To the End of the Land

Начало книги

HEY, GIRL, quiet!

Who is that?

Be quiet! You woke everyone up!

But I was holding her

Who?

On the rock, we were sitting together

What rock are you talking about? Let us sleep

Then she just fell

All this shouting and singing

But I was asleep

And you were shouting!

She just let go of my hand and fell

Stop it, go to sleep

Turn on a light

Are you crazy? They’ll kill us if we do that

Wait

What?

I was singing?

Singing, shouting, everything. Now be quiet

What was I singing?

What were you singing?!

In my sleep, what was I singing?

I’m supposed to know what you were singing? A bunch of shouts. That’s what you were singing. What was I singing, she wants to know …

You don’t remember the song?

Look, are you nuts? I’m barely alive

But who are you?

Room Three

You’re in isolation, too?

Gotta get back

Don’t go … Did you leave? Wait, hello … Gone … But what was I singing?

AND the next night he woke her up again, angry at her again for singing at the top of her lungs and waking up the whole hospital, and she begged him to try to remember if it was the same song from the night before. She was desperate to know, because of her dream, which kept getting dreamed almost every night during those years. An utterly white dream. Everything in it was white, the streets and the houses and the trees and the cats and dogs and the rock at the edge of the cliff. And Ada, her redheaded friend, was also entirely white, without a drop of blood in her face or body. Without a drop of color in her hair. But he couldn’t remember which song it was this time, either. His whole body was shuddering, and she shuddered back at him from her bed. We’re like a pair of castanets, he said, and to her surprise, she burst out with bright laughter that tickled him inside.

Читать дальше →