Astrid and Veronika Read Online Free PDF

day, it seems as if time goes ever more slowly. A day now seems longer than the entire life that went before. A season is an eternity.’
    Veronika threw another pebble, missing the water and hitting a small bush on the bank. Her eyes were fixed on the slowly undulating surface of the river.
    ‘And in this time without end, I have been alone in my house. Waiting. Guarding my secrets.’ Astrid struggled to sit, rolling over on her side and pushing herself up with both hands. ‘I have become good at keeping my secrets and I am an expert on solitude. But now . . .’ Her sentence was left unfinished and they sat in silence.
    ‘I used to come here with my mother,’ Astrid suddenly said. ‘We used to rest here on our way back from the lake. Strange, it is over seventy years ago, yet I can see her as clearly as I can see you. It is as if time is irrelevant. My life’s memories take up space with no regard to when they happened, or to their actual time-span. The memories of brief incidents occupy almost all time, while years of my life have left no trace.’ She looked at Veronika with a slight shrug of her shoulders and a hint of an embarrassed smile, her lips firmly closed and her cheeks blushing. ‘I don’t know why I am telling you this,’ she said.
    ‘I am scared of losing the memory of the most precious time in my life,’ said Veronika, looking out over the river. ‘Because it has happened to me before. I have no memories of my mother. I think now that perhaps I had to let them go in order to live. To remember her would have meant acknowledging the fact that she abandoned me. I don’t think I could have lived with that.’
    ‘I don’t think I could have lived without those memories,’ Astrid said.
    Veronika stared at the old woman, her brows knitted. ‘Yes,’ she said after a pause. ‘I am beginning to understand that I will have to remember. That I will have to hold on to every day. Take them out one by one, and make sure nothing is lost. But it is so very hard.’
    ‘Let me tell you about my mother,’ the old woman said. ‘About a day that has stayed with me all these years, clearer in my memory than yesterday.’

5
    I shall build it with a towering turret called solitude.

Astrid
    It was June, early summer and a day very much like today. We had been down by the lake, just the two of us, walking along the shore. Wading in the still icy-cold water, splashing and jumping. Laughing. When my mother laughed, tears streamed down her cheeks. It never ceased to disturb me, though she would always notice and say, ‘Oh, my little Astrid, I am only laughing.’ And she would wipe away her tears like a child, rubbing both eyes with her fists. I never heard her laugh in the house, only when we were away from home, just the two of us.
    That day, we ran along the edge of the water, chasing each other. Laughing. A duck with its flock of little ducklings watched from a safe distance. Eventually we sat down on the sand, panting. My mother wore a green skirt and the hem was soaked. She gathered the material in her hands, wringing out the water, exposing her white legs and bare feet. Her hair had come loose and fell over her shoulders and chest, and when she let go of the skirt she lifted her arms and pulled the hair away from her face, gathering it in her hands and piling it on her head. She sat very still, looking out over the lake. When she dropped her hands she pulled me towards her. Her hand stroked my hair and I looked up at her face. Her green eyes locked with mine for a moment before she pressed me to her chest. ‘Remember this, my little Astrid,’ she said. ‘Always remember how the sun glitters on the water. How the mother duck cares for her babies. How blue the sky is. And how I love you.’ And I knew with absolute certainty that there would be no more days like that.
    On our way back we cycled past here. I sat behind her on the bicycle, my arms around her waist, pressed against her warm body. Her long