"THE DIARY OF LADY M." "Diego came into the "Kismet" because of a thunderstorm." "He knew nothing about the place." "That night, a women's group played." ""Lady M", rather warriors than women." "He was in Paris... to exhibit a painting." "He didn't visit the "Kismet" out of boredom." "It was a stroke of fate." "For him." "For me." "Stop it, I'm counting." "Yes, we want our money." "Silence, Please..." "It will go bad." "Give me my dough." "It's thousand francs, 5 for each." "Only 1000 francs?" "That wasn't the deal." "Are they comfortable?" "I didn't mean to scare you." "I've never knelt in front of a man," "What a strange feeling." "I forgot to say goodbye." "See you tomorrow." "If he doesn't behave... the Devil will shaft him in the arse!" "What's that?" "A prophecy?" "It must hurt terribly!" "You find that funny, huh?" "You don't have to perform every night, with a broken Speaker system... lousy contracts... advertising, that must be paid... girls who never earn enough... and an owner, who is a vampire." "Damn it!" "These guys drain you for all your energy." "And you're giving and giving... a real bruise." "I saw the show," "I mean a part of it..." "I often walk home." "I like it." "Paris looks like an Operetta scenery." "I agree about the scenery, "Operetta" sounds a little exaggerated." "It had stopped raining." "We were encircled by the night." "Each followed his steps, and sometimes they met." "He asked me for my perfume." "I stammered..." "I couldn't say... it was the smell of a woman who had sweat too much on stage." "He smiled and said, it reminded him of his childhood, of the patio of his grandfather, where he acted as if he followed the conversation, but where he enjoyed... all smells from the earth... and jasmine at dusk." "What's your name?" "Wait..." "I have no name." "My name is..." "Lady M, like the group." "When I was small, I never slept... before my mother put something at the bed end." "This is good..." "He looked at me." "And you, how were you as a child?" "I looked at this stranger who seemed to know more than me... about my child secrets, my woman's secrets... and the black sky of Paris." "What is it?" "The sounds of Paris." "I walked through Paris today and recorded it." "You don't paint with the eyes, but with the ears?" "Exactly." "What is it?" "The bell of Père-Lachaise when it closes." "You also walk through the cemeteries?" "Everywhere." "Life's for walking." "And if you don't walk?" "I wait for the dust to fall down." "What does that mean?" "I think it was Leonardo da Vinci, or another oddball like him, always entered his studio through a trapdoor." "That made the dust... and the color pigments wirl up." "Then he waited an hour, absolutely motionless, until it had fallen down again." "I spend most of my time in my studio in Barcelona." "I came to Paris for three days, for an exhibition." "I exhibit in a group of painters, but I'm not member of a group." "I thought the morning would never come." "I was wrong, even if we didn't notice it coming." "We didn't feel sleepy, although we had walked all night." "We were simply... stunned." "We were completely high." "You have a beautiful coat." "I stole it from a painter, who's successful than me." "So you're a thief." " Yes." " But you're not a soul thief?" " We'll see." "Because there such people..." "There are many soul thieves." "There are many small soul thieves, you know." "Have you met many?" "Yes." "Open your mouth." "My life's best breakfast." "If you come to Barcelona you know where to find me." "I followed his head hovering over the crowd, like the head of a swimmer over the water." "Then he was gone." "I bought flowers and went home." "In the Kismet nothing happened." "Lady M had 15 days free." "I tried to kill the time, while... my guardian angels Acropoli and Roquette mockingly... watched me, they didn't like it when..." "I let myself go as long as there was enough to eat." "I would have called Diego, but on the paper slip was only a drawing and an address." "I could have left it there." "But an irresistible force drove me... so that one day I stood at the door of a humble... little house in Barcelona." "Do you know Diego, the painter?" "Yes." "You see the door over there?" "That's it." "Thank you." "That door?" "Did you find it easily?" "I wandered around a little first." "I walked." "I looked." "I love this town." "I'm a daughter of the Mediterranean ports." "This is good," "The Mediterranean is our big mother." "I'd like to take you on a trip." "A trip?" "Yes." "Where to?" "To my home area." "But... why?" "Just like that." "You make me feel like it, to go away from here." "Are you coming?" "I'll pick you up tomorrow." "Where will you be?" "Hotel Nouvel." "I had 28 hours until my rendezvous with Diego." "Perhaps out of fear I wanted to hold back the time..." "I didn't own much." "I didn't even have a name." "If it's true that we are the children of our landscapes, then I'm the heir of huge treasures." "Barcelona, Genoa, Marseilles," "Tangier, Cairo..." "As Calais' Queen Bloody May, when I once die, your names will be engraved in my heart... and nobody can take that from me." " Have you brought your truck?" " A friend has it lent to me." "I can't drive anyway." "Oh, so you count on me." "No." "I have a license, but I drive rarely." "It takes a few kilometers before it comes back." "You're scared?" "My eyes rested on his forehead... where the little hairs become fluff and first... are bleached by the sun." "I realized that I previously only had loved people's clichés." "I knew nothing about him... but I knew he wasn't a soul thief." "I had always been clumsy." "You know what clumsy means?" "Don't move!" "For the first time, I see you in my light." "And how's the show?" "Not so bad." "I ordered all that for you." "How is it?" "Not so bad." "Not so bad?" "It's marvelous!" "It scared me more to be under his gaze... than being in hall ahead of 500 screaming guys." "I wanted to go towards the light." "I was used to the floodlights... but under the gaze of this man... my legs became soft." "My desire was to to feel a great energy." "And I had the feeling that my body dispersed." "I lay in Diego's arms, in that hotel in Calla San Cristina." "While I was those blooming almond trees, that had touched Van Gogh so much on a Spring morning." "I was here and now, and yet in another place." "I loved everything, enjoyed everything, even my own death." "The love for him was different from anything I had known." "It was a slow ascent, with pauses... with phases..." "At the very top a flash goes slowly through me... and burns the meaning of things, even their own meaning." "*" "I felt almost like being placed in the world of fairy tales, sheltered by that warm yellow blanket." "On a background of purple clouds and croaking ravens... appeared the outlines of the Castle of The Evil Queen." "I never forgot that picture book... every day I eagerly added new pictures." "They were all devoted to The Evil Queen." "This admirable woman, who polished her mirror... every day, in order to look beautiful." "The desire to look beautiful was her only moral!" "To look more beautiful than Snow White, whose pale face... only made a bunch of dwarfs start to dream!" "The dazzling light of the castle, where the evil queen held her splendid festives, has led my steps, alone and shivering through the night." "My path was destined," "I would be Lady M. whatever would happen." "What is it?" "Why are you sad now?" "Me?" "Nothing!" "I was in my "intimate Africa."" ""Intimate Africa?"" "A phrase from my childhood." "For me it means: dreaming." "In school I had a teacher, who used to come... stalking from behind, pinched me and said:" ""Hey, strumpet, you're dreaming."" "She was right." "What?" "Dreaming is the worst crime." "No, the worst crime is to have no "thunes"." " What means "thunes"?" " It means dough, money." "I like the way it's written." "They're talk about those monastery builders." "Listen:" ""They were slaves on earth, to be free in heaven."" ""They were kneeling and starving here, to get up there and sit at the table of the Lord."" "Well, but they ended up fighting against... the counts of this region, who lurked on their treasures." "Meanwhile, the monks moral got spoiled." "Oh!" "But then had those who had worked so hard... been tricked." "They weren't the same." "The decadence came later." "Everything is cyclical." "Things go up, then down, and then they disappear." "And we now?" "I think," "that it goes down." "Hopefully that's not true." "Are you praying?" "When night falls, I expect that the world is praying for me." "You want that people pray for you?" "The people not, the things," "the sea." "Will you take me to the Black Virgin?" "The Virgin of Montserrat." " Why do you want to see her?" " Just like that." "She's the only black virgin." "Is it far?" "Near Barcelona." "Our laughter was replaced by a certain seriousness." "I followed the dazzling reflections from the sky, on their way through the water surface to the lower worlds." "Diego also seemed sense the deeper meaning of the calm water." "Who had said "Dead water is a thick fluid like blood"?" "What are you doing?" " We'll sleep here." "As a boy I hid here once." "My parents were looking for me for two days, but didn't find me." "Were you a runaway?" "Are you shivering?" "No, it's fine." " But I do." "We'll catch our death here." "Shall we find a hotel?" "That would be scandalous..." " Why?" "Listen..." "Here it's less cold but I'd prefer to spend a night in the Taj Mahal." "The Taj Mahal..." "The Taj Mahal..." "The builder of this dwelling probably dreamed of the Taj Mahal." "Unbelievable." "Look at this!" "Want to follow me to hell?" "It's better than the Taj Mahal." "It looks romantic, but this smell..." "What's that humming in the corner?" "I looked, but couldn't find a beehive nor see any insects." "I also didn't see Diego." "Where could he be?" "Oh, my heart..." "It felt as if I was sucked into air holes... like an airplane that falls hundreds of meters." "What if Diego had seduced me only to push me away now?" "I didn't want to assume evil intentions... maybe he was just like all the others?" "Make promises and then disappear." "Isn't that common practice?" "What had he promised me?" "Nothing." "Cold sweat ran down my spine." "Actually, it was strange." "A guy who suddenly just was there?" "I had never asked him many questions, but... with Diego just so much was in the dark." "This sudden trip was maybe rather an escape." "Look, they are doing a restoration." "I'll say goodbye and come in a moment." "He kept me bound to him... hanging on the edge of an abyss." "He pauses during lovemaking... like a swimmer, with the sky above, pauses in order to breathe, before he continues swimming, further, and further." "I love you." "I love you too." "Since when did we make love?" "He asked me if I could feel him deep inside me." "I didn't answer." "A dizziness came over me, like on a motorcycle, that accelerates too fast." "It felt as if... we were at the heart of a moment, without beginning and never ending." "Swallows chased each other playful outside the window." "They let themselves fall like stones, only to stop loud screaming in the last moment, before they took another direction," "this time towards the upper abyss." "Did you like when men look at me?" "Yes, I like it, but I can't stand rudeness." "At the end of the day we came to the Ebro Delta." "The geometric lines of the rice fields reached as far as the eyes could see." "The only inhabitants of the area appeared to be frogs." "A wet sun painted the horizon in a yellow and purple frenzy." "A river throws itself into the sea, like a man who dies in a woman." ""I love the delta at the bottom of your belly", he murmured." "I'm uncertain whether it was Diego's comment." "I already loved this area, where Earth, Water and Air melt together." "I felt as if my life depended on these few centimeters of skin... that he caressed while driving." "I had put fear and doubts aside concerning Diego." "We seemed to drive on solid ground as well as on water." "This is called a Fata Morgana." "He asked me to spread my legs." "The vitality of his eyes seemed to be passed on to his mouth, full and glorious." "His face was motionless, like a statue." "I'd like... to be even more naked in front of this stone face." "Do you know that the Arabs shave their sex?" "Really?" "Always?" "Well, I don't know." "But often." "Finally, we saw the residents." "They were not only frogs." "The alcohol was already in the veins of the men, who waited in the cafe for their wives, who were in church." "That's it." "Life is sometimes complicated." "Why didn't you tell me?" " She knows it." " But... and I?" "A man who has two houses, will loose his mind." "He who has two wives, will loose his soul." "Then there are certainly many who's souls are lost." "You don't choose the moment of an encounter." "And when it happens what should we do?" "Abstain from it?" "Of millions of people, who pass by, only 2 or 3 stop." "So you stop too." "The chances in life... a day in Paris... the rain, the Kismet, and you." "We walked half the night." "And you come to Barcelona." "I knew it." "Should I have sent you away?" "Is she African?" "Parisian." "She was my model when I worked in Paris." "What's her name?" "Nuria." "And the little girl's called Billie." "It was as if my life passed very fast in front of my eyes." "All these girls had stories which were at the same time... exemplary, mysterious, frightening, criminal, sublime and touching." "Life continued on the terrace of the café." "All things needed were there... a flowered blouse, rather well filled, jokes and laughter everywhere." "My senses seemed amplified in order to torture me even more." "I just wanted to sleep." "And when I later... would wake up," "I would realise that the whole story with the photo, the child and the woman, just was a bad image from a nightmare." "The sweet smell of the mud reminds me of my childhood." "I don't care about my childhood." "At least I claim that." "What helps me hover high above the ground... are those rare moments... where you inhale the smell of the air, of the algae, or, the sweetness' of the mud, which reminds of death," "and lets you feel eternity." "Are you sad?" "No." "Actually I'm rather happy." "No sarcasm please." "Have you seen that guy who collects snails there?" "And me, do you see me?" "What do you see in me?" "The sweet smell in the Delta had touched me deeply." "I wanted him even more." "In the pale light of the full moon... the place appeared as a mirror... of what I had seen in the afternoon." "Did I walk through the mirror?" ""Your dream looked at me."" "This short sentence haunted me... and I tried to remember, who had written it." "I could have recorded and made a song out of it." "Let's make love, and then you drive me back to Barcelona." "What do you think?" "I'm not a love tourist." "I want to live with you." "I love you." "I love you too." "I want to live with you." "Let's make love, and then you drive me back to Barcelona." "The worst part with going away is always when you come back again." "Since I was back in Paris," "There seemed to be even more dog's muck on the sidewalks, and everything I ate, tasted cardboard." "I couldn't stay with Diego, But not be without him either." "This morning I pulled myself together." "I made a desperate and slightly absurd act." "Here's my message:" "I can't live without you." "Come." "Stop." "I can't live without you." "Come... with Nuria... and Billie, if you want." "I'm waiting for you." "It seemed highly unlikely, But 14 days later they came." "I didn't know what they wanted." ""Don't worry, we'll see," I decided philosophically." "Perhaps Nuria rather wanted a rival than a ghost." "She'd amaze me yet many times." " Did you find it easily?" " Yes." "Sit down." "I'll make tea." "Don't you have a beer?" "I always have beer for the musicians, when we practice here." "Thank you." "I always tell myself:" "I should drink beer." "It's the drink of the rockers." "But I just can't." "How was the trip?" "Are you tired?" "Want to rest?" "I've prepared a room upstairs." "Aren't you tired?" "No, not at all." "You'll sleep good here." "It's a little soft." "I'm done." "Just use all the cosmetics you find here." "The towels are also there." "Can we have some music to fall asleep?" "Of course." "I'll put on a record." "What should I put on?" " What you want." "How long are babies breastfed?" "It's different." "I don't have much milk anymore, but she gets relaxed from it." "I want her to fall asleep, she was so early up this morning." "I have a duplicate key so you can come and go as you like." "I must go." "We're practising." "Diego, why do you believe me?" "There's a small green piano standing in the corner." "Just look." "Look." "Didn't Monet paint a small green piano in the corner?" " There?" " Yes, there." "What do you see?" "Billie, look." "Don't you believe that Monet painted... a piano in his "Tryptique aux lilas"?" "What a nonsense, you should better clog your ears!" "Better listen to nonsense than being deaf." "Let me see." "You see it... open your eyes, to the right there, isn't it a piano?" "To the right what's wrong with you?" "That's not a piano." "It's a "piano-mouche"." "You can't say "piano-mouche" only "bateau-mouche"." "We have eaten." "We didn't know when you'd come home." "Want to eat something?" "No thanks, I'm not hungry." "I'll buy stamps." "There's a pinball machine, shall we play?" "Can you take Billie?" "Not like this she isn't made of sugar." "First time I hold a baby." "But no..." "You've never held a baby in your arms?" "No, really." "I can't believe it." " No sisters, no nephews..." " No, none at all." "We were seven at home." "When my parents were asleep, the whole house was shaking." "Not like this." "Let's start once more." " Did you see how she does it?" " What?" "We aren't close enough." "The audience should see everything of us all... even the hair of Marie, the hips of Nanou, the breasts by Gladys..." "Shall I move my hips like an Oriental?" "Think I'm born in couscous?" "Come on, couscous isn't in the menu." "Well let's try again." "We really need work together." "Nuria seemed very interested." "I felt even more naked under her eyes as at the day where I had sacrificed my pubic hair to Diego." "During the exercise you talked like a computer." "I'm programmed to... produce sounds and to make eights with my hips." "I'm proud of it." "It's actually the only thing that comforts me in life, the scandal life." "What scandal?" "That you and I are just zombies or even criminal." "Zombies?" "Yes, those who come out of graves in horror films." "Stop it, you'll wake up Billie." "Zombies were already dead when they were alive... because they protected themselves against life." "And criminals?" "That's what we are." "You and me." "The whole world is criminal." "We much more than the others." "The guilt... the spoils everything." "And she?" "You'd be surprised you would know her better." "You think you know her well?" "No one knows anyone." "The truth is a mystery." "And she, what did she think of all this?" "A strong force pulled me into the spiral of another life, and still uncertain..." "I met... a mystery with slit eyes, through which you could see the night, and a breast that feeded a child." "I lacked the courage to... ask this sphynx for advice." "Nuria seemed entirely lost in contemplating the fire." "Who was she since she wasn't zombie and... not a criminal either?" "She looked like a Goddess of the Earth, for a God of Fertility." "It's full." "I'll empty it." "I don't know whose hand guided me, but suddenly I was in their arms, like a blade of grass, that moved under the warm breath of the two," "completely drunken of pleasure." "Curiosity and excitement confused me." "We were at the same time so similar and so different." "All this was possible only... because we loved the same man." "I met her through Diego's body." "My heart was beating intensely." "I had never touched a woman's body before." "And I discovered it's tenderness with the same amazement I had... felt for the splendour of a meadow of buttercups when I was five." "Back then I couldn't imagine that the beauty of the world... could also loose its glory." "I saw her batting under Diego beats." "I saw the earth... and the depth of the oceans." "Then she turned around and moaned, and I wished that Diego had hold back his lust." "Then he came into me, still wet from her." "And I was all gone, even as... blade of grass, I no longer existed." "I realized how... vulnerable... and yet indestructible I was." "Who'd have thought that I would sleep between Diego and Nuria?" "And for a whole week already." "Last night I noticed Nuria's face." "She has a unique way... to lift her eyes to heaven during lovemaking, so that she looks like... a Madonna with wax tears in painful ecstasy." "What's up?" "Stop it." "You have." "You've got a problem in your head." "You've got a problem." "Give back my papers." "Come on go." "You fool, you shitty guy." "Did they share something I would never participate in?" "And if one day I would be like all the others... who weigh children behind lightened windows... while I walk towards a well-lit roundabout?" "But before I can claim... these lights, I have to..." "conquer the darkness." "Terrible." "Where was my place?" "On the other side of the mirror?" "The price we had to pay, to get to the other side, to the other side of life, is very high for a mirror." "Here was my place!" "All my life I'll sleep near an amplifier..." " What are you doing here?" " You scared me." " I'm going to close." " I want to stay here." " You want to sleep here?" " Yes, I'd like that." " Come with me, I have a room." " No, I'm not in the mood." "I'll give you the keys." "I'll be back tomorrow at noon and knock three times." "Don't let anyone in." "Watch out for the big evil wolf." "Sweet dreams." " Thank you." "Terrible!" " Is there any coffee?" " In the pan." "That's cat pee!" "I can't drink it!" "Is there no more coffee?" "I'll make tea." "This is terrible." "I can't be everywhere, in the Kismet, shopping, keeping the house and then even feed them all." "Did you see the teapot?" "Not there." "It's over there." "Damn." "Haven't you seen the teapot?" "When you came to Barcelona... and Diego told me he wanted to travel with you," "I thought I'd smash my head against the wall." "Nuria, my sister, my mother, my love, my revolt!" "You, who move the hips as well as the stars." "Help me that I don't become a dry tree." "She heard my prayer." "I felt that life... came from her warm lips back into me." "Mine were still paralysed, like those of a drowned person." "I wanted to shout out my despair... that I gave up Diego and had hurt her." "I'd have liked to cry like the swallows, who were so mad in the dawn of the Catalan countryside." "The time that stopped when Diego was inside me." "Those moments without beginning or end." "The huge night, where you had to dissolve, in order to be reborn in the light." "I'd have given her everything, everything that carried the name of my beloved, everything I'd never have again, and what tore me in pieces." "My body was like the inside of those figs, that I loved to nick in the end of summer along the roadsides." "There were no more fruits, but sweet confection." "What scandal!" "Then I came perhaps a little too hard, and she laughed." "Normal, eventually I was an outlaw." "Now comes the most impressive part." " When it goes up?" " Yes." "Won't you try the roller coaster?" "You aren't afraid of anything." "I am." "It's the thrill of danger." "Yes, life is dangerous!" "Diego told us today that he had to return to Barcelona." "He said he wanted to paint." "Nuria decided to stay." "In her was also something broken." "Billie, look," "I've met a friend." "Give him to her later." "She's been drinking and is fallen asleep." "I wonder how it feels." "It's so... like an animal." "And you, fool' you're not an animal?" "Yes, but one for the stage!" "I was told I didn't want to be breastfeed." "It's never too late to try." " How you mean?" " Want to try?" "Do you know why they earlier," "I mean, long ago, in prehistoric times..." "What then?" "Why men thought their wives were witches?" "They didn't see a connection between making love... and making children." " Really?" " Yes, sure." "Have you seen my shoe?" "Shit, I'm late to sign the contract..." "And where you're going on tour?" "Where we're going!" "You'll come with too!" "First to Brussels, that will do us good, to come out of this galley, and then many other cities." "Impossible." "What's impossible?" "You're sweet, but I can't..." "But..." "listen..." "Why not?" " You can!" " It's impossible." "I can't live like you do." "I can't go from hotel to hotel with a baby." "You're my sweetheart." "Billie and you will be my family." "I have only you." "I have only you too." "What are you looking for?" "I can't find the tickets." "Hurry up, The train leaves in 5 minutes." "And Nanou?" "She hasn't come yet." "Where is she?" "I'd like to know that." "There they are." "Sorry, girls, but I was argueing with an impossible guy." "Come on, you can tell us in the train." "She remained inside me, just as I left her on the platform." "I should have tried once more to persuade her..." "Only a cloud of perfume remained... whirling wildly in the glare of a spotlight." "The Lady M disappeared one after the other behind the curtain, to the other side... to the another reality." "Madam, can you please open?" "Oh, you're too small..." "I wondered if Billie maybe had a new tooth." "I was cold." "Stalactites hang down from my eyes." "I didn't feel good." "Six months later, I went to Barcelona." "I didn't dare to come close to Calle Portavedra 35." "I was scared." "I didn't know why." "I had the feeling of making a mistake." "I had learned to travel light' without luggage." "I had freed myself of all things, I kept only the one uppercase letter." "M had to go forward without looking back." "Finally my curiosity won..." "I wanted to know what had become of them." "I had to know." "Hello, I'm looking for Diego." "Yes, Diego lives with Nuria... they have a baby, Billie." "Nobody has heard of them, I would know it." "Nuria is a coloured women..." "No, they don't live here." "I've visited them here." "Must be a long time ago." "I had expected everything, just not this." "This woman lived at the same location, and she claimed that she had never seen them, never known them." "That evening I walked through the large body of Barcelona... as if it was the body of a lover." "On my skin I feel the warm breath of the city... like the breath of a mouth, from which words of love come" "I threw myself into the odour of lime trees on Rambla de Catalunya, like you can hide your face in flowing mane." "Much later I received a letter from Diego from South America." "He had married a Peruvian woman, and was living there now." "From Nuria, nothing... never more any message." "Never ever." "I'd give everything to to meet her again." "Translation:" "The Huge Animal From The North"