Found in Translation

by Frank Wynne

  No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is only once removed from the true world. At the door of the hovel where I lie, there stands the plank on which the dead are taken away. The gravedigger Jew has his spade ready. The grave waits and the worms are hungry; the shrouds are prepared—I carry them in my beggar’s sack. Another shnorrer is waiting to inherit my bed of straw. When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived.

  THE MILK OF DEATH

  Marguerite Yourcenar

  Translated from the French by Alberto Manguel, in collaboration with the author

  Marguerite Yourcenar (1903–1987). Born in Belgium, Marguerite Yourcenar is one of the most important post-war French writers. Her first collection of poetry was published when she was barely nineteen and, in a career that spanned more than sixty years, she wrote novels, short stories, essays, poetry and a three-volume memoir. Her best-known works in English are Memoirs of Hadrian and The Abyss. Yourcenar spent much of her life in the United States, having moved there in 1939 to live with her partner Grace Frick. Her work earned her many prizes and awards including the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize. In 1980, she was the first woman elected to the Académie française.

  The long, dappled line of tourists stretched along Ragusa’s main street. Braided hats and opulent embroidered jackets swinging in the wind at the entrance of the shops tempted the eyes of travelers in search of inexpensive gifts or costumes for the masked balls held on board ship. It was as hot as only hell can be. The bald Herzegovinian mountains kept Ragusa under the fire of burning mirrors. Philip Mild entered a German alehouse where several fat flies were buzzing in the stifling gloom. Paradoxically, the restaurant’s terrace opened onto the Adriatic, which sprang up suddenly in the very heart of the city, there where one would least expect it, and yet that sudden burst of blue did nothing but add yet another color to the motley of the Market Square. A sickening stench rose from a pile of fish leftovers picked clean by almost unbearably white seagulls. There was not a breath of sea air. Philip’s friend, the engineer Jules Boutrin, sat at a small zinc table, holding a drink in the shade of a fire-colored parasol that from afar seemed like a large orange floating on the waters.

  “Tell me another story, old friend,” Philip said, dropping heavily into a chair. “I need both a whiskey and a story told beside the sea—the most beautiful and the least true of all stories imaginable—to make me forget the contradictory and patriotic lies in the papers I just bought on the quay. The Italians insult the Slavs, the Slavs the Greeks, the Germans insult the Russians, the French insult England almost as much as they insult Germany. I imagine they are all in the right. Let’s change the subject … What were you doing yesterday in Scutari, where you insisted on seeing with your very own eyes God knows what engines?”

  “Nothing,” the engineer replied. “Apart from glancing at a few irrigation works, I spent most of my time in search of a tower. I had heard so many old Serbian women tell me the story of the Scutari Tower that I felt the need to see its crumbling bricks and to find out whether, as they say, a white trickle really flows from it. But time, wars, and peasants anxious to strengthen their farmhouse walls have demolished it, stone by stone, and the memory of the tower remains only in old wives’ tales … By the way, Philip, are you lucky enough to have what is commonly known as a good mother?”

  “I should hope so,” the young Englishman replied with irony. “My mother is beautiful, slim, powdered and painted, hard as a shopwindow’s reflecting glass. What more can I tell you? When we are out together, I am taken for her older brother.”

  “There: you are like the rest of us. To think of the fools who argue that our times lack a sense of poetry, as if we had no surrealists, no prophets, no movie stars, no dictators. Believe me, Philip, what we lack is reality. Our silk is artificial, our horribly synthetic food resembles the make-believe dishes with which mummies are stuffed, and our women, who have become immune to unhappiness and old age, are, however, no longer alive. It is only in the legends of semi-barbaric countries that we still find these creatures rich in tears and milk, creatures whose children we would be proud to be. Where have I heard tell of a poet who was incapable of loving any woman because in another life he had met Antigone? A man after my own heart … A few dozen mothers and women in love, from Andromache to Griselda, have made me wary of these unbreakable dolls whom we take to be real.

  “Let Isolde be my mistress, and let the lovely Aude, Roland’s beloved, be my sister … But the one I would have chosen to be my mother is a very young girl from an Albanian legend, the wife of a chieftain from these regions …

  “There were three brothers, and they were building a tower to serve as a lookout against Turkish robbers. They had undertaken the construction themselves, either because it was difficult or too expensive to hire laborers, or because, like true countryfolk, they trusted only their own hands, and their wives took turns bringing them lunch. But each time they managed to reach the point where they were able to place a bunch of herbs on the finished roof, the night wind and the mountain witches would topple their tower as God had once felled Babel. There are many reasons why a tower should not stand, and blame can be laid on the workers’ lack of skill, on the unwillingness of the land, or on the insufficient strength of the cement binding the stones. But the Serbian, Albanian, and Bulgarian peasants will admit only one reason for such a disaster: they know that a building will crumble if one has not taken the precaution of walling into the base a man or a woman whose skeleton will support that weighty body of stone until Judgment Day. In Arta, in Greece, you are shown a bridge where a young girl was walled in: a wisp of her hair has sprung through a crack and droops over the water like a blond plant. The three brothers began to look at one another with suspicion, and were careful not to cast a shadow on the rising walls, because it is possible, for want of a better thing, to wall up into an unfinished tower that dark extension of a man which is perhaps his soul, and he whose shadow is so imprisoned dies as one suffering from a broken heart.

  “Therefore, in the evening, each of the three brothers would sit as far as possible from the fire, fearing that one of them might approach silently from behind, throw a sack on the shadow, and carry it away, half choking, like a black pigeon. The eagerness which they had put into their work began to wane, and despair instead of weariness bathed their dark foreheads in sweat.

  “At last, one day, the eldest brother called the others to him and said: ‘Little brothers, brothers with whom I share blood, milk, and baptism; if our tower remains unfinished, the Turks will once again slither up the banks of our lake, hiding behind the reeds. They will rape our farm girls; they will burn in our fields the promise of future bread; they will crucify our peasants on the scarecrows of our orchards, and our orchards will become a fattening ground for crows. Little brothers, we need each other, and a three-leaf clover should not sacrifice one of its three leaves. But each of us has a young, strong wife whose shoulders and fine neck are well accustomed to carrying loads. Let us not decide anything ourselves, my brothers: let us leave the choice to chance, God’s figurehead. Tomorrow, at dawn, we shall wall into the foot of the tower whichever one of our wives brings us our food. I ask you but to be silent one night, oh, my brothers, and let us not embrace with too many tears and sighs the one who, after all, has two chances in three of still being alive at sunset.’

  “It was easy for him to speak as he did, because he secretly hated his young wife and wanted to be rid of her, so as to replace her with a beautiful Greek girl with fiery hair. The second brother made no complaints, because he had made up his mind to warn his wife upon his return, and the only one to object was the youngest, because he usually kept his promises. Moved by the magnanimity of his brothers, who seemingly renounced what they held dearest in the world in favor of their common task, he ended up allowing himself to be convinced and p
romised to remain silent throughout the night.

  “They returned from the fields at that hour of dusk in which the ghost of the dying light still haunts the countryside. The second brother reached his tent in a foul mood and ordered his wife to help him take off his boots. As she knelt in front of him, he threw his boots in her face and said: ‘I’ve now been wearing this shirt for eight full days, and Sunday will come and I will not have a stitch of white linen to wear. Damn good-for-nothing, tomorrow at the break of day you shall go down to the lake with your basket of washing and you shall stay there till nightfall, with your brushes and your scrubbing board. If you move as much as a hair’s breadth away, you shall die.’

  “And the young woman promised, trembling, to spend the entire day washing.

  “The eldest returned home fully resolved not to say anything to his wife, whose kisses irritated him and whose heavy beauty no longer pleased him. But he had one weakness: he talked in his sleep. That night, the buxom Albanian matron lay awake, wondering what could have displeased her lord and master. Suddenly she heard her husband mutter, as he pulled the blanket over himself: ‘Dear heart, my own dear little heart, soon you’ll be a widower … How peacefully we’ll live, cut off from the dark-skinned hag, by the strong stones of the tower …’

  “But the youngest brother entered his tent, pale and resigned to his fate like a man who has just met Death along the road, its scythe over its shoulder, on its way to reap its harvest. He kissed his child in its wicker cradle, tenderly took his young wife in his arms, and all night long she heard him sobbing against her heart. But the discreet young woman did not ask the cause of such great sadness, because she did not wish to force him to confide in her, and she had no need to know the nature of his sorrows in order to console him.

  “The following morning, the three brothers took their pickaxes and hammers and set off toward the tower. The second brother’s wife prepared her basketful of linen and knelt down in front of the eldest brother’s wife: ‘Sister,’ she said. ‘Sister dear, it is my turn to take the men their food, but my husband has ordered me, under threat of death, to wash his white linen shirts, and my basket is now full.’

  “‘Sister, sister dear,’ said the wife of the eldest brother. ‘Willingly would I go take our men their food, but last night a demon crept into one of my teeth … Ouch! ouch! All I can do is cry out in pain …’ And she clapped her hands unceremoniously to summon the wife of the youngest brother.

  “‘Wife of our youngest brother,’ she said, ‘dearest little wife of our youngest one, go in our place to feed the men, because the road is long, our feet are tired, and we are not as young or as nimble as you are. Go, little one, and we will fill your basket with delicious things to eat so that the men will greet you with a smile, as a messenger who will make their hunger vanish.’

  “And the basket was filled with fish from the lake, preserved in honey and currants, rice wrapped in vine leaves, cheese made from ewe’s milk, and salted-almond cakes. The young woman carefully gave her child into the arms of her sisters-in-law and set off along the road, alone, her load upon her head, her fate around her neck like a holy medallion, invisible to all eyes, on which God Himself might have written what death awaited her, and what place in His heaven.

  “As soon as the three men glimpsed her from afar, the small figure still indistinct, they ran toward her, the two elder ones uneasy about the success of their plans, and the youngest praying to God. The eldest swallowed an oath as he saw that it was not his dark-skinned wife, and the second thanked the Lord out loud for having spared his washerwoman. But the youngest knelt down, clasped in his arms his young wife’s thighs, and, sobbing, begged her forgiveness. Then he dragged himself to his brothers’ feet and implored their pity. Finally he stood up, the blade of his knife glittering in the sun. A hammer’s blow on his neck sent him gasping for air onto the side of the road. The frightened young woman let her basket fall, scattering the food, to the delight of the shepherd dogs.

  “When she realized what was happening, she lifted her hands to heaven. ‘Brothers whom I have never failed, brothers by the wedding ring and the priest’s blessing, do not put me to death, but rather send word to my father, head of a mountain clan, and he will provide you with a thousand servants for you to sacrifice. Do not kill me: I am so fond of life. Do not place between my loved one and myself a wall of stone.’

  “Suddenly she said no more, because she realized that her young husband, lying on the roadside, no longer blinked his eyes, and that his black hair was stained with brains and blood. She let herself be led, neither crying out nor weeping, to the niche cut out of the tower’s round wall; seeing that she was going to die, she felt she could save her tears. But when the first brick was laid in front of her sandaled feet, she remembered her child who loved nibbling at her red shoes, like a playful puppy. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks and mingled with the cement that the trowel smoothed down on the stone.

  “‘Little feet,’ she moaned, ‘never again will you carry me to the top of the hill to show my body a little sooner to the gaze of my best beloved. Never again will you feel the coolness of running water, until angels wash you on the morning of Resurrection.’

  “The wall of bricks and stones rose to the height of her knees covered by a skirt of golden cloth. Erect within her niche, she looked like an image of Mary standing behind her altar.

  “‘Farewell, dear knees,’ said the young woman. ‘Never again will you rock my child; never again will I fill my lap with delicious fruit, sitting beneath the lovely orchard tree that gives both nourishment and shade.’

  “The wall grew a little higher, and the young woman continued: ‘Farewell, dear little hands, hanging down both sides of my body, hands that shall no longer cook the dinner, hands that shall no longer twist the wool, hands that shall no longer lock yourselves around my best beloved. Farewell, my thighs, and you, my belly, you shall never again be great with child or love. Children whom I might have given birth to, little brothers whom I have not had time to give to my only son, you shall keep me company in this prison which shall also be my tomb, and where I shall stand, sleepless, until Judgment Day arrives.’

  “The stone wall now reached her bosom, when suddenly a trembling shook the young woman’s body and her imploring eyes shone with a look that was like the gesture of two outstretched hands. ‘My brothers,’ she said. ‘Not for my sake, but for the sake of your dead brother, think of my child and do not let him starve. Do not wall up my bosom, my brothers, but allow him access to my breasts beneath the embroidered blouse, and bring my child to me every day, at dawn, at midday, and at dusk. As long as I have a few drops of life in me, they will flow down to the tips of my breasts to feed the child I brought into this world, and when the day comes when all my milk is gone, he shall drink my soul. Allow me this, evil brothers, and if you do, my beloved husband and I shall not cast blame on you when we meet again in God’s house.’

  “The frightened brothers agreed to grant this last wish and left a space of two bricks at the height of her breasts.

  “Then the young woman murmured: ‘Dear brothers, place your bricks in front of my mouth, because the kiss of the dead frightens the living, but allow an opening in front of my eyes so that I may see if my milk is doing my child good.’

  “They did as she said, and a horizontal gap was left at the height of her eyes. At dusk, at the time when she used to feed her child, he was brought to her down the dusty road lined with low bushes that had been gnawed at by the goats, and the prisoner greeted the infant’s arrival with cries of joy and blessings on the heads of the two brothers. Rivers of milk flowed from her hard, warm breasts, and when the child, made of the same stuff as her heart, fell asleep against her bosom, she sang with a voice muffled by the thickness of the brick wall. As soon as her child was plucked from her breast, she ordered he be taken to the campsite to sleep, but all night long the tender chant rose toward the stars, and the lullaby sung from a distance was enough to stop him from c
rying. The following morning she sang no more, and with a feeble voice she asked how Vania had spent the night. On the next day she fell silent, but she was still breathing, for her breasts, haunted by her respiration, rose and fell imperceptibly inside their cage. A few days later her breath followed her voice, and yet her now motionless breasts lost nothing of their sweet fountain-like abundance, so that the child asleep in the valley of her bosom could still hear her heart. And then the heart that had served her life so well slowed down its pace. Her languishing eyes died out like the reflection of stars in a waterless cistern, and nothing could be seen through the gap except two glassy eyeballs that no longer gazed upon the sky. These, in turn, changed to water and left in their place two empty sockets at the bottom of which Death could be perceived. But the young breasts remained intact and, for two whole years, the miraculous flow continued, until the child himself, weaned, turned his head from the milk.

  “Only then did the exhausted breasts crumble to dust and on the brick sill nothing was left but a handful of white ashes. For several centuries, mothers moved by the tale came to trace with their finger the grooves made by the marvelous milk along the red brick; later the tower itself disappeared, and the heavy arches no longer weighed down on the light female skeleton. At last the brittle bones themselves were dispersed, and all that is left here is an old Frenchman roasted by this infernal heat, who tells this story to whoever comes along, a story as worthy of a poet’s tears as that of Andromache.”

  Just then a gypsy woman, horribly covered in golden frippery, came up to the table where the two men were seated. In her arms she held a child, whose sickly eyes were half hidden by a bandage of rags. She bowed deeply, with the insolent servility common only to races of kings and beggars, and her yellow skirts swept the ground. The engineer pushed her away brusquely, deaf to her voice, which rose from a begging tone to a curse.