{"id":8797,"date":"2021-11-11T09:36:15","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T09:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/?page_id=8797"},"modified":"2021-12-01T06:38:47","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T06:38:47","slug":"writing-sample-tabita","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/writing-sample-tabita\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Sample: TABITA\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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Tabita<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Rosine\u2019s hands are greasy with tallow, but her fingers are strong, gripping the small bits of down firmly as she plucks. Her nephew came by with the birds. She\u2019s grateful for that, grateful as she is to all those who look in with gifts of meat and nods to enquire about thesick man. They come to visit the house up on the mountain wanting news. Rosine has no answer for them, not yet. But she can sense it will be soon. That inner disquiet, the lightning that prickles in her arms, making them restless, making her fingers pinch even the tiniest bit of down and wipe it on the edge of the bucket between her legs. By her feet is a bird she\u2019s already plucked, plump and pink. She\u2019s sitting on a chair in the thin light from the window, where she can watch Vitus on the hard bed. Now and again she pauses, listening for the stammers in his breath. She knows what\u2019s happening to her husband. He\u2019s dying.<\/h5>\n

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Rosine, not young herself, has said goodbye to many dear relatives. She carries the all in her body; they sit in her flesh and spread beneath her skin. She can feel them now as she plucks. Her father\u2019s hands. It was he who built the house on the mountain, before the sea took him during a storm. And she feels her mother\u2019s mind. Old Tabita supported herself and Rosine with gifts of meat from their close friends and family, and what she could catch in her own little boat. Half her life she\u2019d been a widow. Corroded by the years, she refused to pass away as she lay on the bed where Vitus lies now, ordering her daughter about till the end. Rosine plucks doggedly, sensing the children who were torn from her with violence, raised up by the hand of fate and flung away in an unguarded moment. She\u2019s lost three over the years: the twins who fell into the harbour, one trying to save the other, and her older son, who disappeared while hunting. Only her daughter Abelone is left. Abelone, sleeping soundly on the bed beside her ataata, her breathing fat and calm. She\u2019s lying next to Rosine\u2019s two grandchildren, who are nestled up against her: Angaju on one side, little Tabita on the other. Tabita, born two days after Rosine\u2019s mother finally let go, and given her name as a birthday present. Rosine had seen it the moment the girl appeared. This was a stubborn child. Strength of will in her dark little gaze.<\/h5>\n

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Rosine lets the bird slip to the floor and rises, crossing to the window. She was stubborn herself, propelled by the will in her blood. She looks outside. The cliffs are still covered with snow, but the flensing yard below the house stands out, deep violent and black with blood. It\u2019s April. Spring is on the doorstep.<\/h5>\n

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For fifty years she\u2019s seen the same view, the wonderful sight of her Vitus coming home and mooring in the little inlet, the boat so heavy it nearly sank. And the children on the cliffsides running with their pockets full of eggs, in and out among the houses, and then she had to scold them for their eagerness, their messy pockets, for the eggs they\u2019d crushed and spilled on themselves as they ran. She pictures them. How she misses all the children she has had \u2013 the riches she\u2019s held in her hands, what life, what life.<\/h5>\n

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– Excerpt from TABITA\u00a0<\/em>by\u00a0Iben Mondrup<\/h6>\n
Translated from Danish into English by Caroline Waight<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tabita   Rosine\u2019s hands are greasy with tallow, bu   …\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":"https:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8797"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8797"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9798,"href":"https:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8797\/revisions\/9798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}