Madeleine Is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum Read Free Book Online Page B

another child out there, sulky and cruel, whom you have accidentally captured in your photograph? And is her name Madeleine?

At the Edge of the Drive
    A LONG DRIVE curves through the estate; it is covered with gravel. When the gypsies first arrived, the wheels of their caravans made a great crunching sound. But the drive has been silent for some time, now; it seems that no one comes and no one leaves; no visitors, no deliveries; nothing interrupts the dream-tedium of days folding in upon themselves, as contortionists do, here on the estate of the widow.
    Madeleine rakes the gravel into the dustpan of her hands. By tying her spare drawers at the knees, she has turned them into a sack. As she trudges across the lawn, lugging her drawers behind her, Charlotte sticks her head out from a caravan and says, That looks terribly heavy.
    It is! Madeleine replies.
    She makes several trips. She remains mysterious.
    But she cannot resist, in the midst of her labors, observing to Charlotte: I like to sleep when it's raining outside.

Atop a Caravan
    THE STARS AND MOON do not seem any closer, but the ground looks much farther away, and the roofs of caravans more precarious than expected. Madeleine teeters above the world like a small, drunken seraph. Everyone but she is sleeping.
    From below, she hears a moan, a low and plaintive sound rising up through the rooftop, through the soles of her bare feet. M. Pujol is moaning in his sleep, and when she hears this, the sound of loss, Madeleine thrusts her hands deep into her drawers, which she has dragged, with some difficulty, up to these heights.
    A fistful of gravel rains down on the caravan.
    The moaning ceases, abruptly.
    It is just as she predicted! In the darkness, Madeleine glows. And though to her ears the noise is not of raindrops, but simply of gravel rattling across a tin roof, she knows that from below, from the tousled, sheet-tangled bed, the flatulent man hears the sound of rain, and is quieted.
    Go to sleep, M. Pujol! she whispers.
    Again she digs into her sack.

Help
    BETWEEN CLOUDBURSTS , Madeleine hears the wobble of wheels being rolled across the lawn. She peers down into the dark, indignantly: Who else is awake?
    It is the photographer, who stumbles about during the night as he does during the day, like a somnambulist. He looks up at her and staggers forward, pulling behind him the wagon that holds his photographic equipment. Either he is very tired, or else the load is very heavy.
    You should be in bed! Madeleine hisses. It's too late to be taking pictures!
    The photographer shuffles on, without heeding her, his forehead gleaming dimly. When he reaches the foot of the caravan, and Madeleine leans over the edge of the roof to shoo him away, she sees that the wagon has been emptied of its canisters, bellows, and bulbs. She sees that the wagon has been filled, instead, with gravel. He has come to help.
    This was my idea! hisses Madeleine, from the rooftop.

On the Carpet
    LOUDER, SAYS THE WIDOW , cupping her hand around her ear.

Recognition
    BUT ALREADY he has leapt up, swung through the air, attached himself like a wayward trapezist to the tin roof of the caravan. He dangles there, looking glumly up at Madeleine, and she sees that his face is innocent, as if his every gesture, every act, has been performed without his knowledge.
    Madeleine steps on his fingers, so she can feel how they tremble from the effort of clutching onto the roof. If only she were heavier. If only he would fall.
    Ow, Adrien says.
    Her cold toes curl around his knuckles.
    Don't, he says.
    Her toenails press into the backs of his hands.
    This hurts, he says.
    And, in saying so, nearly upsets her gravity. Oh yes: this hurts. That which has remained unknown to Madeleine now makes its sudden and forceful acquaintance. It is the sight of dumb, suffering Adrien, it is his small cry, that awakes her.

Fall
    DOWN SHE PLUMMETS , her drawers sailing out behind her like the skirts of a disaffected angel, or the