MariNZさんの おぼえた日記 - 2018年2月17日(土)

Short trip to our past 2 過去への短い旅　２

After driving for nearly 5 hours, we finally got to the bay we used to live. We were shocked to see the damages caused by a cyclone which hit around there about two weeks ago. We saw our old house on TV news just after the cyclone as the damages were huge. This road was blocked for a few days and even now there were places of temporal one lane road. As you may notice, the beaches looked so rocky and the roadside kerb was much narrower than before. We used to collect some shell fish when it was low tide at this beach. There were big mussels and rock oysters. When we have visitors from Japan, they used to enjoy collecting them and I usually made tempura.

Our old house looked just like same, although gardens have changed completely. After we moved house about 16 years ago, we used to keep this house for a few years as a holiday home but it was too far to come here and we got busier so we sold the house.

For this house my husband had a special attachment because he built it himself! He is not a builder or carpenter but it is possible in NZ to build your own house. My husband used to teach at a university and work in a museum so building a house was completely new to him but it was his dream for a long time. He built with a help of another professional builder at first, then all the rest was done by him. I sometimes helped what I could, but there were not many things that I could do. It was a two storeyed house with a Japanese gate. As my husband liked Japanese style, we had shipped building materials from Japan which included shoji, tatami and fusuma. There were several Japanese rooms as well as western. It was a comfortable house but we came to conclude that it was built on a wrong area. The house was just the opposite from the sea, and the cyclone damages were not too unusual. Once when we were living there, the sea water came into the garden. My husband who had science background was not happy to live so close to the sea. As for myself, too I was happy for new challenges after living here for 6 years so we decided to move to a new part of the country.

５時間あまり運転し、やっと昔住んでいた家のある湾に着いた。ここはその２週間ほど前にサイクロンが来て、ひどい災害を受けたばかりだった。私たちは、テレビでそのサイクロンのニュースの時に、昔住んでいたこの家を見たのだ。ここの道はサイクロンの後、数日不通で、今でも一時的に一車線のみのところもある。見てわかるように、海岸は随分と岩がゴロゴロになっており、海岸沿いの歩道がかなり狭くなっていた。この海では、引き潮の時、貝を採っていたものだ。大きいマッスル貝（ムール貝のようなもの）や岩牡蠣がとれて、日本からお客さんが来た時には、必ず貝を皆でとって、天ぷらなどにしていた。

以前住んでいた家は同じに見えたが、庭はかなり変わっていた。１６年前引っ越してからも数年間は休暇の家として家を維持していたが、あまりに遠いし、忙しくなって来てついには売ってしまったのだ。

この家に、夫は特別の感情を持っていた。自分で建てた家なのである。夫は大工ではないが、この国では自分の家を建てることが可能だ。夫は昔、大学で教鞭を取ったり、博物館で働いていた人で、家を建てるのは全く初めてだったが、夢だったらしい。もう一人のプロの大工さんと一緒に始めて、残りは全部自分でやった。私も時には手伝ったけど、私のできることは限られていた。二階建てで、日本風の門があった。日本から建築用に、畳、障子、襖などをすでに輸送していた。夫は日本調が好きで、日本風の部屋と洋風の部屋とがある家だ。住み心地の良い家だった。しかし間違った場所に建ててしまった、というのが私たちの結論だった。家は海の向かい側にあったのだ。サイクロンの被害はそう珍しいことではなかった。一度だけ、住んでいる時、海水が庭に浸水して来たこともある。自然科学の専門家の夫は、海の近くに住むのは良くないと考え始めた。私としても、６年間住んだところを離れて、馴染みのない新しい場所でチャレンジするのも良いかもと思い始めていた。




Io non ho paura
di Niccolò Ammaniti

Mi sono paralizzato sotto lo stipite della porta.
Non potevo tornare indietro. Mi avrebbero rotto le scatole fino alla morte. E se mi buttavo di sotto? All'improvviso quei quattro metri che mi dividevano dalla stalla non sembravano più tanti.
Potevo dire agli altri che era impossibile arrivare alla finestra. In certi momenti il cervello gioca brutti scherzi.

stipite: door jamb
scatole: boxes, ass
stalla: cowshed
cervello: brains

僕は扉の枠の下で体が固まった。
後ろに引き返すことはできない。そうしたら死ぬまで腐る程の目に逢う。じゃあ、下に落ちたら？突然に小屋の中で僕の行き道を分ける４メートルほどが大きく感じられた。他の皆に窓のところまで行くのは無理だったと言えば？その瞬間、脳の中で悪い考えがぐるぐる巡った。