Delicate Edible Birds (28 page)

No, said Bern, but he had already turned away, already walked to the muck and stink of the donkey's area. Viktor, she said, but he raised his hand to quiet her.

Do what must be done, Bern, he said. It shouldn't make a difference to you, should it.

They were all looking at Bern, all of the men. She took a step back and leaned against the door to catch her breath. Lucci saw that Viktor had changed something, had turned
something with his words, and Lucci himself couldn't resist the change. He saw the light again in Fiesole, Cinzia, the million small colors of that world, and longed to be in them. He longed.

In a minute, Bern stepped closer to Lucci, searched his face. She tried to take his hand. But Lucci couldn't breathe, and he stepped away, turned his back.

Bern blinked and her voice came out ragged. Et tu, Lucci? she said with a grim little smile. Then she took a deep breath and turned her back and waited at the door. When one of Nicolas's sons passed by, she called to him in a muted voice and told him to fetch his father. The minutes that she stood there, with her back to the men in the room, seemed to Lucci like weeks, like months. Her hair was lit golden in a sunbeam that fell in a long strip down her delicate back. He wanted, terribly, to say, Stop, to say Bern's name, to stroke her soft cheek where it was bitten by the light. But, in the end, he didn't do anything at all.

 

A SOOTY DUSK.
It had begun to drizzle, and the men waited in the jeep. Under the seats were boxes of food: terrine, bread, cheese, pickles, bottles of wine. A full canister of gas. They had washed themselves with water the teary old woman had heated, they had eaten their fill beside a fire, warming their bones. The old woman would not look at them, though she wore Lucci's woolen socks in her clogs. She held out food with a closed face, turned those perpetually watering eyes
away. The two sons had stalked in and out of the house with their excitement, loading the jeep with provisions. At one point, they had both disappeared upstairs, and reappeared an hour later to sit whittling by the fireplace, dogs licking their paws, satisfied.

In the car, Viktor held his face in his hands. Frank held a bottle and his normal pink flush had already regrown across his cheeks. Parnell held an unlit cigarette and stared at his hands. Lucci held his camera, but did not take a photo.

At long last, the door of the cottage opened, and Bern emerged. She had lost a great deal of weight in the last few days, and her clothing hung on her; she moved as if sore, and her lip seemed torn and bleeding, as if she had bitten through it. She climbed up beside Parnell, who glanced sideways at her, his eyes liquid and fearful. Viktor turned on the engine, and looked at Bern in the mirror, willing her to look back; Lucci, tentatively, put his hand on her cheek. Her skin was icy and white as wax. The world seemed to slow for a moment—there was the moon like a half-closed eye—the wind had died and so everything seemed to hold its breath. But Bern would not look at Viktor and grabbed Lucci's hand and threw it back at him.

Don't, she said, very softly. Don't touch me. Don't look at me. Go.

But they didn't, at first. A hawk over the trees darted down. There was the wail of a distant plane. When it passed, they were able to hear the silence of the woods, as if it had gathered itself in and was waiting for the conflict to end. At
last, Bern said, Go, again, and Viktor started up the jeep. Frank cleared his throat and turned his face toward the sky; Parnell sighed. The engine throbbed and the jeep pulled away from the cottage, into the trees. And for hours they drove like this, in silence, southwest, toward a certain kind of safety.

I OWE MY GRATITUDE TO MANY PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS,
chief among them:

Everyone at Hyperion and Voice, especially my editor, Barbara Jones, who dove in like a champion and made this collection (wildly) better, Ellen Archer, Sarah Landis, and Allison McGeehon, all of whom believed; and Pam Dorman, at Viking now, but not forgotten.

The faculty and my fellow students of the MFA program at the University of Wisconsin, where half of these stories were written, especially Lorrie Moore, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Judith Claire Mitchell, and Ron Kuka.

The editors who selected some of these stories for their journals and anthologies: C. Michael Curtis, Heidi Pitlor, Stephen King, Natalie Danford, Richard Bausch, Susan Burmeister-Brown, Linda Swanson-Davies, Don Lee, and Bill Henderson.

The Corporation of Yaddo; the Vermont Studio Center; and Anne Axton and the University of Louisville's Creative Writing Department for the Axton Fellowship.

My agent, Bill Clegg, an honest and true friend of my work.

My brilliant posse of readers: Steph Bedford, Kevin A. González, and Sarah Groff.

My family and beloved (though neglected) friends.

The brave and beautiful women whose stories inspired this collection.

And, mostly, to Clay, my first reader, who was there at the birth of each of these stories and whose constant love made them come alive.