The Hunger Moon Read Online Free

to slice one box decisively down the center of its strip of clear packing tape and see what was inside.
    The memories of her Belmont house that were attached to the familiar objects were almost overpowering. Oddly, she had not thought much about the house on Rosewood Avenue since the dayshe had met with her broker to convert the check from its sale into various neat certificates and folders and slim bank books. She had thought she would miss the house more than she did, had imagined dreaming for months about its many rooms and hallways, but in fact she had not had one dream about the house. Any dream that she now woke up remembering was strangely place-less, or the place was free of walls and ceilings, like a great field or stretch of sand.
    Inside the box were white tissue-wrapped bundles, Eleanor’s handiwork. She wouldn’t let any of her children help her pack, knowing they would place things haphazardly inside, mixing up rooms, using insufficient paper for padding, forgetting to label the outside. This box was marked L IVING ROOM: MEMENTOS AND OBJECTS. Such labeling had allowed her to unpack the necessary items when she first moved in, and set up a functional, if spartan, household. She had put away items from K ITCHEN: FLATWARE, EVERYDAY DISHES, COFFEE AND BASIC COOKING, DISHTOWELS; B ATHROOM: TOWELS AND TOILETRIES; and B EDROOM: SHEETS AND BEDDING . She had hung the clothes packed in suitcases, but not opened the cartons labeled C LOTHING: SUMMER; C LOTHING: RESORT; C LOTHING: ACCESSORIES; or any of the other seasons or categories. In fact, she had found that she did very well living in a few pairs of stretch pants, loafers, and half a dozen sweaters and cotton jerseys, with one heavier coat hanging alone in her hall closet. But it was November now, and she should probably at least get at C LOTHING: WINTER OUTERWEAR and, maybe, if she felt up to it, C LOTHING: PARTY . She would probably be going out to a concert or an eggnog party, as well as her daughter’s annual Christmas Day dinner.
    Gingerly, Eleanor unwrapped the first bundle. It was a clay figurine of a peasant woman she had bought in Mexico a few years ago. She placed it on her bookshelf and turned to the next bundle: a painting on linen from India. She placed it on the carpet to wait for hammer and nail for hanging. Gradually the wrinkled sheets of tissue paper formed a pile beside her and the souvenirs of her travelsassumed their accustomed places on her shelves and tables. Eleanor sat back on her heels and surveyed the room. The apartment was starkly white, with a sliding glass door to the deck and wall-to-wall slate-gray carpeting. Her exotic dolls, ornamental paperweights, rice-paper fans, brass animal statuettes, and porcelain plates suddenly annoyed her. Their placement around the living room had been too automatic: the doll from Kenya by the lamp, the Japanese tea set arranged in a semicircle on the top shelf of the bookcase. And yet, for all their familiarity, the objects were alien clutter in this room. What had accumulated naturally in her house over the years now seemed a grotesque and ridiculous assortment. Eleanor began to rewrap the objects, packing the box as full and snug as it had been before. She found a roll of packing tape and sealed it shut.
    The walls were bare, the bookshelves bare. This disturbed her children, but Eleanor had grown used to the spare lines and empty space. The hollow feeling pleased her. What was jarring was the gathering of junk on top of the boxes, and the bulky presence of the boxes themselves, neatly stacked as they were. She tested the weight of L IVING ROOM : MEMENTOS AND OBJECTS , and found she could lift it. Bending at the knees, she hefted the box and walked it into the spare room. Laboriously she collected all the boxes from the rooms where the movers had placed them and transferred them to the empty second bedroom. The boxes she couldn’t lift she pushed along the carpet. Finally she collected all the