Kejlin: переводы

→I do not exist. And yet I exist.

→I live four blocks from Central Park, and I spend most of my afternoons there. It is where I choose to live my traceless, shadowless life. I am just another part of the expanse. I am there in the trees, in the air, by the water. Sometimes I will sit on a bench for hours at a time. Sometimes I will wander. At every moment, I observe. Tourists and regulars. Dog walkers who pass at noon each day, clockwork. Large packs of teenagers, jockeying loudly for each other’s attention. Old people who also sit and stare, as if they have all the time in the world, when deep down they know the opposite is true. I take them all in. I hear their conversations, witness their intimacies. I never say a word. They are more conscious of the birds, the squirrels, the wind.

→I stay inside a lot, but not always.

→New York City is a remarkably easy place to be invisible, as long as you have an absent father who contributes to your bank account from time to time. Everything—groceries, movies, books, furniture—can be ordered online. Cash never has to pass from one hand to another. Packages are left outside the door.

→I can never be seen, no matter how hard I try. I can be touched, but only if I concentrate. And I can always be heard, if I choose to speak. These, I suppose, are the rules of the curse. I have gotten used to them, even if I don’t understand them. When I was a baby, I automatically had weight, but the more conscious I became, the more I had to concentrate on being held. I do not evaporate—part of me is still there, so I don’t fall through floors or walk through walls. But to touch—that requires effort. I am not solid to the world, but the world is solid to me. The curse is its own intricately woven, often contradictory web, and I was born into it. I am an unknowing slave to its design.

→I have been alone for almost a year now.

→My mother held on for as long as she could. Fifteen years. And then her body broke. A blood vessel in her brain.

→My father left when I was small. It was too much for him.

→I want to keep asking my parents why. I want to keep asking my parents how. But I can’t anymore. They’re gone now.

→Invisible. I am invisible.

→I have no idea how this worked. Did my mother go to a hospital, expecting me to be just another normal, visible baby? Or did she believe in the curse, did she know what was going to happen and have me in secret? It’s such a strange image, even to me: an invisible baby, born into the world. What was that first moment like, when I was held up to my mother and there was nothing to see, only feel? She never told me. To her, the past was invisible like I was invisible. She let it slip that there was a curse—angry early words with my father, not meant for my ears. But that was it. There was no other why. There was no other how. There was only the what, and that was my life.

→I WAS BORN INVISIBLE.

→With special thanks from both of the authors to our families, friends, fellow authors, agents, and all of the wonderful people at Penguin, most especially our editor, Jill Santopolo.

→—DL

→To Jen Bodner
(never invisible to me)

→—AC

→To Casey Jarrin
(who sees me through the dark)