I Live With You Read Free Page B

Librarians are stamping out fires, putting rugs and wet towels over books. Some bring smoldering books out and dump them in the pool. Some books are so large it takes two or even three librarians to carry them.
    Those still inside have wet scarves around their faces but Yawn and I don’t. We begin to cough right away. A librarian hits me from behind and knocks me into a still burning book. Two and Yawn drag me out and dump me in the pool to stop my burning clothes, my burning topknot.
    They argue about me. Mostly in their own language. Then one says, on purpose in my language, “He’s not worth the trouble. Finally they say to Yawn—in my language, “He’s yours to do with as you wish.” They sound disgusted.
    They get thongs to tie my ankles—loose enough so I can walk a little. The fires are out in the library and Yawn hurries me through the smoke to the central garden. It’s untouched except a little smoky. She doesn’t say a word. She ties me to a bench and leaves.
    There are trees in there. Flowering bushes. A birdbath but no birds. Still too smoky. I watch the little fountain. I don’t try to get loose. I’m tied so I can lie down. I do.
    Finally Yawn comes back with a lumpy awkward bundle and with tea and food. She gives me the tea and a fishy smelling sort of cake and dates. I don’t feel like eating, especially not a fishy cake, but the tea is good.
    Then she starts unpacking the things she brought, a folding stool, a folding easel, a wooden slab, long as her arm, to paint on. An odd thing to be doing after what’s been happening. I’m an exotic creature fit for a zoo. She can’t wait to get me down on a flat surface. To put on some wall, I suppose. Which makes me wonder what she’ll do with the real me after. Will the painting take my place?
    She begins, even as I’m sipping tea.
    She works in spurts and then looks at me and thinks. Finally she shows me what she’s done so far. There I am, just begun, but even so you can see it’s me. You can see my topknot curling down behind my ear and then over my shoulder though now it’s burned off. She has my eyes almost finished. They’re like holes in the board. I suppose all of it will look like a hole through the board when she’s done.
    She starts to paint again. We’re quiet and then she says, “I want you to be…. I wish you could be….”
    “I’ll never be.”
    Whatever it was she was going to say, she’d hate me if I was. She loves me because I’m not like her. Same reason I like her.
    Then, again, she turns the painting towards me. She sits beside me to study it. Now my face is almost finished.
    She keeps looking over at me as though wondering what I think about it. I’m impressed. Not only with how much it looks like me but that it only took her a short time to paint it. I’m thinking I might steal it if I have the chance.
    But I’m angry with myself for thinking it. I say, “This is a lie. Does a flower need a painting of itself?” I hear myself saying, “Do I need this?” even as I’m thinking that I do.
    At that thought I bang my fists against the edge of the bench.
    “You hate my painting.”
    “I like it. I like it. I shouldn’t, but I do. But where I come from images are not allowed.”
    “How can that be?”
    “And no bare breasts.”
    “Are breasts bad?”
    “You’ll learn that if you come home with me.”
    She says again, “Bless water.”
    “We don’t bless things like water.”
    “Youir language has no word for what we mean by blessing. And no word for asking somebody to come see a sight. No word for a sky full of birds and we all look up. Even my name, you can’t guess its many meanings.”
    “Tell me.”
    But she says, “You keep saying we should love the real, but the real disappears. One of these days this painting will be all that’s left of you.”
    Is that a warning?
    Then we hear a great rushing sound, loud as thunder right overhead, and the ground shakes and the painting falls and the stoa