THE HANGING SAW
– Six changes of train, and when you arrive, you say Bonjour Madame.
My father asked no questions. He believed in me.
I changed trains in Basel. On the connecting train, I heard the passengers speaking French. I listened to these unfamiliar sounds.
As soon as the train had left, the trunk of an elephant appeared behind the station wall, spraying a fountain of water. It was like a sign, as though the journey were leading me to Africa.
Shortly after Colmar, two storks took off from the ground just outside my window. They quickly matched the speed of the train, their long red pointed beaks aimed at prey, their legs pressed together. The wings beat strongly up and down, like two arms struggling forward in a swimming pool.
On the last evening of sports camp, the teacher hung a medal around my neck.
– Swim twenty meters underwater. You did well.
I was proud. I admired him. He praised me in front of everyone.
– You are beautiful, he said.
– It’s my birthday today, I said.
– We must celebrate, he said.
In the rattling of the train, I dozed off, between my eyelids the storks with their beating wings, black and white, like my new bikini.
My mother went with me to career counseling.
– We’ve registered Lilly for the tenth grade. She doesn’t know what she wants to be. Now, she’s suddenly gone mute.
I had to draw a tree. I drew a pine cone. But the career counselor wanted a tree.
– This girl is going nowhere. Look at this tree without roots, said the counselor.
My mother wanted something to become of me. She took me to the Catholic Women’s Association in the city of Lucerne. Miss Pfister sat behind an oak desk and looked me up and down. My mother had sewn me a pink linen outfit. My too-big brown leather shoes were stuffed with newspaper at the front.
– A girl who doesn’t speak and doesn’t want anything should go to the French-speaking part of Switzerland for a year,said Miss Pfister.
– But not our Lilly, protested my mother.
At the time, it was common to send girls into different circumstances for a year to the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Those from remote farms, where the families had over a dozen children, had to go to the gorge and spend a year in an ancient wooden house, where it was said to be haunted.
Miss Pfister shook open a drawer, pulled out a file of papers, and laid it on the oak desk in front of us.
– I have an address in Belgium, she said.
Belgium sounded so far away. I nodded. That’s where I wanted to go.
My father asked no questions. He believed in me.
I changed trains in Basel. On the connecting train, I heard the passengers speaking French. I listened to these unfamiliar sounds.
As soon as the train had left, the trunk of an elephant appeared behind the station wall, spraying a fountain of water. It was like a sign, as though the journey were leading me to Africa.
Shortly after Colmar, two storks took off from the ground just outside my window. They quickly matched the speed of the train, their long red pointed beaks aimed at prey, their legs pressed together. The wings beat strongly up and down, like two arms struggling forward in a swimming pool.
On the last evening of sports camp, the teacher hung a medal around my neck.
– Swim twenty meters underwater. You did well.
I was proud. I admired him. He praised me in front of everyone.
– You are beautiful, he said.
– It’s my birthday today, I said.
– We must celebrate, he said.
In the rattling of the train, I dozed off, between my eyelids the storks with their beating wings, black and white, like my new bikini.
My mother went with me to career counseling.
– We’ve registered Lilly for the tenth grade. She doesn’t know what she wants to be. Now, she’s suddenly gone mute.
I had to draw a tree. I drew a pine cone. But the career counselor wanted a tree.
– This girl is going nowhere. Look at this tree without roots, said the counselor.
My mother wanted something to become of me. She took me to the Catholic Women’s Association in the city of Lucerne. Miss Pfister sat behind an oak desk and looked me up and down. My mother had sewn me a pink linen outfit. My too-big brown leather shoes were stuffed with newspaper at the front.
– A girl who doesn’t speak and doesn’t want anything should go to the French-speaking part of Switzerland for a year,said Miss Pfister.
– But not our Lilly, protested my mother.
At the time, it was common to send girls into different circumstances for a year to the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Those from remote farms, where the families had over a dozen children, had to go to the gorge and spend a year in an ancient wooden house, where it was said to be haunted.
Miss Pfister shook open a drawer, pulled out a file of papers, and laid it on the oak desk in front of us.
– I have an address in Belgium, she said.
Belgium sounded so far away. I nodded. That’s where I wanted to go.