233 292
233
ASTRAGAL
I
t was still early when they
called him. Not long after
lunch, as the day began to
turn. From his window he
had seen them sunning and
smoking on the terrace, and
the procession of children
pulling sleds, with the ski slope
thrust through black pines at
the rear. He had gone back to
his manuscript. But when they
found him he was stretched
on the bed in a milky doze. His
wife and daughter were in the
room shouting and shaking
him, asking him
Had he seen
her? Had he seen where she
had gone? Hadn’t he been
looking from the window
earlier?
For his granddaughter
had disappeared from the
playing area and they were
conducting a search. It had
happened, Magda sobbed,
before their very eyes.
He had not seen the girl, he
said. It was sharpening before
him, this scene. He looked at
the two women with their
fraught faces. It was true he
had watched over the terrace
and playing area before, and
he thought he had seen his
granddaughter’s blue hat.
But how could he be certain?
He stood and paced to the
window.
They were saying it had
happened so quickly. She
had been there one minute,
with her sled tramping up
the little rise, then gone the
next. The women spoke over
each other in a contrapuntal
way, almost a sing-song that
made his heart go ragged. The
girl had never socialised well,
his daughter said; there’d
been a kidnapping the other