Wolfskin by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2024-07-05T02:18:10+00:00

It was a summer evening, after the siesta. Maybe it was already nighttime? The four of us in our grandparents’ living room. Our summer home for all those years. Not ours, exactly, we didn’t own it, but it belonged to our grandparents and they were the axis around which our lives turned. Our grandparents radiated a certain something—an amalgam of play and obligation, love and household logistics—that gathered their tribe close, pulled us into their orbit to be projected through them. Maternal grandparents, the most natural and potent symbol of a family’s love. The four of us were in the living room, spread out across armchairs and sofas covered in a fake satin that was always slipping off. There were no grown-ups. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles, no mothers or fathers. Just the two boys, and us. That there were no grown-ups is a manner of speaking, because the oldest boy was quite old by then. I don’t remember his exact age, but I suppose I could guess. It doesn’t matter. He was big, tall, really tall, dark-skinned, with a sort of long, bulbous face. A teenager, all grown up. I don’t remember what we were playing, probably nothing. Was it late in the evening? Was it already night? There was a sort of peace among us, a result of the condescension that arose whenever they deigned to share time and space with us by choice. I think the younger brother, also older than us, was sitting on the floor, leaning against the low table like he was leaning on a bar, the same indolence, the same watchful tension. That half-smile on his face with its hard, straight features. He was fairer-skinned, though his hair was darker. I suppose I was hanging around somewhere, excited by the truce, this peacetime. Waiting for action too, waiting for them to carry us away, since they held the reins. The time had come for them to love us, which wasn’t always the case. Now we had to let them love us, play with us. The four of us were all there and everything was fine. They’re our family, they’ll protect us, teach us about life, now that they aren’t shouting and teasing. The oldest, almost a man, picked my sister up. My sister, that skinny little animal with straight black hair, hair like a waterfall, like silk. My sister, who must have weighed no more than thirty pounds. What’s thirty pounds to a teenager? How old would she have been? Three, four? The oldest picked her up, his little cousin, his toy. I watched from below. My sister was a doll in the arms of a giant, who lifted her affectionately in the air. The little brother watched from his sharpshooter’s position. He might as well have had a toothpick in his mouth or been wearing a cowboy hat; he liked destroying toothpicks with his sharp, pointy teeth. My sister’s little arms and legs—have I said this before?—were very thin. She had been so small.

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