The Glass Mountains by Cynthia Kadohata

Author:Cynthia Kadohata
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ereads.com
Published: 1994-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

3

The breeze from outside was a delight, touched with a sweet coolness I’d rarely felt in daytime air. Moor’s father groaned in his sleep. I thought of Maruk and Sian going through integration and couldn’t imagine how they could integrate without losing their minds from the tension that must press forever against their temples. To act like someone you were not might be an adventure for a while, but after time when you started really to become who you were not, what then? From then on, your life would be nothing but suffering.

The cool fresh breeze cleansed the air in the room. It started to make the room seem like someplace one might come to live rather than a place one came only to die. Moor’s father didn’t seem to notice. His face as he lay there was swathed in a bitter sleep, and because his mouth fell open bits of white-flecked drool fell down his cheek to the pillow. Now and then he made a sound like a dog growling, and I would not have been surprised to hear him bark. Here was a man, I believed, who had spent his life hating others, and I wondered why Moor loved him so. But as the afternoon passed and I watched that angry face that knew no peace, I came to see that there was little in the world more heartbreaking than the deathbed of one who has never been happy, or who has become bitter, or who has hated more than he has loved. So perhaps Moor’s heart was breaking for that reason. I also knew that between a parent and a child explanations existed for things that outsiders found inexplicable. There were no murders in Bakshami, but I knew that within families even in my sector there were reasons for love, and sometimes reasons for murder. Not excuses, just reasons. So Moor’s heart was breaking for some of those unfathomable reasons that exist between parent and child.

For now, the only way I could think to protect a strong young man who scarcely realized he needed protecting was to sit in his place at his sick father’s bedside. My back grew sore and the difficult breathing of Moor’s father started to oppress me. And in this way I learned something of what Moor’s life had been like for the past three years.

“What are you doing in here?” I hadn’t heard Moor enter. His voice sounded poised between surprise and annoyance.

“I heard your father fall and came to see him. Then I just sat here.”

He went to close the window. “It’s freezing in here.”

“So it is. My arms are full of bumps.”

His annoyance began to fade. Now he was just confused. “But why did you sit here in the cold like this?”

“I don’t know. It did occur to me once or twice that it was cold, but for some reason I couldn’t get up. I wanted to sit here as you did.”

Moor’s eyes softened now. “Let’s talk elsewhere,” he said gently.

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