“No,” I pounced as if stung by a bee. Not on that wall, I wanted to say, but what I said was, “Not today.”
She stood up and sighed as if at a loss what to do.
“Then why don’t you come home with me, to meet Grandpa Dominic?”
This sounded more attractive and far less dangerous. But still I couldn’t make up my mind. Without another word she moved off. Treading softly with her bare feet, she floated towards the nearest trees. As soon as she reached the shade, she turned and with a curved forefinger beckoned me to follow. She was wearing a short blue skirt which barely covered her thighs, the same one she had in my dream about the events in Father’s surgery. But the T-shirt was different, white and suffused with the sweet smell of her sweat, with long sleeves which only just covered her elbows. Her shoulders were broader than her hips. If it wasn’t for her softly rounded thighs and gently undulating breasts, her body would have looked more like a boy’s than a girl’s.
“Come,” she grew impatient, “you’ll see grandpa’s statues from Africa.”
She walked on and soon vanished among the trees. I jumped to my feet and followed her along the path which twisted its way under the intertwined branches of alder-trees towards the part of the wood dominated by extremely tall fir and pine trees. There the sun rays shone through the gaps in the congestion of needles, and danced on the mossy ground in the rhythm of the breeze which was inducing the branches above to stir in an exciting, disorderly fashion. The rays danced caressingly around Eve’s hurrying feet which led us deeper and deeper into the wood, to the grassy path where I had already been in my dreams, and which led across a flowery meadow to the foot-bridge which took us across a dry stream-bed to the dusty road which led up an incline to Grandpa Dominic’s house.
Along the way Eve picked up a stick, part of a rotting branch. As we walked on, she swung it in the air, twisted it in a circling motion above her head, thumped the ground with it, made thrusting motions as if preparing to throw a lance, and used it for checking the path before her while pretending to be blind. Once or twice she scratched her back with it, and three times she placed it on her shoulder as if carrying a heavy club. Twice she leaned on it as she waited for me to catch up. But I always slowed down when I saw her waiting, while she, reassured that I followed, turned to walk on.
As I watched her swagger and hop before me, her image began to merge with the scenes from my dreams, and suddenly I saw Father, too, walking alongside her in front of me, although I knew that he wasn’t there. As though they belonged together. As though she on her own, and especially alone with me, represented a burden I felt too weak to carry and wanted to get rid of it before it grew heavier.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
