life and she liked that. Rabbits and partridges she hunted with a dog and a shotgun. If she had been a boy she would have gone off to war. She was aching to, but her father would have insisted on keeping her by his side and wouldn’t have let her do what she wanted. Out of the blue she asked if I liked soap bubbles. The best thing about them was that, after one has waited so patiently to see them emerge from the tip of the reed and admire their iridescence, they burst while floating away, as if they had been pricked. She spoke lying down, with her hands behind her head, looking up at the sky. I wanted to touch her, to lay her on a bed of tender leaves plucked from violets. If this war that has already lasted so long lasts any longer I’ll cut my hair, dress up like a boy, and join them. She stopped talking because on the opposite bank, farther downstream from the spot where I first saw her with the pitchfork, a man was passing by on the back of a donkey, a rifle across his back. It’s my father, which means today is Sunday. It took us a while to raise our heads and by the time we did who could say where the miller was. A slender wisp of air toyed with us; we fell asleep as the moon was coming out.
She woke before me. When I opened my eyes she was no longer by my side; she was swimming. I followed her in. I couldn’t resist grabbing hold of her foot; it slipped through my fingers like an eel. Get out! Three shadows were floating downstream. They’re dead soldiers. To save themselves the trouble of burying, they hurl them off the cliff at Merlot. I prod them with the pitchfork so they won’t get stuck and rot among the rushes and reeds that are my palace.
WE STOPPED NEAR THE MILL, BY THE BRIDGE ACROSS A BEND IN the river. Eva asked me to wait for her. She would come for me as soon as possible, but if she didn’t I was to stay away from the mill. Just keep walking. I was hurt that she was leaving me. Here, I said, it’s all I have, I want you to have it. I pulled the knife my father had given me out of my pocket and placed it in her hand.
Beneath the dense canopy of the old trees, with the dark river flowing below, I hardly breathed. One leaf, then another, grazed my cheek like the fingers of a corpse. Shards of moonlight allowed themselves to be carried off by the river. I thought I glimpsed shadows downstream. Someone in need of help. A voiceless someone. The piece of rope kept me company; I felt that those flimsy hemp threads protected me and I tightened my grip around them. The shadows drifting by were dead soldiers that the current had swept close to the reeds. They would cause the leaves to fall, they would cry out to the wind, they would grasp hold of whatever they could to keep the water from carrying them far from the place where they had died. Eva was taking a long time. She was not going to come. I walked on and on, until I chanced upon a well and hid behind it. I was almost to the mill. I could hear hinges squeaking, as though the wind that was just starting to pick up were flinging windows open and shut. All at once the large door to the mill swung outward, a stream of light emerged, and with it a white horse with a recumbent shadow on top. The horseshoes sent up sparks. Shortly thereafter a man appeared out of nowhere. Hunched under the weight of a sack, he entered a shed just as a blast went off in the distance, turning the edges of a cloud red. A truck was approaching; it stopped in front of the portal and two men alighted. The man who had entered the shed came out to meet them and they started unloading boxes.
Soon I heard shouts coming from inside the mill. I stood by the door, listening. A faint voice was saying that his horse, the horse he had left there to be tended, wasn’t in the stable. A louder voice replied that he didn’t know that the horse wasn’t in the stable. Let them yell! A bag lay on the seat of the truck. My hand was still inside it, uncertain whether it had found an apple or a pear, when a blow to the back of my neck knocked me out.
I strained to open my eyes. The rumble of a wheel turning had clouded my mind. Everything was in a haze until a few white patches began to take shape and I was able to make out the walls, the millstone . . . a pair of glassy eyes by my face. He’s awake! a woman cried as she snickered and poured a bucket of water over me. The woman drew closer and struck me, kissing me as she hit me. We’ve got you now! She asked me my name while she kicked me in the side with the tip of her shoe. You can return my kisses on another occasion, you sewer rat . . . A white horse came to a halt by the portal. It walked over to where the woman stood, stopped, and started pawing the ground.
I guess you know I’m the miller’s wife, the woman said. I’m the mistress around here. My body had been covered with bruises since the day of the beating, the day of the hanged man. The woman uncovered me and started rubbing me with herbal oil. Poor little thing, so tender and so battered . . . As soon as she left me alone I tried to get up, but I couldn’t stand.
I had lost all sense of time. The millstone turned and turned. The miller woman would come to check on me and talk nonsense. She didn’t feed me. During the day she left a bottle of water by my side; at night there was nothing. He’s a spy, I could hear them saying. A giant of a man scooped me up, took me to a large, empty room, and dropped me on the floor like a sack of potatoes. At night I could hear the truck, and there were arguments, the smell of smoke and oil, the sound of glasses clinking. During the day the miller woman would sprinkle flour over me; she found it amusing. The man who looked like a giant took me downstairs again and deposited me by the millstone. In the evening, the bats commenced their dance: They flew in and out and clustered together on the ceiling, in the corners, hanging like charred rags.
Today is Saturday, the miller woman said, staring at me as if wishing to pierce through me. Reclining beside me, she started to cover me with kisses. I tightened my lips and shut my eyes. I could have killed her. She finally tired, and with an angry voice she said when I stopped being such an idiot she would teach me how to make love. Have you ever made love? I summoned the strength to kick her in the stomach and she doubled over in pain. She threatened me with a raised fist. When my husband comes back—and he’s probably crossing the bridge right now—you are going to get what’s coming to you. When she heard him approaching, she started screaming that I was a shameless scoundrel. A scoundrel who pretends he can’t even stand, but whenever I get near him . . . The miller, red as a chili pepper, eyes bulging out of his head, threw himself on me and started pummeling me while she stood there coldly, egging him on. Kill him! Kill him! When the man had had enough of beating me, he loaded me onto a wheelbarrow, carted me down to the river, and dumped me into the reeds, swearing such terrible things as I would have wished never to hear.
Some kind of animal drew near me. I turned over with a moan. The animal didn’t budge. I stretched out my arm to touch it and felt an icy hand: I was lying next to a dead soldier. My bones ached, but I made an effort to overcome the pain and attempted to roll farther down the bank. The reeds stopped me. It was drizzling. I was starting to fall asleep, I couldn’t understand why everything that was good in this world had abandoned me.
I HEARD AN EXPLOSION COMING FROM THE DIRECTION OF THE mill, followed by flames and plumes of smoke. Throngs of soldiers were building a bridge across the river with rowboats and wooden planks. The sound of engines and men shouting was deafening. They must have worked all through the night. Soon trucks and cannons were crossing the bridge, and the white horse—crazed, neighing, rearing—stood in the middle of it all. Two silver planes circled
