The Rain Watcher_A Novel by Tatiana de Rosnay

Author:Tatiana de Rosnay [Rosnay, Tatiana de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B079DW43L6
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2018-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

FIVE

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Et nos amours

Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne

La joie venait toujours après la peine

—GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE, “LE PONT MIRABEAU”

There are many things about that day I’ve forgotten. But other things I see clearly, so clearly. We ate the picnic and she wiped crumbs from my lips with a napkin. She said I had lovely eyes. She said women would fall in love with me when I was grown up because my eyes were so blue. It made me blush, but it also made me happy. I felt for her all the love a four-year-old could muster, and the last thing I wanted was to grow up.

Those golden afternoons were the highlight of my summer. I put aside my grandfather’s death. I wasn’t worried about my mother having another baby. The only thing that counted was Suzanne. My afternoons with Suzanne.

We used to play hide-and-seek. We would go no farther than the last trees, our boundary. But the trees were planted close together and were so thickly leaved that the space beneath them was a green labyrinth you could easily get lost in. Behind which tree was Suzanne hiding? I could never tell. It was my favorite game. I was good at slipping out and flitting from trunk to trunk while she called for me. I was thrilled when she couldn’t find me and got anxious. I held my breath and waited, shivers of delight running up and down my spine while she shouted my name.

I waited until the last minute, until her voice became desperate, until I could tell she was really beginning to worry, and then I’d spring out like a jack-in-the-box, yelling at the top of my lungs. She would cry out with relief and come running to me.

The best part was when she hugged me with all her might, half-scolding me, and I felt her skin against mine and the caress of her hair.

The day it happened, I was the one hiding.

I chose the biggest tree, the ancient one in the middle, with the very thick trunk. I remember closing my eyes and hearing her count to twenty.

And then there was silence.

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.