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“Oh, please do. Thank you.” And she’d almost rush out, as if
she really had remembered some pressing errand.
Then a moment later you’d see her somewhere by the
fence, waiting for him. And the librarian would also see her
from the window. Or she’d ask the watchmen to let her in
to the site, and she’d wait there. She’d sometimes be
wandering around till evening, till nighttime if he didn’t
show up. When someone came by she’d slip behind a crane
or a backhoe, or behind a pile of bricks, some reels of cable,
a heap of crates or barrels or used tires, there were
mountains of stuff like that all over the main yard.
Wherever she could hide.
Why would she hide when everyone knew anyway? Exactly.
I wondered about that myself. Especially because I often
used to run into her myself on the site in the evening.
Though she hid from me too. Maybe that was the nature of
her love, that it was somehow at odds with the world. Or
maybe she wanted it to be that way.
In the end they got married. It was a strange wedding. It
wasn’t a civil one, but it also wasn’t in a church. Apparently
he’d so turned her head that she agreed to have the Priest
marry them. That’s right, the welder. She had wanted a
church wedding. He wouldn’t agree, because as he
explained to her, he could lose his job over it. As she knew,
he was on a foreign contract, and he needed the backing of
important people. He couldn’t even tell her who, it was an