Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

Michel Layaz

palm. Although the statue was small, to me it seemed colossal, an indomitable mass set on the bureau in the front hall, to whichmost of our visitors paid no attention. This allowed me to divide all who entered our apartment in two groups: those who noticed the statue and those who did not. I felt an inclination for the former and imagined they were endowed with superior abilities. This tendency to give weight to details has persisted in me and even today I freely admit I can’t bear anyone who doesn’t like cats, or who is reluctant to sit on sand, or who refuses to go from point A to point B on any path other than the one he is used to... I had been looking for my cup-and-ball for an hour. I had searched my room from top to bottom, emptying the trunk, digging through the piles of clothes, diving into the wardrobe and under the bed, moving the bookshelf, sparing no shadowy corners. Nothing! Not a single trace of the toy I also used as a gris-gris, or rather as a magic wand that would grant me certain wishes if, for example, I managed to catch the perforated ball on the point three, or five, or seven times in a row (according to the magnitude of the wish). Passing the bureau in the front hall, I remembered that my mother sometimes tidied away those of our things, my brothers’ andmine, that she deemed useless, objects stranded there as in purgatory until she condemned or pardoned them. I opened the last drawer first, the one on top, and then, following some mysterious illogic, the bottom one. When I stood

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