Moving Parts by Magdalena Tulli

imprisoned in a dead zone of the story, it is only partially. For his being is given continuity by the volatile essence of longing, and not by the sluggish weight of a body that could equally well belong to someone else and be located somewhere else. The level of this essence is evened out in the long series of rooms like an arrangement of linked containers. Whereas if there should be a lack of connections, it must quite simply penetrate through the walls or ceilings. It’s already drifting in places where the narrator has yet to set foot. And in this way the words ‘already’ and ‘yet’ which have no obligation to reckon with anything at all, thus demonstrate their absolute superiority over the substance of concrete and summon accomplishedfacts into being. And the narrator, who controls virtually nothing here, ought only to note that somewhere beneath the turf of the garden, below the layers of earth in which worms and moles dig their tunnels, lie the platforms of a local rail station. Livid graffiti appear there. Painted on dirty plaster, the initials of last names compete for one’s attention: an elaborate S, which a spray paint wielding Schmidt unknown to the narrator has left stealthily on the wall, and an extravagant B put up by some Braun. They may have been the ones who tried out a new can of paint by adding a blotchy commentary to a film poster pasted up on the platform. In it the narrator recognizes the man’s black sweater and the bright highlights in the woman’s red hair. The film couple, John Maybe and Yvonne Touseulement, is kissing on a steeply sloping roof, beneath a firmament that has come slightly unstuck from its base.
    The bench on which the narrator has taken a seat is not short; nevertheless a certain old man in a red dressing gown announces in a schoolmasterly tone that this place belongs to him alone, and has since time immemorial. He apparently deserved such a privilege out of consideration for some damp trenches where he ended up contracting rheumatism; that is, in remembrance of a past that he grumpily harps on. If the narrator continues to remain silent, in a moment they’ll be joined by a hobo wearing an earring. Someone in charge of the course of events evidently casts all the parts with the same characters. Perhaps out of simple laziness, or perhaps because details makeno difference to the public. Universal inattention and apathy, on which one can always count, make it easy to cover up any shortcoming. The army surplus jacket emits the odors of the dumpster, something that the narrator could not have known when he observed it through panes of glass. The hobo will demand the bottle that is supposedly hidden in a plastic bag on the narrator’s lap. With an efficient wave of the hand, he’s able to describe the shape of the bottle, which he has guessed at correctly; he even knows which kind it is and seems quite determined to drink the brandy even before the train arrives, in the company of the old man in the red dressing gown and possibly of the narrator himself, if the latter should only wish to join them. The hobo is prepared to assure the narrator that either way it will not be his lot to take the bottle where he is going, insofar as he is going anywhere at all. In his view, this is in any case a triviality compared to all that a person has to give up in life, not to mention life itself, for life, too, cannot be kept for oneself, for instance, by thrusting it surreptitiously into a plastic bag. The narrator sits still, his hands on the bag in question. In it is a cool bottle taken from a certain kitchen. Omniscience inspires respect. The old man praises his best student and gladly gives him credit for the course; he will not do the same for the narrator, citing considerations of an ethical nature. Specifically, it is a question here of a lack of magnanimity, a very serious failing, and so no credit will be given either now or ever, as the professor