I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops Read Online Free PDF

take her off to the marriage clerk. He didn’t understand her behavior. She had told him during the fair that she was certain to inherit the blood disease that had killed her mother and grandmother, but he had been quick to reply that it didn’t matter, he was happy to take the risk.
    She had burst into tears at intervals and said it was impossible for them to be together, and he had repeated that he wanted to marry her and would always be by her side. But she had not been convinced. She had asked him to think carefully, not to have any illusions about a houseful of children, rather to prepare himself for a lifetime of sitting in doctors’ waiting rooms in the city after a tiring journey over rough mountain roads. His money would go on doctors’ bills; she would be cut off in her prime, leaving him with ababe in arms or no heir at all. However, there had not been a flicker of doubt in his eyes; taking her hand and drawing her close, he had assured her of his devotion. When he held her tight, she had burst into tears and finally confessed to him that she had the illness already. Even then he had not flinched; he had continued to breathe evenly and assure her again in a controlled but slightly raised voice that he meant what he said.
    While she had composed herself and tried to make him take in what the illness would mean, he had been unable to take his eyes off hers: they were coquettish, tender, sincere, beautiful. When she wiped away her tears, lowering her eyelids for a moment, he had known he had to be at her side always. He had gone on trying to persuade her; she had resisted him, insisting that she was acting out of concern for him.
    Eventually he had grown angry and asked her why she had responded to his looks, his gestures if she was unable to marry. Why had she let him hold her hand? Surely she had known that holding hands meant acceptance, covering them refusal? If she had kept her hands covered to prevent him from touching them, he would have gone to look for someone else.
    He had begun to question her relentlessly and Almaza, in floods of tears, had told him why she had given in to him:love had struck her like the sun flooding over her naked body. She had not been able to escape it: indeed, she had let herself be carried along, enveloped in its heat, from one delicious swoon to another, and had only been roused by him thundering out the conditions for marriage.
    Then she had run away from him.
    When she saw him coming toward her house she was at a loss and cowered behind her aunt. She pinched the old woman hard so that she would back her up when she told lies, but her aunt cursed her and called her a flea and an armpit louse.
    Before Almaza had the chance to work on her further, the young man was standing right inside the house, proclaiming that he had come to marry Almaza, and that illnesses were acts of God, and that in any case he would take her to the city and spend all his savings on finding a cure for her.
    During this speech, Almaza had rapidly regained her composure and armed herself with the basic weapons of her defense, chief of which was presence of mind. She began distracting him with details that she knew were unimportant, such as how would she be able to pay him back for the marriage document, the photographs and all the expenses she had involved him in if she were laid low by illness? But she hadn’t prepared herself for his reaction. He loosened the sash he wore around his waist and emptied his pocketsof old and new notes, scattering them on the ground as if he were feeding hens.
    “All this is your dowry for the time being, and there’ll be more to come. If we split up, it’s yours to keep.”
    Whereupon Almaza buried her face in her hands and wept and shook her head, disregarding her aunt, who had risen up from her seat on the floor and was crawling around on her hands and knees like an old tortoise, collecting the money, and intoning, “It’s not right. Money on the floor is bad luck. It