Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

astragal

her waist, encircling it; consecrating himself to her mound. ‘It was not so terrible,’ she said. ‘In my way I felt loved by you.’ He listened toher surrendering her thoughts. For decades he had never troubled himself over her, and he knew the way he cared for her had been indistinct. In those middle years he had loved her with a bestial desire, she had been a raft to topple and grind to the floor. Then, for an age, he had ignored her body; it had grown florid and creased as it stood before him. They heard a sound from the other end of the valley. At first it was muffled, and might have been a low aeroplane, but soon enough they saw it was a helicopter approaching. The craft dropped steeply over the

He put on his jacket and they stood together. ‘I’ve had a couple of drinks,’ she said. ‘Are you ready for this?’ She walked stiffly over to the railing and spoke back to him. ‘I’d rather it were one of us, you know. I’ve been sitting upstairs thinking it should have been one of us. Either of us. You could go on without me.’ He thought of Magda’s body on the rocks, tugged out of icy water, her purple flesh and rolled eyes. It was true, the image was easier. He was ashamed. With Luna, the idea would not come to him and his mouth ran dry. ‘Do you remember how we were?’ Magda asked him. ‘You do, don’t you?’ He did. He remembered

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