Childhood

Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can’t get out of it on your own.

It bothers me a lot that I don’t seem to own any real feelings anymore, but always have to pretend that I do by copying other people’s reactions. It’s as if I’m only moved by things that come to me indirectly. I can cry when I see a picture in the newspaper of an unfortunate family that’s been evicted, but when I see the same ordinary sight in reality, it doesn’t touch me. I’m moved by poetry and lyrical prose, now as always – but the things that are described leave me completely cold. I don’t think very much of reality.

On the sly, you observe the adults whose childhood lies inside them, torn and full of holes like a used and moth-eaten rug no one thinks about anymore or has any use for. You can’t tell by looking at them that they’ve had a childhood, and you don’t dare ask how they managed to make it through without their faces getting deeply scarred and marked by it. You suspect that they’ve used some secret shortcut and donned their adult form many years ahead of time. They did it one day when they were home alone and their childhood lay like three bands of iron around their heart, like Iron Hans in Grimms’ fairy tale, whose bands broke only when his master was freed. But if you don’t know such a shortcut, childhood must be endured and trudged through hour by hour, through an absolutely interminable number of years. Only death can free you from it, so you think a lot about death, and picture it as a white-robed, friendly angel who some night will kiss your eyelids so that they never will open again.

Wherever you turn, you run up against your childhood and hurt yourself because it’s sharp-edged and hard, and stops only when it has torn you completely apart. It seems that everyone has their own and each is totally different. My brother’s childhood is very noisy, for example, while mine is quiet and furtive and watchful. No one likes it and no one has any use for it.

childhood falls silently to the bottom of my memory, that library of the soul from which I will draw knowledge and experience for the rest of my life.

That’s the worst thing about grownups, I think – they can never admit that just once in their lives they’ve acted wrongly or irresponsibly. They’re so quick to judge others, but they never hold Judgement Day for themselves.

Childhood is dark and it’s always moaning like a little animal that’s locked in a cellar and forgotten. It comes out of your throat like your breath in the cold, and sometimes it’s too little, other times too big. It never fits exactly. It’s only when it has been cast off that you can look at it calmly and talk about it like an illness you’ve survived.

Time passed and my childhood grew thin and flat, paperlike. It was tired and threadbare, and in low moments it didn’t look like it would last until I was grown up.

Childhood is dark and it's always moaning like a little animal that's locked in a cellar and forgotten. It comes out of your throat like your breath in the cold, and sometimes it's too little, other times too big. It never fits exactly. It's only when it has been cast off that you can look at it calmly and talk about it like an illness you've survived.

I look up at the cloudless, silken sky and open the window in order to be even closer to it. It's as if God slowly lowers His gentle face over the earth and His great heart beats softly and calmly, very close to mine. I feel very happy, and long, melancholy lines of verse pass through my soul. They separate me, unwillingly, from those I should be closest to.

...apám elismerően mondja, hogy "a Victor Hugó nagyon jó író", fontoskodva kioktatom: Apa rosszul mondja a nevét. Ügónak ejtik. Leszarom, hogy ejtik, mondja apám rezzenéstelenül. Minden nevet úgy kell ejteni, ahogy le van írva. A többi csak felvágás.

Throughout the whole long friendship, I’m always afraid of revealing myself to Ruth. I’m afraid that she’ll discover how I really am. I make myself into her echo because I love her and because she’s the strongest, but deep inside I am still me.

She is smaller than other adult women, younger than other mothers, and there’s a world outside my street that she fears. And whenever we both fear it together, she will stab me in the back.

A legtöbb felnőtt azt mondja, hogy boldog gyerekkora volt, és talán még el is hiszik, de nekem aztán mondhatják. Szerintem csak sikerült elfelejteniük.

Aikuisten lapsuus roikkuu repaleisena ja puhkottuna heidän sisimmässään kuin käytetty ja koinsyömä matto jota kukaan ei ajattele eikä tarvitse. Heistä ei näe että heillä on ollut lapsuus, eikä heiltä uskalla kysyä miten he käyttäytyivät päästäkseen sen läpi ilman että se jätti heidän kasvoihinsa syviä arpia ja jälkiä.

Yıpranmış çocukluğum etrafımda dalgalanıyor, ne zaman bir deliği yamalamayı başarsam bir yenisi açılıyor. Bu beni kırılgan ve sinirli kılıyor.