Читать книгу The Hum of the Sun - Kirsten Miller - Страница 6

In the house on that small piece of land that backed onto the gravel road there was no telephone. Pine trees grew in patches between stone buildings cobbled together in a country of no snow. There were no horses, no cows and not much of a house either any more, with the roof damaged as it was. Not much of a farm, but Ash called it one be­cause everybody did, theirs the largest stretch set on the other side of the gravel road, the furthest house from the town. The acres that ran beside the river had mostly all been sold off in previous generations to wealthy folk who stayed for summer’s peak and abandoned their buildings and the surrounding lawns in the remaining months. The land had been divided, again and again. But not theirs. In the end none of the permanent inhabitants owned enough of the ground that edged the town to make it work. Ancient women smoked on porches, guard­ing ground the size of a child’s blanket. Men stood aimless, tonguing the lining of their empty cheeks. The women planted potatoes, a few mealies, butternut, but if the birds didn’t get the produce, the monkeys did. The tomatoes came down with blight. There were women who prayed fervently, endlessly. Some still spoke of God. His mother said it was this that sickened her, rather than the reality of no more seeds, no new clothes, and little to eat. The heat sucked the life from the soil, times of drought turned their flesh to bone and sinew, and the river dwindled. They walked like the living dead, skeletons waiting for the crows to peck the last meat from the diminishing muscle. It seemed everyone got sick eventually.

In another life, they might have moved. She told him often enough. She might have put them on a bus and gone to the city. She said she had a cousin there. She might have found out where her cousin lived, found a job, a place to stay, and a school. The mirage of another life lingered. She held onto her children as best she could, but she held on to her reality more tightly, doubtful of any kind of cosmic safety net at the bottom of the abyss. She sang softly as she carried out her work, as if she carried a secret or harboured an undiscovered joy. Empty stretches of arid ground lay bare. There were bodies to bury, skies that promised inedible clouds and a colour nobody could drink. Ash fetched water from a borehole, until it dried. They waited for the rains that almost never came.