Ti Amo by Hanne Ørstavik

Author:Hanne Ørstavik [Orstavik, Hanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2022-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

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After visiting your GP, on our way to the Clivati pasticceria, we stop at a pet shop and go inside, passing between the aquariums, walls of glass behind which little fish dart, red and yellow, so quick they are, so much movement, so dainty and graceful, so much life. We want suet cakes, feed to put out for the birds on the balcony. We go up to the counter at the back of the shop, there’s another customer before us, a woman with two small white poodles, one of which yaps at you fiercely, I step back, but it doesn’t frighten you, you smile and crouch down to give it a pat, and there’s another dog too, behind the counter, a black labrador that wags its tail and comes towards you, and you pat that one too and ruffle its coat and talk to it, and the pet shop woman and the dog woman stand yakking away as if we didn’t exist, and you seem so contented, crouching there with the dogs around you, but now I can speak so much Italian that I manage to get a word in and ask if we can buy some suet cakes for the birds, and the pet shop woman calls for her mother who’s talking to some other people in the back room, where the labrador came from, I can see two more dogs asleep on a cushion there in the corner, and the mother comes out and you stand up straight again. Thanks, you say to me, I got distracted, and the mother asks how many suet cakes we want, you say they’re usually gone in no time, so we buy ten. She puts them in a bag for us, you say goodbye to the dogs, and we carry on then to the pasticceria.

This morning I put two of the cakes out on the makeshift bird table you’ve cobbled together, the saucer from an empty terracotta pot, the pot upturned, the saucer balanced on top. On the street when we were out walking you found a stone you dropped into your pocket, you’ve placed it in the middle now to add some weight, and have scattered some sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. And now this is what we talk about in the mornings, sitting on the sofa in our pajamas with our coffee, though you don’t drink coffee anymore, only tea, and a piece of panettone each. We watch the birds, their comings and goings, and you know the names of all the various kinds, you tell me what they’re called in Italian. And we sit there looking out instead of at each other, we talk about them and are together in that, instead of in what we see when we look at each other and don’t talk about.

Now it’s Saturday, January 10, it’s 14:44 and I’ve sat down to write, I’m writing every day now, following the same routine, we get up, I make coffee and tea,

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