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"Hot Milk"
By Deborah Levy
Translated by Li Yan
Published by Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House
Sophia's mother fell ill, like a spontaneous paralysis, trapping her in a wheelchair. They pawned the House in England and came to Spain to treat their mother's leg disease.
In Spain, Sofia is surrounded by hot deserts, cool oceans and jellyfish with poisonous tentacles. She meets Juan, a gentle Spanish college student, and Ingrid, a bold German woman, and is caught up in a complex and changeable relationship. Sophia felt the outburst of her own desires and emotions and began to re-examine her inner longing. At the same time, the mother's illness became more and more strange. She is even more dependent on Sophia, but she is picky and dissatisfied with Sophia's efforts.
Mentally overwhelmed, Sophia used the excuse of walking to push her mother and her wheelchair to the middle of the highway. Not far away, a white truck is heading towards its mother...
>> book excerpt
The Xiaoice box in the corner of the rescue station buzzed, and it stood there coldly, as if dead, with a pulse still there. I wonder if there are a lot of bottles of water in the fridge? Soda, pure water. In order to get my mother to drink the water that suits her heart, I always tried my best.
The student looked at his watch. "Anyone who has been stung has to be here for five minutes. That way I can know if you have heart upset or other reactions. ”
He pointed to my empty "Career" column on the form.
It may have been the result of the sting of the sting, but I realized that I was telling him a condensed version of my miserable life. "As a matter of urgency, I don't want a job, but to take care of my mother, Ruth."
As I spoke, his fingers slid down his thighs to his calves.
"We came to Spain to see a doctor at the Gomez Clinic to find out what was wrong with her legs. Our initial appointment is three days later. ”
"Your mother has limb paralysis?"
"Not clear. It's a little strange, it's been a while. ”
He began to open the plastic wrap wrapped in a piece of white bread. I thought it was the second part of the sting treatment, and it just turned out to be his favorite lunch— the peanut butter sandwich. He took a small bite, and his shiny black beard moved around as he chewed. Apparently he knew about the Gomez Clinic, which had a good reputation. He also knew the landlady who rented the tiny rectangular apartment on our beach. We chose it because it doesn't have stairs. Everything was on the ground floor and the two bedrooms were next to each other, right next to the kitchen. The apartment is close to the central square and surrounded by cafes and supermarkets. There is also a diving school nearby — a white cube building with two floors, windows in the shape of portholes, the reception area is being painted, and two Mexicans start work every morning with huge white paint cans. On the roof terrace of the school, a skinny German Shepherd dog was chained to an iron railing and wailed all day. The owner of the dog is named Pablo, who is the principal of the diving school, but spends his days playing a game called "Infinite Diving" on the Internet. The mad dog tugged at its chain and often tried to jump off the roof.
"Nobody likes Pablo," the student agreed, "he's the kind of guy who can tear a chicken apart." ”
"That's a good subject for anthropological fieldwork." I said.
"What theme?"
"The reason no one likes Pablo."
Students put up three fingers. I think he meant me to stay in the rescue station cabin for another three minutes.
In the morning, the diving school's male instructors instruct the students on how to wear a wetsuit. The fact that the dog had been on a leash disturbed them, but they had to continue what they were doing. The second task was to fill a plastic box with gasoline with a funnel, then push the box onto an electric device and cross the beach to transport it to the ship. This is obviously more complicated than the work of Swedish masseuse Ingmar. Ingmar would set up a tent while they were refueling, and he would tie table tennis to the legs of the massage bed so that the massage bed could slide on the beach. He had complained to me privately about Pablo's dog, and it sounded as if I had automatically become the co-owner of the poor shepherd because I happened to live near the school. Ingmar's guests simply could not relax because throughout the aromatherapy massage, the dog kept wailing and trying to kill himself.
The students at the rescue station asked me if I could breathe normally.
I began to wonder if he wanted me to stay here.
He put up a finger. "You'll have to stay here with me for an extra minute, and then I'll ask you again how you feel."
Stills from My Genius Girlfriend, the original author of the play, the Italian writer Elena Ferrante, also meticulously portrayed the "lame mother" and "daughter of fear" in the Neapolitan quadrilogy.
I want to make life more meaningful.
I often feel like a failure, but I'd rather work in a coffee house than be hired to do research on why clients like this washing machine over another. Most of my classmates have become anthropologists in the enterprise. If ethnography means writing culture, then market research is also a culture (where people live, how they live, how the task of washing clothes is distributed among group members). But this is only to sell washing machines after all. I'm not sure I'd rather do primitive fieldwork, such as lying in a hammock and watching the sacred buffalo graze quietly in the shade.
When I say that "the reason nobody likes Pablo" is a good research topic, I'm not kidding.
For me, the dream is over. My dream began in the autumn when I packed up and left home for college, when I left my lame mother alone in my garden in east London to pick pears. I got my undergraduate degree first class. The dream continued, and I studied for a master's degree. It wasn't until my mother fell ill that my dream was shattered and I gave up my phD. The PhD thesis I failed to complete was like an unaccountable suicide lurking in the data file behind my shattered screen.
Yes, some things do get bigger (like the extent to which I'm disoriented in my life), but that's not something that should get bigger. Cookies at the coffee house got bigger (as big as my head), receipts got bigger (there was so much information on them that it almost became a questionnaire), and my thighs got thicker (the consequences of eating sandwiches and pastries). My bank balances are getting less and the passion fruit is getting smaller. (Even though pomegranates have gotten bigger, air pollution has worsened, and sleeping in a warehouse upstairs in a coffee house all night all night has made my shame worse.) In London, I fell asleep on a single bed for children most nights, never making excuses for being late for work. The scariest part of my job is sorting out my customers with their traveling wireless mice and chargers. When they go somewhere, I'm busy packing their cups and labeling cheesecakes.
>> author profile
Born in South Africa, Deborah Wei was twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize for her novels "Swim Home" and "Hot Milk", becoming one of the most sought-after new generation writers in the English-speaking world and being hailed by The Times as "one of the most exciting voices of our time". The trauma of the original family, the failure of married life, the mutilated body and the lonely soul are common themes in Levy's writing.
Author: Deborah Levy
Edit: Jin Jiuchao