Excerpt
“I’m interested in one gemstone,” he said.
“Which one?”
“If you let me see them, I’ll pick out the one I’m interested in.”
In his father’s den, he looked through the collection and chose one.
The next day he gave it to Miloo. She put her arms around him and held
him tight, shivering and crying against him.
“This is only a minor token of the way I feel about you,” Ken said. “I
love you beyond words and this is only a symbol of that love.”
“I’m so frightened of the feelings I have,” she cried.
“I’m going to ask you not to be,” Ken said. “Don’t be frightened. It’s
fear that kills us. I’ve been talking with the Canadian ambassador about
going to Canada and I want you to come with me.”
“Canada? It sounds so far away. It sounds so dangerous.”
“Yes, it is far away, but how could it be any more dangerous than where
we are right now? Look at what’s going on here. There are more people
disappearing every day and everyone is pretending that nothing is happening.
No one is doing anything about it. Everyone goes home at night,
looking around corners and holding their breath – wondering if they’ll
get a knock on the door at three in the morning and disappear too. I
won’t live that way.”
“What can you do about it?”
“There are always things you can do if you don’t let fear get in the way.
If you stop thinking you shut the door on fear. When you start to think
about things you get fearful. You just have to have the simplest of plans
and stop thinking. Carry it out. For instance, these people who are informing
– what on earth are they informing on in a village like this? What
could the local people be doing that could possibly be of any danger to
anyone? This is corruption beyond the imagination. This is madness. My
grandmother told me one of her Spanish sayings – not all those who are
in the madhouse are mad and not all those who are out aren’t. From what
I see, I think that the lunatics are out and they’ve put us in the asylum.”
He took her hand. “Will you come to Canada with me?”
“I’d have to leave my family.”
“You and your family don’t get along.”
“But, they are still my family.”
“Would you like to live in a country where we have the freedom and
the right to be who we are?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Would you like to live with me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Enough to come?”
FROM OBLOMOV’S JOURNAL
Rainy day in the afternoon
It’s getting more and more difficult to get started,
to start again, to make myself do it
and get it over with.
I am becoming more and more alienated from
youth,
like the one who is alienated from
what he is not anymore, from who he was.
It’s not a betrayal, I’m just forgetting;
I’m busy with others or not
and I forget.
Another day, in the morning
I look at my body as if to an alien planet
on which I settled.
I immerse myself into the peace and dreams with it,
I procrastinate because of its moods, I always
procrastinate.
It’s a kind of symbiosis
between me and the flesh planet, which sees, hears,
feels, sleeps and rests.
Together in some kind of love and death.
Me or it, one of us has to give in.
SINCE NINE O’CLOCK
Twelve thirty. Time has gone by quickly
since nine o’clock when I lit the lamp
and sat down here. I sat without reading,
and without speaking. Whom would I speak to
alone in this house?
The vision of my youthful body
has come and visited me since nine o’clock
when I lit the lamp and has recalled
closed rooms full of fragrance
and lost carnal pleasure—what bold pleasure!
And it also brought before my eyes,
roads that are now unrecognizable,
taverns full of action that have closed,
and theaters and coffee bars that no longer exist.
The vision of my youthful body
also brought me sad memories;
family mourning, separations,
feelings about loved ones, emotions
of the dead so little appreciated.
Half past twelve. How time has gone by.
Half past twelve. How the years went by.
Pending
You are unreachable
You seem uncertain
Why don’t we end this
I am such a burden
I would never end it
Except that, for you
Wouldn’t make you suspend it
Just enable you to
You wouldn’t start a thing
Nor be all-ending
Thus this fine connection
Remains – status: pending
Unchecked
Just leave me unchecked
I’ll grow up
To be the object
Of your love
Manolis Aligizakis 