Tzili Read Online Free PDF Page B

at its height, and there was no rain. She lived on the fruit growing wild on the riverbanks. Sometimes she approached a farmhouse.
    “Who are you?”
    “Maria’s daughter.”
    Maria’s reputation had reached even these remote farmhouses. At the sound of her name, a look of loathing appeared on the faces of the farmers’ wives. Sometimes they said in astonishment: “You’re Maria’s daughter!” The farmers themselves were less severe: in their youth they had availed themselves freely of Maria’s favors, and in later years too they had occasionally climbed into her bed.
    And one day, as she stood in a field, the old memory came back to confront her: her father lying on his sickbed, the sound of his sighs rending the air, her mother in the shop struggling with the violent peasants. Blanca as always, under the shadow of the impending examinations, a pile of books and papers on her table. And inthe middle of the panic, the bustle, and the hysteria, the clear sound of her father’s voice: “Where’s Tzili?”
    “Here I am.”
    “Come here. What mark did you get in the arithmetic test?”
    “I failed, father.”
    “You failed again.”
    “This time Blanca helped me.”
    “And it didn’t do any good. What will become of you?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You must try harder.”
    Tzili shuddered at the clear vision that came to her in the middle of the field. For a moment she stood looking around her, and then she picked up her feet and began to run. Her panic-stricken flight blurred the vision and she fell spread-eagled onto the ground. The field stretched yellow-gray around her without a soul in sight.
    “Katerina,” she said, “I’m coming back to you.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she saw the burly peasant in front of her, examining her thighs as she lifted up her skirt. Now she was no longer afraid of him. She was afraid of the ancient sights pressing themselves upon her with a harsh kind of clarity.

10
    I N THE AUTUMN she found shelter with an old couple. They lived in a poor hut far from everything.
    “Who are you?” asked the peasant.
    “Maria’s daughter.”
    “That whore,” said his wife. “I don’t want her daughter in the house.”
    “She’ll help us,” said the man.
    “No bastard is going to bring us salvation,” grumbled the wife.
    “Quiet, woman.” He cut her short.
    And thus Tzili found a shelter. Unlike Katerina’s place, there were no luxuries here. The hut was composed of one long room containing a stove, a rough wooden table, and two benches. In the corner, a couple of stools. And above the stools a Madonna carved in oak, as simple as the work of a child.
    It was a long, gray autumn, and on the monotonous plains everything seemed made of mud and fog. Eventhe people seemed to be made of the same substance: rough and violent, their tongue that of the pitchfork and cattle prod. The wife would wake her while it was still dark and push her outside with grunts: go milk the cows, go take them to the meadow.
    The long hours in the meadows were her own. Her imagination did not soar but the little she possessed warmed her like soft, pure wool. Katerina, of course. In this gray place her former life with Katerina seemed full of interest. Here there were only cows, cows and speechlessness. The man and his wife communicated in grunts. If they ran short of milk or wood for the fire, the wife never asked why but brandished the rope as a sign that something was amiss.
    Here for the first time she felt the full strength of her arms. At Katerina’s they had grown stronger. Now she lifted the pitchfork easily into the air. The columns of her legs too were full of muscles. She ate whatever she could lay her hands on, heartily. But life was not as simple as she imagined. One night she awoke to the touch of a hand on her leg. To her surprise it was the old man. The old woman climbed out of bed after him shouting: “Adulterer!” And he returned chastised to his bed.
    This was all