long ago it was and how strange, but all dead friends come to life again sometimes.
Rudik listened to the stories with a sort of rapt disbelief. It struck me later that the disbelief was born of a benign ignorance. After all, he was thirteen now, and he had been taught to think differently than us. Still, it was remarkable to me that he remembered the stories weeks later, sometimes quoting Anna exactly, word for word.
He inhaled everything, became taller and gangly, with an impish smirk that could silence a room, but he wasnât aware of his body or its power. If anything, he was shy and afraid. Anna told him that his whole body must dance, all of it, not just his arms and legs. She tweaked him on the ear, saying even his lobe must believe in movement. Straighten your legs. Spot quicker on your turns. Work on your line. Absorb the dance like blotting paper. He stuck to it all diligently, never quitting until he had perfected a step, even if it meant another beating from his father. On Sundays, Anna took him first to the museum and then to watch rehearsals at the Opera House, so they were together every day of the week. As they walked home, Rudik would remember the exact movements he had seenâmale or female, it didnât matterâreconstructing the movements from memory.
He lay between us, like a long and charged evening.
Rudik began to develop a new language, not one that fit him, he was ill-shod for it. But it was charming to hear the rough provincial boy say port de bras as if he had stepped from a room full of chandeliers. At the same time, at our table, he would eat a piece of goatâs cheese like a savage. He had never in his life heard of washing his hands before a meal. Sometimes his finger went into his nose, and he had a terrible affinity for scratching his private parts.
Youâll scratch it away, I told him once, and he looked at me with the sort of horror reserved for death and pillage.
Late at night in bed, Anna and I talked until she fell asleep. It struck us that he was our new breath and that the breath would last us only a short while, that he would eventually have to move on. It gave us great sorrow, yet it also gave us a chance to live beyond any sorrows we had already accumulated.
I even went back to my garden patch to see if I could resurrect it.
Years ago we were given a plot, eight tram stops from our house. Someone in the Ministry had overlooked our history, and we were graced with a letter that said a plot, two meters square, could be ours. It was poor land, brittle and gray. We grew a few vegetablesâcucumbers, radishes, cabbages, wild onionsâbut Anna also had a penchant for lilies, and each year she exchanged a couple of food coupons for a packet of bulbs. We put the bulbs deep in the soil, on the rim of the plot, sometimes used donkey manure for fertilizer, waited. We failed miserably with the flowers most years, but life deals us its strange little ecstasies, and that particular summer, for the first time ever, we had a patch of dark white.
In the afternoons, when she was at the gymnasium, I would catch the tram out there, limp up the hill and sit on a folding chair.
Often, on weekends, a short man with dark hair knelt over his plot, ten meters from my own. We caught each otherâs eye every now and then, but we never exchanged a word. His face was tight and guarded, like that of a man who had lived his life with his traps constantly baited. He worked on his garden with a fierce industry, growing cabbages and potatoes mostly. When it came time to harvest, he brought a wheelbarrow with him and filled it high.
One Saturday morning he arrived up the path with Rudik at his heels. I was surprisedânot just because this man was Rudikâs father, but because the boy was supposed to be at the gym with Anna and, over the course of a year, he had never once missed a session. I dropped my trowel into the soil and coughed loudly, but Rudik kept his eyes on the
Rudik listened to the stories with a sort of rapt disbelief. It struck me later that the disbelief was born of a benign ignorance. After all, he was thirteen now, and he had been taught to think differently than us. Still, it was remarkable to me that he remembered the stories weeks later, sometimes quoting Anna exactly, word for word.
He inhaled everything, became taller and gangly, with an impish smirk that could silence a room, but he wasnât aware of his body or its power. If anything, he was shy and afraid. Anna told him that his whole body must dance, all of it, not just his arms and legs. She tweaked him on the ear, saying even his lobe must believe in movement. Straighten your legs. Spot quicker on your turns. Work on your line. Absorb the dance like blotting paper. He stuck to it all diligently, never quitting until he had perfected a step, even if it meant another beating from his father. On Sundays, Anna took him first to the museum and then to watch rehearsals at the Opera House, so they were together every day of the week. As they walked home, Rudik would remember the exact movements he had seenâmale or female, it didnât matterâreconstructing the movements from memory.
He lay between us, like a long and charged evening.
Rudik began to develop a new language, not one that fit him, he was ill-shod for it. But it was charming to hear the rough provincial boy say port de bras as if he had stepped from a room full of chandeliers. At the same time, at our table, he would eat a piece of goatâs cheese like a savage. He had never in his life heard of washing his hands before a meal. Sometimes his finger went into his nose, and he had a terrible affinity for scratching his private parts.
Youâll scratch it away, I told him once, and he looked at me with the sort of horror reserved for death and pillage.
Late at night in bed, Anna and I talked until she fell asleep. It struck us that he was our new breath and that the breath would last us only a short while, that he would eventually have to move on. It gave us great sorrow, yet it also gave us a chance to live beyond any sorrows we had already accumulated.
I even went back to my garden patch to see if I could resurrect it.
Years ago we were given a plot, eight tram stops from our house. Someone in the Ministry had overlooked our history, and we were graced with a letter that said a plot, two meters square, could be ours. It was poor land, brittle and gray. We grew a few vegetablesâcucumbers, radishes, cabbages, wild onionsâbut Anna also had a penchant for lilies, and each year she exchanged a couple of food coupons for a packet of bulbs. We put the bulbs deep in the soil, on the rim of the plot, sometimes used donkey manure for fertilizer, waited. We failed miserably with the flowers most years, but life deals us its strange little ecstasies, and that particular summer, for the first time ever, we had a patch of dark white.
In the afternoons, when she was at the gymnasium, I would catch the tram out there, limp up the hill and sit on a folding chair.
Often, on weekends, a short man with dark hair knelt over his plot, ten meters from my own. We caught each otherâs eye every now and then, but we never exchanged a word. His face was tight and guarded, like that of a man who had lived his life with his traps constantly baited. He worked on his garden with a fierce industry, growing cabbages and potatoes mostly. When it came time to harvest, he brought a wheelbarrow with him and filled it high.
One Saturday morning he arrived up the path with Rudik at his heels. I was surprisedânot just because this man was Rudikâs father, but because the boy was supposed to be at the gym with Anna and, over the course of a year, he had never once missed a session. I dropped my trowel into the soil and coughed loudly, but Rudik kept his eyes on the
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