The partition for the wood, did she really put a little girl in that and light a fire? To think she just sat there, waiting for the heat. The scalding heat.
She pressed the bottle to her chest and rushed upstairs. “Justine… there’s a lot that we need to work out.” Justine shook her head.
“Yes, we do! We really do! You have to listen to me, I can’t get any peace.”
There was an unusual expression that arose in Justine’s eyes.
“You want me to cross out the past as if it never happened.” “Yes…”
“Learn the great secret of life: love, forgive, and forget?”
“Well, something like that. Some kind of forgiveness… or… reconciliation…”
Justine regarded her without saying anything. She drew her fingers through her hair, which then stood straight up. She broke out into a violent and jangling laugh.
“Just open the goddamn cork, why don’t you!”
Chapter SEVENTEEN
Mark came during the day and they read together. He would touch her sometimes, but not much. To him, she was just a child.
This provoked her. Her breasts were changing and the skin over them was painful and tender. She took off her headband, and she never put it back on again.
“Tell me about America,” she asked.
Then he began to speak in English so fast that she didn’t have a chance to keep up with him at all. She threw her pillow at him, right into his sneering face.
He lay down over her, pressing down her arms. “You’re just a little piece of shit, aren’t you.”
Enraged, she kicked him right in the crotch with her good leg. He turned white and fell off the bed.
He had a girlfriend in Washington.
“What looks she like?”
“What does she look like?” he corrected her.
“Yes, but what does she look like?”
“Brown eyes, big tits.”
It sounded nasty.
“Her name’s Cindy. She writes me every other week.” “Are you in love with her?”
He grinned.
“Tell me! Are you?”
He stood in front of the window and jerked his hand around his zipper.
“Start reading your book now. I’m not paid to answer your stupid questions.”
“It’s much too difficult. I can’t.”
“Read!”
“Da nyoo man shtands…”
“
“The nyoo man…”
“This is a fantastic book, Justine. Maybe you’re just too little. Too bad. You miss a lot, being so little.”
That put her off balance.
“What am I supposed to do then?”
“Nothing you can do. That’s just the way it is.”
“You’re an idiot!”
“How’s your foot doing? Getting any better?”
“Eventually.”
“What really happened?”
“I fell off a cliff.”
“You’ll just have to learn to walk properly.”
“I do walk properly. I just slipped, that’s all!”
No, she wasn’t too little. During the evenings, she lay turned to the wall and imagined how it would be. She and Mark in a whole different way. She felt her breasts, if they had grown, and her hand went down to that sinful place that was so wonderful to touch. A kind of restlessness came over her. She wanted to get away. But the cast was a ball and chain, it protected her from what was out there, but also transformed her into a prisoner.
Then the day came when winter had completely gone, when they took off her cast, sawing and cutting it away. A frail and shrunken leg appeared together with a sour smell.
But she was back to normal. And now school was over and the schoolyard had been filled with students in colorful clothes. All the teachers had been to the hairdresser; the flag had been taken out and raised.
She had been able to avoid all of that.
She imagined that it would be difficult to use that sticklike, narrow leg, but noticed that it was, deep inside, just as strong as before. In the evening it might swell and ache a bit, but she could walk and run, just like before.
She stood in the lee of the uprooted tree. There were candy wrappers on the ground.
She was alone.
She followed the forest path.
The Hunter was sitting on his front porch, whittling.
Shyly, she stepped into the garden.
He saw her. He didn’t say anything.
She sat right next to him, his back was tense. His hands kept whittling.
She sat right next to him, and put her hand on his arm. His skin was brown and old.
No.
Not old.
She stepped into his sparkling clean kitchen. The wax tablecloth had been wiped; the dish rack was empty. The floor was white and swept.
He got up and followed her.
“What do you want here?”
“Sorry,” she said. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“I want you to leave now.”
“No…”
“I want you to leave this very minute.”
He stood against the wall. She went right up to him, her hips to his jeans.
“Stina!”
“Hold me. I’ve been so lonely.”
She closed his door and locked it. She lay on his blanket. It was gray and warm from the cat. She drew her legs under her, round.
His body a template against the window.
“I broke my leg,” she whispered, even though she hadn’t intended to tell him.
“Stina…”
“Come lie down next to me. Warm me up.”
He did so while saying, “I told you to leave.”
Her chin on his chest, the small curly strands. The smell of air and salt.
Her hands were so strong now. She was young; he was old. Oh, his tummy, so vulnerable and weak. She dipped her tongue, her lips, there.
Then.
The man.
She made him cry, and that made her afraid. When he saw her fear, he became strong again, and held her
