Benjamin's Gift by Michael Golding

Author:Michael Golding [GOLDING, MICHAEL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446930178
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

a trick of memory

SOMETIMES, between the pot roasts and the secret maneuvers, amid the growing fear and the deepening sense of danger, Benjamin's old life would rise up over him. As he climbed the stairs of the house on the Groenburgwal, he would see the white marble banister of the stairs of the Fifth Avenue mansion. As he lowered his spoon into his earthenware bowl, he would see the glint of silver or the thin blue line that ran about the rim of the Sevres. What surprised him, however, was not so much the apparition of these objects, but the torrent of feeling that came with them. For beneath the braided drapery sash and the crystal chandelier was neither the woman he had made love with nor the man who had betrayed him, but those two magnificent, larger-than-life figures from his childhood.

It was a trick of memory, a game played in the mind to draw him back to what he did not wish to think of. And it functioned most cruelly when it conjured up Lorna O'Shaughnassy. Her face would suddenly appear at his window as he gazed out over the rooftops. Her body would materialize in the narrow bed beside him, a ghost that evaporated even as he reached out to hold it.

Benjamin was always aware that he could have reached for Sara-Hilda, the quirky reality that countered the ghostly visions, the live heart beating inches away that mocked the false, elusive one formed by memory. She still beamed at him with her lopsided smile, still followed him around with her penitent look of devotion, and she still wore the replica of his birthmark on her cheek, though that cheek was less girlish now, as her body was more like a woman's.

Sara-Hilda was now sixteen years old. And what had seemed odd and sweet only a brief year earlier was suddenly strangely alluring. Whenever Benjamin considered moving toward her, however, the clock or the chair or the desk would intercede and trip up his path with memories.

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