EEG by Daša Drndic

Author:Daša Drndic
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811228497
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2019-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

Ada’s fridge is full of food. There are all kinds of delicacies, small and large. Pieces of first-class Parmesan, dried tomatoes, jars of pesto, various cheeses, pâté (including goose), pickled eels, olives, capers and prosciutto. On a shelf stand a tin of olive oil, a little bottle of thick, aged aceto balsamico and a dozen packets of pasta, from farfalle and “elephant trunks” to tagliatelle. All this is brought by the Italians who come in the summer to the upper floors of the house that is no longer ours, then Ada makes it into dinner for them and they all talk about life. Or else Ada goes to the Italians upstairs and on the terrace that was once ours gathers up her past, for a moment cheerfully. Then she stops mumbling and talks clearly, she doesn’t close her eyes like that frustrated Rosalina, who first rolls them upward as though she was fainting. They’re decent people, those Italians, with them Ada is completely herself, with them, in what is now their house, she is at home.

Well, tell her, tell her once and for all, my sister insists.

So we invited Leila, who was roaming around Rovinj like a deaf dog, summoning up drowned times, for my ratatouille and Ada’s crème caramel, our “red” Italians, Sergio and Elena, came down too, there was a gentle breeze in the garden, the swifts foretold rain, we talked about recent films, and about Thomas Bernhard and Robert Walser, then a bit about Ignaz Semmelweis, a bit about Garshin and Zweig, Elena about some psychiatric cases, because Elena is a psychiatrist and she keeps a whole galaxy of human pain, human sorrow in little bundles, some in her head, some in her chest. Her Sergio talked about the Left in Bologna, because Sergio is a left-winger from Bologna, languages intertwined, wine was poured, then I said, Leila’s father had a medal from Hitler.

Sergio smiled and concluded bitterly, That’s a nightmare, generations of the dead oppress the minds of the living. Says Marx.

Then it rained. Terrible, diluvial rain. A torrent of murky swirling water swept down the hill on Bregovita, and drunken Leila had a heart attack.

Into the garden came a large snow-white bird the size of a seagull, only it wasn’t a seagull, seagulls are greedy and they scream, this bird strolled regally into our already dark cellar, bearing on its wings light, a heavenly beauty. A caladrius. It was a male, because it had an orange beak on which a little sun flickered. It had orange legs, while the female has black legs and their beaks too are black, so what quivers on them is not the sun, but death. This caladrius had eyes like tar, out of which lightning flashed.

The caladrius raised its head toward the ceiling and — began to sing. It was a song of joy and a song of sorrow too, a strange song, disturbing and mysterious. It walked over to the numbed Leila and climbed onto her chest.

Legend has it

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