Vanishing Points by Lucija Stupica, translated from the Slovene by Andrej Peric

THE BLUE GONDOLA

Once upon a time,
          there was a street named Bregovita.
A short blind alley. It still exists.
With a different name.
With two blue cars of the shortest funicular at its end.
I’ve got it all, just come.
He had some corn flour and a small pot of fat.
Three children, the youngest only a month old.
Zagreb 1941, paperless exiles.
At night, the tram, several transfers, several numbers
unknown to the children, a hideout and a place
to warm themselves,
even if with socks on their hands.
Later, coal came to the room shared with another family,
this is how they made it through the four years.
Nobody talked about the summers.
Children shouting in the streets: Sand, white sand for sale!
The sand falling. The moments spent in the funicular alley, falling.
The tapping of the sewing machines in the blanket manufacturing company
during the day, unannounced visits at night. The sand falling through
sleepless nights pierced with children’s crying –
Mother was slowly turning into a wall.
Later still, halfway between a fairy tale and reality,
a blue gondola rises from memory’s gap.
Floating in water, in air – but never on rails.
Now the engines start up, a faraway rhythm
of sewing machines, the blue gondola drifts into the steepness.
I try to breathe through some other time,
some other life.
All of a sudden, for a split second,
I feel I can touch it. Then I let go. 

THE LA ST PHOTO TOGETHER

They share something confidential,
the four-year-old girl on the left of the bench,
in her red coat, a scarf around her head,
and the three-year old boy, with their grandpa.
They left the backyard long ago.
And the bench with the wooden slats
and the crooked cast iron legs
standing before the faded facade.
The grandpa in the photo, resembling
Jean Gabin, is wearing a tie, a brown cardigan
and gabardine trousers. His silvery hair
neatly combed off his forehead.
The children cannot spread out their coats yet
to cover their grandpa with them. Her tiny hand
is shielding the sunlight, making room
for the view towards a different place. 

DAUG HTER AND FA THER

on the pavement
a frozen walk
on one side
the town houses behind a brick wall
on the other side
a row of parked cars
this is a photo too
it’s late summer
they’re dressed in light colours
almost festively
they certainly look happy
he’s holding her hand
she is very little
the catalogue of stories is opening up
words
the points on the map
the forming of the world
the forming of the home
wherever that may be
wherever that may be
the daughter
the father
a step
a photo
a step 

THE POINT OF LEAVING

Instead of the old plum tree, a house,
instead of the apple tree, a fence.
I recall the forked branches, from which we would throw
insipid green apples towards the road for them to get split
under car tyres, and the scratches on our skin.
Everything is cleaned up, wiped down, and the toys
have long been consigned to the dustbin of eternal renovation.
It could all have begun with a journey.
With a small step and a clear gaze.
With serenity in the eye.
A few moments, maybe years, later,
we are sitting together, two pairs of kindred eyes,
love, nearness, facing the sea,
no delightful colours, and the constant cold.
The only likelihood we know of,
the inability to verbalise previous lives.
Yet, if I comprehend this world just a little,
it’s urgent for us to let poetry take its measure of time.
Poetry is the edge we walk on,
the edge we keep falling off into new secrets. 

LETTERS AND VOICES

Letter One
Below the window is a city, but there’s only enough space for two
in the hotel room. There aren’t any dreams, it’s too hot to sleep
anyway. I’m putting down word after word. Letters. Quotes. A
traveller’s diary. The forgotten roads travelled to be closer to my
loves. Trust always comes later, as well as the discovery that I’d
missed it. Not only the street, but the entire continent.
Him
The certainty that I don’t want to die without living it.
Without living – with you. The certainty. With you.
The certainty. I don’t want to die. Without living. With you.
Letter Two
On the plane. The mountains cast long shadows in the sunny day,
it smells of us. I’m returning. Where, I don’t know. The seagulls are
flying low as well. They cry when their offspring are nearby. Within
myself, there’s a swan stretching its neck, glaring, chasing away
anyone approaching. On the seat beside me, a father and his daughter
are looking at the photos from a family trip. I’m scared, Maruša. The
borders are packed down there. They’re looking at the children,
wanting the best for them. Looking at the children and seeing their
fathers. Looking at the fathers and letting them die slowly.
Letter Three
New shoes
for the journey
seven hundred and more
a hollow rhythm
overloaded boats
subdued voices
voices
almost breathless
new shoes
on the shore
surely –
inescapably –
Letter Four
If not us, you said. And me: If we jump into the water and resurface,
will we end up on the same shore? You: I’m sure we’ll make it. Love’s
always naïve at its beginning. No-one knows when the silence
ensues. It ensues and you say: It’s enough, I’m out. But if you stay,
you haven’t yet built a road or a house or planted a tree, and we
know how dark a forest can be and how dark the cabins are on
the inside. Your hand seeking mine. It’s real. We’re on the same
shore, but this is only just the beginning.
Letter Five
Perhaps this cabin in the middle of the forest, with its ceilings too
low to walk upright, teaches humility. The wooden porch with
a broken chair shining faintly in the moonlight. We’re not going
to sleep tonight. Perhaps the cabin and the wooden porch will
not sleep either. To be sure, the forest isn’t asleep. I venture outside,
along the road, into the unknown. Along the darksome road
through the forest. I turn around behind the third turn. I don’t like
humility, I say. I go and find you and we go out together. We leave
the cabin. Along the darksome road through the forest. Behind
the third turn, there’s another cabin. We knock. Nobody opens.
We turn toward the little cabin in the middle of the forest, with
its ceilings too low. We knock. The door opens. That’s enough humility,
we say. We’re not going to sleep tonight. We’re going to lie
down, hold hands and listen to each other’s stories.
Her
The certainty that I don’t want to die without living it.
Without living – with you. The certainty. With you.
The certainty. I don’t want to live. Without living. With you.

IN HER ABSENCE

I looked through the window
one more time
a short driveway
with a white scooter parked on it
and a pastor wearing a straw-hat
a rather unusual picture
was already walking towards the entrance
scratching his beard
a warm smile and a handshake
you’re not from here
no
my wife isn’t either
tell me more about yourself
her blanket tossed over the chair
a year of diagnoses then the call
what do you think of first
when you think of the deceased woman
but still
still I’d come
too late
secretly I know
just as she lives on in her son
he will in our daughter
this room
I think to myself
her piano now muted
awkward laughter at the table
an interlacement of entangled words
a conversation about the service
how
we love one another
empty spaces
are always loud
on that morning
everything was about life
both cats
the ginger one and the black-and-white one
were still looking for her
so many photos
how
will we arrange them
and the summer
we are talking now
over a glass of water
it’d started off so promisingly 

ON BEGINNINGS, ENDINGS AND A LITTLE ABOUT MIDDL ES

Don’t give up, Michael. Beginnings tend to be
good, or average at least, whereas endings…
You wish they lapsed into a new beginning. A new story.
It could be a book, but, in fact, it’s a line from a movie
with Mark Duplass. It could be a book.
Somewhere along the way, life takes place nonetheless.
Despite passing slowly, rather linearly.
One might say, tediously.
It could be a book, at least a tenth replay
of a popular movie of no value
to anyone else, long evenings with conversations,
the feeling you have everything because you have nothing.
You’re standing outside a concrete shopping centre
with a big box in your hands containing your first CD player,
together with One Good Reason by Paul Carrack. The end of the ’80s,
you’re waiting for the homebound morning bus
after having mopped up the grocer’s shop before the opening.
You’re returning, not knowing how the wheels will turn.
How someday, thirty years later, you might encounter deaths,
mostly cancer. You’ve yet to find out how all these tiny images,
the collages of our lives, only exist when written down,
renewed in narration, in memory,
when given value, a reflection.
You’ve yet to find out there’ll be a sincere moment somewhere
when you can admit to yourself you need an ending.
But you’ll not find it. 

THE EYES

What was left was an intricate lace of wrinkles,
a lot of bitterness, much less love
in the house always without the faintest fragrance,
death is here, but it doesn’t know how to serve her,
her daughter puts some ointment on her dried-out lips;
the liquified food, the tea, the vials,
the glances through the windows,
the rehearsals of dying,
her staring as though she’d known all too well
the body was awake
and still alive in the eyes,
only in the eyes. 

AMONG ALL THE OTHERS

Someone is dead and suddenly shows up among all the others.
Inger Christensen 

The cirrus clouds, the curly locks of hair,
do not lay shadows onto the path.
Silky hands reaching from afar.
The icy crystals of clouds gently drizzling
onto the black clothes like rice.
For a split second, I jump into death also.
Like a newborn. Still able to see inwards.