TE23 Double Feature

Tomas Espedal

The Year

it was possible to love just one woman all one’s life even after she’d died

It’s natural that Petrarch compares Laura to the sun she’s a calendar which breaks down all time so she can be here for ever the Laura sun. Ah it’s shining that sun through the carriage window I miss you more and more with each day that passes each month each year that passes. The train runs it speeds past beaches along the blue coast at TGV speed past the azure towns of Cagnes Antibes Golfe-Juan Cannes you can’t see them these towns that fly past. We can see the sky and we can see the sea and the sun which follows the train and beats in through the window strikes my face which swells in a double fever burning heat on my skin 131

and if that was possible it was possible to live without other women without sexuality it was possible to live celibate and it’s possible today to live what Petrarch wrote almost seven hundred years ago. Today Sunday the sixth of April after a sleepless night but manage to get out of bed before midday leave the hotel soaked in sweat and walk the three blocks in the cold light of day through the streets to the railway station where the train will take me to Avignon. Sunday the sixth of April: 130 2014 I am ill I’m tired and exhausted