Trafika Europe 12 - French Bon-Bons

Two Stories

They had already dug a hole. I volunteer to perform a duty. Picking up the shovel lying on the ground, I begin to help the man throw soil on the grave. At first I feel a secret satisfaction. Then my heart feels like bursting through my chest. The man stops; I turn my gaze to where he is looking. Two people are approaching: a young man in a tweed jacket and an old woman on his arm. It ’s her, Havin. The dead man’s ex-wife. How life’s weight and hardship has wiped the freshness off her face. It baffles me. Her whole life seems to be reflected in her eyes, shadowed by their long white lashes. I remembered her hair as pitch dark, all about the night. And now? The thin, ghostly strands showing on her drawn cheeks from underneath her scarf… What has God done to her?

She is like the memory of a dream. I visualize things that once could have happened but never did.

-God shouldn’t have let her be this way, says my inner voice. -He would have done me a big favor. Old thug! Come to your senses!

But still, all those years aren’t enough to suppress the

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