Gratitude Read Online Free PDF

just in a trance; she was blind. She had dried-up eyes behind those lids, but her whole being bobbed and floated aboard these songs. She was more like a missionary than a beggar, more like the music’s apologist, its philosopher. “ You can’t leave footprints on the river, even if you try ,” she chanted. “ Hear the music play. Hear it, hear it. The music is a secret that leaves no trace .” The trio then played a very sad song, a heart-wrenching song, about a lover gone away to sea. “ And you know it is true ,” the flaming girl sang, “ since we’ve never seen the sea but can feel the land .” The song came out more like a hymn than a love song, and Lili found herself holding back tears.
    People passed by as if the musicians were not there. Lili had never witnessed such a thing—people ignoring the lovely music as if they were strolling through a park and it was the birds that were singing. How could they not be drawn to it all, the girl possessed by the music, the wonder of it—reminding us that we’re still here and it’s a sunny day, and we’re in love and the baby is coming and we’re all going home to supper. Lili smiled brightly now at the group, and the lights of her charm came on. The men smiled back at her, and then, miraculously, the girl smiled, too. The players switched to a Gypsy dance. It sounded cheerful and exotic—Spanish, possibly, or farther even, African, Moroccan, Middle Eastern. Lili stood too long to watch these nice, sun-darkened men play here with their spinning blind girl, especially with people scattering to avoid them.
    Had she landed on the moon? No, the moon was not far enough. Another galaxy? People were being taken—whole towns full of people—and here the music played, and people ran to avoid it as if it were going to detonate.
    It was enough, too much. Lili curtseyed in her dress, and the three men bowed. It only then occurred to her she could give them a coin, and she tried, but the men wouldn’t take it. Lili tried the girl, though she was still in her hypnotic state, no longer smiling, somewhere above the ground. And then the girl took the coin and clutched it hard in her hand, as if the hand were disembodied from the mesmerized girl. With more bowing and curtseying, Lili backed away.
    Lili came eventually upon the famous synagogue on Dohany Street, an immense Moorish structure, with a multitude of towers rocketing toward heaven. Her skin bristled. She looked left and right and turned around, not wanting to show people what she was seeing, not wanting to be identified with it. When a woman and boy stopped beside her to see if something had happened, Lili fled.
    On a corner leading toward Vorosmarty Square, she stumbled into Paris Yard. She felt again as though she’d stepped into another world, another century, stepped into a film. Arabesque arches welcomed her into the arcade and drew her toward beautiful wrought iron, like lace-work crocheted by some mythic grandmother working in the heart of an iron mountain. A handsome young man in a tan spring suit stood in the doorway of a bookshop, flipping through the pages of a book. He noticed Lili and smiled, but she clamped her silly dress to her sides and fled toward Vaci Street and all the way out to the grand cobblestone square before Gerbeaud, a pretty patisserie bustling with business. She wished she could enter. People were eating pastries perched royally on Herend dishes. They dabbed their mouths with linen napkins, checked their makeup in mirrors.
    Two women, one with a floppy black hat, hustled past Lili along the cobblestones. Lili felt a stabbing pain at her side, a pain so sharp she thought she would collapse. She ran, gasping, a limping run, now, as she made her way around another corner. An older gentleman with his wife on his arm stopped to point with his cane, but Lili continued on her way, found another small park—thank heaven for the small park—and dashed inside like a rabbit that had found its