Teja Pribac
slovène
The Revisionist
Perversity is de rigueur,
that ‘feeling-good-by-feeling-ill’,
the pleasure of self-laceration.
The past was not like that, no sir
or not our special part.
I’ve rummaged through their footnotes,
sniffed the snuff of ancient papers
and seen just what the orthodox
can make of nothing much.
Our governments, unlike some others,
had only pure intentions.
I¹ve found them stacked there in the archives.
Restrained by Christ, our colonists
would have no wish to kill.
The hapless brought it on themselves,
disorganised and backward,
inclined to murder and rapine,
offering their women up
to catch a sad disease,
not knowing any better.
Forensics is the metaphor;
count only what would count in court,
sworn by men of good repute,
JPs or country parsons, maybe,
providing they were not soft-headed.
What deaths there were
were mainly pox
or failure to adapt.
They couldn’t reconceive themselves
as subjects of a king.
The past, or our own minor role,
was pretty much untroubled.
Other empires could be cruel
but ours was just a quiet expansion,
livestock threading off through parkland,
frontier huts with twists of smoke
and women stooping at the wash,
their men out felling trees.
The darkness mainly kept its distance
or hung about to loot the flour
and spook defenceless women.
Those who¹d have it otherwise
deceive themselves like nervous children;
they shiver at their own inventions.
They¹d have our country black with blood
and scupper its morale
the future an apology
kowtowing to the past
or their own lachrymose account,
teetering on dodgy footnotes.
I¹ve wandered in those basements too;
I¹ve cranked my way through microfilm
and read the correspondence
the governors reporting home,
the sergeants in their honest longhand.
Forensically, there’s nothing there
or nothing that stands up.
And, overall, I like my work.
Lonely? Sometimes. Musty? Yes
and dangerous at conferences
or drinking in the pub.
I¹m putting back the past we knew
the hapless on their distant fringes
and picturesque at best,
where nothing spoiled our pure esprit
and someone always stayed at home
to keep the windows shining.
Extrait de: Agnostic Skies
Melbourne: Five Islands Press, 2006
Production audio: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin
Revizionist
Pokvarjenost je pravilo,
tisti počutim-se-dobro, ko to ne drži,
užitek samouničevanja.
Preteklost ni bila takšna, res ne -
ali pa vsaj naš posebni del ne.
Preiskoval sem njihove zapise,
ovohaval vonj starega papirja
in videl, kaj lahko pravoverni
naredijo skoraj iz niča.
Naša vlada, za razliko od ostalih,
ima vedno čiste namene.
Našel sem jih nakopičene v arhivih.
Naše kolonialiste je Kristus brzdal,
nobene želje po ubijanju niso gojili.
Nesrečneži so to sami priklicali,
neorganizirani in nerazviti,
nagnjeni k ropanju in umoru,
svoje ženske so ponujali,
da bi se nalezle kake žalostne bolezni,
saj boljšega niso znali.
Forenzika je metafora;
velja samo, kar bi veljalo na sodišču,
kjer bi prisegli moški z dobrim imenom,
notarji ali morda vaški župnik,
če le ni bil mehkega srca.
Razloga za smrt sta bila
predvsem sifilis
ali neuspela prilagoditev.
Niso si sebe mogli predstavljati
kot podložnike nekega kralja.
Preteklost, ali naša lastna majhna vloga,
ni bila pretirano težavna.
Druge vladavine so lahko bile krute,
pri nas pa je šlo le za mirno širitev,
živina, ki se je rinila skozi travnata polja,
mejne kolibe s pufki dima,
ženske sklonjene pri pranju,
njihovi moški so zunaj sekali drevesa.
Tema je ponavadi ostala daleč stran
ali postopala okrog, da bi zaplenila moko
in strašila nebogljene ženske.
Tisti, ki so to videli drugače,
so se slepili kot plašni dečki,
ki drgetajo ob lastnih izmišljotinah.
Našo državo bi pokrili s črnino krvi
in uničili njeno moralo -
prihodnost bi bila opravičilo,
ki klečeplazi pred preteklostjo
ali njihovim lastnim jokavim poročilom,
ki se veja v prekanjenih zapisih.
Tudi sam sem se potikal po tistih kleteh;
prebil sem se skozi mikrofilme
in prebral korespondenco –
voditelji so poročali domov,
naredniki s svojimi poštenimi pisali.
S forenzičnega stališča ni tu ničesar,
ali vsaj ničesar, kar bi vzbujalo pozornost.
In, konec koncev, rad imam svoje delo.
Samotno? Včasih. Zatohlo? Da,
in nevarno na sestankih
ali v gostilni ob pijači.
Pospravljam poznano preteklost –
nesrečnike na oddaljenih mejah,
barvite, v najboljšem primeru,
kjer nič ne pokvari našega čistega esprita,
nekdo je vedno ostal doma
in poskrbel, da so okna sijala.