explain without seeing her? I was convinced that as I walked, my shoes were erasing her footprints, that we were passing through the same hallways at different times, that when I least expected it we’d run into each other at the corner. But when? Maybe, without my knowing it, our voices mixed together during the morning assembly hymn. Maybe we were breathing the same air. Maybe we bought the same snack at the stand, we ate from the same pack of cheese, the same baloney. I questioned the street vendor, the recess monitor, the guard. They didn’t remember any student with sparse hair or black eyes with enormous pupils. Time was running out: summer was storming in, closing the school for vacation. Two hot months shut in behind the window on the second floor. Nobody to play with, the freshly ironed sack folded over the chair, waiting for the race. The crashing of knees to the ground. The tumbles onto the cement. And Auntie constantly nagging: I should go out in the courtyard and take advantage of the cool morning air and the birds, I should venture out on the street, see if I could get some color, pale as I was. I needed to move around, get some exercise. I was withering. But I kept guard at the windowsill while the milk cooled in the glass and the jam on the bread collected flies, and my breakfast went bad. It all went bad: I couldn’t open my mouth. Auntie would collect the untouched plates and grumble off to wash them. I languished there staring blankly through the trees of the neighboring yard, down the nearby streets. My body felt full of air, of emptiness. Nothing more than a sour taste in my mouth, the plaque accumulating on my teeth. My head spun round at every little noise, I felt her hand touch my elbow, her nail between my ribs demanding explanations. When would the summer end? The bell began to ring while I was still a block away. I sped toward the other students already neatly lined up on the side of the assembly, and I pulled up behind the last one, breathless. All the girls had their hair long, pulled up high, all restless filly-tails, waiting for the start. We took in the headmistress’s words of welcome in silence. Some girls turned to me and, mockingly, sucked in their cheeks to imitate how extremely thin I was. I shrugged off their teasing, and went on shining my shoes on the back of my calves as I carefully studied each head. I had not forgotten the shorn roundness, or her green scent; I knew it was only a matter of time till I once again felt a cool breeze carrying on it the smell of wet, rotting gardens. * TLR
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