Yoko Tawada: Where Europe Begins

Sometimes I even see a woman walking down the street in broad daylight with a broken bone. She can be well-dressed or wearing heavy makeup, she can be in good spirits or seated in the protective armor of an automobile, but still I can see she’s had this particular bone broken. Which doesn’t necessarily mean she’s been treated by Z. I see too many women with broken bones for this to be possible. There must be many many people performing the same service, though to this day I don’t know exactly what it is Z does. He speaks with women, or stares at them in silence. That’s all I can make out.

When I wake up in the middle of the night, I often feel the need to write something down. I sit at my desk and hold my fingers above the typewriter until I can remember the clattering sound I once knew. It’s no longer possible for me to write something about a particular subject. Often I even have difficulty putting together coherent sentences.

When I am incapable of writing even a sentence, I simply type the words that occur to me of their own accord. I divide them up incorrectly:

Maga z ine

Fro z en

Reali z ation

When I look at the page the next day, I find only a series of meaningless words and no longer know what it was I wanted to notate. Writing these broken words is the only activity that calms me. Then I pick up the full page and hold it in my hand, satisfied, as if I’ve notated something important.

Un z ip

Pri z e

Hori z on

Sei z e

Ha z y

Mesmeri z e

Recogni z e

Ga z e

Da z z led

Z ig z ag