Aglaja Veteranyi

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A nomadic family of circus performers, refugees from Romania, travels through Europe and Africa by caravan. The mother's death-defying act causes constant anxiety for her two daughters, who voice their fears through a grisly communal fairy tale about a child being cooked alive in polenta—but their real life is no less of a dark fable, and one that seems just as unlikely to have a happy ending. An actor and performance artist as well as a poet and novelist, Veteranyi was acclaimed for her seemingly "artless" narrative voice, in which pain and hilarity always vie for the upper hand—a voice at once lyrical and jaded, prurient and spiritual, comical and horrifying.

 

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I'm picturing what heaven is like.

It’s so big I fall asleep right away to calm down.

When I wake up I know God’s smaller than heaven. If he weren’t,
we’d constantly be falling asleep from fright whenever we pray.

Does God speak other languages?

Can he understand foreigners too?

Or are there angels sitting in little glass booths and translating?

AND IS THERE REALLY A CIRCUS IN HEAVEN?

Mother says there is.

Father laughs; he’s had some bad experiences with God.

If God were really God, He’d come down and help us out, he says.

But why should he come down when we’re going to take a trip up
there later on to see him anyway?

Men don’t believe in God as much as women and children do;
they don’t like the competition. My father doesn’t want God to
be my father too.

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