Pale Blue Valley
Published in Issue #24 Translated from Hebrew by the author with input from Mary Vaadia and Valerie Arnon(Excerpt from a Novel)
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“Here I go again, my love, saying that you haven’t changed. Not one little bit. Time after time I’ve said it. I’ll say it till the end of days. Yes, Saffia Saffia, my darling. First and last name the same. They used to call you Double Saffia – make a joke of it. No, you haven’t changed at all, my dearest, which is something you can’t say about me, your eternal widow. I keep growing older. Older and older. Today you wouldn’t recognize me. This is what happened to our severed life.”
Rimat speaks these words voicelessly, gazing at the faded photo, then kissing it. It doesn’t do Saffia justice because Boni took it just as he was getting up – face puffy, hair disheveled,eyes unfocused. But this is the only photo that survived the disaster. How close were those two brothers: “Big-Saff” and “Li’l-Saff”.
She hangs onto the photo till she hears Glin’s footsteps in the evening quiet. When they get louder it’s time to return the photo to its place under the old cradle’s small mattress. She tugs at a corner of the cloth lying on top of the mattress looking for where she left off. The yellow flower is almost complete. How many more flowers will she need to complete the garland? Five, she thinks, maybe six. Afterwards she’ll embroider another ring, perhaps even a third. How will this piece of embroidery end up?A tablecloth, a bedspread – who knows? She can’t remember when she began working on it, nor does she know if she’ll ever finish it. Who cares? The...
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