Days in the History of Silence by Merethe Lindstrom Page B

room, we had never been physical with each other before that. He did not want to go home, because it was about to start raining. That was what he said. And then eventually it was late afternoon and I pulled down the blind, the dark and heavy roller blind that was like a blackout curtain, I undressed, with the sounds from the street outside. I usually undressed by myself in that room, every night, placing my clothes on the chair, getting dressed again in the morning, undressed again at night, the same thing, always the same chair, table, room. There were two of us, we undressed in the dark, in the darkened room. The bed was cold and we were new to each other. We were two shadows, cut out from a different, even greater darkness. His hand traced the curve of my collarbone, across my breastbone, over my breasts as though he was searching for something on my skin, letting his hand glide across. Holding it between my legs, I opened myselfup, I can feel it still, that I open myself up, that he is inside me, I miss that, I want him to make me so aroused again, the movement, the excitement, the hot breath between us. As though we were breathing life into each other. A whole new life, into one another. The city and the streets, the old dust behind the window. When I awoke again, I knew that it had started to rain outside.
    HE TOLD ME about himself, what city he had been born in, what street, what people had lived there, his family, their names. The background that eventually forced them into their hiding place during the war. He wanted to become a physician, he wanted to be with me. We would have a house, a child. Maybe several children. We won’t look back. Is that my idea or his?
    I RECALL THAT I had a camera inherited from a relative. A black box you peered down into to capture the object in the lens, never sure that the apparatus would function at the exact moment you decided to take the photograph. I think it places a black wall across the image, dividing it in two, the photo is taken, and the image is hidden inside the box. I also remember the film as a sort of box, a cassette. I have never liked having my picture taken, but I especially recall one photograph that was taken with this box. I still have it, I see my own face on this photo, the midlength blonde hair I cutmyself in peculiar uneven layers with the kitchen scissors. I am drawing myself back to avoid closeness, why am I doing that, there is a combination of terror and at the same time contentment in my expression, reproduced almost perfectly in this photograph. There is one thing about this young girl I notice in the picture of myself, something that always amazes me: it seems as though she does not pay any heed to time. At that moment, in the image, there is no past either, I feel. Not when you are so young, not when you are young like in that photograph. Between everything that has happened and everything that happens, there is a dividing line, distinct and defined, like a wall, and the past stays behind that, shut off, forgotten.
    In dreams I am often back inside my body as it was before it grew older, I have the feeling of being younger, without any resistance, there is no resistance in this sleep, hardly any sense of gravity. When I move in my dreams, I sometimes have a feeling that is almost sensual. Not that my dreams are. Not in that way. All the same I often awaken with a feeling of desire. Or a kind of yearning that affords a sense of satisfaction in itself. Yes really, it is so. For the yearning does not make me jittery or restless, it feels just like an acknowledgment of something. Perhaps a feeling of closeness to Simon, but the dreams are vivid. I loved it when we were together, simply lying waiting for him in bed, listening to him padding up the stairs, perhaps I switched off the light and noticed as he came into the room, I miss him. It is not so long ago that we were together in that way, but now that he has shut meout, it is impossible. I still look at