the room grew enormous
, filled with
whispers,
a conspiracy of
winking
eyes
opening up
among the flowers on the wall
.
He
pretended to
try
to throw himself
blindly forward
from the
darkness.
he calmed down
only when
the wallpaper
shed its
petals
.
27
Then
he would fall
into
his thoughts
. He would hold his breath and listen.
He did not wish to believe
the
absurd.
But at night
The demands were made more
loudly,
we heard him talk to God, as if begging
against
insistent claim
.
And we heard
tall and growing
28
anger, choking
words
. We heard
Father's groans
grown unfamiliar
.
It was a dialogue
swollen with
darkness
.
I heard my father's voice
. I heard the windows shake
29
in a
storm of sobs
.
My father was
wilting before our eyes.
in undertones,
pleading and begging
30
he tried to reconcile with
Mother
, Father
called her and
was almost overcome
31
During
this winter, my father
would spend hours
in corners
as if
searching for
Mother
and
emerge
covered with dust
and cobwebs, his eyes
froze
for long periods
32
.
he plunged deeper
beyond our understanding
and
with flushes on his
cheeks
did not notice us
anymore.
from the margin of
time
he used to disappear for many days
into some
corner
and
33
these disappearances ceased to make any
impressions on us,
we did not
count him
as one of us anymore
. Knot by knot
he loosened himself
.
as unremarked as the
gray heap
swept into a corner, waiting to be taken
.
34
The
earth was covered with a
tablecloth of
winter
.
the hours of darkness
hardened with
boredom
. One
cut them with blunt
knives
.
35
Father had stopped going out
could hardly bear it. Tears
transformed his face,
He grew more and
more remote
, worried and
absentminded
,
abstracted
.
the sad origin of these
eccentricities
had been
Mother
.
he always
36
could hardly bear it. Tears
transformed his face,
the
fall
was almost limitless.
My father would walk along
like a gardener
of
37
nothingness
,
outside
of
the surface of life
.
he
seemed to
scatter into fragments,
an enormous
featherless
dignity
,
38
an older
material
.
I could not resist
the impression, when looking at
my father
that
mother
became
real
to
39
him
.
embarrassed, he would join us in laughing
it off
.
he
was read to accept compete defeat,
-a broken
exile
.
40
Only now do I understand the
war against
boredom
,
the lost cause of
empty hours
,
of empty days and nights.
we felt