Valley of the Moon. Melanie Gideon

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СКАЧАТЬ odd, isn’t it?” said Fancy. “How quickly something unbelievable becomes believable.”

      I was thinking the very same thing. Yesterday I’d spent the day riding waves of surreality and shock. Thinking This can’t be happening. Today, just twenty-four hours later, those waves were still coming in but the time between sets was much longer. This was happening. I was here. I saw the same acknowledgment on people’s faces.

      “What crew are you on?” I asked Fancy.

      “Much to my brother’s dismay, I’m a flutterbudget. I just can’t seem to settle on one thing. Where are you working today?”

      “The garden.”

      “Oh,” she groaned. “Poor girl.”

      “I chose it.”

      “Mmm, let’s see how you feel about it tonight, shall we? When that lovely complexion is the color of a beet and your clothes—my clothes—are soaked through with sweat.”

      “You should come with me,” I said.

      “How I wish I could. I have just the perfect hat, with a lovely blue satin ribbon.” She looked at me sadly. “Alas, I’ve already committed myself to the entertainment crew.”

      “The entertainment crew. Joseph didn’t mention that.”

      “That’s because I’m starting it today. You’re welcome to join—I have all sorts of things planned. I thought our inaugural event would be an old-fashioned country dance. The Scottish reel, lots of lively skipping up and down in rows just like in Pride and Prejudice. Then a strings concert; as it happens, the beekeeper is a violinist and there are two cellists on the building crew. And perhaps a bimonthly lecture series. There is a great deal of untapped knowledge here at Greengage. And why, you, Lux! Oh my goodness, why haven’t I thought of you? You must be our first lecturer. You can fill us in on what we’ve missed. Tell us all about the twentieth century. Will you do it? Please say you’ll do it. Please?”

      “Fancy,” said Joseph. “She hasn’t even had her tea yet.” He’d suddenly materialized beside us.

      “Good heavens,” said Fancy. “Must you always be popping up like that? It’s so uncivilized, not to give a person some warning. And stop interfering. We’re the most bosom of friends already. Isn’t that right, Lux?”

      Nobody had ever referred to me as a bosom friend before. I felt tears come to my eyes, which was completely ridiculous, especially under the circumstances.

      “You are overwhelming her,” said Joseph, peering at me with concern.

      Twice now he’d seen me tear up. What was wrong with me? Why was I so emotional here?

      “I am not overwhelming her.”

      “She’s not. She’s not overwhelming me,” I said, although the idea of giving a talk to 278 people made me feel faint.

      Fancy squeezed my arm.

      “Come on, you two,” said Joseph, leading us into the dining hall. “Fancy, make sure you eat a proper breakfast. You have a long day ahead of you, installing the new privies.”

      Fancy snorted, “I will be doing no such thing.”

      Martha was right. Being on the garden crew was backbreaking, repetitive work—but I loved it all the same. They started me in strawberries, me and all the kids; I guess they thought I couldn’t be trusted with proper vegetables yet. The children sat in the dirt, and for every strawberry they picked, another went into their mouths. None of them spoke to me for a while, although they did their share of staring, and then one little boy asked, “Don’t you like strawberries?” and that broke the dam of silence.

      “I love strawberries,” I said.

      “Then why aren’t you eating them?” asked a girl.

      “Because I’m not hungry.”

      “Why aren’t you hungry?”

      “Because I just ate breakfast.”

      “What did you have for breakfast?”

      “Pancakes, just like you.”

      “Do you have pancakes at your house?”

      “All the time.”

      “Do you have children?”

      “Yes, I have a son, just about your age, maybe a little younger. His name is Benno.”

      “What kind of a name is Benno?”

      “It’s short for Bennett.”

      “Why isn’t he with you?”

      “He’s on vacation.”

      “Vacation?”

      “A holiday. With his grandmother.”

      They looked horrified, their faces smudged with dirt, their fingers sticky with strawberry juice.

      “Then why are you here? Why didn’t you go with him?”

      Why, indeed? Suddenly I was hungry. I stuffed three strawberries in my mouth.

      After lunch I graduated to tomato picking. Nobody spoke to me for an hour. Finally a woman who looked to be in her fifties said, “You don’t have to be so gentle.”

      She was referring to the way I was handling the tomatoes. Tenderly placing them in the basket, being careful not to bruise them, which slowed my picking down quite a bit.

      “They’re just going in the pot,” she explained. “Those”—she pointed a few rows away—“we baby.”

      She walked over to the other row, picked a tomato, came back, and handed it to me. “Taste.”

      “I don’t have a knife.”

      “Just bite into it,” she instructed me.

      I bit into it like an apple; juice splattered on my chin. The skin was warm. It tasted of sun and earth and rain.

      “Now eat this,” she said, handing me one of the tomatoes I’d picked.

      Even though it was a deep red, it had none of the depth of flavor. It didn’t explode on my tongue, it just sort of sat there.

      “You see the difference? These are for canning. Those are for eating.”

      “Yes.”

      “Good.” She knelt down again. “My name is Ilsa.”

      “Hi, Ilsa, I’m Lux.”

      “I know. You don’t have to introduce yourself. Everybody knows who you are.”

      My basket was nearly full. I picked more СКАЧАТЬ