Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck

Author:Jenny Erpenbeck
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811225953
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2017-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

30

All summer long, the boat lay moored beside the dock, but because of the dead man in the lake, Richard didn’t use it even once. A couple of times over the last few nights heavy rain fell, so now the boat is full of water, and it wouldn’t take much to make it sink. The two men lug the skiff toward the shore like a drunken whale until it touches bottom and they can climb onto the seats to bail it out.

Say, when were you born exactly? Richard asks.

In ’91, Apollo says.

Richard thought as much.

What month?

January 1.

In other words: eight months after the massacre to put down the Tuareg rebellion that he told his friends about yesterday. You’re lucky, he says, that’s perfect timing for New Year’s fireworks.

The Italians say it’s January 1 if you don’t have a document.

I understand, Richard says.

Then they go on bailing.

Say, Richard says after a while, I saw on the internet that in Niger they dig very deep wells. And then a donkey pulls up the bucket of water. Is that really true?

Yes, says Apollo, the donkey has to walk for the same distance as the length of the rope with the canister. And then it turns around and walks back. Every day, back and forth like that for three or four hours.

That sounds labor-intensive.

The animals need water.

Why don’t you just roll up the rope with a crank?

It won’t hold in the sand.

Then it must be dangerous to dig these wells.

Yes, many people were buried.

Now they place round logs under the boat, pieces of a sawed-up tree, and use them to roll the boat across the grass to the edge of the lawn. Yesterday Richard read that because of the enormous quantities of water needed to flush the uranium out of the stone, groundwater levels have dropped noticeably all around the mines.

Do you know Arlit?

Of course. My region, Apollo says.

Soon the world will once more have occasion to speak of the Tuareg, since the French minister intends to vigorously pursue the completion of this undertaking. When one day, perhaps quite soon, the Sahara Railway is a reality and the steam-snorting iron horse takes its place upon the desert sands as a rival to the nimble camel, these sons of the desert will no doubt experience distress. The Tuareg will do their best to arrest the course of Culture, but their attacks will be countered with well-aimed peloton fire and brandy until, like the Indians in America, they cede their land to the Civilized. This was written in 1881 in the journal Gartenlaube shortly after the invention of journalism. The planned Sahara Railway came to naught, but a mere one hundred years later, the French just as undauntedly began to pursue uranium mining in their former colony.

Culture, Richard thinks. Progress, he thinks.

Okay, he says, listen, start tipping the boat from that end, and I’ll push it from the other side.

He holds the boat while Apollo takes some logs to place underneath it. Then they turn the boat slowly until it comes to rest upside down.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.