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was done a good turn. She gave, and she was given. The
money made her life easier, but that was not the main
thing. Once, when she returned to the roadside after a
short illness, the girls told her that many men had asked for
her. They had driven away unsatisfied. That was the main
thing. Someone was yearning for her low, thick-set lap,
therein to unburden a heart and to fuck her. God had
provided meaning for her life, for which she often thanked
him. Also for her bathtub, her room and her kitchen, and
her small garden, which she had succeeded in buying from
its proprietors.
Today is the sort of day when one should abandon the
highway and go into the woods. It’s the right time for
cranberries and mushrooms are growing like mad. The girls
too are late, one is at home with her child, one is sleeping
off yesterday’s drinking binge, one has the shakes …
Naģe has already got up to go, when a truck puts on its
brakes at the bench. She doesn’t know this man. A
premonition sends shivers through her heart, but the man
says he has heard about Naģe from a fellow truck-driver. It
sounds so believable, and the man has such a kind face. She
clambers into the car, and they drive off. He keeps silent
and now and then glances at her. Something about him
frightens Naģe. She asks where they are heading.
“Where do you want to go?”– asks the man, throwing a
totally vacant look at her.