TE23 Double Feature

The Lamentations of Zeno

Ilija Trojanow

climbed out of his car without saying a word— so he informed me that evening over beer and Tafelspitz—and staggered from one shard of ice to the other, as though drunk or blind, reminding my host of the farmers saying good bye to their livestock during the Mad Cow scare, so he told me that evening. I wasn’t capable of such a gesture, I was too stunned, all thoughts and feelings paralyzed. I knelt next to one of the remnants, the ice under the sooty-black layer of dust was clean, I ran my fingers across the cold surface, then across my cheek, the way I always did, performing my ritual greeting. In the past I could plunge my arms into the fresh snow and bring up full scoops that made my hands so cold they would revitalize my face. I licked my index finger, it tasted like nothing. Only then did the first trivial thought occur to me: never again would I be able to fill plastic bottles with glacier water to sip so enjoyably at home. My host was standing next to his vehicle, I brusquely signaled for him to leave me alone. 24

Then I lay down on the scree, all balled up, a picture of misery, I would have welcomed any emotion that didn’t hit me like a positive lab test result. Not knowing what else to do, I stayed like that until a hiker put his hand on my shoulder to check on my condition. I snapped at him.

“You’re hiking here?”

“It’s amazing up here, isn’t it, and such a beautiful late summer day.”

“Don’t you see what’s happened?”

“Oh well, not much snow this year.”

“This glacier is dead, and you go sauntering blithely past. Get lost, disappear, you disgust me.” The man didn’t deign to look at me again and went on with his hike. It would have been 25