Fiction: Maria, the narrator’s childhood nurse, turns to the occult to bring back her refugee son
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Maria brings me my morning coffee. It is a day or two after October 7, 2023.
I present to you, m’lord, exhibit number one in my defence: Maria.
No, that is not her real name. You will not be able to pronounce or remember her real name. It is not a name easily translatable to English, framed as it is by the frayed onomastics of at least (I guess) three cultures and languages. You see, m’lord, there are some people in the world – including in this part of my country – who have resisted translation, not as a theoretical or political process, for that would not strike them, but simply as a way of living. They pick up a leaf, a stone, a feather, and they know it and can name it intimately, but they see no need to translate it into a name that you can recognise. Any yet, I need to give her a name, for what’s the use of an exhibit that cannot be recalled by the judge?