True Read Online Free Page A

mother all the time the way that you comfort a child after a bad dream, but she can’t find the words. Maria has diligence, practical gestures, and uncomplicated words. Anna is helpless in comforting, all she has are her clumsy arms, outstretched, stopped halfway.
    SHE’S WALKED HERE from her apartment on Albertinkatu, stopped in at Stockmann’s to buy a gift for Grandma. It is a bright day. A hot dog wrapper on the corner, a seagull, a yogurt container, the usual cars. The day is silver and there is sunshine and the garbageman’s shout across the street, the wide expanse of May.
    Anna rings the doorbell and hears footsteps. Grandpa.
    â€œWell, if it isn’t Anna. Nice of you to come. Just had our coffee and now Grandma’s resting a bit.”
    Grandpa uses these tossed-off sentences to cover the embarrassment of just the two of them in the entryway.
    Anna is alert. There’s a jitter of restlessness inside her.
    â€œResting? Any pain?”
    â€œMaybe a little. A little fatigue.”
    â€œIs she asleep?”
    â€œSleeping, dozing, you know.”
    Grandpa is familiar. This man—this visionary, as one magazine called him. To have all his success, honors, and respect, to carry his affection, his humor and melancholy, the shapeless wounds of boyhood, through the years to this moment, to go through exhibition openings and restless years in Paris and prizes and nominations and come to this, this doorway, saying hello to his daughter’s daughter and trying to think of something to say. The years have layered over him, each stage of life, each spring. Anna can see them all.
    Suddenly she remembers one of his charmer’s looks, which have always seemed strange to her but still firmly belonging to her grandfather. She was twelve years old, wearing a skirt and dress-up shoes to go see him receive one of his many awards. At the end of the ceremony he threw his bouquet into the audience, smiling at the idea just before he did it. A woman journalist caught it, and he winked at her. The woman blushed and gave a curtsy. He lifted his eyebrows as if to say, Why are you curtsying? That’s a gesture of humility. You can do better than that! The woman raised her own eyebrows questioningly. What? What should I do? He spread his arms. Anything you can think of! And the woman did an almost perfect pirouette, like a dancer, and then took a bow. He was satisfied with that, and blew a kiss to her. And then the whole play was over as quickly as it had begun.
    Relationships between people are like dense forests. Or maybe it’s the people themselves who are forests, trail after trail opening up within them, trails that are kept hidden from others, opening only by chance to those who happen upon them.
    Anna remembers days at the park, the days in the studio when her grandfather was painting her. The portrait may have been the result of her mother’s persistent persuasion, but once he got going he was pleased with it. Well, then, he would say at the door, Shall we go? and he would reach out his hand and Anna would take hold of it with vague thoughts about men, happiness, virility, and maybe even love.
    Her grandfather’s hand was sinewy and strong with dark hair growing on it. He smelled of aftershave and oily rags and a hint of turpentine.
    After some time painting, they would go to the park, and Anna got to choose her ice cream. They would watch newlywed couples, guessing what their names might be. Seija and Mikko? Amalia and Juhana?
    Were you a boy once? Anna asked.
    Yes, her grandfather answered.
    Before Grandma?
    Before Grandma.
    And when you met her, you became a man.
    Yeah, pretty much. That’s when I became a man.
    You fell in love with Grandma.
    Yes, I did.
    Were there any others before her?
    A few.
    What about after?
    That’s a silly question.
    Were there any?
    There was one.
    Who was it?
    The most wonderful girl in the world. Her name was Anna. The kind of girl you take