Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

georgi gospodinov

Yes, I occupy several posts, mayor, party secretary, chief of the gendarmerie.” “And why did you have to arrest me?” “Oh, I have more than enough reasons. But above all, I wanted to see you, shame on you for coming here and not giving me a call ...Because of the good old days. You’ve rented out a house to write in, and just imagine the coincidence, the same one you used to live in. I’m happy that you look back fondly on those years.” “What ’s with that baloney downtown, are you shooting some kind of a movie? You haven’t become a director, too, now have you?” “No, it ’s far more serious than that. I’ve launched a project. In short, I’m turning time back thirty years. Nothing has

changed here in any case. I’m creating the world’s largest museum. A museum of the past, of socialism, call it what you will. The whole town, every day, round-the-clock, a total museum. Actually, ‘museum’ isn’t exactly the right word, everything is live. Everyone keeps being whatever he was then, and we pay him for it. I foot the bill for everything. We don’t pay them much, but we don’t ask much of them, either. Just for them to stay the same. They’re nostalgic for the olden days in any case. We’ve cut off the Internet, TV, we sell newspapers only from back then, actually we reprint the old editions in reverse order, we’ve imposed penal t ies for telling political jokes, we’ve

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