Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

A WIDER SEA: PASSAGES OF MEMORY (EXCERPTS) BY ILMA RAKUSA TRANSLATED BY ROGER RUSSI

I I I

THE OTHER MEMORY The needle of my internal compass points East. But where does the thrill come from that grips me at the sight of an acacia-lined street, a section of lowlands, a square shaped like a scarf, bordered by single story houses. Something calls to me: here! No name captures the image. The image underlies the conscious experience. It comes from a store of memory I can neither control nor completely know. And it has power over me. (Déjà- vus, M. says, aren’t they proof enough that we have already wandered several, even countless, times over this earth?) A fence twists in the snow. Definitely a twisted fence, rural. Shadows, jackdaws, it’s all there. And I fall into one of many pasts. A pluperfect. Beyond the seven mountains and seven dwarves. Then herds of sheep, woolly on the grassy slope in the grass-covered steppes. On steep pastures. Jaws chewing, and a sudden undulation when the herd begins to move. Like a primal memory.

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