Юбер Мингарелли - Four Soldiers

Then Kyabine let him go. He went back to his corner of the tent, lay down on his side in the same spot, and he didn’t move or make a sound. Pavel got his breath back. The lamp was swinging crazily and the shadows that spun around the tent looked unreal.

Finally the lamp stopped swinging and I remembered the notebook. I took it from my pocket and put it on my knees. It fell off, so I picked it up and opened it.

I shouldn’t have done that. The Evdokim kid didn’t know how to write any better than I did, with my five letters. A few pages were covered with these letters, all lined up neatly, but none of them, I could tell, formed a word.

I picked up the pencil. I ached with the desperate desire to draw a letter. But at that moment I didn’t dare. I put the pencil back in the notebook, and the notebook in my pocket, and I went out of the tent.

I could see the shapes of other tents. I could hear moans and ahead of me the sky was black.

All the Evdokim kid knew how to write were some poor little letters lined up in a row. And so I started to think furiously about what would become of the pond and the dead horses, of Sifra’s skill and all those who die and who are our brothers.

I stood outside the tent, on the hillside, facing the sky. The notebook dug into my stomach and again I ached to write in it, but already I guessed, already I had the intuition, even before having begun, that the sky is endless and that there aren’t the words.

And I think to myself now that all those years have passed: Where is he today, Sifra? Who looked after him? So many years have passed and I wonder where Sifra is and who looked after him, where is the dust of his bones and how did his mother and father die, and where in the vast world is there a gaze as gentle as Sifra’s, and where are Pavel and Kyabine now in the vast world, and today I try to make myself understood and it’s so hard, and so I lower my head because I’m tired and there is nowhere to hide.

Hubert Mingarelliis the author of numerous novels and short story collections, as well as fiction for young adults. His novel A Meal in Winter was shortlisted for the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and was selected by Indies Introduce in the United States. He lives in Grenoble.

Sam Tayloris a translator, novelist, and journalist. His translated works include Laurent Binet’s award-winning HHhH . His own novels have been translated into ten languages.

A Meal in Winter

© 2003 by Hubert Mingarelli

English translation © 2018 by Sam Taylor

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publisher.

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Originally published in France as Quatre Soldats by Éditions de Seuil in 2003

First published in Great Britain by Portobello Books, London, 2018

Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2018

Distributed by Two Rivers Distribution

ISBN 978-1-62097-441-4 (ebook)

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Mingarelli, Hubert, 1956– author. | Taylor, Sam, 1970– translator.

Title: Four soldiers: a novel / Hubert Mingarelli; translated from the French by Sam Taylor.

Other titles: Quatre soldats. English

Description: New York: The New Press, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018021521

Classification: LCC PQ2673.I467 Q3713 2018 | DDC 843/.91—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021521

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