Of course the new friends spoke French, some French, at least, but broken and only during class. They also spoke some English, of course, and mostly better than French. no one: no one spoke Farsi, and the German that surrounded me was a coarse and surly German: but then, Berlin is notorious for its lack of tenderness.
All communication melted into a kind of funnel. All the words were channeled into it and met upon each other there. Pushing and shoving, only those that belonged to one single language succeeded in squeezing themselves into the thin tube. At the other end of it were the people whom i now wished to live amongst. The rest of the words were left to dangle at the top of the hollow cone, where they turned into thirst and hunger. And now that there was only one word for tree, not four, one word for sky, one word for fear, one word for love, i thought i might suffocate. I feared I would not be able to recognize the flight of a heron when its sky was only the German word for sky. I thought i might not be able to call for help when the person who was to help me could only understand the German word for fear. I thought I might never be able to tell someone that I loved them since he would only be able to understand it in German. I thought maybe the trees would become extinct.
And so I began to write. I wrote in the language understood by the people I wanted to live amongst. But I didn't follow all of the rules: I wrote the words in German, but I felt them in Farsi, and realized I could breathe again. And that is why I do not say I love you. Instead I say: I dream your black hawk heart. I bless the bog over which you fly. I say: I have chosen these people, but among them I have chosen you. Above all others, I have chosen you. and my plumage, I say, is now softer than ever before.
|
Deutsch
More Texts