Just arrived from the printers – the Danish translation of
Sweet Haven. Forlaget Hjulet changed the title to Sweethaven-sagen – The
Sweethaven Case, putting the focus on the investigative and legal side of the
story. The original two-word English title was a play on the fictional setting
of the book – a place (school, actually) called Sweethaven. But it wouldn’t
have made much sense to translate the title literally into Danish, and risk
losing the intended irony (as readers will discover, there is nothing sweet
about the place, and neither is it a haven).
So three boxes filled with copies of the book are stacked by
the dining table. It’s a storied table, in more ways than one: a pantheon of
writers and artists have sat down to dinner here (including two Nobel prize
winners). Not my guests, but my husband’s, and his father’s and grandfather’s
before him. It was at this dining table that, in the winter of 2004, I sat down
and wrote the first line of a new project: “You see, I didn’t love her,” not
knowing what the hell I was doing, who the “you” was supposed to be (the
reader, as it turned out), without a clear idea of the narrator and for that
matter, the “her.” I was under pressure to produce some 25 manuscript pages for
my first meeting with the mentor assigned me as recipient of the David T.K. Wong
fellowship; back in my apartment at the University
of East Anglia in Norwich was a folder full of scribblings, the
bones of a novel that despite all my perseverance remained inert and dry. So
there I was, in Måløv, Denmark, seeking refuge from what was supposed
to be my writer’s refuge in England,
at the dining table in the home of the man who was to become my husband. He was
in Bolivia; I was alone with
my thoughts; the fellowship to England
was supposed to be the greatest thing in my literary career, marking the
gaining of freedom and the chance, at long last, to write what I pleased. But
the only voice in my head was of a confused and dismayed woman, telling her
story in the present, and looking back to her own turning point, the start of a
new and bitter life.
As it turned out, the book I subsequently wrote begins, more
or less, with that very first line. “You see, I didn’t love you. If there’d
only been a way to send you back, keep you from pushing your insistent way into
the world. What were you in such a hurry for? Go away, Naia. Shrivel. Shrink
back into a wet, pulsing mass, into what you were in the first unknowing hours
after I made you; go back to the beginning, membrane by membrane, protein by
protein, until you are one with my tissues again, until you are no more.”
And in Danish, the opening paragraphs:
“Forstår du,
jeg elskede dig ikke. Hvis der bare havde været en måde at sende dig tilbage
på, en måde der kunne standse din insisterende banen dig vej ind i verden.
Hvorfor havde du så travlt? Forsvind, Naia. Krymp. Skrump ind til en våd,
pulserende masse … til det du var i de første uvidende timer efter at jeg
lavede dig; vend tilbage til begyndelsen, membran for membran, protein for
protein, indtil du igen er ét med mit væv, indtil du ikke længere er til.
“Jeg
tænker ofte på dig, på den nat du blev født. Jeg kan ikke
forstå hvordan disse minder kommer så klart til mig – så vidt jeg ved, var jeg
fuldstændig væk: lå fladt på ryggen, bedøvet, bønfaldende om at blive befriet
for skabningen i min krop. 72
kg, med midterpartiet
svulmet op som en stor gærboble, benene i fodbøjler, kønnet barberet. De krænkede hårsække er kommet til syne som blege
knopper … en kusse som kyllingeskind, som noget på en køddisk.
“Ude
af mig selv hæver jeg mig op og bemærker en læges gummi-behandskede hænder, de
kvalmende grønne vægge beklædt med fliser som værn mod overraskende springvand
af blod. Dybe, brølende lyde gjalder gennem fødestuen
og gangene udenfor med deres slidte træbænke – tomme, for det er længe efter
midnat på dette hospital, der er opført af amerikanske missionærer tilbage i
1930’erne, derpå fløj efter fløj smækket op på trækonstruktionen efter 2.
verdenskrig, med raslende spøgelser overalt. Jeg er selv som et spøgelse … frigjort, svævende lytter
jeg til mine skrig af fødselskval.
“Dit hoved dukker op mellem mine spredte
ben. Du bryder igennem mit køns skærm og lader
din fine krop glide ud – allerede en atlet ved fødslen – og i dit lillebitte ansigt
er der et glimt af skønheden du vil bevare, selvom du er trykket sammen, uden
sol, og for første gang lærer luften at kende. Du er rød over det hele – et godt tegn; det betyder
at din hud, når den er tørret af for blod og slim, vil blive bleg, i modsætning
til min. Lægen løfter dig op i
anklerne. Du svinger. Dine sorte, perleagtige øjne synes at
opfatte hele verden med ét blik. Åh,
jeg kan se livet i deres dyb."
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