Alexandru Potcoavă
copyright: Wilhelm Gombos
(Romania)
lanyi
they sent you to isonzo a compass hanging from your neck
the cadet stars on your epaulets and a puzzled look
probably they put you in the ground like that
with the compass the stars and the perplexity of gaze
in the kuk cemetery of štanjel
your mother received the photograph of the grave
for she wasn’t allowed in the war zone
and what an imposing cemetery it was!
the hundreds of crosses topped by the inscription
filiis optimis – patria grata
all solemn and cursedly whitewashed and irrevocable
on the back of the newspaper page that you put aside
at home announcing in a black frame
the sarajevo assassination
your mother noted her expenses of march 1921
in romanian lei life began again
while štanjel was given to yugoslavia
and now it’s in slovenia
your graves have become green meadows
just the monument with the inscription
to the best sons – the grateful homeland
is still standing
before my eyes as long as i see it
and tell you:
a homeland that no longer exists
remembers you
through a foreigner
izzy
we were awakened by bursts of machine-gun fire
we didn’t know who it was anyway it didn’t matter
my mother is muslim my father serbian
orthodox if they hadn’t shot at us
the others would have done it
that’s why
my father traded the house for a car and we
fled as fast as we could
from the little bosnian town in the mountains
at first we were stopped by the muslims
my mother knew them and they let us pass
my father saved us from serbian soldiers
and then we arrived
in a less exposed town
one morning my father took my brother
and by mail plane
they made their way to belgrade
i continued travelling with my mother
by bus to serbia
at the first checkpoint they took
a muslim off the bus and shot him at the roadside
just like that
« are there others? » asked the serbs
« no, there aren’t any more » ventured the driver and when he
started the engine he said to
my mother that the next stop could
be the last one for us too
the border with serbia was a bridge
very crowded those days our only chance was
the air raid siren that had sounded and until
american missiles hit the ground
the customs officers let the convoy cross quickly without
looking too closely
in belgrade in the end our whole
family was reunited and we made the decision
to take refuge in germany
in timisoara however we missed the train and
ultimately
we never left
for ten years we’ve been waiting for romanian
citizenship every year we report to the
commission i’ve learned the language meanwhile
the geography and history of the country we know
all the verses of the national anthem by heart since
that’s what we’re asked for the exam they check
the manual right in front of us so we can’t cheat
we know the monasteries of stephen the great like
the streets of our hometown in the mountains of bosnia
to better express myself in romanian: holy shit
i don’t know what they expect from us
and so you alex how did you end up here?
« romania wasn’t my choice
i happened to come into the world here »
robert
he remained alone all his friends were dead
and they started playing football in the street
we surrounded him in the foundations of the public housing tower
from time to time he would raise
the tube and blow a
projectile from behind the concrete pillar
i knew he was going to remain paperless if we didn’t kill him on time
but then he shouted « i surrender » he came out
to be seen and he threw down the blowgun
we couldn’t kill a prisoner but
nor could we let him go back to the match with
those who were shot like big strapping men
over my knees i smashed the blowgun in pieces i tied
robert to the pillar of the foundation with a cable and dammit
i forgot him – the others were also waiting
to receive a pass
he was untied that evening by two militiamen who
were passing by there and since then
no one has shot at him anymore with paper arrows
no matter how much he cried and begged us
in one year the building was completed
in another year after the lunch was prepared
and robert sat down with his grandparents
they were at the very last dish he had barely tasted when
suddenly his head fell into the plate
with the fried ham and potatoes
in december ’89
stephen
at four years of age among the means your sister
was my girlfriend we slept in the afternoon in the
same kindergarten bed head to foot – i don’t think i told you that
i’m telling you right now one day i snuggled
under the duvet i begged your sister to take off her pajamas
and i kissed her in the place we know
the two of us stephen we shot each other later
with paper balls
torn from our school notebooks and glued
with spit
your sis remained my girl and only towards
grade 4 we separated
she found another one then another
but we two guys kept shooting at each other
in the street unconcerned
your sister got married she already has two children and
last time i saw you in the hospital
you couldn’t get out of bed you had to
recover after the appendicitis operation
i brought you oranges the next day you were dead
at the autopsy they found that at the same time as the appendix
someone had also removed a kidney
i went back to the room and took the bag of fruit
i gave them to other people and i thought
that maybe right now someone was pissing with your kidney
or with somebody else’s who is already tasting
the oranges brought for you
zoli
i had two of those stories without which
my life would never have been my life today
nor moreover the life of my father
who told them to me again and again
until the day i listened to them
in the first i saw
francis of assisi come out one
morning in the courtyard of the monastery
he sat down on the edge of the fountain
a branch in his hands and he started
with the fingertips from one point to another to tap it
eyes closed in enthralment
when towards the end suddenly widening eyes
he found himself surrounded by the friars minors and he
told them: « but why are you all as if struck
by grace or maybe you’re deaf to the singing
that god brought out with my fingers from this
sacred piece of dead wood? »
however, the brothers turned their backs on him and they
went away – « ‘oh but oh would you have wanted
instead that i change this dead branch into a snake for you? »
tried again the voice of the saint but they’d already gone off
slamming the doors of their cells
but my father never stayed on a single story
he went on to the second
with the sixty franciscans from the arad monastery
that the soviet soldiers could only get out
feet first
now it’s up to you alex to see what you
understand of all this
but after i came of age i left in italy and
i was a novice candidate and monk after
taking two vows out of the total of three
that is the vows of poverty and chastity but not
the vow of obedience – my nature
did not allow me to accept the last one
and all this to please the lord
and my friars minors until they surprised me
digging the cloister garden in a t-shirt
with che guevara printed on it
i explained to them in vain that i was just a
fan of andy warhol they didn’t want
to know about it and the penance was to send me
to syria for two whole months
and when i came back
full of bruises and covered with spit
the franciscans looked at me through their glasses
and they put me in charge of religion classes
out of the blue a young girl had asked me
if it’s not a sin to have sex
with her lover before the wedding
i smiled and replied that it’s only love
that really counts before god
and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back
the council of elders decided that i had to again
serve time working in syria
fed up with the traps and arab humiliations
i threw my monk’s robe in the nettles
i came back to timisoara and
i got a job as a bartender here at the papillon cafe
to dive deep into the world
i got a tattoo
of samoa – in the middle there are three empty circles
for the years when i was not aware of life
and all around like rings on a tree trunk
the next twenty years well filled
and this on the right shoulder because on the left
i’m going to get a tattoo with the family’s coat of arms
in baroque style i think i still owe that
to my father
between two night shifts at the bar i studied
the arts and during an internship on restorations in italy i
brought out a titian from the back of an anonymous landscape
»bravo zoli » the owner said to me and he put me to work
flaking off all the paint from a dozen paintings in his collection
as if every sheet of old wallpaper hide
a strongbox forgotten and full
after graduation i tried to get a job
restoring art works in churches
at least one calvary somewhere at least one crown
of thorns but nowhere it looks like all
the jesuses of this country are in perfect condition
i prayed then for a little sign and then
my uncle had just died
jewish like my mother my uncle would have wanted
to see me circumcised but not me nor
my mother my father said « son
i have no other stories to tell you
do whatever you want »
this detail bothers me and
i think i want to give up the foreskin
who knows maybe the restoration orders will pour in
from the jews although they are fewer and fewer here
although the synagogues are in ruin or
have become concert halls
in the end if i do it
i do it and basta it’s not by chance that i put
a dice-shaped piercing in my chin
a sign that i take life
as it comes
- excerpts from the book « One day we won`t recognize each other anymore »
Translation: Howard Scott