If I were chosen to play the part of Eve in the story of herself and Adam, I think it would not be the apple on the tree that would have tempted me to transgress a rule or a hard agreement. Rather it would be a book that is tantalisingly near, and yet unavailable. This is the case with this current selection Marisa has chosen to present for us here. She is so enthusiastic about this book that she kindly translated excerpts from it for me to get a flavour of it. I've found them most enjoyable, and hope that soon the publishers will expedite its translation to English, as I would like to have the whole story unfold for me.

In the extract below you may read a touching account of the moment when Wolfgang really becomes aware that all his familiar points of reference have disappeared.

By clicking on the contented Grinning Cat 1 you can go to Marisa's gallery and read her full review as well as one additional translated short extract from the book.


From " Herr Mozart wacht auf" by Eva Barensky - Translation by the Grinning Cats

Trembling, as if only the cold stone of the pavement were enough to annoy him, Wolfgang leant his fingertips against the corner of the building.
A marble plate fixed on the wall at almost three metres height nearly escaped his notice and he had to twist his head to decipher the golden words.

“In this place until 1894 stood the house where Mozart died on the 5th of December 1791”

He gazed around, looking for something which might seem familiar to him, something he could recognize, understand.

His chin trembled. Wolfgang leant his hands on that black and rough pavement, which covered the street like a coffin lid, he passed his fingers on the edge of the sidewalk and scratched with his nails the grooves in the stone, as if it could be enough to take off that superficial and gloomy layer to find, immediately under it, the old irregular surface of the clayey ground, full of footprints of the old street he was used to.

“Did you lose anything?”

He looked up.

In front of one of the entries of the building there was a person with a voice similar to a mezzo-soprano, a woman who scanned him from the top of a pair of dark glasses.

He stared at her in return, realizing she was waiting for an answer and nodded mechanically.

“Contact lenses?”

Wolfgang got up with pain, moved one step away and inspected the lady from one end to the other, lingering on her tight blue trousers, the white shirt with a collar.

“Please, Madame, be so kind to tell me what day is today”

This is what poor Wolfgang managed to say.

“Tuesday”

“And the date, I beg you, the date, I must know it urgently”

“It’s the 5th, I think, or am I wrong...”

“Decembris?”

“Uh y-yes, but are you okay?” Her voice had lowered a tercet.

“I beg you again, Madame, to inform me in what year we are living”

“OK, but now go away from the shop window, you are scaring my clients!”

The woman slammed the door and Wolfgang saw her through the lit space while she shook her head in disgust.

Wolfgang turned his eyes away and walked over until she was not in sight anymore.

In the place where the entry porch of his house would have been supposed to be, he let himself sit down on Enno’s bag, embraced his knees as once he had embraced his mother’s waist, bent his head and cried until the cold made his wet face burn.