Читать книгу The Red Address Book - Sofia Lundberg - Страница 10

A. ALM, ERIC DEAD

Have you ever heard a real roar of despair, Jenny? A cry born of desperation? A scream from the very bottom of the heart, which digs its way into every last atom, which leaves no one untouched? I have heard several, but each has reminded me of the very first, and most terrible.

It came from the inner yard. There he stood. Pappa. His cry echoed from the stone walls, and blood pulsed from his hand, staining red the layer of frost covering the grass. There had been an accident in his workshop, and a piece of metal was wedged in his wrist. His cry ebbed, and he sank to the ground. We ran down the steps and into the yard, towards him; there were many of us. Mamma tied her apron around his wrist and held his arm in the air. Her cry was as loud as his when she shouted for help. Pappa’s face was worryingly pale, his lips a shade of bluish-purple. Everything that happened next is a haze. The men carrying him to the street. The car that picked him up and drove him away. The solitary dry white rose growing on the bush by the wall, and the frost embracing it. Once everyone had gone, I stayed where I was in the yard and stared at it. That rose was a survivor. I prayed to God that my pappa would find the same strength.

Weeks of anxious waiting followed. Every day, we would see Mamma pack up the remains of breakfast — the porridge, milk, and bread — and head off to the hospital. She would often come home with the food parcel unopened.

One day, she came home with Pappa’s clothes draped over the basket, which was still full of food. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying. As red as Pappa’s poisoned blood.

Everything stopped. Life came to an end. Not just for Pappa, but for all of us. His desperate cry that frosty November morning was a brutal end to my childhood.