Читать книгу Feebleminded - Ariana Harwicz - Страница 18

Between six and eight in the morning I swallow a strangely potent mouthful of pessimism. The people I see, the neighbour who’s still alive but has a lump in his throat, below the left earlobe, mowing the lawn with the woman who keeps him company and cooks his meals, his bones getting thinner by the day. Mum’s asleep. Her scoliotic back makes her an alligator. Not just the bedpan, the false teeth, all shrunken and fragile. Also the fluorescent red sunset through the olive trees or over the jet-black sea. And the purest of loves. A local couple: him with his hoof-handled walking stick, her a woman on a bicycle, easily forgotten. It’s hailing, impossible to go out. Hail spiralling down, catching in the trees. Hail drilling holes in the beehives. Hail hitting the canal, the silken summer fruits, the rocks scattered along the road. Hail piercing the shiny slugs. Masturbation and lethargy. And that fatal loss. We won’t go sailing, we’ll stay at home and play bridge all day, play backgammon, Scrabble. Mum will develop a hunchback and the time will come when I say: I’m her. The dead woman I carry with me meanders high above, the wet ground thick with wild berries. The woman I carry parades to and fro, her trembling clit growing bigger.