Euphemia is a trading city. But people don’t just gather there to buy and sell. It would otherwise be too simple to be one of Calvino’s invisible cities. At night, as the merchants and visitors stretch out on piles of carpets or sit on sacks or barrels, they exchange memories. After one man talks about his tale of love or sisters, the others share their own stories about love or sisters. In your coming journey, you know you will summon up your memories one by one. You realise they are not quite yours but still yours. Others’ tales have seeped into your own.
Memory can be deceptive at some point. But it seems that people in Euphemia are aware of the fabrication in their own consciousness; nor do they seem to mind. ‘[Y]our wolf will have become another wolf, your sister a different sister, your battle other battles’. The subtle intertwinement between traders reveals the indistinguishableness of their memories. Euphemia means ‘well-spoken’ in Greek. As the name of Euphemia tells us, words are everything. They can even shape memories as people exchange tales.