I only have the English translation available to me, but, better than nothing.
HIM: You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing.
HER: I saw everything. I saw the hospital, I'm sure of it. A hospital in Hiroshima exists. How could I not have seen it?
HIM: You didn't see the hospital in Hiroshima. You saw nothing in Hiroshima.
HER: Four times at the museum--
HIM: What museum in Hiroshima?
HER: --four times at the museum in Hiroshima, I saw people walking around. People walk around, lost in thought, among the photographs, the reconstructions, for lack of anything else. The photographs, the photographs, the reconstructions, for lack of anything else. The explanations, for lack of anything else. Four times at the museum in Hiroshima, I watched the people. I myself, lost in thought, looked at the scorched metal, the twisted metal, metal made as vulnerable as flesh, I saw the bouquet of bottle caps. Who would have thought? Human flesh, suspended, as if still alive, its agony still fresh. Stones, charred stones, shattered stones, anonymous masses of hair that the women of Hiroshima, upon waking in the morning, would find had fallen out. I was hot in Peace Square. 38 degrees in Peace Square. I know it. The temperature of the sun in Peace Square. How could you not know it? And the grass. It's quite simple.
HIM: You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing.
HER: The reconstructions were as authentic as possible. The films were as authentic as possible. The illusion, quite simply, is so perfect that tourists weep. One can always scoff, but what else can a tourist do but weep? I've always wept over Hiroshima's fate. Always.
HIM: No. What was there for you to weep over?
HER: I saw the newsreels. On the second day, history tells us -- I'm not making it up -- on the second day, from the second day on, certain species of animals crawled from the depths of the earth, and from the ashes. Dogs were captured, on film, for all time: I saw them. I saw the newsreels. I saw them. Of the first day, the second day, the third day.
HIM: You saw nothing.
HER: And on the fifteenth day, Hiroshima was covered in flowers. There were cornflowers and gladioli everywhere, morning glories and day lilies born again from the ashes, with an extraordinary vitality unheard of in flowers before then. I didn't make any of it up.
HIM: You made it all up.
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frogs_frogs_frogs
15 years ago
HER: I saw the survivors too, and those who were in the wombs of the women of Hiroshima. I saw the patience, the innocence, the apparent meekness, with which the temporary survivors of Hiroshima adapted to a fate so unjust that the imagination, usually so fertile, is silent before it. Listen. I know. I know everything. It went on.
HIM: Nothing. You know nothing.
HER: Women risk giving birth to deformed children, to monsters, but it goes on. Men risk becoming sterile, but it goes on. Rain causes panic, the rain of ash on the waters of the Pacific. The Pacific turns deadly, and its fishermen die. Food becomes an object of fear. An entire city's food is thrown away. The food of entire cities is buried. An entire city rises up in anger. Entire cities rise up in anger.
HIM: But against whom do they rise up in anger?
HER: The anger of entire cities, whether they like it or not, against the principle of inequality advanced by one people against another. The principle of inequality advanced by certain races against other races. The principle of inequality advanced by certain classes against other classes. Listen to me. Listen to me. Like you, I know what it is to forget.
HIM: No, you don't know what it is to forget.
HER: Like you, I am endowed with memory. I know what it is to forget.
HIM: No, you are not endowed with memory.
HER: Like you, I too have struggled with all my might not to forget. Like you, I forgot. Like you, I longed for a memory beyond consolation, a memory of shadows and stone. For my part I struggled every day with all my might against the horror of no longer understanding the reason to remember. Like you, I forgot. Why deny the obvious necessity of remembering? Listen to me. I know something else. It will begin again.
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