The Blind Side of the Heart
Page 40
He heard voices coming from the farmyard. Did she still smile sometimes? When she smiled she’d had dimples in her cheeks. Peter remembered those dimples. She hadn’t often smiled. Peter knelt by the crack. In this blue light he saw his mother walking over the thin covering of newly fallen snow, putting on her headscarf and opening the truck door. What was left to him of his mother? Peter thought of the fish, the funny fish carved from horn. No one knew what to make of the fish, not his uncle, not his aunt. Peter had looked at the fish for a long time, every evening he had opened it and looked inside, but there was nothing there, just a hollow space. Down below, his mother had tied her scarf on. From up above it didn’t look as if anyone was smiling, and their goodbyes must have been short and sharp. His mother was carrying her handbag and the net shopping bag. Was she taking the present away again? Or perhaps she hadn’t thought of bringing any present, and it was just provisions for her journey in the net bag. Peter had felt that the hollow space in the fish’s belly was weird. Perhaps it was three years ago, perhaps only two that he had taken the fish to the coast with him and thrown it into the sea. Stupid fish, it wouldn’t sink, it floated on the waves. Peter liked the curve of the horizon. You could see it particularly well from the steep coast to the east, from the Fischland peninsula. Perhaps his mother’s back was a little bent, curved like the horizon? Only very slightly, as if she were grieving. Let her grieve. Peter wanted her to grieve. But he wasn’t going to mind about that, there was just one thing he was quite sure of: he never wanted to see her again in his life. Peter saw his mother take the handle of the truck door and climb in. His uncle closed the door and went round to the other side to get in himself. Peter heard the wind in the poplars. His aunt opened both sides of the gate. The engine was switched on, the little truck turned in the yard and drove out. His aunt was talking to Hasso; she closed the gate. Peter lay down flat. The straw tickled the back of his neck. The darkness soothed him; he was quite calm now.
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Copyright
The Blind Side of the Heart
Prologue
The World is all Before Us
No Finer Moment
Night Falling
Epilogue