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By Root 239 0

helping Roman bathe at the rear of their house, soaping his shoulders, she might hear a splash that reached her from the distance of his world. If Roman desired her, if he returned tumescent and hungry, he would not even walk the few feet to their bed, she’d lie back on the kitchen table, her feet dangling, barely touching the floor, and he would crash himself into her, her hands gripping whatever edge of the table she could hold on to, half thrilled by him, their heads and shoulders under the swaying unlit lamp, the skin at her spine moving up and down against the wood, cushioned only by her open cotton dress. The boy would be hardly down to the river, and their coupling and mutual satisfaction would be over. Roman would put out his hand and she’d hold it with both of hers and he would pull her off the table into the air. He was an older, stronger man, nothing like the boy, and she saw his eyes lost in bitterness and frustration, in a fury about the state of their lives. He would fling a chair into the wall of curtain that divided their one room, and she knew it could just as easily have been her body that was thrown towards that dark corner. Once or twice she saw his personality in the musketeer, Porthos, and had even seen the possibility of Porthos in him, and that was her way of remaining faithful to all Roman believed in.

She was letting her hair grow longer. She felt tethered to their one-room farmhouse, and this was one small independence. She was rarely ever more than forty yards from the house, save when she went for her reading lessons or when Roman took her in the cart to the village.

The Dog

The boy was daydreaming by the window, enclosed by the deep sill, looking out. Gradually his eyes focussed into the distance, where there was a dog moving haphazardly. As it came closer he could see it was large and black. He mentioned to his mother, who was behind him, that the animal might be rabid, dangerous, and she came beside him and looked out for a moment and said, Perhaps. Don’t go out. No, he agreed.

They were about to have lunch. He went to the north window to see whether Roman and Marie-Neige happened to be outside. He saw no sign of them, and returned to the first window and sat close to the glass and watched the creature. It was still ranging about, not barking, just moving as if it had a curse within. It charged towards the porch of the house, saw the outline of the boy’s upper body in the window, and then retreated. It’s going away, he told his mother. Good. The animal was rubbing its snout on the ground, then looked up and charged, bounded onto the porch, and threw itself at the window. Its paws smashed the thin glass and its forefeet touched the boy, and splinters speared his eye. He stood there for a moment, then fell to the ground. He believed the dog was in the house and the pain meant his face was being eaten. He couldn’t scream. It was his mother who was screaming. She saw blood all over his face and shirt, and along the wall by the windowsill. The dog had pulled its paws back through the jagged glass and leapt back onto the dust in front of the porch.

She knelt by her son and touched his stiff body. The boy dared not move. She was screaming at him, assuming he had been bitten, but the boy made no noise, made no movement, and gradually she quieted down into frantic breathing. He couldn’t see, and his brain read that sound as the panting of the dog circling him.

Then his mother left him, and he was alone on the kitchen floor.

In spite of the presence of the dog somewhere in the vicinity, she ran up the hill and returned with Roman and the young wife. Now his mother lifted her son’s head and cradled it, and the girl stirred up a saline solution in a bowl and carefully washed away the loose blood, looking for the wound. There seemed to be no cut on his face at all. Finally she got to his left eye. There were two splinters of glass within it. He was staring up, unable to close that eyelid. Without pausing she plucked one of the jagged pieces out with her fingers, and his hand thrashed out.