Yasmin Zaher, The Coin

The Coin av Yasmin Zaher

Den här boken går rakt in i hjärtat. Den är snabb, i korta kapitel som läses i ett par andetag. Boken handlar om att vara främling i verkligheten, att vara besatt av att vara ren och att hitta sin innersta kärnpunkt i en värld som inte låter dig. En bok om möten över gränser som egentligen inte finns. Om människor som fyller våra liv i långvariga men tillfälliga roller men som är dömda att förloras i en tillvaro där man inte passar in och där sökandet lämnar en tom med en längtan efter något som känns.

Citat när hon säger hej då till "Trenchcoat" för sista gången:

  It was the end of us, of course. But before he left, I asked him if he could take something out for me, there was a fish that had died. He went into the bathroom and came back with a small Gucci shopping bag. We had passed by the Gucci store next to the Trump Tower a few weeks beforehand, on one of our excursions. Me in my hat and him in his fake Rolex, his arm around my neck in ecstatic possession. We'd stopped to admire the storefront, a glass shelf displaying the new handbag collection, floral embroidery on leather. And then behind it, in bold letters, Liberté, Égalité, Sexualité! What heresy, I said, how could they do that to the revolution. And even worse, and I don't know if you realize this, but people were not sleeping with each other anymore, they were too scared, sex is confrontation. Or as my favorite poet once said, In the night there is a violet hour unknown to others, in it I meet the lover's body and we listen to the voices from the other shore.
  So I packed the hard fish corpse and a small bundle of dried flowers in the emerald Gucci bag. Farewell, my love.
  Before leaving, Trenchcoat passed a hand over the bougainvillea, blooming in fuchsia, then tapped his index finger on a spike of the barbed wire. It was neither the jungle nor the palace court. In hindsight I can say that it was like my grandmother's garden, somewhere wounded and yet wildly alive.

Citat när hon driver sig till gränsen där hon inte vet om hon kommer leva eller dö:

  I started sifting through the dirt, I had put some things in there, some loose change, a plastic fork, beer caps, a couple of rocks to make it feel familiar. When I found the rocks I got up from the ground and ran toward the strategic border. I threw a rock at the window. It didn't break, it just bounced off, almost hitting me. I really was Palestinian, I really was an animal. I did this again, over and over again, a couple of times I hit the wall, I also aimed at the skylight, at the sky, the clouds, the moon, which I was shure was behind it all. The rocks kept coming back at me, the apartment was armored. I kicked the printer then. I made a dream come true. I picked the thing up and smashed it on the ground, I swear I heard the fucking thing whimpering, and then I kicked it, over and over again, until my foot was blue and inky and bleeding.
  I tried to drown myself in dirt but I only ended up eating it. I drank more Chivas, until I vomited. And the I committed the massacre. I killed them all, with a pair of Ikea scissors. I snapped them petal by petal, leaf by leaf, stem by stem, sometimes more than once. I peeled the rotten oranges with my long nails, I shredded their skins and smashed them against my body. I smashed the goldfish too, and yes I put it in my mouth, after I cut little holes in the kiddie pool, the water leaking onto the dirt, soaking my bed.
  I wanted to be born again, and I tried setting the bush and cross on fire but they wouldn't light. So I broke the cross and snipped the bush with the sharp scissors until it was just a pile, minced. I chopped the roots too, and that's where I found the button. The Burberry button. The Burberry button with the green thread. I had snapped it off the trench coat, months ago, and chucked it out the window. I guess it had found its way into the locked park, into the roots of the bush, and then back to me. That's what it was all about. It was karma. It was spiritual, but also physical. Whatever you put out there in the world, it came back to you. It was a closed system, a reinforced planet. Garbage circulated, the same people kept showing up on the subway platform. We think the possibilities are endless but it's an illusion. The Federate Reserve keeps printing money, but otherwise there are a finite number of particles in the world. We are mortal, but matter is constant.