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PARADISE ROT
A Novel
JENNY HVAL
Translated by Marjam Idriss
This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA
This English-language edition first published by Verso 2018
First published as Perlebryggeriet
© Kolon Forlag 2009
Translation © Marjam Idriss 2018
Lyrics to ‘Alison’ reproduced by kind permission of
Neil Halstead and Cherry Red Songs
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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Verso
UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG
US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Verso is the imprint of New Left Books
ISBN-13: 978-1-78663-383-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-78663-384-2 (US EBK)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78663-385-9 (UK EBK)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hval, Jenny, 1980– author. | Idriss, Marjam.
Title: Paradise rot : a novella / by Jenny Hval ; translated by Marjam Idriss.
Other titles: Perlebryggeriet. English
Description: London ; Brooklyn, NY : Verso, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018004566 | ISBN 9781786633835 | ISBN 9781786633859 (UK EBK)
Classification: LCC PT8952.18.V35 P3713 2018 | DDC 839.823/8 – dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004566
Typeset in Electra by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
Contents
Milk and Silk
The Chest
The Shadows
The Apartment
The Apples
The Fruitpearls
The Double Sleep
The Moonlip
The Spores
The Brewery
Pym
Seasnails
Prune Skin
The Honey Mushroom
The Lighthouse
The Storm
Goldapple Stems
Eden
Black Fruit
Under the Sea
Epilogue
PARADISE ROT
THERE, AND NOT there.
Outside the hostel window the town is hidden by fog. The pier down below dissolves into the colourless distance, like a bridge into the clouds. At times the fog disperses a little, and the contours of islands appear a little way out to sea. Then they’re gone again. There, not there, there, not there, I whisper, leaning against the window, drumming my fingers against the glass in time with the words, dunk, du-dunk, as if I’m programing a new heartbeat for a new home.
So I sat that first morning in Aybourne, leaning against the windowpane, forehead flat on the glass. My shoulders ached from carrying my backpack. I hadn’t taken it off on the train from the airport. I just stood and held on tight to all my things while strange stations and billboards in bright colours whizzed past. The straps gnawed into my shoulders while I counted the stops to my destination. I studied how people would, instinctively, pull the handle to make the doors open at just the right time. I had tried to absorb the technique before it was my turn to get off, so that no one would realise this was my first time on this train. When the time came, however, I stood by the door and pulled the handle to no effect. A woman in her forties tapped my shoulder – The other side, love – and I just about managed to get off the train in time. After that I stood on the platform for a moment while a stream of rush-hour passengers passed me, like a river parting itself around a small rock.
The trip had been hard. I had too much luggage, my coat was too big, and I had become distressed in the duty-free shop, which was permeated by the smell of sickeningly sweet perfume. In the hostel my body became light and insubstantial, and I imagined that I, too, was being swallowed by fog, that I was dissolving in it. The remnants from my journey lay tossed around me: tickets and promotional leaflets on the table, an English fashion magazine on the bed, salt and pepper packets on the floor. The sound of cars on the street outside and a fly that buzzed under the curtains replaced the echo of that strange voice that had announced doors closing over the train’s loudspeakers. I closed my eyes. The glass was cold and dry. When I stood up to take a shower, I had left a blurry oil-print on the pane.
The shared bathroom was across the hall. It was a dirty and colourless room
