The
three old aunts arrive with eyes trained to uncover signs, omens, a
ripple in the day. Somewhere in the distance a cock crows, but only
twice, and they shake their quivering heads in unison, sunken necks
craning to see more, hear more, about the girl, the one with the short
floral skirts and bare arms, the one who sat cross-legged on a dining
table, taunting fate, inviting spinsterhood. They search for clues in
the cleft stick by the gate, the cracked mirror in the hall, the sun
low and red sinking into the hills. They ponder the meaning of a fall
on wet tiles.
No-one is willing to enter the bathroom except the old widower from
next door who heard the girl scream, who phoned the aunts. He crosses
himself, a half-forgotten gesture he once knew well, picks up the
broken girl from the tiled floor and carries her to her bed. He walks
back to the bathroom and washes his hands, over and over again. The
aunts hover in the passage and they watch him, watch over him, as he
dries his hands, hurriedly. They bless him, his family, his life, his
descendants.
The aunts gather around her bed, their black dresses harsh silhouettes
in a room of perfumed lightness, and cover her still form with blankets
of vibrant yellow.
They monitor her breath. In. Out. It is slow, raspy. Her eyelids are
shut. The aunts had warned her of the dangers that could befall a young
girl, but she didn't listen, this girl who would not take a husband.
They had told her if she slept alone, darkness would silently creep
into her open mouth and hide, and when she woke, the blackness would
enter her mind, destroy her beauty. She laughed and called them crones.
Such a pity, the widower says, only last night I dreamt of her in a
long white wedding dress. Ah, the aunts sigh. That will be a death
foretold. They fold their hands in their laps, and sit in silence on
the chairs they dragged from the kitchen. They wait for her breath to
cease.