“Hanne is stretched out on her back. Faces hover in a circle above her. A boy with big blue eyes. A woman whose front teeth rest on her lower lip. An old Chinese woman wearing all gray, herface expressionless, as if she’s seen this before, and much worse. Suddenly a man’s face zooms toward her. Beads of sweat on his upper lip. Dark sideburns. Dark nose hairs. His eyes are close-set,unnervingly so. “Don’t move,” he says, his breath reeking of garlic and cigarette smoke.An imperative. She tries to sit up, and when she can’t, attempts to understand why she’s on the floor. This is notwhere she should be. She knows that. What is she doing here? “She’s bleeding . . . Hurt. A woman.” But nothing hurts. Liquid streams from her nose, down her cheek, pools into her ear. The circle of faces still above her. But she can’t right herself. Theworld is tilting. The man with sideburns is squatting beside her.What does he want? He’s saying something to her. Telling hersomething, his horrible breath assaulting her. Get back. She can’tget her mouth to shout, Move back! She hunts for that perfect moment again, the water, her children when they were young, Hiro, but it is gone.”

Nina Schuyler The Translator

Nina Schuyler The Translator - “Hanne is stretched out...” 1

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