104 292
Mircea Cartarescu
104
bedroom is real: the cloth
is cloth, the paint is paint, I
am an insignificant mammal
who lived for an instant on
earth. The ladder I use to
go up to the terrace is next
to the wardrobe. It’s like
a library ladder, the ones
that glide alongside the
wall. Only here it is tightly
screwed to the ceiling. There
is a trapdoor above that I lift
with difficulty when I reach
the top of the ladder and
suddenly the blue sky with
summery clouds appears in
the variable geometry gap in
the ceiling. I go on the house
terrace which, if not for the
whitetowergrowncrookedly
and asymmetrically above,
would look like those
white cubes the people in
the Near East live in. The
tower is painted white,
with thick plaster peeled by
rain and heat. Spiral stairs
surround it, twisting around
its entire circumference.
The terrace is flat with no
parapet; sometimes I lay a
sheet there and I sunbathe
under such low clouds that
I feel them warm and moist
touching my calves, my
nipples, my nose and my
chin. The sun mirrors itself
in the round window of the
tower, making it burn like a
lighthouse on a cliff.
The
tower
with
its
strangeness
and
metaphysics that actually
made me buy the house
has a door on its upper
side, right under the roof.
For a long time I found it
impossible to understand
why the spiral stairs and
that suspended entrance
were needed. The door had
once been painted scarlet,