The Ghosts of Rose Hill by R. M. Romero

Author:R. M. Romero [Romero, R. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2022-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

Benjamin must not know

I followed him and Pearl through Old Town;

he is all smiles

when he greets me in the cemetery

on Sunday.

I want you to meet the boys

I’ve known for so long

they’re almost my little brothers, Benjamin says.

Will you let me take you to them?

I laugh my yes.

What was I so afraid of on Friday?

Benjamin must be happy

in the black house,

even if his existence

isn’t perfect,

even if Wassermann is stricter

than he might like.

My parents are the same way.

I let Benjamin lead me

through the garden, hungry

(always hungry now)

to be part of his

(after)

life.

I fly down the road,

the concrete

sizzling, popping

under the wheels of Aunt’s Žofie’s

mint-colored bicycle.

The black violin is in the basket;

its strings

try to sing

as it rattles in its case.

Benjamin sits behind me

and for the first time,

I can feel

his wrist digging into my hip,

the swell of his belly

fitting into the small of my back.

Am I imagining things?

Have I remembered Benjamin to life?

Or has the blue-eyed boy himself

recalled:

how to be made of breath and bone,

how to fit an arm around a girl’s waist,

how to be part of a city

that moved on without him

in the summer heat?

I don’t know.

But maybe one day,

Benjamin will fool time itself

and it will allow him

back into Prague,

solid enough

for me to wrap myself

around properly.

Steadying my heartbeat,

I follow the map

Benjamin murmurs

in my ear.

We pass under Charles Bridge

and into another park

beside the river.

Two

(dead)

children stand

in the shadow of a tree

so old

it could be the same one

Queen Libuše sat beneath

when she met her husband,

the plowman

who would be king.

I wave

at Benjamin’s near-brothers.

Their eyes

(deep and brown

as spring earth)

widen.

These children are much younger

than the boy I can

(nearly)

call mine;

they’re only nine

or ten.

They’re dimmer than Benjamin is,

winking in and out

like stars

as I stare at them.

But their clothes

remind me of his:

crisp white shirts,

dark trousers,

their socks rumpled,

their kipot lopsided.

Did the twins

plan every wrinkle

in their slacks to match?

Did they intend to be

such perfect mirrors?

Or were they born this way

in the twentieth century’s early days?

In Miami,

I would have been so jealous of these boys.

I’d never had a friend so close

that I couldn’t tell

where he began

and I ended

until Benjamin.

Maybe he and I

are supposed to be twins.

Maybe we were,

in some other life.

Maybe our souls

were hidden away

inside birds

or fauns

to keep us safe

from a witch,

a viper,

a plague.

Maybe we walked

the streets of a different city,

in another time and place,

together,

just like we do now.

I’m Lior, says the first boy.

And my brother

is Issur.

Lior bounces,

his soul

a shiny red balloon

ready to float away

into the July skyline.

But the roses growing

under his rumpled collar

are in a sad state,

just like Pearl’s.

They contain

only a hint of sunshine yellow.

Onkel Wassermann

told us all about you.

He says

you’re going to be our friend.

Is that true?

Issur’s words have gravity,

a heaviness

that his twin’s do not.

Of course, I promise.

Any friend of Benjamin’s

is a friend of mine.

Issur and Lior

form the ends

of each other’s sentences,

a ring of never-ending boyhood

and all the light that comes with it.

But girlhood is different.

It comes with pain—

the bite of my ruby slippers

against the backs of my ankles,

the hard snap of rhinestone nails

on the summit of my kneecap,

my scalp prickling

as I bleached my hair

when I was fourteen.

Pain like that turns pleasant;

you start thinking of it

as an accomplishment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.