The rat - From 'The Romanian, a Memoir' - Excerpt

Literary Review, Wntr, 2003 by Bruce Benderson

I went back to our room and climbed into bed. Romulus stirred, made a childish mew with his lips, began to drift back into sleep. I remember thinking at that moment that we were nothing but statues in some utopic tableau. And then I made a little sigh and thought, the character you think you rescued, keeps being pulled back, inhaled again and again into those landscapes of deprivation. But for now, for this moment, in the dark and middle of the night, we had escaped the premises of our respective cultures. So I sat there watching him plunge back into unconsciousness: that sweet prelude to betrayal.

Bruce Benderson is the author of Pretending to Say No, User, and James Bidgood. Toward the New Degeneracy and Sexe et solitude are published in French by Payot-Rivages. He has translated Robbe-Grillet, Sollers, Guyotat, and Virginie Despentes from the French. He has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Village Voice, nest, Paper, Purple, and other publications.