Little Nothing Read Online Free

plumbing problem in need of a fix.
    â€”
    B UT LIKE A RAT or icy wind, love creeps in. When winter comes, and there are no vegetables to pull, and the life of the village turns hushed and isolated, Agáta comes to Pavla’s crib more often and lifts her up, even when she has been cleaned and fed and still smells of—yes, lately, she cannot resist—roses.
    â€œWho are you?” Agáta says, holding Pavla so that they are face-to-face. She is finally curious about this strange being who she has brought into the world and whose musical sounds, those triplet thirds that move up and down the scale, and whose beginning words, despite their rubbery incoherence, quicken her heart. If the child could speak she would say, “I am Pavla,” for that is all she knows about herself at this point having not been subject to the fantasies of a besotted mother spinning her baby’s extravagant future of whirlwind romance, loyal children, and wealth. During the next months, as the cast-iron lid of sky hovers over the land, and as villagers are less eager to go outside to throw chicken bones where they belong, when the logic of “If I ate this piece of paper/bit of twine/pig’s knuckle, it would come out the other end anyway” holds sway against the ice that seeps through the soles of boots and the bitter air that slices cracks into the lipsand hands on a journey to the compost heap, Václav’s plumbing business picks up. As soon as he leaves the house each morning, Agáta opens the standing wardrobe, pulls up a chair, and with her daughter on her lap, gazes into the mirror that hangs inside the door. The reflective glass has browned and crackled around the edges so that only in its center does it allow for a true, if fuzzy, reflection. The two study each other. What Pavla sees: a woman whose occasional smile sneaks out only to be snatched back, as if Agáta recognizes her error.
    And what does Agáta see?
    She tells a story:
    â€œA mother had her baby stolen from his cradle by a wolf, and in his place lay a changeling, a little monster with a great thick head and staring eyes who did nothing but eat and drink. In distress she went to a neighbor and asked her advice. The neighbor told her to take the changeling into the kitchen, lay him on the hearth, and make a fire. Then she should take two eggshells and boil some water in them. That would make the changeling laugh, and as soon as he laughed, it would be all up with him. The woman did everything just as the neighbor said. And when she put the eggshells on the fire to boil, the blockhead sang out:
“I’m as old as the Westerwald but I’ve never seen anyone try to boil water in an eggshell!”
And he roared with laughter. As soon as he did that, a pack of wolves appeared carrying the rightful child. They set him on the hearth and took the changeling away, and the woman never saw them again.”
    When she finishes, Agáta looks at her daughter in the mirror. Certainly she must be a replacement for the child Agátaexpected. But then again, Pavla was taken away to Judita’s milking house, and now has returned to take her rightful place in her crib. Agáta tries to ignore a pall of self-doubt. Holding her daughter against her breast, she feels Pavla’s tiny heart pulsing against her wing-like backbones. Her daughter relaxes in her arms and grows heavy with sleep, and Agáta feels the pride all mothers feel when they have successfully ushered their children into the land of gentle dreaming. She holds her girl close and, she can’t help it, she sings the song her mother sang to her so very long ago:
Good night, my dear, good night. May God himself watch over you. Good night, sleep well. May you dream sweet dreams!
    Should she be allowed to invoke God? Wasn’t it against God that she took the gypsy’s remedies? Wasn’t it He who paid her back for her pagan infidelity? Would God now, after all this,