Breaking Ground: Celebrating British Writers of Colour In Translation

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FOREWORD In the UK, there is a long and proud tradition of independent arts organisations leading the way in the fight for racial equality and social justice across society. In this present climate of rising intolerance, Speaking Volumes’ original Breaking Ground concept is our way of contributing to that struggle.

Over the last five years Breaking Ground, which celebrates British writers of colour through events in the UK and abroad, has gained momentum. Following two successful tours of the USA with ten Black British writers in 2015-16, the writers involved in that have continued to benefit from the links made on those visits, receiving commissions to write and invitations to read, conduct workshops and participate in talks — on both sides of the Atlantic.

In 2017, our latest Breaking Ground tour took a range of diverse British authors to mainland Europe to perform in spaces ranging from cutting-edge arts venues to esteemed literary establishments, from music clubs to universities at the northern and southern edges of the continent. We showcased 21 writers across nine events in Finland, Spain, Portugal and Germany through live performances and short films. We were also able to commission translations of extracts of each artist’s work who performed live in that country — enabling audiences to enjoy and engage with them long after the show. Over 700 copies of the translations have been given out to date.

Now, for the first time, all the translations from Breaking Ground Europe 2017 have been collected in one brochure. We hope you enjoy reading the wide variety of poetry and prose on display here, which together show our common humanity – whether in English, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese or German. Our thanks to all the translators and others who made this possible.

Sharmilla Beezmohun, Sarah Sanders and Nicholas Chapman Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

BREAKING GROUND

CONTENTS Breaking Ground in Finland, July 2017 4

Zena Edwards 6

Vanessa Kisuule 10

Solomon OB 14

Roger Robinson 18

Yomi Sode 21 Breaking Ground in Portugal, November 2017 24

Peter Kalu 25

Jacob Ross 30 Breaking Ground in Spain, November 2017 35 Yvvette Edwards 37

Colin Grant 43

Irenosen Okojie 49

Leone Ross 54 Breaking Ground in Germany, November 2017 59

Francesca Beard 61 Rishi Dastidar 64

Caleb Femi 68 About Speaking Volumes 71

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Breaking Ground in Finland, July 2017 In July 2017, the first Breaking Ground Europe visit was to Tampere, Finland, to be part of one of northern Europe’s largest African music festivals, Fest Afrika. Founded in 2002 by Tanzanian drummer and dancer Menard Mponda, this annual celebration aims to be ‘a positive influence for younger generations by bringing communities together in a supportive multicultural environment’.

Speaking Volumes took five Black British poets to Fest Afrika. Zena Edwards, Vanessa Kisuule, Solomon OB, Roger Robinson and Yomi Sode appeared over two nights at the atmospheric Klubi, where they performed to over 400 people. Whilst Yomi Sode’s poetry about the experiences of young black people in Britain resonated with the youth in the crowd, Solomon OB’s personal take on being a black child adopted by white parents touched the audience on a different level. Vanessa Kisuule’s popular woman-centred experiences of family and personal relationships were then expanded by Zena Edwards through a stellar poetry and song performance which also brought home the fact that the personal is the political. Finally, Roger Robinson’s cool dub night showcased how the most serious of issues tackled by poetry can reach people via music.

To accompany the visit, the poets worked with students from the University of Tampere to produce Finnish translations of their work. This was co-ordinated by Liban Sheikh, research assistant at the university.

Our thanks for this visit go to: Anna Rastas, University of Tampere; Menard Mponda at Fest Afrika; Liban Sheikh, University of Tampere; Antti-Ville Kärjä, Academy Research Fellow at Music Archive Finland based at the University of Tampere; the sixth biennial AfroEurope@ns conference; and Professor Maggi Morehouse at Coastal Carolina University USA. Zena Edwards was raised in Tottenham, north London and has been writing since she was a child.

Since graduating from Middlesex University in Drama and Communication Studies, Zena has been involved in poetry, theatre and live literature performance for 24 years. She was nominated for the 2017 Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowships Award. Her writing for performance explores collective and personal revolution, re-membering that which has been dismembered in the continuum of the African diaspora pre- and postcolonial canon. Zena is creative and educational director of Verse In Dialog (©CV:iD), a social enterprise company focused on cross-art collaboration for social change. www.goodnewzee.wordpress.com | Twiter: @zenaedwards 4

Vanessa Kisuule is a writer, performer and spoken word artist based in Bristol. She has won several slam titles including the Nuyorican Poetry Slam in New York. She has worked with the Southbank Centre, RADA, Bristol City Council and had her work featured by the BBC, the Guardian, Huffington Post, Dazed and Confused, Sky TV and TEDx in Vienna. She represented the UK in two European Slam Championships in Sweden and Belgium, completed a ten-day tour of Germany in 2015 and spoke at the Global Forum of Migration and Development 2016 in Bangladesh. Her debut poetry collection, Joyriding The Storm, was published in 2014. She has performed at festivals including Shambala, WOMAD and Glastonbury. www.burningeyebooks.wordpress.com/tag/vanessakisuule Twitter: @vanessa_kisuule

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Solomon OB is an artist, musician and poet who was born in London and now lives in Bristol. He was crowned Hammer and Tongue Slam Champion in 2016 and has gone from strength to strength ever since. Featured on BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Radio 5Live and the Guardian online, he is a lover of dynamic displays of lyricism, delivering passionate and engaging performances and constantly looking to push his own boundaries. Armed with a new live band supporting the likes of Chali 2na, 2017 serves as his arrival as a solo artist, with his debut EP The Writing is Real.

Twitter @SolomonConcept

Roger Robinson was born in Trinidad and has lived in the UK for over 20 years. Decibel named him as one of 50 writers influencing the Black British writing canon. Roger’s books include the fiction Adventures in 3D and poetry collections Suitcase, Suckle – Winner of the Peoples Book Prize – and The Butterfly Hotel, from which the poem ‘Trinidad Gothic’ was Highly Commended by the Forward Prize and shortlisted for the OCM Bocas Poetry Prize. He is a co-founder of Spoke Lab and the writing collective Malika’s Kitchen.

He released a solo album, Illclectica, and is lead vocalist for King Midas Sound, whose debut album, Waiting for You (Hyperdub Records), was critically acclaimed. www.rogerrobinsononline.com | Twitter: rrobinson72 Yomi Sode, once long-listed as one of MTV’s Brand New Artists, balances the fine line between Nigerian and British cultures which can be, at times, humorous, loving, self-reflective and uncomfortable. Over the past nine years he’s had work commissioned by The Mayor’s Office, BBC World Service/Africa, Channel 4, charities and for the UN Humanitarian Summit.

He won a place on Nimble Fish’s RE: Play programme to develop his show COAT, the scratch of which has since been programmed by the Southbank Centre and Camden Roundhouse to sold-out audiences. Last year Yomi was chosen to be a part of The Complete Works and travelled to the USA as part of British Council’s Shakespeare Lives initiative, where he read at New York Public Library.

About the Translators Emily Hallfast is a writer and literary translator. She is halfAmerican and bilingual; her native languages are Finnish and English.

She is currently studying in the Master’s Programme in Multilingual Communication and Translation Studies at the University of Tampere, specialising in Literary Translation. Hallfast has a Bachelor’s Degree in Comparative Literature and her Master’s Degree includes basic and intermediate studies in Creative Writing and basic studies in Drama Education. Literature and writing are an inseparable part of her life, as on her days off she writes both short and long prose, poetry and short plays.

Anne Ketola is a doctoral researcher in Translation Studies at the University of Tampere. Ketola works as a poetry translator in the multilingual Sivuvalo – Is this Finnish Literature? project that aims to promote the work of minority language authors in Finland. The project was awarded for persevering the development and renewal of the Finnish cultural landscape. In the project, Ketola has translated poetry books, poetry installations as well as spoken-word poetry. Her working languages are Finnish, Spanish and English.

Katriina Mujunen majors in Literary Studies at the University of Tampere. As her minors, she has studied both English Philology and Creative Writing. At the moment she is also a student at Viita-akatemia, a renowned three-year creative writing programme in Tampere. Of all the literary genres, poetry is dearest to Katriina’s heart.

Tarja Soini is currently writing her Master’s Thesis on a subject related to the translation of drama and literature. She came to the University of Tampere in 2013. Before that she had another career in business administration. Thus far, Soini has translated poetry only in study projects, but the subject has grown on her. Her working languages are Finnish and English.

www.yomisode.com ¦ Twitter: YomiSode 5 3

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Zena Edwards The Fury Project – Abbey’s song

Raivoprojekti – Abbeyn laulu

Prelude Like gatekeepers to the tender soul …

A trinity of sisters, of ancient Greece, belief in the Gods of old 3 Sisters born from the three drops of a deities blood Spilled by the command of Gaia’s pure vengeance born from her ocean of excruciating pure Love To protect children, women and family and in consequence: all humanity The Tisiphone: blood avenger, Alecto: the ceasing anger and Mageara: jealous one

Alkusoitto Aran sielun portinvartijoina …

Kolmen sisaren kolminaisuus, muinainen Kreikka, usko muinaisiin jumaliin Kolme sisarta, syntyneet kolmesta jumalaisesta veripisarasta vuodatettu Gaian puhtaan koston käskystä hänen musertavan puhtaan rakkautensa merestä syntyneet suojelemaan lapsia, naisia ja perhettä siitä seuraten: koko ihmisyyttä Teisifone: veren kostaja Alekto: leppymätön ja Megaira: kateellinen

I was on Regent Street the other day And then I saw her, sitting on milk crate outside Hamleys Toys store

Eräänä päivänä kuljin Regent Streetilla ja näin naisen istumassa muovikorin päällä Hamleysin lelukaupan edessä

A torn McDonald paper cup in front of her The dirt around her nails was not budging any time soon Her thin skirt had a dance of its own Flashing her skinny cinnamon legs, Fat white sports socks on her feet stuffed into buckled Sandals, soles worn to one side And a rage spoke to me.

Why is this little elderly black lady sitting in the cold And a summer dress and old coat On one of London richest roads Begging? she could have been my mum The spit in my mouth dried up, and no words would come So I just bent down, gave her my scarf and the 10 pound I went to the cash point to get So much cotton wool in my mouth, I’m close to choking Her hand faintly touches mine as she took the note, She looks the brown image of the queen of England smiling back at her

Hänellä oli edessään repaleinen McDonald’s-pahvimuki pinttynyt lika hänen kynsiensä alla ei kuurautuisi helpolla irti hänen ohut hameensa tanssi paljasti luisevat kanelijalat, lihavat valkoiset urheilusukat hänen jaloissaan turposivat sandaaleissa kengänpohjat olivat kuluneet muotopuoliksi ja raivo puhui minulle.

Miksi tämä pieni vanha musta nainen istuu kylmässä päällään kesämekko ja vanha takki eräällä Lontoon rikkaimmista kaduista kerjäämässä?

Hän olisi voinut olla äitini sylki kuivui suussani, eikä sanaakaan tullut ulos joten kumarruin, annoin hänelle huivini ja 10 puntaa jotka menin nostamaan automaatista suussani niin paljon puuvillaa, melkein tukehdun hänen kätensä koskettaa kevyesti omaani kun hän ottaa setelin katsoo ruskeaa kuvaa Englannin kuningattaresta joka hymyilee hänelle takaisin

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Translated into the Finnish by Emily Hallfast

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

“Hey you! Come! Sit. Sit sit sit … what’s your name child? i gotta song i want to sing you, not that my voice is good. it got cracked, broken when the moon looked away one time. Oh, i don’t blame her. so she turned for a moment to see what the noise was and when she did she’s not that easily distracted, but there was a real war going on one time my top note shattered. i was sore for a day or three but i still remember the melody (Hums Woman’s World)

”Hei sä! Tule! Istu. Istu istu istu … lapsi-kulta, mikä sun nimi on? mulla on laulu jonka haluan laulaa ei että mun ääni olisi hyvä. se meni särölle, murtui kun kuu katsoi kerran muualle. En mä sitä syytä. ei se niin helposti häiriinny, mutta oikea sota oli meneillään kerran joten se kääntyi hetkeksi katsomaan mistä melu tuli ja kun se kääntyi mun ylänuotti meni pirstaleiksi.

Mä olin karhea päivän tai kolme mutta muistan edelleen melodian (hyräilee Naisen maailmaa)

so don’t expect clear water all i got for you is soft, mottled syrup clotted near the aorta of the harmony but it’s sweet — liable to break your heart still yeah i believe i can say that with humble authority.

Joten älä odota kirkasta vettä mulla on sulle vain pehmeää, sameaa siirappia paakkuuntunutta lähellä harmonian aorttaa mutta on se hellää – pystyy yhä särkemään sydämen joo uskon että mulla on oikeus sanoa niin vaatimattomalla arvovallalla

and these lips have chapped from all the hurricanes i’ve blown! all the circle songs that have raised the dead who camped in my back yard but i’m not ashamed of those angels, not me (Hums Woman’s World)

Ja nämä huulet on rohtuneet kaikista hurrikaaneista joita mä olen puhaltanut! kaikista ympyrälauluista jotka on nostaneet ylös kuolleet jotka majailee mun takapihalla mutta mä en häpeä niitä enkeleitä, en mä (hyräilee Naisen maailmaa)

i got a song i want to sing for you, child something i am proud of because i’m a Lady … oh well, I might not look it now but i am

Mulla on laulu jonka mä haluan laulaa sulle jotain mistä mä olen ylpeä sillä mä olen Lady … no joo, en ehkä näytä siltä nyt mutta mä olen

a Lady with a blues song made of diamonds, ash a water and golden syrup

Lady jonka laulu on blues tehty timanteista, tuhkasta vedestä ja kultaisesta siirapista

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

WOMAN’S WORLD – song

NAISEN MAAILMA – laulu

I got the whole world in my hand I understand the rites of passage through your Masterplan under passion purple halo I am ‘Womb-man” and shape the patience in the world

Minulla on koko maailma kädessäni ymmärrän siirtymäriittisi joita kutsut nimellä Masterplan intohimon purppuraisen sädekehän alla olen “Womb-man” ja annan maailman kärsivällisyydelle muodon

I hear the chakalalachack of the sufferance train of all the miles and miles of trails that racked my brain I am the woman of the waterfalls ingrained into the patience of the world

Korvissani kärsimysjunan kolkatakolkatakolk vääjäämättä kulkee aivoissani risteileviä mailipolkuja päämäärättä olen vesiputousten nainen minut on kudottu osaksi maailman kärsivällisyyttä

My hands are raised to the heavens palms side up my throat is hoarse from all the prayers I offer up My eyes are bloodshot weeping my heart offered up for all the patience in the world

Käteni kurottavat taivaisiin kämmenet ylöspäin kurkkuni on karhea kaikista rukouksista joita tarjoan ylöspäin Silmäni verestävät itkien sydämeni tarjotaan ylöspäin maailman kärsivällisyydelle

Just give me food clothes and shelter I’ll make a home Give me peace love and water – the corner stones For humanity prosper – not words alone Respect this patience that I hold

Antakaa minulle vain ruokaa vaatteita ja suoja minä rakennan kodin Antakaa minulle rauha rakkaus ja vettä – kulmakivet Ihmiskunnan hyväksi - ei vain sanoja varten Kunnioittakaa tätä kärsivällisyyttä joka minussa on

I got shoulders broad as oceans to bear the pain I got thighs as strong mountains to take the strain I got arms as long as rivers filled by sweetening rain to rock the cradle of the weary world

Minulla on hartiat leveät kuin meret kantamaan tuska Minulla on reidet vahvat kuin vuoret kestämään rasitus Minulla on käsivarret kuin pitkät joet täynnä lempeää sadetta joka keinuttaa uupuneen maailman kehtoa

I got the whole world in my hand I understand the rite of passage to Masterplan Under a purple passion halo I am Womb-man Respect this patience that I hold

Minulla on koko maailma kädessäni ymmärrän siirtymäriittisi joita kutsut nimellä Masterplan intohimon purppuraisen sädekehän alla olen “Womb-man” Kunnioittakaa tätä kärsivällisyyttä joka minussa on

And then She looked me dead in my eyes and read me easy, like a comic strip. Cos it’s rare, you know, really rare when someone takes the time … to See You.

Ja sitten nainen katsoi minua suoraan silmiin ja luki minua vaivatta, kuin sarjakuvastrippiä. Koska se on harvinaista, tiedäthän, todella harvinaista kun joku vaivautuu … Näkemään Sinut.

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

And then she smiles, etching in my brain an incredible sunset, strutting peach blush, blazing lavender gold glory.

I felt the anger crowding my heart disperse, disgruntled and shabby Grace busily descended to mend the trauma that had begun there And then she said “Child, the moment you accept yourself for everything that you are, you are changed! Mm. There is no going back … ”

Ja sitten hän hymyilee, syövyttää aivoihini uskomattoman auringonlaskun, ylpeän poskipunan, liekehtivän laventelin ja kullan kunnian tunsin sydäntäni ahtauttavan vihan hälvenevän ärtyisänä ja nukkavieruna armo laskeutui ripeästi parantamaan syntyvän haavan ja sitten nainen sanoi ”Lapsi, siitä hetkestä kun sä hyväksyt itsesi kokonaan sellaisena kuin olet, sä muutut! Mm. Siitä ei ole paluuta … ”

And then I realised she had just handed me something I never even knew I was searching for That I never knew was missing.

She handed me the tradition She handed me permission to persevere in my womanhood To peel back the layers that muffled my ‘Shero Shine’ To throw off the x-files pinned to my body, defiled To favour female fearlessness as kick arse insurgency That my voice was a clarion for calm And though the Furies were simple in their hard wiring Though complex in their insistent, shocking effect.

Ja sitten ymmärsin että hän oli antanut minulle jotakin jota en koskaan edes tiennyt etsineeni jota en koskaan tiennyt kaivanneeni.

Hän ojensi minulle perinteen hän antoi minulle luvan sinnitellä naiseudessani kuoria pois kerrokset jotka tukahduttivat naissankarin hehkuni repiä irti kehooni pistellyt röntgenkuvat, häpäistä ne suosia naisen pelottomuutta kick arse -kapinallisuutena ääneni on hiljaisuuden pasuuna ja vaikka raivotarten tapa nähdä maailma oli yksinkertainen heidän vaikutuksensa oli monimutkaisen heltymätön, järkyttävä.

Everyone calm the fuck down, it’s only a bit of anger And that old Lady’s voice had said, “Act like you have a choice to be what you ought to.”

Ihmiset, calm the fuck down, se on vain vihaa ja sen vanhan Ladyn ääni oli sanonut ”Käyttäydy niin kuin sulla olisi mahdollisuus olla mitä sun kuuluu olla.”

Cos the fury inside will boil the fury inside, it will roil, But the fury inside can pour oil on troubled water

Koska raivo sisällä kiehuu raivo sisällä, se riehuu, mutta raivo sisällä voi kaataa öljyä kuohuvaan virtaan.

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Vanessa Kisuule Tent

Teltta

I splayed my legs for a man I do not know With hair that girls like me singe our scalps for He is burnt toffee on my teeth and tongue He will leave a residue for days Even if I wanted to I don’t get to keep him I don’t know what intimacy is Whether it’s in my head, my heart or my body I like to be looked at To feel someone stare at me hungrily Until I feel pressed in on both sides I know this is a dangerous high to chase after I, who have dedicated a whole belief system On not chopping my body up into meat But sometimes I want to be eaten I fear I will rot for lack of desire otherwise I like closing my eyes and imagining What the expression on someone’s face is Flesh is such a strange thing A body lying beside you Irretrievably separate from yours No matter how much you try to merge into one I talk a lot and I don’t know if I accept that of myself yet I compensate for everyone’s silence I don’t like the forms of communication That grow in a silence My eyes and skin are only just learning this language I am fearful and peppered with pinpricks of starlight Sometimes I need affirmation that I am beautiful from someone else He said I was delicious

Levitin jalkani tuntemattomalle miehelle, sellaiselle, jonka hiukset saadakseen kaltaiseni tytöt kärventävät päänahkansa.

Hän on palanutta toffeeta hampaissa ja kielelläni, hän jättää jäljen päiviksi.

Vaikka haluaisinkin, en saa pitää häntä, en tiedä mitä läheisyys on, onko se päässäni, sydämessäni vai ruumiissani.

Pidän siitä kun minua katsellaan, tunteesta, kun joku tuijottaa nälkäisesti kunnes tunnen painuvani kokoon molemmilta puolilta.

Tiedän tämän olevan vaarallinen humala jahdattavaksi minä, joka olen omistanut kokonaisen uskomusjärjestelmän sille etten pilkkoisi kehoani lihaksi, mutta joskus haluan tulla syödyksi, pelkään muuten mätäneväni halun puutteessa.

Tahdon sulkea silmäni ja kuvitella minkälainen on ilme jonkun kasvoilla.

Liha on niin kummallinen asia, keho, joka makaa vierelläsi auttamattomasti erillinen sinusta vaikka kuinka yrittäisitte sulautua yhdeksi.

Puhun paljon ja en vielä tiedä miten hyväksyä se itsessäni.

Tasapainotan kaikkien muiden hiljaisuutta, en pidä kommunikaation muodoista, jotka kasvavat hiljaisuudessa.

Silmäni ja ihoni ovat vasta oppimassa tätä kieltä, olen pelokas ja siroteltu tähtien valolla.

Joskus tarvitsen joltain toiselta vahvistuksen sille, että olen kaunis.

Mies sanoi minua herkulliseksi.

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Translated into the Finnish by Katriina Mujunen

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Fetish

Fetissi

Show me that deviant skin lay it across this crisp white bed splay yourself out so I can see you

Näytä minulle tuo vääristynyt iho laske se tälle puhtaanvalkealle vuoteelle levitä itsesi niin että näen sinut

you glow after dark and under sheets my acquired taste my unchartered fork in this straight narrow road

sinä hehkut pimeän jälkeen ja lakanoiden alla opeteltu mieltymykseni, luvaton risteykseni tällä suoralla, kapealla tiellä

you remind me of my travelling days grazing my tongue across your neck I recall the delicious sting of foreign spices tiling the roof of my mouth

sinä muistutat minua matkustamiseni ajoista laiduntaessani niskaasi kielelläni muistan vieraiden mausteiden herkullisen pistelyn kitalakeni holvissa

how I bent down to take pictures of hunched brown bodies eating with their hands

kuinka kumarruin ottamaan kuvia kyyristyneistä, ruskeista kehoista syömässä käsin

darling, I am famished

rakas, olen nääntymäisilläni nälkään

let me name your endless wonders a bubbling list of explorer’s spoils honey molasses and cocoa that sugar cane spine begging to be split to sip its unbearably sweet sap

anna minun nimetä loppumattomat ihmeesi, pursuava luettelo löytöretkeilijän saaliita hunajaa, melassia ja kaakaota sokeriruo’on ranka, joka anoo tulla halkaistuksi sen sietämättömän makea mahla siemailluksi

darling I am thirsty

rakas, olen janoinen

you this silence this secret this devil dance twisted truth inverted idyll

sinä tämä hiljaisuus, tämä salaisuus tämä paholaisen tanssi kieroutunut totuus ylösalainen idylli

Translated into the Finnish by Katriina Mujunen

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

believe me when I say that you are beautiful and I am insatiable

usko kun sanon: olet kaunis ja minä kyltymätön

you no longer have to be a ghost unseen, unknown, unloved

sinun ei tarvitse enää olla aave näkymätön, tuntematon, hylätty

but please, don’t walk over there into that garish light

mutta ole kiltti, älä kävele sinne, siihen raakaan valoon

come back here into the dark so I

tule takaisin tähän pimeään, että

can see

voin nähdä

you

sinut

Jjajja*

Jjajja*

I do not know you I’ve composed you from Dress cotton Banana leaves Patchwork quilts of quiet smiles and stories That I could not understand As I hold your hands I know they’ve known more work in this past hour Than mine will in their entire lifespan I see the hardship of a thousand winds That have blown across your face So I trace a map of apologies across the fault lines of your fingers And hope some amorphous ghost of my meaning lingers You’re a goddess I see your shoulder blades press together Where your wings once met And yet We can only exchange awkward nods of acknowledgement

En tunne sinua.

Olen parsinut sinut kokoon hamepuuvillasta banaaninlehdistä hiljaisten hymyjen ja keskustelujen tilkkutäkeistä, joita en voinut ymmärtää.

Kun pitelen käsiäsi omissani, tiedän niiden tunteneen viimeisen tunnin aikana enemmän työtä kuin minun tulevat tuntemaan koko elinaikanani, näen kasvoillasi tuhansien tuulien vastoinkäymiset, joten jäljitän anteeksipyyntöjen karttaa sormiesi säröille ja toivon että viipyy jokin merkitykseni muodoton aave.

Olet jumalatar.

Näen lapaluidesi painuvan yhteen kohdassa, jossa siipesi kerran kohtasivat ja siltikin voimme vain kömpelösti tervehtiä toisiamme,

Translated into the Finnish by Katriina Mujunen

*Jjajja tarkoittaa isoäitiä gandan kielessä 12

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Because my world cannot slot into yours Though I crawl on all fours for meagre scraps of my identity Endless grieving each mistranslation Misunderstanding Misinterpretation Each seismic shift in time I’m inventing you Through a generation gone by And we sit in silence Seedlings of the same wizened tree I can imagine I’d tell you of the short skirts girls in England wear And the joys of Jeremy Kyle How snow falls like capricious cotton balls of bliss On nights cold as an Eskimo’s kiss I’d ask of the past The laughter shared The songs one sung What Mum was like when she was young If I weren’t trapped with the handicap of my British tongue I imagine the talks we’d have Tucked in the candlelit cave of a power cut Cradled in a culture clash Hoping the Tower of Babel might bleed into oblivion And somehow a tainted miracle might unfurl I’m willing to bet we’d have been the best of friends In a different world But I do not know you I’ve composed you from Dress cotton Banana leaves Patchwork quilts of quiet smiles and stories That I could not understand In this land of lost language I am neither stranger nor native The weight of my wasted words cannot be translated.

sillä minun maailmani ei mahdu maailmaasi vaikka ryömin nelinkontin minuuteni riekaleiden perässä surren loputtomasti jokaista käännösvirhettä, väärinymmärrystä, väärintulkintaa, jokaista seismistä liikettä ajassa.

Menneen sukupolven kautta sepitän sinua ja kun istumme hiljaisuudessa, saman kuihtuneen puun siemenet, voin kuvitella kertovani sinulle englantilaisten tyttöjen lyhyistä hameista ja Jeremy Kylen iloista, lumesta, joka putoaa kuin hurmion oikukkaat vanupallot öinä yhtä kylminä kuin eskimon suudelma.

Kysyisin menneeltä jaetulta naurulta lauletuilta lauluilta millainen äiti oli nuorena, jos en olisi brittiläisen kieleni kangistama kuvittelen keskustelut, joita kävisimme kynttilöiden luolassa sähkökatkon aikana, kulttuurien yhteentörmäyksen kehdossa toivoen Babelin tornin vuotavan unohduksiin, että voisi keriytyä auki jokin turmeltunut ihme.

Eri maailmassa olisimme varmasti olleet parhaat ystävät, mutta en tunne sinua.

Olen parsinut sinut kokoon hamepuuvillasta banaaninlehdistä hiljaisten hymyjen ja keskustelujen tilkkutäkeistä, joita en voinut ymmärtää.

Tässä kadonneen kielen maassa en ole vieras enkä paikallinen.

Ei käänny kieleltä toiselle hukkaan heitettyjen sanojeni paino.

*Jjajja is the word for grandmother in Luganda

*Jjajja tarkoittaa isoäitiä gandan kielessä

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Solomon OB (A)way with Words

Sanat( )on tie

Translated into the Finnish by Anne Ketola I’ve got a way with words Tie em up in a neat package my delivery special like ups when I’m rapping Let’s do away with Words let me speak more with my actions Let me speak more my actions I’ve got a way with words The gift of gab was given Such a cheeky chap I could blag my way across Great Britain In fact one time I did it Travelled from London to Nottingham despite the fact I never had a valid ticket

Mulle sanat on tie sidon ne nättiin pakettiin toimitan Postii nopeemmin paketoituna rappiin valitaanki sanaton tie anna mun tekojen puhua puolesta anna mun puhua tekemispuolesta mulle sanat on tie ylipuhumisen lahja mulle annettiin niin lahjakas poskisolisti, et todisti sitä kaikki halki Englannin itseasias kerran niin pääs käymään matkustin Lontoost Nottinghamiin vaikkei mul lippuu ollu ensinkään

I’ve got a way with words let’s do a way with words I got a way with words with Words I’ve got a way with words They got a way with words They got a way with words listen

Mulle sanat on tie valitaanki sanaton tie mulle tie on sanat on Tie mulle sanat on tie ne valitsi sanattoman tien ne valitsi sanattoman tien kuulkaa

Don’t judge your poets or your politicians based purely on pretty Ei nätit virret yksin riitä poliitikoille tai papeille diction voi manifesto olla mätä vaikka sanat maistuis makeille Just because he’s sitting pretty lyrics doesn’t mean the manifestos well written I mean, free education for aaaaaalll they say £9,000 a year you pay And then what’s next Oh yes cuts to the NHS best friend rings me an ambulance at four in the morning unfortunately None left

14

Siis ilmanen koulu kaaaaiiikille ne sanoo silti 9000 puntaa vuodes sulta anoo ja mitä sitten niin, terveydenhuollosta leikataan, kaveri soitti mulle ambulanssin neljältä aamulla, harmi vaan et kaikki muualle matkalla

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

So it’s like it like it’s like it’s like ... awesome manifestoooooo Best make sure it manifests thoooough could do a Dizraeli Stir up some anarchy and shout bomb Tescooooo no Cos all I see is anarchy and apathy Either too focused on conspiracy and the illuminati or not bothered enough to pick a proper political party Used to not give a shit as long as it was a fucking UKIP

Se on siis niinku niinku niinku…. huikee manifestoooooo parasta varmistaa et sen julistaa voooooi niinku Dizraeli kokkaa kokoon anarkiaa ja huutaa bomb Tescooooo ei sil kaikki mitä nään on anarkiaa ja apatiaa Joko keskittyy salaliittoon ja isoveljen valvomiseen tai ei ees viitsi liittyy sopivaan puolueeseen eikä mua kiinnostanu tää paskan vertaa jos se oli kiinni UKIP:ista kerta

I mean seriously no U K I P that’s UK ignorance please or BNP that’s bigots with negative policies honestly

ei mulle kelpaa U K I P se on UK isosti piiloon, tai BNP eiks se oo brutaalin negatiiviset pellet oikeesti

Liberal labour or conservative something clearly still not working kids Was in hospital not long ago and still not enough nurses And what’s worse is I saw the pure exhausting in their eyes these guys and girls so tired over worked we ask them to save lives.

liberaalisotkut ja konservatiivijotkut ei tee muut ku vetää liinat kii viime viikol sairaalas ei siellä tarpeeks hoitajii ja mikä pahinta kyl mä näin niil silmis puhdas uupumus kaikil sama kokemus vaik kysees henkien pelastus.

I’ve Been gifted with this way with words so I wont throw away these words These words I’ll throw like punches if they land then I’ll make sure it hurts make sure your meanings hit them, make sure you leave your imprint, and in some way one of these days it might just make a difference to these lives that we’re living No lies I’m spitting it’s the truth Artist, poet or a rapper spitting fire in the Streets or in the Booth Or politician abuse of power or at least some misuse The sentiment is simple ...

Mä oon lahjakas tällä sanojen tiellä joten mulle sanat ei oo tiellä näitä sanoja annan tulla kuin iskuja, jos ne osuu ne varmasti sattuu, varmista sanomasi osuminen, varmista jäljen jättäminen, ja joku päivä se voi muuttaa nää elämät joita eletään en valheita syydä tää on totuus artisti, runoilija tai räppäri sylkee tulta kadulla tai kopissa tai poliittinen väärinkäyttö tai ainakin virhekäyttö ajatus on yksinkertainen…

If you cannot keep your promise do not make it I say why Because I’d rather you say I’m not making any promises but I’ll try.

Jos et voi pitää lupaustasi, niin älä tee sitä ja tässä kerron syyni mieluummin kuulisin sun sanovan en voi luvata mut yritän parhaani.

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Unorthodox Beginnings

Epätavalliset alut

She Grace’s stages West End bound, bestfriend found in a sibling who chauffeured her halfway to crazy when we were younger.

My Sister

Lavalle astuu Grace West Endii kohti kiskoo, paras ystävä ja sisko joka melkein sekos kun oltiin nuorempii.

Mun sisko

She called me baby As soon as I arrived through those airport doors, she came charging, screaming, she hugged me with a force you would expect from a lady who had not seen me since 10 years before.

My mother

Hän kutsui mua rakkaakseen Sillä hetkel kun astuin lentokentän ovista ulos, hän juoksi kohti, huusi, halas mua voimalla jota odottais naiselta joka ei ollut nähnyt lastaan kymmeneen vuoteen.

Mun äiti

He held down swaying relationships at home light anchors gripped to sea beds He sped from Brighton to Bristol and back via London Picked me up when I was man down behind the enemy lines of my mind Before I self destructed My brother

Hän piti perheen paikallaan silloin kun myrskysi, kuin ankkuri merenpohjassa täyttä vauhtii Brightonista Bristoliin ja takas Lontoon kautta. toi mut turvaan kun mieleni vihollislinja sulki mut taakseen ennen kun tuhouduin.

Mun veli

He sits across Christmas dinner tables for me and I wear his family Name with Pride And with Rose red eyes he told me: “I love your mother now more than the day we got married” 50 years together a testament to the strength they’re both possessing.

My foster mother My foster father

Hän istuu joulupöydäs mua vastapäätä ja kannan hänen sukunimeään kunnialla Ruusuisin silmin hän sanoo: ”Rakastan äitiäsi enemmän nyt kuin päivänä jolloin meidät vihittiin” 50 vuotta yhdes todisteena siitä kuinka vahva kumpikin on.

Mun sijaisäiti Mun sijaisisä

And yes, he calls my foster mother my mother but with no intent to disrespect my mother I mean what else would you call your lover?

The woman who raised these kids, bathed these kids, takes them in like her own Told them everything will be ok, told them they could be anything they wanted to be one day.

Joo, hän kutsuu sijaisäitii mun äidiks, mut ei siitä lainkaan nouse haloo.

Miksi muutakaan mies rakkaastaan sanoo?

Naisesta joka kasvatti nää lapset, kylvetti nää lapset, piti niistä huolta kuin omistaan, sano et kaikki järjestyis vielä, sano et niistä tulis vielä mitä ikinä ne haluis.

16

Translated into the Finnish by Anne Ketola

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

What would you call her?

Saint?, angel? magician for making ends meet when I was may not have been able?

Many names from which to choose but I guess on this occasion mother will do So yes we are fostered And when I say this the lines on people’s faces crumble up like discarded pages of paper laden with mistakes But we are not mistakes on Pages We are simply awesome novels With unorthodox beginnings.

Millä nimellä tätä naista kutsuis?

Pyhimys? Enkeli? Taikuri joka sai varat riittämään silloin kun muut ei osannu?

Monta nimeä joista valita, mut nyt taidan valita äidin joo, me asuttiin sijaisperheessä sen kun sanoo, ihmisten naamat rypistyy kuin pois viskatut paperit, virheitä huokuvat sivut mut me ei olla virheitä sivuilla me ollaan upeita romaaneita joissa on epätavalliset alut.

We are not mistakes on pages, We are simply a crooked introduction straightened out by proofreaders Pat and Vic Whose love and guidance set the foundations for straight lines for us to write the rest of our story on No we are not mistakes on Pages.

So this Christmas past I took your last name as a present to you to show you now that I can give and take.

Me ei olla virheitä sivuilla, me ollaan kieroja aloituslukuja jotka oikoluvullaan suoristi Pat ja Vic joiden rakkaus ja opastus piirsi ne suorat viivat, joille me voidaan tarinamme loppu kirjoittaa ei, me ei olla virheitä sivuilla.

Siks viime jouluna otin nimesi omakseni lahjana sulle ja näytin et mäkin osaan antaa ja ottaa.

Victor Roy, Patricia Anne Brooker I love you

Victor Roy, Patricia Anne Brooker Rakastan teitä.

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Roger Robinson Nightshift

Yövuoro

(For the cleaning women of Brixton Nightshift)

(Brixtonin yövuoron siivoojanaisille)

With the stars scattered in the sky like dust in a dim light.

I’m travelling of the N109 bus rolling over grit in the asphalt.

Is 3am and everybody sleeping And these three Nigerian women Are all red eye tired, as one nods her head. but they can’t go to bed ‘cause they going west end to clean some rich mans building.

Whilst everybody sleep and dream is bubbling water and mop and stretch and wipe and soap and cloth and steam.

But here on the bus is bubbling gossip and strong thick coffee, a smiling laughing scene.

Last shift was three hours ago so one of them head dropping low only to be woken each time by their laughter.

On the streets ravers are heading home with smudged mascara and damp hair.

These Nigerian women when they get to their buildings they will unwrap their head ties and fold away their dutch print wraps for a pale blue apron and a pink plastic hair protector, a bucket, a mop and chamois cloth.

Look up in any building at night you will see their silhouette wiping, wiping away the dust and grime of yesterday’s bankers.

Suspended in the air between heaven and earth the choreography every night. Backs bent and stretch and wipe backs bent stretch and wipe suds bubbling in steaming water toilet after toilet after toilet an aching back, some swollen knuckles and aching wrists.

Mopping away they own footsteps but there are small children waiting on small wages for Garri school shoes and books in Lagos.

Tähdet ovat levittäytyneet taivaalle kuin pöly hämärässä.

Istun bussissa numero N109, joka tärisee yli röpelöisen asfaltin.

On aamuyö kello kolme ja kaikki nukkuvat.

Nigerialaisnaiset ovat punasilmäisiä väsymyksestä, yksi kolmesta nuokkuu.

Mutta nukkumaan he eivät pääse koska käyvät West Endissä siivoamassa jonkun ökymiehen taloa.

Kun muut nukkuvat ja uneksivat, heille se on saippuaveden pulputusta, moppaamista, pyyhkimistä ja höyryttämistä.

Mutta täällä bussissa pulppuaa juoruilu ja vahva kahvi, hymyillään ja nauretaan.

Viimeinen vuoro oli kolme tuntia sitten joten yhdellä jo pää painuu mutta hän herää aina kun muut nauravat.

Kaduilla rave-juhlijat suuntaavat kotiin maskarat poskilla ja hiukset latistuneina.

Nämä nigerialaisnaiset, kun he saapuvat kohteisiinsa he avaavat huivinsa ja vaihtavat afrikkalaistyyliset kietaisuasunsa siniseen essuun ja pinkkiin muovimyssyyn, sankoon, moppiin ja säämiskään.

Katso minkä tahansa rakennuksen ikkunoihin illalla ja näet heidät rätti kädessä, pyyhkimässä pois pölyä ja likaa pankkiirien jäljiltä.

Pysäytettynä ilmaan maan ja taivaan väliin sama kuvio joka ilta. Selkä kyyryyn, ojennukseen, pyyhi, kyyryyn, ojennukseen, pyyhi.

Höyryävää, kuplivaa saippuavettä vessa vessan perään, särkevä selkä, aristavat rystyset ja särkevät ranteet.

Lopuksi mopataan omat jalanjäljet.

Mutta pienet lapset odottavat pieniä palkkoja, joilla Lagosissa ostetaan koulukengät ja koulukirjat.

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Translated into the Finnish by Tarja Soini

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

So they must dance their dance with these hoovers in office from morning till midnight.

But for now in the dim light of this N109 they are laughing and smiling even though rumbling stomachs lined with dry bread and the stars are scattered in the sky above the bus like dust in a dim light.

Hooverit kavaljeereinaan he siis tanssivat tanssiaan aamusta keskiyöhön saakka.

Mutta juuri nyt, bussin N109 himmeässä valossa he nauravat ja hymyilevät vaikka pelkkää kuivaa leipää saanut vatsa kurnii ja tähdet ovat levittäytyneet taivaalle bussin ylle kuin pöly hämärässä.

It Soon Come

Pian se tulee

Something settle here/ in this town/ on these streets/something dark and gritty/something acid/acrid/ Is the way the man them stan’ up screw face all day/Is the low talk and raise eye brow/ stares and slow nods /and the heat was close, too close /humid/heavy with dread/ and in the market the stench of rotting fish was high / and the fruit grew black spots/ People were saying “it soon come” without knowing what they were talking bout/ even the incense man look worried/ like he could feel it/ and nobody was selling no one buying / they was walking up and down like zombies/ and all the cars was driving real slow / like everyone was waiting on a signal/ and some youths on bmx’s start pullin’ up they hoodies/ and the town went quiet/hushed/ but for the shatter of a smashed bottle/. Then there came the faint smell of smoke /. And the sky turned the colour of dust/ and a helicopter /small as a fly/ hovered over the festering wound of this town/in these streets.

Jotain asettui tänne/ tähän kaupunkiin/ näille kaduille/ jotain synkkää ja likaista/ jotain hapanta/ kitkerää/ Se on siinä tavassa jolla päivät läpeensä seisoskelevat miehet ilmehtivät/ Siinä vaimeassa puheessa ja kohotetuissa kulmissa/ katseessa ja tietävässä nyökkäyksessä/ ja kuuma ilma seisoi, aivan liikkumatta/ kosteana / kauhusta painavana/ ja torilla mätänevä kala lemusi/ ja hedelmiin ilmestyi mustia pilkkuja/ Ihmiset sanoivat ”Pian se tulee” vaikkeivat tienneet mistä puhuivat/ suitsukekauppiaskin näytti huolestuneelta/ aivan kuin hän aistisi sen/ eikä kukaan myynyt eikä kukaan ostanut/ ne kävelivät vain edestakaisin kuin zombit/ ja kaikki autot ajoivat tosi hiljaa/ niin kuin odotettaisiin jotain merkkiä/ ja nuoret bmx-pyörineen alkoivat vetää huppareitaan tiukemmalle/ ja kaupunki meni hiljaiseksi/ vaietuksi / kuului vain särkyvän pullon helinää/. Sitten alkoi tuntua heikkoa savun hajua/. Ja taivas muuttui tomun väriseksi/ ja helikopteri/ pieni kuin kärpänen/ pörräsi tämän kaupungin märkivän haavan yllä/ näiden katujen yllä.

Translated into the Finnish by Tarja Soini

19

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

On Finally Wiping The Swastika From The Bus Stop

Miten hakaristi viimeinkin pyyhitään bussipysäkistä

Once more at the bus stop London wears a swastika.

Jälleen kerran Lontoossa bussipysäkkiä koristaa hakaristi.

It centres on me like murder no matter my amnesia it intrudes

Se ahdistaa minua kuin murha vaikka en muistakaan se tunkeutuu

like an unsolicited stare.

So who signs this evil art?

lähelle kuin sivullisen tuijotus.

Kuka piirsi tämän kauhean merkin?

The leather faced grandmother?

The pleated pinstripe suited man?

Tuo kurttuinen mummo?

Vai liituraitapukuinen mies?

The schoolboy in a rumpled uniform?

Or did one lay down its shape

Poika rypistyneessä koulupuvussa?

Vai ovatko ääriviivat siinä

to be retraced by the entire town?

You see it never seems to fade

koko kaupungin väritettävinä?

Se ei nähkääs tunnu ollenkaan

since the first day I saw it, It’s just grown darker and darker.

haalistuvan ensi näkemästä.

Se vain tummentuu ja tummentuu.

20

Translated into the Finnish by Tarja Soini

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Yomi Sode The Outing

Esillä

Translated into the Finnish by Tarja Soini

Onlookers witnessed your wrath that night how your fist rose to the heavens, striking down as if Ṣango* lived within you.

Thirty going on thirty-one. I wasn’t sure what to say.

I’ve never been here.

The papers described him as tall.

Sivusta seuraajat näkivät raivosi sinä iltana.

Miten nyrkkisi kohosi taivaisiin ja iski kuin Sango* jylläisi sinussa.

Kolmekymmentäyksi kohta. En tiedä mitä sanoa.

En tiedä tästä mitään.

Lehdet kuvailivat häntä pitkäksi.

They said his neck broke before he landed as if his body was a slinky, waiting

Miehen niska kai murtui jo ennen maahan iskeytymistä, ja ruumis oli kuin jousilelu, jonka toinen pää odottaa

for the rest of him to hit the ground.

Witnesses recall you bloodied and exhausted,

toisen putoamista.

Todistajien mukaan olit verinen ja uupunut,

looking at your swollen knuckles saying what did I do? repetitively

tuijotit turvonneita rystysiäsi ja toistelit mitä minä olen tehnyt? yhä uudestaan

as if you were a toy wound for entertaining.

Uncle Elijah believes mental health is a western thing

kuin lelu, jonka vieteri on vedetty.

Elijah-sedän mielestä mielenterveys on läntistä hapatusta

He says back home, elders would out those who were cursed and banish them from the village. I sit with you, old friend.

Hän sanoo, että kotipuolessa kylän vanhimmat pakottivat kirotut esiin ja häätivät heidät pois. Minä istun seuranasi, vanha ystävä.

We break silence with passive laughs as if we were sat with our fathers. Then silence again.

Rikomme hiljaisuuden naurahtelemalla kuin istuisimme isiemme kanssa. Sitten hiljaisuus palaa.

*Ṣango - King of the orisha pantheon, rules over thunder, fire, drumming, dancing and male virility. He is one of the most worshipped orishas in the pantheon and his legends are numerous and speak to the human experience.

* Ṣango - Yoruba-uskonnon pääjumala, joka hallitsee ukkosta, tulta, rummutusta, tanssia ja mieskuntoa. Yksi palvotuimpia orishoja eli jumalia, josta kerrotut lukuiset tarinat koskettavat ihmisiä.

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

The Exhibition* We’ll let you take the evidence into consideration for yourself below - Jay Electronica

Näyttely*

Translated into the Finnish by Anne Ketola Jätämme todistusaineiston teidän harkintanne varaan – Jay Electronica

Exhibit A

Näytös A

She places her finger on my chin and starts her motion downwards. In her excitement, she says she’s never been with a Black man; as if tonight she is committing a grave sin. Asking about my size and whether it’s true, whether / once you go Black, you never go back.

Nainen laittaa sormensa leualleni ja aloittaa liikkeen alaspäin.

Innokkaana hän tunnustaa, ettei koskaan ole ollut Mustan miehen kanssa; kuin hän tänään tekisi suuren synnin. Kysyy koostani ja siitä, onko totta että / kun kerran saa mustaa, on kaikki muu pelkkää tuskaa.

I will be her best secret, covered in oil.

Hanging / like her jaw.

Minusta tulee hänen paras salaisuutensa, öljyllä voideltuna.

Roikkuen / kuin hänen leukansa.

Exhibit B

Näytös B

You waited / until our colleagues left the office and shared the hatred you’ve had for Black people for so long. So much that you pay an additional £300 a month to ensure your children would not encounter one.

Odotit / että kollegasi lähtivät toimistosta ja jaoit vihan, jota olet Mustia kohtaan tuntenut jo kauan. Viha joka sai sinut maksamaan ylimääräiset 300 puntaa kuussa siitä, ettei lapsesi tarvitsisi tavata ainuttakaan.

Father / the people of Charleston prayed for Dylann Roof this morning.

Isä / Charlestonin asukkaat rukoilivat Dylann Roof puolesta tänä aamuna.

They sung loud for the camera as though your love was vengeful enough.

He lauloivat lujaa kameroille ihan kuin sinun rakkautesi kostonhaluisuus riittäisi.

Each tear fell like bodies of their loved ones that evening.

Sinä iltana jokainen kyynel putosi kuin heidän rakkaidensa ruumiit.

* ‘Once you objectify people, you can do the most terrible things to them’ – Brett Bailey, Curator / Artist 22

* ”Jos alat kohdella ihmisiä kuin tavaroita, saatat tehdä heille mitä kamalampia asioita” – Brett Bailey, kuraattori / taiteilija

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Exhibit C

Näytös C

The kettle boils while you share your latest analogy with us. Your daughter / raised on feminist principles set by yourself; discloses a conversation (heard on a bus) between a group of boys over the weekend. She told me and my husband, we couldn’t believe it. The appalling way they spoke about women, the rap language they used.

Disgusting!

Vesi kiehuu sillä välin kun sinä jaat kanssamme viimeisimmän vertauksesi. Tyttäresi / jonka kasvatit asettamallasi feministisillä periaatteilla; kertoo viikonloppuna (bussissa) kuulemastaan poikajoukon keskustelusta. Hän kertoi minulle ja miehelleni, emme olleet uskoa korviamme. Puhuivat kuvottavia asioita naisista, käyttivät rap-kieltä. Tyrmistyttävää!

The kettle / still boiling, mimicked my response.

That precise second you ended, without a word I watched you / swim into each sentence, rearranging the letters, the meaning.

Without a word, just a stare.

Vesi / kiehui yhä, aivan kuten vastaukseni.

Sillä sekunnilla kun lopetit, sanaakaan sanomatta katsoin kun / uit joka lauseeseen, muokkasit uudelleen kirjaimet, merkitykset.

Sanaakaan sanomatta, tuijottaen.

23

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CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Breaking Ground in Portugal, November 2017 Award-winning British translator Jethro Soutar, who focuses strongly on translating work by writers little known to English-language readers, such as those from Equatorial Guinea and Guinea-Bisseau among others, is based in Lisbon. Speaking Volumes approached him to organise an event for Breaking Ground, which took place at Lisbon’s prestigious José Saramago Foundation in early November.

In this event, novelists Peter Kalu and Jacob Ross talked about their work and how they fit into the tradition of the thriller and crime fiction genres which, though more popular than ever in today’s diverse Europe, are still dominated by white writers. They both read from their novels which capture contemporary life in the Caribbean and the UK, as well as talking about their lives and work to host Carla Fernandes, an activist who runs writing workshops with African refugees in the city.

Our thanks for this visit go to: Jethro Soutar; the José Saramago Foundation; Carla Fernandes; and Professor Maggi Morehouse at Coastal Carolina University USA. Peter Kalu is the son of Nigerian and Danish migrants and grew up in Manchester. He began writing at Moss Side Write, a local black writing group, and has written eight books to date, two radio plays broadcast on the BBC and several works for theatre. His series of young adult novels highlight the experience of young Black Britons: The Silent Striker (now being filmed), Being Me and Zombie XI (all Hope Road Publishing). His most recent crime novel is Little Jack Horner (Suitcase Books). Over 30,000 people have borrowed his books from UK libraries and he was Winner of a 2003 BBC Dangerous Comedy Award. He works occasionally as a French and Spanish translator and is a PhD student in Creative Writing at Lancaster University.

Jacob Ross is a poet, playwright, journalist, short story writer and novelist. He edited Artrage, Britain’s leading intercultural arts magazine and now is Associate Editor for Fiction (Peepal Tree Press). He has published the short story collections Song for Simone and A Way to Catch the Dust; co-edited anthologies including Voice, Memory, Ashes and Ridin’ n Rising; co-authored Behind the Masquerade: The Story of Notting Hill Carnival; and edited Closure: Contemporary Black British short stories. Ross’s novel, Pynter Bender, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s Regional Prize, The Society of Authors Best First Novel and Caribbean Review of Books Book of the Year.

His current novel, The Bone Readers, was published in 2016. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

www.peterkalu.com

www.peepaltresspress.com/authors/jacob-ross

About the Portuguese Translator Carla Fernandes is a social activist, born in Angola (1980) who grew up in Portugal. Translator of the English and German languages into Portuguese, graduated as a radio journalist in Germany, at radio Deutsche Welle. Lived in Bonn, Germany, for six years (2008-2013) and returned to Portugal (2013) to create her activism project Radio Afrolis, a podcast where she tackles issues which regard the lives of black people living in Lisbon/Portugal. Now she is the president of Afrolis – Associacao Cultural, which works to uplift the black communities through cultural events. radioafrolis.com 24

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Peter Kalu The following extract is from Little Jack Horner: A young man is stabbed to death in an alleyway on a dark, wet night. There are no witnesses and no apparent motive. PI Delroy Johnson is called in by the young man’s family, frustrated at the slow police progress on the case. Johnson is part-time church caretaker, part-time womaniser, some-time investigator. More used to chasing down infidelity cases, he agrees to do what he can to catch the killer. A strong suspect emerges, but with little solid evidence, Johnson tries to draw him into the open — and a deadly cat and mouse game ensues. A modern morality tale in thriller format.

Chapter 12 – How to Obtain a Car Wednesday morning was foul: squalls and thunder. He went straight to the first address. Greg was there already and Delroy told him he had a funeral to attend, and would he cover for him, he would be back by four pm? Greg muttered an OK. Did he buy it? Delroy had to believe.

He took the Wolverhampton train. He looked out of the train window. Clouds floated like scum on a river weir, backing up in the sky, ready to dash down in torrents onto the roofs below. The train charged on. Behind the clouds struggled a weak light, like a torch with a half-dead battery. Eventually the rain burst down, raking the train carriage, blasting the roof.

Delroy shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. It seemed to him the train companies were in competition with each other to see who could make the narrowest, shallowest chairs with the least legroom between. He had wedged himself into an aisle seat, that way he could still stretch his legs along the aisle even if someone sat next to him. In the window versus aisle debate, he was always aisle, he mused. He felt weary.

Something heavy hung over him that he could not grab, ghosts stirring that he would rather didn’t wake. He was dressed all in black. It had been to cover himself with Greg. For what he was about to do, it might not be perfect, he thought; he did not want to look too Mafiosi. He fished his silver necklace out of a jacket pocket and slipped it on, then checked his reflection in the train window. The chain stood out against the funeral black of his shirt. A weary gangster figure looked back at him. He took the chain off.

This job had drained him. Now it was about to drain the last of his money. He had not contacted the Amin family or Wasif because there was nothing to contact them with. Was Meadows cautious or intransigent? It did not matter now. If a mountain could not be moved, you simply steered round it.

As the train pulled further south the weather eased. He’d visited Wolverhampton to see friends years ago, old army friends. He was tempted to do a surprise visit to one or two of them but army types were restless and they would all have moved on now, either squadding at some overseas posting or else simply moved. Besides, who liked those kind of surprises nowadays? When he finally got off at Wolverhampton station, he used his A-Z to work his way through the city to his destination, surprised at the changes he saw. It was one of those ugly-beautiful cities. And it had grown uglier and more beautiful in equal parts. He did not stand around, he was not a tourist and he did not want to feature big on the city’s CCTV. He checked his map, then headed on.

Off a street close to a McDonald’s on the outskirts of south Wolverhampton spread the sprawling used-car zone called Wolverhampton National Best Car Auctions. Delroy stood across the road from it and admired all the glinting metal and glass. The official auctions were going on in there. On his side of the street stood freelancers’ cars, parked up nose to nose and ready for sale, all with scrawled mobile phone numbers on cardboard strips in the dashes. Bumper to bumper, these less pampered vehicles went the length of the road, for some quarter of a mile, skipping here and there onto grass verges and under advertising hoardings. Delroy worked his way along the road until he found the closest to what he required. A ‘P’ reg, old model Ford Mondeo. It was jammed three-quarters onto the pavement and pedestrians had to brush past it.

He checked his watch. 1.16 pm. He guessed hundreds of people would have touched it as they had gone past; and even today a dozen potential punters would have ducked inside and grabbed hold of the steering wheel while reading the mileage. He liked the look of it. He dialled the mobile phone number in the windscreen.

A ‘Dennis’ answered, told him to wait, he’d do him a good deal and appeared by his side within two minutes of the call. ‘Dennis’ had quick eyes and a warm, bony hand; his nose had pink imprints either side where glasses had once rested. He looked gaunt, and ashen, probably 25

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from the Balkans, at least Albanian, maybe on a mission to make some hard-earned and send it home fast. He wore a black zip fleece jersey one size too big and polycotton light trousers, mottled at the ankles with mud.

-Is there a log book? Delroy asked.

‘Dennis’ smiled. -Here? No log books. There is log books. ‘Dennis’ pointed over at the Wolverhampton NCA auction site.

To ordinary buyers no log book was a negative, but not to Delroy. He pulled on his gloves and looked around the car some more, lifted the bonnet.

-... Passed by the AA, ‘Dennis’ threw in.

Delroy glanced at him with a raised eyebrow.

-Armed Anonymous.

-Sorry?

-Excuse. My private joke.

Maybe he did look like an armed robber, Delroy thought. The black he was wearing and now the gloves. All he needed was a ski mask.

-She’s a good runner, ‘Dennis’ grinned.

There had to be a manual of car sellers’ patter somewhere. Maybe it was part of the citizenship test: how to speak car sales talk.

‘Dennis’ watched him as he looked the Mondeo over comprehensively. The tyres were fair, though worn on the front inner side. The shocks were shot at the rear and the car was listing to the left, the windows did not wind, there was welding on the back axle, the number plates had new anchor screws, there were fresh etchings on the engine block and no VIN panels on the inside door where the VIN number should have been; the air bag and casing were gone and you did not use a key to start it.

-Can you start the engine? Delroy asked.

‘Dennis’ held the two ignition wires together and Delroy went round and listened. There was a tapping coming from the camshafts, and the carburettor was stuttering at low revs, but otherwise it was OK. Working his way round again, Delroy had to smile. A mint tax disc shone proudly on the windscreen, its ink barely dry. The car was either a knock-off or a write-off, or most likely both. A car with history. Just what he wanted. He double-checked the brake pipes and the brakes. It was a runner. It was not going to harry the BMWs in the M6 fast lane to Burnham, but should manage a steady trot along the A-roads, he decided.

-Very nice car, ‘Dennis’ said closing in.

-Can I see it on the road?

-Sure, I drive, you watch.

‘Dennis’ got a red, plastic fuel can from the back seat of another car along the road and sloshed some fuel in the Mondeo’s tank. He pulled the car out and drove it up, then down the road with a smile, even waved to Delroy as he passed. It sounded rough but OK, Delroy thought. ‘Dennis’ bumped it smoothly back up the kerb.

-It’s got a radio?

‘Dennis’ flipped the glove compartment down. There was a cheap battery-powered radio in there. Delroy smiled again.

-She’s a real goer. Diesel, don’t worry about the mileage.

-I’ll take it for 150. The cardboard sign had asked for two hundred.

-Please, I have to make money.

-140.

-You are robbing my hand off.

-130.

-150. This business is useless, I should dig potatoes, ‘Dennis’ complained, but Delroy guessed 150 meant a hundred clear profit for ‘Dennis’.

They shook on the deal.

-I could vac over it for you?

-No, I’ll take it as is. The filthier the better, Delroy was thinking. That way Forensics could either spend a year collecting hairs off the seat, mud from the tyres, fibres from the boot, and prints from the cockpit that half the population of Wolverhampton had walked through, or, more likely, they would give it up as a waste of resources.

‘Dennis’ counted the cash with a smack of each note, the way those in the cash economy loved to. It was Thin Harry’s payment for the month that ‘Dennis’ was fingering. Something else would turn up to pay Thin, Delroy thought; right now, he needed this car. He ducked into the 26

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driver’s seat. ‘Dennis’ appeared at the window. He opened the door to hear him.

-Remember, the needle very low if you drive far, ‘Dennis’ said, pointing to the gauge.

The guy was smart. Delroy gave him an extra twenty to fill the Mondeo with red diesel.

That done, he jammed the wires together. The engine started with a splutter. In his off-side mirror, Delroy saw ‘Dennis’ disappear behind an advertising hoarding. Neither of them had ever seen the other before, nor would they know each other from Adam if asked subsequently by the police, he was sure. He put the Mondeo in gear and took off.

Small towns straggled by. His body heat soon fogged the windows. The side windows were either fully up or fully down, no in-between.

He drove with the driver’s side down and passenger’s up. A squall of rain drenched him and blanked the windscreen until the wipers miraculously started slashing away. He tried to keep in the general direction of north, using the twisting A and B roads. He went through a forest with gnarled, straggly trees, and then another forest with straight, tall trees. The rain steadied, and it became easier to drive, the drops merging to form a lake on the screen that he could see through without the erratic wipers. The radiator temperature gauge was creeping up.

He crossed a town. On the road out, traffic queued behind him. He was doing 40, they wanted to do 50. He waved them on: he needed to reach Burnham with the Mondeo still a goer. He got horns, wanker signs as they overtook, but he paid no heed, nursed the Mondeo on. Gear shifting was the trickiest because of the worn clutch. He switched down to second at the first sign of an incline. Driving a sound car was a doddle compared with run-ins. Fortunately, if that was the right word, he had had plenty of experience with run-ins.

He stopped at a trucker’s lay-by for a burger and tea from a caravan café, and to allow the radiator gauge to climb down. The tea buckled the thin plastic cup and burnt his tongue. He made it back to Burnham without incident. ***

Capítulo 12 – Como obter um carro A manhã de quarta-feira estava desagradável: ventania e trovoada. Ele foi direto à primeira morada. O Greg já lá estava e o Delroy disse-lhe que tinha de ir a um funeral, e perguntou-lhe se ele podia substitui-lo, ele estaria de volta às quatro da tarde? O Greg murmurou um OK. Será que ele acreditou? Delroy tinha de acreditar.

Apanhou o comboio para Wolverhampton. Olhou pela janela do comboio. Nuvens a flutuar como uma camada de sujidade sobre a represa de um rio, a apoiar-se no céu, pronta a descambar em torrentes sobre os telhados abaixo. O comboio continuava em força. Por detrás das nuvens uma luz fraca lutava, como uma lanterna com uma bateria meio carregada. Eventualmente a chuva caiu em torrente, rachando a carruagem do comboio, rebentando com o telhado.

Delroy moveu-se no banco, desconfortável. Parecia que as companhias ferroviárias estavam a competir umas com as outras para ver quem conseguia fazer as cadeiras mais estreitas, mais sem graça e com menos espaço entre si para as pernas. Ele tinha-se espremido para um assento de corredor, porque assim ainda podia esticar as pernas mesmo que alguém se sentasse ao seu lado. Na janela do lado contrário ao corredor uma reflexão, ele esteva sempre no corredor, pensou. Sentiu-se exausto. Algo pesado, que ele não conseguia agarrar, pairava sobre ele, agitação de fantasmas que preferia não ter despertado. Estava todo vestido de preto. Tinha sido para se disfarçar perante o Greg. Porque o que ele estava prestes a fazer, poderia não ser perfeito, pensou; não queria parecer muito mafioso. Pescou o seu colar de prata do bolso do casado e colocou-o e depois olhou para o seu reflexo na janela do comboio. A corrente sobressaia em contraste com o negro fúnebre da sua camisa. Uma figura de gangster desgastado olhava de volta para ele. Tirou a corrente.

Este trabalho tinha-o sugado. Agora estava prestes a sugar a última gota do seu dinheiro. Ele não tinha contactado a família Amin ou Wasif porque não havia nada com que contactá-los. Será que o Meadwos era cauteloso ou intransigente? Agora não interessava. Se uma montanha não podia ser movida, teria simplesmente de ser contornada. À medida que o comboio se aproximava mais do sul o tempo ficava mais tranquilo. Ele tinha visitado Wolverhampton há anos para ver amigos, velhos amigos do exército. Ficou tentado a fazer uma visita surpresa a um ou dois deles mas o tipo de pessoas do exército são inquietas e por estas alturas já se teriam mudado, ou estariam num posto no estrangeiro para o qual teriam sido destacados ou simplesmente teriam mudado de casa. Para além disso, quem é que gostava desse tipo de surpresas hoje em dia? Quando finalmente saiu na estacão de Wolverhampton, 27

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utilizou o seu mapa para descobrir o caminho até ao seu destino pela cidade, surpreendido com as mudanças que viu. Era uma daquelas cidades bonitas-feias. E tinha-se tornado igualmente mais feia e mais bonita. Ele não ficava a olhar ao redor, não era turista e não queria ter um perfil no circuito fechado de televisão da cidade. Verificou o mapa e continuou.

Numa rua perto de um McDonald’s nos arredores do sul de Wolverhampton, estava a zona em expansão de carros usados chamada Wolverhampton National – os melhores leilões de carros. Delroy ficou do lado oposto da estrada e admirou todo o metal e vidro brilhantes. Era lá que os leilões oficiais estavam a acontecer. Do seu lado da rua estavam os carros de freelancers, estacionados de nariz a nariz e prontos para a venda, todos com números de telemóveis rabiscados em tiras de papelão no tablier. De para-choques em para-choques, estes veículos menos mimados encontravam-se ao longo da estrada, por cerca de um quarto de milha, saltando aqui e ali as bermas de relvado e por debaixo de cartazes publicitários. Delroy andou ao longo da estrada até encontrar o mais próximo do que desejava. Um carro com matrícula dos anos 1990, um modelo antigo Ford Mondeo. Estava entalado em três quartos do pavimento e os pedestres tinham de se esfregar nele para passar.

Ele olhou para o relógio. 13h16. Achou que centenas de pessoas teriam tocado nele ao passar; e até hoje uma dúzia de potenciais consumidores teriam entrado no carro e segurado no volante enquanto liam a quilometragem. Gostou da ideia. Digitou o número de telemóvel que estava no para-brisas.

Um ‘Dennis’ respondeu, disse-lhe para esperar, que lhe faria um bom negócio e apareceu ao seu lado dois minutos depois da chamada. O “Dennis” tinha olhos rápidos e uma mão quente e ossuda; o seu nariz tinha marcas cor-de-rosa dos dois lados onde, uma vez, os óculos haviam descansado. Ele parecia descarnado e cinzento, era provavelmente dos Balcãs, pelo menos albanês, talvez numa missão de fazer algum dinheiro ganho com suor e enviá-lo para casa rapidamente. Ele usava uma camisola de lã preta de fecho de correr com um tamanho acima do seu e calças de mistura de algodão azuis-claras, manchadas nos tornozelos com lama.

-Tem um livro de registo? Perguntou Delroy.

O “Dennis” sorriu. -Aqui? Nada de livros de registo. Há livros de registo. ‘Dennis’ apontou para o lado de leilões Wolverhampton National.

Para compradores comuns, não haver livro de registos era mau, mas não para Delroy. Ele ajeitou as luvas e olhou ao redor do carro um pouco mais, levantou o capô.

-... Aprovado pelo AA, acrescentou ‘Dennis’.

Delroy olhou para ele com uma sobrancelha levantada.

-Armados Anónimos.

-Desculpe?

-Desculpe. É uma piada privada.

Talvez ele parecesse um ladrão armado, pensou Delroy. O preto com que estava vestido e agora as luvas. Tudo o que ele precisava era de uma máscara de Ski. -Ele é um bom corredor, sorriu ‘Dennis’.

Tinha que haver um manual com conversas de vendedores de carros em algum lugar. Talvez fosse parte do teste de cidadania: como fazer conversas de vendas de carros.

‘Dennis’ observou-o enquanto olhava o Mondeo de forma abrangente. Os pneus eram razoáveis, apesar de gastos no interno da parte da frente. Os para-choques traseiros tinham levado um tiro e o carro estava listado para a esquerda, as janelas não ventavam, o eixo traseiro estava soldado, as placas da matrícula tinham novos parafusos de ancoragem, havia decapante fresco no bloco do motor e não tinha painéis de instrumentos na porta interior onde o número VIN [número de identificação do veiculo] deveria estar; o airbag e o invólucro desapareceram e não se usava uma chave para arrancar.

-Pode ligar o motor? Perguntou Delroy.

‘Dennis’ segurou os dois fios de ignição e Delroy deu a volta ao carro e ouviu. Houve uma batida vinda dos eixos de comando, e o carburador estava a gaguejar a baixas rotações, mas, para além disso, estava OK. Dando novamente a volta ao carro, Delroy teve que sorrir.

Um disco de imposto cor de menta brilhava orgulhosamente no para-brisas, a tinta mal tinha secado. O carro ou era uma cópia barata, estava demasiado danificado, ou provavelmente as duas coisas. Um carro com história. Exatamente o que ele queria. Ele verificou duas vezes os tubos dos travões e os travões. Era um corredor. Não serviria para perseguir os BMWs na pista rápida M6 para Burnham, mas deveria conseguir um trote constante ao longo das estradas principais, decidiu.

-Um carro muito bom, disse ‘Dennis’, concluindo.

-Posso vê-lo na estrada?

-Claro, eu conduzo, você vê.

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O ‘Dennis’ pegou uma lata de combustível de plástico vermelho do banco de trás de outro carro que estava na estrada e derramou algum combustível no tanque do Mondeo. Puxou o carro para fora e dirigiu-o, depois pela estrada com um sorriso, até acenou para Delroy enquanto passava por ele. Tinha um som áspero mas ok, pensou Delroy. ‘Dennis’ encostou-o suavemente de volta à berma.

-Tem rádio?

‘Dennis’ virou o porta-luvas. Havia um rádio com bateria barata lá dentro. Delroy sorriu novamente.

-Ele é um verdadeiro turbo. Diesel, não se preocupe com a quilometragem.

-Levo por 150. O sinal de papelão pedia duzentos.

-Por favor, eu tenho que ganhar dinheiro.

-140.

-Você está a roubar-me.

-130.

-150. Este negócio é inútil, eu devia ir cavar batatas, reclamou, ‘Dennis’, mas Delroy imaginou que 150 significasse um lucro limpo de 100 para ‘Dennis’.

Fecharam o negócio com um aperto de mãos.

-Posso aspirá-lo para si?

-Não, eu levo-o como está. Quanto mais sujo, melhor, pensou Delroy. Dessa forma, o departamento forense poderia ou passar um ano a recolher cabelos do banco, lama dos pneus, fibras do porta-bagagens e impressões digitais do cockpit pelo qual metade da população de Wolverhampton terá passado, ou, mais provavelmente, desistiria por ser um desperdício de recursos.

‘Dennis’ contou o dinheiro com uma palmada em cada nota, como aqueles que gostam da economia em dinheiro. Era o pagamento do mês para o Thin Harry que o ‘Dennis’ estava a contar. Outra coisa surgiria para pagar ao Thin, pensou Delroy; de momento, ele precisava deste carro. Ele baixou-se para entrar no banco do motorista. Dennis apareceu à janela. Ele abriu a porta para ouvi-lo.

-Lembre-se, a agulha está muito baixa se você vai conduzir para longe, disse ‘Dennis’, apontando para o indicador de combustível.

O tipo era inteligente. Delroy deu-lhe mais vinte para encher o Mondeo com Diesel vermelho.

Depois disso, ele encostou os fios. O motor arrancou a gaguejar. No espelho lateral, Delroy viu ‘Dennis’ desaparecer atrás de um cartaz publicitário. Nenhum deles tinha visto o outro antes, nem se teriam conhecido através do Adam se interrogado posteriormente pela polícia, ele tinha a certeza. Arrancou o Mondeo e decolou.

Pequenas cidades dispersas. O calor do seu corpo em breve embaçou as janelas. As janelas laterais estavam ou totalmente para cima ou totalmente para baixo, sem meio-termo. Ele conduzia com o lado do motorista para baixo e o do passageiro para cima. Uma tempestade de chuva encharcou-o e apagou o para-brisas até que as escovas do para-brisas começaram a desbastar caminho milagroso. Ele tentou manter a direção geral para o norte, usando as estradas principais e secundárias tortuosas. Atravessou uma floresta com árvores enrugadas e irregulares, e depois outra floresta com árvores retas e altas. A chuva estabilizou-se, e tornou-se mais fácil de conduzir, as gotas fundiam-se para formar um lago na tela através da qual ele podia ver sem as erráticas escovas do para-brisas. O medidor de temperatura do radiador estava a subir gradualmente.

Ele atravessou uma cidade. Na estrada, formava-se uma fila de trânsito atrás dele. Estava a conduzir a 40, eles queriam conduzir a 50. Ele acenou para que o ultrapassassem: precisava de chegar a Burnham com o Mondeo ainda a funcionar. Conseguiu buzinas, sinais de dedos quando o ultrapassavam, mas ele não ligou, continuou a cuidar do Mondeo. Colocar as mudanças era o mais complicado por causa da embreagem desgastada. Mudou para a segunda no primeiro sinal de uma inclinação. Conduzir um carro barulhento era uma brincadeira em comparação com uma discussão. Felizmente, se essa era a palavra correta, ele tinha tido muita experiência com discussões.

Parou à beira da estrada num local para descanso de camionistas para comer um hambúrguer e chá num café roulote e para permitir que o medidor do radiador descesse. O chá deformou o copo de plástico fino e queimou a sua língua. Ele conseguiu regressar a Burnham sem incidentes.

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Jacob Ross The following extract is from The Bone Readers: When Michael (Digger) Digson is recruited into DS Chilman’s new plain-clothes squad in the small Caribbean island of Camaho, he brings his own mission to discover who amongst a renegade police squad killed his mother in a political demonstration. Sent to London to train in forensics, Digger becomes enmeshed in Chilman’s obsession with a cold case – the disappearance of a young man whose mother is sure he has been murdered. But, along with his new skill in forensics, Digger makes rich use of the culture knowledge he had again from the Fire Baptist grandmother who brought him up, another kind of reader of bones. And when the enigmatic Miss K. Stanislaus, another of Chilman’s recruits, joins him on the case, Digger finds that his science is more than outmatched by her observational skills. Together, they find themselves dragged into a world of secrets, disappearances and danger that demands every ounce of their brains, persistence and courage to survive.

Chapter 1 I’d left school with no job to go to and exam results that my teachers said could get me to any university anywhere in the world. If I had the money.

I mentioned the sum to my father and he laughed. The bank managers I went to didn’t laugh – at least not in my face. They asked for equity, then my family name. I gave them my mother’s. They pointed out how generous they were by giving me their time, then nodded at the door.

I went south to the Drylands where the hotels were. For two tourist seasons, I peeled back my lips and exposed my teeth, served drinks barefoot in a rainbow-coloured synthetic shirt, wide-brimmed straw hat and pantaloons which no Camaho man would be seen dead in outside of Beach Bum Bar. Then a half-drunk old bull from Germany, red like a barbecued lobster, closed his hand around my crotch and I punched him in the face.

The Englishman who owned the place leaned in close and demanded I apologise, else he fire me without pay. I told him to haul his arse and walked.

I took to the sidewalk of San Andrews watching the tourists, the pretty cars, the office girls stepping in heels that raised their arses almost as high as their ears, and young men shuffling bow-legged in waistless trousers with rappers’ caps and speaking in made-up American accents.

I watched, especially, the bright open faces of the little boys in school uniform heading home every afternoon to parents who might someday laugh at them. I didn’t doubt that they would end up like me with their shoulders propping up a storefront in San Andrews.

Then one Wednesday afternoon it happened right in front of me: a huddle of youth-men arguing over something. I paid them little mind.

They were wharf-rats who made a living begging money off the tourists. When the ocean liners weren’t in, they drifted around the town pulling at the skirts of schoolgirls and pushing their pelvises against them. Many parents waited at the school gates and escorted their daughters home.

A single protesting voice rose up from their midst, pitched high and desperate. Heads turned, followed by a patter of fast-approaching feet. Market people loved a fight.

There came a flare of voices from the knot of hooligans. I heard the word ‘respect’, then ‘fuck’, then ‘fuck-up’, then ‘fucker’, then a thud like a fist sinking into a pillow. A gasp, followed by the rapid scattering of feet as the young men fanned out, adjusted their hoods over their heads and sprinted off.

A boy lay on the sidewalk in the same uniform I wore to school for seven years. He was laid out on his side, right arm curled in front of his stomach; the other, bent at the elbow, was under his head as if he were asleep.

I followed the red trickle that seeped from under his hand, its abrupt change of course as it met the invisible incline of the concrete gutter and flowed into it. I thought I knew the boy. I felt I ought to.

An office girl with a tight, high bun of expensive Indian hair, nails glinting gold in the sun, brought her phone to her ear, her arm making a delicate stylish curve just before she spoke into it. I watched her crimson lips moving.

I walked across the road, knelt and touched the boy’s forehead. I stood up, ignoring the shock on all those faces fixed on me. They 30

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were reading me, I knew, studying my expression, waiting perhaps for the howl that would confirm for them that this dead boy was family.

I did none of that. I simply stood over him.

When the police came they rushed me. The largest one slammed my back against the wall, jammed a knee into my stomach and pressed an elbow against my throat. I choked on my breath and held his eyes. He did not like that. He threw me on the pavement, dropped his weight on my spine, then dragged my hands behind my back and handcuffed me.

A little car arrived. It stopped in the middle of the road. An apparition got out: a white head of hair; eyes like two knobs of flaming coals; lips that would look perfect on a battered leather purse.

White Hair shouted something. The words came out of him like gravel on a grater.

The weight came off my back. I was lifted to my feet, the handcuffs removed. Rough hands bundled me into the little car.

All the while, people were out there protesting at my arrest. All women. The men remained silent. They were, no doubt, less interested in my fate than in the way injustice takes its course. It made for better rumshop conversation.

They took me to an old brick building backing the bus terminal, which stood over the sea. Above the entrance in big white type: San Andrews Police Central. Inside, I caught the faint smell of tar from the island schooners berthed against the jetty. Partitioned rooms retreated all the way to the back of the building. From them came the shuffling of paper and, occasionally, the boom of men’s voices. Outside, the blasts of horns, the rise and fall of market women’s voices, the penetrating bray of the coconut seller we called Cocoman.

Amid the thunder of vehicles arriving in the concrete courtyard, White Hair sat me down in a chair by an untidy desk. He pressed a sandwich into my hand and a glass of orange juice. He lowered himself in front of me and jabbed a finger at his chest. ‘Detective Superintendent Chilman. You?’ ‘Digger.’

‘That’s the name on your birth certificate?’

‘Michael Digson.’

‘How long you been out there?’

‘Out where?’

‘On the street.’

‘I have a home.’

‘How long?’

‘Eighteen months three days.’

‘You been counting?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Why?’ ‘Keep my sanity.’

He looked me in the eye. ‘You still got it?’

‘You got no basis for arresting me.’

‘Calm down, youngfella, you not under arrest. Now talk to me. What happm?’

I pushed aside the sandwich and sipped the juice. ‘Monkeys demanding respect from humans,’ I said. ‘They killed the human.’

Detective Superintendent Chilman leaned forward and squinted as if he were examining a speck in my eye. ‘You upset. That’s good. You could point them out?’

‘They hide their faces from the start, before the argument. Is obvious they plan it.’

Chilman rubbed his chin and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Right,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘Come with me.’ He stopped at the door and raised his voice. ‘Okay fellas, bring them out.’

Twenty-three young men – all in rapper’s hoods rolled back from their heads – filed out of three vans into the yard. Some looked nervous, some angry, most of them relaxed. A few were so terrified they could barely walk. A couple of them didn’t drop the monkey swagger.

The officers lined them up against the wall of the building.

Chilman prodded me. ‘Recognise any?’

I shook my head.

‘Let’s try something else then.’

On his word, Chilman’s officers pulled the hoods over the young men’s heads and ordered them to run across the yard.

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Chilman looked at me. ‘Anything?’

A few of the youths threw threatening glares in my direction. I squared my shoulders and glared back.

‘Make them talk,’ I said. ‘Let each one ov ’em say something.’

An officer grumbled under his breath and sucked his teeth – the same one who’d flattened me on the sidewalk.

Chilman leaned into my face. I caught a whiff of rum. ‘Listen, youngfella, I’ll make them lil sonuvabitch across there skin kuffum and walk upside-down on one finger if I have to, because I want a result, unnerstan? I want a result right now. So don’t play the arse with me. If that is what you doing.’

Beneath that tired old face he was seething. He was so full of fury I felt myself leaning away from him. I had never seen such rage in another human.

Still, when he turned to address the young men his tone was conversational. ‘This is the way I see it, genlemen. I could let everyone of y’all walk out of here scott-free. I could do that right now and turn my back. But y’all won’t get far. People out there know who been arrested. That’s why I order these officers to stand y’all together in the market square and give the whole damn town a good look at y’all face.

I know for sure that word already reach the brothers and the uncles and the cousins. They don’t know which of you just murder their boychile.

They won’t want to know. All they’ll want is blood. Your blood! As much of it as they can get until they satisfy. They’ll come after every one of you. My job is to prevent that. So… one-by-one, you say your names and where you live exactly. Youngfella, you ready?’

I nodded and pressed my back against the old white vehicle. I closed my eyes while the boys shouted their names and co-ordinates. I relived the heat of the afternoon, the sound of oncoming vehicles, and the heavy fruit-and-earth smell of the marketplace; the hot pitch of words, the exact timbre and inflections of the voices. I have that kind of memory.

I picked out every one of them. Eight. One was missing.

It was easy afterwards. They betrayed themselves by pointing at each other.

When it was over, Chilman’s hot eyes were on my face. The old fella was smiling. He pointed at the sandwich. ‘I know you hungry. Eat.’ He lowered his voice, his eyes still probing. ‘Ever been arrested before today or charged for anything?’

He must have seen the irritation on my face. ‘Sorry, youngfella, I have to ask them questions.’

I got up to leave.

He pushed out a stiff hand. ‘You not leaving right now.’ ***

Capítulo 1 Deixei a escola sem trabalho e com resultados de exames que os meus professores disseram que me poderiam levar a qualquer universidade, em qualquer lugar do mundo. Se eu tivesse dinheiro.

Eu mencionei os custos ao meu pai e ele riu-se. Os gerentes dos bancos aos quais fui não se riram – pelo menos não na minha cara.

Perguntaram-me por capital próprio e depois pelo meu nome de família. Dei-lhes o da minha mãe. Eles referiram o quão generosos tinham sido por me terem dado o seu tempo, depois acenaram para a porta com a cabeça.

Fui para o sul até às terras secas onde estavam os hotéis. Durante duas épocas turísticas, estiquei os lábios para trás e mostrei os dentes, servi bebidas com os pés descalços, de camisa sintética com um padrão de arco-íris, chapéu de palha e calças com as quais nenhum homem de Camaho seria visto morto fora do Beach Bum Bar. Depois, um touro velho e meio bêbado da Alemanha, vermelho como uma lagosta no churrasco, fechou a mão em torno da minha virilha e eu dei-lhe um murro na cara.

O inglês, dono do local, aproximou-se de mim e exigiu que eu pedisse desculpas, senão demitia-me sem salário. Disse-lhe que mexesse o cú dali e pus-me a andar.

Andei pela calçada de San Andrews a olhar para os turistas, os carros bonitos, as funcionárias de escritório a andar sobre saltos que elevavam os seus traseiros quase ao nível dos ouvidos, e jovens rapazes a arrastar pernas arqueadas em calças sem cintura com bonés de rappers e a falar com um sotaque americano inventado. Observei, especialmente, os rostos brilhantes e abertos dos meninos em uniforme escolar a ir para casa, todas as tardes, ao encontro dos pais, que algum dia se poderão rir deles. Não duvidava que eles acabassem como eu com os ombros a apoiar-se a uma vitrine de loja em San Andrews.

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Depois, numa quarta-feira à tarde, aconteceu mesmo à minha frente: um amontoado de jovens rapazes a discutir sobre algo. Não lhes prestei muita atenção. Eles eram ratos de porão que ganhavam a vida a mendigar dinheiro aos turistas. Quando não havia cruzeiros, eles andavam pela cidade a puxar as saias das meninas de escola e a esfregar a sua pélvis contra elas. Muitos pais esperavam em frente aos portões da escola e acompanhavam as filhas a casa.

Uma única voz de protesto ergueu-se entre eles, aguda e desesperada. Cabeças viraram-se, seguidas de um padrão de passos a aproximar-se rapidamente. As pessoas do mercado adoravam uma briga. Vozes exaltadas vinham do amontoado de hooligans. Eu ouvi a palavra “respeito”, depois “foda-se”, depois “fodido”, depois “fodilhão”, depois um baque como um punho a afundar-se numa almofada. Um suspiro, seguido de uma rápida dispersão de pés enquanto os rapazes debandavam, ajustavam os capuzes sobre as cabeças e fugiam dali.

Um rapaz estava deitado no passeio com o mesmo uniforme que eu usei na escola durante sete anos. Estava deitado de lado, o braço direito enrolado à frente do estômago; o outro, dobrado no cotovelo, estava debaixo da cabeça como se estivesse a dormir.

Eu segui o gotejar vermelho que se infiltrava debaixo da sua mão, e a mudança abrupta de curso quando se encontrou com a inclinação invisível da sargeta de concreto e fluiu para dentro dela. Eu pensei que conhecia o rapaz. Senti que deveria conhecê-lo.

Uma funcionária de escritório com um coque apertado e alto de cabelo indiano caro, unhas a brilhar ao sol, levou o telefone ao ouvido, o braço dela fez uma curva delicada e elegante mesmo antes de ela falar. Eu observei os seus lábios avermelhados a mexer-se.

Atravessei a estrada, ajoelhei-me e toquei a testa do rapaz. Levantei-me, ignorando o choque em todos os rostos fixos em mim. Eles estavam a ler-me, eu sabia, a estudar a minha expressão, à espera talvez do uivo que confirmasse que esse rapaz morto fosse um familiar.

Não fiz nada disso. Eu debrucei-me simplesmente sobre ele.

Quando os polícias chegaram, atacaram-me. O mais robusto bateu com as minhas costas contra a parede, encostou um joelho ao meu estômago e pressionou o cotovelo contra a minha garganta. Engasguei-me e fixei os seus olhos. Ele não gostou disso. Atirou-me contra o chão, deixou cair o seu peso na minha coluna vertebral, depois arrastou-me as mãos para trás das costas e algemou-me.

Chegou um carro pequeno. Parou no meio da estrada. Saiu uma aparição: uma cabeça de cabelo branco; olhos como dois botões de carvão flamejante; lábios que ficariam perfeitos numa bolsa de couro curtido.

O Cabelo Branco gritou algo. As palavras saíram dele como cascalho de um ralador.

O peso saiu das minhas costas. Puseram-me de pé, as algemas foram removidas. Mãos ásperas empurraram-me para o pequeno carro.

Durante esse tempo, as pessoas estavam a protestar contra a minha detenção. Todas mulheres. Os homens permaneceram em silêncio.

Eles estavam, sem dúvida, menos interessados no meu destino do que na forma como a injustiça toma o seu curso. Dava uma melhor conversa de tasca.

Levaram-me para um antigo edifício de tijolos nas traseiras do terminal de autocarros, que ficava sobre o mar. Acima da entrada em letras grandes brancas: Esquadra da Polícia de San Andrews. No interior, senti o leve cheiro de alcatrão das escunas da ilha atracadas no cais. Salas separadas recuavam até ao final do prédio. Delas vinha o barulho de papel e, ocasionalmente, o som grave de vozes masculinas. Lá fora, as explosões de buzinas, os tons altos e baixos das vozes das mulheres do mercado, o zurrar penetrante do vendedor de coco a quem chamávamos o homem-coco.

No meio do trovejar de veículos que chegavam ao pátio de concreto, o Cabelo Branco sentou-me numa cadeira perto de uma mesa desarrumada. Espetou-me uma sandes para a mão e um copo de sumo de laranja. Baixou-se à minha frente e cravou um dedo no seu peito.

‘Detetive superintendente Chilman. Você?’

‘Digger [Escavador].’

‘Esse é o nome que está na sua certidão de nascimento?’

‘Michael Digson.’

‘Quanto tempo esteve lá?’

‘Lá onde?’

‘Na rua.’

‘Eu tenho uma casa.’

‘Quanto tempo?’

‘Dezoito meses três dias.’

‘Tem estado a contar?’

‘Ah-hah.’

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‘Porquê?’

‘Para manter a minha sanidade.’

Ele olhou-me nos olhos. ‘Ainda a tem?’

‘Você não tem motivos para me prender.’

‘Calma, meu jovem, você não está preso. Agora fale comigo. O que aconteceu?’

Afastei a sandes e dei um golo no sumo. ‘Macacos a exigir respeito dos humanos,’ disse. ‘Eles mataram o humano.’

O detetive superintendente Chilman inclinou-se para a frente e entrecerrou os olhos como se estivesse a examinar uma mancha no meu olho. ‘Você está chateado. Isso é bom. Poderia indicar quem são eles?’

‘Eles esconderam os rostos desde o início, antes da discussão. É óbvio que eles planearam isso.’

Chilman esfregou o queixo e olhou para o teto. ‘Certo,’ disse ele, levantando-se. ‘Venha comigo.’ Parou na porta e ergueu a voz. ‘Ok, pessoal, tragam-nos para fora.’

Vinte e três rapazes – todos com capuzes de rapper sem cobrir as cabeças – saíram de três carrinhas para o pátio. Alguns pareciam nervosos, alguns com raiva, a maioria relaxada. Uns poucos estavam tão aterrorizados que mal podiam andar. Um par deles não deixou a atitude de macaco.

Os oficiais alinharam-nos contra a parede do prédio.

O Chilman cutucou-me. ‘Reconhece algum?’

Eu abanei a cabeça.

‘Vamos tentar outra coisa então.’ À sua ordem, os oficiais de Chilman colocaram os capuzes sobre a cabeça dos jovens e ordenaram-lhes que corressem pelo quintal.

Chilman olhou para mim. ‘Alguma coisa?’

Alguns dos jovens lançaram olhares ameaçadores na minha direção. Endireitei os ombros e olhei-os de volta.

‘Faça com que eles conversem,’ disse eu. ‘Deixe cada um deles dizer algo.’

Um agente resmungou e fez um som com os dentes – o mesmo que me tinha jogado contra o chão.

O Chilman inclinou-se sobre o meu rosto. Senti um cheiro a rum. ‘Escute, jovem, eu faço com que aqueles filhos da mãe ali deem o salto mortal e andem num dedo se for preciso, porque eu quero um resultado, entende? Eu quero um resultado agora. Então não brinque comigo.

Se é isso que você está a fazer.’

Por debaixo daquele rosto velho e cansado, ele estava a ferver. Estava tão furioso que eu senti-me a afastar-me dele. Nunca vi tanta raiva num outro ser humano.

Ainda assim, quando se virou para se dirigir aos jovens, o seu tom era conversacional. ‘Eu vejo as coisas da seguinte forma, cavalheiros. Eu poderia deixar todos vocês saírem daqui impunes. Poderia fazer isso agora e virar as costas. Mas nenhum de vocês vai chegar longe. As pessoas lá fora sabem quem foi preso. É por isso que eu ordeno que estes agentes vos metam a todos juntos na praça do mercado para que toda a maldita cidade consiga olhar bem para todos os vossos rostos. Tenho a certeza de que as notícias já chegaram aos irmãos e aos tios e aos primos. Eles não sabem qual de vocês acabou de assassinar o seu pequeno. Eles não vão querer saber. Tudo o que eles vão querer é sangue. O vosso sangue! Tanto quanto eles conseguirem até ficarem satisfeitos. Eles vão atrás de cada um de vocês. O meu trabalho é evitar isso. Então... um por um, digam os vossos nomes e onde vocês moram exatamente. Jovem, está pronto?’

Acenei com a cabeça e apertei as costas contra o carro branco velho. Fechei os olhos enquanto os rapazes gritavam os seus nomes e coordenadas. Revivi o calor da tarde, o som dos veículos que se aproximavam e o pesado cheiro a fruta e terra do mercado; o tom quente das palavras, o timbre exato e as inflexões das vozes. Eu tenho esse tipo de memória.

Identifiquei cada um deles. Oito. Faltava um.

Depois foi fácil. Eles traíram-se apontando uns para os outros.

Quando acabou, os olhos quentes de Chilman estavam sobre o meu rosto. O velho camarada estava a sorrir. Apontou para a sandes. ‘Eu sei que está com fome. Coma.’

Ele baixou a voz, os olhos ainda a sondar. ‘Já tinha sido preso ou acusado de alguma coisa, antes do dia de hoje?’

Ele deve ter visto a irritação na minha cara. ‘Desculpe, jovem, tenho que fazer estas perguntas.’

Levantei-me para sair.

Ele sacou uma mão rígida. ‘Você não se vai embora agora.’

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Breaking Ground in Spain, November 2017

When Speaking Volumes took ten Black British writers to the USA in 2015, it was at the invitation of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diasporas (ASWAD), who hosted a showcase event for our artists at their conference in Charleston, South Carolina. The standing-ovation success of that led to a second request in 2017 for Speaking Volumes to curate another Breaking Ground event at the ASWAD conference in Seville, Spain. Yvvette Edwards, Colin Grant, Peter Kalu, Irenosen Okojie, Jacob Ross and Leone Ross – writers of crime fiction, erotic short stores, magical realism, memoir and life-writing – took part in readings, panel discussions and round table events to over 200 participants from across Europe and North America. The main evening reading was seen as a cultural highlight of the conference.

Before then, Yvvette Edwards, Irenosen Okojie and Leone Ross visited the University of Acalá in Madrid, where Senior Lecturer in Literary Translation, Maya G Vinuesa, had led a mini-project among her 90 students to produce Spanish translations of extracts by the participating writers. The sessions with the three writers attracted nearly 200 students and lecturers from across the university. Maya G Vinuesa said: ‘It has been a pleasure for us to participate in the Breaking Ground Project led by Speaking Volumes, and an honour to translate the extracts from literary texts by the authors involved. For the students it has been an experience to read contemporary authors which would have not been possible for us to access without Speaking Volumes’ assessment and proposal. The expectation of meeting the three women writers – and having a translation class with them on 7th November 2017 – and having some of their Spanish versions published has contributed greatly to the students’ motivation throughout the eight weeks devoted to translating these texts. Student participation has been high and enthusiastic, partly because of the innovative nature of this project and its integration in their courses.’

Our thanks for this visit go to: Elisa Joy White of ASWAD and UC Davis, USA; ASWAD officials in Seville; Maya G Vinuesa Senior Lecturer, Literary Translation, University of Alcalá (Madrid), Spain; the students from the Literary Translation, Translation Theory and Introduction to Translation Studies courses (Modern Languages and Translation Degree and English Studies Degree) at the University of Alcalá (Madrid); the Department of Filología Moderna at the University of Alcalá (Madrid); and Professor Maggi Morehouse of Coastal Carolina University USA.

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Yvvette Edwards is a British author of Montserratian origin. Her debut, A Cupboard Full of Coats, was published in the UK, USA and Greece and nominated for awards including the Man Booker Prize, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Its themes centre around the psychological impact on the interior worlds of children who witness domestic violence. Her second novel, The Mother, was published in 2016 in the UK and USA. Narrated by the mother of a 16 year-old who has been stabbed and killed, it is an emotive exploration of grief and the root causes of teenage violence. She currently mentors for the Escalator scheme run

by Writers’ Centre Norwich and a judge for the Jhalak Prize for writers of colour.

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Colin Grant is a historian, author and BBC producer. His books include Negro with a Hat, a biography of Marcus Garvey; I and I The Natural Mystics Marley, Tosh and Wailer; and his latest, A Smell of Burning: the Story of Epilepsy. Grant’s memoir of growing up in a Caribbean family in 1970s suburbia, Bageye at the Wheel, was shortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley Prize.

He has written numerous BBC radio documentaries including A Fountain of Tears, focusing on the last days of Federico Garcia Lorca. He is a regular contributor to the Guardian and Granta Magazine and is a tutor of Creative Writing at Arvon and City University. www.colingrant.info

www.yvvetteedwards.co.uk Irenosen Okojie is a writer and arts project manager. Her debut novel, Butterfly Fish, won a Betty Trask Award. Her work has been featured in The Observer, the Guardian and The Huffington Post amongst other publications, as well as on the BBC. Her short stories have been published internationally. She was presented at the London Short Story Festival by Ben Okri as a dynamic writing talent to watch and was featured in the Evening Standard Magazine as one of London’s exciting new authors. Her short story collection Speak Gigantular published by Jacaranda Books has been longlisted for the Jhalak Prize. www.jacarandabooksartmusic.co.uk/writer/irenosen-okojie-2/

About the Spanish Editor

Leone Ross writes magic realism, horror fiction, erotica and psychological drama. She has published two critically praised novels, All The Blood Is Red (ARP/Actes Sud) and Orange Laughter (Anchor/Farrar Straus & Giroux/Picador), which was shortlisted for the UK Orange Prize.

Ross’s short fiction has been shortlisted for the V S Pritchett Prize and Salt Publishing’s Scott Prize. She has judged the Manchester Fiction Prize and the Wimbledon Bookfest Short Story Competition.

She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Roehampton University, and a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. Leone Ross’s short story collection, Come Let Us Sing Anyway, was published in June 2017 by Peepal Tree Press. She lives in London and is working on a third novel. www.leoneross.com

Maya G Vinuesa is a translator and a lecturer in Literary Translation at the Department of Filología Moderna (University of Alcalá, Madrid). Her focus of research is the fiction(s) of register and varieties of English (Black, African, Caribbean) in contemporary literature and their translation into Spanish. She is a member of the Afroeuropeans: Black Cultures and Identities in Europe research network, FITISPos (UAH) and Afriqana/Cultura, literatura, traducción y lingüística africanas (University of Valladolid). She has translated several novels and essays from English into Spanish, including Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon / Más allá del horizonte (2003), Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood / Las delicias de la maternidad (2005), Nelson Mandela’s collection of essays No Easy Walk to Freedom (2005) and Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God / La flecha del dios (2010) and A Man of the People / Un hombre del pueblo (2010). Maya G Vinuesa has also written a novel, Una habitación en Lavapiés, published in December 2017 (Canalla Ediciones, Madrid).

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Yvvette Edwards The following extract is from The Mother: Today, Marcia is heading to the Old Bailey. She’s going there to do something no mother should ever have to do: to attend the trial of the boy accused of her son’s murder. She’s not meant to be that woman; Ryan, her son, wasn’t that kind of boy. But Tyson Manley is that kind of a boy and, as his trial unfolds, it becomes clear that it’s his girlfriend Sweetie who has the answers Marcia so badly needs and who can - perhaps offer Marcia some kind of hope for the future. But Sweetie is as scared of Tyson as Ryan should have been and, as Marcia’s learned the hard way, nothing’s certain. Not any more.

An extract from Chapter 2 Kwame Johnson is forty-two and has been coaching Ryan’s football squad since Ryan started playing regularly at eight. Ryan always liked and respected him, and as a consequence, so do I. Many of the boys he coaches are Afro-Caribbean and he is hard on them, dishing out punishments for lateness or attitude or bad sportsmanship, balancing this zero-tolerance approach with a wicked sense of humour. All the boys call him “sir” and his relationship with them is great.

The first time I ever saw Kwame dressed in anything other than sports gear was at Ryan’s funeral. That day, those awful days around it, meld in my mind into a Valium haze, but I remember my surprise, later on, at the wake, when I realized it wasn’t the drugs making Kwame look so different, but the fact it was the first time I’d ever seen him formally dressed. I’m reminded of that day looking at him now standing in the witness box and wearing a suit. As usual, his dreadlocks are pulled back into a ponytail that falls midway down his back and they are the only thing about him that feels normal. His eyes dart around the courtroom taking everything in. His expression is solemn.

Quigg is in her element. She exudes confidence, has everything under control. We learn Kwame’s age and occupation, that he’s been coaching for almost nineteen years and that, in addition to the training he does in the evenings at the Sports Ground, he works with excluded kids in special schools and pupil referral units. In fact it was at a pupil referral unit two years ago that he first met the defendant. I wasn’t aware of that. I never really thought about how Kwame knew Tyson Manley, but if I had thought it through, a pupil referral unit would have been exactly where I would have imagined their paths had initially crossed. Kwame coached him as part of a group once a week, excluding school holidays, for a period of six months, up until a year ago.

‘And when you stopped coaching him, was it because your coaching contract came to an end?’

‘No.’ ‘You were still coaching other young people at that same pupil referral unit?’

‘Yes.’ ‘Would you please then tell us why the coaching stopped?’

I feel Lorna nudge me as a woman is steered to a seat at the end of our row. It is Ms. Manley, who has finally showed up to support her son. I have seen her before at the hearings when her son was charged, denied bail, but we have never spoken. She is late for the afternoon court session, alone and wearing celebrity sunglasses. She sits down and puts her designer handbag onto the seat beside her, pulls off her scarf, her coat, drapes them over its top. I can smell her perfume from where I am sitting. I’m sure everyone in the gallery can.

Kwame is saying, ‘Tyson stopped coming. His attendance had always been a bit iffy. In the end it just kinda petered out.’

Tyson Manley has noticed his mother, gives her the briefest of smiles, returns to his normal expressionless poise, continues watching Kwame in the box. You might almost think he were oblivious to everything going on around him. His acknowledgment of his mother is the first indication I have had that he is not.

Quigg asks, ‘Would you say that during the time you coached Mr. Manley you came to know him well?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Mr. Johnson, do you recall making a statement to the police on 19th March, on the morning following Ryan Williams’s murder?’

Kwame nods his head.

‘Please answer aloud.’

He clears his throat, ‘Yes.’ 37

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‘In that statement you said that you had tried very hard to build a relationship with the defendant because of his family circumstances.’

‘Yes.’ ‘Would you please tell the court what these were?’

‘I knew his brother, the older one, Vito. He got killed, shot in front of the family two, three years ago. After that Tyson started getting in trouble and didn’t seem to be able to get out of it. I guess I kinda wanted to help him.’

‘Thank you. Would it be fair to suggest you had a special interest in the defendant?’

‘Yes.’ Kwame is the sort who would. He had an interest in all the kids. I think about Ryan at fourteen. Under duress, we bought him his first mobile phone when he was eleven, replaced it with a smart phone for his fourteenth birthday. Then I spent months worrying about him watching porn on it, being bullied on Facebook or social media sites, talked about the permanence of everything that goes onto the Internet, that nothing should ever be sent to friends that he would not want to see hung up on display during whole-school assembly, especially pictures of his willy with some girl’s name wonkily written on it in felt tip (this last was a result of an article I’d read in the paper about young people texting photographs of intimate body parts to people they fancied). Maybe while we’d been having those discussions Tyson Manley’s brother was being gunned down, resuscitated, Ms. Manley was identifying her son’s body in the morgue, burying him, another statistic, just another young murdered black boy to add to the tally. One son dead and the other on trial facing life, another day, just another chapter in the dysfunctional life of this family. I watch her, straining my eyes in their sockets so I don’t have to noticeably turn my head, wanting to see whether she is moved, teary-eyed at this disclosure. The sunglasses make it difficult to gauge her feelings. They render her face as expressionless as her son’s.

Thus far Quigg has merely been setting the backdrop. Now she steers Kwame to that day, that terrible day that began so normally but by its end changed everything in my world, the day I am still trying to understand, that my husband can’t bring himself to face.

Training practice was normal. They finished at six precisely. He is confident of the exact time because he’s very strict about time-keeping, thinks punctuality is an important message to send to the kids he works with. Afterward, everyone went straight to the changing rooms except him. He hung around and had a discussion first with a new parent who was hoping to sign her son up for his sessions. He gave her times and prices, went to the changing room, chatted with the boys briefly as he collected his bags, then went back out to pack up his balls and equipment, get it all ready to take to the car.

Everyone seemed normal. There were no unusual tensions. The boys shouted goodbye to him as they were leaving the grounds, including Ryan. For the next ten minutes Kwame finished gathering his gear together, hoisted it all up, then started walking to his car.

The discussions of the lighting go on some time. It was mid-March. Sunset on that evening was at ten past six. There were no lights directly onto the football pitch, but light was cast from the lampposts along the pathway. The jury is directed to the detailed Sports Ground map where the lampposts can be seen along the borders of the path, twenty-five meters apart. As you head toward the high street, there is also lighting from the street. Here the road is well lit, the lampposts twenty meters apart, with additional lighting from cars and traffic and the shops and flats on the other side. It was not as bright as day, but visibility was good. Kwame is still on the path, nearing the exit, when he sees Ryan walking back along the path toward him. He’s eating chicken and chips. He appears relaxed, nothing untoward in his bearing. He tells Kwame he’s left his boots in the changing room. Kwame says he’ll wait for him, give him a lift home. Ryan says it’s fine, it’s only a five-minute walk; he’ll see him next week.

These are the moments, the minutiae of which has consumed me these last seven months, going around and around my mind till I thought I would be driven mad, the moments when normal things were done and casual words spoken, where microscopic alterations would have changed the direction of everything to come. If Kwame had been slower gathering his bags and balls and equipment, he would still have been at the murder site when Tyson Manley caught up to Ryan, he could have stopped him, and my son would still be alive. If Ryan had been as forgetful in the afternoon as he had been that morning, if he had not remembered the boots he’d left behind in the changing room, forgotten about them till he had PE at school two days later, or football practice the following week, by then he would probably have discovered they’d been nicked and I could have scolded him for being irresponsible while I bought him a brand-new pair and he promised to take better care of them, and he would still be alive. If Ryan had accepted the lift Kwame offered him, if Kwame had insisted despite Ryan’s refusal and taken him home, if it had been raining that day and training was cancelled, any of these, if any of these had happened, my son would still be alive.

Instead, as Ryan passed him, making for the changing room, and Kwame exited the park and turned left, headed toward his car, he saw a figure wearing a brown sweat top monogrammed in gold, and the lights from the other side of the road that would have illuminated the back of the hood, simultaneously cast a shadow over the wearer’s face, obscuring it. The person crossed the road at a diagonal angle that landed him on the pavement Kwame had just walked along, so he was now behind him. Kwame looked back. Despite not being able to see the 38

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person’s face, he knew it was Tyson Manley.

Quigg directs the jury to bundle number two and a photograph of Tyson Manley in a brown top monogrammed in gold, lifted from his Facebook page, posted at the end of February, almost three weeks before Ryan was murdered. She asks him to confirm if this was the top the person was wearing, and Kwame says “yes.” In the picture he is with a group of four other boys whose faces have been blurred out for today’s purposes, posing like gangster rappers in a forceful expression of teenage masculinity. It is the kind of photograph I have seen in the newspapers when some young person has died and there is an implication that either the victim or the perpetrator were involved in gangs. I scan the faces of the jury as they look at the image, can feel at least three of them, including the elderly black guy, mentally concluding that Tyson Manley is a gang member, but I don’t buy it myself, not on the evidence of one photo. My Ryan was at an age where he was always trying to look cool in photos, desperate to get rid of those he didn’t think depicted him as the man he wanted to be seen as by the world.

Those same jury members would probably be thinking gang if they saw a photo of my son with Luke and Ricardo. It’s not that I reject the notion of Tyson Manley being a gang member, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was, just that even I, and I have every reason to think badly of him, even I can see the image being perpetuated here, and I’m uncomfortable with it.

Quigg points out that there are probably hundreds of young men in London who own that exact top, asks, ‘Without seeing his face, how could you be sure that the person you saw was the defendant?’

Kwame answers, ‘Everything. The height, the build, the way he walked . . .…’

‘What was it about the way he walked that identified him?’

‘He always walked really fast and had a kinda bounce. Lots of the young guys bounce when they walk, but his was very pronounced.’

‘Could you have been mistaken? Could it have been anyone other than Mr. Manley?’

‘It was Tyson. I could have identified him anywhere, as long as he was moving.’

‘Did you see where he went after he passed you?’

‘Into the Sports Ground. I looked back after he had passed, saw him go into the Sports Ground.’

‘Then you continued to your car?’

‘Yes.’ ‘Put all of your equipment into the boot?’

‘Yes.’ ‘Closed it?’

‘Yes.’ ‘Got into the driver’s seat?’

‘Yes.’ ‘But you did not drive off?’

‘No.’ ‘Would you please tell the court why you did not drive off?’

‘It’s hard to explain.…’

‘Please try.’

‘I just had a funny feeling. I knew it was Tyson and he must’ve seen me. It was weird that he didn’t say ‘yow,’ wasn’t like we’d had a fallout or anything. In fact it kinda seemed like he’d avoided me, deliberately kept his head down so I couldn’t see his face. He was walking really fast, even for him, kinda hyped. I don’t know, it was all a bit weird and I knew Ryan was still at the Sports Ground on his own. The whole thing just gave me a bad vibe.’

‘So you got out of the car and went back?’

‘Yes.’ ‘Did you run?’

He pauses then answers, shaking his head, ‘No.’ ‘You walked?’

‘Yes.’ ‘And what happened next?’ *** 39

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Fragmento del Capítulo 2

Translated from English into Spanish by Jorge del Caño, Sara Carmona and Marina Lucena Kwame Johnson tiene cuarenta y dos años y lleva entrenando al equipo de fútbol de Ryan desde que Ryan comenzó a jugar con regularidad a los ocho años. A Ryan siempre le gustó y respetó, y por lo tanto, a mí también. La mayoría de los chicos que entrena son afrocaribeños y es duro con ellos, repartiendo castigos por impuntualidad, chulería o juego sucio, equilibrando este enfoque de tolerancia cero con un sentido del humor divertidísimo. Todos los chicos le tratan de “señor” y su relación con ellos es genial.

La primera vez que vi a Kwame vestido con algo que no fuera un chándal fue en el funeral de Ryan. Aquel día, aquellos horribles días, se fundieron en mi mente en una nube de Valium, pero recuerdo mi asombro, más tarde, en el velatorio, cuando me di cuenta de que no eran las drogas las que hacían que Kwame pareciera tan diferente, sino el hecho de que era la primera vez que le veía vestido formalmente. Me acuerdo de ese día cuando le veo de pie en el estrado, vestido de traje. Para variar, con una coleta de rastas que le llega hasta mitad de espalda, es lo único que me resulta normal en él. Ojea del tribunal absorbiendo todo. Su expresión es solemne.

Quigg está como pez en el agua. Rebosa naturalidad, tiene todo bajo control. Kwame habla sobre su edad y profesión, que ha sido entrenador durante casi diecinueve años y que, además del entrenamiento que hace por las tardes en el Campo Deportivo, trabaja con niños marginados en escuelas especiales y unidades de apoyo para alumnos. De hecho, fue en una unidad de apoyo de alumnos hace dos años cuando conoció por primera vez al acusado. Yo no estaba al tanto de eso. Nunca me había parado a pensar en cómo Kwame conoció a Tyson Manley, pero si lo hubiera pensado, una unidad de apoyo de alumnos habría sido exactamente donde hubiera imaginado que sus caminos se habían cruzado originalmente. Kwame entrenó a su equipo una vez por semana, sin incluir festivos, durante seis meses hasta hace un año.

—Y cuando usted dejó de entrenarlo, ¿fue porque su contrato como entrenador llegó a su fin?

—No. —¿Seguía entrenando a otros jóvenes en la misma unidad de apoyo de alumnos?

—Sí.

—Por favor, ¿podría decirnos por qué dejó de entrenarle?

Siento como Lorna me da un codazo cuando una mujer se dirige hacia un asiento al final de nuestra fila. Era la Sra. Manley, que finalmente se presentó para apoyar a su hijo. La había visto antes en las audiencias cuando su hijo fue acusado y su fianza fue denegada, pero nunca había hablado con ella. Llega tarde a la sesión de la tarde, sola y con gafas de sol a lo celebrity. Se sienta y pone su bolso de diseño en el asiento de al lado, se quita la bufanda y el abrigo, los dobla y los pone sobre el bolso. Puedo oler su perfume desde mi sitio. Estoy segura de que todo el mundo en la sala también puede.

Kwame dice: —Tyson dejó de venir. Su asistencia siempre había sido un poco regulera, al final como que desapareció.

Tyson Manley mira a su madre, le da la más breve de las sonrisas, vuelve a su estado normal de inexpresividad, continúa mirando a Kwame en el estrado. Se podría pensar que no era consciente de todo lo que estaba pasando a su alrededor. El reconocimiento de su madre es el primer indicio que me demuestra que sí se daba cuenta.

Quigg pregunta: —¿Diría que durante el tiempo que entrenó al Sr. Manley llegó a conocerle bien?

—Supongo que sí.

—Sr. Johnson, ¿recuerda haber hecho una declaración a la policía el 19 de marzo, la mañana siguiente al asesinato de Ryan Williams?

Kwame asiente con la cabeza.

—Por favor, responda en voz alta.

Se aclara la garganta, —Sí.

—En esa declaración dijo que trató de fortalecer la relación con el acusado por las circunstancias de su familia.

—Sí.

—¿Por favor, podría decirle al tribunal cuáles eran estas ciscunstancias?

—Conocía a su hermano, el mayor, Vito. Le mataron, le pegaron un tiro delante de su familia hace dos, tres años. Después de aquello, Tyson comenzó a meterse en líos y parecía incapaz de salir de ellos. Supongo que quería ayudarle.

—Gracias. ¿Sería justo sugerir que usted tenía un interés especial en el acusado?

—Sí.

Kwame es el tipo de persona que lo tendría. Tenía cierto interés en todos los niños. Recuerdo cuando Ryan tenía catorce años. A 40

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regañadientes, le compramos su primer móvil cuando tenía once años, luego lo sustituimos por un Smart Phone en su catorce cumpleaños.

Luego me pasé meses preocupándome porque lo utilizara para ver porno, por si estaba siendo víctima de acoso en Facebook u otras redes sociales, le advertí sobre la duración de todo lo que va a internet, que no debía enviar nada que no quisiera que apareciera colgado en el tablón durante la Asamblea Escolar, sobre todo si son imágenes de su pito con el nombre de alguna chica escrito con rotulador (esto último surgió a raíz de un artículo que leí en una revista sobre jóvenes enviándoles fotografías de sus partes íntimas a las personas que les gustaban). Puede que mientras estábamos teniendo estas charlas, el hermano de Tyson Manley hubiera sido disparado, resucitado, la señora Manley habría identificado el cuerpo de su hijo en la Morgue y le habría enterrado, otra estadística, simplemente otro chico negro asesinado que añadir al recuento. Un hijo muerto y el otro enfrentándose a la vida en un juicio, otro día, un capítulo más en la problemática vida de esta familia. La miro, fijándome en sus cuencas para no girar la cabeza descaradamente, queriendo comprobar si está conmovida, con los ojos llorosos por este acontecimiento. Con las gafas de sol es más difícil determinar su estado de ánimo. Hacen que su rostro fuera tan inexpresivo como el de su hijo.

Hasta ahora, Quigg solo había hablado de generalidades. Ahora dirige a Kwame a ese día, aquel horrible día que empezó normal pero que al final cambió todo mi mundo, día que aún intento procesar, día que mi marido no puede superar.

El entrenamiento fue normal. Terminaron a las seis en punto. Está seguro de que la hora era exacta porque es muy exigente con la puntualidad y piensa que es un mensaje importante que trasmitir a los niños con los que trabaja. Después todo el mundo fue directo a los vestuarios menos él. Se quedó dando vueltas y tuvo una conversación con un padre nuevo que quería apuntar a su hijo a sus clases. Le dijo los horarios y las tarifas, fue al vestuario, charló un poco con los chicos mientras que recogía sus mochilas, luego volvió para empaquetar los balones y el material y tenerlo todo listo para meterlo en el coche.

Todo el mundo parecía normal. No había tensiones extrañas. Los chicos se despidieron de él mientras se iban del campo, incluido Ryan.

Los siguientes diez minutos, Kwame terminó de recoger sus cosas, las cogió y comenzó a andar hacia su coche.

Las discusiones sobre la iluminación continuaban de vez en cuando. Estábamos a mediados de marzo. Para entonces anochecía a las seis y diez. No había luces justo en el campo de futbol, pero las farolas que estaban en la acera lo iluminaban. El jurado lo detalla en el mapa del campo deportivo, donde las farolas pueden verse a lo largo del camino, a veinticinco metros de distancia. A medida que te diriges a la avenida principal, también llega iluminación desde la calle. Por aquí la calzada está bien iluminada, con las farolas colocadas a veinte metros, y además con las luces que proporcionan los coches y el tráfico y las tiendas y pisos desde el otro lado. No se está tan claro como el día pero hay buena visibilidad. Kwame seguía en la pista, cerca de la salida, cuando vio a Ryan caminando hacia él. Estaba comiendo pollo con patatas. Parecía tranquilo, nada raro en su comportamiento. Le dijo a Kwame que había olvidado sus botas en el vestuario. Kwame dijo que le esperaría para llevarle a casa. Ryan dijo que no se preocupara, solo estaba a cinco minutos caminando; le vería la semana que viene.

Estos fueron los momentos cuyas minucias me han consumido en los últimos siete meses, dando vueltas y vueltas en mi mente hasta un punto en el que creía que me iba a volver loca, el tiempo en que se hacían cosas normales y se hablaba de cosas normales, donde estos pequeños cambios habrían alterado el curso de lo que quedaba por venir. Si Kwame hubiera tardado más en recoger sus mochilas, los balones y el equipo, habría estado en el lugar del asesinato cuando Tyson Manley fue a por Ryan, podría haberle parado, y mi hijo aún seguiría vivo. Si Ryan hubiera sido tan olvidadizo aquella tarde como lo fue por la mañana, si no se hubiera acordado de que se le olvidaron las botas en el vestuario, si se hubiera olvidado de ellas hasta que tuviera Educación Física en la escuela dos días después, o entrenamiento de futbol a la semana siguiente, para entonces probablemente se encontraría con que se las habían robado y yo podría haberle echado la bronca por ser tan irresponsable mientras le compraba un nuevo par y mientras él me prometía que las cuidaría mejor, y seguiría vivo. Si Ryan hubiera dejado que Kwame le llevara a casa, si hubiera llovido ese día y el entrenamiento hubiera sido suspendido, si alguna de estas cosas hubiera ocurrido, cualquiera, mi hijo aún seguiría vivo.

En cambio, cuando Ryan pasó delante de él de camino al vestuario, y Kwame salió de la pista y giró a la izquierda dirigiéndose hacia su coche, vio una figura que llevaba puesta una sudadera con letras doradas, y las luces del otro lado de la calle que habrían iluminado la capucha, simultáneamente emitieron una sombra sobre el rostro de quién la llevaba puesta, ocultándolo. El individuo cruzó la calle en dirección diagonal quedando en la acera que Kwame había recorrido, así que ahora se encontraba detrás de él. Kwame se giró. A pesar de no poder ver la cara de aquella persona, sabía que era Tyson Manley.

Quigg dirige al jurado la prueba número dos y una foto de Tyson Manley en la que lleva puesta una sudadera con letras doradas, cogida de su cuenta de Facebook, que fue subida a finales de Febrero, casi tres semanas antes de que Ryan fuera asesinado. Pregunta a Kwame si esta era la sudadera que aquella persona llevaba puesta, y contesta que sí. En la imagen aparece con un grupo de otros cuatro chicos cuyas caras habían sido pixeladas para poder ser usada hoy, posaban como raperos malotes con una expresión forzada de masculinidad adolescente. Este 41

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es el tipo de fotografía que se ve en los periódicos cuando algún joven muere y, ya sea la víctima o el autor del crimen, están involucrados en bandas. Examiné la cara de los miembros del jurado mientras observaban la imagen y pude intuir que al menos tres de ellos, incluyendo al anciano negro, llegaron a la conclusión en su mente de que Tyson Manley era miembro de una banda, pero no me lo trago, no es suficiente con una simple foto. Mi Ryan estaba en la edad de intentar parecer siempre guay en las fotos, intentando desesperadamente deshacerse de los que pensaba que no le plasmaban como el hombre que quería parecer ante el mundo. Aquellos mismos miembros del jurado posiblemente también pensarían que mi hijo pertenecía a una banda si vieran una foto suya con Luke y Ricardo. No es que rechace la hipótesis de que Tyson Manley sea el miembro de una banda, no me sorprendería si lo fuera, es solo que incluso yo, teniendo todas las razones del mundo para pensar mal de él, puedo ver cómo se está perpetuando esta la imagen aquí, y me resulta incómodo.

Quigg señala que probablemente haya cientos de chavales en Londres que tengan exactamente la misma sudadera, y pregunta, —Sin siquiera haber visto su cara, ¿cómo puede usted estar seguro de que la persona que vio era el acusado?

Kwame contesta: —Por todo. Por la altura, la constitución, la forma de caminar…

—¿Y de qué manera caminaba para que pudiera identificarle?

—Siempre andaba muy rápido e iba dando brincos. Muchos jóvenes van dando brincos cuando caminan, pero los suyos eran muy pronunciados.

—¿Podría haberse confundido? ¿Podría haber sido cualquier otra persona que no fuera el Sr. Manley?

—Era Tyson. Podía haberle reconocido en cualquier lugar si se estuviera moviendo.

—¿Vio usted dónde fue después de que le adelantara?

—Al Campo Deportivo. Me di la vuelta después de que me adelantara, y le vi entrar al Campo Deportivo.

—¿Entonces siguió andando hacia su coche?

—Sí.

—¿Y metió todo el material en el maletero?

—Sí.

—¿Lo cerró?

—Sí.

—¿Se montó en el asiento del conductor?

—Sí.

—¿Pero no se fue, no?

—No. —Por favor, ¿podría decirle al tribunal por qué no se marchó?

—Es difícil de explicar…

—Inténtelo, por favor.

—Tenía un mal presentimiento. Sabía que era Tyson y que debía haberme visto. Me pareció raro que no me dijera “hey”, ni que nos hubiéramos peleado o algo. De hecho, parecía como si me estuviera evitando, agachó su cabeza a propósito para que no pudiera verle la cara.

Estaba caminando bastante rápido, incluso para él, un poco exagerado. No sé, todo era un poco raro y sabía que Ryan seguía sólo en el Campo Deportivo. Todo aquello me dio mala espina.

—¿Entonces salió de coche y volvió?

—Sí.

—¿Fue corriendo?

Hace una pausa, entonces responde, moviendo la cabeza: —No. —¿Fue andando?

—Sí.

—¿Y qué pasó después?

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Colin Grant ‘Lino’ is an extract from Bageye at the Wheel: To his fellow West Indians who assemble every weekend for the all-night poker game at Mrs Knight’s, he is always known as Bageye. There aren’t very many black men in Luton in 1972 and most of them gather at Mrs Knight’s - Summer Wear, Pioneer, Anxious, Tidy Boots - each has his nickname. Bageye already finds it a struggle to feed his family on his wage from Vauxhall Motors, but now his wife Blossom has set her heart on her sons going to private school and she will not settle for anything less. This is the story of a feckless father seen through the eyes of his ten-year-old son. It’s a wry and gently comedy about unfulfilling day jobs and late-night poker games, of illegal mini-cabs and small-scale drug-dealing. And it is also about a family struggling to belong and a vivid tale of growing up in a vanished world of 1970s suburbia.

Lino From as far back as I can remember, my father, Bageye had always promised to make a start on his least favourite pastime: home improvements. The moment never arrived but he must have regretted having made the assurance because thereafter my mum, Blossom pressed him on the need – painful as it was – to begin by buying a piece of lino for the back room.

Bageye woke irritably in the morning to yet another strong reminder that this was the day. ‘Not even have breakfast and you start already,’ said Bageye. He rifled angrily through a kitchen drawer, picked up a knife and began to peel an orange, as his wife laid before him the unarguable fact that the pickney were going to get sick from sitting on the cold floor from morning till night. Bageye concentrated on the orange until all the skin was removed and the unbroken kiss curl of peel dropped into the bin. Mum tried again. ‘You never hear? Is you same one promise.’ Bageye didn’t blink. He cut the top off the orange. Only when he’d munched his way through the entire orange did I see, through the crack in the door, that he was heading towards us.

Everyone assumed innocent positions on the floor or settee as his head came round the door. His eyes fell on the cracked and degraded lino. He scanned the room for culprits, and half muttered to himself and half declaimed: ‘Not even six months and dem mash up the t’ing so?

He shouted: ‘Carry on! You pickney gonna bury me and you will bawl when them screw down the coffin lid.’ He cast his sad bag-eyes over his offspring and singled out me to keep him company on the journey that he was suddenly determined to make. He turned to those who’d be left behind: ‘And nah bother long down your mout.’ Bageye mistook the sour faces of my siblings for disappointment when really their expressions were designed to put him off choosing them. My father favoured me, because, as he often declared to the others, even though I was only ten: ‘The boy is a common-sense man.’

I was told to run a comb over my head and put some shine on my shoes, quick time. Bageye, meanwhile, adjusted his paisley scarf – he wore it like an English gentleman – and put on his corduroy cap, telling anyone who cared to listen: ‘When you don’t see me I’m gone.’ You had to admit the man had style. Of course, we never addressed our father as Bageye. That was a pet name given him by the fellas. The legend was obscure to us. Only years later did I make the connection with a harmless condition doctors call ‘subcutaneous oedema’. Once the bags first appeared under his eyes as a young galley boy at sea, it wasn’t long before some wag had christened him ‘Bageye’. And the name stuck. It wasn’t exactly a term of abuse yet it wasn’t an affectionate name either. But then everyone had to have a name. Bageye’s was probably on a par with ‘Pumpkin Head’ and ‘Anxious’.

Outside, Bageye ran the chamois leather over the roof of the car before he got in, slipping behind the wheel. He turned to inspect how I intended to close the passenger-side door. It was only a second-hand Mini estate, but Bageye didn’t work all that overtime at Vauxhall Motors just so that us pickney could slam off the door. His scrutiny posed a dilemma because if you pulled the door too gently then it wouldn’t close properly. And, bwoy, as far as my father was concerned if you hadn’t managed on the second go then it was best to pretend that you had. ‘Let we check by Bernard first,’ said Bageye. It was what he always said when anything, any appliance or piece of furniture, needed to be replaced.

Bernard was always the first stop even though he vexed my father’s spirit. Bernard’s bargain store was crammed to the rafters with second-hand treasures. It required some determination to squeeze through the heavily fortified front door to scrutinise the many items salvaged from house clearances and pawned items that were never likely to be redeemed. A man with a more subtle mind might have felt mocked by the electric fires, rugs, pots and array of unwanted goods that had taken up permanent residence in Bernard’s bargain store. Not Bernard. He puffed out his chest with all the proprietorial pride of the owner of an upmarket boutique. But Bageye knew that ‘is pure junk 43

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inside. Is t’ief, Bernard t’ief, and one day them gonna burn down him kiss-me-arse shop.’ There was no way, of course, that we could go straight to Bernard’s. Bageye would have to check by a few of his friends first along the way.

A few minutes into the journey, Bageye wanted to know how his son felt about a piece of carpet instead of the lino. ‘Man to man, I’m asking you.’ ‘Carpet would be nice but . . .’ I felt my way to what should have been the right answer: ‘. . . lino or carpet, us kids will mash it up the same way.’ It was a good response. ‘You see your mother? Credit! Never know a woman love credit so.’ He eased back on the accelerator, the better to take the subject in his stride. ‘A man must pay his bills before he can allow himself the smallest luxury.’ It was no surprise then that we seemed to be heading in the direction of Joe Burns’s.

While most of my father’s friends, like him, were lean and tidily built, Joe Burns had arms that bulged like Popeye’s after a can of spinach. He had taken a Charles Atlas course and turned out magnificently. But more than his athleticism, it was his generosity that impressed our mother and us kids; only Bageye demurred. Bageye was still smarting from heroic Joe’s latest unwelcome intervention into our lives, dropping off a free bag of corn on the cob at the house a few nights back, when Bageye was on the night shift. The way Bageye saw it, he didn’t ever remember asking Joe to bring that stinking sack of corn on the cob to the house in the first place. Though Joe said it was a gift, Bageye shuddered at the shame of his wife letting Joe leave empty-handed. ‘Imagine that! How you feel that make me look?’ moaned my father. ‘A long-seed man like me cyann’ provide food on the table for his pickney?’ At this point Bageye demanded to know exactly what my mother had had to say on the matter. I calculated that my mother wouldn’t blame me for what I was about to admit. That as far as she was concerned, she didn’t understand why, when Bageye had so many pickney hungry, with their shoe-backs breaking down, why he, Bageye, would no doubt end up giving money to Joe Burns, and, worse still, more than Joe had paid for the offending corn on the cob in the first instance. Bageye pushed down hard on the brakes and stopped the car. ‘Listen, bwoy, when it comes down to it, remember this. Death before dishonour.’

Life was too sweet for Joe Burns. He had the kind of noble face that looked as though it had been chiselled out of a mountain; and wavy hair that was all his own, no chemicals applied. Joe was popular with women. ‘Him a sweet bwoy,’ they said. His ways were a regular topic of conversation for my father and his spars. It was a risk, but I decided to venture on a little conversation with Bageye, spicing my comments with some of the things I had heard the big men say. What puzzled me about Joe Burns, I said to my father, was which of the two women Joe lived with was his wife. ‘Plenty man would like be in Joe position,’ is all Bageye would say on the matter.

Joe and his women lived in one of those houses where you went from street to front room in one step. Except, on this day, there were so many sacks in the front room that we could hardly squeeze in. Each room in the house was full of hemp sacks brimming with corn on the cob, and the smell announced that they were just beginning to turn. Joe was a wheeler-dealer; he was a man who always knew a man who knew a man. Only one man liked to take chances more than Joe and that was Bageye. And when the time came to leave Joe’s, I knew that even though we already had enough corn to last us a month, we’d not be leaving empty-handed. Somehow Bageye seemed able to see my mother’s disbelief anticipated in my own face.‘Mek her stay there cuss her bad word,’ Bageye said of his wife. ‘I know a man, one of my spars, might can do something with this.’

The business with Joe Burns was a bad sign. Bageye was in the mood now of the repentant gambler, suddenly struck by the ennobling idea of settling his debts. We pulled up outside the Indian tobacco shop. Mr Maghar was actually from Uganda. But it didn’t matter that each morning as a boy Mr Maghar had risen at 5 o’clock to feed the goats on the hills of Juba, he was still a clever Bombay Indian who’d sell a man one shoe, as far as my father was concerned. But Bageye was also a practical man and if he had to ask for credit from a tobacconist, it might as well be from the ‘Cha-cha’ man close to home. For the last week I’d been going to pick up Bageye’s Embassy Number 1 and a box of matches.

As the week progressed, I’d also taken to bringing back a little something for myself as a reward. The one bar of Cadbury’s chocolate – just this once – had become a daily routine. Before leaving me in the car, Bageye warned me, as he always did, not to touch anything. I nodded, but I wasn’t really listening. My mind was fixed on the image of my father in conversation with Maghar, unsuspecting of the size of the bill he was about to receive. I forced myself not to look out of the car window but had no control over ears that strained to hear him returning, trying to work out the menace, the degree of violence in his footsteps. And it was with some relief that I heard the driver’s-side door open, followed by an unexpected silence. Bageye took an Embassy Number 1 and pressed in the cigarette lighter on the dashboard. While he waited for it to heat up an idea seemed to come to him. When the lighter pinged he held it up. ‘If you want sweet, why didn’t you come to me and ask?’

Bageye spoke suddenly but quietly. ‘Wha’appen? You don’t have tongue in your head?’ The truth was I was wrong-footed when confronted by gentleness and disappointment. ‘“Didn’t the boy ask your permission?”’ Bageye mimicked Mr Maghar. ‘Bet it wasn’t even that many chocolate.

Expec’ one or two extra bar found dem way onto the list, right? Clever Mr Indian think he can use his brains ’pon me. Mek Maghar stay there lick him chops. Is finish, I finish with him tonight.’ Tomorrow, Bageye would change his tune. Tomorrow I would have to run and fetch ten Embassy Number 1. But tomorrow, from Mr Maghar, I also knew, there would be no fantastic tales of herding sheep on the hills of Juba.

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Bageye counted what was left of the money. Already the notes were few and starting to look grubby. ‘Even if I’m down to my last penny, that floor gone cover tonight!’ Bageye stressed a little too earnestly. ‘But bwoy, we take a knock with this sweet business, might have to make do with the lino after all.’ He counted out £30 and asked me to hold out my hand. ‘Squeeze tight. It the lino money. Blood money.’ But if I concluded that we must now be heading to Bernard’s, I needed to think again, because Bageye first had to run by Anxious so the two of them could share a smoke. My father liked to smoke in company but he shared a cigarette the way he shared a joke: it was mostly for his own pleasure. Superkings held much more tobacco than a normal cigarette, and if Bageye could break one up, unpack it into a Rizla, add a little something to make it sweet, roll it again, then he could make it last a whole heap of time.

Though I’d heard Mum describe him as ‘misery who likes company’, Anxious lived alone. Anxious admired the cigarette as he dragged on the last draw, and I got up on cue ready to leave. ‘Settle back into your seat, man,’Bageye said languidly, ‘the day long.’ And winking at me, added: ‘Let me have ten from that t’ing I give you.’ I handed over £10 from the £30 left in my charge.

Anxious laid a palm on my head. ‘So, you is Bageye son?’ There was something improper, taunting, in the way he said it. ‘Want something to eat?’ It sounded like a threat. Anxious had only a vague memory of how to cook. Bageye lifted the lid on the pot and looked in scornfully.

‘What this t’ing need is a little somet’ing spice it up.’ ‘You don’t see the cupboard empty, Bageye?’ ‘You don’t have no sweetcorn?’ asked my father. ‘No sweetcorn, no yam and cassava, no callaloo, no nothing.’ Bageye opened up a succession of bare cupboards filled only with crystallised cobwebs. ‘I cyann’ make no promise but there’s a chance . . .’ He broke off and checked his watch. ‘Have to move quick time. What you say, Anxious? I know a man, one of my spars, can throw three or four sack of sweetcorn your way.’ Anxious drew back his head the better to suggest surprise. ‘Three or four sack!’ ‘We not dealing with loose change here, you dig?’ said Bageye. ‘You don’t have to eat the whole t’ing.

Tek what you need and sell it on, simple so.’ Anxious ran a fat furry tongue slowly along the cigarette paper. ‘What am I going to do with three or four sack of sweetcorn? Not even one or two but three or four?’ ‘One or two then,’ said Bageye. And with that Bageye swept me out of the chair towards the front door. Anxious shouted after us: ‘That sweetcorn better be sweet, you hear, Bageye.’

No matter which way he turned on the route back to Joe Burns’s, my father had to drive past Bernard’s. He braked sharply outside the junk shop. We sat in silence as Bageye turned over the unwelcome thought that my presence had forced upon him.’ A bell rang as we stepped inside. We pushed past all the junk at the front of the shop to all the junk at the back. ***

Linóleo

Translated from English into Spanish by Andrea Lorenzo, Alicia Martínez and Ana Sánchez Hasta donde alcanza mi memoria, mi padre, Bageye había prometido empezar con el pasatiempo que menos le gustaba: el bricolaje. El momento nunca llegaba, pero probablemente se arrepentía de haberse comprometido pues, a partir de entonces, mi madre, Blossom, le insistía en la necesidad, por muy penosa que fuera, de empezar por comprar una lámina de linóleo para la habitación trasera.

Aquella mañana, Bageye se despertó irritable, para encontrarse con otro persistente recordatorio de que aquel era el día.

—¡Ni siquiera he desayunado y ya empiezas otra vez! —se quejó Bageye.

Rebuscó airadamente en un cajón de la cocina, cogió un cuchillo y comenzó a pelar una naranja, mientras su mujer le exponía el indiscutible hecho de que sus pickney* iban a enfermar por estar sentados en el suelo frío día y noche. Bageye estaba concentrado en su naranja hasta que le quitó toda la cáscara y un rizo intacto de mondadura cayó a la basura. Mamá lo intentó de nuevo: —¿Tú nunca escuchas? Es siempre la misma promesa.

Bageye ni se inmutó. Cortó la parte superior de la naranja. Una vez que la hubo devorado pude ver, a través de la rendija de la puerta, que se dirigía hacia nosotros.

Todos adoptamos posturas inocentes en el suelo o en el sofá a medida que su cabeza se asomaba por la puerta. Posó su mirada en el linóleo agrietado y desgastado. Escudriñó la habitación en busca de culpables y, medio murmurando para sí mismo, medio proclamando, dijo: —¿Ni siquiera han pasado seis meses y ya habéis destrozado tanto la cosa esta? —gritó— ¡Venga! Vosotros, mocosos, un día de estos me vais a tener que enterrar y llorareis cuando atornillen la tapa del ataúd.

Fijó sus ojos tristes con ojeras en sus hijos y me escogió para hacerle compañía en el viaje que, de repente, se había propuesto hacer. Se *Crios

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volvió hacia los que íbamos a dejar atrás: —Y quitad esas caras largas.

Bageye creyó ver decepción en las expresiones amargadas de mis hermanos cuando en realidad estaban destinadas a tratar de disuadirle para no ser elegidos. Yo era el preferido de mi padre ya que, como con frecuencia les explicaba a los demás, aunque yo solo tuviese diez años, «el chico es un hombre con sentido común».

Me dijo que me peinase y sacase brillo a mis zapatos, pero rapidito. Mientras tanto, Bageye, se ajustó su bufanda de cachemira, que llevaba como un auténtico caballero inglés, y se puso su gorra de pana, diciéndole a todo aquel que quisiese escuchar: —Cuando no me veáis, es que me he ido.

Había que admitir que el hombre tenía estilo. Obviamente, jamás nos dirigíamos a nuestro padre como Bageye. Así era como le habían apodado sus colegas. Nosotros desconocíamos la leyenda. Solo años más tarde me di cuenta de la relación que existía con la afección inofensiva que los médicos llamaban «edema subcutáneo». Una vez que aparecieron las bolsas bajo sus ojos cuando trabajaba en la cocina de un barco, no pasó mucho tiempo hasta que algún gracioso le bautizase como Bageye («el Ojeras»). Y el apodo se mantuvo. No se trataba exactamente de un insulto, pero tampoco era cariñoso. No obstante, todo el mundo tenía que tener un mote. Bageye probablemente se encontraba a la par de Pumpkin Head («Cabeza de calabaza») y Anxious («el Ansioso»).

Fuera, Bageye le pasó una gamuza al techo del coche antes de meterse, antes de deslizarse detrás del volante. Se giró para comprobar como pretendía cerrar la puerta del copiloto. Era tan solo un Mini familiar de segunda mano, sin embargo, Bageye no trabajaba todas esas horas extras en Vauxhall Motors para que uno de sus pickney cerrase de un portazo. Su escrutinio suponía un problema porque, si tirabas de la puerta con demasiada delicadeza, no se cerraba del todo. Y, bwoy*, en lo que a mi padre respectaba, si no lo habías conseguido al segundo intento, era mejor fingir que sí.

—Vamos a pasarnos primero a ver a Bernard—dijo.

Era lo que siempre decía cuando necesitaba reemplazar cualquier cosa, cualquier electrodoméstico o mueble.

Bernard era siempre la primera parada incluso aunque sacara de quicio a mi padre. La tienda de gangas de Bernard estaba abarrotada de tesoros de segunda mano. Requería cierta decisión colarse por aquella puerta reforzada para inspeccionar todos aquellos artículos rescatados durante las limpiezas a fondo de algunas casas y objetos empeñados con pocas probabilidades de que alguien volviese a recuperarlos. Un hombre más perspicaz podría haberse sentido ridiculizado por los calefactores, alfombras, cacharros y una serie de artículos indeseados que se habían instalado de forma permanente en la tienda de gangas de Bernard. Bernard no era ese hombre. Él sacaba pecho con orgullo como si se tratase de un dueño de una elegante boutique. Pero Bageye sabía que “lo que hay dentro es una auténtica porquería. Es un timador, Bernard es un timador, y algún día le van a quemar su tienda de mierda”. Obviamente, no había manera de que pudiésemos ir directos a donde Bernard. Bageye tenía primero que pasarse a ver a unos cuantos amigos por el camino.

Tras unos minutos de trayecto, Bageye quiso saber qué opinaba su hijo sobre poner moqueta en vez de linóleo.

—Dime, qué piensas, de hombre a hombre —La maqueta estaría bien, pero… —traté de encontrar la respuesta adecuada— …Linóleo o moqueta, da igual, nosotros los críos vamos a destrozarlo de todas formas. Era una buena contestación.

—¿Ves a tu madre? ¡Préstamos! Nunca he conocido a una mujer a la que le gustasen tanto los préstamos —soltó el acelerador, para tomarse el tema con calma—. Un hombre debe pagar sus facturas antes de poder permitirse el más mínimo lujo.

No me sorprendió que nos dirigiésemos a donde Joe Burns. Mientras que la mayoría de los amigos de mi padre, como él mismo, eran esbeltos y de bien formados, los brazos de Joe Burns eran tan abultados como los de Popeye después de comer una lata de espinacas. Había hecho un curso del culturista Charles Atlas y el resultado había sido magnífico. Pero más que su físico, era su generosidad lo que impresionaba a nuestra madre, a mis hermanos y a mí; solo Bageye ponía reparos. Bageye todavía estaba resentido por la última y mal recibida intervención en nuestras vidas del heroico Joe: dejar una bolsa de mazorcas de maíz gratis en casa hacía unas cuantas noches, cuando Bageye tenía el turno de noche. La manera en la que Bageye lo vio era que ni siquiera recordaba haberle pedido a Joe que trajera ese apestoso saco de mazorcas a casa, para empezar. Aunque Joe dijo que era un regalo, Bageye se estremeció de vergüenza, puesto que su mujer permitió que Joe se marchara con las manos vacías.

—¡Imagínatelo! ¿Cómo crees que me hizo quedar? —se quejó mi padre—¿Qué pasa? ¿Que un hombre como yo, con tantos hijos, no pueda traer comida a la mesa?

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lo que estaba a punto de confesar. Que, en lo que a ella respectaba, no entendía por qué, teniendo tantos pickney hambrientos, con los zapatos cayéndose a cachos, él, Bageye, no dudaría en terminar por darle dinero a Joe Burns y, peor aún, más de lo que Joe había pagado inicialmente por las mazorcas de maíz causantes del conflicto. Bageye pisó a fondo el freno y detuvo el coche. —Escucha, chico, cuando llegue el momento, recuerda esto: la muerte antes que la deshonra.

La vida trataba demasiado bien a Joe Burns. Tenía el tipo de rostro noble, que parecía esculpido de una montaña; y pelo ondulado completamente natural, sin necesidad de ningún producto químico. Joe era popular entre las mujeres.

—Es un encanto de chico—decían.

Sus costumbres eran un tema de conversación recurrente entre mi padre y sus colegas. Era arriesgado, pero decidí aventurarme en una pequeña charla con Bageye, adornando mis comentarios con algunas cosas que había oído decir a los mayores. Lo que me desconcertaba sobre Burns, le dije a mi padre, era cuál de las dos mujeres con las que vivía era su esposa.

—A muchos hombres les gustaría estar en la situación de Joe. —fue todo lo que Bageye tuvo que decir al respecto.

Joe y sus mujeres vivían en una de esas casas donde podías ir de la calle al salón en un solo paso. Salvo que, aquel día, había tantos sacos en el salón que era casi imposible colarse dentro. Cada habitación de la casa estaba llena de sacos de cáñamo rebosantes de mazorcas de maíz, y el olor anunciaba que estaban empezando a estropearse. Joe era un embaucador; era la clase de tipo que siempre conocía a alguien que conocía a otro alguien. Solo había un hombre al que le gustase más correr riesgos que a Joe, y ese era Bageye. Y cuando llegó el momento de irse de allí, supe que, aunque ya teníamos suficiente maíz para un mes, no nos íbamos a ir con las manos vacías. De alguna manera Bageye parecía capaz de ver la cara de incredulidad de mi madre reflejada en mi propio rostro: —Déjala que maldiga —dijo Bageye sobre su mujer— conozco a un tipo, uno de mis colegas, que puede hacer algo.

El asunto con Joe era una mala señal. Bageye estaba en modo jugador arrepentido, repentinamente asaltado por la ennoblecedora idea de saldar sus deudas. Nos detuvimos fuera del estanco indio. El señor Maghar era en realidad de Uganda. No importaba que cada mañana de niño el señor Maghar se hubiese levantado a las cinco en punto para dar de comer a las cabras en las colinas de Juba; él era un indio de Bombay que sería capaz de venderle a cualquiera un solo zapato, según mi padre. Pero Bageye también era un hombre práctico, y si tuviese que pedirle un préstamo a un tabaquero, bien podría ser al Cha cha man* más próximo a casa. Durante la última semana yo había estado yendo a recoger un paquete de tabaco Embassy Number 1 y una caja de cerillas para Bageye. Según fue avanzando la semana, me había aficionado a coger una pequeña recompensa para mí. Una barrita de chocolate Cadbury, sin que sirviese de precedente, se había convertido en mi rutina diaria. Antes de salir del coche, Bageye me advirtió, como siempre hacía, de no tocar nada. Asentí, pero en realidad no estaba escuchando. Mi mente estaba puesta en la imagen de mi padre conversando con Maghar, sin ser consciente del tamaño de recibo que le estaba a punto de entregar. Me obligué a no mirar por la ventanilla, pero no podía controlar mis oídos, que se esforzaban por oírle volver, tratando de determinar la amenaza, el grado de violencia en sus pisadas. Con cierto alivio, oí abrirse la puerta del conductor, seguido por un silencio inesperado. Bageye cogió uno de los cigarrillos y presionó el mechero del salpicadero. Mientras esperaba a que se calentase, pareció como si una idea le viniese a la cabeza. Cuando el mechero se calentó, lo sostuvo en la mano.

—Si querías dulces, ¿por qué no viniste a preguntarme? —Bageye dijo de repente, pero con calma— ¿Qué pasa? ¿No tienes lengua?

La verdad era que me bloqueaba cuando alguien me trataba con amabilidad y decepción.

—«¿Es que el chico no te pidió permiso?» —Bageye imitó al señor Maghar—. Apuesto a que ni siquiera era tanto chocolate. Supongo que una o dos barritas de más se colaron en la lista, ¿verdad? ¿El listillo del señor indio se cree que puede usar su inteligencia contra mí? Deja que Maghar siga relamiéndose. Se acabóó. He terminado con él esta noche.

Mañana, Bageye cambiaría su cantinela. Mañana tendría que correr a por diez cigarros Embassy Number 1. Pero también sabía que, mañana, no habría relatos fantásticos sobre pastorear ovejas en las colinas de Juba por parte del señor Maghar.

Bageye contó lo que le quedaba del dinero. Ya escaseaban los billetes, los cuales empezaban a estar mugrientos.

—Como si me cuesta hasta el último centavo, el suelo estará recubierto esta noche —Bageye enfatizó un poquito demasiado serio— Pero chico, este asunto ha sido un duro revés, puede que tengamos que conformarnos con el linóleo, al fin y al cabo —contó treinta libras y me pidió que extendiera la mano—. Agárralo fuerte. Es el dinero para el linóleo. Dinero sucio.

Pero si había deducido que ya nos dirigíamos a donde Bernard, necesitaba pensarlo dos veces, porque Bageye primero tenía que ver a Anxious para que pudiesen compartir unas caladas. A mi padre le gustaba fumar en compañía, pero compartía los cigarros al igual que los chistes: básicamente por su propio placer. Los cigarros Superking contenían mucho más tabaco que uno normal, y si Bageye podía deshacer uno, ponerlo en un papel de fumar Rizla, añadirle una pizca de algo para hacerlo más dulce, y enrollarlo de nuevo, entonces podía hacer que * Peyorativo para pakistaní 47

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durara un montón tiempo. Aunque había oído a mamá describirle como «un miserable a la que le gusta la compañía», Anxious vivía solo.

Anxious admiró el cigarrillo según aspiraba la última calada, y me puse en pie listo para macharnos.

—Vuelve a tu sitio, chaval —dijo Bageye lánguidamente— el día es largo—. Y guiñándome añadió: —Dame diez de eso que te di antes. Le entregué diez de las treinta libras que había dejado a mi cargo.

Anxious posó su mano sobre mi cabeza.

—¿Así que tú eres el chico de Bageye? —había algo inapropiado, burlón en el modo en que lo dijo— ¿Te apetece algo de comer?

Sonó como una amenaza. Anxious tenía solo una vaga idea de cómo cocinar. Bageye levantó la tapa de la olla y echó un vistazo con desdén: —Lo que esto necesita es una pizca de algo que le dé sabor. —¿Es que no ves los armarios vacíos, Bageye? —¿No tienes algo de maíz dulce? —preguntó mi padre. —Nada de maíz dulce, nada de boniatos ni yuca, nada de calalú, nada de nada. Bageye abrió una serie de armarios vacíos a excepción de unas telarañas. —No puedo prometerte nada, pero hay una posibilidad… —se interrumpió y miró el reloj—Hay que moverse rápido. ¿Tú qué dices, Anxious? Conozco a un tipo, uno de mis colegas, que puede darte tres o cuatro sacos de maíz dulce.

Anxious echó la cabeza hacia atrás con sorpresa.

—¡Tres o cuatro sacos! —No estamos hablando de calderilla, ¿sabes? —dijo Bageye—. No tienes que comerte todo. Coge lo que necesites y vende el resto, tan simple como eso.

Anxious pasó su gran lengua pilosa por el papel de fumar.

—¿Qué voy a hacer con tres o cuatro sacos de maíz dulce? ¿No uno ni, dos, sino tres o cuatro?

—Entonces uno o dos. —respondió Bageye. Y con eso Bageye me arrastró de la silla hacia la puerta principal.

Anxious gritó tras nosotros.

—Más te vale que ese maíz dulce sea realmente dulce, ¿me oyes, Bageye?

Daba igual qué camino tomase para volver a donde Joe Burns, mi padre tenía que pasar por delante de Bernard. Frenó de golpe frente a la tienda de gangas. Permanecimos en silencio mientras Bageye reflexionaba sobre la desagradable sensación que le provocaba mi presencia.

Una campana sonó cuando entramos. Nos abrimos paso entre toda la chatarra de la entrada de la tienda hasta llegar a la chatarra del fondo.

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Irenosen Okojie ‘Following’ is a short story from Speak Gigantular: Speak Giganutular is a collection of captivating, erotic, enigmatic and disturbing short stories from one of Britain’s rising literary stars. In this collection Okojie creates worlds where lovelorn aliens abduct innocent coffee shop waitresses, where the London Underground is inhabited by the ghosts of errant Londoners caught between here and the hereafter, where insensitive men cheat on their mistresses, and where brave young women attempt to be erotically empowered at their own peril. Okojie’s gift is in her understated humour, her light touch, her razor-sharp assessment of the best and worst of humankind, and her unflinching gazt into the darkest corners of the human experience. Sexy, serious and at times downright disturbing, this brilliant collection sizzles with originality.

Following I plucked you from the garden like a root vegetable. A tiny man, you still had soil in the creases of your skin after I dusted you off on the oak kitchen table.

You pointed at me. We studied each other as if we were foreign objects. You spoke in a low, guttural language I didn’t understand. Your arms waved at the light breaking in my eyes. I stared at the slit in your miniature penis, growing it with my mouth. The garden door groaned, a piece of torn, white plastic bag blew in. I remembered the fortune teller then. I remembered paying for a flower that died on the way back and being handed white seeds after a loaded smile. That night, I’d slipped one seed beneath my tongue and planted the rest, only for things to grow in sleep.

That was three months ago.

Now, you jumped up and down on the table, baring jagged teeth, curling your hands into fists. I hunched down, held a finger to my lips.

“Quiet!” I ordered “Or I’ll put you in the freezer for a few hours.” You stopped then, understanding my tone perfectly. You smelled of soil and dampness, of things born. I pressed my lips to your face, wanting to swallow you whole.

‘Bath time.’ I said, pleasant, almost chirpy. I rummaged through the kitchen cabinets, the sound of implosions playing in my head. I filled a deep, plastic bowl with warm water and soaped you down as you wriggled reluctantly.

‘Be still.’ I instructed. Slick from soapy water, you dodged my grasp, settling into sly limbs. Outside, a large vehicle came to a halt, churning. A rubbish truck probably.

‘Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!’ You hurled, suddenly speaking English. The words were a rope dangling between my organs. I grabbed you and dumped you in the cutlery drawer, slamming it shut. The clatter of utensils followed me to the sitting room where the wide screen TV waited.

I flicked it on. Images of you rolling between knives and forks interrupted programmes.

Later, I fished you out. You were bloody and smiling.

‘Haha haha. Set me on fire, find the matches.’ Your grizzly smile stretched, threatening to leave your face. I carried you upstairs, wiped your cuts with cotton wool, watching them become blood clouds in my hands.

At night I plied you with vodka. It was funny to see you stumble around drunk, beneath the cruel glow of flickering candlelight. When you collapsed, I pressed my ear to your chest, comforted by the sound of heavy panting.

I bought a yellow hamster wheel that squeaked. It sat by the crack on the white window ledge in the bedroom. My eyes returned to it repeatedly, as though it was a small piece of thunder waiting to snag the wheel. Running on that wheel kept you busy and resentful, a tiny fist under the world’s crinkly curtain. The sound of turns haunted the rooms. I heard it while drying dishes and polishing cabinets downstairs that housed pictures faced down. It bounced off the thin, silver hands of my leather watch. At times I saw you rushing towards me, waving your fists and talking in another language I couldn’t understand. And the wheel had replaced your right leg, squeaking loudly, punctuating the sentences of an unfamiliar language.

On the second day, I served you a portion of pasta coated in a wild mushroom and leek sauce.

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‘Please eat.’ I said, pushing the saucer of steaming food towards you. Five minutes earlier, you’d torn clumps of matted hair from your head. It lay next to the food as though part of a twisted menu. You took a teaspoon full. I watched your lean, changeable face for approval.

‘This isn’t very good. I wish you’d disappear.’ You scrunched your features up. The words formed a stone map in my gut. Later that evening, you ran on the yellow wheel, till it became snippets of a life spinning beneath your feet. The night was a canvass studded with stars, morphing from one day to the next. In its sky, we made love on a knife’s edge, blinded by the blood from our cuts. Afterwards, a two headed animal shedding skin in the broken ceiling dangled down.

We sat in my white bath tub under a sea. Above, a man wearing tattered black trousers played the piano, Beethoven’s Symphony 9 to us taking our clothes off. Clothes that became fish in the grip of ripples, a minute or so later, a polka dot fish swam past.

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’ You muttered at me as though it was a mantra.

‘Why are you telling me this here?’ I asked, a naked woman next to a little naked man.

‘It’s so blue!’ You laughed. ‘Like waking up having a different lens and because things lose their definition here.’

Just then, a gold packet of Marlboro Lights floated. We took deep breaths, tasting cigarettes on our tongues.

‘Well it’s shitty! It’s shitty of you to say my pasta wasn’t good.’ I pointed my finger accusingly. It felt like slow motion.

‘I didn’t say you were a bad person. I said your pasta was average. Sorry you cooked a crappy meal. Sorry, sorry. Sorry.’ Mouth over my belly button, you pulled three threads. The piano man played frenetically. I sensed urgency in his strokes. His reflection was a shimmering looking glass. Your mouth curled over my nipples, sucked gently. The sweet sensation felt like falling into a trap. The bath tub spun away. Fish made from cotton and polyester wrestled things down into the bed of the sea. Only I couldn’t see what they were, distracted by tiny tremors of pleasure spreading over my body. The coolness of the water made me semi alert. Then I saw that the fish were wrestling memories. Images of me laughing on a bridge, dancing in the supermarket isle, buying a lamp with the half lizard woman emblazoned on the shade. In each one, the grip of someone holding my hand just outside the frame loosened.

‘I brought you here because.’ You left the sentence hanging, strung up on the three threads that tugged it away.

‘Why are we having this conversation here?’

We came up for air, back in the tub with cold water sloshing down the sides. Our clothes stuck to dimpled bodies. A wooden afro comb had fallen in and was unpicking a tide. I held you in my hands as you tried to scramble off. You were speaking Japanese. And I could have sworn you did that on purpose.

In bed I tossed and turned. I worried about all your possible routes of escape; through a watermark in the bathroom ceiling, hiding in a beer bottle I’d accidentally throw away, disappearing into a pause from a conversation outside.

The following morning, you began to speak in tongues at breakfast. Crumbs of toast spilled on the table as you talked. You spoke in tongues running up my thighs, eyeing the front door from the thinly carpeted staircase, as if you wanted to squeeze your limbs through the keyhole. You watched my face. I waited for you to walk into my iris and become a tiny silhouette trapped there.

I stuck needles in your skin to silence the noise inside my head. I made you become a doll. When bulbs of blood appeared, I used them to colour the sea beneath a ship I’d drawn.

Days passed, a week became a fortnight and then a month. Our dysfunctional routines continued. I blindfolded you and rammed cockroaches down your throat. Tied you inside bags of rotten fish and listened while you vomited. I stuffed small things inside my privates, forcing you to find them as I stroked my collarbone. We went out on day trips. You stayed in my pocket on rumbling trains. The feeling of you burrowing reassured me. You tried to grow other heads in there, between the seams and warm lining. I put a stop to that, squeezing them until they disappeared. On one outing to the Science Museum, you spoke in Swahili. I had become used to these random bursts of language and travelling by tongue.

A bank holiday Monday arrived, bright and breezy. In the morning, I found you beside my wardrobe, clutching the leg of a pair of navy men’s trousers; tears ran down your cheeks. I was throwing the bins away when you rushed through the half open front door. Horrified, I watched you duck beneath the small, arched gate, past a smattering of cars lining the street and over to the other side. The bins dropped with a thud. My heartbeat quickened. The purple, flannel dressing gown I wore came undone. I was barefoot but there was no time. No time to run back in and grab shoes. I scrambled after you. The warm concrete was hard and unforgiving beneath my feet. You were surprisingly quick. I could just about 50

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spot your tiny figure in an ill fitting tracksuit I’d made, darting into a side path towards the main road. My mouth felt dry and grainy, as though coated in sand. I ignored the puzzled glances of passersby. I was too busy trying to breathe, to produce a survivor’s stroke for an indoor sea that had slipped outside. The smell of carpet pine clung to my nostrils. I stepped on a flattened can of ginger beer acting as a fleeting shoe. Then, we were both in the wide, slanting road, wild haired and wild eyed. I dived to grab you, into the sounds of tires screeching and engines humming like bees. Car horns screamed. The sting from falling on my knees was sharp. I lost my breath to the gaps between the trees. And a big red bus was flying. No 58. The driver had a white shirt on. All I could think as you struggled in my hands was the driver is wearing a sky.

Indoors, inside the kitchen we trembled. I held you beneath a chair leg, hovered it close to your Adam’s apple. Then grabbed a fork and stabbed it into your thigh.

‘Aargh! Please, stop.’ You yelped, speaking English again. The piano man played in the distance, on a spiralling, silver staircase. His clothes began to come off, until he was naked. Piano keys uprooted like large teeth as the melancholy tune became more and more haphazard. I started to cry then, because heartbreak smelled like half eaten rum cake at a breakfast table. I remembered that morning always you see? The morning that you went out for a packet of gold Marlboro Lights and never came back. I remembered the agonising waiting, knocking our wedding photos face down on shelves months after and wailing in the musty wardrobe between your clothes. I turned over my sacrifices as if they were coins. Bits of myself I’d lost in gloves, doorway cracks and printer ink heads. How I’d travelled through echoes, silences, curved fingers over piano keys.

All the routes home I’d built for you in the static.

‘I’m sorry! Pardonnez-moi! Kite m’esplike!’ You pleaded, mixing languages as your bottom half began crumbling into bloody soil.

I told you I’d chased your laughter through tunnels and pathways. That I’d been following. And holding the chair leg pressed against your throat, I whispered all the things I’d done to resurrect you. ***

Seguido

Translated from English into Spanish by Rebeca Busto Acedo, Icíar Castellano Arambilet and Alexandra MªCiobanu Te arranqué del huerto como a un tubérculo. A ti, un hombre diminuto, que todavía tenías tierra en los pliegues de la piel después de que te limpiara en la mesa de roble de la cocina.

Me señalaste. Nos estudiamos mutuamente como si fuéramos objetos extraños. Hablaste en una lengua tonal y gutural que no pude comprender. Tus brazos saludaron a la luz que irrumpía en mis ojos. Miré fijamente la hendidura de tu diminuto pene, haciéndolo crecer con mi boca. La puerta del jardín crujió, un pedazo rasgado de una bolsa de plástico blanco entró volando. En ese momento me acordé de la vidente.

Recordé haber pagado por una flor que murió cuando volvía a casa y cómo, tras una sonrisa maliciosa, ella me dio un puñado de semillas blancas. Esa misma noche, dejé escurrir una debajo de mi lengua y planté el resto, solo para que crecieran mientras dormía.

Eso fue hace tres meses.

Ahora brincabas sobre la mesa, enseñando tus afilados dientes, con tus manos cerradas en puños. Me incliné, manteniendo un dedo en mis labios. —¡Silencio! — grité—o te meteré en el congelador durante unas horas. Entonces te detuviste, captando mi tono. Olías a tierra y humedad, a cosas recién nacidas. Presioné mis labios contra tu cara, queriendo comerte de un bocado.

—Hora de bañarse— dije agradable, casi alegre. Rebusqué entre los armarios de la cocina, sonidos de implosiones resonando en mi cabeza. Llené un cuenco hondo de plástico con agua caliente y te enjaboné mientras te retorcías, disgustado.

—Estate quieto— ordené. Escurridizo por el agua jabonosa, esquivaste mi agarre y te posaste sobre tus traviesos miembros. Afuera, un gran vehículo se detuvo, rechinando. Probablemente se tratase del camión de la basura.

—Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!— soltaste, repentinamente hablando en inglés. Las palabras eran una cuerda colgante entre mis órganos. Te atrapé y te arrojé al cajón de los cubiertos, cerrándolo bruscamente. El ruido de la cubertería me siguió hasta el salón, donde la televisión de pantalla ancha me esperaba.

La encendí. Los programas se veían interrumpidos por imágenes de ti rodando entre cuchillos y tenedores.

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Más tarde, te pesqué. Estabas ensangrentado y sonriente.

—Jaja jaja. Préndeme fuego, a ver si encuentras las cerillas — tu sonrisa parda se extendió, amenazando con dejar tu rostro. Te llevé al piso de arriba y limpié tus cortes con algodones, viendo cómo se convertían en nubes de sangre en mis manos.

Por la noche te atiborré de vodka. Fue divertido verte tropezar por todas partes, borracho, bajo el cruel brillo de la luz parpadeante de las velas. Cuando te desplomaste, presioné mi oreja contra tu pecho, consolada por el sonido de profundos jadeos.

Compré una rueda de hámster amarilla que rechinaba. Descansaba en el dormitorio, junto a la grieta del alféizar de la ventana blanca. Mis ojos volvían a ella constantemente, como si fuera un pedacito de trueno que esperaba capturar la rueda. Correr en ella te mantenía ocupado y resentido, un minúsculo puño bajo la arrugada cortina del mundo. El sonido de las vueltas embrujaba las habitaciones. Lo escuchaba mientras secaba los platos y limpiaba las vitrinas de la planta inferior, donde vivían fotografías boca abajo. Rebotaba en las finas manecillas de plata de mi reloj de cuero. En ocasiones te veía abalanzándote sobre mí, agitando tus puños mientras hablabas en otra lengua que no lograba entender.

Y la rueda había reemplazado tu pierna derecha, chirriando con fuerza, puntuando las oraciones de un idioma desconocido.

El segundo día te serví una porción de pasta bañada con salsa de setas silvestres y puerro.

—Come, por favor— dije, acercándote el plato de comida humeante. Cinco minutos antes habías arrancado mechones de cabello enmarañado de tu cabeza. Se encontraban junto a la comida como si fueran parte de un menú perverso. Tomaste una cucharadita. Observé tu delgado y voluble rostro buscando aprobación.

—Esto está malo. Ojalá desaparecieras — arrugaste tu gesto. Las palabras formaron un mapa de piedra en mis entrañas. Por la tarde, corriste en la rueda amarilla hasta que se convirtió en fragmentos de una vida rodando bajo tus pies. La noche era un lienzo salpicado de estrellas, transformándose de un día para otro. En su cielo, hicimos el amor sobre el filo de un cuchillo, cegados por la sangre de nuestros cortes. Después, un animal bicéfalo colgaba del techo roto mientras mudaba su piel.

Nos sentamos en una bañera blanca bajo el mar. En la superficie, un hombre con unos harapientos pantalones negros tocaba la Novena Sinfonía de Beethoven en el piano para que nos desnudáramos. Las prendas se convertían en peces en el agarre de las pequeñas olas. Un minuto más tarde, un pez de lunares pasó nadando.

—Lo siento, lo siento, lo siento— me susurrabas como si fuera un mantra.

—¿Por qué me dices esto aquí?— pregunté, una mujer desnuda junto a un hombrecito desnudo.

—¡Es tan azul!— reíste —como despertarse teniendo distintas lentes y porque aquí las cosas pierden su nitidez.

En ese momento, un paquete dorado de Marlboro Lights flotaba. Respiramos profundamente, saboreando los cigarrillos en nuestras lenguas.

—Pues, joder, es una putada que dijeras que mi pasta estaba mala — señalé con un dedo acusador. Todo parecía ir a cámara lenta.

—No dije que fueras una mala persona, solo que tu pasta era mediocre. Siento que prepararas una comida de mierda. Lo siento, lo siento, lo siento— tu boca sobre mi ombligo, arrancaste tres hilos. El hombre del piano tocaba frenéticamente. Sentí cierta urgencia en sus golpes. Su reflejo era un cristal resplandeciente. Tu boca se enroscó sobre mis pezones y los succionó con suavidad. La dulce sensación era como caer en una trampa. La bañera se dio la vuelta. Peces de algodón y poliéster arrastraban con agresividad cosas al lecho marino. Pero yo no podía ver lo que eran, distraída por pequeños temblores de placer que recorrían todo mi cuerpo. La frescura del agua me mantenía medio alerta.

Entonces, me di cuenta de que los peces luchaban contra recuerdos. Imágenes de mí riendo en un puente, bailando en el pasillo del supermercado, comprando una lámpara con una mujer mitad lagarto blasonada en su pantalla. En cada una de ellas, se soltaba el agarre de alguien sujetando mi mano fuera del marco.

—Te he traído aquí porque…— dejaste la frase en el aire, colgando de los tres hilos que la arrastraban.

—¿Por qué tenemos esta conversación aquí?

Salimos a la superficie para coger aire, de nuevo en la bañera, mientras el agua fría se derramaba por los bordes. Nuestras ropas se pegaron a unos cuerpos con hoyuelos. Un peine afro de madera se había caído dentro, estaba descosiendo una ola. Te sostuve en mis manos mientras intentabas escapar. Estabas hablando en japonés y podría jurar que lo hiciste a propósito.

Daba vueltas en la cama, preocupada por todas tus posibles vías de escape; a través de una filigrana en el techo del baño, oculto en un botellín de cerveza que accidentalmente había tirado, desapareciendo en una pausa de una conversación de afuera.

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BREAKING GROUND

A la mañana siguiente, durante el desayuno, comenzaste a hablar en otra lengua. Las migas de la tostada se esparcían por toda la mesa mientras hablabas. Decías cosas enun dialecto mientras ascendías por mis muslos, observando la puerta principal desde la escalera escasamente alfombrada, como si quisieras forzar tus extremidades a través de la cerradura. Miraste mi cara. Esperaba que caminaras dentro mi iris y te convirtieras en una diminuta silueta atrapada allí.

Clavé agujas en tu piel para silenciar el ruido en mi cabeza. Hice que te transformaras en un muñeco. Cuando aparecían bulbos de sangre, los usaba para teñir el mar bajo el barco que había dibujado.

Pasaron los días, una semana se convirtió en una quincena y luego en un mes. Nuestras rutinas disfuncionales continuaron. Te vendé los ojos e hice que tragaras cucarachas. Te até dentro de bolsas de pescado podrido y escuché cómo vomitabas. Guardé cosas pequeñas en mis partes, obligándote a encontrarlas mientras me acariciaba la clavícula. Salíamos en excursiones de un día. Permanecías en mi bolsillo en los estruendosos trenes y me reconfortaba la sensación de ti removiéndote. Trataste de crecer otras cabezas ahí dentro, entre las costuras y el forro cálido. Puse fin a eso, estrujándolas hasta que desaparecieron. En una salida al Museo de Ciencias hablaste en suajili. Ya me había acostumbrado a esos arrebatos repentinos de idioma y viajes en lenguas.

Un lunes festivo llegó, brillante y relajado. Por la mañana te encontré al lado de mi armario, agarrando la pernera de unos pantalones azul marino de hombre; las lágrimas corrían por tus mejillas. Estaba tirando la basura cuando de repente atravesaste la puerta principal, que estaba entreabierta. Horrorizada, vi cómo te escurrías por debajo de una pequeña verja arqueada, pasando por delante de una corta fila de coches y cruzando al otro lado. Las papeleras cayeron con un ruido sordo. El latido de mi corazón se aceleró. La bata morada de franela que llevaba puesta se desató. Estaba descalza, pero no había tiempo. No había tiempo para volver y coger los zapatos. Salí corriendo detrás de ti. El asfalto caliente era duro y despiadado bajo mis pies. Eras sorprendentemente rápido. Solo podía reconocer tu diminuta silueta en un chándal hecho por mí que no te quedaba bien, moviéndote como un rayo por un sendero hacia la carretera principal. Mi boca se sentía seca y granulosa, como si estuviera llena de arena. Ignoré a las miradas desconcertadas de los transeúntes. Estaba demasiado ocupada tratando de respirar, de producir una brazada de supervivencia para un mar interior que se había escurrido hacia afuera. El olor a alfombra de pino se aferró a mis fosas nasales. Pisé una lata aplastada de cerveza de jengibre, que por un momento hizo de calzado. Entonces, los dos estábamos en la amplia e inclinada carretera, despeinados y con los ojos desorbitados. Me lancé para cogerte, en los sonidos de ruedas chirriando y motores zumbando como abejas. Los cláxones gritaban. Noté una punzada aguda al caer sobre mis rodillas. Perdí el aliento a los huecos entre los árboles. Y un gran autobús rojo estaba volando, el número 58. El conductor llevaba una camisa blanca. Lo único en lo que podía pensar mientras forcejeabas en mis manos era ‘el conductor viste un cielo’.

Dentro, en la cocina, ambos temblábamos. Te mantuve bajo la pata de la silla, dejándola cerca de tu nuez. Entonces cogí un tenedor y te apuñalé en el muslo —¡Aahhhhh! ¡Para, por favor!—aullaste, hablando de nuevo mi idioma. El hombre del piano tocaba a lo lejos, en una escalera de plata en espiral. Su ropa empezó a caerse, hasta que se quedó completamente desnudo. Las teclas del piano se arrancaban como si fuesen grandes dientes y la melancólica melodía era cada vez más y más caótica. Entonces empecé a llorar, porque el desamor olía a pastel de ron a medio comer sobre la mesa de la cocina. Siempre me acorde de esa mañana, ¿entiendes? La mañana en la que te fuiste a por un paquete dorado de Marlboro Lights y nunca volviste. Me acorde de la agonizante espera, poniendo boca abajo nuestras fotos de boda en las vitrinas meses después y de llorar desconsoladamente entre tus ropas en el armario mohoso. Di la vuelta a mis sacrificios como si fueran monedas. Pedazos de mí misma que había perdido en guantes, grietas en la puerta y cartuchos de tinta de impresora. Cómo había viajado a través de ecos, silencios, de dedos arqueados sobre las teclas del piano.

Todos los caminos a casa que había construido para ti permanecían estáticos.

—¡Lo siento! ¡Pardonnez—moi! ¡Kite m’esplike!—suplicaste, mezclando idiomas mientras tu mitad inferior empezaba a deshacerse en tierra sangrienta.

Te dije que me había dedicado a perseguir tu risa por túneles y senderos. Que la había seguido. Y mientras presionaba la pata de la silla contra tu garganta, susurré todas las cosas que había hecho para resucitarte.

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Leone Ross ‘The heart has no bones’ and ‘Love Letters’ are from Come Let Us Sing Anyway: In Leone Ross’s luminous collection of short stories ranging from richly extended stories to intense pieces of flash fiction, set between Jamaica and Britain anything can happen. Ross’s setting may be familiar and her characters recognisable, but these stories take a magical/fantastical turn that dramatically transforms the way we see. Other stories draw us straight into the world of the fantastical or the implausible with such meticulous and concrete detail that we accept these as reality: a wife returns from the dead and their marital bickering resumes, a headless girl barely lifts an eyebrow among her school companions, a security guard collects discarded hymens and uncovers a deeper empathy for women.

At the heart of the stories is Leone Ross’s refusal to accept any boundary between the erotic and the most inventive kind of pornography. There is a seriousness here too, in the author s intentions: a vision of the fluidity of the person, the inequalities of the body politic from the deaths of black people at the hands of the police, to the deep shifts that signal subtle changes in the nature of capitalism. This is a richly varied, witty and entertaining collection whose frankness may sometimes tickle, sometimes shock; but always engages the intellect and the heart.

The heart has no bones The agent gazes through the Embassy window as the t-shirted woman argues with the Ambassador. She’s wasted no time getting to the point.

‘There are cameras on your roof,’ she says. ‘Our phones are tapped. You think we don’t know?’

Outside, a hummingbird suckles pale hibiscus.

On the day before he graduated, his favourite professor, a quiet and thoughtful man, took him aside and confessed that he’d once fallen in love during surveillance. He’d surprised the agent by bellowing, as if drunk: about the loss of objectivity, the risk of betrayal, the inability to get the job done.

‘You’re on the front line,’ he said. ‘You have to watch their bones, not their eyes.’

The man at the window has come to know bones.

He sneaks a look. She glances up. He’s pulled into her face so quickly that he’s breathless. Her eyes are like her politics: full of dreaming.

He’s been watching her bones for days. Vertebrae marching in demonstrations, tibia spattered in tear-gas, mandible seesawing under deepbrown skin. Her electric ribs. He once thought of the skeleton as a frame; now he sees that it’s an orchestra.

‘And why are you here?’ she snaps.

‘I came to watch,’ he says. It’s what he does, in countries that are not his own.

‘You can stay,’ she says, and he laughs in his head at her naiveté. She turns back to the Ambassador, but her bones remain tethered to him. He shifts; her gold chain dances the length of her clavicle. He crosses his ankles; her kneecaps bounce. The Ambassador is restless; he becomes condescending, which makes her angrier. Nothing is accomplished. Her skull is fragile. When she leaves, the tight smile she gives him pours over the fourteen bones in her face. * Midnight: mosquitoes carolling, dogs howling, distant gunfire, brutal dry heat. He’s been away from home too long. He picks up the phone.

The professor is retired; colleagues have died; alumni forget. He’s patient. Seven more calls. It’s what he does. Eight. Eleven. Then, finally, a familiar, gentle voice. He is fleetingly embar- rassed, but relieved the man recognises his name. They exchange pleasantries, eventually fall silent. The professor waits.

‘There is a woman,’ says the agent.

He can hear the old man smile down the line. ‘And?’ ‘You told me to watch their b- –’ ‘That was a long time ago.’

A moth flutters by, leaving dark dust on his earlobe. ‘The heart has no bones, son.’ * He sits in the car watching as she takes the bottle of wine into her home. He hasn’t breathed since he stole it from the Ambassador’s locked cupboard, sweating hands staining the red ribbon, the card. She sits on the veranda with her girlfriends and they laugh together, pass the bottle 54

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hand to hand. He’s happy; she’s more than a revolutionary in her spare time.

Someone turns on music. She steps into the garden, wine aloft. Her friends follow and they are laughing-laughing and her teeth tinkle. He laughs too, spincter tight, nose against the window, like a small boy.

The women dance as she raises her arm and smashes the bottle to the ground.

There is a small noise in his left ear.

No doctor will ever confirm it, but he knows. It is the sound of his stirrup bone splintering: one tenth of an inch, the smallest bone in the human body. ***

El corazón no tiene huesos

Translated from English into Spanish by Catalina-Ionela Ciuciulea and Marina Gómez Robles El agente mira fijamente a través de la ventana de la Embajada mientras la mujer de la camiseta discute con el embajador. No pierde el tiempo y va directa al grano. ―Hay cámaras en tu techo. ―dice― Nuestros teléfonos están pinchados. ¿Te crees que no lo sabemos?

Afuera, un colibrí succiona un hibisco pálido.

El día anterior a su graduación, su profesor favorito, un hombre tranquilo y amable, lo llevó a otra parte para confesarle que una vez durante una guardia se enamoró. Sorprendió al agente con sus bramidos, como si estuviera borracho: sobre la pérdida de objetividad, el riesgo de traición, la incapacidad de hacer el trabajo. ―Estás en el punto de mira. ―dijo. ―Debes mirar a los huesos, no a los ojos.

El hombre de la ventana ha aprendido algo sobre huesos. Él observa de reojo. Ella levanta la vista. Él cae encima de su rostro tan rápidamente que se queda sin aire. Sus ojos son como sus ideas: llenos de sueños.

Le había estado observando los huesos durante días. Su lenguaje corporal en las manifestaciones, tibia salpicada de gas lacrimógeno, mandíbula balanceándose bajo la piel de tono marrón oscuro. Sus costillas eléctricas. Él pensó una vez que un esqueleto es como un marco; ahora lo ve como una orquesta. ―¿Qué haces aquí?― le suelta ella. ―He venido a observar― le dice. Eso es lo que hace en países desconocidos. ―Puedes quedarte― dice ella, y él se ríe para sus adentros de su inocencia. Se dirige de nuevo hacia el embajador, pero sus huesos siguen atados a los de él. Él se mueve; la cadena de oro de ella baila a lo largo de su clavícula. Él se cruza de piernas; las rótulas de ella se balancean. El embajador está inquieto; se vuelve condescendiente, lo que hace que ella se enfade aún más. Todo ha sido en vano. Su cráneo es frágil. Cuando ella se va, la tensa sonrisa que le dedica se forma en los catorce huesos de su cara. * Medianoche: zumban los mosquitos, aúllan los perros, un disparo lejano, un calor seco y sofocante. Ha estado fuera de casa demasiado tiempo.

Descuelga el teléfono.

El profesor está jubilado; los colegas muertos; los alumnos olvidados. Es paciente. Siete llamadas más. Lo sigue intentando. Ocho. Once. Y entonces, finalmente, una voz familiar, amable. Él está levemente avergonzado, pero aliviado de que el hombre reconozca su nombre.

Intercambian cumplidos, y de pronto silencio absoluto. El profesor aguarda. ―Hay una mujer―dice el agente.

Podía oír al hombre anciano sonreír al otro lado de la línea: ―¿Y? ―Me dijiste que mirase sus h−… ―Eso fue hace mucho tiempo.

Una polilla revolotea a su alrededor dejando polvo oscuro en el lóbulo de su oreja. ―El corazón no tiene huesos, hijo mío.

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* Se sienta en su coche observando mientras ella lleva la botella de vino a casa. Está intranquilo desde que la robó de la despensa cerrada con llave del embajador, sus manos sudando y manchando el lazo rojo, la tarjeta. Ella se sienta en el porche con sus amigas e intercambian risas pasando la botella de mano en mano. Él está contento; ella es algo más que una chica revolucionaria en su tiempo libre.

Alguien pone música. Ella entra al jardín con el vino en lo alto. Sus amigas la siguen y están riendo y riendo y sus dientes tintinean. Él también se ríe, el esfínter tenso, la nariz pegada a la ventana cual niño pequeño.

Las mujeres bailan mientras ella alza su brazo y estrella la botella contra el suelo.

Hay un pequeño zumbido en su oreja izquierda.

Ningún doctor se lo confirmará nunca, pero él lo sabe. Es el sonido de su estribo, al astillarse: un décimo de pulgada, el hueso más pequeño del cuerpo humano.

Love Letters 0 He fed her milk in an old, clean bottle after her mother’s nipples bled. Held her wrong so long his arm ached. Wrote a poem the night she was born. Noted she was an Aries moon. Shushed the nurses’ gossip so she could sleep.

10 Blonded boy: there was dirt on his left cheek and he got his spellings right. He had a twin who looked nothing like him.

‘No,’ he said, when she proposed. She sucked a pencil. ‘I’m ten,’ he said. ‘And so are you!’

‘Kiss me then,’ she said. ‘Under the lime tree. French or something.’

‘I don’t know how.’ He squirmed.

She sighed and put her hands on her hips. ‘Don’t you ever watch movies?’

‘We could climb the tree,’ he said.

16 Dogs humped outside. They gazed between her thighs, he and she, both befuddled. He kept his socks on. She was a virgin, but didn’t bleed. She stared at the ceiling when it began. Condom, soft sheets, candles, wine: boring as fuck.

Serves me right, she thought; she hardly knew him.

21 ‘Come back to me,’ begged the stupid man. It was sad; they’d been together forever. She gave him a wonderful novel to read: slices of her heart between the pages, like pickled plum.

‘I will if you read it,’ she said.

‘God, no,’ he said.

22 News Headline: Young & Pregnant, Raised Feminist, Won’t Let The Side Down 27 Hardly her first girl, but she’d never kissed lips so soft. The sex felt unfinished, but suggesting a strap-on seemed premature. Her lover danced the samba and worked as a dental hygienist. ‘Den- tist, do you mean?’ ‘No, they’re not the same thing,’ her lover pouted – she talked even less than a man, which was unexpected, but there were multisyllabic words when she felt like being charming, and veggie dinners.

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30s Cat lady: that’s what she’d be. A crack-selling, fire-juggling explorer. Run for parliament. Darn socks for orphans or maybe sell astrology charts.

Be a cheap tart. Run away to somewhere hot; be a waitress. Or not. Catch nits, syphilis, flu in a strange country. ART. Smile her way through Europe, not Slovakia, though. Do Flaubert, Monte Cristo, Gaudi. Wear a cape and a cheap g-string. Give lectures in a whisper or a boom, depending on the day. Seduce allll the students. Straddle a broomstick. Do mash-ups of Alanis Morisette and Tracey Chapman. Stare through the library window, sighing deeply. Meet royalty and be bored. Wear a huge hat and a sagging polka-dot bikini. BLEACH BLONDE. Shave everything. Be spoiled.

After she left him. Then, that’s when.

37 He forgave her all of it: the hormonal moustache; the mad schedule; the broken heart that poked him in bed at night; her molten rages; chocolate at 4 am; the ‘no, don’t do it that way, do it this way’; up too late watching Judge Judy; too fat; maybe Thatcher wasn’t so bad; ‘I can only do toast and peach melba, which do you want?’ She hated tea, and coffee; no, no children, yet love please.

Then he hit her so hard she had to use a tub of rum raisin Haagen Daaz for the busted lip.

44 Over drinks with best friend, beaming: FUCK, HE’S NOTHING LIKE I THOUGHT HE’D BE LIKE. He listens to Death Metal.

He’s so tender, I can barely breathe.

It’s like picking up the dot on this ‘i’ right here and blowing it away. ***

Cartas de amor

Translated from English into Spanish by Francisco Seva González, Guillermo José Gutiérrez Carbajo and Iván Martín Cruz 0 Él la alimentaba con un viejo biberón limpio cuando los pezones de su madre sangraban. Su mala postura al cogerla durante tanto tiempo hacía que le doliera el brazo. Escribió un poema la noche que nació. Advirtió que era Aries. Acalló el chismorreo de las enfermeras para que ella pudiese dormir.

10 Rubiales. Tenía porquería en su mejilla izquierda y una buena ortografía; además, un gemelo que no se parecía en nada a él. ―No. ―le dijo cuando se lo propuso. Ella se puso a chupar un lápiz. ―Tengo 10 años –comentó. ―¡Igual que tú! ―Pues dame un beso ―dijo. ―Bajo el muérdago; ¿con lengua o qué? ―No sé cómo… ―respondió avergonzado.

Ella suspiró y se echó las manos a las caderas. ―¿Es que nunca ves películas? ―odríamos trepar al árbol ―dijo él.

16 Afuera, los perros follaban. Entre sus muslos, él y ella, se miraron achispados. Él ni se quitó los calcetines. Ella era virgen, pero no sangró.

Cuando empezó, ella miraba al techo. Un condón, sábanas suaves, velitas, vino: jodidamente aburrido.

Me vale, pensó; apenas lo conocía.

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21 ―Vuelve conmigo ―le suplico el hombre estúpido. Era triste; siempre habían estado juntos. Ella le regaló una novela maravillosa para que la leyera: trozos de su corazón laminado entre las páginas, como el pepinillo de las hamburguesas. ―Lo haré, pero si la lees ―dijo ella. ―No, por Dios. ―contestó él.

22 Titular de prensa: Joven y Embarazada, Feminista Convencida. Dejará el Pabellón Bien Alto.

27 No es que se tratara de la primera chica, pero nunca había besado unos labios tan suaves. Era como si al sexo le faltase algo, pero le parecía pronto para sugerir un strap-on. Su amante bailaba samba y era higienista dental. –¿Den-tista, quieres decir? –No, no es lo mismo –dijo poniendo mala cara. Ella hablaba incluso menos que los hombres, algo inesperado, pero pronunciaba palabras polisílabas cuando quería ser encantadora. Además, estaban las cenas veganas.

30 Una loba: es lo que ella sería. Se ganaría la vida vendiendo crack y haciendo malabares con fuego. Se presentaría al Parlamento. Zurciría calcetines para los huérfanos o quizás vendería cartas astrales. Sería una puta barata. Huiría a cualquier sitio cálido; trabajaría de camarera.

O no. Pillaría liendres, sífilis o gripe en un país extraño. ARTE; sonreiría durante sus viajes por Europa, salvo en Eslovaquia. Leería a Flaubert, el Monte Cristo, visitaría las obras de Gaudí; se pondría capa y un tanga barato. Daría clases susurrando o a grito pelado. Montaría en escoba.

Haría mash-ups de Alanis Morisette y Tracey Chapman. Miraría a través de la ventana de la biblioteca y suspiraría profundamente. Conocería a la realeza y se aburriría. Llevaría un sobrero gigante y un bañador de lunares que le quedase flojo. RUBIA PLATINO. Se lo depilaría todo. Se mimaría.

Después de dejarle, entonces sería el momento.

37 Él le perdonó todo: su bigote; sus horarios de locos; su corazón roto que le incordiaba en la cama por la noche; su malhumor; su chocolate de las cuatro de la mañana; su No hagas esto así, hazlo asá; quedarse hasta tarde viendo Judge Judgy; su gordura; su Quizá Thatcher no fue tan mala; su Solo puedo hacer tostadas y Melocotón Melba, ¿qué quieres?; su Odio el té y el café; su No, hijos no; pero amor sí, por favor.

Entonces él la golpeó tan fuerte que tuvo que ponerse una tarrina de Haagen Daaz de ron y pasas en el labio roto.

44 De copas con su mejor amiga, con el rostro radiante: JODER, NO ES PARA NADA COMO ME ESPERABA. Él escucha death metal. Él es tan tierno que me quiero morir.

Es como si le cogiera el punto a la «i» y lo hiciera volar.

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BREAKING GROUND

Breaking Ground in Germany, November 2017 Our last Breaking Ground visit of 2017 took Speaking Volumes to Berlin to be part of Léttretage’s autumn programme, Con_Text, which was exploring different ways of presenting live literature to audiences. Known as a venue which consistently pushes boundaries across art forms and produces thought-provoking events, Léttretage attracts enthusiastic audiences looking for new experiences.

Placing the Con_Text brief at the centre, this Breaking Ground event was a multi-media performance: writers Francesca Beard, Rishi Dastidar, Caleb Femi and Xiaolu Guo appeared live with film shorts in-between from Bidisha (visual storytelling), Karen McCarthy Woolf (poetry-dance film) and Johny Pitts (photography and music). Xiaolu Guo opened proceedings to strains of Chinese national opera before giving an amusing yet serious visual essay (not translated here as it was a version of an exrtract from her book, already translated into German); Caleb Femi’s engrossing mix of poetry and music, video and photos placed London life at its centre; Rishi Dastidar’s starkly staged rendition of his long poem ‘Ticker Tape’ hypnotised with synchronised words and images; and Francesca Beard, accompanied by German actor Denis Abrahams, had the audience laughing, squirming in recognition and examining their own behavious with excerpts from her new one-woman show, How to Survive a Post-Truth Apocalypse. It was a spectacular end to our 2017 Breaking Ground Europe series.

Our thanks for this visit go to: Katharina Deloglu and Jure Kapun at Léttretage, Berlin; Denis Abrahams;

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Francesca Beard is a Lodon-based, Malaysian-born writer who has been called ‘The Queen of British performance poetry’ by Metro. She performs and workshops across the UK and represents the best of British live literature around the world with the British Council. She’s been poet in residence at The Barbican, the BBC White City, The Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kingston Library, the Natural History Museum and The Metropolitan Police and written for The Royal Court, The Young Vic and BBC Radios 3 and 4.

Her first solo show, Chinese Whispers, produced by Apples and Snakes, was ground-breaking in its approach to performance poetry as a cross-arts form. She is currently working on a new one woman show, How to Survive a Post-Truth Apocalypse. www.francescabeard.com

Caleb Femi is the 2016-17 Young People’s Laureate for London and an English teacher, filmmaker, photographer and schools workshop leader. Caleb’s poetry commissions include the Tate Modern, The Royal Society for Literature and the Guardian. He has read at many London venues; he also opened up for Lianne La Havas and has performed at festivals including Latitude, Ed Fringe, Boomtown, Lovebox and Greenbelt. Caleb won the Roundhouse Poetry and Genesis Poetry Slams and is currently working on a debut pamphlet. As a filmmaker, he has released wo documentaries, What Did Love Taste Like In The 70s? and Heartbreak & Grime, to good international reception, which has led him to give talks and panel discussions on the topic of grime music, Road culture and masculinity. www.calebfemi.com

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Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has appeared in the Financial Times and Tate Modern amongst others. His work has featured in the anthologies Adventures in Form (Penned in the Margins) and Ten: The New Wave (Bloodaxe). His debut collection Ticker Tape is published by Nine Arches Press. In 2016 he was commissioned by the BBC to write and perform a poem for National Poetry Day. He was a runner-up in the 2011 Cardiff International Poetry Competition and the 2014 Troubadour International Poetry Prize; in 2016 was long-listed in the UK’s National Poetry Competition.

A fellow of The Complete Works, he is a consulting editor at The Rialto magazine and a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen collective. He is chair of literature organisation Spread The Word and teaches for the Poetry School.

Twitter @BetaRish

About the German Translator Katrin Behringer is a Berlin-based translator, writer and artist. She studied translation and interpretation in Heidelberg, Belfast, and Berlin and graduated in 2007 as a translator of English and Spanish.

After an internship in Montreal she started working as a freelance translator in 2008. She specialised in technical translations and finished the postgraduate course, “Literarische Übersetzung aus dem Englischen“ at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. Since 2011 she has focussed on translating fiction, young adult, children’s and non-fiction books. She has been a member of the VdÜ since 2010.

She lives and works in Berlin. www.creative-city-berlin.de/de/network/member/katrinbehringer

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Francesca Beard Prologue

Prolog

Once upon a time, we lived by sun and moon and flame, In circled plains where everyone had place.

Seers noted deed, in words that were the golden coin of thought, Gave voice to sky-eyed oracles, When time was out of joint, would send their spirits to the underworld, To treat with demons there and so soothe the rupture in our nature.

Früher einmal richteten wir uns nach Sonne, Mond und Flammen, Wir lebten in der Steppe in geschützten Gemeinschaften, ein jeder fand dort seinen Platz.

Seher sangen von Heldentaten, in Worten, die da waren die goldene Münze der Gedanken, taten himmeläugige Orakel kund, und immer wenn die Zeit aus den Fugen geriet, sandten sie ihre Geister in die Unterwelt, um mit den Dämonen zu verhandeln und den Bruch in unserer Natur zu besänftigen.

Now, unreal cities, mined deep, flare up to banish night, Memory is cached in frames of frozen light, Viral fiction vogues upon a billion mirrored podiums And data seethes in cloud banks, Raining over those that populate these newfangled zones Morphic demi gods, half mammal half device, who brood and isolate, Who swarm, each sulphured dusk, Through this bewildered ground, Which like some beast of sacrifice, once uniquely graced, Now, pelt torn, sways against the brink of chaos.

Heute flammen unwirkliche Städte, tief unter Tage, auf, um die Nacht zu bannen, die Erinnerung verbirgt sich in Rahmen aus gefrorenem Licht, virale Fiktion tanzt auf einer Million verspiegelter Podien Und Daten wimmeln in Wolkenbänken, Regnen über all jene, die diese neumodischen Zonen bevölkern – morphische Halbgötter, halb Säugetier, halb Apparat, die brüten und sich absondern, die in jeder geschwefelten Dämmerung durch dieses wildgewordene Gelände schwärmen, das wie ein Opfertier, einst besonders gesegnet, nun mit zerfetztem Pelz an der Schwelle zum Chaos taumelt.

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Lie Song

Lügen-Song

I get to work still drunk from the night before.

I didn’t bother changing the sheets on the spare bed for my father in law.

We tell our dog there are no more treats and show him a random empty box.

I don’t like the food you cook, I’m not really on a wheat detox.

I didn’t scan that frozen lasagna. Under this coat I am wearing pajamas.

I despise your religious beliefs. I am the office soy milk thief.

Ich laufe bei der Arbeit ein und bin immer noch blau vom Abend davor.

Ich habe mir nicht die Mühe gemacht, für meinen Schwiegervater das Gästebett frisch zu beziehen.

Wir erzählen unserem Hund, es gäbe keine Leckerli mehr und zeigen ihm eine x-beliebige leere Schachtel.

Es stimmt gar nicht, dass ich zurzeit auf Weizen verzichte, mir schmeckt bloß nicht, was du kochst.

Ich habe die Tiefkühllasagne an der Selbstbedienungskasse nicht eingescannt. Unter dem Mantel trage ich einen Schlafanzug.

Ich verabscheue deine religiösen Ansichten. Ich bin die Person, die im Büro die Sojamilch klaut.

For your birthday, I wrapped up a book I bought and read from a charity shop.

I don’t like who I have become but I can’t even seem to try to stop.

I dropped my girlfriends expensive shampoo down the festival portaloo and let her use it after.

There is no magic healing spell in that Mr Bump blue elasterplaster.

I didn’t get these scratches from a cat. You are a disaster in that try-hard hipster hat.

I flirt with you to keep my job. We all think your new boyfriend is a nob.

Als Geschenk zu deinem Geburtstag habe ich einfach ein Buch aus dem Secondhand-Shop eingepackt, das ich mal gefunden und gelesen habe.

Ich kann den Menschen, zu dem ich geworden bin, nicht ausstehen, aber irgendwie schaffe ich es nicht, etwas dagegen zu unternehmen.

Mir ist bei einem Festival das teure Shampoo meiner Freundin ins Dixi-Klo gefallen und ich habe es sie weiter benutzen lassen.

Das Benjamin-Blümchen-Pflaster hat gar keine Wunderheilkräfte.

Die Kratzwunden sind nicht von einer Katze. Du siehst scheiße aus mit der Gewollt-und-nicht-gekonnt-Hipster-Mütze.

Ich flirte mit dir, um meinen Job nicht zu verlieren. Wir sind uns alle einig, dass dein neuer Freund ein Idiot ist.

The chances of us meeting for a drink this week after work are slim to nil.

Those skinny jeans draw attention to the fact you may be ill.

While you shower, I read your texts.

I’m dumping you because your boring in bed and I miss casual sex.

Your baby looks like an alien. Grandma I will never wear this cardigan.

Traffic was not a nightmare. I’m not sorry I am late.

You don’t look lovely and I don’t feel great.

Die Chancen, dass wir beide diese Woche nach der Arbeit was trinken gehen, stehen gleich null.

In den Skinny Jeans siehst du aus wie eine Magersüchtige.

Ich lese deine SMS, während du unter der Dusche stehst.

Ich mache mit dir Schluss, weil du langweilig im Bett bist und ich die Sexabenteuer vermisse.

Dein Baby sieht aus wie ein Alien. Ich werde diese Weste nie im Leben anziehen, Oma. Der Verkehr war gar kein Alptraum. Es tut mir überhaupt nicht leid, dass ich zu spät bin.

Du siehst nicht hübsch aus und mir geht es auch nicht gut.

No, never have I ever read the te - erms and conditi –ti –ti –ti-o –o- o- on ns

Nein, ich habe die Geschä –hä ftsbedi –hi- hi ngungen noch nie im Leben gelesen.

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The Job Interview

Das Vorstellungsgespräch

White Lies Thank you for coming in to see us, Mr Oguwiki, we appreciate your time.

Harmlose Lügen Vielen Dank, dass Sie vorbeikommen sind, Mr. Oguwiki, wir wissen es sehr zu schätzen, dass Sie sich Zeit genommen haben.

Fibs Unfortunately the position has already been filled.

Flunkereien Leider ist die Stelle in der Zwischenzeit bereits besetzt worden.

Broken Promises If something comes up we promise to get right back to you.

Uneingelöste Versprechen Wir melden uns bei Ihnen, sobald eine passende Stelle frei wird.

Bare faced lies We are committed to equal opportunities.

Dreiste Lügen Es liegt uns sehr am Herzen, gleiche Chancen für alle zu schaffen.

Lies of exaggeration We have an outstanding record of diversity in our workforce.

Übertreibung Was die personelle und kulturelle Vielfalt unserer Mitarbeiter betrifft, sind wir hervorragend aufgestellt.

Lies of omission Over 50 per cent of our employees are women or from minority backgrounds.

Lügen durch Verschweigen Über 50 Prozent unserer Mitarbeiter sind Frauen oder gehören einer ethnischen Minderheit an.

Minimisation In every company you will get disgruntled employees, law suits.

Verharmlosung Unzufriedene Mitarbeiter und Gerichtsverfahren gibt es in jedem Unternehmen.

Deflecting We need team players here - people who can get on with others.

Ablenkung Was wir brauchen, sind Teamplayer – Leute, die mit anderen gut klarkommen.

Defamation It seems like you have serious anger issues.

Verleumdung Kann es sein, dass Sie Ihre Wutausbrüche nicht im Griff haben?

Perjury I swear categorically I never used that term in an in house memo.

Meineid Ich schwöre hoch und heilig, dass ich diesen Ausdruck niemals in einem internen Memo verwendet habe.

Plagiarism I always say, we live in a Big Society - be the change you want to see.

Plagiat Ich sage immer, wir leben in einer Big Society – sei die Veränderung, die du sehen willst.

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Rishi Dastidar Ticker Tape

Lochstreifen

She is where she always is at this point, sitting in the Reverend’s speakeasy, wingtips ascending, waiting for the minute hand to move. A second

Sie ist, wo sie immer ist an diesem Punkt, sie sitzt im Reverend’s, die Flügelspitzen zeigen nach oben, sie wartet darauf, dass sich der Minutenzeiger bewegt. Eine Sekunde

rolls over, becomes a new hour. I hold the tattoo on her wrist, an outline – all dog legs and squat thrusts, an obese pigeon unable to take off. She gathers herself:

zieht vorüber, wird eine neue Stunde. Ich halte das Tattoo auf ihrem Handgelenk, ein Umriss – nichts als Hundebeine und Liegestützsprünge, eine fettleibige Taube, die nicht abheben kann. Sie sammelt sich:

My ticker-tape, my bracelet, my gimlet, my green belt handcuff, my tube line, my roundel, my encapsulation, my malachite collar,

Mein Lochstreifen, mein Armband, mein Gimlet, meine Grüngürtel-Fessel, meine Underground-Linie, mein Kreisring, meine Verkapselung, meine Malachit-Halskette,

my friend, my lover, my ambition, my unconquered lands, my Western front, my Eiger, my undocumented interior, my multiple timezones,

meine Freundin, meine Liebhaberin, mein Ehrgeiz, meine unbesiegten Länder, meine Westfront, mein Eiger, mein undokumentiertes Inneres, meine multiple Zeitzonen,

my endless vistas, my temples of display, my pilgrimage, my refuge, my starting point, my ever-changing slang, my exclusive code,

meine endlosen Aussichten, meine Tempel der Zurschaustellung, meine Pilgerfahrt, mein Zufluchtsort, mein Ausgangspunkt, mein sich ständig ändernder Slang, mein exklusiver Code,

my palimpsest, my outline of the me I will become, my dark market, my light house, my civilization, my abecedary, my participatory incantation,

mein Palimpsest, mein Entwurf des Ichs, das ich sein werde, mein Dunkelmarkt, mein leichtes Haus, meine Zivilisation, mein Abecedarium, meine partizipative Beschwörung,

my sizzle and steak, my law-giving colophon, my badge, my totem, my charm of luck, my disgrace, my downfall, my encampment,

mein Brutzeln und Steak, mein gesetzgebender Kolophon, mein Abzeichen, mein Totem, mein Talisman, meine Schande, mein Untergang, mein Lagerplatz,

my erstwhile empire, my pier of pleasure, my denial of service, my white tower, my hundred crows rising, my convenient alliances,

mein einstiges Imperium, mein Vergnügungspier, mein Denial of Service, mein weißer Turm, meine hundert aufsteigenden Krähen, meine genehmen Allianzen,

my enemy of purpose, my flag of convenience, my restless wanderer, my pulsating imagination, my time lord, my endless riot, my kin of kin,

mein Feind der Entschlossenheit, meine Gefälligkeitsflagge, mein rastloser Wanderer, meine pulsierende Fantasie, mein Zeitlord, mein endloser Aufstand, meine Familien-Familie,

my zipless fuck, my zone of disobedience, my end of the line, my capsule of forgiveness, my one more for the road, my why-ever-not,

mein Spontanfick, meine Zone des Ungehorsams, meine Endstation, meine Kapsel der Vergebung, mein Einer-geht-noch, mein Warum-auch-nicht,

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BREAKING GROUND

my seized day, my clenched fist, my tunnels of indifference, my fashion galore, my daring wonderings, my candy floss, my sugar loss,

mein genutzter Tag, meine geballte Faust, mein Tunnel der Gleichgültigkeit, meine Mode en masse, meine gewagten Überlegungen, meine Zuckerwatte, mein Blut-Zucker-Verzicht,

my gadget of invention, my caffeine kick, my traction, my exit wound, my magnificent workshop, my typeface of command, my minded gap,

mein Erfindungsapparat, mein Koffeinkick, meine Zugkraft, meine Austrittswunde, meine industrielle Pracht, meine Befehlsschriftart, mein beachteter Spalt,

my for all, my luxurious lap, my officer of truth, my light power and speed, my descent to brightness, my weaponized umbrella, my catchpenny seasons,

mein Für-alle, mein Braus und Saus, mein Wahrheitsoffizier, mein Licht Kraft und Geschwindigkeit, mein Abstieg in die Helligkeit, mein zur Waffe gewordener Schirm, meine Ramschjahreszeiten,

my bye-law contraventions, my stolen impressions, my dynamic dynamite, my matchday rattle, my cup final, my imperial trial, my undampened enthusiasm,

meine Satzungsverstöße, meine gestohlenen Eindrücke, mein dynamisches Dynamit, meine Spieltagrassel, mein Pokalfinale, meine kaiserliche Kraftprobe, meine ungetrübte Begeisterung,

my peddler’s cries, my hawker’s dilemmas, my bright hours, my super club, my neon trapeze, my maximum meaning, my expeditionary force, my pursuit of glee,

meine Marktschreierschreie, meine Hausiererdilemmas, meine Glanzstunden, mein Superclub, mein Neontrapez, mein Maximalsinn, mein Expeditionionskorps, mein Streben nach Freude,

my mercenary moods, my mendicant bears, my subtle delights, my peacock smiles, my rainbow hosts, my flash exquisites, my hatful of ideologies,

meine geldgierigen Gemütslagen, meine bettelnden Bären, meine feinsinnigen Freuden, mein Pfauenlächeln, meine Regenbogengastgeber, meine protzenden Kunstwerke, meine Mütze voll Ideologien,

my jumble of engineering, my votive village, my dirtee fowl, my whistle display, my beak club boys, my typing pool girls, my meat back room hooks, my variety pack,

mein Wirrwarr an Technik, mein Votivdorf, mein dirtee bird, meine Anzugparade, mein Schwerer-Jungs-Club, meine Schreibbüromädchen, mein Fleischerhinterzimmerhaken, meine Sortimentpackung,

my linear portraits, my proud ornaments, my statuary obfuscations, my way of business, my moving spirits, my fair fairs, my well-baited hoopla,

meine linearen Porträts, meine stolzen Zierden, meine bildhauerischen Verdunkelungen, meine Geschäftsmethoden, meine treibenden Kräfte, meine angemessenen Messen, mein bärengehetzter Rummel,

my compelling invitation, my misplaced discretion, my coat of years, my solid comfort, my quirky legend, my wonderground, my Byronic charm, my Blakean spells,

meine unwiderstehliche Einladung, meine unangebrachte Diskretion, mein Mantel der Jahre, mein gediegener Komfort, meine skurrile Legende, mein Wundergrund, mein Byron’scher Charme, meine Blake’schen Zaubersprüche,

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

my Wildean wilds, my Magnificent Ambersons, my herb of work, my workaday history, my ego limerick, my double-sheet facts, my mirror-real ticket, my manorial extension, my open system,

meine Wilde’sche Wildnis, meine Glanzvollen Ambersons, mein Kraut der Arbeit, mein werktäglicher Werdegang, mein Ego-Limerick, meine Quadratblattaufgaben, mein spiegelechtes Ticket, mein Herrenhausausbau, mein offenes System,

my Whitsuntide outing, my sunset sanctuary, my concrete lady, my silver river, my surfeit resort, my closed conspiracy, my colour trooping, my oyez sport, my monarchtopolis,

mein Pfingstausflug, meine Sonnenuntergangs-Zuflucht, meine Beton-Lady, mein Silberfluss, mein Überdruss-Resort, meine geschlossene Verschwörung, meine königliche Geburtstagsparade, mein Hört-hört-Sport, meine Monarchtopolis,

my mother’s promises, my digital handshake, my dictatorial signature, my distress bleeps, my transparent telegrams, my constant change,

meiner Mutters Versprechungen, mein digitaler Handschlag, meine diktatorische Unterschrift, meine Notpiepser, meine transparenten Telegramme, meine konstante Veränderung,

my ghosts of progress, my administrative burden, my chains of buffonery, my griffin barriers, my dirty martini, my impatient regret, my unbound determination,

meine Geister des Fortschritts, mein bürokratischer Aufwand, meine Gelächterketten, meine Greifen-Stadtgrenzen, mein Dirty Martini, mein ungeduldiges Bedauern, meine entfesselte Entschlossenheit,

my differential equations, my regression to the mean, my standard deviation, my soda siphon, my power ballads, my tongue thieves, my tied brewers, my spiced negroni,

meine Differentialgleichungen, meine Regression zur Mitte, meine Standardabweichung, mein Sodasiphon, meine Power-Balladen, meine Zungendiebe, meine gebundenen Brauer, mein Gewürz-Negroni,

my stereotypical cliché, my bomber command, my secular hymn, my paradisal playground, my seducer’s lair, my casino bank, my pie and mash, my fizzing diamonds, my broadcast booth,

mein stereotypes Klischee, mein Bomberkommando, meine weltliche Hymne, mein paradiesischer Spielplatz, meiner Verführerins Schlupfwinkel, meine Casino-Bank, mein Pie and Mash, meine perlenden Diamanten, meine Rundfunkkabine,

my 78rpm shellacking, my flotilla of pratfalls, my corporate bequest, my boutique philosophy, my jubilee of consumption, my credit card debt, my inevitable performance, my battalions of redoubt, my bases of plenty,

meine 78-rpm-Schellackschlappe, meine Reinfall-Flotille, mein Unternehmensvermächtnis, meine Boutique-Philosophie, mein Konsumjubiläum, meine Kreditkartenschulden, mein unvermeidliches Aufhebens, meine Schanzenbataillone, meine Depots der Fülle,

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CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

BREAKING GROUND

my fleet of suns, my bestiary of incompetence, my flood plain of irrelevance, my balsam hopes, my dockside griefs, my Festival of Britain, my cistern of rubrics, my incendiary rage, my noblesse oblige,

meine Sonnenflotte, mein Bestiarium der Inkompetenz, meine Flussaue der Belanglosigkeit, meine Balsamhoffnungen, meine Hafenleiden, mein Festival of Britain, meine Zisterne der Rubriken, mein aufrührerischer Zorn, mein noblesse oblige,

my revolutions, my force majeure, my manifesto of sorts, my quack illnesses, my prescriptions of choice, my harlots of nonentity, my endless parabola, my arc-ing rise and fall,

meine Revolutionen, meine höhere Gewalt, meine Art Manifest, meine Quacksalberkrankheiten, meine Verschreibungen erster Wahl, meine unbedeutenden Huren, meine endlose Parabel, mein sich wölbender Aufstieg und Fall,

my one two three four five senses working o-ver-time

meine eins zwei drei vier fünf Sinne, die Überstunden machen

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Caleb Femi me

Ich

Of bath tubs and hushpuppies. Of all the things that should have broken this skin. Of beatings from parents. Of night time rain and slippery shoes. Of knives finding homes in the lower of this back. Of bullets asking questions that burn. Of lying in a crashed car flipped upside down. Of the Lord ’s Prayer. Of the Shihada. Of the Viddui. Of the prayers made by each person in the car asking their God to intervene and somehow keep us alive. Of section 18s. Of blue lights and forceful entry. Of homes gutted from the inside like fish at Billingsgate market. Of mothers rebuilding homes from rumble, rebuilding sons from vacuum cleaner dust. Of rolling stones conceived of stony homes roaming alone in thunderstorms these waters could not break these stony islands. Of being taught that dignity is a piece of meat that hungry dogs fight to the death for. Of unlearning their lies and my own. Of violence -not physical -the one that stemmed from being scared of not belonging that gave birth to our music. Of roadside Gs, South Soldiers, BBK, Roll Deep, Ruff Sqwad, Nasty Crew, PDC, SN1. Of Friday night youth clubs shutting down leaving us no choice but to build refugee camps on estate stairwells. Of one-piece chicken and chips smearing the burger sauce and ketchup thinking how much it looks like a stab wound. Of getting Tina pregnant the first time we ever did it. Of the threats made by Tina’s mum when she found out, promising to cook my balls like she does her curry goat. Of walking through the other side of the city and realising they don’t live like us. Of suffering and smiling. Of all the writers, musicians, dancers, painters refusing to implode politely. Of the people who speak poetry every day without even realising it (you are the unsung crusaders). Of all the little pieces that have made me into this man that stands before you this Hybrid Of Plants and Of Ghosts.

Aus Bathtubs und Hushpuppies. Aus all den Dingen, die diese Haut hätten durchbohren sollen. Aus elterlichen Schlägen. Aus nächtlichem Regen und rutschigen Schuhen. Aus Messern, die sich in diesen Rücken einnisten. Aus Kugeln, die brennende Fragen stellen.

Daraus, in einem verunglückten Wagen zu liegen, der sich überschlagen hat. Aus dem Vaterunser. Aus der Shahada. Aus dem Widduj. Aus den Gebeten aller Menschen im Auto, in denen sie ihren Gott darum baten, einzugreifen und uns irgendwie überleben zu lassen. Aus Hausdurchsuchungen nach der Verhaftung. Aus Blaulichtern und gewaltsamem Eindringen. Aus Wohnungen, die von innen ausgenommen werden wie der Fisch auf dem Billingsgate Market. Aus Müttern, die ein Heim aus Trümmern wiederaufbauen, die Söhne aus Staubsaugerstaub wiederaufbauen. Aus rollenden Steinen gezeugt von steinigen Heimen, die allein in Gewittern umherstreifen, diese Gewässer konnten diese steinigen Inseln nicht zerstören. Daraus, gesagt zu bekommen, Würde sei ein Stück Fleisch, für das sich hungrige Hunde bis aufs Blut bekämpfen. Daraus, ihre Lügen und meine eigenen aus dem Gedächtnis zu streichen. Aus Gewalt – nicht der körperlichen – sondern jener, die aus der Angst entsteht, nicht dazuzugehören, die unsere Musik hervorbrachte. Aus Roadside Gs, South Soldiers, BBK, Roll Deep, Ruff Sqwad, Nasty Crew, PDC, SN1. Aus Freitagabend-Jugendclubs, die dichtmachten und uns keine andere Wahl ließen als in den Treppenhäusern der Siedlung Flüchtlingslager zu errichten. Aus Hühnchen und Pommes, daraus, die Burgersauce und das Ketchup zusammenzuschmieren und zu denken, wie sehr das an eine Stichwunde erinnert. Daraus, Tina beim allerersten Mal zu schwängern, als wir es getan haben. Aus den Drohungen, die Tinas Mum ausstieß, als sie es erfuhr und schwor, meine Eier zu kochen wie ihr Ziegencurry. Daraus, durch die andere Seite der Stadt zu laufen und zu merken, sie leben nicht wie wir. Aus Leiden und Lächeln. Aus all den Schriftstellern, Musikern, Tänzern, Malern, die sich weigern, artig zu implodieren. Aus all den Menschen, die jeden Tag Gedichte sprechen, ohne es zu merken (ihr seid die unbesungenen Vorkämpfer). Aus all den winzigen Teilen, die mich zu diesem Mann gemacht haben, der vor euch steht, diesem Hybrid aus Pflanzen und aus Geistern.

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BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Before

Vor

before Marylebone,

slow texting in June

the heat of two windows when we thought we could fix it

slept on separate continents

in the same bed

vor Marylebone,

gelegentliche SMS im Juni

die Hitze zweier Fenster als wir dachten, wir könnten es wieder in Ordnung bringen

schliefen auf separaten Kontinenten

im gleichen Bett

before you were a jade vase

we talked using cups and strings and had eye contact during sex

bevor du eine Jadevase warst

wir redeten mit Bechertelefonen und hatten Blickkontakt während dem Sex

before fighting in the back of an Uber

on your birthday when your father didn’t know

bevor wir uns auf dem Rücksitz eines Uber-Taxis gestritten haben

an deinem Geburtstag als dein Vater noch nicht wusste

before before

you went to that Tapas bar

near Angel station when you dragged a wet love into the room

a spillage we let dry

bevor bevor

du in diese Tapasbar

bei der Angel-Haltestelle gegangen bist als du eine nasse Liebe in den Raum gezerrt hast

Verschüttetes, das wir trocknen ließen

Before Queen Mary uni was popping

Angela and the FB building when you slid into my DMs

helped you with your assignment

bevor die Queen Mary Uni aufregend war

Angela und das FB-Gebäude als du mir irgendwann Privatnachrichten geschickt hast

ich dir mit deiner Hausarbeit geholfen habe

Before I heard your name

be your name when I didn’t know your face

just heard stories from Winnie

bevor ich gehört habe, dass dein Name

dein Name ist als ich dein Gesicht noch nicht kannte

bloß Geschichten von Winnie gehört habe

Before I went 6th form with Winne

free periods in the common room before 6th form

grinding on Camden front line before summer in Blue Park

riding out in auction cars

bevor ich mit Winnie in die Oberstufe ging

Freistunden im Aufenthaltsraum vor der Oberstufe

Jobben auf der Camden High Street vor dem Sommer in Blue Park

Rumdüsen in gebrauchten Autos

when I am a child flinching at a coming smack stray dog in waiting new friend of a homeless man stuck in September pieces of a clock tree leaves

wenn ich ein Kind bin, das vor einem kommenden Schlag zusammenzuckt ein streunender Hund auf der Lauer einer, der gerade Freundschaft mit einem Obdachlosen geschlossen hat im September stecken geblieben Einzelteile einer Uhr Baum Blätter 69

BREAKING GROUND

CELEBRATING BRITISH WRITERS OF COLOUR IN TRANSLATION

Shoobs Get Locked

Party wird gesprengt

I haven’t thanked God for a Friday since boydem locked off that shoobs on Pete’s Estate, before I got that buff girl’s number.

Still I’ll always take a party in a house over a club, where we twist bend shake.

You lot call it dancing, we call it healing, we call it the wickedest whine.

On these Saturdays we tell our shadows to stay home, tell it we won’t be back until Monday bleeds through the speakers.

Ich hab mich nicht mehr bei Gott für einen Freitag bedankt, seit dem Tag, als die Bullen die Party in Petes Siedlung gesprengt haben, bevor ich mir die Nummer des heißen Braut holen konnte.

Trotzdem sind mir Hauspartys lieber als ein Club, wo wir uns drehen schütteln beugen.

Ihr nennt das tanzen, wir nennen es heilen, wir nennen es the wickedest whine.

An Samstagen wie diesen sagen wir unseren Schatten, sie sollen zu Hause bleiben, sagen ihnen, dass wir erst wiederkommen, wenn der Montag durch die Lautsprecher sickert.

This is what we make of our nights when the light of day swears it did not birth us This is how we unorphan ourselves Us lot, whose faces look like crescent moons silver right down to the seams of our wrinkled skin who stopped looking for ourselves in the white pages of books and grew hardback covers for spines

So verbringen wir unsere Nächte, wenn das Tageslicht schwört, uns nicht geboren zu haben, so entwaisen wir ns.

Wir, deren Gesichter wie Mondsicheln aussehen silbern bis hinab zu den Narben unserer runzligen Haut, wir, die wir uns nicht mehr auf weißen Buchseiten suchen, sondern uns einen festen Einband als Rücken sprießen ließen.

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ABOUT SPEAKING VOLUMES Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions is a not-for-profit, producer-led independent organisation, which promotes the very best of the UK’s rich diversity of literature and international writing. Formed in 2010 by Sharmilla Beezmohun and Sarah Sanders, the agency has, along with Nick Chapman, produced numerous literary festivals tours, events series and showcases in the UK and internationally. This includes: two tours of Black British writers to the East and West Coasts of the USA; a London and UK-wide series of Stand Up And Spit events celebrating political poetry; four editions of European Literature Night at the British Library; programmes for the European Commission; and the 2012 UK tour of Poetry Parnassus, the Southbank Centre’s festival for the Cultural Olympiad.

In 2017, Speaking Volumes took British writers to four European countries as part of Breaking Ground Europe as well as producing events in London, Birmingham and at Bradford Literature Festival for the series. Other projects included producing Surge: Side A, a performance at London’s Roundhouse by poet Jay Bernard. Based on poetry written as a result of a residency at the George Padmore Institute and research into the New Cross Massacre of 1981, it resulted in Jay winning the 2018 Ted Hughes Award. In 2018, Speaking Volumes are working with poets and writers Colin Grant, Anthony Joseph, Nick Makoha and Roger Robinson to produce activities, events and tours around new work they have made.

Original prose and poetry, and translations are produced with the permission of the writers and translators; copyright of all intellectual property remains with the creators. The content in this booklet is not to be reproduced in part or in full, online or in print.

Breaking Ground Europe was made possible by the support of Arts Council England.

The Breaking Ground translations in this booklet were made possible by the generous support of Distinguished Professor Maggi Morehouse and the Coastal Carolina University. The production of this booklet was made possible by the support of Jeremy O’Sullivan and Europe House, London, Representation of the European Commission in the UK.