Burial Rites

My forehead aches from the tightness of my plaits, and I suddenly long to untie them, to walk about with my hair unbraided, to lie on my back in the sun.

And creatures should be loved for their wisdom if they cannot be loved for kindness.

Natan. He knew me as one knows the seasons, knows the tide. Knew me like the smell of smoke, knew what I was, and what I wanted.

But any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel.

those hidden bruises suggested something more – an end to the stifling ordinariness of existence.

And though the snow smothered the valley and the milk froze in the dairy, my soul thawed.

‘Do I remember?’ she repeated, a little louder. ‘I wish I could forget it.’ She unhooked her index finger from the thread of wool and brought it to her forehead. ‘In here,’ she said, ‘I can turn to that day as though it were a page in a book. It’s written so deeply upon my mind I can almost taste the ink.’

Memories shift like loose snow in a wind, or are a chorale of ghosts all talking over one another. There is only ever a sense that what is real to me is not real to others, and to share a memory with someone is to risk sullying my belief in what has truly happened.

Rósa’s poetry kindled the shavings of my soul, and lit me up from within. Natan never stopped loving her. How could he? Her poetry made lamps out of people.