The Same Sea Read Online Free Page A

stung.
And her parents were abroad and their flat was let, she had simply nowhere
to turn. It was no good his staring down at the floor:
the sight of her naked feet
sets his heart at odds with his body.
    Rico's room is yours from now on. It's empty
anyway. Here is the bedding. That's the air-conditioning. His wardrobe isn't
too tidy, but there's some room. I'll bring you a cold drink in a minute.
Lie down. Get some rest. We'll talk later. If you need me for anything
just say Albert and I'll be right there. Don't be shy. Or simply come
to my office. It's through there. I'll just be sitting finishing off some accounts.
You're no trouble at all. On the contrary: for some time now—
He stopped himself. Under the towel her hips made a whispering sound
and he was blushing as though he had been caught red-handed.

In the light-groping darkness
    A widowed father with an honest name
lies wide awake in the night consumed with shame:
a sleeping woman the cause of his pain.
    She's there alone—his eyes are open wide—
next door she's lying naked, on her side.
So young. A child. My daughter, my bride!
    He switches on the bedside light and blinks
at his son and wife on the sideboard. He thinks
for a while. Then pads to the kitchen and drinks.
    He sits down at his desk and begins to dream
heavy thoughts: his shadow stares back from the screen.
What a difficult summer, he types, this has been.
    From the garden outside where nothing has stirred
in the light-groping darkness, a single bird:
narimi narimi.
Yes, I heard.
    Restless he stands: how he longs to spread
a blanket on her, and stroke her head.
He stifles these feelings, and goes back to bed.
    He turns and tosses. Of sleep there's no sign.
He turns on the light and checks the time:
it's five o'clock here—so in Tibet it's nine.

In lieu of prayer
    Its nine in the morning now in Bhutan. Without the Dutchmen. On a bench
in a wood the youth sits wrapped in a blanket, absorbing
the mountain shadows among the mountains. A tranquil silence
envelops the view. How empty and strange the light here flows, light
longing for shade. Light shading itself. Wind in the grass. A deserted valley.
True peace shall surely come.

The woman Maria
    remembers him: the last of the boys.
His brow. His eyes. The groan as he came.
The touch of his arm and the spring of his seed. When the others had left
he came back and kissed the soles of her feet.

A feather
    After four troubled nights he went back to Bostros Street for a second visit
to the old Greek who called forth the dead. True, on his previous visit
all that his money had bought him was two glasses of water, one lukewarm
and the other cool and fresh. And a picture of a crucified Christ-child
looking as though the Crucifixion and the Resurrection had preceded
the raising of Lazarus and the other miracles. As he left he had seen a woman
going down the street who had looked a little like her from behind. This time
he would not give up. He would follow her to the ends of
    Mr. Stavros Evangelides, the eighty-year-old sorcerer, his bald head patterned
with brown stains, moles and sparse grey bristles, his Phoenician nose,
big and protruding, but his teeth were young, and his joyful, guileless
eyes, which seem to see only good, looked down at the visitor
from a sepia photograph in a tortoiseshell frame. In his place was a skinny
crow-like old woman with cracked leathery skin and an evil mouth. She
motioned him to sit, claimed her fee, counted the cash, went out, returned,
and handed him a glass containing a viscous liquid with a yellow taste.
While he drank she bent over him. Sweet and terrible the smell of her flesh
hit him, a smell of decay. She waited. Motionless. Her dress was embroidered.
Once or twice her beak opened wide, parched with thirst, closed then opened
a crack.
Narimi,
she cried harshly and flew away. In his bosom
one black feather remained.

Nirit's love
    Dubi Dombrov Productions Ltd. woke up at ten o'clock, sweaty and
thick-headed. He went for