Page 184 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

her brother’s? She stopped thinking about it. Silence was everywhere. She would
like to hear a voice, but there was none.

All of a sudden, she saw a plump little animal crouching on the massive
tombstone to her right. It was pale red, and its skin was so thin that it was
transparent. Its legs and feet were weak, quivering as they tried to support its
disproportionately large body. Its head was wrinkled, sort of like an old man’s.
She was attracted to this little creature and no longer felt terrified. What species
of animal was this homeless little thing? A rat or a frog? Maybe it had a home in
a certain tomb and it had come out for a walk and a breath of fresh air.
Daisy mustered her nerve to pet it. Its skin was warm, like satin. It was
indifferent, staring at her through half-open eyes. For some reason, the
expression in its eyes made Daisy think of Dad. Dad was so lonely. This
summer, he had deliberately fallen asleep in the backyard, letting the mosquitoes
bite him. He had even told Daisy to take the mosquito repellent away. After

midnight, she heard him singing army songs.
Maybe it was a rat, but why did it have no tail? Rats were high on the list of
animals she liked. She had dreamed of living in the oldest house in one end of
the village. Rat holes were everywhere inside the house and outside the house.
These little creatures were always busy with something. Daisy wanted to hear it
make a noise, but it didn’t utter any sound. It seemed afraid of the cold; it should
go back into its hole.
She was a little cold. She needed to move around to warm up. As she was
thinking this, she saw a road. It forked away from the tombs, leading to an open
area. Daisy ran a few steps and then turned around to look at the little thing
again. Then she ran into the distance, her mind all at once empty. The space
between sky and earth had become very light, and Daisy narrowed her eyes. She
didn’t feel very good. She stopped and turned around. She wanted to run back to
the tomb where the little thing was. She ran and ran, but never saw the tombs. It
seemed she had lost her way at the fork of the road. Not only did she not see the
tombs, but Mosquito Village had also disappeared. Daisy began to worry. Where

was she? In her memory, this should be a place with many watery depressions,
with some hills rising beyond them. Perhaps the watery depressions had now
been frozen over, but she didn’t see any hills, either. This was simply a clearing.
Daisy had never seen such a large clearing; it was even larger than the cemetery
she had just passed. The word plains was not in her vocabulary. The sky was
abnormally light, and her eyes hurt. There was no way to observe places a little
farther away. Just then, a wisp of smoke curled up before her.
She ran toward the smoke. It appeared to be quite close, but it was a long time
before a girl’s profile gradually came into focus. She was a girl much like Daisy,
wearing yellow clothes and burning hell money for her ancestors. The snow had