The goat jumps to the side. Marja appears in her window.
“Who’s yelling at my goat?” she shouts.
I have the feeling that I’m seeing double. Just a second ago she was in the window and now she is storming out the door. She runs up to me and nearly crushes me in her embrace.
“Let go of me,” I scold. “You’re going to break all my bones. I’m not eighty-two anymore.”
“I knew they would release you,” she whispers. “I knew it all along.”
“How? I didn’t know.”
“You have to come to my place, the spiders have taken over yours.”
“First I have to have a look.” I turn my back to Marja and my face to my house. It is still my house, the spiders will understand.
“Eat something first!”
“Later,” I say. I walk over and put my hand on the door handle. A meow wafts out of the shed and a little kitty, gray like smoke, straggles out.
“Your cat had another litter,” shouts Marja. “One of them is missing an eye.”
“Don’t yell like that,” I say. “You’re not alone anymore.”
And then I push open the door and once again I am home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Russian-born Alina Bronsky is the author of Broken Glass Park (Europa, 2010); The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine (Europa, 2011), named a Best Book of 2011 by The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and Publishers Weekly; and Just Call Me Superhero (Europa, 2014). She lives in Berlin with her family.
Baba Dunja's Last Love Page 12