This Translation Tuesday, we present an oblique scrap of fiction from Diego Lama, translated into compact, equivocal English by Rose Facchini. An apparition disturbs Alfio from his espresso: his grandfather, dapper, smiling, and back from the dead. In the space of four hundred words, things only get stranger.

Alfio was sitting in the café when all of a sudden, he saw an old man appear. It was his grandfather.

“Hi, grandpa.” Alfio stood up, holding his demitasse.

His grandfather was a tall, thin gentleman of respectable appearance. He had big, blue eyes and a kind expression, reassuring, always elegant, always in a suit, always with polished shoes.

“Hi, grandpa,” Alfio repeated.

His grandfather had been dead for more than fifteen years. Alfio perfectly remembered the shoes and jacket they put on him the day of the funeral.

“Hi, grandpa,” he repeated a third time. “Weren’t you…?”

“Yes, I was,” the grandfather said, smiling in his own way, as if everything—even death—could be resolved with a witty remark. “I was. But now I’m alive!”

“I don’t get it.” Alfio sat down. “I just don’t get it.”

“Me neither, but I’m happy.” His grandfather remained standing. “Your grandmother’s also come back!”

“Grandma?” Alfio placed the demitasse on its saucer. “But… Grandma died more than sixty years ago, when dad was only a little boy.”

“A tragedy.” The grandfather smiled. “The important thing is that everything ended in the best possible way. We’ll just have to make do for a little while. Grandma and I need a place to stay, Alfio.”

“Go to dad’s house!”

“He’s too old. If he sees us, he’ll have a heart attack,” the grandfather smiled. “You’re not going to leave us high and dry, are you?”

“Of course not, grandpa. Where’s grandma?”

“There.” READ MORE…