TWO LITTLE RED GUYS
The Woman Who Killed the Fish by Clarice Lispector; translated by Benjamin Moser
New DirectionsAugust 2022Selected by Barbara Epler
Curated by the writer and translator Gini Alhadeff, Storybook ND is a new series of slim hardcover books that look to recreate that childhood pleasure of reading a book from start to finish in a single afternoon. As Alhadeff says, “There's nothing sweeter than to fall, for a few hours, between the covers of a perfect book.” The series, designed by Peter Mendelsund and with covers by renowned contemporary artists, consists of original works of fiction from six international authors. These books, with their riotous individual energies, take the reader from Buenos Aires to Berlin via a mysterious magician, a cyborg child and Hebridean tweed, each telling a story that’s entirely their own.
Here, Clarice (busy writing) neglects her son’s fish. After enumerating all the animals she’s loved – cats, dogs, lizards, chickens, monkeys – Clarice finally asks: “Do you forgive me?” – Barbara Epler
That woman who killed the fish unfortunately is me. But I promise you I didn’t do it on purpose. Me of all people! Who doesn’t have the nerve to kill a living thing! I don’t even always kill cockroaches.
I give you my word that I’m someone you can trust and my heart is kind: around me I never let a child or an animal suffer.
So for me of all people to kill two little red fish who weren’t hurting anybody and who weren’t ambitious: all they really want is to live.
People too want to live, but luckily they also want to use life to do something good.
I don’t yet have the nerve to tell you right now how it happened. But I promise that I’ll tell you by the end of this book and you, the ones who are going to read this sad story, will forgive me or not.
You must be wondering: why only at the end of the book? And I’ll answer: “Because at the beginning and in the middle I’m going to tell some stories about animals I’ve had, just so you can see that I only could have killed the little fish by accident.”
I’m hoping that, by the end of the book, you’ll have got to know me better and will grant me the forgiveness I’m asking for about the two “little red guys” – at home we called the fish the “little red guys.”
Beforehand I’m going to tell you a few very important things so you won’t feel sad about my crime. If it were my fault, I’d own up to you, since I don’t lie to boys and girls. I only lie sometimes to a certain type of grown-up because there’s no other way. Some grown-ups are so awful! Don’t you think? They don’t even understand a child’s soul. A child is never awful.
For now all I can say is that the fish starved to death because I forgot to feed them. Afterwards I’ll tell you about it, but secretly, nobody but you and I will know. I hope that by the end of the book you can forgive me.
I always liked animals. I spent my childhood surrounded by cats. I had a cat who’d sometimes gave birth to a litter. And I wouldn’t let anyone get rid of a single one of the kittens.
As a result the house ended up being fun for me, but hellish for the grownups. At last, no longer able to stand all those cats, they secretly gave away the cat and her last litter.
And I was so unhappy that I fell sick with a high fever. Then they gave me a toy cat to play with. I wasn’t interested, since I was used to living cats.
The fever only passed much later.
Anyway, let’s change the subject. ◉