Sarajevo Marlboro

[David Powelstock]

Dear colleagues,
 
I am teaching Miljenko Jergovic's Sarajevo Marlboro and have encountered a sentence I cannot decipher in the translation. It occurs at the end of the story "Mr. Ivo." I simply can't parse it. I wonder whether it is an editing or translation hiccup. If anyone either can help me understand the English or provide a retranslation from the original, I would be very grateful. Here is the final paragraph in full:
 
"Every day when I drag the water up the hill I remember Christ on his way to Calvary. I wonder if Calvary was uphill all the way, or if it was perhaps uphill only here and there, with flat or even downhill stretches in between, the way my mother used to say it was about a Muslim woman--giving her something else to worry about?"
 
I assure you that this is exactly how it appears (minus the quotation marks) in my edition of the English. I'm losing sleep over this! Any help would be much appreciated.
 
Best,
David

David Powelstock 
Asst. Prof. of Russian & East European Literatures 
Undergraduate Advising Head, Russian Language and Literature 
Chair, Program in Russian & East European Studies 
Brandeis University 
GREA, MS 024 
Waltham, MA  02454-9110 
781.736.3347 (Office) 

 

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