Apartment in Athens by Glenway Wescott; David Leavitt

Author:Glenway Wescott; David Leavitt
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781590170816
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Published: 1945-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

11.

THOUGH ALEX HAD NOT DARED TO TURN AND ACKNOWLEDGE his father’s last instruction, he had heard it. To be quick about it, to run all the way to the doctor’s and back, his problem was what to do with Leda in the meantime, where to leave Leda. The street-corner would not do, the vacant lot where they played would not do. She shrank from passers-by, and when by herself, was apt to be panic-stricken if she had any sort of open space around her or distance stretching away before her. She preferred enclosures and hiding-places and shadows.

Then Alex remembered a quiet shadowy place, adjacent to their playground, where they sometimes took refuge in the middle of the day when it was hot; and where they went for their loneliest games on certain of Leda’s bad days when she did not care to play with other children, or other children did not care to play with her. It was in a portion of the masonry of a fallen building; an empty door-frame in a tumble-down wall with half a stairway up inside it and a little caved-in cellar underneath, which made a kind of nook. It was a place Leda liked.

He led her there by the hand and seated her in it, blinking and mystified; and he explained what he had to do and how soon he would come back to her. But twice she climbed out, and came running down the street after him, whimpering his name. Twice he re-seated her, and as it were hypnotizing her with the fiery eyes she loved, stamping his foot, and chattering at her like a worried little monkey or a vexed bird, tried to persuade her. Then he gave her a great stick to hold, to defend herself with, as he told her; and that seemed to reconcile her to being left. Her appearance in the odd niche of broken plaster and stone pleased him: her confused head crowned with her shaggy black locks, and the way she bore the stick formally before her like a scepter. Although his heart was heavy with his father’s peril and his mother’s illness, he gave a little laugh at her to show his admiration, and that pleased her.

Then he ran, and fortunately found the family physician’s daughter in his office; and she knew where he had gone, and promised to go after him and send him to the Helianos apartment before long.

Leda was waiting in the ruin when Alex returned to her, but not happy. Before he got over the fence and around the broken wall where he could see her, he heard her murmuring his name, “Alex, Alex, Alex.” She was standing up in the niche, facing into it with her forehead and her hands pressed against the plaster, the way sleepwalkers do when they have strayed into a corner or behind a door.

Then they returned to the apartment, and because their mother seemed extremely ill, Alex refrained from talking and Leda from weeping.

The doctor followed shortly, and although he did not have the requisite medicines, his visit did Mrs.

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.