He watched his daughter as she sat on a bench outside the house.
A small, frail child, Nella. Six years old.
The dark-blue dress that he himself had bought a few days ago,
was too large for her. It drooped like a withered bluebell.
The girl sat, her back turned towards him,
under a bushy chestnut tree.
The shallow whiteness of her shoulders,
interrupted by two straps of the dress,
stood out among the chaos of rustling leaves
and fidgeting patches of afternoon light.
Nella had been so distraught by her mother's death
that she nearly died, too.
She cried for a whole month. Her wailing voice
still stood in his ears. He had never heard so much crying.
He had never known it was possible.
So many tears were stored in this little creature.
Where did those streams go? Where did they flow?
In a strange way, his daughter's woe
saved him, for he worried too much about her
to sink too deeply into his own misery.
Slowly, their lives recovered. He resumed work.
He had to be away from the house all day long.
They had no friends or relatives. The girl stayed alone.
He worried sick first days, but seeing that she coped well,
and kept herself busy with her dolls and coloured pencils,
and even tried to cook something for him,
instinctively assuming the woman's role in the house,
he calmed down and now went to work almost cheerfully,
happy to be able to earn bread
and waiting for the evening.
His was getting more and more attached to his daughter,
not because she resembled his deceased wife, no.
The father and daughter were like two leaves sprinkled by rain
and glued together, while the tree shook during the storm.
Such leaves stay with each other long after the sky clears,
they tremble awkwardly in the wind.
Often one of them becomes detached from the tree,
but the other keeps it from falling.
If not for the storm, that leaf would be on the ground a long time ago,
rotting and trampled upon,
yet it is still a part of the tree's majestic crown,
if only in appearance, and may stay there as long as the other leaf lasts.
In the morning, he sat on the threshold,
and Nella on the step below, the back of her head pressed
between his knees. He tried to comb her hair.
He dreaded this, because he was hopeless.
His rough fingers couldn't even hold the comb properly,
the large, old comb, made of tortoise shell
that belonged to his wife, and before that to her mother.
Nella's hair was lush, wayward, falling in reckless streams.
Sometimes he even wondered how her tiny neck could possibly hold
such a curly cascade. There was no question about having it cut,
he would sooner kill himself.
Combing Nella's hair was indeed an ordeal for both of them.
He tried to be gentle, but inevitably hurt the girl.
She endured, poor soul, as much as she could,
but still, from time to time, screamed in pain.
He would spend at least an hour unfurling the soft clumps
that bulged here and there, in the delicate auburn whirlwinds.
Sometimes the clumps were too tight and he had to cut them carefully
with a pair of blunt scissors dotted with rusty specks.
His efforts were not entirely vain.
He did manage to save Nella's hair from total decadence,
and the girl looked more or less proper.
However, at close inspection, it was painfully obvious
that the girl's head needed more skilful hands.
And those cheap dresses he was buying...
Nella did have the good ones, sewn by her mother,
but she had grown out of them.
With fear he thought about the next year,
when the girl would go to school. How would she appear like this?
He grunted and combed.
Then he discovered something. He could lay the comb aside and put his fingers
through the hot auburn billow, trying to straighten it from the inside.
His fingers felt resistance, they would push through
and then halt again before a new entanglement.
They felt so comfortable, so at home inside Nella's hair
that he seriously contemplated dispensing with the comb altogether.
All day long his fingers retained the memory of that warmth,
those tactile whispering streams telling him something vague,
but persistent.
He noticed that Nella's hair
was becoming more even. There were fewer clumps,
which soon disappeared altogether.
His new finger-combing technique was apparently effective,
and he rejoiced silly sitting on the threshold,
the back of his daughter's head between his knees,
listening to the green parrots chirping in the mango tree.
Soon, one morning, kissing Nella on the cheek,
he froze in astonishment:
her hair was neatly combed and woven in two neat plaits,
hanging along her back.
It was so sudden that at first he didn't believe his eyes
and blinked several times. No, the plaits were there.
Nella, who plaited your hair?
The girl did not respond. She was very quiet.
He was too amazed to repeat the question.
All day long he was thinking.
Did she learn to do it? Did someone teach her while he was away?
Yes, this is what happened. It was unpleasant,
he felt a pang of jealousy. But how? She must have another comb,
for the tortoise one is always locked up together with his razors.
It is a precious comb. He couldn't let the child play with it.
In the evening, he kept looking at Nella's hair.
As the girl moved around the house, more lively than in the morning,
her plaits glided in irregular movements,
bumping into each other, crossing and uncrossing,
as if teasing him with their little mystery.
Next morning, Nella's hair was plaited anew,
with different ribbons tied in tiny butterflies at the ends.
He asked again: Nella, tell me, did you do your hair?
Nella, look at me! Who plaited your hair?
There was no reply. The girl sat quietly at the table
and hardly looked at him.
He was a gentle man, despite his rough appearance.
He didn't press the child for an answer and went to work.
Well, if she doesn't want to tell me, I will find out myself.
In the evening, as Nella was playing in the kitchen,
feeding imaginary dolls with imaginary porridge,
he came up to her, made her sit on his knees
and, despite the girl's resistance, loosened one of the plaits.
Nella, look what happened! Your plait is undone. Here is a comb. Plait it back, show me how you do it.
The girl wanted to say something,
but changed her mind and took the comb.
He waited. She began to push the comb through her hair
with such clumsy and unpractised movements
that all became clear. She did not do it.
Of course, the girl could pretend to be unpractised,
but this was too far-fetched. He rejected this suggestion outright.
So, it was not Nella. Very nervously, he awaited the morning.
When the girl entered the kitchen, her hair was beautifully done,
even better than yesterday.
A dark-blue silk thread was woven into it.
There was a single plait now, so intricate,
so skilfully tightened, a work of someone experienced,
with a sure hand and strong fingers. No, his last doubts were dispersed.
Nella could not have done this herself.
Then who?
At work, he was absent-minded. He dropped a bucket with paint.
His boss, a vulgar Russian ;migr;, yelled at him. He didn't care.
He was thinking about Nella's hair.
All right, if not she, then who? Who?
It is probably a woman. Men can rarely plait hair so well.
Some woman, a passer-by, must have seen Nella's unkempt head
and now comes and plaits her hair out of compassion.
Yes, this is possible. Only this supposed woman must come either at night
or very early in the morning. Even if one is very good, still this kind of plaiting must take time.
Then it dawned on him. A nun! Yes, a nun!
There is a cloister nearby. Nuns do pass by from time to time,
with their tall white caps. One can't see them, because they walk behind the fence,
only their caps float on top of it, like an armada of white ships,
sailing somewhere in the sea of hawthorn flowers.
A nun comes at night. Yes, he should have thought about this before.
They know that Nella lost her mother. It is an act of charity.
Those religious types are capable of something like this.
They must have made the child promise to keep it secret,
that is why Nella is so quiet in the morning. The girl sticks to her word.
He felt proud for his daughter.
He told his boss he was sick and took a day off.
All day he was busy fixing shutters and installing new locks.
Nella did not pay much attention to his activities,
which surprised him. By the evening the work was done.
When the girl went to bed, he made sure nobody had slipped into the house
and then locked everything. Even if the nun had stepped in,
she wouldn't be able to escape, as all the locks were new and the keys in his room.
He was so tired that he fell asleep at once,
despite his determination to wait and listen.
He woke up very early, jumped out of bed and ran to check the locks.
They were all intact. Nobody had entered the house.
His heart sank when he saw Nella come into the kitchen
with two beautiful plaits, reaching as low as her waist.
They terminated in two scarlet bows, like two poppies smeared with blood,
shining at him in defiance.
For a few days already Nella and he did not speak much.
No, she was never too talkative, yet he missed her voice and the strange questions
that children ask, awaiting equally strange answers,
which their parents are incapable of giving.
She put her clumsy doll on the table
and was cutting its hair with a pair of kitchen scissors.
Nella, what are you doing? Why are you ruining your doll?
There was no reply.
After this doll, another's hair was cut, too.
Nella went through several before he left the house.
So, it is not the nun. It is no one from outside the house.
There was only one option left. It was he himself who plaited Nella's hair.
It had to be. The fact that he was always asleep when this happened
seemed to support this explanation. He must be a somnambulist.
At first, his mind revolted. He was disgusted and afraid.
At the day progressed, the thought appeared less improbable.
He must have developed this abnormality after his wife's death,
otherwise she would have noticed his sleep-walking and told him.
It is true, he had been under a great deal of stress and anxiety.
Even now he was not quite himself, still struggling with pain
and, at times, despair. He could have developed this sickness.
All right, the plaiter may be found, but what about the plaiting?
He can't plait. And also, why is Nella so secretive if it is he who comes into her room at night?
These arguments were strong. He did feel some relief, though. He may not be a sleep-walker, after all. Yet he had heard that people do exhibit unusual skills under duress.
From their past lives, perhaps? He did not know what to think.
It was a confused, awkward, but still an explanation, still something to hold on to.
Well, there is no need to wrack my brain. If I am a somnambulist, it is easy to check.
Still, he waited one more day. He was not sure he wanted to know.
Now he had a version, a hypothesis. Once disproved, there will be nothing,
a mystery known to his daughter who will not tell him.
Nella walked in the kitchen. There were black bows in her plaits.
He felt an urge to demand an explanation from the child,
but, as soon as this urge reached the point of action,
it suddenly burst, plopped like a stone thrown into a bottomless pond,
and vanished, leaving behind terrible tiredness, terrible sadness.
He washed his plate, had a sip of tea and felt nausea.
This mystery was sitting on top of his life
as a large black crow sits on a doll house glued from paper.
In the evening, he remembered that he had several bags of flour in the basement.
He locked the house, all doors and windows. He took one bag to his room.
He locked his own door, tied the only key to a string and hung it out the window.
He strewed flour in front of the door and in front of the window.
If he were a sleep-walker, he would know in the morning.
His heart was beating fast, he was thirsty, but tiredness prevailed.
A black ladle descended on his head soon after he lay down.
In the morning, his heart began to pound and ache.
He lay there, afraid to turn his face to the door. He pulled himself together and looked.
The flour was intact, both at the door and at the window.
Still, he may not have sleep-walked on that particular night. He needed to see his daughter.
She was already in the kitchen, with a long single plait dangling on her back.
A yellow ribbon. He was not a somnambulist.
After the first wave of relief, he felt so panicked he couldn't eat.
He sat, staring at Nella.
He felt as if cement had been poured into his chest and was solidifying.
His agitation did not last long. It was replaced with numbness, almost indifference.
He could feel his heart in his fingers that seemed to grow like flower buds.
He was afraid to step out of the house, lest his fingers unfold in the sun as flowers do.
It would be so embarrassing. People would laugh at him.
After a while, clarity reasserted itself. He was at work.
As he painted a wall, it occurred to him that he could spread flour in front of his daughter's room. If the flour looks undisturbed in the morning, and the house is locked, then he must be mad. A simple conclusion that he will have to face. He must have cracked under his grief.
Some sort of calm descended on his mind. He felt the resolution was close.
Now he realised why he hadn't watched his daughter's room before, but preferred to move step by step, eliminating possibilities. He was unconsciously postponing the admittance of his mental sickness. He would do it no more. He was ready to confront it.
In the evening, before kissing Nella good night, he caressed her hair.
It was still plaited, although not as tightly as in the morning, for the child had been running about the house all day long. If it was an illusion, it was very lifelike indeed.
He decided not to think any more. He waited until Nella went to bed and then quietly spread a thick layer a flour in front of her door. He returned to his room.
He was very grateful to his tiredness, to his difficult job,
for he would have hated to stay awake now. He could escape into sleep.
He woke up when the butcher-bird began to sing under his window.
It was about five in the morning. Several sunrays stood motionless in the middle of his room, the particles of dust dancing inside them. He imagined that, as the butcher-bird emitted its clear notes, the rays came out of the bird's beak and flew towards his window, halting as soon as they reached the inside of his room, as if scared of the air he had been exhaling all night, the air of madness and grief. He went to Nella's room. What he saw there, made him lean against the wall.
There were smudged, light footprints on the flour, rather, four tracks, two pointing towards the room, and two pointing back.
The footprints were too large to be Nella's and too small to be his. They belonged to a grown person, most likely a woman. She wore some kind of slippers, narrow, with a soft sole. She entered Nella's room at night and then went away. He ran down the stairs, to check the doors and windows. Everything was locked perfectly, and the seals were intact. Whoever that woman was, she did not come from outside.
Once, when he was a child, his mother bought a bag of walnuts and a fancy cracker shaped as an elephant's head. He liked it so much he cracked dozens of walnuts and ate them, of course. He never forgot that awful sickness in the stomach, in the liver, those pulls at his guts as he tried to vomit and couldn't. He also remembered how he was on a boat, taking his fianc;e to an island. The weather grew worse and worse, and the boat rocked relentlessly. She seemed unaffected, but he... It was terrible. There was no escape. He went outside, to the fresh air, but even this did not help. He was turning inside out, his stomach, already emptied, contracted in cruel spasms. When they reached the harbour, he lay on the sand and stayed like that a few hours. Although the return trip was calm, he never took a boat again in his life.
And now, as he stood in the kitchen and gazed at the bolted door, the same nausea, the same abysmal stomach sickness rose from inside him, rose to his throat, to his eyes, to his hair that began to stand on end. He stepped towards the sink and poured a glass of water. He tried to drink it, but the water tasted bitter, disgusting. He dropped the glass. It did not break.
So, he was not mad. How simple it would have been, how easy. Someone did come to Nella's room at night.
He heard her door creak. The girl was awake. He heard the sound of her feet trotting towards the bathroom, above his head. A while later, she came. Two plaits, two huge green butterflies. The girl moved towards him, probably, to kiss him, but he shuddered and pulled back. There must have been something in his face that made her look at him very intently, not with fear, but with a kind of caution with which one approaches a street dog.
They did not speak. He went to work, but, as soon as his house vanished behind the hill, he sat in the grass and put his head between his knees. The time had come to stay awake at night and see for himself who plaited Nella's hair. Something pricked his neck, on the right side. He slapped it with his palm, took something from there and looked. It was a little green grasshopper, squashed and dead. He began to cry. He cried and cried, unable to stop, almost enjoying it, feeling lighter and better, as the tears poured down his cheeks. No, he wasn't sad, he didn't pity himself that much. He just wanted to cry, as one wants to brush teeth or to eat a sandwich. An old woman, wearing a blue kerchief tied in a large knot under her wrinkled chin, stopped a few meters from him, but then continued to walk, turning her head a few times.
He worked until noon. Then it was necessary to wait for new paint to be delivered.
He went into the bush, lay on the ground and fell asleep. He was so exhausted he didn't hear anything. He woke up before the end of the working day. Fortunately, the paint had not arrived. He went home.
The girl had already forgotten her morning reserve and ran up to kiss him. He did not shudder. He kissed her back with no particular affection. After dinner, he waited until she went to the bathroom, and then quietly slipped into her room. There was a chestnut wardrobe just opposite Nella's bed. He hid there, leaving the door slightly open, and waited.
The girl returned, put her table lamp on the floor (she always did this), and the room began to tremble in subdued golden light. The wardrobe was very sturdy and still filled with his wife's dresses. He sat there, his ears and head covered with various materials, some prickly, some soft. He heard the clock downstairs strike eleven.
Nella's breathing became louder and more regular. The girl must have fallen asleep.
After a while, he began to lose the sense of time. He couldn't hear the clock any more, although he must have been waiting for a least an hour. He didn't know. He began to doze off, the golden shimmer descending upon his eyes like a curtain. The butcher-bird, sunrays pouring out of its beak, flew through his chest. He sensed his heart flutter, or maybe it was the echo of the bird's wings. The door slowly opened. It creaked a little, and the sound woke him up, although at first he did not realise what was happening and where he was.
He saw his dead wife enter the room. He looked at her through the narrow slot, still not entirely awake. She stood by the door a few seconds, and then went towards Nella.
She did not walk, but shifted forward in little bursts, her legs not moving.
She wore the same long creamy dress in which she was buried a year ago.
Her straight auburn hair barely reached her shoulders.
Her face was strange, hers and not hers. There was a blankness in her features that seemed almost savage. If not for the dress, he wouldn't have recognised her at once.
She glided through the dull light like a silhouette cut out of cardboard.
He could no longer believe it was a dream. He knew he was awake.
His breathing became peculiar, he had never breathed like this. He put his palm over his mouth, to muffle the loud sniffling sounds his mouth was making on its own.
He felt trapped in that wardrobe. Had the corpse heard him and turned its head, he didn't know what he would have done. He only wished it wouldn't happen. An icy cold knife was slicing through his lungs.
His wife sat on Nella's bed. The girl opened her eyes. With a yawn, she shifted towards the edge of the bed and sat there, her naked legs dangling.
The dead woman took a comb that Nella used for the dolls and slowly, slowly began to work on the girl's hair. He watched, sick in the stomach.
He must have fainted eventually, for when he opened his eyes, there was no one in the room.
Nella was asleep. He could hear her faint snoring. Morning light poured through the window, mixing with the light of the lamp.
It took all his courage to get out of the wardrobe. He couldn't feel his legs, apart from intense tingling in his toes. His revulsion was such that he didn't even look at his daughter. Even the door handle, the one touched by the dead, filled him with fear and disgust.
He couldn't stay in the house. He went to work very early, before the girl woke up.
He didn't get far, though. Just outside the house he sat on the ground, feeling dull and blank.
He could not take in what he had seen.
He loved his wife obsessively, with bursts of jealousy, not decreasing even after they moved to the country and Nella was born. When she died, he longed to die, too, and would have certainly killed himself if he didn't have Nella.
But now, when he saw his wife again, he felt no love, even the thought of his former feelings was repugnant. Her death had alienated him. He was terrified of that shifting, gliding dead body.
Yes, whatever love he still had for her memory rapidly faded away.
She had to be gone, to claim his love. By coming back, she finally died.
The thought that for a whole year he loved and longed for that corpse, nauseated him.
He sat like this, his shoulders jerking, his head restlessly shifting between his knees, like a cow between two railings of the slaughterhouse. Someone tapped him on the shoulder.
It was so sudden that he cried out and his heart halted.
He lifted his eyes, large and frozen.
The woman he had seen the day before stood in front of him.
The same blue kerchief covered her grey head. Her face was very wrinkled,
but her eyes emitted fresh, childlike radiance.
You lost your wife, didn't you?
He wanted to reply, but his voice didn't obey him. He nodded, grateful not to be alone any more.
And now she came back, didn't she?
She spoke with a strong accent. He looked at her without a reply. She waited.
Didn't she?
He nodded again.
It is not right. She must leave your house.
He cleared his throat.
My wife comes to comb Nella's hair.
Your daughter must tell her to leave.
I don't understand, I am afraid.
You should be afraid. Teach your daughter. Teach her quickly.
How?
When your wife comes, your daughter must pretend that she picks up something from the bed and eats it. Maybe, some bread crumbs. When the dead sees it, she will ask the girl what she is doing. Then the girl must reply: And what are you doing, a dead one, among the living?
The old woman pronounced the last sentence in high-pitched voice, perhaps, imitating a child. Then, without any further word, she turned and began to walk away. He saw her stooping body disappear behind the hill.
His first impulse was to get up and follow the woman, but he felt tired and suddenly indifferent. He looked at his watch. It was still early. He could still make it to work on time.
Yet he knew he wouldn't go. Something had to be done today.
The girl was in the kitchen, in her blue dress. A single plait, a very tight one, hung between her shoulders. She did not look at him, when he entered. She did not come for a kiss. He shut the door hastily, as if afraid that the wind would blow the girl away or scatter her into many blue and white shreds.
She looked so brittle. The only solid, certain thing about her was the plait burdened with a thick black ribbon.
He took Nella to town, to see the shops.
Although the girl was unwell, the breeze of new impressions
took her into its whirling movement
and soon she was laughing again, almost the same Nella
whom he still could love.
They stood in front of a shop window filled with toys.
There was a dishevelled witch flying in her mortar
in the upper right corner
and a group of prettily dressed dolls
looking as dolls do, their plastic eyes
saturated with blue or green paint,
dead and alive at the same time,
like the eyes of a person who has just woken up.
The dolls paid no attention to the witch,
as if they thought that there was still plenty of time,
that the shop window was sufficiently big,
that they could all mount that red plastic wheeled horse
and ride away before the witch descended on them.
There were also lots of other toys,
little soldiers with wooden rifles,
elephants covered with silvery grey pigment
and other animals: a few mechanical gods and squirrels,
an enormous giraffe stretching its neck so like a bough laden with ripe apples,
and a windable doctor, a metallic key sticking out of his back,
shaking the giraffe in the hope of getting some fruit.
Nella, too, was reflected in the window
and seemed one of the dolls, only much prettier than any of them.
She stood very still now, transfixed by the little theatre,
and the light of fresh, early afternoon sun
burst around her in luminous patches,
like scales of a carp that rises to the surface of a pond,
shifting through the bubbles of water and algae,
and turns momentarily on its side,
so dazzling it seems dry,
throwing a handful of yellow seeds right into your eyes,
where they will grow long after you have forgotten all about them.
The light came, wave after wave,
carrying with it the reflections of passing cars, and even a carriage with two horses,
and some school children who ran behind Nella's back with loud shouts,
and her father, too tall to be reflected completely,
his body lost among smudged, fleeting images,
only his face was seen clearly, up there, right near the witch,
as if blocking her flight towards the dolls.
On and on blew the wind, and Nella's dress came to life,
and fluttered variously, erratically around her tiny naked knees
with a red spot on one of them, compulsory for all children,
and now the window began to shake with the increasing wind
as Nella's plait dangled from side to side.
The wind had breathed life into the black butterfly
and it was rocking the plait, trying to break free and fly to Nella's dead mother,
no longer his wife.
He shuddered, and it began to rain.
Long lines of water, dotted at first, but soon solid and then printed in bold
on the sheet of glass now strewn with large beads, some bursting and streaming down,
and some of them swelled slowly, taking out fragments of dolls' faces or the plastic skins of animals
and enlarging them, making them replace the rest of the images,
until they, too, burst and streamed down, restoring the broken shapes,
yet too violently for the picture to be as it was,
and now it is all a mess of coloured plastic, streaming water, smudges of dust and glaring, inescapable light.
The witch, and the dolls, and everything else is gone, subdued by the bulging swells of rapid water, only the doctor's key is still sticking out of this postmordial chaos,
as a monument, perhaps, to the life that was before and could still be rewound.
He took Nella's hand and led her into the shop. They were both soaked.
He left the girl in the shop, ran back to the car and brought a large towel,
not very clean, smelling of petrol.
He crouched behind Nella and began to dry her hair.
His first movements were shy and reserved,
he was afraid to touch his daughter's plait.
After a few vigorous shifts of the towel
the back butterfly drooped and then unwound, turning into a black serpent.
He pulled it out with disgust and threw on the floor.
Then, with his hurrying hands, he loosened the plait itself.
At the very moment when her hair unfolded completely
into an auburn screen with dense streaks, where the hair was still wet,
the black streaks that kept reminding him of the black ribbon,
Nella noticed a three-wheeled bicycle in the corner,
with a wonderfully curving cherry-red frame and a puffy leather seat.
The wheels were wrapped in plastic, and the spikes gleamed there,
like the rays of winter suns, frozen in a chunk of ice.
I want that, said Nella, and these were her first words that day. She run up to the bicycle and attempted to mount it, but her foot kept slipping off the pedal.
No, Nella, it is too expensive. Maybe, later, for your birthday.
I want this bicycle! I want it! Tears were already standing in her eyes.
Let's go. He tried to take her by the hand, but she pulled it away so violently it hit the bicycle's frame. Nella started to cry.
He looked around, embarrassed. Strangely, there was not a single living soul in the shop, only the toys, lots of them, and boxes on boxes, variously coloured and figured.
Stubborn like her mother. This thought came suddenly and placed Nella and the dead side by side in his mind, almost pushed them to each other. He panicked, but then something cleared in his head, as the sky clears soon after its darkest rain clouds collide and burst.
Nella, come here, let's discuss how I can buy you this bicycle.
Sobbing, she approached.
I know everything, Nella. I know your mother comes to you and night and plaits your hair.
Her eyes became frightened and she put a finger in her mouth.
It is all right, Nella. I don't mind. I will buy you this bicycle, if you say something to your mother when she comes tonight. Will you? It is very easy.
What do you want me to say? I want the bicycle now!
No, first you tell your mother what I want, and first thing in the morning we will come here and I will buy you this bicycle. I promise you, and you know me. I always keep my promises. Remember last year, that expensive polar bear? I promised to get it for you and I did. You can believe me.
He saw a struggle in the girl's eyes. What do you want me to say?
When she plaits your hair, pretend that you take bread crumbs from your bed. Remember how you used to eat bread in bed and your mother scolded you? Well, pretend that there are crumbs on your bed and you eat them. Your mother will see it and she will ask you what you are doing. Then just tell her: And what are you doing, a dead one, among the living? That's all. And then, in the morning, we will come here, and I will buy you this bicycle. I will even ask now the shop lady to keep it for you, so that no one else will buy it. All right, Nella? Where is the shop lady? Let's call her.
It was a pretty young woman, blonde, with huge blue eyes. She was already standing behind the register. He didn't see her come in.
I need to buy this bicycle for my daughter. He spoke deliberately loudly and slowly, allowing his words to sink into Nella. Would you hold it for me until tomorrow morning? I will come and buy it then, if my daughter does what I want.
He noticed a slight accent in the woman's voice when she replied. She will hold the bicycle, no problem.
As they were leaving, the glass door projected half of the shop's inner space in front of him. The glass had been washed clean by the rain, and the blonde head of the young woman glided forth, first matching his steps, but then much more rapidly, as if it was shot form one of those plastic toy catapults. When the door stopped, he saw another face reflected in the glass, the wrinkled face of an old woman, her head covered with a kerchief. It seemed familiar. He turned around, but the door had already shut behind them.
For the rest of the day he repeated many times what he wanted Nella to tell her mother,
and he made the girl say again and again the question,
until he was sure that she remembered it well.
Earlier, as they drove home, they saw several children riding bicycles,
and he made sure to admire them, but to mention that Nella's was much better
and that she would outride any of those children.
By evening the girl was positively obsessed with having a bicycle,
and he waited, his heart aching more and more as the night drew near.
He sneaked into Nella's room as easily as before
and hid in the same wardrobe. The girl came from the bathroom,
shut the door and went to bed.
The light of the lamp standing on the floor
was getting more distinct and pure while the air darkened.
The clock began to dominate the quieted house,
tossing off quarters of hours, as if calling someone.
Very slowly the door opened. He pulled himself together and looked.
The dead woman floated in. Her face was still, frozen,
the lipstick was still on her lips, as thick as when he himself put it there,
following her wish to look pretty in the coffin.
She did look pretty in the coffin,
yet now her lips were garish compared to the rest of the pallid, green-tinted face
and her bleak, unseeing eyes.
The surge of vomit was rose up his throat,
and he kept it down by constantly swallowing saliva
that began to fill his mouth. Sweat poured all over his face,
and yet he was very cold. How bitterly he regretted his curiosity!
He didn't think about his daughter who lay there, a mere step from the standing corpse.
Had there been another door, he would have certainly rushed out, and run out of the house,
and never returned. The dead sat down on Nella's bed and the girl woke up.
He watched his wife combing Nella's hair and plaiting it,
slowly, so slowly. Emotions filling him were so various, so new to him
that he was dazed, stupefied. He noticed smudges of soil on his wife's creamy dress
and a few dried flower petals. And the smell, the sugary faint smell coming from her was stomach-turning, repellent.
The living girl and the dead woman
sat on the bed, the light rising from the floor
as if the sun was spending the night in this house's basement.
Their legs were very distinct, carved by a sure hand,
while their bodies became less and less certain, smeared, almost merging together,
and their heads hovered in the haze of the identical hair,
not auburn any more, but yellow and brown,
like camomile flowers plucked and thrown in a muddy puddle
at the first strike of the thunder and the angry puff of the autumn wind.
And then, when he had already despaired,
Nella began to pretend to pick something from the blanket
and put it in her mouth.
At first, the dead did not react to this,
but then her hands started moving differently,
more impatient, more alive, if you will,
and then stopped. Nella kept eating her imagined bread crumbs.
And it came, the voice.
What are you doing?
It was not his wife's voice. It was a creaking, laboured wheeze,
like a momentous rustle of withered leaves.
Nella said clearly, each word ringing in the silence:
And what are you doing, a dead one, among the living?
Her mother jerked up like a doll violently pulled from behind.
She turned awkwardly, slid off the bed and rose.
The lamp was knocked down, and the light poured upwards.
She made a few steps in the direction of the wardrobe, evidently mistaking its door for the exit. He wailed and held his hands in front of him, a trapped, desperate creature.
She did not hear this, but turned and quickly walked towards the window,
crashed into the bedside table and almost knocked it down, too.
Then she turned around again, and walked right into the wall.
And again she turned around, rocking her head,
her stiffened face standing out in golden electric light.
Her lips whispered something. It was a faint sound, like the fluttering of a moth trapped in a glass jar. She rushed about the room, looking for the door and not finding it,
her steps becoming heavier and heavier, now stomping on the wooden planks
with the sound of an unsteady drum that hushed her lisping.
Her dress waved, revealing her grey spinning legs,
clearly outlined in the light that spread all over the floor.
And then she found the exit, and flung the door open,
and vanished in the livid rectangle.
Much later, he crawled out of the wardrobe.
Nella lay on the bed, sobbing.
He didn't feel anything, he was tired, erased.
He lay on the bed next to the girl,
and they both fell asleep.
In the morning, he saw that Nella's plait was nearly done,
only a ribbon was lacking.
He took a white one and sat on the threshold,
Nella's head between his knees.
The girl was distressed and still cried a little,
but he kept talking about the wonderful bicycle waiting for her in the shop,
and she gradually brightened up, just a little,
enough for him to dare and ask her:
Nella, why are you like this?
The girl's voice rang clearly again, as it did at night:
Because you made me chase mummy away. Now she will never come back.
Nella, your mother is dead.
No, she isn't! She told me she lives far away now, but can come and see me at night. And now she won't because of you.
Nella, don't you remember the funeral?
Mummy was sick and you put her in a box. But she is all right now and you made me tell her bad things.
Nella, I am going to the shop right now and I will bring you the bicycle I promised. You were a good girl and you told your mother what I asked. For this, I am going to bring you that wonderful bicycle. No other child has such a bicycle, only you, in the whole town.
He said this and many other words, trying to divert the plangent stream of Nella's thoughts.
He succeeded. Soon the bicycle was brought home. He spent an hour teaching Nella to ride it and then went to work.
He must have looked so terrible that his boss believed he had been sick and even suggested he remained at home for another day or two. He refused. He needed to be busy, to have people around, for he didn't dare to stay alone and face his memory.
As soon as he shut his eyes, he saw the corpse dashing about in a ghastly light of an electric lamp, and his terror was as fresh as at night. He needed to keep his eyes open. He painted and painted the wall.
When he came home in the evening, the evidence of Nella's riding was everywhere.
Many flowers were destroyed by the wheels, several tins, where his brushes were soaking, had been turned over and dented, and both Nella's arms and legs were covered with scratches. The girl herself was terribly dishevelled. The white ribbon had been lost. Her dress was torn. She must have ridden all day long.
He observed all this with pleasure. His daughter was coming back to life.
However, as the night began to come out,
condensing the evening light into clusters of shiny dots,
uneasiness and dread again took hold of him.
What if she comes back? What would he do then?
He couldn't bear to go into Nella's room. He just couldn't. All his nature revolted against this. Even the thought that the dead might come to punish the girl was ineffective.
He stayed in his room. He couldn't sleep and lay like this, listening to every noise in the corridor. He heard the screams of bats outside and once there was a cat fight somewhere far away, but the rest of the night was very quiet. He fell asleep towards the dawn.
In the morning, he sat in the kitchen and waited.
Nella came in. Her hair was as messy as the day before. He sighed. Something heavy inside his chest let go.
A shiny joy descended upon him. He became very talkative,
he fried eggs for both of them,
promised to take Nella to the fair next Sunday and buy her a kilogram of ice-cream.
Her birthday was next month. He said they had to have a huge party, to buy a stately chocolate cake, to throw strawberries all over it and invite lots of guests.
He didn't know whom he would invite as they had no friends,
but he kept talking until his head buzzed.
The chestnut trees rustled gently, and half of their leaves were golden.
There were corridors of fresh, living light cut through the sky still somewhat violet,
and along these corridors descended Nella and himself, still invisible,
and ran barefoot on the dew-sprinkled grass, and bumped into the bushes,
and turned in the cascade of drops shaken down,
and for a moment their silhouettes became sharply outlined in the watery dust
that flared up with many agitated colours, like many peacock tails opening and closing rapidly, one by one.
He asked Nella to go easy on riding, but the girl already mounted her bicycle
and vanished behind the house. She didn't even kiss him. He smiled and waited for her to appear from the other side, but she didn't. She must have ridden into the garden.
The bursts of vying emotions,
the struggle and flight of the lead-footed memory,
did take their toll on him,
and by the time he got to work and started painting the last wall of the house
he felt numb, as if he was made of cracked wood,
through which his breath pushed,
as does the night wind through the pair of worn shutters.
He kept working until midday and didn't stop to eat some cold fried eggs he brought with him, hoping to finish painting in the afternoon and try to go home earlier.
He imagined Nella on her new bike,
her hair becoming dishevelled,
her legs rotating quickly,
the long, dark-green blades of grass
being caught in the pedals of rubber and steel
and torn asunder, as the bike sped forth, father and farther away,
where he could no longer see it.
Somebody spoke his name. With a start, he turned,
a paint-soaked brush in his hand.
Are you Mr ...?
A man in a blue shirt stood in front of him. There was a metallic badge on his chest.
Yes.
Please come with me. I need to speak to you.
Surprised, he put his brush in the bucket full of whitish water and followed the man.
His boss stood in the corridor and looked at him strangely.
They entered a room with empty white walls. The man closed the door and sat on a chair.
Please, Mr … , sit down.
He sat.
What do you want with me?
Mr …, I want you to be strong. It is about your daughter.
Nella? What happened?
He asked this very calmly. He felt nothing.
Your daughter was riding a bicycle and she rode down the hill, towards the road. The brakes may have been faulty, or she lost control, it is hard to tell. Well, she rode straight on the road and... and there was an accident.
Well, how is she? I must got to her at once. His voice was almost businesslike, as if he was arranging a delivery or making a purchase.
Mr …, as I told you, there was an accident.
Yes, I understand. Is she in the hospital?
No, she is not in the hospital.
Is she at home, then?
No, she isn't. Come. I will drive your car.
Then there was a gap. He didn't remember the evening and he didn't remember the night.
In the morning, he sat in the kitchen and waited for Nella to come for breakfast. She didn't come. She must have been busy deciding which ribbon to choose. Yet it is time to make her plait. He went out, returned with the comb and sat on the threshold.
There were several long auburn hairs in the comb, looking precisely like the partitions of the tortoise scales, as if they were not even there. A butcher-bird shrieked in the tree, so loudly, so loudly, as if it was sitting on his shoulder. He shuddered and his memory came back, sudden and complete.
He felt he was past tears and past wails.
There was still white paint on his fingers. He caressed Nella's hairs and whispered:
Of course, of course. I could never comb well. Her mother will do it better. She does everything better.
In the afternoon, he went to the toy shop. He didn't know why.
The shop was there, but the door was locked. He stood in front of the glass door and peered inside. The door wobbled in the wind, and flashes of reflected sunlight wouldn't let him see. Then, abruptly, the wind ceased. The door halted. The inside of the room appeared behind the glass, as if the image rose to the surface of a dark pond.
The room was empty, and had evidently been empty for a long time. There were planks of wood scattered on the floor, and a couple of hair drying machines stood in the corner, covered with sheets of white plastic. The floor was not visible under a thick layer of dust. The dust was pristine, undisturbed by footprints.
He stood and waited for the wind to start blowing again. And it did.
The door began to wobble, and his face, reflected in the glass,
appeared and disappeared, interspersed with spots of blinding light.