The Secret Box

By Daina Tabuna and Mark Andrew Webber

On the cusp of womanhood, Daina Tabūna's heroines are constantly confronted with the unexpected. Adult life seems just around the corner, but so are the kinds of surprise encounter which might change everything. Two siblings realise they're too old to be playing with paper dolls. A girl develops a fixation with Jesus. And a disaffected young woman stumbles into an awkward relationship with an office worker. The narrators of these three stories each try, in their own way, to make sense of how to behave in a world that doesn't give any clear answers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Emma Press
• Release date: Oct 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781910139899

Daina Tabuna

Daina Tabūna (1985) is a prose writer. Daina Tabūna's short story collection Pirmā reize (The first time) was nominated for the Annual Latvian Literary Award 2014 as the best debut of the year. Pirmā reize immediately won over many readers and critics and has become a cult book of its time in Latvia. In 2010 Daina Tabūna completed her studies with a BA in Theatre, cinema and TV drama at the Latvian Academy of Culture. Her professional experience includes writing for a television soap opera, leading a photography club for 10-year-old Bulgarians, managing public relations for a closed museum, and extended periods of unemployment. She is passionate about hiking and being silly.

Book preview

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THE SECRET BOX

OTHER TITLES FROM THE EMMA PRESS

PROSE PAMPHLETS

Postcard Stories, by Jan Carson

First fox, by Leanne Radojkovich

Me and My Cameras, by Malachi O’Doherty

POETRY PAMPHLETS

Dragonish, by Emma Simon

Pisanki, by Zosia Kuczyńska

Who Seemed Alive & Altogether Real, by Padraig Regan

Paisley, by Rakhshan Rizwan

POETRY ANTHOLOGIES

Urban Myths and Legends: Poems about Transformations

The Emma Press Anthology of the Sea

This Is Not Your Final Form: Poems about Birmingham

The Emma Press Anthology of Aunts

POETRY BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

Falling Out of the Sky: Poems about Myths and Monsters

Watcher of the Skies: Poems about Space and Aliens

Moon Juice, by Kate Wakeling

The Noisy Classroom, by Ieva Flamingo

THE EMMA PRESS PICKS

DISSOLVE to: L.A., by James Trevelyan

The Dragon and The Bomb, by Andrew Wynn Owen

Meat Songs, by Jack Nicholls

Birmingham Jazz Incarnation, by Simon Turner

Bezdelki, by Carol Rumens

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THE EMMA PRESS

The three stories in The Secret Box were first published in Latvia, as part of Pirmā reize (Mansards, 2014):

Liesa, mans mīļākais organs (‘The Spleen, My Favourite Organ’)

Slepenā kaste (‘The Secret Box’)

Darījumi ar Dievu (‘Deals with God’)

© Daina Tabūna, 2014

First published by Mansards in Rīga, Latvia, in 2014

First published in Great Britain in 2017 by the Emma Press

English language translation © Jayde Will 2017

Illustrations © Mark Andrew Webber 2017

Edited by Emma Wright

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-910139-90-5

A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Russell Press, Nottingham

Supported by Latvian Writers’ Union (Latvijas Rakstnieku Savienība) and Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia

The Emma Press Ltd

Registered in England and Wales, no. 08587072

Website: theemmapress.com

Email: [e-mail]

Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, UK

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CONTENTS

DEALS WITH GOD

THE SECRET BOX

THE SPLEEN, MY FAVOURITE ORGAN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

ABOUT THE EMMA PRESS

DEALS WITH

GOD

I

I never knew how to behave in that flat. You weren’t allowed to touch anything in it, the sweets were a good decade or so past their expiration date, and there was a distinctive smell – a little like medicine, a little like dust, and a little like old make-up. I suspected my parents weren’t all that keen on it either, but for some reason my mum insisted that we make the trip to Baba’s place every once in a while – all the way across the city, navigating two types of public transport. Baba and everything to do with her felt weighty, saturated in a history unknown to me, there for me to touch ‘only with my eyes’ – as she would say anxiously if I tried to discover what was really inside the numerous drawers that were filled to the brim.

‘Do you pray to God?’ Baba asked me once, when my parents had vanished somewhere for a second and we were left alone. I didn’t really understand what she meant with that question. In the books my mum read to me at night, sometimes the main characters prayed to God. But that was usually if they were in big trouble. I felt that everything was fine with me – at least up to the point I’d been left alone with Baba.

Having understood that I didn’t pray to God, she muttered that my parents didn’t fear anything – this sounded to me more like something to be proud of – and then added, ‘You could pray to God, at least! Pray to God for your parents!’

I was relieved when my mum and dad returned. I wanted nothing more to do with that wrinkled, severe woman with the reproachful stare and veiny hands.

Later, when we arrived home, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Baba had said. I decided to take my uncertainty to my dad. My dad always seemed very smart and had answers to all sorts of questions – even though I didn’t understand them sometimes. This is why I thought he would also be able to shed light on the question of praying to God.

‘How should I put it… Some people believe in God, some don’t,’ my father replied, tearing his eyes away from the paper.

I didn’t understand what that meant.

‘No one has proven that God really exists… And, if God does exist, he could easily be different to the one in the Bible,’ he tried to explain.

‘So you think there isn’t any God at all?’ I was in shock.

‘Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t,’ said my father, turning back to his paper. ‘When you grow up, you’ll find out for yourself.’

‘But if there is no God, why did you have me baptised?’ I tried to find logical flaws in what he had said.

‘Better to be safe than sorry,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders.

I really didn’t like this uncertainty. It seemed more tempting to believe that God did exist after all, and that you could ask him for anything and you would receive it, however impossible; like Santa Claus, but the whole year round. All you had to do was think of what to ask for. Thus I began my first deals with God.

‘Please, please, dear God, I pray for my mum and dad to have a lot of money, so then they can buy a car,’ I whispered to myself as I went to bed – I was trying to