Excerpts from
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By Solvej Balle
From IV
The street light pours down through the trees and all over the pavement. The curtain hangs stiffly in the window, a dress in the view. You clean a glass at the sink and place it on a table.
It is said that one´s colours change in the dark.
That they vanish one by one in the same order as they have come. Slowly oozing out of the clothes and even slower out of the skin.
It is said that one speaks in a lower voice in darkness. That the sounds appear more distinct.
I am cold. You put your sweater around me and say something and it feels warmer for a while. The sweater passes through the skin and dissolves in the blood somewhere, or between the muscles, or somewhere around the skeleton. You find more sweaters and coats. Now blankets, as well, but every time the same thing happens. They pass through the skin and disappear.
Insensibly we are reducing and enlarging each other. Mathematics in the room. Addition is bad or good. Subtraction is bad or good.
You begin helping me off with my coat. Then the sweater and one more sweater comes from within and out through the skin. More sweaters and coats slide out over the shoulders and over the head. The shoes, too. One after another they slide down into the feet. Boots you patiently pull off, tops, pants, and skirts, until I stand naked before you.
Like this I catch sight of you. I open the buttons in your clothes. Loosen buckles of watches and belts, which I remove one after the other. Shoelaces, which I untie. Shirts and pants and jackets, which I unbutton and put away in the dim light.
The clothes are spread out in the room.
The open shoes thrown in the corner.
Translated by Ida Mackintosh
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