U časopisu za međunarodne književne veze Društva hrvatskih književnika/ Croatia Journal od International Literary relations “Most”, “The Bridge” (glavni urednik Davor Šalat i urednik Strahimir Primorac), u broju 3-4/2014., str. 145. -147. u prijevodu Ane Janković Čikos objavljeni su na engleskome jeziku prijevodi književnih radova Božice Brkan s biografijom – kratka priča Ljubavna arka (Love Ark) te odabrane pjesme: Dječak i javor (A Boy and a Maple Tree), Mrtvo drvo (Dead Tree), Oblutak (Pebble), Mogla bih otići (I could leave), Izgubljena (Lost), Posveta (Inscription).
Love Ark
That you left me, it is certain as of last night. Without a shadow of a doubt.
I too have finally seen you with her. After everyone else has. I’m still alive this morning and I guess I survived then too. I’m surprised at myself. If only you’d told me. I wouldn’t have come. I thought that you were mad with me. That I again said something too much. Oh, yes, I too have virtues, but apparently she has more than I. With fewer words. With less effort. What was I supposed to do then? I just switched off all telephones.
I wish I could cry. I couldn’t even fall asleep. I drank the first thing that came to hand. Almost an entire bottle. It was liqueurishly pastel, herby and sweet, with a final bitter finish. It lulled me to sleep. I was swaying in the dream like at the sea. Like at some vast waters. I was sailing on a sailboat as on our last week’s two-week blissful cruise. In the pose from the Titanic, but aboard Noah’s Ark. I know it was an ark because I saw Noah. Methuselah with a beard that has never been shorn as in our religious education catechism booklet. He asked me where you were, and I didn’t know what to say to him. You weren’t there. I cried in the dream and he consoled me.
I have no idea how he ever received me aboard his dreamlike vessel immersed in misty clouds and waters, in the rainy horizon, because there were mates everywhere: a mare and a stallion, a cow and a bull, a cat and a tomcat, a dog and a bitch, a hen and a rooster, a duck and a drake, a sow and a boar. And a couple of wild boars, and a stag and a doe, and a couple of deer. A male and a female stork. Pheasants, lions, tigers, elephants, bears both brown and polar… There were a few hermaphrodites too. Some of the animals were pregnant. There were both herbivores and carnivores, but there was no grappling whatsoever. There was neither any neck wringing nor any devouring. Out of fear of one another, out of fear of God’s will or out of fear of big waters, they all waited in the boarding queue patiently, marshalling themselves in pairs economically and harmoniously starting at the bow and observing the draught under the persistent rain.
Only I had no mate. Only I could not think of a way to transmit my seed, my genes and my love from this torrent.
Translated by Ana Janković Čikos