Читать книгу Jane - Мэгги Нельсон - Страница 20

TWO WRONGS

They say elephants can recognize the bones of a dead loved one when they stumble upon them in the wild. They will stop and wander around the huge decaying bones, swinging their trunks, braying in despair.

The voice-over on TV might say, The elephants know that these are the bones of Dolly. They are mourning the loss of Dolly. But Dolly is our name, not theirs.

It feels different to mourn something without naming its name. A fetus, a snake you call Snake, a woman with no Social Security number and the commonest of names.

She was born in Muskegon, Michigan, on February 23, 1946, and she died on March 20, 1969, sometime between midnight and two A.M.

I was born four years later, almost to the day.

Her grave has no epitaph, only a name.

I found her in the wild; her name was Jane, plain Jane.