themselves, however, the complicated birth also took war’s tumult only bothered place during the period in them to the extent that it question, but the exact precluded them in this circumstances could not be endeavor, so af ter the majorit y pinned down, this due to the had listened in vain for weeks misfortune the archives or months, they set out to suffered during World War II. find locales where they could In almost the exact same give themselves over to this context, it should be particular pursuit with greater mentioned that any success. On these journeys assumptions that the 1915 they met other ears who had silence was in some way taken flight for the same compelled by the world war reason and they immediately of 1914-18, or was the banded together, so that by unsettling, if thought- the time 1916 drew to a close provoking result of pacifist small ear flocks all over Europe efforts cannot be evidentially were headed for the neutral proven. Of course, the ears countries. It cannot be denied could not help but be affected that during that winter many by the fact that a world war ears perished upon battling was playing itself out on the Europe’s promontories or European stage where in the were crushed on rocks in course of a couple of weeks narrow channels or surprised

252 auricula by tidal waters on remote solution needed. Under cover sand banks. But after this of the comprehensive military bewildering winter the ears maneuvers taking place on followed the sun north, the east coast, the ears continually seen upon and converged on the tiniest of pursued along the coasts by ports and, with the wind countless migratory birds blowing from landward, they which, after they had gorged manned by nightfall one or themselves, continued their two small dinghies and set out migration, thereby showing to sea, having memorized any surviving ears the way. where the sun went down. Unaware of the fact, these With this terrified traffic the small flocks, which oftentimes old Viking routes between were not so small at that, England and Denmark were crossed the Danish border via once again plied, and that is the underside of bridges the reason that most of the spanning the Kongeå. Of those ears on Zealand and the other who ventured the farthest Danish isles, as well as the south, many were lucky ears along Sweden’s west enough to cross into coast, are English. The Switzerland where in order to Jutlandic ears were survive in the mountainous overwhelmingly German and regions they had to develop French and were unable to inferior traits. During the force the straits. Though summer of 1917, anxiety Denmark is, accordingly, the among the English ears had place of exile for most of become so great that a Europe’s ears, the groups are

253 per højholt sharply divided: English on ears and by those who had the islands or having gone managed to make their way astray in western Sweden; the through the south German, German and French, together French and Italian uproar, and with other tenacious and who with a grimace had intrepid flocks, further south: crossed the Pyrenees before in Jutland. the night mists were completely driven from their Many of these latter flocks, southward facing slopes. especially the ones from Thanks to the ears’ fraught France, were made fate’s fools relationship with sunshine to an almost tragic extent, and Mediterranean since if they had gone south temperatures, there are not rather than north they could many accounts of Spain’s east have easily reached Spain, coast ears. What exists are which was also neutral during mostly rumors stemming from the war. Of course, they would a national Spanish self- have been subjected to a assertiveness drive, though in climate that was less rainy one case the rumor could than they preferred, but in actually be verified. Seven return they would have ears, who under almost discovered in the Spanish diabolical and overwhelmingly towns and countryside much difficult circumstances mimed deeper shadows, a much more three watercolors by Paul refreshing darkness in the Cézanne, which they had cathedral lofts and remote imprinted on themselves at a rural barns. Such enticements dentist’s office in Perpignan, were appreciated by the local

254 auricula crossed the Spanish border in centrifugal force, most 1917 by way of a remote Spanish ears headed south. beach near Cerbère and then Portugal, however, did not proceeded along the coast adopt Spain’s wait-and-see until they reached Puerto de attitude to the war, but la Selva on the bay ’s innermost instead cast itself eagerly and point, where they huddled superfluously into the fray. together in the second of the Mobilization was already watercolors, a rather creating strong unrest among unfinished version of that country’s ears, causing Bouteilles et fruit, until many to pull up and most to sometime in October 1919, at head for less agreeable, which point they headed back though safer pastures. Yet over the border in search of hardly had the cannon booms the originals. Meanwhile, the from the northern battlefields three paintings had been sent began to sound in Portuguese to Vollard, whereupon the newspapers, which, in all ears set a course for the haste, had to requisition larger master’s studio in Aix, which fonts and drop the verb’s they entered through the high active tense from all headlines crack in 1927, twenty years and captions, when hosts of old, now with only Les terrified ears began to flee Baigneuses intact. For some south toward less literate reason or another, which regions. Up until 1917 most could as well be Spain’s ears stuck it out, holing up in hermetic road signs as inertia analphabetic farmers’ or the rotating earth’s outhouses and hay barracks,

255 per højholt but when the Russian minorae blushing furiously, revolution began to break headed in the direction to with analogical typography which their diminutive penises into even these farmers’ pointed, namely south in the minds, the ears traveled south direction of Algeciras. That out of the country, and that was also the goal of those ears was how they came to Las progressing eastward from Marismas, the great Granada through Malaga or inaccessible swamp south of Antequera, but because the the Spanish town of Sevilla, climate and the weather did traversed over the next few not permit either of the weeks by long, rickety columns groups to travel by day, and of ears who schlepped their because the nighttime journey ambiguous genitalia through was carried out with water and mud, until they abstraction and cynicism, the were finally able to rinse them forerunners arrived in time to clean again in the Guadalquivir find that the war from which and advance across the they had fled was already bridges at Sanlúcar and, via underway. Most came to a Jerez la Frontera, reach the baffled halt following the dry Spanish roads, in whose battle’s ultimate din and ditches they joined Spanish copulated confusedly until ears coming from the north. the Treaty of Versailles Many ears were distracted by underscored the winner so the incessant couplings to emphatically that they all which this meeting gave way, headed for the small town of but the majority, their labiae La Linea, from which they

256 auricula initiated an all out mutual been erected against, smugglery to Gibraltar. This however, the guards now remarkable English- faced a dilemma, namely, dominated cliff is connected their purpose there was now to the Spanish mainland by a meaningless, though if they mere three-kilometer-wide retreated back to their cozy isthmus of shifting sand, homes in shadow-filled La which rises but a few meters Linea, the activity precluded above the sea. Because by their presence would smugglery of a less self- undoubtedly blossom up contradictory nature had once again. Uneasy at the negative taken place with task imposed upon them by disproportionately large their country, many of the success, the Spanish guards simply broke, and a government ordered a low number, suffering under the rampart (La Linea) built right situation’s impact, turned to across the isthmus. Within a booze, which they liberated short period of time it was under cover of darkness and equipped with blockhouses, their official status from the small, primitive wooden more formal Englishmen. sheds, where the isthmus’ Besides supplying them with guards could shelter from the gin and tonic, this activity was daily sun and where a coal also useful, indeed one might brazier dauntlessly warded say it had a direct galvanizing off the nightly sea fogs. Since effect, since it served to these measures effectively maintain the guards’ eliminated what they had awareness of why they were

257 per højholt there, preserving as such the evidence, thanks mostly to illusion that their presence in the small area that played the blockhouses had a host to such a large number purpose, which of course it no of ears, ensuring that longer possessed, excepting perpetual confrontations with the few nights in which the the Rock’s military presence ears invaded the area inside took place. Still, these eye- the rampart and, one by one, witness accounts are oddly snuck across while miming distributed, as it quickly blue-mussel-shells-washed- became standard garrison ashore-by-the-tide. Scarcely practice to declare any English had they reached the other military personnel who side before the ears’ brought up the subject of discomfort at the big empty camp capitalizing ears to be sand stretch sent the small, having a “spell” and to send opalescent flock scurrying for them home mid-sentence. the gigantic limestone cliff, Valuable knowledge is which in the moonlight shone accordingly scattered all with a mother-of-pearl throughout Great Britain and, luminescence similar to the as it may be, swept aside by moon’s own. Regarding these electroshock and various ears, who from the entire forms of manuduction. In Iberian peninsula flocked to 1937 a few progressives under Gibraltar after their year in the influence of the Spanish neutral territory in order to Civil War took it into their now join the winning side post heads to gather and compile festum, there is considerable what they could of these firsthand accounts, though

258 auricula the second the poor graying unknown. In the previous soldiers began their giggling century the population description of the ears’ dwindled to three individuals, scandalous sexual practices a situation subsequently every single Englishman remedied by English officers immediately lifted his pen. who had several specimens This much is known, however, brought over from Africa, and that it is especially on the now they again live in flocks, promontory’s wild, desolate though utterly feral, eastern slope that the ears perpetually seeking the lee subsist. It is from there that side of this gigantic cliff. In the ears undertake expeditions color the monkeys are to renew their mimes. On yellowish gray with a flesh- these steep slopes, furrowed toned face, they entirely lack by rugged ravines, the ears tails, but like their conspecifics live in symbiotic relationship in Japan and Tibet they do with Europe’s only species of have seat cushions. Extinct primate, Macacus inuus, with specimens have been found, whom they not only share a for example, in France and unique status, but also the Italy, and even more recently rich growth of dwarf palms a partial jawbone found in which develop particularly Essex proves that the will here thanks to the macaques managed to survive limestone in the sparse in England. The focus of the topsoil. Whether or not the ears’ symbiosis with this macaques, which are actually remarkable, though little indigenous to north Africa, remarked upon creature, were wild or imported is however, is a small theater

259 per højholt located in the garden over their heads, and the ears surrounding the citadel, which had to acknowledge that the was erected by the Moorish monkeys’ interest for seat general Tariq in the eighth cushion directly in front of century, on the Rock’s west them oftentimes completely side. On the stage’s detached them from the painstakingly shaped events taking place on stage. flagstones, hewn directly Nonetheless, the ears were from the cliff side, the ears certain that it was thanks to would assemble as soon as these moonlit tableaus that the stage lay sheltered in the the macaques allowed them moonlight from the east wind to occupy the dark corners of and mime for the restless their small caves on the Rock’s macaques scenes from their east side. In this same region, Portuguese existence, from though far down by the bay, their flight (here everyone was also the small fishing could participate), and from village of La Caleta, though at their periodic voyeuristic the time of the ears’ arrival it skulks about the English camp. was known as Catalanbay. The greatest enthusiasm This village was connected to among the macaques, as few the west-side settlement, and distracted as they were, which shared its name with resulted from tremulous and the Rock, by a laborious path helpless parodies of their, the northward around the cliff, as macaques’, existence on the well as by a tunnel bored Rock. Yet the macaques let straight through the Rock and every opportunity for self- ending at Gibraltar town’s understanding fly straight docks. This tunnel, whose

260 auricula traversal was secured by the basis for quite a few small, specially designed broadcasts of serial English horse-drawn carts, offered trash. The Forsyte Saga, for abode to quite a few emigrant example, can thank that ears, as well as the two large, resounding ceiling for its final radically structured groups three convulsive and that constituted Don Quixote melodramatic volumes. In Part I a n d C a l d e r ó n ’s t r a ge d i e s . 1975 General Franco’s death For security’s sake, the groups paved the way for these were combined so that a first diminutive treasures to return glance could not unravel to more national vaults. The which was the work of interest. return, however, was an This organizational principle incarnation of subtle was so structured that, when difficulties. Fatally, there was it reached its climax, any no reliable ship route between random, superficial agreement Gibraltar and the Spanish between the two giants’ mainland, it was only by way works was exploited by the of ferry to Tangier and a groupings, so that entirely second stop along the Spanish new, original stories coast at Algeciras that the materialized for the illiterate enterprise was possible. hastily making his way through After several nights’ the tunnel. Enterprising British deliberation and periodic editors in the port city copulation, the two groups exploited this idea, with the decided among themselves result that the ignorant that each should attempt to fishermen’s accounts of that shift back to their original long, teeming ceiling formed

261 per højholt version, and so it was that by briefly drawing just a late one night two venerable little closer together. After volumes tumbled down into that they divided themselves the wagon belonging to a again according to the original bibliophilic English colonel, c r i t e r i a , w i t h Q u i x o t e I . h e a d i n g who only upon homecoming for Cordoba to track down could ascertain that he was in some of their fellows, while the possession of such precious Calderón group split up, the objects. What it must have antas sacramentales portion cost the ears to reach such electing to remain in Malaga, levels of tangibility, such that while the comedies and the colonel on his next leave intrigues shifted their exile to could find a buyer and reap the Arroyo west of Torremolinos, fruits of his good fortune and a location so remote that they the ears’ efforts for a fantastic quickly became garbled. In sum, can hardly be conceived. the tunnel of Gibraltar there The antiquarian in Malaga remain only a few scattered who so happily disbursed the groups of communistic bent cash immediately sold these and a collection of poems treasures to an astonished from Romancero Gitano, prelate in charge of the though the drama Yerma by university library at Antequera. García Lorca has temporarily The ears skedaddled a few surfaced. The appearance months later by forming a of works dating from after priest’s collar on an unwitting the ear flight of 1919-20 is old geezer of a prefect, whom connected, naturally enough, they then strangled in an with the fact that the Spanish archway’s striking shadow Civil War, which began in

262 auricula

1936 and ended with General or 1935, when a flock of ears, Franco’s incontestable victory, all from Madrid, discovered drove away the majority of that their mime of Don the most steadfast Spanish Quixote I. was superfluous, ears. That these ears have not since it overlapped with the yet returned, however, is not aforementioned one in the some revealing commentary tunnel. The ears’ desperation on Juan’s Spain, but is instead over their colossal, pointless due to the hot sexual action project, whose importance no taking place on that wet ceiling. one would ever acknowledge, Many a young fisherman, not even the flock itself, his every sense alert, has prompted the ears to emigrate traversed that raunchy dark, to Argentina via Tangier and whose extraordinary likeness then to Buenos Aires, where to a vagina is something to they set up shop in the which only the English are basement of one the public blind, and emerged at the library’s branches, a rough- docks having to use every and-tumble place by European means to drape his erect penis standards. Regarding the as a derrick. For whatever overall decrease in ear reason, the fact remains that population, it can be attributed Gibraltar’s ear concentration to such trivialities as random is the slowest of all the destruction, accidents, bad European concentrations luck, etc., coupled, as has to dwindle, if, indeed, it is already been mentioned, dwindling at all. Only one with an already modest and large ear emigration has distrait ear supply. With the actually taken place, in 1934 Gibraltar concentration and

263 per højholt its attendant circumstances in shake or rupture entirely, mind, one might expect like and concentrate instead groupings in similar locales, on natural ones, primarily for example, in the outermost rivers, from Switzerland regions of Italy and Greece. and on up north, primarily Given how wild and desolate the Rhine, these troubled these mountainous areas are, waters emphatically take us the fact that no such groups into Dutch precincts which, have been found does not pursuant to that country’s mean that they do not exist, obstinate neutrality and the simply that there are plenty of landscape’s lack of massifs, places for such theoretical ears afford a sumptuous and easily to stay hidden. Unfortunately, accessible hunting ground, this is also the case with the sight of which, however, mountainous Switzerland, probably caused the fleeing whose neutrality in World ears to regard their hard- War No. 1 would lead one to won peace and freedom as a suspect an ear presence, but capitulation. Nonetheless: The where only small flocks have sound of water calmly slipping yet been glimpsed. However, through the canals; the if one knows where in nature solemnly overbearing barges’ to look, for instance, around broad-bottomed sedateness watermills and in labyrinthine beneath the light, scallop- quarries, new discoveries are shaped clouds undoubtedly always possible. gave the ears the feeling that all this was not completely If we discount those borders undeserved considering all which wars occasionally they had experienced of

264 auricula hardship and deprivation. If cities were a reoccurring the ears had contemplated nightmare, since the ears were their long journey, and not forced to navigate along the simply shoved it to the back stone wharves’ undersides of their minds along with the down by the water’s edge in rest of the nightmares, they perpetual danger of discovery would have experienced the or drowning. A misfortunate Netherlands as a fish trap, a few that lost their grip were fyke net, whose long leader fortunate enough to land on was formed by the Rhine. driftwood, which overtook Those German ears that fled their further transport. west, designating the sunsets Because of the state of war the tantalizing answer to their no-one was surprised by this desires, stood namely on the macabre sight, assuming that Rhine’s east bank sometime the ear in question originated in the spring of 1917 and from some enemy plane’s then followed the sun north. dismembered pilot. Senseless with terror, lines of these ears crept north along t h e m i g h t y w a t e r c o u r s e, f e w o f them even sparing the time for any disconsolate copulations underway. None of them dared venture beneath the noisy, rumbling iron bridges that intermittently offered the travel-weary escape. The extensive harbors in the larger

265 Five Poems Vasyl Lozynsky

Vasyl Lozynsky

Five266 Poems Five Poems Vasyl Lozynsky

267

Vasyl Lozynsky Five Poems translated by ostap kin and ali kinsella

Radio Liberty’s website is broadcasting the attack on Bankova Street live; the agitated commentator is counting victims on both sides like goals scored. Today reporters run around the field of battle like players or referees

268 1991

Let’s take an ordinary village in this year, which will later become unique in our recollections about childhood. There’s an ordinary—for that time—village club where they screen films about Bruce Lee on a VCR. The elections were also held there— an absurdist ritual in the lobby; colorful booths, red and blue, were set up; this act was as mysterious as the disco. The booths were spread out, people scurried inside. The results of referendum were published the next day on the door of the village store that sold foodstuffs: two people were against the country’s separating from the Union of fraternal nations. Everyone repeated their last name, that re-settled family of Russian-speaking paramedics, and now in my memory the announcement board is a board of shame, yet actually, no war broke out and you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

269 vasyl lozynsky

Fazenda Bar

This is story about a job; when people take vacation because of a war. They’d like to work at a bar or at a reception desk and they come for an interview. They can’t get vacation if their employer or position is important. “Who gets vacation for three months anyway?” asks a girl who can’t return to Donetsk, drinking her next cocktail at the bar. The manager’s acquaintance worked as a dancer in Thailand. The girl wants to be invited to dance and asks the waitress if anyone’s dancing in the other room where a DJ’s playing. But it doesn’t matter, we all think, and someone says it aloud and everyone continues reading the so-called news on their so-called phones. I can’t believe this will one day be considered tourism, and the travel agency’s slogan will read: “Run away!”

270 ***

I can’t feel like a stranger in this country, and yet I can’t love it like everything dear except for family, yet as I write this, I find myself neither in that country, nor in that family, and if I spend too much time online, I feel lost when I go out into the streets of the city. I don’t run into those people I see on Facebook, and in times of peace, where there is war you feel peace, even though you’re online, but that’s enough fighting in another country, that’s enough time spent online, go out into the streets of the neighboring country! Even if it’s your country, you’ll discover nice people and protesters there, the ones you saw online in other countries. I’m writing this and taking you into account!

271 vasyl lozynsky

***

Radio Liberty’s website is broadcasting the attack on Bankova Street live; the agitated commentator is counting victims on both sides like goals scored. Today reporters run around the field of battle like players or referees, what is the significance of their comments? Who are their viewers after all? The wounded receive first aid. I remember a museum and flee to it; I close my laptop.

It’s comfortable there, and there’s time to reflect. My pen and paper are there somewhere.

December 1, 2013, Graz

272 Islands of Credibility

Out of all teachers this one was noticed the least, there was the idea of falling in love with geography since how can you fall in love with language or literature. With those, you’ve got to deal with the teachers; a city, a landscape or some island regardless of geological period is another thing. Nations usually learn from others’ mistakes made in other countries. Where there was war, peace will reign; where you need knowledge, there will be a teacher. When you’re asked not to speak, it means what you said was correct. Will they yet bomb the islands of credibility with atomic warheads? This is how the information war breaks out. If you suffer from paranoia, the enemies have won. Do you hear the song that follows you from the speakers as you move from one café to another on your way? Kyiv, January 2015

273 About the Authors & Works

274 About the Authors & Works

275 about the authors & works

Faïza Guène

Faïza Guène (born in Bobigny, France, 1985) derives her strong originality as a writer as a product of mixed cultures: both parents are from Algeria, and she grew up in Pantin, a suburb of Paris. Questions of cultural identity pervade her two most famous novels, Kiffe kiffe demain (Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow, published at age 19) and Du rêve pour les oufs (Dreams from the Endz). Mourad, the main character of Men Don’t Cry, is born in Nice to Algerian parents, and has a strong desire to forge his own destiny. He must defy strong familial pressure in sticking to tradition; his biggest fear is becoming a fat old man with gray hair living off of his mother for his entire life. One sister lives life à la française, free-thinking and away from her roots, while his other sister follows their family’s traditions strictly. Thus the ground is set for this novel’s fertile exploration.

Translated from French by Sarah Ardizzone.

276 about the authors & works

Ibrahim al-Koni

Ibrahim al-Koni (born in Libya, 1948) is a prolific Arabic novelist, born to a nomadic Saharan family. His first language is Tamasheq, he grew up as a Tuareg and remains a prime authority on Tuareg culture and folklore, which is very influential on his writing. He was educated in Moscow and Switzerland, and presently lives in Spain. Al-Koni has written more than eighty volumes in Arabic language. The Scarecrow is the last of three volumes from his New Waw trilogy, depicting the founding, flourishing, and decline, in greed and corruption, of a Saharan oasis. Although chronological, plot is not central to this story, freely mixing spiritual with temporal reality – so the trilogy can be read in any order. The book opens with a forum of conspirators who have assassinated a community leader and are trying to elect a new leader. This work is not yet available in book form in English. Translated from Arabic by William M. Hutchins.

277 about the authors & works

Tahar Ben Jelloun

Celebrated novelist Tahar Ben Jelloun (born in Fez, Morocco, 1944) studied philosophy at Mohammed V University in Rabat, and received his doctorate in social psychology from the Sorbonne. Jelloun has lived in Paris since 1972 and written more than 23 works. Fully bilingual from childhood, he chooses to write his novels in French rather than Arabic, although virtually all have been situated in North Africa. He is the first Arab writer to have been honored with the Prix Goncourt, and has received numerous other accolades including the Cross of Grand Officer of theLégion d’honneur, awarded by Nicolas Sarkozy. He has been a vocal critic of tyranny in the Middle East, and addressed aspects of the Arab Spring in notable fiction and essays. Yet foremost, as he puts it, he is “a storyteller, a novelist, and a fabulator who plays with words and with the imaginary.” Ablation relates the experience of the author’s friend, who undergoes life-changing surgery. This work meshes past and present, and combines fiction, reportage, colloquial speech and medical terminology, to explore the identity and inner struggle of the unfortunate protagonist. Translated from French by Clayton McKee.

278 about the authors & works

Alima Hamel

Alima Hamel (born 1974 in Nantes, France) is a poet, lyricist and singer of Algerian origin. A member of the musical ensemble Monkomarok for ten years, she sang her own compositions as well as works by Fernando Pessoa and Henri Michaux. Going solo in 2008, she currently heads a trio ensemble and participates in several other French, world music and experimental music projects. Influenced by Marguerite Duras and Emily Dickinson, her poems and songs depicts women on their quest for life and freedom, with intimacy never far from view. Reflecting on her creative existence between two cultures, Alima notes: “My words have two languages: French and Algerian. French – because it is the language of my day-to-day life, it allows me to easily appoint words to light or grave thoughts, to give a spontaneous or considerate meaning to my actions, my doubts… Algerian is the language that comes from the depth of souls, says the unspeakable, dares the impudent, the painful, the marvelous… I would not be able to go without one or the other.” Translated from French by Anna Navrotskaya. You can hear Alima’s terrific compositions performed in original French mixed with Algerian Arab dialect here.

279 about the authors & works

Zaher Omareen

Zaher Omareen is a Syrian writer and artist living in the UK, who has worked on independent cultural initiatives in Syria and Europe. His short story ‘First Safety Maneuver’ won a prize awarded by the Danish Institute in Damascus and the 2012 Copenhagen Festival of Literature. Omareen was a participating artist in the Victoria and Albert exhibition Disobedient Objects and has been working on the new Syrian art archive at the British Museum. He is an editor of Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline (2014, Saqi Books) – winner of the English PEN award, for challenging the culture of violence in today’s Syria. Zaher is completing his PhD in documentary cinema and new media at Goldsmiths College. Tales of the Orontes River is a forthcoming, interlocking collection of short stories drawn from the 1982 Hama massacre. In deft strokes, these stories detail ordinary people seeking to live their lives in the backdrop of a shattering reality always just around the corner. Translated from Arabic by Alice Guthrie.

280 about the authors & works

Najat El Hachmi

Najat El Hachmi (born in Morocco, 1979) emigrated with her family to the Catalonian region of Spain at the age of eight. Her novel The Last Patriarch (2008), dealing with themes of migration, won the prestigious Ramon Llull prize for Catalonian literature, and she has helped represent Catalonian literature at venues throughout Europe. The Foreign Daughter, her third novel, is steeped in the beautiful minutae of Catalan life and culture, in the context of a woman deeply examining and assessing what role cultural identity and otherness might play in navigating some of life’s larger questions. Translated from Catalan by Peter Bush.

281 about the authors & works

György Spiró

György Spiró (born in Budapest, 1946) has been best-known until now as one of Hungary’s most notable playwrights. A former radio journalist, he has won virtually every literary prize in Hungary. His work combines a classical sensibility with decidedly contemporary language and concerns. He presently teaches at ELTE University of Budapest, where he specializes in Slavic literatures. Captivity is Spiró’s nearly 900-page juggernaut of a novel. An unconventional reconstruction of Jewish life in the First Century A.D., it follows the travails of the myopic Uri from his youth, as he makes his way in the world. Captivity has just been named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the 10 Best fiction books of 2015: “Monumental… The level of detail is stunning; Mr. Spiró seems to know absolutely everything about the first-century Mediterranean world… [Captivity] never loses steam. (…) You can read it as a parable of the Jewish condition amid the modern empires of Europe, or you can simply lose yourself in the ancient setting it so comprehensively describes.” Available from Restless Books. You can listen to a conversation with the author about this work here (13 minutes). Translated from Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson. A note on the author

282 about the authors & works

Georgi Gospodinov

Georgi Gospodinov (born in Yambol, Bulgaria, 1968) studied Bulgarian Philology at Sofia University. A widely-anthologized poet, now also a fiction writer and playwright, his well-received first novel, Natural Novel – “anarchic” and “experimental” (The New Yorker), “humorous, melancholy and highly idiosyncratic” (The Times) and “both earthy and intellectual” (The Guardian) – has been translated into 17 languages, and lauded for its fluid new kind of structure. The Physics of Sorrow is his second sort-of novel, tracing a narrative around questioning the myth of the Minotaur, while exploring the Bulgaria of the 1990s and its implications for today. It has won the Bulgarian Novel of the Year award, and this translation has just been long-listed by PEN as one of the best books in English translation of 2015. It is available from Open Letter Books. We spoke with Georgi Gospodinov about The Physics of Sorrow – you can enjoy this engaging audio conversationhere (35 minutes). Translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel.

283 about the authors & works

Sergei Lebedev

Sergey Lebedev (born in Moscow,1981) worked for seven years on geological expeditions in northern Russia and Central Asia. Lebedev is a poet, essayist and journalist. He is currently at work on his third novel. In Oblivion, “a young man travels to the vast wastelands of the Far North to uncover the truth about a shadowy neighbor who saved his life, and whom he knows only as Grandfather II. …This disturbing tale evokes the great and ruined beauty of a land where man and machine worked in tandem with nature to destroy millions of lives.” Sergei Lebedev “opens up new territory in literature. Lebedev’s prose lives from the precise images and the author’s colossal gift of observation.”—Der Spiegel “The beauty of the language is almost impossible to bear. The novel luxuriates in poetic language.”—Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung “Beautifully written, haunting and unputdownable. A masterpiece novel which relates the horrors of Russia’s unburied Soviet past through the eyes of a man revisiting—and filling in the gaps in—his half-understood childhood.”—Edward Lucas, senior editor, The Economist This novel is available from mid-January 2016 by New Vessel Press. Translated from Russian by Antonina W. Bouis.

284 about the authors & works

Catherine McNamara

Catherine McNamara is a good example of today’s European. Now an Italian citizen and living in Italy, she is originally from Sydney, Australia, spent the bulk of her adult life in Europe, and considers herself a European adoptee. Moving first to Paris as a student, she worked as an au pair for a theatrical family, taught English in Milan, then moved to pre-war Somalia and worked in an embassy. She has since lived in Brussels, in northern Italy, and nine years in Ghana, where she co-ran a bar and traditional art gallery. Italian is her day-to-day language, although she writes in English. Her collection Pelt and Other Stories was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2014 and semi-finalist in the Hudson Prize 2011. Her story “Magaly Park” was nominated for a Pushcart prize last year, and she has recently been shortlisted for the Hilary Mantel/KWS Short Story Competition, the Short Fiction International Short Story Competition, the Labello Press Short Story Competition and the Love on the Road Short Story Competition. She has work forthcoming or published in Ambit, Structo, Wasafiri, Short Fiction, A Tale of Two Cities and Two Thirds North (Stockholm University). Her debut novel was published in 2012. ‘Astragal’ is set in the Italian Dolomites.

285 about the authors & works

Per Højholt

Per Højholt (born in Esbjerg, Denmark, 1928) is most well known as an experimental Danish poet who, despite his determination to continually push boundaries, linguistic and otherwise, was widely read and extremely influential in Denmark. By the time of his death in 2004, his bibliography had grown to include, among other things, over twenty poetry collections, numerous short prose works, three essay collections and three novels. He was also active in the fields of radio and television. Højholt received numerous literary awards throughout his career. Auricula is a monstrosity of a book, a labyrinthine composition with no obvious plot whose baroque sentences may fill half a page or more. The novel’s ostensible subject is a group of ambulating ears that, capable solely of self-hearing, are the product of a silence that briefly fell across Europe in 1915. Twenty years in the making, Auricula is often read as Højholt’s masterwork, his poetics put into praxis, an extended meditation on the juxtaposition of the imaginary and the real. Auricula’s importance, however, does not lie in the place it occupies in the oeuvre of one of Denmark’s most celebrated and unorthodox poets, but rather for the sweeping picture it provides of twentieth century art and culture. Translated from Danish by Kerri Pierce.

286 about the authors & works

Vasyl Lozynsky

Vasyl Lozynsky (born in Ukraine, 1982) is a poet, essayist, translator, literary critic and curator, based in Kyiv. He studied German language and literature in Lviv and Berlin, and translated Franz Kafka’s short story collectionContemplation into Ukrainian, as well as a volume by Polish poet Tadeusz Dabrowski, and a book of poetry by Ron Winkler. His articles, translations and poetry have been published in journals including PROstory, Krytyka, SHO, Chetver, KORYDOR, Ostragehege, and Lichtungen. His poetry has been translated into German, Polish and Russian. Lozynsky’s projects include readings “Insha robota” (Foundation Center for Contemporary Art, Kyiv, and Centre for Visual Art at UKMA), evenings of Polish poetry, “Kyiv Laurels” and “Literarichner Briefklub” in cooperation with the Goethe Institute Library in Kyiv. He has been a member of the interdisciplinary curatorial association Hudrada since 2008, and is on the editorial board of PROstory, a journal of society and culture. His first collection of poems is called Holiday after Debauchery. Translated from Ukrainian by Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella.

287 A Note on the Artwork

Cover Our cover image is a handmade carpet by Faig Ahmed. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1982, he studied Sculpture at the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Art, and works in several visual media. Lately he has been creating original carpets, sculptures and installations by playing artistically with traditional Azerbaijani rug designs. He has exhibited his works at the Venice Biennale, in the Victoria and Albert Museum and Sotheby’s Auction House in London, at the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow, and at many other galleries and venues in Paris, Dresden, Dubai, Baku, Boston, New York, Hong Kong, and in the Netherlands. He lives and works in Baku. “Oiling” is a handmade woolen carpet, 100cm x 150cm, made in 2012. For more information on Faig Ahmed and his work, visit his website here.

288 Illustration & Layout Design All the design and layout for this issue comes from Director of Sioveh Illustration, Nandita Dhindsa. She was born in India in 1984, and studied Solar Power Engineering in Budapest, Hungary before turning to art and design. Working internationally, she has lately focused on mural projects involving handlettering, calligraphy and portraits. All chapter illustrations were created specially for this issue. For more information on Sioveh and her work, click here.

289 Acknowledgments

The novel Men Don’t Cry by Faïza Guène, translated from French by Sarah Ardizzone, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, excerpted with permission. Author photo © Christine Tamalet.

The novel The Scarecrow by Ibrahim Al-Koni, translated from Arabic by William M. Hutchins, is excerpted with permission of University of Texas Press.

L’Ablation by Tahar Ben Jelloun © Editions Gallimard, Paris, 2014, is excerpted and translated by Clayton McKee, used with permission. Author photo Catherine Hélie © Editions Gallimard.

Lyrics and poetry by Alima Hamel translated from French (and colloquial Arabic) by Anna Navrotskaya, used with permission. Photo: Presse Rouge.

The short-story collection, Tales of the Orontes River by Zaheer Omareen, translated from Arabic by Alice Guthrie, is excerpted with permission.

The novel The Foreigner’s Daughter by Najat El Hachmi is translated from Catalan by Peter Bush, used with permission.

György Spiró’s novel, Captivity, translated from Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson, is excerpted with permission from Restless

290 Books. Author photo by Jack Llewellyn-Karski.

The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel, is published by Open Letter Books, excerpted with permission. Author photo by D. Stoilpva.

Oblivion by Sergei Lebedev, translated from Russian by Antonina W. Bouis, is forthcoming from New Vessel Press, excerpted with permission.

The short story “Astragal” by Catherine McNamara is used with permission of the author.

The novel Auricula © 2001 by Per Højholt, by agreement with Gyldendal Group Agency is excerpted and translated from Danish by Kerri Pierce, printed with permission.

Poems by Vasyl Lozynsky translated from Ukrainian by Ostap Kin and Ali Kinsella, used with permission. The carpet image, “Oiling” (cover) appear courtesy of Faig Ahmed Studio. Many thanks to Clayton McKee, who assisted with this issue’s European-Arab focus, to Nandita Dhindsa (Sioveh Illustration) for her superb illustrations and layout design, and to the Pennsylvania State University for facilities and support.

291 some of the best new writing from europe trafikaeurope.org

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