Things Disappear
Published in Issue #33 Translated from Danish by the author subscribe to unlock the full storyWe were walking around the East End of London and we were worn out. By the sun, and by the sense of history that was creeping up on us.
The graffiti over the door said: Kill All Poets! in black letters.
There was the narrow back street, there were the sweatshops, the small tailors’ workshops in the attics. There were the faded lofts.
Then there was Jack the Ripper, who had committed his first murder in a nearby alley.
And the heat that day. The stench of butchers’ meat in the sun, the dusty pavements. All this, and miles from the nearest park.
I was with Christian from Berlin. He was a young German, studying Yiddish because he liked the language, not because of any personal feelings of guilt about crimes committed by his grandparents.
A modest sign behind a dusty pane of glass in the building with the graffiti caught our attention. It read: Museum of Jewish Preservation. Then the guide appeared, seemingly out of thin air, and let us in to the dusty building, which had once been a synagogue.
He told us about Jack the Ripper, a fountain of spittle spraying out of his mouth as he spoke. He had his own style, and he was the one who had known Bodinski.
Not that Bodinski had ever been a poet. Nor had he ever been killed. All he had done was put the key into the lock and turn it one last time, never to be seen again.
The question is, how far can a human being push himself? Given that culture cannot be translated. No more than poetry can.
Things disappear, of course, they have to. The question is how they disappear. And what they leave...
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