Once they were finished eating, he waved the children from the table. As she walked away Lea looked over her shoulder but couldn’t bring herself to look Christophe in the eyes. Anyways he was staring at his hand. The old man held the wrist and felt the bone beneath the skin. He ran his fingers along the top of his hand. Christophe straightened his arm and lifted it until it was level with his shoulder. He let it drop to his side.
He washed the bowls more slowly than usual and used a rag to dry each of them carefully. When everything was in its place once more, he walked over to the sofa and sat quietly with his eyes closed and thought about the children and imagined himself beneath the cold hard dirt of the courtyard, stiff and dead and useless to them.
Lea’s dream
I lie on the orphanage bed, adults visiting in groups of two, often a man and woman whispering, to weigh my immobile body and decide whether they’ll select me as their own. I don’t make noises and don’t suck my fingers or scratch at the floor, but through my closed eyelids the usual disgust appears around their mouths, and before long they place their flowers at the foot of my bed, say a quick prayer, and walk on.
When you remove all things there’s nothing but rain and silence. When they removed all things, the world still remained.
In my book of letters I see A for apples burned beneath the rain. I see B for bodies burned beneath the rain. I see C for cars burned beneath the rain. I see D for dinosaurs burned beneath the rain. I see E for elephants burned beneath the rain. I see F for Florian burned beneath the rain.
Books are lies, they show the colors of things that have disappeared. What exists now? Christophe exists now, and the farmhouse, and Florian exists, not burned by any fire.
4.
The marks left by the tractor wheels were full of stagnant water after the rains and they shone in diagonal stripes beneath the new sun. Florian stared at these strange snakes uncoiled and melted in a line. He thrust his stick into a puddle and the brown water swallowed his fingers and wrist and part of his forearm, then stopped. Florian ran his tongue over his sharp teeth. That’s how far it reached, the water, down into the place that rarely spoke to him except in rumbles.
He forced himself to remember this particular water. There was a line of ants marching from the puddle to the grass, brown mud smeared all around the treadmarks, blades of grass like combed wet hair, dried stiff and thrown away from the trail.
Flies drank from the water and some of them crawled around Florian’s eyes. He left them to their business. Flies didn’t learn any lessons because they existed in several places at once. Waters were different because one of them was going to be the right one. It would have no mud at the bottom and he would let himself fall forwards into the place he sometimes saw when he closed his eyes, the place of shines where Florian knew he belonged. He knew this because of what happened when he slept, the way his body opened up and became larger than the largest of things and smaller than the smallest of things, in both directions and turning roughly from itself.
He crawled to the next puddle, crushing several ants beneath his knees. They stayed pressed into his flesh, disassembled and bloody. Around him the sun, the trees, the brambled fence with its barbed wire.
Lea liked to watch many things but especially Florian. She always felt very relaxed when she watched the boy, and her toes were soft and warm and her thighs were warm and her breasts numb and her belly ceased its noises. Even her mind stopped making the long humming sounds that broke in and out of words.
She watched from the bushes as Florian squatted over the puddle with his little prick hanging between his legs, spine stretching the skin of his back. Her face shone round and curious, small body of clay folded over itself.
When the boy had moved far enough down the path, Lea’s blood now running in cooler pulses, she emerged from the foliage to study the tangle of grass behind the barbed wire, through which she had glimpsed some unusual color.
With much effort she pulled the bicycle loose from the brambles and through the barbed wire. Its yellow paint had chipped away, revealing a layer of speckled rust. A long bloody gash had formed on her forearm, but Lea did not notice. She swung a leg over the cross bar and felt the seat ooze lukewarm water through its cracked vinyl shell. She pushed the bicycle over and stood pinching at her wet underwear and making noises, eyes rolling wildly in their sockets. Lea hiked her dress and tucked the hem of it under her chin, removing her underwear and laying them carefully between two barbs on the wire.
She stood there for a moment, features molten, feeling the wind between her spread legs. Her eyes lifted and they looked out over the undulant weeds at the small clumps of trees in the distance. The dress slipped from beneath her chin and its hem fell back around her knees. She returned to the bicycle.
Lea pushed it up and held it steady, pressed the seat until the water ran out, stood astride the crossbar with both feet grounded, remembering how Christophe had pushed the pedals, how the wheels had turned, and so resolving that she would hop backwards onto the seat and push down in the same manner.
After the fall Lea clutched her leg and made noises, disturbing two blackbirds perched in the branches above. They cawed and spread their wings, took flight. The crossbar had smashed into Lea’s shin and the pain travelled along the bone in lances. She bit her lip and hissed through her teeth, body tense and folded. The pain stayed a long time before receding, tears running down Lea’s cheeks.
When finally she rose, the child was ready for her second fall. Even though she bruised her shoulder and split her knee Lea did not cry and barely made any noise at all.
She rode the bicycle along the dirt path until she crossed the departementale and found herself on the cracked asphalt road leading back to the farmhouse. The wheels of the bicycle spun easy now, dress pressed to Lea’s body, hair lashing in her wake. Soon there was nothing but the dull roar of wind in the girl’s ears.
Lea turned right onto the dirt path that sloped down towards the farmhouse. She could see the pond with its tiny island, the cement building with its abandoned grain vats, the dusty courtyard, its single tree.
The tires pushed small rocks out of the way, bouncing Lea along like a puppet. Her eyes were frozen wide and her mouth formed an unbroken croak as the bicycle rolled past the center of the courtyard. Behind her now the young sapling and it’s soft grass. A large rock stood in her path. There came a split-second of absolute calm before the child hit the ground.
Christophe saw the whole thing. He had been sitting in the wooden rocking chair when the sound of the bicycle drew his attention. He rose from the chair, put down his book, and walked to the window. The old man’s expression remained blank until Lea’s body hit the ground. Only his lips tightened slightly.
Lea’s body lay face-down and limp in the twisting dust. The old man made his way across the sunlit courtyard, bare feet bruising on the rocks. He placed one arm beneath the child’s thighs and the other beneath her chest and transported Lea over to the grass where he rolled her onto her back, careful to support her neck and head as he lay her down. Lea’s eyes were closed and her body disarticulated.
Merde.
But Lea had only been winded by the fall and soon she drew a long ragged breath. The old man stood above her with his arms at his side. His knees bent slightly as he hesitated. He looked at the farmhouse. Then he looked at the child.
You don’t move. I will return.