Angel of Oblivion Read Free

flailing his arms, asif shooing away bothersome flies. When he carries hay into the stalls and, from the threshold, shouts the name of the cow that should move to make room for him, that particular cow actually moves aside so he can stuff their fodder into the crib. His movements are sweeping and rhythmic. Cleaning the pigsty has to run like a well-oiled machine, the muckrake has to dig into a pile of straw with one thrust, the shovel must scrape the floor of the stall in a steady cadence. The steaming cowpats are only waiting to be lifted from the manure gutter and conveyed to the dung heap. You can read Father’s mood from the cowpats’ flight. If he tosses the manure in a high arc to the back of the heap, he’s feeling confident. If he flings the cowpats hard against the front of the manure pile, he’s irate.
    The pigs throng against the pivoting gate to the trough. Mother shoves the gate back with her boot and urges the animals’ patience. You can all wait just a bit longer, she says and pours the swill in a wide arc into the trough. As soon as the gate swings back, the pigs huddle, slurping, over the mash.
    Mother begins milking. She wipes the first cow’s udder with a cloth, then squats on the stool and braces her head against the animal’s flank. Her grip on the teats draws a powerful stream of milk that crashes against the bottom of the pail. On this signal, everything calms down. The pigs slurp more quietly, the hens draw in their heads, the cats gather silently around their drinking bowl, the milk foams in the pail. When she has finished milking the first cow, Mother gives the cats milk to drink. Shepours the milk into a bowl Father carved from a piece of wood. Pink cat tongues flap against the white liquid, the cats’ jaws are wet with milk. Their tongues lick the milk from their fur.
    I stand, snug in a veil of haze and cast a glance over the dirty walls. My hands smell of the pigs that press their massive bodies against the gate when they’re done eating in the hope that I’ll scratch their backs. The dog Piko has wiped his morning’s sweat on my dress. Cat hairs, damp with milk, are already stuck to my cheeks. I ask Mother when the next calf will come because I love feeding animals with a bottle. The way they butt with their heads as they nurse always makes me laugh. After I feed the calves, I always let them lick my hands until I become afraid my whole arm might disappear into the warm gullets behind their nubbly tongues. You’ll have to wait a bit longer, Mother says. Father stands outside the barn door and looks at the sky. Fine weather is coming, he says, we’ll have to get a move on tomorrow, fine weather is coming!
    On warm spring weekends, Father sits on the bench next to the beehive and watches the bees’ flight. He has one arm draped over the back of the bench and acts as if he wouldn’t mind my sitting next to him. He looks at the alighting boards in front of the hives’ entrance holes where the foragers land and perform their waggle dances. There will be a good harvest this year, he’ll say, or, I’m worried about the second hive. In late winter, when the thaw sets in, he shovels the snow in front of the apiary so the sun will warm the area in front of the hives more quickly. He has made wooden hive frames, stretched wires across them and pressed sheets ofwax onto the wires. He brought the honeycomb into the apiary and swept the piles of dead bees from the apiary floor. On the last day in January, he sent me into the bee-house to listen to the hives, to hear if the colonies were giving any signs of life. When I told him there was a mysterious humming, he looked like a weight had fallen from his shoulders. Now he asks if I’d be willing to help him do the spring check and smoke the hives. I nod and immediately sense that I’ve made a mistake, but it’s too late to retreat.
    The apiary is filled with semi-darkness. A milky light shines through a small, smudged window onto the wooden