Trong bài viết về Borges, Hổ trong gương, “Tigers in the mirror”, trên The New Yorker, sau in trong “Steiner at The New Yorker”, Steiner có nhắc tới 1 truyện ngắn của Borges, mới được dịch qua tiếng Anh, The Intruder. Truyện này hoành dương, illustrate, tư tưởng hiện tại của Borges.

Tò mò, Gấu kiếm trong “thư khố” của Gấu, về ông, không có. Lên net, có, nhưng chỉ cho đọc, không làm sao chôm: “The Intruder”, câu chuyện hai anh em chia nhau, một phụ nữ trẻ. Một trong họ, giết cô gái để cho tình anh em lại được trọn vẹn. Vì chỉ có cách đó mà hai em mới cùng san sẻ một cam kết mới: “bổn phận quên nàng”.

Borges coi nó như là 1 vi-nhét - bức họa nhỏ, dùng để trang trí - cho những những câu chuyện đầu tay của Kipling. “Kẻ lén vô nhà, The Intruder”, quả là 1 chuyện nhỏ, nhẹ, nhưng không 1 tì vết và cảm động một cách lạ thường. Lần đầu đọc, trên net, Gấu mơ hồ nghĩ đến BHD, tượng trưng cho thứ văn học của Gấu, hay rộng ra, của cả Miền Nam đúng hơn, được cả hai thằng, anh Bắc Kít và em Nam Kít, cùng mê, và 1 thằng đã "làm thịt em" để cả hai cùng có bổn phận, quên nàng:

Như thể, sau khi Gấu lang thang xứ người, lưu vong nơi Xứ Lạnh, một bữa trở về Xề Gòn, và thấy Những Ngày Ở Sài Gòn, nằm trên bàn!

"The Intruder," a very short story recently translated into English, illustrates Borges's present ideal. Two brothers share a young woman. One of them kills her so that their fraternity may again be whole. They now share a new bond: "the obligation to forget her."

Borges himself compares this vignette to Kipling's first tales. "The Intruder" is a slight thing, but flawless and strangely moving. It is as if Borges, after his rare voyage through languages, cultures, mythologies, had come home and found the Aleph in the next patio.

Steiner cho rằng cái sự nổi tiếng của Borges làm khổ dúm độc giả ít ỏi, như là 1 sự mất mát riêng tư.
Và theo ông, nó bắt đầu, cùng với sự kiện, cả hai đấng rất ư được người đời ít biết đến, và đọc được họ, là Beckett và Borges, khi hai đấng này chia nhau giải thưởng Formentor Prize, vào năm 1961.
Năm sau, cuốn Mê Cung và Giả Tưởng của Borges có bản tiếng Anh.
Vinh danh  rớt xuống, như mưa: Honors rained.

Vào cái tuổi già chín rục, Borges tếu táo, tôi bắt đầu nghi, rằng thì là bi giờ cả thế giới biết tới mình!
Quả là 1 ngạc nhiên, bởi là vì vào năm 1932, cỡ đó, tôi có cho xb 1 cuốn  sách, và cuối năm, tôi khám phá ra, chỉ bán được có 37 cuốn!

Beckett thì cũng rứa! Gấu nhớ là 1 tay xb từ chối ông, sau quá ân hận.

TTT cũng thế.

May sau đó, nhờ Nguyễn Đình Vượng, đổ mớ sách ra hè đường Xề Gòn, nhờ thế cuốn sách tái sinh, từ tro than, từ bụi đường!
Khủng nhất, là, ông già NDV như tiên đoán ra được số phận của cả 1 nền văn chương của cả 1 Miền Nam, sau đó, sau 1975!

Gấu là thằng may nhất, nếu không có cú bán xon của NDT, Gấu không làm sao được đọc Bếp Lửa!

The Intruder

Note: GCC kiếm thấy The Intruder, trong cuốn Borges A Reader, mua xôn, từ đời nào. Bèn post ở đây, và sẽ dịch sau.

Borges coi nó như là 1 vi-nhét - bức họa nhỏ, dùng để trang trí - cho những những câu chuyện đầu tay của Kipling. “Kẻ lén vô nhà, The Intruder”, quả là 1 chuyện nhỏ, nhẹ, nhưng không 1 tì vết và cảm động một cách lạ thường.

Lần đầu đọc, trên net, Gấu mơ hồ nghĩ đến BHD, tượng trưng cho thứ văn học của Gấu, hay rộng ra, của cả Miền Nam đúng hơn, được cả hai thằng, anh Bắc Kít và em Nam Kít, cùng mê, và 1 thằng đã "làm thịt em" để cả hai cùng có bổn phận, quên nàng:

Như thể, sau khi Gấu lang thang xứ người, lưu vong nơi Xứ Lạnh, một bữa trở về Xề Gòn, và thấy "Những Ngày Ở Sài Gòn", nằm trên bàn! (1)

THE INTRUDER

2 Samuel 1:26

[JLB 98]

They claim (improbably) that the story was told by Eduardo, the younger of the Nilsen brothers, at the wake for Cristian, the elder, who died of natural causes at some point in the 1890s, in the district of Moron. Someone must certainly have heard it from someone else, in the course of that long, idle night, between servings of mate, and passed it on to Santiago Dabove, from whom I learned it. Years later, they told it to me again in Turdera, where it had all happened. The second version, considerably more detailed, substantiated Santiago's, with the usual small variations and departures. I write it down now because, if I am not wrong, it reflects briefly and tragically the whole temper of life in those days along the banks of the River Plate. I shall put it down scrupulously; but already I see myself yielding to the writer's temptation to heighten or amplify some detail or other.

In Turdera, they were referred to as the Nilsens. The parish priest told me that his predecessor remembered with some astonishment seeing in that house a worn Bible, bound in black, with Gothic characters; in the end pages, he glimpsed handwritten names and dates. It was the only book in the house. The recorded misfortunes of the Nilsens, lost as all will be lost. The old house, now no longer in existence, was built of unstuccoed brick; beyond the hallway, one could make out a patio of colored tile, and another with an earth floor. In any case, very few ever went there; the Nilsens were jealous of their privacy. In the dilapidated rooms, they slept on camp beds; their indulgences were horses, riding gear, short-bladed daggers, a substantial fling on Saturdays, and belligerent drinking. I know that they were tall, with red hair which they wore long. Denmark, Ireland, places they would never hear tell of, stirred in the blood of those two criollos. The neighborhood feared them, as they did all red-haired people; nor is it impossible that they might have been responsible for someone's death. Once, shoulder to shoulder, they tangled with the police. The younger one was said to have had an altercation with Juan Iberra in which he did not come off worst; which, according to what we hear, is indeed something. They were cowboys, team drivers, rustlers, and, at times, cheats. They had a reputation for meanness, except when drinking and gambling made them expansive. Of their ancestry or where they came from, nothing was known. They owned a wagon and a yoke of oxen.

Physically, they were quite distinct from the roughneck crowd of settlers who lent the Costa Brava their own bad name. This, and other things we do not know, helps to explain how close they were; to cross one of them meant having two enemies.

The Nilsens were roisterers, but their amorous escapades had until then been confined to hallways and houses of ill fame. Hence, there was no lack of local comment when Cristian brought Juliana Burgos to live with him. True enough, in that way he got himself a servant; but it is also true that he showered her with gaudy trinkets, and showed her off at fiestas-the poor tenement fiestas, where the more intimate figures of the tango were forbidden and where the dancers still kept a respectable space between them. Juliana was dark-complexioned, with  large wide eyes; one had only to look at her to make her smile. In a poor neighborhood, where work and neglect wear out the women, she was not at all bad looking.

At first, Eduardo went about with them. Later, he took a journey to Arrecifes on some business or other; he brought back home with him a girl he had picked up along the way. After a few days, he threw her out. He grew more sullen; he would get drunk alone at the local bar, and would have nothing to do with anyone. He was in love with Cristian's woman. The neighborhood, aware of it possibly before he was, looked forward with malicious glee to then subterranean rivalry between the brothers. One night, when he came back late from the bar at the corner, Eduardo saw Cristian's black horse tethered to the fence. In the patio, the elder brother was waiting for him, all dressed up. The woman came and went, carrying mate. Cristian said to Eduardo:

"I'm off to a brawl at the Farias'. There's Juliana for you. If you want her, make use of her."

His tone was half-commanding, half-cordial. Eduardo kept still, gazing at him; he did not know what to do. Cristian rose, said goodbye to Eduardo but not to Juliana, who was an object to him, mounted, and trotted off, casually.

From that night on, they shared her. No one knew the details of that sordid conjunction, which outraged the proprieties of the poor locality. The arrangement worked well for some weeks, but it could not last. Between them, the brothers never uttered the name of Juliana, not even to summon her, but they sought out and found reasons for disagreeing. They argued over the sale of some skins, but they were really arguing about something else. Cristian would habitually raise his voice, while Eduardo kept quiet. Without realizing it, they were growing jealous. In that rough settlement, no man ever let on to others, or to himself, that a woman would matter, except as something desired or possessed, but the two of them were in love. For them, that in its way was a humiliation.

One afternoon, in the Plaza de Lomos, Eduardo ran into Juan Iberra, who congratulated him on the beautiful "dish" he had fixed up for himself. It was then, I think, that Eduardo roughed him up. No one, in his presence, was going to make fun of Cristiano

The woman waited on the two of them with animal submissiveness; but she could not conceal her preference, unquestionably for the younger one, who, although he had not rejected the arrangement, had not sought it out.

One day, they told Juliana to get two chairs from the first patio, and to keep out of the way, for they had to talk. Expecting a long discussion, she lay down for her siesta, but soon they summoned her. They had her pack a bag with all she possessed, not forgetting the glass rosary and the little crucifix her mother had left her. Without any explanation, they put her on the wagon, and set out on a wordless and wearisome journey. It had rained; the roads were heavy going and it was eleven in the evening when they arrived at Moron. There they passed her over to the patrona of the house of prostitution. The deal had already been made; Cristian picked up the money, and later on he divided it with Eduardo.

In Turdera, the Nilsens, floundering in the meshes of that outrageous love (which was also something of a routine), sought to recover their old ways, of men among men. They went back to their poker games, to fighting, to occasional binges. At times, perhaps, they felt themselves liberated, but one or other of them would quite often be away, perhaps genuinely, perhaps not. A little before the end of the year, the younger one announced that he had business in Buenos Aires. Cristian went to Moron; in the yard of the house we already know, he recognized Eduardo's piebald. He entered; the other was inside, waiting his turn. It seems that Cristian said to him, "If we go on like this, we'll wear out the horses. It's better that we do something about her."

He spoke with the patrona, took some coins from his money belt, and they went off with her. Juliana went with Cristian; Eduardo spurred his horse so as not to see them. They returned to what has already been told. The cruel solution had failed; both had given in to the temptation to dissimulate. Cain's mark was there, but the bond between the Nilsens was strong-who knows what trials and dangers they had shared-and they preferred to vent their furies on others. On a stranger, on the dogs, on Juliana, who had brought discord into their lives.

March was almost over and the heat did not break. One Sunday (on Sundays it is the custom to retire early), Eduardo, coming back from the corner bar, saw Cristian yoking up the oxen. Cristian said to him, "Come on. We have to leave some hides off at the Pardos'. I've already loaded them. Let us take advantage of the cool."

The Pardo place lay, I think, to the south of them; they took the Camino de las Tropas, and then a detour. The landscape was spreading out slowly under the night. They skirted a clump of dry reeds. Cristian threw away the cigarette he had lit and said casually, "Now, brother, to work. Later on, the buzzards will give us a hand. Today I killed her. Let her stay here with all her finery, and not do us any more harm."

De vent et de Fumée

Ces pages sont traduites. D'une langue
Qui hante la mémoire que je suis.
Les phrases de cette langue sont incertaines
Comme les tout premiers de nos souvenirs.
J'ai restitue le texte mot après mot,
Mais le mien n'en sera qu'une ombre, c'est à croire
Que l'origine est une Troie qui brule,
La beaut é un regret, l' oeuvre ne prendre
À pleines mains qu'une eau qui se refuse. 

Yves Bonnefoy

III

These pages are translations. From a tongue
That haunts the memory I have become.
Its phrases falter, like what we recollect
From early childhood, long ago.
I built the text again, word for word:
But mine is only shadow. As though we know
All origin is a Troy that burns,
All beauty but regret, and all our work
Runs like water through our hands.

Translated by Hoyt Rogers

Của Gió và Khói

III