Façades
by Dario Voltolini
Translated from the Italian by Stiliana Milkova
Casablanca, a day in 1957
He returns home. He had been outside, playing with the other children in the barely flattened dirt strewn with pebbles. Two little girls pass by. He rests his hand on the concrete. “I can’t bear it anymore,” he says.
Napa Valley, 1984, the first Sunday in June
An overly blue sky, an overly white wall. Sharp edges near an old tree with dark leaves. Scorched plants. He is walking along the blinding path. The weight is overwhelming.
Hong Kong, 1987; London, 1986
Diagonally and vertically. Pipes on the outside. Two little girls walk by. It’s exactly as if I were never here, he says. The weight of a still-unformed desire.
Mexico City, September 1968
A waterfall. He sees his reflection in the water. A horse is trotting by. Violet-purple plaster on the wall. Someone in a hotel room opens a drawer. Semi-darkness lingers in the room. But here, the light is reflected in the water surface.
Frankfurt am Mein, the summer of 1932
He rests his hand on the wall. Men are tending their vegetable gardens, small plots of land assigned to each of them. “I shouldn’t be here,” he says. A little boy looks out of the window. A woman and a man walk along a curved wall. A revolver lies behind the clothes inside a closed drawer.
San Fermín, Madrid, October 18, 1985, 11:40 am
Courtyards and staircase landings, large windows with thirteen by twelve panes on the lower floors and fourteen by twelve on the middle and upper floors. Before long he’ll be able to play with the other children. Two little girls have made a drawing of a horse. Semi-darkness lingers in the corridor of a distant hospital. The desire for an ending.
Modena, January 1970
A man looks out of the window. A woman and a little boy enter a hotel room. The man returns home. Expansion work will begin at the cemetery. Two women are walking across a square, diagonally.
Los Angeles, April-May 1976
The blue façade reflects the palm trees. The green façade reflects the blue one. Earlier, it was a desire for solitude. Now solitude is a certainty. Closed windows in an empty hotel room. He says, “I can’t bear it anymore, carrying this weight.” “I can’t remain here,” he says. Two women are returning home. An elevator rises, vertically.
New Canaan, Connecticut, 1951
The leaves are soft. A little boy and a little girl are playing on the lawn. He is walking along the path, headed home. Light filters through the glass panes. “Transparency without reflection is like non-being,” he says. Solitude is a weight now. Earlier, it was a certainty. A closed drawer in the semi-darkness of an empty hotel room. He opens a window. He rests his hand on the wall.
Rotterdam, December 1920
He is walking along the façade of a residential building. “It’s as if no one lived here,” he says. Two men overtake us at a brisk pace. He says, “It’s as if they were not here.” An open drawer in a hospital room. A woman and a little girl close the windows. A man and a woman are watching the surface of the water. A little boy is playing. Someone enters a hotel room, alone.
Photo Cover by Julia Dragan