Big Duel!
He loses his shoe to a pair of groping hands as a tide of foul dejecta pipes down his trouser leg and erupts like a geyser in the face of his pursuer: the spurned duellist or his loyal second – the Bard can’t make out and couldn’t care less. He kicks off his other shoe and now he’s away, free, running – untouched! At his side, miraculously, runs Fettle, untouched too except for his bladder of wine which took a shot aimed hastily at the Bard and which continues to piss in a triumphant bloody arc as they run. “Oh! Thank heavens! Thank heavens you deloped!” Fettle rasps asthmatically, enjoying his vocabulary. “Of course I deloped. What did you expect. That I would kill him?”
By Adam Biles.
Before Exams
”‹I peek out from behind the embankment, waiting for her to show up, but she’s still not there. My palms are sweating and something lurches in my stomach, and I feel like shitting myself. I’m excited, like a guy who’s waiting for his date and he doesn’t know if she’ll show up or not. I’ve never once gone on a date, I mean really, not a single date. A few guys in my class have already been going on dates for a long time, Yurchenko for one. He doesn’t waste any time in class, either. He sat at the next table over from me with Khmelnitskaya, and when nobody was looking he’d grope her under the table, and she wouldn’t squeal, just smile, like she liked it.
By Vladimir Kozlov.
Labels that wouldn’t stick
Our conversation keeps returning to Felipe: can we call him a reliable narrator? Is he more than just a not-too-unwilling instrument in the hands of the evil? “A curious thing happened last year,” says Gamerro. “The Islands was adapted for theatre — I wrote the play myself. Naturally, the narrator’s voice had to go. I was astonished to see that all Felipe does is just stand there, taking in what’s happening around him. That’s his role in the novel too.” How did the Argentine audience react to the play? “People we either very enthusiastic or very angry. Our politicians don’t usually read novels, but a stage production at an ‘official’ theatre is hard to miss. A lot of nationalists found my take on the war insulting.”
Anna Aslanyan interviews Carlos Gamerro.