later the boy’s father returned, but without the boy. They had operated on that stiff leg and given the boy too much anesthetic. He never woke up. I would go to the path full of ruts and holes, where the trees stood huddled together casting their shade all the way to the avenue. I would keep to myself, avoiding the other children, as if the trees had promised that the boy would be coming here to play, even though he had died. I would sit down in the dirt and swirl up a snake, as thin and long as his stretched-out leg. The scraggly grass along the path. The tears dripping from my chin, forming a pattern on the snake. They’d taken the boy away from me, maybe he was looking down from heaven, maybe he realized that now I really did want to go on playing.
Lately when I go walking around town in the mornings it’s Lilli I miss. She’s the one they’ve taken away from me now.
The days when I’m summoned seem very short. Albu always has something in mind, even if I don’t know exactly what he wants from me. All I need is the large button on my blouse and a clever lie. Of course when I’m wandering around town, I don’t know exactly what I want from myself—even less than I know what Albu wants from me.
A little before eight this morning I watched the swallows: sometimes I think they’re really driving or swimming instead of flying. That was a dumb thing to do, with Albu expecting me at ten sharp. I don’t want to think about swallows. I don’t want to think about anything at all, there’s nothing to thinkabout, because I myself am nothing, apart from being summoned. Last summer Paul still had his red motorbike, a Czech Java. Once or twice a week we’d go for a ride out of town, to the river. The lane through the beanfields—now that was happiness, good fortune, luck. The bigger the sky grew overhead, the more light-headed I felt. Whole jumbles of red flowers on each side, quivering as we flew past. You couldn’t exactly see that every single flower had two round ears and open lips, but I knew it all the same. The beans went on forever, but not in visible rows like cornfields. Even after all the stalks have dried out and the wind has tattered the leaves, a late-summer cornfield always looks like it’s just been combed. I never get light-headed in cornfields, even when the sky starts flying. Only a beanfield could strike me dumb with happiness, so much that I kept having to close my eyes from time to time. When I’d open them a moment later, I found I’d already missed a lot: the swallows were long since soaring in new orbits.
I held on tight to Paul’s ribs and whistled the song about leaves and snow. I couldn’t hear myself over the motorcycle. Usually I never whistle, because you have to have learned that as a child, and I never did. In fact, I still don’t know how. And ever since my first husband whistled on the bridge, I flinch whenever I hear someone whistle. But in the beanfields it was me who was whistling. So it must have been luck, a bit of good fortune, because nothing else I do comes out half as well as my whistling in the beanfield. Surrounded by string beans, I was literally struck dumb with happiness. With the river it’s different, the river never brings me happiness, though the smooth water always works to calm me down even when my thoughts stray to the bridge. But you can’t find happiness in being calm. By the time we reached the riverbank, I was ill at ease and Paul was impatient. He was looking forward to the river, I was lookingforward to the ride back through the beans. He stepped into the water up to his ankles and showed me a black dragonfly, its abdomen hanging between its wings like a spiral made of glass. I pointed out the glossy dark clusters of blackberries beside me on the bank. And across the river the black starlings were settling onto pale rectangular bales of straw in a field of stubble. But I didn’t point those out, because I was looking at the sky, focusing on the
Lately when I go walking around town in the mornings it’s Lilli I miss. She’s the one they’ve taken away from me now.
The days when I’m summoned seem very short. Albu always has something in mind, even if I don’t know exactly what he wants from me. All I need is the large button on my blouse and a clever lie. Of course when I’m wandering around town, I don’t know exactly what I want from myself—even less than I know what Albu wants from me.
A little before eight this morning I watched the swallows: sometimes I think they’re really driving or swimming instead of flying. That was a dumb thing to do, with Albu expecting me at ten sharp. I don’t want to think about swallows. I don’t want to think about anything at all, there’s nothing to thinkabout, because I myself am nothing, apart from being summoned. Last summer Paul still had his red motorbike, a Czech Java. Once or twice a week we’d go for a ride out of town, to the river. The lane through the beanfields—now that was happiness, good fortune, luck. The bigger the sky grew overhead, the more light-headed I felt. Whole jumbles of red flowers on each side, quivering as we flew past. You couldn’t exactly see that every single flower had two round ears and open lips, but I knew it all the same. The beans went on forever, but not in visible rows like cornfields. Even after all the stalks have dried out and the wind has tattered the leaves, a late-summer cornfield always looks like it’s just been combed. I never get light-headed in cornfields, even when the sky starts flying. Only a beanfield could strike me dumb with happiness, so much that I kept having to close my eyes from time to time. When I’d open them a moment later, I found I’d already missed a lot: the swallows were long since soaring in new orbits.
I held on tight to Paul’s ribs and whistled the song about leaves and snow. I couldn’t hear myself over the motorcycle. Usually I never whistle, because you have to have learned that as a child, and I never did. In fact, I still don’t know how. And ever since my first husband whistled on the bridge, I flinch whenever I hear someone whistle. But in the beanfields it was me who was whistling. So it must have been luck, a bit of good fortune, because nothing else I do comes out half as well as my whistling in the beanfield. Surrounded by string beans, I was literally struck dumb with happiness. With the river it’s different, the river never brings me happiness, though the smooth water always works to calm me down even when my thoughts stray to the bridge. But you can’t find happiness in being calm. By the time we reached the riverbank, I was ill at ease and Paul was impatient. He was looking forward to the river, I was lookingforward to the ride back through the beans. He stepped into the water up to his ankles and showed me a black dragonfly, its abdomen hanging between its wings like a spiral made of glass. I pointed out the glossy dark clusters of blackberries beside me on the bank. And across the river the black starlings were settling onto pale rectangular bales of straw in a field of stubble. But I didn’t point those out, because I was looking at the sky, focusing on the
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