Zbornik Mednarodnega literarnega srečanja Vilenica 2004 - Ljudmila

Barbara Simoniti
»The house is not in the best condition. It’s very dilapidated, but nothing
of the kind that wouldn’t admit repairs. Carpenters and house painters
can work miracles, you’ll see.«
He pulled a huge forged key out of his pocket and put it into the lock.
It squeaked and the door flew apart.
We entered into stifled air, thick with dust, cobwebs and oblivion, and
mounted the stairs. Primož let me in first. I was opening the doors and
slowly guessing the rooms. The back rooms and the front ones, the sunny
and the shady ones. Everything was neglected to the point of unrecognizability;
snaggy floorboards gave way under feet. I stepped to the window
and opened the opaque, patched wings. I was flooded by the fresh air
and the bronze clang of the clock from the near-by belfry.
Primož brought two ramshackle chairs – one of them was without the
back, and the other, a battered bent-wood chair, was interwoven with a
torn seat like an abandoned bird nest – and we carefully sat down on
them, in the middle of what used to be the drawing room.
»What are your plans, Kristina?«
I shook my head.
»Can we tempt you to stay?«
»I think that in this case the singular would be the proper form to use,«
I looked at him slowly and stood up.
He withstood my look and raised himself as well.
»Yes, I know. But it isn’t possible, I’m sorry to say.«
He was still looking at me.
»I guessed immediately that you were married. Well married.«
»How? From what?«
»That’s difficult to say. From your calmness, the inner orderliness that
you radiate. You can put up with differentness because you live with it.
Women are not just a desirous riddle to you.«
»Do you mean to say that because of that I don’t feel anything anymore?«
»No! By no means! I think you can feel even more because we are closer
to you. That’s why it’s so easy to fall in love with a married man. You are
tuned to us.«
»And why are you speaking in the plural now?«
»Because I’m not able to say it any other way, because it doesn’t work
like that in Slovene...«
»Kristina – don’t analyse it all into a rational puzzle for us...«
»I can’t, anyway. I’m only trying to make things less unbearable... unendurable...
whatever...«
We touched, with guilt and relief, with the unrestrainable speech of
palms and hands.
Translated by the author
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