She was wearing one of my pajama suits, and had the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed I wanted her again
for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still.
Well, really I couldn’t say,” I answered
We put the lid on, but I was told to unscrew it when you came, so that you could see her.”
While he was going up to the coffin I told him not to trouble. “Eh? What’s that?” he exclaimed. “You don’t want me to…?” “No,” I said.
He put back the screwdriver in his pocket and stared at me. I realized then that I shouldn’t have said, “No,” and it made me rather embarrassed. After eying me for some moments he asked:
“Why not?” But he didn’t sound reproachful; he simply wanted to know.
Also, it would have meant losing my Sunday-not to mention the trouble of going to the bus, getting my ticket, and spending two hours on the journey each way.
MOTHER died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure.
Soon after, the sky clouded over, and I thought a summer storm was coming. However, the clouds gradually lifted. All the same, they had left in the street a sort of threat of rain, which made it darker. I stayed watching the sky for quite a while.
Getting up was an effort, as I’d been really exhausted by the previous day’s experiences. While shaving, I wondered how to spend the morning, and decided that a swim would do me good. So I caught the streetcar that goes down to the harbor.
And I can remember the look of the church, the villagers in the street, the red geraniums on the graves, Pérez’s fainting fit-he crumpled up like a rag doll-the tawny-red earth pattering on Mother’s coffin, the bits of white roots mixed up with it; then more people, voices, the wait outside a café for the bus, the rumble of the engine, and my little thrill of pleasure when we entered the first brightly lit streets of Algiers, and I pictured myself going straight to bed and sleeping twelve hours at a stretch.
didn’t know exactly how old she was.
