Zel
Page 15
And so, once more, the man headed out into the world with no companions but a bird and a horse. He traveled in an ever-widening spiral, relentlessly.
Konrad’s nights are now filled with dreams of a young woman, mysterious and passionate, with words that would drift. She talks to him and listens to him. She kisses him and gathers his kisses. She knows his heart and he knows hers. He wakes every morning refreshed.
Last night a goose honked overhead. Konrad went to sleep and dreamed of Zel’s hands on their only night together, moving through the air as if self-propelled, as if they didn’t belong to her at all. He felt her gossamer texture.
The day is hot and getting hotter. He doesn’t urge Meta to a gallop. They take the road as it comes. His ears gather all.
* * *
In the morning the twin girls tug at the woman. “Bird, Maman. Bird.”
Zel’s heart flutters. She looks out the back window at the goose. The nest is complete, and the goose is busy rolling the painted stones into it. Only three are already in place. It will be a long day for the goose. The tears in Zel’s eyes, those tears that almost fell on Mother, well up. But they do not fall. Zel is almost happy.
Zel dresses the girls. They eat. Then they go outside together and sit in the road and wait. The girls talk and giggle.
* * *
I listen to the world. I have no powers anymore. I hear as though through a man’s ears.
* * *
Because Konrad’s ears are not filled with the noise of rapid hoofbeats, or perhaps because he remembers the goose honk last night, or maybe because it is simply time at last, he hears the children’s laughter even before Zel sees him. And there is something in their shrieks of glee he recognizes. Something of a boy he used to know. Something of a girl he used to know. He laughs out loud.
* * *
Zel takes Hélène by one hand, Eve by the other. She walks up the road toward the horse that is Meta. Her feet move more swiftly toward the bird that is Pigeon Pigeon. And now she lets the children’s hands go free, for she runs toward the man who is Konrad, the man who dismounts and holds his arms open and runs toward her, surefooted in blindness.
* * *
I touch the world. I have no powers anymore. I feel as though with a lover’s heart.
* * *
Konrad’s heart beats slow in this moment, for there is no rush. Now, finally, he has found her, and he has found his children, and there is no rush, for they have all eternity to love one another.
* * *
And she is kissing him and he is kissing her and the tears she has held back for five years, the tears that I knew could transform the moment, the tears that had to be saved for the right moment to transform, now come streaming down and drop on the face of the man whose head is cradled in the woman’s arms. Zel’s tears fall in Konrad’s eyes, hot and salty and full of life. He blinks them in, absorbs them; they are now his own tears, and, yes, he can see.
And they see each other and, yes, oh, yes, we are happy.
DONNA JO NAPOLI teaches linguistics and is the author of several novels for middle graders and young adults, including The Bravest Thing; The Prince of the Pond; Jimmy, the Pickpocket of the Palace; When the Water Closes Over My Head; The Magic Circle (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults); and, most recently, Stones in Water. She lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, with her family.
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