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Автор Антонио Муньос Молина

Table of Contents

Title Page

Table of Contents

Dedication

Epigraph

sacristan

copenhagen

those who wait

silencing everything

valdemún

oh you, who knew so well

münzenberg

olympia

berghof

cerbère

wherever the man goes

scheherazade

america

you are . . .

narva

tell me your name

sepharad

Author’s Note

Sample Chapter from IN THE NIGHT OF TIME

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About the Author

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

This is a translation of Sefarad

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Muñoz Molina, Antonio.

[Sefarad. English]

Sepharad/Antonio Muñoz Molina;

translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden. —1st U. S. ed.

p. cm.

I. Peden, Margaret Sayers.

II. Title.

PQ6663. U4795S4413 2003

863'. 64—dc21 2003005538

ISBN 0-15-100901-5

eISBN 978-0-547-54477-9

v3. 1013

For Antonio and Miguel,

for Arturo and Elena,

with the wish that they live fully

the future novels of their lives

“Yes,” said the usher, “they are accused,

everyone you see here is accused. ”

“Really?” asked K. “Then they are my comrades. ”

—FRANZ KAFKA, The Trial

sacristan

WE HAVE MADE OUR LIVES far away from our small city, but we just can’t get used to being away from it, and we like to nurture our nostalgia when it has been a while since we’ve been back, so sometimes we exaggerate our accent when talking among ourselves, and use the common words and expressions that we’ve been storing up over the years and that our children can vaguely understand from having heard them so often. Godino, the secretary of our regional association—which has been rescued from its dismal lethargy thanks to his enthusiasm and dynamism—regularly organizes meals where we enjoy the food and recipes of our homeland, and if we are disgruntled that our gastronomy is as little known by foreigners as our monumental architecture or our Holy Week, we like having dishes that no one knows about, and giving them names that have meaning only to us. Oh, there’s nothing like our gordal and cornezuelo olives! Godino exclaims, the plump ones and the long, pointed ones! Our rolls, our borrachuelos—we dream of those sugar-sprinkled pastries with a light touch of brandy—our layered pasta, our Easter cakes, our morcilla—our sausage has rice, not onion—our typical gazpacho, which is nothing at all like Andalusian gazpacho, and our wild-artichoke salad . . . In the private room of the Museo del Jamón, where those of us on the directors’ council often meet, Godino gluttonously hacks off a piece of bread and before dipping it into the bowl of steaming morcilla makes a gesture like a benediction and recites these lines: