Magda Cârneci is a widely acclaimed Romanian poet, as well as a prominent essayist and art historian and critic. Cârneci has become a leading voice among the gifted group of poets who began their careers in Romania’s bleak 1980s, Communism’s final decade. Her first volume of poetry, Hypermateria (1980), established her as a major representative of the ‘80s generation poets of Romanian and was followed byA Deafening Silence (1985), Chaosmos (1992), Psaume (in French, 1997), Poeme/Poems (dual-language, the English versions translated with Adam J. Sorkin, 1999), and Political Poems (2000). In 2004, she published an anthology of her work in Romanian, Chaosmos and Other Poems, 1980-2000, and in 2012, TRANS Poems in Bucharest. After serving in Paris as a visiting lecturer at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO), she became the director of the Romanian Cultural Institute there (2007 – 2010). At present, she is visiting professor at the National University of Arts in Bucharest, editor-in-chief of ARTA magazine for visual arts, and president of PEN Club Romania. She is also a member of the European Cultural Parliament. Cârneci has been honored with grants from the Fulbright Foundation, Getty Trust, Soros Foundation, European Union, French Government, and the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. She has also authored monographs on art and curated major exhibitions. Her poems have been translated into thirteen languages and included in numerous anthologies. Chaosmos, translated by Sorkin and Cârneci, appeared from White Pine Press in 2006; Bucharest: A Collection of Smells, a long poetic essay with photos, translated by Sorkin with Alina Cârâc, came out from the Romanian Cultural Institute in early 2008. In 2013 she won the “Opera Omnia” career prize from the Romanian Writers’ Union.

Alina Cârâc is an active translator of Romanian literature into English, including drama, poetry, fiction and short fiction, essays, and film scripts, as well as numerous books from English into Romanian. She is the translator with Adam J. Sorkin of București: A Collection of Smells, a poetic essay by Magda Cârneci (Bucharest: Romanian Cultural Institute, 2007), and of Medea and Her War Machines, a book of poems by Ioan Flora (U of New Orleans P, 2011).

Adam J. Sorkin has published more than fifty books of translation, and his work has won the Poetry Society (U.K.) Prize for European Poetry Translation for 2005, as well as the International Quarterly Crossing Boundaries Award, the Kenneth Rexroth Memorial Translation Prize, the Ioan Flora Prize for Poetry Translation, and the Poesis Festival Translation Prize, among others. His recent publications are A Sharp Double-Edged Luxury Object by Rodica Draghincescu (translated with Antuza Genescu), Červená Barva Press, 2014; Gold and Ivy / Aur și iederă by George Vulturescu (translated with Olimpia Iacob), Editura Eikon, 2014; The Starry Womb by Mihail Gălățanu (translated with Petru Iamandi and the author), Diálogos Books, 2014; and The Book of Anger by Marta Petreu (translated with Christina Zarifopol-Illias and Liviu Bleoca), also Diálogos Books, 2014. Connotation Press has previously included his translations of poets Mircea Cărtărescu, Carmen Firan, Emilian Galaicu-Păun, Mihail Gălățanu, Liliana Ursu and George Vulturescu. Sorkin is Distinguished Professor of English, Penn State Brandywine.



This interview was conducted via email during the second week of February 2015, with Magda Cârneci responding generously to my six questions. I then did some minor editing for clarity and effectiveness.    —AJS
 
Let’s start out with a big question, something I couldn’t help noticing over the years as we worked together on your poems and also as I translated your work with Alina Cârâc. It strikes me that among your many concerns, one constant has been a kind of spiritual or mystical sense of life, love, and joy, and that the first-person voice of the poems strives to be born or reborn into a universe where human consciousness will be on a higher plane, life itself fuller. Would you care to comment on this? Is there something in Romanian tradition into which this pattern fits?

Romanian cultural tradition—for many centuries—has possessed a strong imprint of the Christian Orthodox tradition, which is still vivid and productive in my country. Nevertheless, modern Romanian poetry strived to get rid of this inheritance (as everywhere in the Western world) and produced splendid expressionist, surrealist, experimentalist, and abstract poetic flowers thanks to a series of big names (Tzara, Arghezi, Blaga, Nichita Stănescu, and so on). My generation— the “eighties generation” as it was termed— shifted strongly from such a “high poetry” to go back to a realist and narrative poetical structure, with the aim of grasping more and more reality—often a common, poor, everyday reality. I started to write poems in this manner but very soon discovered that such a poetics was insufficient to me, it was limiting and “unbreathable,” for I consider concrete reality as a threshold from which our capacity to embrace the world and the universe can take off. In fact, in my poems I always start from a personal experience of natural enlarged consciousness on the basis of which I build a poetic scaffolding to provoke the same inward expansion in the reader. I strongly believe that humans have a right to get in touch with higher feelings and a heightened consciousness of their lives in the universe, and poetry can help in this respect.


I asked first about a kind of carrying across (translation) in a higher, metaphysical sense. The reader in English might find it interesting to hear about your sense of translation in its more customary context, as an author who has herself engaged in translation. I recall that when you and I worked together on your book Chaosmos, you sometimes suggested that the rhythms and patterns of sound were more crucial to the poetry than exact reproduction of formal elements such as entire phrases and pauses where the eye could see them in the original Romanian text. What are the most important elements you yourself want your translator to carry across the languages from a Romanian to an English reader, assuming, as I’ll suppose, that the translator starts out with a kind of literal accuracy to what your words say, what images the poem contains.

You are right. For me, the rhythms and patterns of sound (alliterations, interior rhymes, pauses, silence) are very important, sometimes more important than the exact reproduction of words and expressions, as they carry a special energy, a special vibration of the verses which should pass through the translation into the other language. We absorb poetry not only with our logical mind, which is touched by the sense of the words, but also with our emotional intelligence, which is very sensitive to rhythm and musicality. Emotional intelligence, when stirred, provides an intense energy within us that is able to stimulate the enlargement of our perception and understanding. And thus, through “poetical magic,” one can have access to less known but marvelous levels of one’s being. This is the role of poetry for me—to provide flashes of access to a fuller, more vivid and more comprehensive sense of reality.


Do you think that Romanian poetry, your own and that of other writers, the ones you like best, can fully “speak” to and move an American reader? Is there something you feel cannot be communicated or suggested, a quality, or maybe contexts, that have to fall by the wayside?

Surprisingly, I think Romanian poetry can be translated better in English than in other languages, French for example, as both Romanian and English are fluid languages, open to multi-layered senses of the words and to an “irrational aura” of poeticism. An American reader can find similarities between forms of reality spoken of in the two poetic spaces, which is a confirmation of a certain commonality shared throughout the world. However, this “common sense” likewise entails an ingenuity, certain peculiar traits of the imagination, certain musical “harmonies” more likely to be found in the part of Europe where Romania is situated, that is, in the bloody but mystical Balkans. In my view, the Romanian poetic sense, like the American one, has not yet been entirely scrubbed of its thirst for what transcends our obvious limitations. This is what an exchange between two poetic spaces could bring to the reader, an incentive, a boost for this kind of commitment.


Could you comment on your creative process? Where do ideas or inspiration come from? How much revision goes on before a work sees the black and white of print?

As I said earlier, my poetic inspiration comes from my own experiences, whether normal or extra-sensorial, or from the experiences of other people or books in which I recognized myself. Then I work a lot on my first versions of a poem in order to intensify their power of persuasion, but I try to keep the impression of spontaneity, of “fulguration,” which is essential to me. I think poetry should always root itself in a strong feeling of complete reality (which comprises man, nature, cosmos, universe) and a strong feeling of one’s own self as rooted in this reality—and beyond.


I know your deep involvement in other areas of the arts, in the visual arts and photography, as a critic and theorist. Do these other endeavors as it were fertilize your creative work, do they take place in a sort of parallel realm, or do they interfere?

Photography and contemporary visual arts, even cinema, have inspired me to the extent I could recognize in them the same type of research or “quest” for a trans-reality, if I can all it this. It’s something that goes through, passes over, flows beyond strictly visual perception and comprehensibility. In this type of cinematic, photographic, or visual exploration, reality is not denied, it is enriched and intensified to the point it bursts into more (than) reality. I name this element “poetry,” this flash that is common among all these arts.


Finally, one specific question about one of the pieces gathered here for A Poetry Congeries, “Licentious Image in the Cosmos”: what would you call it, how do you place it as a kind of writing? Prose poem (that’s what I called it… maybe mistakenly)? Lyrical essay? Something other? Or perhaps this generic pigeonholing is an irrelevant concern to you when you write.

I don’t care too much about the literary genre in which this type of (my) writing could be introduced. I could name it “poetic prose” or “prose poem” or “lyrical essay,” as you say. But I prefer perhaps to call it “visionary prose,” as it narrates the way a banal scene of love between a man and a woman can open to many layers of affection and imagination. And even to cosmic perception.


Thank you so very much!











































                                                                                   



















































O văd prin fereastra întredeschisă. De cealaltă parte a curţii interioare a blocului, inundate de lumina tare de vară. Fereastra nu are perdele şi geamul e foarte curat, scînteiază. Femeia face patul. E un pat îngust, ca de campanie, sau de cabinet medical. Din unghiul în care mă aflu nu pot vedea decît patul. Un pat îngust. Îl face cu multă grijă. Pune un cearceaf alb şi scrobit, îl întinde perfect peste margini. Îl netezeşte cu mîna. Apoi dispare din cadru.

Lumina cade oblic peste un colţ al cearceafului. Femeia apare din nou, cu o cîrpă de praf în mînă, şterge pereţii de lîngă pat, care de departe par şi ei foarte albi, foarte curaţi. Aproape aseptici. Ea e îmbrăcată sumar, are doar un tricou violet peste trupul extrem de subţire. Un tricou care-i ajunge pînă la mijlocul coapselor înguste şi slabe. E brunetă şi tînără, destul de tînără, din unghiul în care mă aflu îi pot vedea numai profilul şi spatele. Dispare iarăşi din cadru.

Fereastra e curată şi goală, fără perdele. Scînteiază uşor. După o vreme, femeia vine iar şi se întinde goală şi liniştită pe pat. Aşteaptă cuminte pe patul alb, aseptic, ca de spital. Fără pernă. Aştept şi eu. De la fereastra mea, de cealaltă parte a curţii interioare, nu pot vedea decît patul. E după-amiază, aerul cald unduieşte tăcut. Alături de mine, tu dormi. Fereastra femeii, întredeschisă, rămîne o vreme pustie. Apare apoi un bărbat. Bărbatul e blond, subţire şi gol. E destul de tînăr, îi văd numai spatele destul de îngust, ca de adolescent. Liniştit o priveşte îndelung. Apoi se urcă lent peste ea şi fără un gest prevestitor, fără un sunet, începe să facă dragoste.

Nu se aude nimic. Nu se simte decît căldura moale, vălurită, a după-amiezei. Cei doi fac dragoste fără să se mîngîie pătimaş şi fără să se sărute cu poftă. Precis, fără gesturi în plus. Ca într-un act medical, parcă ar ilustra un tratat abstract de anatomie şi fiziologie umană. Ba nu, mai degrabă ca într-un balet cu figuri impuse şi impersonale. Un dans orizontal, monoton, pe o scenă pustie, fără spectatori. Ori mai degrabă ca un fel de act ritualic, precis şi de neînţeles. Parcă cei doi ştiu că sînt priviţi, parcă ştiu că nu sînt absolut singuri. Şi îndeplinesc perfect ceva ce le este cerut, ceva necesar. Fac dragoste fără un sunet, fără vreo mişcare lascivă. Precis. E un fel de repetiţie stranie a ceva ce am mai văzut. Am mai văzut undeva scena asta. Dar unde?

Alături de mine, tu dormi. Fereastra celor doi, de cealaltă parte a curţii interioare, e întredeschisă şi nu are perdele. Geamul scînteiază în lumina tare a după-amiezei. Cei doi fac dragoste şi nu mi se pare ruşinos că-i privesc. Dimpotrivă. Mi se pare că trebuie să-i văd, să-i privesc cu atenţie. Trebuia demult să se întîmple scena aceasta. Simt un gol adînc, ciudat, în plexul abdominal.

Bărbatul face dragoste în tăcere, precis. Nici senzual, nici pur mecanic. Cu ochii deschişi, pare absorbit în ceva nevăzut. Concentrat într-un gînd care-i absoarbe toată atenţia. Femeia primeşte dragostea cu ochii închişi, în tăcere, fără nici un gest de prisos. Liniştită şi detaşată. Pasivitatea ei nu e nici absentă, nici delăsată. Pare şi ea absorbită într-un gînd precis, care-i absoarbe întreaga atenţie. Dar la ce pot ei oare gîndi acum, simultan, împreună?

Îndeplinesc ceva, ceva straniu, ceva important, însă ce, oare? Curtea interioară e în întregime pustie. De la celelalte ferestre nu se vede nici un om, nici o faţă. Alături de mine, tu te întorci pe o parte şi continui să respiri regulat. Nu-i vede nimeni în afară de mine. Fereastra lor nu are perdele şi scînteiază. Şi ei nu se feresc. Mi se pare că trebuie să-i privesc. Ştiu că trebuie să fac asta. Trebuie să văd. Însă de ce, pentru ce?

Vederea din exterior a actului iubirii. O imagine interzisă, lungă vreme insuportabilă. O imagine ciudat de periculoasă, încărcată de o energie grea, veninoasă, ca un fel de drojdie groasă şi fermentată ridicîndu-se din adîncuri să mă mînjească, să mă copleşească. Ca şi cum m-aş vedea dinafară. Ca şi cum aş fi pusă la încercare. Ca şi cum cineva ar vrea să-mi studieze reacţiile. Dar cine? Ca atunci cînd, încă copilă fiind, am zărit printr-o uşă întredeschisă cum părinţii mei se frămîntau straniu, înspăimîntător, unul pe altul într-un pat. Ori la facultate, la una din lecţiile de anatomie umană, în sala de disecţie de la morgă, cînd a trebuit să despic pîntecul umflat al unui cadavru care mai avea urme de ruj roz pe buze şi de fard albastru pe pleoape. Sau cînd, mai tîrziu, am văzut fără să vreau sexul dezgolit al tatălui meu, cînd acesta se spăla în sala de baie. Şi atunci sinţeam că sînt privită, că sînt pusă la încercare. Dar acum ce simt, oare ce ? Nu ştiu, încă nu ştiu. Mi se întunecă mintea uşor. Mi-e teamă puţin, mi-e brusc greaţă. Trebuie totuşi să privesc. Să văd ce sînt în stare să văd. Să văd dacă văd.

Ţintuită înaintea ochilor impuri, o viziune neruşinată, barbară. Văd cum doi cîini vagabonzi se împerechează stîngaci şi neajutoraţi într-un colţ al unei pieţe de legume şi fructe dintr-o ţară orientală. Bărbaţii se aşează pe vine, în poziţii comode, privesc ţintă, hohotesc gros şi-şi spun cu glasuri scăzute, răguşite, cuvinte grele, care le umplu gura de multă salivă. Femeile privesc cu coada ochiului, scurt şi pieziş, apoi se depărtează repede, cu obrajii palizi ori înroşiţi. Doi cîini vagabonzi împerechindu-se în tăcere, mecanic, şi totuşi curat, animalic. În privirile lor e ceva neajutorat şi umil. Îndeplinesc supus o lege atroce şi vastă, sub privirile hulpave ale oamenilor. Sînt totuşi două lumi paralele care nu se întîlnesc, deşi par similare, căci una o murdăreşte pe alta. Una e ameninţată veşnic de cealaltă. Văd scena de aproape, apoi de departe, proiectată parcă pe un orizont jos, nu prea îndepărtat. O privesc liniştită, nu simt decît milă. O milă enormă, copleşitoare. Nu, nu e asta.

Brusc, ca într-un fel de film ştiinţific, care se derulează undeva într-o sală obscură de cinema în care nu mai e nimeni în afară de mine, văd un purice cocoţat peste o purică, văd un fluture fluturînd disperat peste o fluturiţă, văd un şarpe încolăcindu-se chinuit peste o şerpoaică, văd un broscoi ţestos mişcîndu-se lent deasupra unei broaşte ţestoase, văd un crocodil rapace aburcat rigid peste o crocodilă, văd un cocoş ţanţoş sărind harnic pe o găină, văd un iepure fricos cocoţat tremurător peste o iepuroaică, un măgar proţăpit peste o măgăriţă, un armăsar călare peste o iapă, un rinocer ridicol peste o rinoceră, un elefant greoi peste o elefantă. E o foşgăială enormă, ţipete, răgete şi fîlfîituri, muşcături însîngerate, ghiare şi copite, urlete şi gîfîituri. E un film disperat, grandios şi apocaliptic, e proiectată o acuplare cosmică, universală, în care tot ce e viu se muşcă, se înţeapă, se devoră, se întrepătrunde, suferă şi procreează. Apoi din toate perechile astea curg rîuri de pui identici cu formele procreatoare. Din care curg valuri de alţi pui identici. Veşnic, la nesfîrşit, ca într-o uriaşă roată vie, fremătătoare, intrînd unii în alţii, ieşind unii din alţii din alţii din alţii, într-un şuvoi etern, circular.

Femeile şi bărbaţii apar şi ei în final, undeva într-un colţ al peliculei, ca o mică specie animală, cu care însă la un moment dat se petrece ceva. Însă nu văd bine ce anume. Sînt singură în sala vastă de cinema. Filmul curge înaintea mea în valuri, ca o cascadă de lavă încinsă, o revărsare copleşitoare. E ceva tragi-comic în viziunea regizorală. Ceva trebuie să intre în altceva ca să se producă încă ceva, dar instrumentele sînt primitive iar acţiunea fizică e de-a dreptul penibilă. Designul părţilor nu e desăvîrşit, oh, departe de asta. S-ar fi putut găsi forme mai potrivite pentru genitale, mai frumos desenate, mai simple. Iar la urmă, la oameni, ar fi trebuit să fie altfel şi mai armonios. Nu simt decît duioşie, care-mi înmoaie blînd colţurile gurii. O milă enormă, vastă cît lumea, umple sala de cinema şi întunecă brusc imaginea. Nu, nu e asta. Nu-i asta!

Acum văd un cuplu, o femeie şi un bărbat, într-o serie de fotografii colorate dintr-o revistă pornografică. Ca cea descoperită în sertarul de jos din biroul tatei, în copilărie. În fotografii, cei doi au carnea arămie şi lucioasă, e unsă probabil cu un ulei special, căci străluceşte pofticios, excitant. Muşchii lor sînt bine reliefaţi. Într-una din fotografii, genitalele bărbatului şi sînii femeii sînt înfăţişaţi în prim plan, parcă detaşaţi de corpurile lor, ca nişte organe la măcelărie, tăiate şi expuse în prim plan în vitrina magazinului. În altă fotografie, cei doi execută cu precizie o figură erotică provocatoare. Blitzul i-a surprins într-o postură incomodă dar aţîţătoare în care sunt fixaţi, indiferenţi, în eternitate. Două figurine de plastic gonflate, încălecate ridicol. Două mecanisme complicate, acoperite cu piele de cea mai bună calitate, executînd figura clasică bielă-manivelă. Ca şi cum aş vedea două cadavre ucise chiar în momentul interpenetrării, calde încă, încă şiroind de sudoare, expuse într-o vitrină de lux. Imaginea e prea violentă, prea artificială, nu sînt adevăraţi, nu sînt decît manechine acolo. Îmi vine să vomit. Nu, nu u e asta ceea ce caut. Dar ce caut ? Ce ?

E un soţ şi o soţie, de data asta. Trebuie să conceapă un copil. Îl doresc de multă vreme şi copilul nu vine. În ciuda eforturilor lor repetate, dezlănţuite şi disperate. Acum îi văd închişi împreună într-o sală de spital. Li s-au făcut analizele. Au fost supuşi unui tratament hormonal special. În acest moment, sub privirile profesionale ale medicilor, aflaţi în spatele unui perete de sticlă, cei doi trebuie să încerce să conceapă un copil într-un mod ştiinţific. Pe două paturi înguste, albe, aseptice. Cei doi se străduiesc să-şi îndeplinească rolul cît mai corect, cît mai impersonal. Bărbatul donează spermă într-un fel de eprubetă. După ce sperma a fost procesată prin nişte aparate complicate, femeia o primeşte printr-un tub transparent, lung şi subţire, terminat cu un fel de pipetă. De undeva, din jur, îi asistă nişte ochi electronici, cadrane electrice, instrumente chirurgicale. Sînt doi cobai reproducători benevolenţi. Trebuie să conceapă o larvă umană pentru binele speciei. De acum înainte, larva asta preţioasă ar putea fi obţinută şi într-un incubator, într-o retortă mai sofisticată, fără prezenţa celor doi, fără trupurile lor dezbrăcate, fără încleştarea lor exaltată. Fără tandreţe. Fără disperare. Viziunea asta nu mă priveşte. Mă lasă rece. Nu, nu e nici asta.

E o sală înaltă şi goală. E un templu sau o catedrală vastă, destul de întunecată. În mijlocul sălii se vede o masă acoperită cu o stofă roşie, grea. Deasupra se vede întinsă o femeie. Femeia e îmbrăcată într-o rochie lungă şi albă şi e nemişcată. Apare un fel de preot îmbrăcat în veşminte lungi şi ciudate, care execută lîngă femeie, cu braţele întinse înainte, în care ţine nişte instrumente de aur sau aurite, un ritual complicat, îndelungat, ininteligibil. Pleacă apoi şi în locul lui vine mai tîrziu un alt bărbat. Sau acelaşi bărbat, însă fără veşmintele lungi. O priveşte lung şi fix, hohoteşte. Îi aranjează florile din păr, cutele rochiei lungi. Vrea s-o sărute, s-o îmbrăţişeze, se înalţă în vîrful picioarelor, s-a urcat pe masă, peste femeie, o frămîntă cu mîinile, cu picioarele. Femeia nu mişcă, nu se clinteşte. Atunci bărbatul scoate un cuţit şi îl înfige fulgerător în femeie. Din femeie nu curge nici o picătură de sînge. Simt că mi se întunecă mintea. Ţip.

…Fereastra e întredeschisă şi scînteiază în soarele după-amiezei. În curtea interioară nu se vede nimeni, nici un chip la ferestre, nici o prezenţă. Tu continui să dormi dus, liniştit. De partea cealaltă, tînăra femeie şi tînărul bărbat s-au oprit. Se privesc fix, exaltat. Se privesc îndelung şi extatic, parcă o lumină aurie, electrică, se întinde între privirile lor. În tăcerea perfectă, îi privesc la rîndul meu fix. Extatic. Fără nici o dorinţă, curat. Am epuizat toate imaginile. Mă simt golită, purificată. Simt brusc vibraţia unui gong în plexul solar.

Brusc, ştiu. Acum ştiu. Sîntem totuşi noi doi, tu şi eu. În camera albă, în patul alb şi îngust, tu vii deasupra mea cu blîndeţe. Trebuie să îndeplinim fără greşeală ceva important, ceva capital, de care pare că atîrnă soarta noastră şi destinul lumii întregi. Parcă nu am fi singuri, parcă am fi într-o sală de operaţie, sau pe o scenă de teatru, parcă am îndeplini un ritual vechi, bizar, într-o sală înaltă, ca de biserică, ca de catedrală. Un ritual pe care cîndva, demult, l-am uitat.

Trebuie să găsim împreună o portiţă de ieşire din lume. Aud în jurul nostru o vibraţie gravă, un fel de glas care pare că recită dintr-o carte prăfuită şi sacră: Dragostea e bună, e curată, e o minune a lumii, e singura minune, e o scară spre cer, să nu ne fie frică, să nu ne fie ruşine, auzim susurînd. Tu mă mîngîi intens şi-mi şopteşti febril, îmi şopteşti neîncetat: “Ştiu o cale de ieşire din lume. Ştiu o cale de ieşire din lume. Asta e calea. Asta e calea ca să scăpăm de aici. Vrei? Vrei?”

Încep să vibrez puternic cînd te aud. Ceva cumplit mă înspăimîntă în cuvintele tale. Mi-e teribil de teamă, carnea mă doare. Printre săruturi şi mîngîieri, îţi răspund înfrigurată: “Ce piele catifelată! Ce coapse frumoase, puternice! Ce bine e aici, lîngă tine, cu tine! Care dincolo, care înafară ?“. Tu mă mîngîi, mă iubeşti, şi-mi şopteşti neîncetat: “Vrei, vrei să trecem dincolo? Vrei să scăpăm?”

Tremurînd ca o coardă muzicală înainte de rupere, sînt pe punctul să-mi pierd cunoştinţa, mi se întunecă mintea, mi se pare că mor. Cu ultimele puteri, îţi şoptesc: “Măcar să ne vadă şi mama! Trebuie să ne vadă şi mama!”.

Calm, precis, copleşindu-mă, tu îmi murmuri în căuşul urechii: “Stai liniştită, nu sîntem singuri”. Şi pe lîngă patul nostru alb şi îngust, din care lent şi precis alunecăm în neant, prin fereastra întredeschisă, intră un adolescent subţire şi blond, îmbrăcat în ceva lung şi alb. Vine zîmbind lîngă noi şi, încurajator, ne priveşte.

Apoi ne aruncă pe amîndoi, ca pe o mică bijuterie dublă de aur, în univers.







I see her through the partly open window. On the other side of the building’s inner courtyard, flooded in strong summer light. The window has no curtain and the glass is very clean and sparkling. The woman is making the bed. A narrow bed, like a cot, or in a medical clinic. From my angle, I can see only the bed. The narrow bed. She makes it very carefully. She unfolds a crisp white sheet, stretches it perfectly to the edges, smoothes it with her hand. Then she vanishes from the window frame.

Light falls obliquely on a corner of the sheet The woman appears again, a dust rag in her hand. She wipes the walls by the bed, which, from a distance, also seem very white, very clean. Almost aseptic. She is skimpily dressed, just a violet T-shirt over her extremely thin frame. A shirt that reaches as far as halfway down her slim thighs. She is dark-haired and young, young enough, and from my angle I can see no more than her profile and back. She disappears again from the frame.

The window is clean and empty, without a curtain. It gleams slightly. After a while, the woman comes again and lies down on the bed, unclothed and peaceful. She waits placidly on the white, aseptic, hospital-like bed. No pillow. I wait, too. From my window, on the other side of the courtyard, I can see only the bed. It’s afternoon, and the warm air billows in silent waves. Here beside me, you’re asleep. The woman’s window, partly open, remains empty. Then a man appears. He is slender, blond, naked. He’s quite young. I can see only his rather slight back, like a teenager’s. Then he slowly climbs on top of her, and without any warning, without any sound, he starts making love.

Nothing can be heard. I sense only the soft, rippling heat of the noon. The two make love without passionate caresses or avid kisses. Precisely, with no excess motion. As in a medical act, as if illustrating an abstract treatise of human anatomy and physiology. But no, rather as in a ballet of imposed and impersonal motions. A monotonous horizontal dance, on a deserted stage, with no audience. Or instead, like a sort of ritual act, rigorous, precise and inscrutable. As if the pair knew they were watched, as if they knew they weren’t absolutely alone. They are perhaps carrying out something they have been asked to, something necessary. They make love with no sound, without a single lascivious motion. Yes, precise. It’s sort of a strange repetition of something that I’ve seen before. I’m sure I’ve seen this scene somewhere. But where?

Here beside me, you’re asleep. The window of the two, on the other side of the inner courtyard, is partly open and has no curtain. The glass gleams in the hard afternoon light. The two are making love, and I’m not ashamed to watch them. On the contrary. It seems to me that I must look at them, must observe them carefully. This scene should have occurred long ago. I feel a deep, strange emptiness in my solar plexus.

The man is making love in silence, precisely. Neither sensually nor purely mechanically. With his eyes open, he seems absorbed in something unseen. Concentrating on a thought that absorbs his full attention. The woman receives the love-making with closed eyes, in silence, without a superfluous gesture. Peaceful and detached. Her passivity is neither absence nor self-neglect. She, too, seems absorbed by a precise thought that absorbs her full attention. But what could they be thinking now, simultaneously, together?

They are complying with something, something strange, something important. But what, I wonder? The inner courtyard is completely deserted. No person, no face is visible at any other window. Beside me, you turn on one side and continue to breathe regularly. Nobody sees them but me. Their window has no curtain, and it gleams. They don’t care. It seems to me that I must look at them. I know this is what I have to do. I must see. But why, for what reason?

An external view of the act of love. A forbidden image, for a long time insufferable. A strangely dangerous image, laden with a heavy, poisonous energy, kind of like thick, fermented dregs rising from the depths to stain me, overwhelm me. As if I saw myself from the outside. As if I were put to the test. As if someone wanted to study my reactions. But who? As when I was a little girl, and once, through a partly open door, I caught a glimpse my parents on a bed, kneading each other in a strange, alarming way. Or at the university, in one of the human anatomy classes, in the dissection hall at the morgue, when I had to cut open the swollen belly of a corpse that still had traces of red lipstick, blue mascara on the eyelids. Or later when, unwittingly, I saw the naked sex of my father while he washed in the bathroom. Then too I felt as if I were watched, put to the test. But now, what do I feel now? I don’t know, I still don’t know. My mind turns vaguely clouded. I’m a little afraid, and I suddenly feel nauseated. Yet I have to look. To see what I’m able to see. To see if I can see.

On display, before impure eyes, a shameless, barbarian image. I watch two stray dogs mating awkwardly and helplessly somewhere in a corner of a fruit and vegetable market in an oriental country. Men crouch in comfortable positions leering, guffawing crudely, and in hoarse, low voices, exchanging heavy words that fill their mouths with saliva. Women glance quickly from the corner of their eyes, then move away, their cheeks pale or blushing. Two stray dogs mating in silence, mechanically, and yet in a clean, animal way. In their eyes is something helpless and humble. Obediently, they carry out an atrocious and vast law under the greedy eyes of men. These are two parallel worlds that never meet, although they seem similar, since one dirties the other. One is always threatened by the other. I see the scene from up close, then from a distance, as if projected on a low horizon not very far away. I watch calmly; I feel only pity. A vast, overwhelming pity. No, it is not this.

Suddenly, as in a science movie spooled somewhere in an dark movie theater where there’s no one except me, I see a male flea perched on a female flea, I see a male butterfly urgently fluttering over a female butterfly, I see a male snake tortuously wound over a female snake, I see a male turtle slowly moving onto a female turtle, I see a ravenous bull crocodile rigid on top of a she-crocodile, I see a haughty rooster diligently treading a hen, I see a cowardly buck rabbit shuddering on a doe, a jackass covering a jenny, a stallion on a mare, a ridiculous rhinoceros bull on a rhinoceros cow, a heavy bull elephant mounting a she-elephant. Everywhere a terrible swarming, braying, shrieking, flapping, bites that draw blood, claws and hooves, roars and gasps! It’s a desperate, grandiose and apocalyptic movie that projects the cosmic, worldwide copulation by which all that lives bites, pricks, devours, interpenetrates, suffers and procreates. Then from all these pairs there come forth hordes of progeny identical to the progenitors’ forms. From which torrents of other identical progeny billow forth. Forever, without stopping, as in a huge living wheel, rustling, that keeps on turning and turning, some penetrating others, still others issuing forth from others, on and on in an eternal, circular stream.

At last, women and men emerge, too, somewhere at a corner of the screen, like an insignificant animal species to which, at a given moment, something special happens. However, I cannot see exactly what. I’m alone in the vast movie theater. The movie streams forth in waves before me, a cascade of hot lava, an overwhelming flood. There’s something tragicomic about the director’s vision. Something must penetrate something else to produce a something more, but the instruments are primitive and the physical action exceeding clumsy. The design of the parts is imperfect, oh, very much so, indeed! More suitable shapes could have been devised for the genitals, more beautifully crafted, simpler. Also, ultimately, with people they should have been different, more harmonious. I feel only a sweetness that gently softens the corners of my mouths. A tremendous pity, vast as the world, fills the movie theater and suddenly obscures the image. No, it’s not this. Not this!

Now I see a couple, a woman and a man in a series of color photographs in a pornographic magazine. Like the one I discovered in the lower drawer of father’s desk when I was a child. In the photos, the couple’s flesh is coppery and glistening, probably rubbed with a special oil since it shines lewdly, seductively. Their muscles are well defined. In one of the photos, the man’s genitals and the woman’s breasts appear in close-up, as if detached from their bodies, like organs in a butcher shop, cut and displayed at the front of the store window. In another photo, the two perform precisely a provocative erotic embrace. The flash has surprised them in an uncomfortable yet salacious posture in which, aloof, they are fixed for eternity. Two figurines of inflated plastic, ridiculously fastened. Two complicated mechanisms, covered in the best quality skin, executing the classical rod-and-shaft figure. As if I had in front of my eyes two cadavers killed at the very moment of intercourse, still warm, still shiny with sweat, neatly exhibited in a deluxe showcase. The image is too violent, too artificial, they can’t be real, they’re mere mannequins. I feel like retching. No, this isn’t what I’m seeking. But what am I seeking? What?

This time a husband and wife. They must conceive a child. For a long time they have wanted a child yet none has come. Despite their repeated efforts, desperate and uninhibited. Now I see the two together in a hospital room. They have undergone tests. They have submitted to a special hormonal treatment. At this moment, under the professional eyes of the doctors behind a glass wall, the two have to try and conceive a child scientifically. On two narrow, white, antiseptic beds. They strive to fulfill their parts as correctly as possible, as impersonally. The man donates sperm in a sort of test tube. After the sperm has been processed by a complicated apparatus, the woman receives it through a long, thin, transparent tube that more or less ends in a pipette. Somewhere nearby, electronic eyes, digital dials, surgical instruments assist them. They are two willingly reproducing Guinea pigs. They have to conceive a human larva for the benefit of the species. From now on this precious larva can be obtained in an incubator, in a more sophisticated retort, without even the presence of the two, without their nude bodies, without their exalted embrace. Without tenderness. Without despair. This vision has nothing to do with me. It leaves me cold. No, it’s not this, either.

The hall is lofty and empty. It is a temple or vast cathedral, rather dark. In the middle of the hall, a table covered with a thick red cloth. On it, a woman, stretched out. The woman, motionless, is wearing a long, white dress. There appears some manner of priest, robed in strange, trailing vestments, who, his arms outstretched holding golden or gilded instruments, performs a complicated ritual, lengthy and impossible to understand. Then he leaves and, after some time, in his place another man arrives. Or the same man, but without the trailing vestments. He stares at the woman hard, and laughs. He arranges flowers in her hair, or the folds of her billowy gown. He wants to kiss her, to embrace her, he stands on his toes, he climbs on the table, on top of the woman, and he kneads her with his hands, with his feet. The woman does not move, does not flinch. Then the man pulls out a knife and in a flash stabs the blade into the woman. From the woman, not a drop of blood flows. I feel my mind is blacking out. I scream.

. . . The window is open and it sparkles in the afternoon sun. In the inner courtyard no one can be seen, no face at a window, no one present. You remain fast asleep, peacefully. On the other side, the young woman and the young man have finished. They gaze at each other, exalted. They gaze for a long time, ecstatically, as if a golden, electric light beams between their eyes. In perfect silence, I in my turn gaze at them. Ecstatic. Without desire, innocent, clean. I have exhausted all images. I feel empty, purified. Suddenly I feel the reverberation of a gong in my solar plexus.

Suddenly, I know. Now I know. The two young people are you and me. In the white room, on the narrow white bed, gently you climb on top of me. Without making any mistake, we must carry out something important, something essential, on which it seems that our future and the destiny of the entire world depend. It seems we aren’t alone, as if we’re in an operating room, or on a the stage of a theater, as if we have to fulfill our parts in an ancient, bizarre ritual, in a lofty hall, maybe a temple, maybe a cathedral. A ritual that once, long ago, we forgot.

Together we must find a way out of this world. I hear around us a solemn vibration, as from a voice that seems to recite from a dusty, sacred book: Love is good, it’s innocent, it’s the world’s miracle, it’s the only miracle, it’s the stairs to climb to heaven, let’s not be afraid, let’s not be ashamed, this is the murmuring we hear. You caress me intensely, and you keep whispering to me, “I know a way out of this world. I know a way out of this world. This is the way. This is the way we escape from here. Do you want to? Do you want to?”

I begin to tremble powerfully when I hear you. Something implacable frightens me in your words. I am terribly afraid; my flesh is painful. Between kissing and fondling, I reply to you on fire, “What silky skin! What beautiful thighs, how powerful! How good it is here beside you, with you! What beyond, what outside?” You caress me, love me, and keep whispering to me: “Do you, do you want us to go beyond? Do you want us to escape?”

Vibrating like the string of a musical instrument before it breaks, I’m on the point of losing consciousness; my mind is blacking out, I feel I’m about to die. With my last strength, I whisper, “At least mother should see us! Mother needs to see us!”

Calm, precise, overwhelming me, you murmur into the hollow of my ear, “Don’t worry, we aren’t alone!” And next to our narrow white bed, from which we slowly and precisely slip away into nothingness, a slender blond teenager robed in something long and white comes in through the partly open window. He comes toward us smiling encouragingly, and stares at us.

Then, as if we were a small, double jewel of gold, he pushes us both into the universe.

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Cârneci photo: credit Florin Esanu
Sorkin Photo: credit Nancy Sorkin