Lila Julius

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Seven days in December

 

i)

The heavy rains give pause to military operations.  I wait for the names of the dead, but the seriously injured, those who’ll spend weeks or months in hospital, will not be listed.

The picnic table’s slick with light; there’s a round mirror of sky in the bird bath, and even when the long arms of the rain stop pitting the road, the eaves have lost their rattle, still in the hush of birds is a hum like a quiet refrigerator; air wears the texture of homespun.

I have to believe that across the border sits another woman listening as the steady rain down falls, the patient rain in gray work clothes.

 

ii)

Up to the rafters, the kitchen fills with scent of crushed cloves, coriander.  If you’re already making soup, I tell my children, double the recipe, freeze half, give some away.  In winter you can never make too much.

From out of nowhere a daughter asks, “So how does it feel to know your kids are messing up?  Or maybe — it’s just living?”  “Of course it is,” I say, regaining breath.  “Everybody’s got their stuff to work through.”

I tell him about the conversation, and we wonder, What does she mean?  It’s not as if they’re still at home and we’re responsible.  Adult kids have adult problems.  Yet for all that, they hold us responsible, won’t know until they’re older, we did the best we could, had to fool ourselves into thinking it was good, or else we couldn’t have continued.

 

iii)

Across the narrow field on this gray day the yellow house next door looks warm and friendly, though it no longer holds my friend, warm and friendly, before the walls were painted.  Today I am lonely, imagine that everyone from time to time, even if they never left the house where they were born, feels like a foreigner.  Friendship has no borders.

From across the ocean I have a friend who helps me keep my balance.  My niece, before she died said, “I didn’t get it till too late—thought it’s about having a profession.”

 

iv)

Green creeps down the hillsides.  The sun on my back is welcome.  It plays with the beads in the ornamental palms; under its touch they flash amber and topaz.  Overhead the bees in the eucalyptus set up their sweat shops, the annual whirl of machines for the holiday season.

I check the streams. The first is moist as wet clay, yet not even an echo of water; past the apple orchard with its wide rows, the second brook is up and running.  It gurgles and bubbles with froth around the barriers.  There is moss.

I help snails cross the road, unconcerned which side they’re aiming for.  Grape vines march up and down the hills in military precision, their multi-coloured leaves, like bright berets tucked under khaki shoulder flaps.

 

v)

I tell him, “Do not let me cross the road alone today, or handle kitchen knives.  Something is out to get me.”  Sabotage.  I dredge up old ghosts, stuff their mouths with rags I’ve used to wipe the kitchen floor, I’ll show them, shake a finger, box their ears.

 

vi)

It is time to ready the Sabbath candle holders, remove the remnants of last week’s wicks.  He has taken this job for himself, protector of the house, our Sabbaths.  And he is right.  If you don’t protect your riches you will lose them. 

We used to store the candleholders in a cupboard, but now that it’s a constant run from shelf to table, we’ve stopped putting them away.

“The first twenty years of my life,” he said, “took twenty years, the second twenty took ten, the last, five.”  You can see what we’re up against.

Old silver with its mesh of fine lines glows with a flame that new silver, for all its bright-faced enthusiasm, can only guess at.

 

vii)

I take a day off from the violence.  Someone will deal with the horror, while I get on with my life.  Maybe horror is someone else’s job, while we sit on the side lines, watching, like a Greek chorus.  Some of us will do the fighting, some protest, some will suffer, while others build.  Taking turns, there’s more than enough for everyone.

 

It’s raining again, every ebony twig with its jeweled pendant.