{"id":10535,"date":"2021-12-30T05:36:22","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T05:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/?page_id=10535"},"modified":"2021-12-30T05:36:37","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T05:36:37","slug":"translated-excerpt-youve-destroyed-everything-lara-calleja","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/translated-excerpt-youve-destroyed-everything-lara-calleja\/","title":{"rendered":"Translated Excerpt – You’ve Destroyed Everything\u00a0– Lara Calleja"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n<\/div>\n\n

You’ve Destroyed Everything<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Lara Calleja<\/strong><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ro\u017ci from Xg\u0127ajra\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n
Ro\u017ci<\/i><\/em><\/h5>\n
Not many people knew Ro\u017ci. She very rarely left her village, and then only for some wedding or family party. Spending time away was a big deal for Ro\u017ci. It distressed her, made her feel as though some basic right in her life was being denied, and the few hours that Ro\u017ci was away from Xg\u0127ajra were usually spent with her fiddling with her dress and battling feelings of anxiety as she waited with increased desperation, for her nephew, Liam, to decide he\u2019d had enough to drink and get round to driving her back home. She loved that little village of Xg\u0127ajra so very much. What else could one desire? Tranquillity, the sea, which was always just restless enough to freshen your lungs, a pretty little church, and the same bunch of people who were, perhaps, a little nosey but, then again, most people are a little bit curious – it\u2019s just that some express it at the tops of their voices while others do it in whispers. Most of all, Ro\u017ci blessed them for their help and for the kindness shown to her whenever she was in need.\u00a0 Those villagers were in fact another important reason why Ro\u017ci would never dream of moving away from there. She always remembered the day her father suffered a massive heart attack. How would she have coped if they hadn\u2019t patiently helped her out? They drove her to Mater Dei Hospital, cooked for her, and fed Giovanna, the crazy clumsy cat that lived with Ro\u017ci in her house.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Xg\u0127ajra is a small village and very few people live there all year round. Most people only come for six months of the year to make the most of the peaceful seashore. In winter the storms and gale force winds are extraordinary: the wind can sound like an angry wild dog on the prowl outside your window, and the waves rise as high as buildings until they finally smash and disintegrate against the sharp rocks. This is why most people decide to return to their homes in \u0126a\u017c-\u017babbar for the colder months.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

But not Ro\u017ci \u2013 she spends all her summers and winters there. Always. And although she does not live quite at the water\u2019s edge she can smell the spray of salty water from everywhere. The village, made up as it is of a few parallel hills which all converge down at the shore, means that sea in Xg\u0127ajra is visible from all around and can be felt nice and fresh in your lungs from every corner.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

But not this last year. Ever since the house next door to hers, together with the one which came right up to wall surrounding her backyard, were pulled down \u2013 just like that, both at the same time \u2013 Ro\u017ci doesn\u2019t know what\u2019s hit her. Instead of the scent of sea-spray in the air, there\u2019s dust from rubble and lime. Instead of the rustling sounds in spring from birds\u2019 nests in the orange tree in the garden, there\u2019s the excruciating sound of a digger that destroys your very will to survive the day. Instead of the welcome spray from the choppy sea hitting you when you open the front door (which she rarely keeps on the latch anymore), a white cloud of fine dust greets you, and enters your eyes.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Giovanna the cat also feels uneasy. She barely used to spend time indoors before. She was always tucked away somewhere in the orange tree \u2013 sometimes fast asleep on a branch, sometimes sharpening her nails against the trunk, and sometimes actually believing she might catch a sparrow. But now Giovanna is always fast asleep on a chair inside the house, and she barely bothers to move except when she hears the rattling sounds of her food being prepared. She seems to have become more affectionate, too. Possibly due to boredom caused by what\u2019s going on around her \u2013 or perhaps because she\u2019s getting older and meeker, thinks Ro\u017ci. Or maybe a bit of both. Who knows.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conversation between the same few people\u2026<\/i><\/em><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHow beautiful Mar\u00ec, have you seen the ones over there?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cA block has gone up. There are sea views from the top ones.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cYes, of course! Mario\u2019s daughter bought one of them. It wasn\u2019t too expensive, you know. Two hundred thousand. That\u2019s with floor tiles and bathrooms included.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cMadonna! Our house only cost eleven thousand about thirty years ago. And we can see the sea.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cO yes, Tessie hun, but for these days they got it for a song.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cYes, well, maybe. They\u2019re quite lovely really. Wish her luck, will you?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cThere’s quite a few new buildings coming up now, you know. And even Ro\u017ci’s house has just been pulled down.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cReally?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cYes, for sure.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cAnd Ro\u017ci? In fact I haven\u2019t seen her in ages.\u201d<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Ro\u017ci\u2019s at the Imgieret Home now. She could barely walk anymore, poor thing, but you know, she never wanted to leave Xg\u0127ajra. You\u2019d always see her around. Sitting on a bench and snacking on a piece of bread. Let me tell you, I\u2019d prefer God to take me a little earlier than ending up at that awful old people\u2019s home. My mother was there, God rest her soul. It\u2019s more like a madhouse than an old people\u2019s home. They treat everyone like little children and hardly ever let you out.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cPoor Ro\u017ci. So who\u2019s taken her house then?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cHer brother, I think. She\u2019s got a brother who\u2019s about twenty years younger and he\u2019s taken over the house and had it pulled down. They\u2019re just waiting now for new permits to be able to add an extra floor, that\u2019s what Twanny said.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cOK, well I\u2019ll tell Joe\u2019s sister\u2019s daughter about it. She\u2019s thinking of buying a flat around here.\u201d<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Giovanna<\/i><\/em><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m still hunting for food in the rubbish which really seems to have increased around here recently. I was hoping to find some chicken breast like last time, but instead I ended up cutting my tongue again on a round thing which had the remains of some kind of fish on it. A young girl comes to feed me sometimes, but mostly I have fend for myself. My eyes are constantly watering and blurry and they sometimes hurt so I can\u2019t open them properly. I hardly hear the birds any more, either. Ahhh \u2026 those days in that tree of orange balls, food always ready and waiting, and a warm bed for the night have well and truly gone. That old woman in a sweater the colour of the sky and eyes the colour of soil has disappeared without even saying goodbye or warning me that I was about to find myself without a roof over my head.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think that horrible man must have taken her away with him. He once prepared a plate of my favourite food. I wondered to myself how much food I would be given that day. He even brought the plate out into the backyard where the woman in the sky blue top never allowed me to go. As I was digging into it, the ugly man in a shirt the colour of my plate slammed the door. I was stunned as I watched him scurry away until I couldn\u2019t see him anymore. I waited for him or the woman in the sky blue top to hurry back and open the door for me. After three days of waiting, I moved on from there and began to hunt for my food, always in the hope that the woman in the sky blue top would return, open the door and let me in.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

But when some time passed and this monstrous animal turned up and devoured the house where I once lived, even pulling up the tree with the orange balls from its roots, I realized it was all over and that day, and the next \u2013 I completely lost my will to eat or even to move.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

When you want to die in old age, the body gives in and allows you to die.<\/i><\/em><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ro\u017ci took her final rasping breath on one of those white forgotten beds in rows at the Imgieret Home precisely on the day that the first flat, built where once Ro\u017ci\u2019s mother, father, siblings and Giovanna the cat lived, was sold.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ro\u017ci had for some time now been praying to Jesus of the Divine Mercy to take her with him and release her from the torment of this new life which she never imagined would be imposed upon her precisely at the end. She often thought of Giovanna. During those three visits of her brother she never managed to prise out of him what exactly he\u2019d done with her. He just looked away, and Ro\u017ci understood that just as he\u2019d dumped her in this ugly home where no one ever visited her, he wouldn\u2019t have been at all bothered to throw Giovanna\u00a0 out, either.<\/h5>\n
This Imgieret place just wasn\u2019t for her, she\u2019d tell herself repeatedly. It\u2019s true that when she was still at her house in Xg\u0127ajra she could barely walk, but she felt strong and healthy in every other way. What happened was, with the building works and the constant noise and everything going on around her, her younger brother managed to convince her that it would be in her best interest to move some place where she could be taken care of. Somewhere beautiful full of trees and tranquillity. And he would take care of Giovanna himself. Don\u2019t worry, he\u2019d tell her. She fell right into the trap. Pu!<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

As she was lying in her bed in those last hours of life a nurse overheard her mumbling. The nurse pitied her there, all alone, she pulled up a chair and sat beside her. She\u2019d had enough experience to recognize the signs of a person dying.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cPoor thing, they left her all alone so I stayed with her. But she had a big smile on her face as she called out to someone, Giovanna, to get down from the tree so she could feed her. It gave me the shivers to watch her smile and roll her eyes at the same time. Then she grabbed my hand and asked whether I wanted salt in my broth. I went along with it and said yes as I stroked her hair. She asked me whether she was in Xg\u0127ajra and, because I know that she loved it very much over there, you know she was brought up there and everyone there seems to know her, so I said yes. You\u2019re in Xg\u0127ajra, and Giovanna is here next to me. Her face got all serious suddenly and she asked whether Giovanna had forgiven her. I don\u2019t know who this Giovanna is, but I said yes of course, she has forgiven you.\u201d<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ro\u017ci smiled once more and remained that way with her mouth open wide across her face. Her breathing got shallower and slower with each minute that passed until she took her final breath.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Perhaps there\u2019s nothing after this, an emptiness, as many claim. But I decided to believe that after her death, Ro\u017ci returned to her house in Xg\u0127ajra, to be surrounded by the scent of oranges, to be within the sound of the wind which she loved and which would sometimes slam her door shut, and with Giovanna fast asleep on one of the kitchen chairs.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– Translation: Clare Vassallo\u00a0<\/strong><\/h6>\n
<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You’ve Destroyed Everything Lara Calleja   &   …\u66f4\u591a\u5185\u5bb9<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10535"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10535"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10537,"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10535\/revisions\/10537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}