CHUTURANGA
There are
four of us, as many as the cardinal points of the world: myself, my wife,
my daughter and my son: we play chess, not two, but four of us, and all at
once. The players stand for the four cardinal points of the world, the
seasons of the year, the magic square; and this game is
primeval, an ancient Indian game, the same moves are made, the traps of
semiotics and semantics are avoided, this is how the grammar of
„uturanga breathes, and,
because every game has its rules, order, winners, and losers, it is painful
to acknowledge that none other than we who are each other’s own flesh and
blood are the winners and the losers.
The first move: it was made a
long time ago, remembering is painful, and thus we don’t know who started
first and what the first move means: my son says: the proposal to play the
game is the first move, individual and mutual consent to play, my wife:
rational as usual, proposes a practical story together with my daughter,
that the game began at the moment when we sat leaning over the chessboard,
and from the moment when the clepsydra was turned. The hourglass counts the
seconds thickly one after the other with a razor-like sound, as if a snake
surrounded by fire turns over and over on itself and hisses because there
is no redemption for it.
There are four of us: myself,
my wife, my daughter and my son: I: maybe with a moustache, without
authority, without a shadow, with David Avidan’s poem in my hands,
translated from the Hebrew by Jenny Leble, shorter than my wife, who,
although she doesn’t have to, leans forward and lowers her body when we go
out or stand next to each other, so that somehow we can be equally tall, so
we can escape being singled out. I ask her, how do you do it. She says, oh
no, that’s how tall I am. That’s her first move: I look at her gentle
smile, at the pleasure of the irony, at the game, at the game pieces that
are real elephants and other animals, monkeys, soldiers, horses. A gleam
appears in her eyes, she prepares the trap for the eagle that circles
somewhere above us and hones in. My thoughts turn to the air currents that
herald snow, to the shivers of the freezing body that crunches the snow, to
the person we are burying, and she leaves the cemetery with the excuse that
she is freezing, that she can’t stand the sad sight any longer, and takes
the bus. People like me have a fundamental primitiveness: they repeat
things that have been said before, for example one might mention sexual
exultation: fuck off, go to hell, get lost, they say such things to people
like me, and I do the same: fuck off, beat it. In my wife’s strident voice
I recognize other foolish things, that life is short and a true copy of
dreams, not immediately, years later through the sand of trickled-out time,
and in order to calm me down, she says very gently in a pacifying but
calculating way: I surely would not blemish your dignity, not even in
thought. Speaking frankly: in „uturanga,
castling is not recognized, but my wife: eternally an architect, with name
and respectability, director of the Institute of Urban Planning, before the
years of the climax, krk-trt time according to Turkish calculation, an
accountant, laps up the false shadow that shimmers through the haze and
opts for castling: How many whores have soiled my bed? A leer pulls at the
lips, the moustache plays dum-dara-dum, and I say: not a single one! Oh,
I’m not lying! And she: in love with the silk and the years at the student
theater when I cast her in the role that she plays even now, repeats at the
top of her voice the section from the monologue on slander in Mayakovsky’s
verse--the wretched thing seeks redemption for what has been said. The
motherly morning star shines forth from her eyes; my babes, she says to the
children, and trembles devotedly, having earned their respect always
standing opposite me, standing steadfastly opposite me; mom, say the
children; listen woman, say I.
There are four of us: I and
they: I burst out crying for no obvious reason, I begin to slobber, and
they do likewise; I am silent, they are silent; I move in a certain
direction, they do the same--and spoil the game. Afterwards, they ask whose
turn it is, but I have already forgotten about the game, I have shouldered
the hunting rifle and exited to the yard where I pull the trigger in all
directions: blam! blam! blam!
What’s dad shooting at, my
little daughter asks.
What’s dad shooting at, my
little son asks.
I return, defeated: the eyes
of my children ask how my soul feels, how my heart feels, and their eyes
ask how I feel in general! I turn my back on those eyes, I mumble something
in reply, and unbuckle my cartridge belt, I am pleased: I put my rifle in
its case, so it can remain there and threaten the darkness and the ghosts
that fly over the house as if they were owls or other birds of ill omen. My
little son does not give up: repeats his question a thousand times, will
not be lectured, dares ask for more details: Did you shoot in all four
directions? All four, I reply. I can read his surprise, because it was not
my turn, and he wants, oh, how badly he wants to tell me that, but I don’t
allow it: I turn the clepsydra energetically, which signifies a move and a
protest, and ultimately the clearing out of space in which the game can
continue. The grammar of „uturanga
limits the number of players to four, but it seems that the number has more
than tripled, and it is necessary to agree on the order and the rules ahead
of time. Such freedom of play gives the initial impression that the game is
stifled by the number of players; it is necessary to count how many of us
are playing, but who wants to keep track! I peek into the bottom of their
souls through their eyes: the shadow is the magic of the square, the wand
strikes some new geometric sign, the players are displaced, as are the
cardinal points of the world, the regular arrangement of rows, diagonals,
horses, and soldiers, as well as the ideal of the magic square for four
players, and, in general, a material digression has been made, pure
betrayal of meaningful interverbal communication with image, word, and
sound.
I withdraw to the corner of
the room, the typewriter in my arms. Clasped tightly under my arm I carry
the white pages of betrayal and the strict rules of the game; my fingers
are numb, I hold tight to the carbon paper along with a plan to conquer the
winter in my heart, the vertigo syndrome, and all world irony. The parable
of the game whose story emerges on the pages is truly copied on the carbon
pages as if they were dark mirrors on whose surface the seal of hesitation
and betrayal has been stamped, firmly and clearly, like God’s identical
twin, as if the carbon pages determined fate, and not fate them. I retreat
even deeper into the corner, I retract the move, can I turn everything
back, I say to myself, I say it aloud, and I can hear the echo, the
reverberation of accelerating civilization which says as one: No! There’s
no turning back!
My daughter: at the borderline
of childhood weaves a wreath of dream-flowers and orchids. She still has
uttered neither word nor sigh, neither oh me, nor alas, she chases the
butterfly of maidenhood, the earliest variety, and drags me from the corner
towards the middle of the room. She clutches the queen, lifts it to her
forehead and her eyes say to me: How is it that I was born into this
accursed time. Fear seizes me, overwhelms my strength and my knees,
electric currents shoot through my veins, and the question
that I can sense coming does not reach me: Why are we so alone!
Outside, the icicles break:
they plummet like arrows, and with that heavensent sound winter is gone,
it’s over! A bitch and a pack of dogs are crossing a field, the bitch
first, the dogs after her. They sniff under her tail, they bite one
another, they wait their turn. A mob with clubs pursues them, both children
and soldiers, but neither children nor soldiers, they shout, they stare
like beasts, they bait the dogs that have lost their places in the mating
line.
There are four of us, as many
as the cardinal points of the world: myself, my wife, my daughter and my
son: we play chess, not two, but four of us, and all at once. The four
sides stand for the players of „uturanga,
the cardinal points of the world, the magic square, semantics and
semiotics, and because „uturanga
also has certain rules, through some crystal hole in the magic square, that
which can be seen is seen: the hourglass and the time that has elapsed and
the snake for whom there is no redemption from the confinement of the
square. Squeezed tight against one another as on a crowded bus, admirers of
the irreproachable order of things, we watch from afar, and see that we,
each other’s own flesh and blood, are the losers.
Translated from Macedonian by
Rajna Koshka and Lucy Bednar
