shame really easily, much more easily than courage, and thatâs why I know Mom better than anyone else and thatâs why I always know what sheâs capable of. So anyway, if she knows how to get back from the Pile Gate on her own, sheâll find her way back from Ljubljana. Ljubljana is much closer because Mom is much older than me and sheâll make it back easily. Sheâs scared and ashamed and thatâs why she canât stay in Ljubljana, she canât die, the bump canât hurt her, the rules for big people donât apply to her. Fairy tales exist for the scared and ashamed because in them people cross seven mountains and seven seas just so they wonât be scared and ashamed.
I breathed a sigh of relief. My face is wet, my back and stomach too. If Iâve cried, I didnât cry down my back, everyone has to believe Iâm telling the truth there. Grandma has to believe me too. Is she breathing? I canât see anything, but if sheâs breathing Iâll tell her in the morning that everything is fine with Mom. Actually, I wonât tell her anything becauseI donât think sheâll understand, just like she didnât understand the thing about split shadows. But Iâll show her that tomorrow, and sheâll just have to wait for Mom, sheâll have to worry for the whole fifteen days until Mom comes back from Ljubljana, and then Iâll tell her I knew the whole time. Iâll tell them all, Dad and Uncle and all those worriers on the phone who call when Iâm not around, and Iâll tell Grandma, and Mom, Iâll tell them that only I knew, only I knew she had to come back. Tomorrow weâll keep reading White Fang . Iâm brave enough for any sad ending.
If only Grandma would let out a little puff, then Iâd fall asleep, my first time after her.
That nothing would ever happen
We lived from one special occasion to the next in a happy and ordered world, sometimes sick with feverish kidsâ sicknesses and sometimes with serious grown-up ones, in a world in which everything had its place and moment in time. Donât run before you can walk , Grandma used to say. We didnât know what she meant, or maybe some did, but they werenât saying, so I kept running because time passed by so slowly. I couldnât wait for it, I had to hurry, get out ahead, skip the good-for-nothing days because they werenât special occasions.
You couldnât buy ice cream in the winter back then. It disappeared from the confectionaries in the first thick November fog and only showed up again in April. Why donât people eat ice cream in winter too? Because ice cream gives you a sore throat. They were looking outfor us, making sure we didnât get sick for no reason, and that every day had its place in the calendar and time in the seasons, that we would never think that we were alone and abandoned, forsaken like the faraway countries we heard about on the radio. Young slant-eyed soldiers were dying in those countries, a little machine gun in one hand and a tiny baby in the other. Thatâs how they died, leaving behind little slant-eyed wives to hold their heads in their hands and grieve in their funny incomprehensible language.
I laugh whenever I see little slant-eyed mothers next to their little dead husbands on the TV. Saigon and Hanoi are the names of the first comedies in my life. I spell them out loud, letter by letter, laughing my head off. Those people donât look like us, and I donât believe theyâre in pain or that theyâre really sad. Words of sadness have to sound sad, and tears have to be like raindrops, small and brilliant. Their words arenât sad, and the tears on their faces are too big and look funny, like the fake tears of the clowns I saw at the circus. Iâm just waiting for Mom and Grandma to leave the room so I can watch Saigon and Hanoi and have a laugh. When theyâre there Iâm not allowed
I breathed a sigh of relief. My face is wet, my back and stomach too. If Iâve cried, I didnât cry down my back, everyone has to believe Iâm telling the truth there. Grandma has to believe me too. Is she breathing? I canât see anything, but if sheâs breathing Iâll tell her in the morning that everything is fine with Mom. Actually, I wonât tell her anything becauseI donât think sheâll understand, just like she didnât understand the thing about split shadows. But Iâll show her that tomorrow, and sheâll just have to wait for Mom, sheâll have to worry for the whole fifteen days until Mom comes back from Ljubljana, and then Iâll tell her I knew the whole time. Iâll tell them all, Dad and Uncle and all those worriers on the phone who call when Iâm not around, and Iâll tell Grandma, and Mom, Iâll tell them that only I knew, only I knew she had to come back. Tomorrow weâll keep reading White Fang . Iâm brave enough for any sad ending.
If only Grandma would let out a little puff, then Iâd fall asleep, my first time after her.
That nothing would ever happen
We lived from one special occasion to the next in a happy and ordered world, sometimes sick with feverish kidsâ sicknesses and sometimes with serious grown-up ones, in a world in which everything had its place and moment in time. Donât run before you can walk , Grandma used to say. We didnât know what she meant, or maybe some did, but they werenât saying, so I kept running because time passed by so slowly. I couldnât wait for it, I had to hurry, get out ahead, skip the good-for-nothing days because they werenât special occasions.
You couldnât buy ice cream in the winter back then. It disappeared from the confectionaries in the first thick November fog and only showed up again in April. Why donât people eat ice cream in winter too? Because ice cream gives you a sore throat. They were looking outfor us, making sure we didnât get sick for no reason, and that every day had its place in the calendar and time in the seasons, that we would never think that we were alone and abandoned, forsaken like the faraway countries we heard about on the radio. Young slant-eyed soldiers were dying in those countries, a little machine gun in one hand and a tiny baby in the other. Thatâs how they died, leaving behind little slant-eyed wives to hold their heads in their hands and grieve in their funny incomprehensible language.
I laugh whenever I see little slant-eyed mothers next to their little dead husbands on the TV. Saigon and Hanoi are the names of the first comedies in my life. I spell them out loud, letter by letter, laughing my head off. Those people donât look like us, and I donât believe theyâre in pain or that theyâre really sad. Words of sadness have to sound sad, and tears have to be like raindrops, small and brilliant. Their words arenât sad, and the tears on their faces are too big and look funny, like the fake tears of the clowns I saw at the circus. Iâm just waiting for Mom and Grandma to leave the room so I can watch Saigon and Hanoi and have a laugh. When theyâre there Iâm not allowed
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