Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý

Author:Andrzej Tichý
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Contemporary fiction;literary fiction;Swedish;Sweden;Malmö;translation;immigration;addiction;music;urban;race;Scandinavia;Kendrick Lamar;Knausgaard;drugs;August prize;Mogwai;Simone Weil;Eländet;James Joyce;Krasznahorkai;Thomas Bernhard;Mircea Cartarescu;masculinity;racism;Lina Wolff;Patty Yumi Cottrell;Anthony Anaxagorou;Will Ashon;Jen Calleja;Derek Owusu
Publisher: And Other Stories Publishing
Published: 2020-03-20T21:15:56+00:00

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Wax plants? Was it really wax-plant flowers I was thinking of as I stood there by the canal, against the backdrop of the police station’s symmetrical facade? Wasn’t it cherry blossoms? And it wasn’t at home on the windowsill that I’d seen them, was it, but in the yard, in the garden, by the fence, wasn’t that it? Or in the park, past the bridge, under the bridge, yeah, in the water, in the cold, dark water, bobbing, calm and serene. We should go, said the guitarist after a while. I don’t know how much time had passed, but it was enough for the full realisation to hit us that there was nothing we could do, nothing at all. We saw the paramedics come and deal with the body, someone else was looking after the driver, and several times I was about to open my mouth and say something, that I’d met that guy before, just a little while ago, just before you came, by the canal, by the police station, but for some reason I couldn’t manage it, didn’t know where to begin, from which end, from which sensory impression, and now the guitarist was silent too, and the composer just said Jesus, and fucking hell, a few times, and we walked to the central station, bought our tickets and took the escalator down to the platforms. We drifted down and I felt like I was having to shout to make myself understood, even though the guitarist and the composer were standing right next to me, so close I could hear them breathe, hear the swishing and rustling of their clothes. This is how it is, I thought several times, more or less involuntarily, and without even knowing what that meant. This is how it is. This is my life. It has to be this straightforward. So tyrannical. The junkie’s dead and I’m the only one left. Then I thought, still on the escalator, going down and down and down, that it was idiotic, that my thoughts were idiotic, that I was an idiot. And we got on the train, in silence. The guitarist got out his phone and started tapping at it. I looked at the composer, she closed her eyes and sort of massaged them, rubbed her fingers against her eyelids, and I took the chance to lean my head back and close my eyes too, my hands resting on my lap as the train glided across the Øresund. We got off at Nørreport and wandered across to the cathedral. The guitarist said something about a car accident he’d been involved in where everyone had escaped with their lives, and the composer showed us a scar she’d got when a car she’d been in drove into a motorway barrier. We reached the church, paid the entrance fee and sat right at the front on the left-hand side, each with a programme in our hands. Then Christoph Maria Moosmann entered. I turned round, looked up at the organ and could just make him out as he sat down at the manual.

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