keeping with the scene. For a
moment he feared that it had been too long, that forgetfulness had triumphed, as it
had already in so many parts of his brain, disconnected by old age. And then there
was the growing stiffness of his hands, the loss of coordination in his fingers,
whose poor aching bones were inelegantly twisted out of line. But memory stubbornly
threaded its way through the ruins of old age, and the man saw a little doll of
fine, almost transparent paper appear shakily before him, trembling in its
elementary disjointedness. The girl didn’t mind; she was happy just to receive the
gift, to which she’d been drawn as if by a special sense. The paper figure, a
silhouette with a tutu, made only by folding, without a single cut, was supposed to
have joints in the arms and the legs, but because of imperfections resulting from
the man’s memory lapses and alterations, and from the inadequate, ultra-fine paper,
it came out like a limp puppet. Even so, the little girl recognized the shape and,
with a spontaneous gesture that drew smiles from the customers all around the café
who were observing this scene, cradled it in her arms, singing “Rock-a-Bye Baby,”
and carried it to where her mother was sitting with her friend. A sweet sensation
flooded through the old man, but the success of his creation must have been regarded
as suspect, partly because its crude sexism was demagogic and facile (a doll for a
girl, a ball for a boy), partly because that tattered scrap of paper paid scant
honor to the venerable art of figurative origami. The response was already being
prepared at a table occupied by a middle-aged man and a young couple. The difference
in age wasn’t great enough for him to be their father; he looked more like a teacher
with his students, or a boss with two young employees. Their table was covered with
papers, which could have been pages of notes, lists, dispatch slips, bills, or
computer printouts, but now they were focused on the fine paper napkin to which the
young man was applying himself, under the gaze of the girl and the older man, who
was commenting abundantly, gesturing to stress an authority based on age rather than
skill, because it was clear that the boy was the one with the know-how. In his hands
the rectangle of paper, folded and unfolded over and over, became a hen, with a
plump, maternal body, a crescent of triangular tail feathers, a raised head and an
open beak. A cheerful cock-a-doodle-doo from the hen’s creator attracted the little
girl, who in turn attracted the wandering attention of the customers, curious to
discover the new offering, which could have been anything, given the wide range of
possibilities afforded by the material. The need to renew this improvised amusement
was urgent because the little doll was already lying on the floor. The fate of the
previous creation foreshadowed, of course, what was to come; and, if only at a
speculative level, the question arose as to whether it might have been a waste of
effort. But even without an explicit reminder that “Nothing is lost, all is
transformed,” the atmosphere was suddenly charged with gain, not loss. The little
girl’s rapid consumption of novelties was accepted as something natural, even
exciting. This is how it should always be, some people were thinking,
philosophically: getting and losing, enjoying and letting go. Everything passes, and
that’s why we’re here. Eternity and its more or less convincing simulacra are not a
part of life. The girl, who was life and nothing but, was delighted by the hen,
which served as a pretext to dash off again, holding it up as if to make the bird
fly, although, because of her unsteady, beginner’s steps—she was perpetually
about to fall, perpetually recovering her balance—it flapped more like a
butterfly. She clearly wasn’t bothered by the fact that hens don’t fly, or at least
not like that. In the simple zoology of children, one animal shape covers a range of
species,
moment he feared that it had been too long, that forgetfulness had triumphed, as it
had already in so many parts of his brain, disconnected by old age. And then there
was the growing stiffness of his hands, the loss of coordination in his fingers,
whose poor aching bones were inelegantly twisted out of line. But memory stubbornly
threaded its way through the ruins of old age, and the man saw a little doll of
fine, almost transparent paper appear shakily before him, trembling in its
elementary disjointedness. The girl didn’t mind; she was happy just to receive the
gift, to which she’d been drawn as if by a special sense. The paper figure, a
silhouette with a tutu, made only by folding, without a single cut, was supposed to
have joints in the arms and the legs, but because of imperfections resulting from
the man’s memory lapses and alterations, and from the inadequate, ultra-fine paper,
it came out like a limp puppet. Even so, the little girl recognized the shape and,
with a spontaneous gesture that drew smiles from the customers all around the café
who were observing this scene, cradled it in her arms, singing “Rock-a-Bye Baby,”
and carried it to where her mother was sitting with her friend. A sweet sensation
flooded through the old man, but the success of his creation must have been regarded
as suspect, partly because its crude sexism was demagogic and facile (a doll for a
girl, a ball for a boy), partly because that tattered scrap of paper paid scant
honor to the venerable art of figurative origami. The response was already being
prepared at a table occupied by a middle-aged man and a young couple. The difference
in age wasn’t great enough for him to be their father; he looked more like a teacher
with his students, or a boss with two young employees. Their table was covered with
papers, which could have been pages of notes, lists, dispatch slips, bills, or
computer printouts, but now they were focused on the fine paper napkin to which the
young man was applying himself, under the gaze of the girl and the older man, who
was commenting abundantly, gesturing to stress an authority based on age rather than
skill, because it was clear that the boy was the one with the know-how. In his hands
the rectangle of paper, folded and unfolded over and over, became a hen, with a
plump, maternal body, a crescent of triangular tail feathers, a raised head and an
open beak. A cheerful cock-a-doodle-doo from the hen’s creator attracted the little
girl, who in turn attracted the wandering attention of the customers, curious to
discover the new offering, which could have been anything, given the wide range of
possibilities afforded by the material. The need to renew this improvised amusement
was urgent because the little doll was already lying on the floor. The fate of the
previous creation foreshadowed, of course, what was to come; and, if only at a
speculative level, the question arose as to whether it might have been a waste of
effort. But even without an explicit reminder that “Nothing is lost, all is
transformed,” the atmosphere was suddenly charged with gain, not loss. The little
girl’s rapid consumption of novelties was accepted as something natural, even
exciting. This is how it should always be, some people were thinking,
philosophically: getting and losing, enjoying and letting go. Everything passes, and
that’s why we’re here. Eternity and its more or less convincing simulacra are not a
part of life. The girl, who was life and nothing but, was delighted by the hen,
which served as a pretext to dash off again, holding it up as if to make the bird
fly, although, because of her unsteady, beginner’s steps—she was perpetually
about to fall, perpetually recovering her balance—it flapped more like a
butterfly. She clearly wasn’t bothered by the fact that hens don’t fly, or at least
not like that. In the simple zoology of children, one animal shape covers a range of
species,
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