| The first time I saw Cornelia was at a dance, at the Cultural Center
at No. 3 where folk music was playing and night moths gathered on trumpets
as if around a street lamp in the dark. Children knew by heart the precise
number of cobblestones in the pavement. And Cornelia had a little metal
plaque sewn on her shoulder reading No. 7: that's where I used to live
for several years. My mother would occasionally play the piano, the girl
in the same courtyard would bake her raw breasts golden in the sun. Roses
melted and left perfumed puddles on the sidewalk, where elegant ladies
would dip the heels of their shoes and sashay merrily on their way. Such
life on the street! And Cornelia was always by our side. In those days
I counted up book pages as you might count up your wad of bank notes, and
I'd save them stuffed in a sock. I was sixteen years old, those years amassed
easily, with hardly any effort. On every street, I followed Cornelia. Furtively
I peeked out the window at her, beneath the curtain. I waited for her at
the dances, dogs barking with the sound of trumpets, trumpets muted with
burnt moth wings. And she spoke to me a few times, the lovely Cornelia,
while the trumpets rang out and trilled in their singing the way downspouts
buzz when rainwater rushes through them. One time she told me they all
had little metal plaques reading No. 7 sewn on their shoulders, and that
I was going to live there for several years. But then I was going to have
to pack up and take my leave. Cornelia walked me to the corner and stared
after me for a long, long time. Whenever I happen to pass by again, the
stones in her pavement tremble quietly beneath my step.
translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Bogdan Stefanescu |
Email Adam Sorkin (co-translator)
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