Monday, June 22, 2015

Old Summer, Late Afternoon by Ana Zumani



"I can attract but not captivate," she said. She was wearing a sky blue dress with a white bow and a straw hat with lilac irises.

"There's a beautiful path, " he said and pointed towards the forest. "There are thistles and purple flowers and birch trees; look, you move straight ahead and down below the river breaks into white foam…"
She looked at him as if saying, "you want to be right there with me and breathe the scent of my dress…"

But they didn't move straight ahead towards the clearings of the thistles, the purple flowers and the birch trees, instead they had coffee in a big gathering on the wet grass and played badminton…
The hair of the girl had absorbed moisture and tender curls are now framing his temples…
She was beautiful…
And it started to rain…
The still wild prairie smelled of May. The grass was shining. The pebbles in the street were being washed clean and the poplars were trembling while drinking rain…
She was holding the beautiful hat with the lilac irises in her hand and he was holding an umbrella over her hair, like a good mother would…

They then went to the music room of that facility.
It was a bare, dark place that smelled like a cellar…
The girl's brother was playing Schubert, Impromptu E flat.
It was like when the waves of the lake sing; they rise and come, they fall and dissolve… some big, some small…
It became dark.
Outside, on the other side of the window, the chestnut tree leaves bowed to the gusts of the wind and the storm was going shh… shhh… shhhh… A glass lantern was shining into the distance…
And then the E flat Impromptu would rise and come, to fall into their hearts and dissolve…

The woman and the man were smoking.
Only the flaming tips of their cigarettes could be seen…
He was sitting very close to her, shaking…
"Let's dance," she said…

Outside the chestnut tree leaves were bowing to the gusts of the wind, the cigarettes were illuminating the windowsill, the brother was playing and the two of them were dancing in the dark, slowly, silently…

"What's the title of the piece you played before?" she later asked.
"Schubert E flat," replied the pianist, "a composer has said something wonderful about it… Why do you ask?"
"Because…"
The young man seemed as if lost in another world; he could also sense something wonderful about the E flat but he could not express it with words like the composer… so he slowly bend his body towards the girl and whispered… "My queen…"

Translated by yours truly. My thanks to Ana Zumani for allowing me to reproduce it here.

The image was taken from here.
 

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