"The Book of Lies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kristof Agota)

Exercise to Toughen the Mind

Grandmother says to us:

"Sons of a bitch!"

People say to us:

"Sons of a Witch! Sons of a whore!"

Others say:

"Idiots! Hoodlums! Snot-nosed kids! Asses! Slobs! Pigs! Devils! Bastards! Little shits! Punks! Murderers-to-be!"

When we hear these words, our faces get red, our ears buzz, our eyes sting, our knees tremble.

We don't want to blush or tremble anymore, we want to get used to abuse, to hurtful words.

We sit down at the kitchen table face to face, and looking each other in the eyes, we say more and more terrible words.

One of us says:

"Turd! Asshole!"

The other one says:

"Faggot! Prick!"

We go on like that until the words no longer reach our brains, no longer even reach our ears.

We exercise this way for about half an hour a day, then we go out walking in the streets.

We contrive to have people insult us, and we observe that we have now reached the stage where we don't care anymore.

But there are also the old words.

Mother used to say to us:

"My darlings! My loves! My joy! My adorable little babies!"

When we remember these words, our eyes fill with tears.

We must forget these words because nobody says such words to us now and because our memory of them is too heavy a burden to bear.

So we begin our exercise again, in a different way.

We say:

"My darlings! My loves! I love you… I shall never leave you… I shall never love anyone but you… Forever… You are my whole life…"

By force of repetition, these words gradually lose their meaning, and the pain they carry in them is assuaged.

School

This happened three years ago.

It's evening. Our parents think we are asleep. They're talking about us in the other room.

Mother says:

"They won't bear being separated."

Father says:

"They'll only be separated during school hours."

Mother says:

"They won't bear it."

"They'll have to. It's necessary for them. Everybody says so. The teachers, the psychologists, everybody. It will be difficult at first, but they'll get used to it."

Mother says:

"No, never. I know it. I know them. They are one and the same person."

Father raises his voice:

"Precisely, it isn't normal. They think together, they act together. They live in a different world. In a world of their own. It isn't very healthy. It's even rather worrying. Yes, they worry me. They're odd. You never know what they might be thinking. They're too advanced for their age. They know too much."

Mother laughs:

"You're not going to reproach them with their intelligence, I hope?"

"It isn't funny. Why are you laughing?"

Mother replies:

"Twins are always a problem. It isn't the end of the world. Everything will sort itself out."

Father says:

"Yes, everything will sort itself out if we separate them. Every individual must have his own life."

A few days later, we start school. We're in different classes. We both sit in the front row.

We are separated from one another by the whole length of the building. This distance between us seems monstrous, the pain is unbearable. It is as if they had taken half our bodies away. We can't keep our balance, we feel dizzy, we fall, we lose consciousness.

We wake up in the ambulance that is taking us to the hospital.

Mother comes to fetch us. She smiles and says:

"You'll be in the same class from tomorrow on."

At home, Father just says to us:

"Fakers!"

Soon he leaves for the front. He's a journalist, a war correspondent.

We go to school for two and a half years. The teachers also leave for the front; they are replaced by women teachers. Later, the school closes because there are too many air raids. We have learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. At Grandmother's we decide to continue our studies without a teacher, by ourselves.