Paradise and Elsewhere by Kathy Page

came from elsewhere, like seeds blown on the wind, and depended on freedom’s climate to grow: that was why we loved them so. I realize now that when I imagined the revolution, before it happened, I thought of it in terms of what we would be able to read. I thought of reading works by people who were only reputations to me, magic names, pregnant with many possibilities, of finding books I had hunted for in vain; they would fall into my hands like ripe plums. I dreamed of owning my own copy of an important text, being able to write pencilled notes on the page. I imagined gifts of books between me and my wife and the conversations we would have about them; I thought of books in our own language as well as foreign ones. That was what excited me about freedom. Since it has happened, I see of course that it means other things as well, instead, even. Perhaps the thing is that before we had only books? Somehow, I cannot read today.
    The spring disturbs me. It is a time of longing. Paths criss-cross the courtyard, leading to other blocks like this and other courtyards and eventually to the woods, where the march bells will soon be out, then the crocuses and daffodils. We will go as soon as the mud has dried. Oh, summer… At this point, we all long for it, for the trees, the myriad rustlings and the light through leaves, for the long days, the feeling of sun on our skins, the other pleasure of shade. Picnics. I would like to have a car.
    But that is the future still. Now, the rain begins to fall more heavily. One day in this country, I often say, we will learn to make drains, which currently exist only in the dictionary. One day, Liia said to me yesterday, we will learn how to talk to each other in different ways. Which way? How, different?
    In the afternoon, I take the trolleybus to the market. My wife used to do this but some time back she said that she goes three times in the week and why should it not be shared? And I said that I am both working and studying at night school and so have less time, but, she said, who makes you do that? So I go to please her. At the entrance a row of people stand with puppies huddled in their coats or sleeping in straw shopping bags, all newness, shining fur, half-human faces, clean paws.
    I go past the tools and vacuum parts, the military paraphernalia which only tourists buy. On through the new clothes, stall after stall, garments I don’t even recognize, colours I don’t have names for. Past the imported groceries tied to the shelves with string, the fat overwintered carrots in their dirt, the new potatoes, the churns of milk, the apples in piles. There are bananas everywhere now, but still too expensive for regular use. I buy sausage, bottled peas, bread and a chicken. Old women stash their money away in broken purses, kept among the cuts of meat. There is never enough change! A plastic bag costs thirty cents. It takes longer than you might think. All these things, the quantities, the choices, it is tiring somehow.
    When I get back, there is a small pile of books on the rug in the centre of my room. The door to her study is ajar. What is this? I call. Those: they are the books written by women, she calls back. I am sure that she is wrong, and look for myself, but I only find two more.
    But what do you mean by it? I ask, standing at the threshold of her room. She pauses in her typing but doesn’t turn her head. A good book is a good book, I say, surely, whoever has written it? I’m not sure, she says, it’s just that I never thought to do it before. Simply to count. She laughs. Then she looks at me and I can’t name the expression. Somewhere between shy and amazed.
    Something must have made you think of it, I say. This is the twentieth century and she is no longer translating just the classics, but contemporary works also. Yes, she says, I wonder: would I ever have thought of it on my own? She’s talking to herself. For a second, I feel invisible.
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