‘King of kings they called him, and they said, We rejoice in him, we rejoice in his wife and her beauty; they said, We love this country, and then we said, We love this country. We had to rejoice in his newborn son, for longer than we ever would a birth in our own family, his newborn son, in the far-off Palace of Flowers.’

‘My beloved aunt, I am as innocent and forged in the image and likeness of God as any other, as every other, though I have been a cabin boy, shopkeeper, and soldier, and before then, long before, a small girl at your skirts.’

‘Maybe this is the last time he will walk down the familiar corridor as the man called Noon Merckem, that door there on the left with those welcoming panes of glass could mean the end of his existence, weak in the knees like a man being dragged to the gallows, that’s how he feels in this instant’ 

‘He sets down his weapon, then with difficulty takes off his boots, their smell (excrement, musty sweat) adds even more to his exhaustion. His fingers on the frayed laces are dry matchsticks, slightly burned in places; the nails are the same colour as the boots’

‘Names that end with ‘son’, spelled with just one ‘s’, they sound American. Easy to pronounce in English. Couldn’t tell you why, but it’s true. A name is important, a marker you should finesse if you can. Ia … is that short for something?’

‘my brother sends his best says Nemanja’s brother and shoots his gun just once… my father’s warm body tumbles into the dead leaves, his big eyes fixed on him, my father’s big eyes locked into Nemanja’s brother’s eyes, his strong hands grab my father and turn him to the setting sun’ 

‘Why am I in this car? I’ll sit still. Sometimes, if you don’t move, your memory comes back. But it’s not working. One thing is certain, the driver is smoking. The vehicle is filled with heavy smoke. My eyes are burning. I feel sick.’

‘Little is left, men or animals. Hoes and sickles lie where they were dropped, in the corners of fields dried up for lack of rain. A narrow, stinking creek provides water, but it dwindles visibly day by day, sucked dry by the fierce heat evaporating it, making the air humid and heavy.’ 

‘It was then that I heard a knocking on the windowpane. And there, behind the glass, stood Nelso Tabiòna. He was looking at me in silence, in keeping with his most personal principle of discretion. As a matter of fact, he deems it proper to announce himself in this manner.’ 

‘When my daughters turned twelve I initiated them into the mysterious powers. Mysterious not so much in that they didn’t know those powers existed, or in that I’d kept them secret (I hid nothing from my daughters, since we were of the same sex)’

‘The orchard, vibrantly green and with adobe walls, backed up against the village at one end and bordered the river at the other. It was an orchard mostly of sweet and sour cherries. The villa, a mixture of rustic and urban architecture, sat in the middle of it.’ 

‘I am a child shaped in beeswax. I am made like a doll the size of a human forearm. They have given me hair and fingernail parings from the person who is to suffer. I was borne by my mistress for forty weeks under her right arm as if I was a proper child, and my wax was softened by her warmth.’ 

‘“Hold on. What’s going on here?” I couldn’t help but voice the thought out loud. For, in that moment, I seemed to have been transported back into the midst of Shōkyokusai Tenkatsu’s Magic Troupe. I’d crossed paths with Tenkatsu’s troupe long ago, before I’d started high school.’