Christopher Brookmyre, Cyrus Atabay

De Schotse schrijver Christopher Brookmyre werd geboren op 6 september 1968 in Glasgow. Zie ook alle tags voor Christopher Brookmyre op dit blog.

Uit: The Cliff House:

“They had been on the island less than five hours and al-ready the whole thing was falling apart. There was a bite to the breeze as Jen stood outside the house, a reminder that though the calendar said late June, it was still night-time on a remote Scottish island on the edge of the Atlantic. She saw no sign of Samira. She had said she was going to grab some air, but from the state of her there was a greater chance she was actually off to be sick. It turned out Jen’s future sister-in-law was a mouthy rage-monster who couldn’t handle her drink, and she was the least of Jen’s problems. She glanced back at the house, where she could see the others through the drawing room’s huge windows. None of them was speaking. This whole shebang had been a stupid idea, and she was an eejit to have let herself get talked into it. It hadn’t helped that Zaki, her fiancé, had been thoroughly encouraging of the notion. She’d wondered if that was because he had big plans for a stag weekend. If so, they hadn’t materialised.
She pictured him back at home, popping open a can and getting comfy in front of the TV. She wished she was there instead. Suddenly she just wanted to be with Zaki, and Zaki alone. That was a good sign, right? Then she remembered how they had left things. She had as good as told him she didn’t trust him. It hadn’t come out of nowhere; it had been a background hum to their relationship from the off. But that she had put it out there in the open on the morning she departed for her hen weekend was a hell of a red flag. He had been acting secretive of late, shifty and evasive. A couple of weeks ago, she had suspected that he had gone through her bedside drawer. Nothing was missing, but she got this instinctive feeling that the things in it weren’t quite how they had been before. Then last week, in the documents folder of his laptop, she found a scan of her passport. Zaki didn’t have a private log-in for the laptop, something he had presented as a sign of openness, but it struck her that it also ensured she believed she was seeing everything. Then last night he had shut the lid just as she walked into the kitchen, trying to be nonchalant about it but merely having the opposite effect. She had caught a glimpse of what was on-screen. He was replying to an email from an account identified only as grim-pox02@vapourmail.com. Jen had looked up the domain and found that it specialised in disposable email ad-dresses. But more troublingly, she had accessed the laptop while he was in the shower this morning, and couldn’t find the incoming email or the reply he was composing. She checked the inbox, archive and sent folders. There was nothing. He had deleted all trace. That was why, when he emerged from the bathroom, she had asked him directly. ‘Who were you emailing last night?’ she asked. Who is grimpox02?’ ‘It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with.’ He tried to sound casual, though he surely knew it was point-less. ‘If it’s nothing, why did you delete it? Yes, I looked. You emptied the trash too. That’s a lot of steps for nothing.”

 

Christopher Brookmyre (Glasgow, 6 september 1968)

 

De Duitstalige, Iraanse dichter en schrijver Cyrus Atabay werd geboren op 6 september 1929 in Teheran. Zie ook alle tags voor Cyrus Atabay op dit blog.

 

Dat allemaal

Dagen. dagen
wilde duiven van vergankelijkheid!
Ah, klaprozen en korenaren
en wat anders de zomer
in zijn schild voert
zonk in de afscheidskist.

Op een dag als deze,
als je boten ziet
die over zeeën varen,
dan dragen ze jouw as
en je houdt ze niet meer tegen.

 

Vertaald door Frans Roumen

 

Cyrus Atabay (6 september 1929 – 26 januari 1996)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 6e september ook mijn blog van 6 september 2019 en ook mijn blog van 6 september 2017 en ook mijn blog van 6 september 2015 deel 2.