3
Now, green heart-sloped leaves
seemed to have rapidly grown from the
places the flowers had left.
Sophie's reflection, half
concealed behind mine, suddenly
detached itself completely in the large
window. I quit my reverie. I knew she
was studying her body carefully,
thinking about what she had to work on
for the day.
I caught her stare but avoided her eyes: it was improper for me to look at
another person's shapes, even more improper to compare hers to mine. Anyway, I
knew her by heart since we were kids. We were sisters, after all! Sophie was thin and
elegant with a strong muscle definition, actually quite unusual for a woman. I was only
slender. While she usually neatly braided her long auburn hair in delicate hairstyles,
mine was scrupulously gathered behind a green veil that I always wore for sport
because it was the only one that kept my curls well tamed. Each time I looked at
Sophie, I could not help seeing that sadness that made her eyes look always dreamy
and vulnerable. I looked straight at myself in the window and saw for a few seconds
how mines were big and beaming with lights. I felt complete now as if two parts of me
had been taken apart at birth then reassembled. I had jigsawed the pieces. But Sophie
was still back there, and she reminded me of my past life while our reflections became
one shadow as we entered the hall.
The hall of the Recreational Center, was always fresh as in a tropical
greenhouse, except in winter where it seemed like a nice Foehn reaching to us as we
stepped in. We often joked about the plants that were displayed around the entrance.
"Eh! Samy! You shouldn't being picking up these flowers. You might destroy
somebody's thesis!'
"Not me!" I replied, releasing the petals that had fallen around the red pots, "stop
your wind."
4
It was funny to bring back the memory
of the desert wind coming up from
Spain over the Pyrenean Mountains.
We had lived there for many years. The
Foehn turned the Pyrenean winter into
spring for a few days and often brought
with it the red sand of the Sahara.
The decorations around the plant pots
looked a little bit like purple sand
dunes.
She went first, passing through the
gate. The attendant was checking my
ID when a man came to us. It seemed
as if he had waited there for sometime.
He was nonchalantly browsing through brochures and tried to look detached. When he
met us, I saw that his face was shimmering with light, maybe because of his eyes and
teeth. I remember noticing a lilac blur around his jaws defining the areas he had
shaved. It struck me because the color was very apparent. On his chin he had a small
beard that, in my opinion, gave him great maturity. He also had a good posture and
held himself in dignity, betraying upon my judgment, a person of strong values and
good manners. He was very thin with a tanned complexion. He looked foreign, but not
quite. All his person was at the same time mysterious and intriguing. He glanced
intensely at Sophie, then started:
"Wasn't that a grueling test?"
Sophie began talking about the details of the test. I had no idea what they were talking
about, so I began looking around, unconcerned. At one point, I overheard something
in their conversation that startled me. The man was asking my sister:
"And what about that date?"
Sophie looked straight at him for a minute, frowned, then reached into her bag. She
was always carrying a huge sport bag that contained half our bathroom, from towels to
lipsticks, first aid and dry fruits. She was always prepared for anything. Maybe she
was always afraid to be in need of something, I mused.
"Sure", she said, pulling a date from the bag and splitting the fruit into her hands,
"here you are."
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