The Left-Handed Woman Read Free Page B

on a tree trunk, while his fat friend kept falling off; except for the two of them, the playground was forsaken. The woman’s eyes glistened with tears.
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    The woman and the child took their supper alone in the living room. She had already finished and was watching the child, who guzzled and smacked his lips. Otherwise, it was very still, except now and then for the buzzing of the refrigerator in the kitchen, which was connected with the living room by a service hatch. There was a telephone at the woman’s feet.
    She asked Stefan if she should put him to bed. He answered, “I always put myself to bed.”
    The woman: “Let me come with you at least.”
    To the child’s surprise she helped him into his pajamas. Then she tried to pick him up and put him into bed. He
resisted and climbed in by himself, whereupon she pulled up the blankets and tucked him in. He was holding a book, and pointed out a picture in it, showing high mountains in a bright light; jackdaws were flying about in the foreground. He read the legend under the picture aloud: “‘Mountain scene in the late fall: Even at this time of year the summits beckon if the weather cooperates.’” He asked her what it meant and she translated; it meant you could still go mountain-climbing in the late fall if the weather was good. She bent over him and he said, “You smell of onions.”
    Alone in the kitchen, the woman approached the garbage pail. She was holding the child’s plate, which still had some food on it, and she had her foot on the pedal of the pail, so that the lid was already raised. Still bent over, she forked a few morsels into her mouth, chewed them, and tossed what was left into the pail. Then for a time she remained motionless in the same posture.
    That night, lying on her back in bed, she opened her eyes wide. There was no sound to be heard but her breath against the bedclothes and a suspicion of her pounding heart. She went to the window and opened it, but the silence only gave way to a soft murmur. She carried her blanket into the child’s room and lay down on the floor beside his bed.

    One morning some days later the woman sat typing in the living room. In an undertone she read what she had written: “‘I am finally in a position to consider your repeated offers of translation from the French. Please let me know of your conditions. At the moment I should prefer nonfiction. I have a pleasant memory of my days in your office’”—to herself, she added “in spite of the sprained wrists I was always getting from typing all day” —“‘and look forward to hearing from you.’”
    She threw the letter in the mailbox beside the phone booth at the edge of the colony. When she turned away, Bruno was coming toward her. He seized her roughly by the arm, then looked around to see if anyone was watching. Up the road an elderly couple equipped for hiking—knickers, knapsacks, and walking sticks—had turned around. Bruno pushed the woman into the phone booth. Then suddenly he apologized.
    He gave her a long look. “Do we have to go on with this game, Marianne? I, for one, am sick of it.”
    The woman replied, “Now, don’t start talking about the child.”
    He struck out, but the phone booth was too cramped, and he didn’t really hit her. He raised his hands as though to bury his face in them, but let them drop. He said,
“Franziska thinks you don’t know what you’re doing. She says you have no inkling of the historical conditions that determine your conduct.” He laughed. “Do you know what she says you are? A private mystic. She’s right. You are a mystic. Damn it, you’re sick. I told Franziska a bit of electroshock would straighten you out.”
    After a long silence the woman said, “Of course you can come and see us whenever you like—on weekends, for instance—and take