Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

oblivion

with white whiskers of mold, turned back a layer of wet, sticky straw, and then a layer of rotted currant leaves. The barrel was ful l of pickled apples of a silvery moonlit yellow, their infant- like wrinkles making them look like newborn planets; I stepped back, the vat of apples emitted a dull light, the glow of a long-past summer; the light dissolved the swamp darkness that I had dragged into the building, and delicately, tenderly lit the edge of her face, and I saw that my hostess was much older than I first thought; morning—the morning had come and for a second I thought I was a traveler who found shelter with a hermit goddess guarding the apple planets, keeping them far from people, and if she were to give me an apple I would become someone I never

even thought I could be. The apples did not promise strength or eternal youth— but only a happy passion for life; they smelled of hops without the crudeness of hops, clean, sharp, fresh, and my lips were anticipating their cool, sparkling, acidic flavor. I told the old men that I would not chop down the trees and promised to gather drif twood by the river; then they said, cut our hair, and the fisherman handed me scissors, just like the ones on the wall at the dacha when Grandfather II suggested cutting off all my hair; darkened, charcoal colored, and ancient—you could tell from the shape of the scissors, which made me think people in the past cut fabric differently, touched objects di f ferently, saw differently.

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