The Compagnia dell’Imbuto Confuso is performing “Becoming Anselmo / War injury”

That I see myself twice,sometimes three times,is not a special ability,but rather a defect—possibly the result of a war injury,

I told the military doctor,watching, as I descend the stairs,how I stand before him,bare-chested—as if a filter were missing,like in a savant,whose neural impulsesflow unhinderedfrom one region of the braininto another.

That I see myself twice,sometimes three times,is not a special ability,but rather a defect—possibly the result of a war injury,I told the military doctor,watching, as I descend the stairs,as if a filter were missing,like in a savant,a defect—from one region of the braininto another.

whose neural impulsesflow unhindered

That I see myself twice,sometimes three times,is not a special ability,but rather a defect—possibly the result of a war injury

The Compagnia dell’Imbuto Confuso is performing “Becoming Anselmo / The right tool”

What matters is the right tool.Once the right tool is in hand, everything else follows— as if on its own.

The half-rounded vault is built of brick. Behind one of the bricks, I’ve hidden my papers.

I see myself carefully loosening the brick, then pulling it free— the one I had first chipped loose with a small, pointed hammer.

What matters is the right tool.Once the right tool is in hand, everything else follows— as if on its own.

I see my father— who was not my father— sitting at his worktable.

Outside, it is very hot and bright; inside the study, cool and dark.

He works in the dark. He says:

What matters is the right tool.Once the right tool is in hand, everything else follows— as if on its own.

The Compagnia dell’Imbuto Confuso is performing “Becoming Anselmo / Defend Myself”

I cannot defend myself against what happens at the same time— her cry, her bending forward, letting herself fall— as I open the door at the end of the narrow corridor, formed by the gap between the right-hand wall (as seen from the floor-to-ceiling shop window) and the long side of the counter, leading into the dimly lit stairwell.

I see myself walking across the courtyard, holding my mother’s hand.

She tells me: one thing happens, the other you imagine.

I didn’t have the words— not the right ones— that could explain that I am here and there at once, in the midst of the funeral procession, at the head of which the musicians sway their bodies forward, far forward, then back again, just as far, their faces red, cheeks puffed, blowing into their instruments.

Two strike their drums, while the mourners who follow behind them mirror the same movements— forward, and back.

I, among them, under the burning sun, can smell them.

I have to close my eyes, hear the screech of trumpets, the slap of drumsticks on tin— and at the same time, I am holding my mother’s hand.

She says it’s impossible. At the same time, I lock the door behind me, step down the three steps to the covered gateway, open the small door set into the towering gate, cross the courtyard as my mother stretches out her arms— first toward me, then, in despair, toward the sky.

I unlock the cellar door and descend the steep stairs.

Now, I am beyond her reach.

Had it not happenedthat I turned to the side,the bullet would have piercedthe back of my head.

I close the door behind Greta.The cauliflower wrapped in newspaper under her arm, she waves to me.Her cauliflower-styled hair, pinned high, wavers.

I turn the key in the lock,flip the small cardboard signso that the side reading be right back faces outward,the word open now turned in.

Had it not happenedthat I turned to the side,the bullet would have piercedthe back of my head.

I follow myself, watching myself in thought,wondering how to describethe perspective from which I observe myself.

At the same time,the rotations have sufficed—the first and the second—turning toward her,then standing upright,my turning of the small sign,cut from thick cardboard—be right back.

Evidently, each turngives rise to its own reality—in turning on, turning over, turning toward,being turned away by the turn,turned over and turned toward—

had it not happenedthat I turned to the side,the bullet would have piercedthe back of my head.

As it is,it only grazes the bridge of my nose,tears the skin—the wound barely bleeds.

The passagefrom the bridge of the noseto the foreheadis only lightly suppliedwith blood.

I follow how the bands of light unfold, how the dust dances across the bands of light. Sometimes I start. I see myself start. For a moment I close my eyes. The darkness behind my eyelids, in which the outer forms appear in their reversal, is not the place from which I see myself. I am standing behind the counter. I am wearing a white apron. I see how I smooth out the folds, with a quick movement across my lower belly, about a hand’s breadth away from the edge of the counter. I open my eyes, let my gaze wander along the shelf, past the tins, fruit like pears and apricots cut into pieces on the right-hand side of the shelf, on the left the vegetable tins: artichokes, beans, corn…

Leaning over me,she brushes her cauliflower curlsacross my chest.

Movement itself—imagined from one point to another,the arbitrary surfacing and vanishingof the coordinates it brings into being—is no intermezzo, but rather the everyday form of generation and of bearing witness.

Leaning over me,she brushes her cauliflower curlsacross my chest.

I see the back of her head,her body,as she crouches before me on all fours,like an animal,as I plant the trunk of my testimony in her,clear the forest,plow the field,dig trenches,raise structures—huts, barns, palaces, factories—only for the scene to collapsein the very next instant.I sink down beside her,exhausted.

Leaning over me,she brushes her cauliflower curlsacross my chest.

I see myself lying beside her.I see myself lying on top of her.I see how she parts her lips, then closes them again.

The sounds she makes—I cannot hear them. The half-light swallows her in an instant.

If we were walking side by side through the streets, in Vienna or Venice, I could hear that she is sitting beside me, that the silence—the one that followed the sequence of her rising, the rustle, the sweep, the brushing motion with which she piled up her hair and, in one swift movement, bound it into a wave about to crest—will not last long ,no longer than it takes to move from the edge of the bed to the window, where she pauses, gazing down at the street alive with night.

She used to wear her hair down. She smiles at me.I see myself smiling back. A back-and-forth kind of smile,lasting several secondswhich triggered a tension in me, a kind of freezing.Unconsciously, I held my breath.I see myself turning toward the customer who has just entered, balancing a large cauliflower on one hand, while with the other she closes the door behind her—then immediately grasps the cauliflower with both hands again, as it had begun to sway dangerously when held with only one, which triggered a tension in me, a kind of freezing.

I follow how the strips of light unfold, how the dust dances above them. Sometimes I flinch. I see myself backing up.For a moment, I close my eyes.

The darkness behind my eyelids, where outer forms appear in reverse, is not the place from which I see myself. I am standing behind the counter...