130. And what if she were to press the stop button on the tape recorder, would he break off in mid-sentence? And she was thinking about my father, who was still upstairs; he was oblivious to what was going on down here, unaware that she was now hearing his voice as it must have sounded when he was a child, unaware that she was looking for family resemblances in this face that had taken on his voice. And so she couldn’t help but stare at the child, to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
131. He was sitting across from her. He hadn’t moved, but he still seemed farther away than before. The photo he was looking at had been taken on the docks of the Port of Dieppe. My father had often remarked upon it the first year they were married, after she’d gotten together all the pictures to make their first photo album. She’d gathered together old black and white photographs that she’d found in various envelopes, in metal boxes. The photo was of a man in his forties. He was staring into the lens, standing on the dock. He was thin, puzzled. Behind him, the ship’s hull forms an unbroken backdrop, with the letters Z É L A N, painted in white on the dark hull just above his head. If you look closely, you can make out dents in the hull, freshly repainted. She knows the story of the photograph. She could string together the two or three sentences that would reappear each time my father mentioned it. She could form a little frame out of these sentences, placing this frame around the photo as a final commentary on the scene represented in the picture. And so a motionless man poses, not for eternity, but just for the length of the voyage, slated to last several months. And since these several months also mean many miles, it appears that her father’s face is already showing his coming exhaustion and uncertainty, the harshness of the work, the worry. But that’s an entirely different matter. Unhinged, rambling words, and yet she understands. She understands neither the words nor the sentences they compose, she isn’t even sure the words strung together form sentences at all, but she appreciates the architecture of the whole. A story that was slowly taking shape, that was appearing like a photo in a chemical solution, right up to the point where the border and shapes become sharp. She is now in the photo’s world, in the cramped cabin of a ship. She is in front of a body that is hanging from a rope, she doesn’t know at what point in the voyage they are; apparently the boat hasn’t left the dock yet and she realizes that this man has been dead for several minutes, and she wonders why she’s the one who has found him. Strangely, everything is quiet—shouldn’t she be hearing the sound of the waves? She tries to think back. At the time she couldn’t have been more than fourteen, and she’d never been below on a boat before. And when she would think about it, she would tell herself that she still didn’t know who this man was. A movement to get herself out of this bad dream: She glanced at the window and, just then, a bird landed on the sill, pecking about. She remembered that there were bird feeders hanging in some of the windows, and that lately she was in the habit of filling them with seeds. Then the voice suddenly changed. It was no longer the annoying voice of a hysterical child, it was his voice from yesterday or the day before, his stubborn voice. He was no longer in the room, he was on the threshold of the bedroom, she couldn’t see him anymore. Did you find the car keys? That is what he was saying. She made sure the tape recorder was still recording. The little red light was lit. She’d heard this sentence before, not so long ago. She wasn’t trying to remember. It wasn’t an act of memory—or so she told herself—no, it was more like everything was happening in the present, at this very moment, sitting across from the tape recorder, in that part of the present tense sectioned off by the cassette tape, just for them. And out of the corner of her eye, she saw something fly up from behind the glass, a brown bird with horizontal stripes, a sparrow, perhaps the bird from a moment ago, but one couldn’t be sure. Next she is alone in front of the picture.
132. She’s back at the shopping center buying blank cassettes, she fills two large bags with supplies—she tends to like soft foods—raisins, packets of chewy cookies, orange juice; next she decides to buy a pair of sneakers and socks in a sporting goods store located in the center, she makes these purchases without thinking, she has to hurry, it’s almost closing time. She exchanges a few pleasantries with the young cashier who is pregnant, and on the way home she’s afraid she might get lost. The headlights don’t give out enough light to read the markings on the signs. She should turn around and ask someone in a store at the shopping center, she says to herself, but she realizes that she forgot to get gas, and that she might run out if she goes all the way back. What she ought to do is tell herself that the villa doesn’t exist, that it suddenly disappeared in the dark, swallowed by the nightmare night; there aren’t any bedrooms, or corridors, the child she found never existed except in her imagination, and my father isn’t waiting for her either, my father left her years ago, he has become a perfect stranger who lives with another woman and has children with his new wife, it’s impossible for her to reach him, he doesn’t answer the phone anymore and avoids her in the street.
133. He doesn’t send her to get his photos developed anymore, he’s making himself more and more scarce. He doesn’t say anything anymore. She hears his annoyed footsteps above her head.
SÉBASTIEN BREBEL was born in 1971 in Argenteuil, France. He lives in Nantes where he teaches philosophy, and is the author of four novels, of which this is his first to appear in English.
ANDREW WILSON is a graduate of the Master of Philosophy Program in Literary Translation at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He lives in Berkeley, California.
MICHAL AJVAZ, The Golden Age.
The Other City.
PIERRE ALBERT-BIROT, Grabinoulor.
YUZ ALESHKOVSKY, Kangaroo.
FELIPE ALFAU, Chromos.
Locos.
IVAN NGELO, The Celebration.
The Tower of Glass.
ANTÓNIO LOBO ANTUNES, Knowledge of Hell.
The Splendor of Portugal.
ALAIN ARIAS-MISSON, Theatre of Incest.
JOHN ASHBERY AND JAMES SCHUYLER, A Nest of Ninnies.
ROBERT ASHLEY, Perfect Lives.
GABRIELA AVIGUR-ROTEM, Heatwave and Crazy Birds.
DJUNA BARNES, Ladies Almanack.
Ryder.
JOHN BARTH, LETTERS.
Sabbatical.
DONALD BARTHELME, The King.
Paradise.
SVETISLAV BASARA, Chinese Letter.
MIQUEL BAUÇÀ, The Siege in the Room.
RENÉ BELLETTO, Dying.
MAREK BIECZYK, Transparency.
ANDREI BITOV, Pushkin House.
ANDREJ BLATNIK, You Do Understand.
LOUIS PAUL BOON, Chapel Road.
My Little War.
Summer in Termuren.
ROGER BOYLAN, Killoyle.
IGNÁCIO DE LOYOLA BRANDÃO, Anonymous Celebrity.
Zero.
BONNIE BREMSER, Troia: Mexican Memoirs.
CHRISTINE BROOKE-ROSE, Amalgamemnon.
BRIGID BROPHY, In Transit.
GERALD L. BRUNS, Modern Poetry and the Idea of Language.
GABRIELLE BURTON, Heartbreak Hotel.
MICHEL BUTOR, Degrees.
Mobile.
G. CABRERA INFANTE, Infante’s Inferno.
Three Trapped Tigers.
JULIETA CAMPOS,
The Fear of Losing Eurydice.
ANNE CARSON, Eros the Bittersweet.
ORLY CASTEL-BLOOM, Dolly City.
LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE, Castle to Castle.
Conversations with Professor Y.
London Bridge.
Normance.
North.
Rigadoon.
MARIE CHAIX, The Laurels of Lake Constance.
HUGO CHARTERIS, The Tide Is Right.
ERIC CHEVILLARD, Demolishing Nisard.
MARC CHOLODENKO, Mordechai Schamz.
JOSHUA COHEN, Witz.
EMILY HOLMES COLEMAN, The Shutter of Snow.
ROBERT COOVER, A Night at the Movies.
STANLEY CRAWFORD, Log of the S.S.
The Mrs Unguentine.
Some Instructions to My Wife.
RENÉ CREVEL, Putting My Foot in It.
RALPH CUSACK, Cadenza.
NICHOLAS DELBANCO, The Count of Concord.
Sherbrookes.
NIGEL DENNIS, Cards of Identity.
PETER DIMOCK, A Short Rhetoric for Leaving the Family.
ARIEL DORFMAN, Konfidenz.
COLEMAN DOWELL, Island People.
Too Much Flesh and Jabez.
ARKADII DRAGOMOSHCHENKO, Dust.
RIKKI DUCORNET, The Complete Butcher’s Tales.
The Fountains of Neptune.
The Jade Cabinet.
Phosphor in Dreamland.
WILLIAM EASTLAKE, The Bamboo Bed.
Castle Keep.
Lyric of the Circle Heart.
JEAN ECHENOZ, Chopin’s Move.
STANLEY ELKIN, A Bad Man.
Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.
The Dick Gibson Show.
The Franchiser.
The Living End.
Mrs. Ted Bliss.
FRANÇOIS EMMANUEL, Invitation to a Voyage.
SALVADOR ESPRIU, Ariadne in the Grotesque Labyrinth.
LESLIE A. FIEDLER, Love and Death in the American Novel.
JUAN FILLOY, Op Oloop.
ANDY FITCH, Pop Poetics.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, Bouvard and Pécuchet.
KASS FLEISHER, Talking out of School.
FORD MADOX FORD,
The March of Literature.
JON FOSSE, Aliss at the Fire.
Melancholy.
MAX FRISCH, I’m Not Stiller.
Man in the Holocene.
CARLOS FUENTES, Christopher Unborn.
Distant Relations.
Terra Nostra.
Where the Air Is Clear.
TAKEHIKO FUKUNAGA, Flowers of Grass.
WILLIAM GADDIS, J R.
The Recognitions.
JANICE GALLOWAY, Foreign Parts.
The Trick Is to Keep Breathing.
WILLIAM H. GASS, Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas.
Finding a Form.
A Temple of Texts.
The Tunnel.
Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife.
GÉRARD GAVARRY, Hoppla! 1 2 3.
ETIENNE GILSON,
The Arts of the Beautiful.
Forms and Substances in the Arts.
C.S. GISCOMBE, Giscome Road.
Here.
DOUGLAS GLOVER, Bad News of the Heart.
WITOLD GOMBROWICZ, A Kind of Testament.
PAULO EMÍLIO SALES GOMES, P’s Three Women.
GEORGI GOSPODINOV, Natural Novel.
JUAN GOYTISOLO, Count Julian.
Juan the Landless.
Makbara.
Marks of Identity.
HENRY GREEN, Back.
Blindness.
Concluding.
Doting.
Nothing.
JACK GREEN, Fire the Bastards!
JIÍ GRUŠA, The Questionnaire.
MELA HARTWIG, Am I a Redundant Human Being?
JOHN HAWKES, The Passion Artist.
Whistlejacket.
ELIZABETH HEIGHWAY, ED., Contemporary
Georgian Fiction.
ALEKSANDAR HEMON, ED.,
Best European Fiction.
AIDAN HIGGINS, Balcony of Europe.
Blind Man’s Bluff
Bornholm Night-Ferry.
Flotsam and Jetsam.
Langrishe, Go Down.
Scenes from a Receding Past.
KEIZO HINO, Isle of Dreams.
KAZUSHI HOSAKA, Plainsong.
ALDOUS HUXLEY, Antic Hay.
Crome Yellow.
Point Counter Point.
Those Barren Leaves.
Time Must Have a Stop.
NAOYUKI II, The Shadow of a Blue Cat.
GERT JONKE, The Distant Sound.
Geometric Regional Novel.
Homage to Czerny.
The System of Vienna.
JACQUES JOUET, Mountain R.
Savage.
Upstaged.
MIEKO KANAI, The Word Book.
YORAM KANIUK, Life on Sandpaper.
HUGH KENNER, Flaubert.
Joyce and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians.
Joyce’s Voices.
DANILO KIŠ, The Attic.
Garden, Ashes.
The Lute and the Scars
Psalm 44.
A Tomb for Boris Davidovich.
ANITA KONKKA, A Fool’s Paradise.
GEORGE KONRÁD, The City Builder.
TADEUSZ KONWICKI, A Minor Apocalypse.
The Polish Complex.
MENIS KOUMANDAREAS, Koula.
ELAINE KRAF, The Princess of 72nd Street.
JIM KRUSOE, Iceland.
AYE KULIN, Farewell: A Mansion in Occupied Istanbul.
EMILIO LASCANO TEGUI, On Elegance While Sleeping.
ERIC LAURRENT, Do Not Touch.
VIOLETTE LEDUC, La Bâtarde.
EDOUARD LEVÉ, Autoportrait.
Suicide.
MARIO LEVI, Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale.
DEBORAH LEVY, Billy and Girl.
JOSÉ LEZAMA LIMA, Paradiso.
ROSA LIKSOM, Dark Paradise.
OSMAN LINS, Avalovara.
The Queen of the Prisons of Greece.
ALF MAC LOCHLAINN,
The Corpus in the Library.
Out of Focus.
RON LOEWINSOHN, Magnetic Field(s).
MINA LOY, Stories and Essays of Mina Loy.
D. KEITH MANO, Take Five.
MICHELINE AHARONIAN MARCOM,
The Mirror in the Well.
BEN MARCUS, The Age of Wire and String.
WALLACE MARKFIELD, Teitlebaum’s Window.
To an Early Grave.
DAVID MARKSON, Reader’s Block.
Wittgenstein’s Mistress.
CAROLE MASO, AVA.
LADISLAV MATEJKA AND KRYSTYNA
POMORSKA, EDS.,
Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views.
HARRY MATHEWS, Cigarettes.
The Conversions.
The Human Country: New and Collected Stories.
The Journalist.
My Life in CIA.
Singular Pleasures.
The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium.
Tlooth.
JOSEPH MCELROY,
Night Soul and Other Stories.
ABDELWAHAB MEDDEB, Talismano.
GERHARD MEIER, Isle of the Dead.
HERMAN MELVILLE, The Confidence-Man.
AMANDA MICHALOPOULOU, I’d Like.
STEVEN MILLHAUSER, The Barnum Museum.
In the Penny Arcade.
RALPH J. MILLS, JR., Essays on Poetry.
MOMUS, The Book of Jokes.
CHRISTINE MONTALBETTI, The Origin of Man.
Western.
OLIVE MOORE, Spleen.
NICHOLAS MOSLEY, Accident.
Assassins.
Catastrophe Practice.
Experience and Religion.
A Garden of Trees.
Hopeful Monsters.
Imago Bird.
Impossible Object.
Inventing God.
Judith.
Look at the Dark.
Natalie Natalia.
Serpent.
Time at War.
WARREN MOTTE,
Fables of the Novel: French Fiction since 1990.
Fiction Now: The French Novel in the 21st Century.
Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature.
GERALD MURNANE, Barley Patch.
Inland.
YVES NAVARRE, Our Share of Time.
Sweet Tooth.
DOROTHY NELSON, In Night’s City.
Tar and Feathers.
ESHKOL NEVO, Homesick.
WILFRIDO D. NOLLEDO, But for the Lovers.
FLANN O’BRIEN, At Swim-Two-Birds.
The Best of Myles.
The Dalkey A
rchive.
The Hard Life.
The Poor Mouth.
The Third Policeman.
CLAUDE OLLIER, The Mise-en-Scène.
Wert and the Life Without End.
GIOVANNI ORELLI, Walaschek’s Dream.
PATRIK OUEDNÍK, Europeana.
The Opportune Moment, 1855.
BORIS PAHOR, Necropolis.
FERNANDO DEL PASO, News from the Empire.
Palinuro of Mexico.
ROBERT PINGET, The Inquisitory.
Mahu or The Material.
Trio.
MANUEL PUIG, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth.
The Buenos Aires Affair.
Heartbreak Tango.
RAYMOND QUENEAU, The Last Days.
Odile.
Pierrot Mon Ami.
Saint Glinglin.
ANN QUIN, Berg.
Passages.
Three.
Tripticks.
ISHMAEL REED, The Free-Lance Pallbearers.
The Last Days of Louisiana Red.
Ishmael Reed: The Plays.
Juice!
Reckless Eyeballing.
The Terrible Threes.
The Terrible Twos.
Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down.
JASIA REICHARDT, 15 Journeys Warsaw to London.
NOËLLE REVAZ, With the Animals.
JOÃO UBALDO RIBEIRO, House of the Fortunate Buddhas.
JEAN RICARDOU, Place Names.
RAINER MARIA RILKE, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
JULIÁN RÍOS, The House of Ulysses.
Larva: A Midsummer Night’s Babel.
Poundemonium.
Procession of Shadows.
AUGUSTO ROA BASTOS, I the Supreme.
DANIËL ROBBERECHTS, Arriving in Avignon.
JEAN ROLIN, The Explosion of the Radiator Hose.
OLIVIER ROLIN, Hotel Crystal.
ALIX CLEO ROUBAUD, Alix’s Journal.
JACQUES ROUBAUD, The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human Heart.
The Great Fire of London.
Hortense in Exile.
Hortense Is Abducted.
The Loop.
Mathematics:
The Plurality of Worlds of Lewis.
The Princess Hoppy.
Some Thing Black.
RAYMOND ROUSSEL, Impressions of Africa.
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