Psalm 44

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

Ja, ja, ich verstehe: “Yes, yes, I understand. . But I don’t think she’s it. Too small. Her pelvis is like a child’s. But insofar as my esteemed colleague considers her sufficiently attractive. .”

Du, Abschaum!: “You, scum!”

mutan gemišt, mongrel: Kiš uses a highly unusual pejorative, which might be translated as “muddy mixture.”

Let us pray: Russian in the original: “Pomolimsja!”

Lama, lama: “Why, why” in Hebrew and Aramaic. Probably a reference to the phrase uttered by Jesus on the cross, as recorded in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

some five hundred kilometers from Berlin: the Serbian text actually locates Marija and Žana a rather unlikely five hundred kilometers “northwest of Berlin.”

on top of a hayrick: Kiš has “on top / at the summit of [the] Hainkorn,” leaving his translator and editors to puzzle over whether this is meant to be a (misspelled or fictional) German mountain or else a pile of wheat hay (German Einkorn = “single-grain,” wild wheat).