Dear Thief

Начало книги

In answer to a question you asked a long time ago, I have, yes, seen through what you called the gauze of this life. But to tell you about it I will have to share with you a brief story.

One night in the hot summer of ’76 I was staying with my grandmother, who was dying, and I was reading a book of Buddhist stories. My grandmother was asleep in the rocking chair, inhaling with feathered breaths. Her exhales were smooth and liquid, which seems to me now the surest sign of a life’s exit — when the act of giving away air is easier than that of accepting it. In fact I knew she might be facing her last night but I didn’t do much to cling to those moments. I was sitting on the sofa in my underwear with my legs drawn to the side, watching her for minutes at a time while the breaths fluttered in through the dignified gap between her lips. She was sweating around her brows, and at the base of her throat. I remember vividly her sapphire pendant in the dip there where the skin was moist.

Читать дальше →