The animal looks at me with her sensitive feline eyes.
— OK, be good to the pussycat, I say with mixed feelings and little conviction, as I kneel down beside the scruffy cat with my child. Let’s give pussy something to eat, I say, reaching into the shopping bag for some appropriate cat food.
— Come on, I then say to my daughter, I’ll show you the distinction between good and bad.
I go back into the church and place her on a high chair in the semidarkness so that she can see the pictures high up. I can’t see her expression, but I know she is focused on the sculptures with serious and concentrated eyes, that she understands that at the top of every pillar there is a representation of the final conflict between good and evil, the fight between angels and demons, guilt and innocence, it’s all there clearly carved in stone: horns and hooves, halos, cowering faces, and benign expressions.
— Do you understand now, child, the evils of the world and man?
At first she clenches fistfuls of hair in both of her baby hands, then she slides her small palms over my forehead and holds them over my eyes a moment. She has a grip on my ears now, and finally I feel her patting my cheeks, first one and then she caresses the other.
When we get home and I’m folding the carriage, and my daughter is sitting at the bottom of the stairs, I notice that there are two women waiting for us on the landing, our elderly neighbor with a visiting friend, a woman of the same age. Her friend has asthma and wants to meet my daughter because she’s heard my neighbor talk so much about her. She’s told her the story of the vanishing eczema and now the friend wants to see the child. I’m given no peace. I’d rather Anna didn’t find out about the interest strangers are showing in her daughter and that people are slipping me jars of jam and dried spicy sausage every time I take her out.
— Were you buying cat food? my child’s mother asks me when I come home and she pulls three cans out of the shopping bag.
Sixty
I’m trying to figure out what makes a woman tick and come to the conclusion that Anna’s emotional life is considerably more complex and varied than that of the guys I know. She sometimes looks worried, but the thing that puzzles me the most is how distant she can seem, as if she isn’t actually here, as if she is tackling several problems at once. Even though she might only be sitting forty centimeters away from me, on the other side of the table, so close in fact that if we were a couple I would be able to kiss her without having to move, it’s as if she doesn’t notice me.
Apart from that she’s considerate and warm and often smiles at me and praises me every evening for my cooking, and it’s not as if she doesn’t put her books down when I’m talking to her. She seems happy to see us when my daughter and I come through the door, but then after a short while she sinks back into her books again.
She does sometimes look at me when I’m playing with the child, although I’m not sure whether she’s looking at me as much as I’m looking at her. She’s probably examining me with my daughter from a genetic point of view. I have my suspicion confirmed when I turn the loaf of bread around on the carving board.
— Are you left-handed? she asks, looking at me with interested aquamarine eyes.
Because we’re temporarily living under the same roof and it’s a small apartment, we sometimes have to squeeze past each other, so we occasionally accidentally touch. I’ve also deliberately stroked her once and twice. I think of the body just as much as before, but try to limit it to those hours when Anna is not around, like when I’m working in the garden. I’m so afraid that my thoughts will become externally visible. Anna might be one of those women who can see images of people’s thoughts before they’ve even thought them themselves, hovering over their heads in frilly steam bubbles. Mom was like that, could read my thoughts. I certainly want to have Anna as a friend, but the fact that she’s a woman and we have a child together undeniably complicates things. When we’re in the same room, the mother of my child and I, I feel I’m constantly losing the thread of our conversations. Especially if she’s just out of the shower with wet hair or has slipped a hairpin in it to keep it off her face. It isn’t until I’m under the covers, alone with my soul, and the girls are asleep in the next room that I feel I can allow myself to think of the body; it reminds me yet once more that I’m alive. I’ll admit that I have entertained the possibility that something might spark off between Anna and me, something other than a new life, I mean. The thing that saves me from the narrow alley of physical yearnings is the open kitchen window. From the pillow, my direct line of vision through the darkness outside leads to the insurmountable monastery wall, behind which, on the side of the slumbering vineyard, are my rose beds, which I must water tomorrow. I’m the only man who knows about a certain type of resilient rose out there in the darkness under the yellow moon.
Sixty-one
The child is developing incredibly fast. Every moment spent together, every morning while the mother of my child is immersed in some new genetic pool at the library, is a time when great strides are made and stupendous victories are won. When Anna comes home the achievements of the day are replayed. It’s something to look forward to all morning, that’s what the game is all about, being able to experience her wonderment and enchantment and receive confirmation that something important has taken place here while she was at the library, that I’ve been witness to a wonderful miracle which will now be repeated.
The heir to my greenhouse is standing on the floor in her stockings and holding onto the double bed with both hands. I’m looking for her sweater on the other side of the room when I notice a concentrated expression on her face as she first unclenches her minute fingers and lets go of one hand and then the other, carefully and yet, at the same time, strangely secure. Then she stands still for several moments, unsupported on the floor in front of the bed, her tummy out, before she sets off, boldly and confidently into the unknown, for a total of three steps. She holds her arms in the air to keep her balance; there are dimples on her knees.
When Anna gets home, I grab our daughter from the floor where she is sitting piling up letter cubes, tearing her away from a half-finished Tower of Babel, and stand her in the middle of the floor, like a strolling player in the middle of a square premiering a divine comedy. First I hold both her hands and then gradually release my grip, one finger at a time. Initially she stands there in the middle of the kitchen floor with an incredibly concentrated air, and then the miracle occurs; she shifts all her body weight onto one leg so that she can lift the other one off the floor and quickly turns it into a step forward. Then she repeats the process with the other leg and takes a total of four steps forward with growing confidence, by swinging her hips like a little robot. Her mother kneels to catch her and lifts her up in a tight embrace and cuddles her. I watch her hugging the child; that’s made my day, at least. I calmly wait for the mother of my offspring to express her amazement at the day’s achievements. I don’t have to wait long for a reaction.
— That’s incredible, she’s started to walk. You’ve taught her so many things, to sing loads of songs, to whistle, to put a twenty-piece jigsaw puzzle together, and now to walk.
She’s still tightly hugging the child. Although I’m touched by Anna’s joy, it’s like she’s in some kind of slight emotional over-drive. She seems agitated.