ASA MADER / ANNA MOUGLALIS / LA MALADIE DE LA MORT
From all of the story / Im here, right in front of you / you only retain certain words that she said in her sleep – How many paid nights left?
Vous devriez ne pas la connaître / You should not know her / l’avoir trouvée partout à la fois / have found her everywhere at once, in a hotel, in a street / dans un hôtel, in a train, dans une rue, in a bar, in a book, dans un train, in a film, dans un bar, dans un livre
in your inmost self, dans un film, in yourself, en vous-même, en vous, en toi
in you
You might have paid her, You would have said – One would have to come each night for several days
And then she asks – What do you want? Vous voulez quoi? Essayez quoi?
Pourquoi encore?
You tell her you want to try / try several days may-be, May-be several weeks, May-be even throughout your whole life
Try what? You say, Loving
Dans ce cas c’est encore plus cher
You look at her, You tell her, You must be very beautiful / Im here, right in front of you, look for yourself / You look at her, You tell her, You must be very beautiful / She says, I am here, look, I am in front of you / Je suis là, regardez, je suis devant vous / You say, I dont see anything / She says, Try seeing
C’est compris dans le prix que vous avez payé
Encore combien de nuits payées? How many paid nights left?
Haven’t you ever loved a woman? Vous n’avez jamais aimé une femme? Haven’t you ever desired a woman? Vous n’avez jamais désiré une femme? Pas une seule fois, pas un instant? Never? Ever?
A dead man’s a strange thing
Et regarder une femme, vous n’avez jamais regardé une femme? What about looking, haven’t you ever looked at a woman? She asks, What do you look at? You say, Everything else
Never? Ever? Never, of how she sees, of how she thinks, and of the world and of you, and of this malady which she says has taken you – She would not know how to tell it to you
Because you know nothing of her, you would say she knows nothing of you
You would leave it at that
Because as soon as you spoke to me, I saw you were suffering from the malady of death / For the first few days I couldn’t put a name to it, And then I could, Et puis ensuite j’ai pu le faire / La maladie de la mort, The malady of death
You ask her how she knows, She says she knows
One knows without knowing how
You say to yourself that she should die, You say to yourself that if now at this here-hour of the night she died, it would be easier / you probably mean – for you, but you don’t finish your sentence
Vous pleurez pourquoi? She looks at you, Why are you crying? She looks at the room, And then again she looks at you, Parce que vous n’aimez pas / Because you don’t love
You respond that that’s it, I don’t love
You say you are lost, that you have never understood
Vous annoncez le règne de la mort / you have always avoided loving / Vous croyez pleurer de ne pas aimer / you have always wanted to be free not to love / Vous pleurez de ne pas imposer la mort
You are going to die of death, Your death has already begun
You ask how loving can happen, the emotion of loving?
Maybe from a sudden fault in the logic of the universe, For example from an error, Never from one’s will
It can come from anything, from the flight of a night bird, from a sleep, from a dream of sleep, from the approach of death, from a word, from a crime, from itself, from oneself, sudden, without knowing how
THE ENTIRE ARTICLE CAN ONLY BE FOUND IN THE PRINTED EDITION OF SOME/THINGS MAGAZINE ISSUE001