Suddenly in the Depths of the Forest by Amos Oz Read Free Book Online Page A

seemed almost painfully sad to him now. When he thought about the narrow street under his parents' house, Matti pictured Danir the Roofer and his two young helpers sitting astride the beam of a tiled roof, hammering away and laughing because they'd managed to match the beats of their three hammers to the rhythm of a jolly marching song.
    And he pictured Solina the Seamstress stopping in the middle of her walk and bending over her invalid husband's pram, maybe to straighten his blanket or change a wet diaper, or maybe just to stroke his head covered with its sparse gray hair, while from the depths of his lost memory, Ginome bleated thinly, heartbreakingly, because he thought he was a kid and his wife was a surrogate mother sheep.
    And maybe at that very moment, as he sits there imagining life in the village, Lilia the Baker, Maya's mother, is on her way from the bakery to the village's only grocery store in the square. And maybe she meets Solina there, wheeling her husband in the pram. Lilia stops as she always does to exchange a few words with Solina, to tell her how hard it is to raise a stubborn child like Maya who is as cheeky as a devil, yes, but definitely not cruel. The whole problem is that my little girl has an overly strong and spirited nature. She knows everything better than I do and much better than everyone else, so everything always has to be exactly, but exactly, the way she wants it. Then Lilia will probably brush off her apron, apologize—because, for no reason at all, she always lowers her eyes and says she's sorry—and she'll say goodbye to Solina and Ginome and continue on her way down the narrow alley, push-rolling her old bread cart, whose wheels need to be oiled or maybe even replaced.
    And actually, why shouldn't I oil them for her myself? Matti thought. Who cares if people talk. Let them talk. They can make fun of us as much as they want. After all, Maya and I saw something they never even dreamed about. And when we come out of this forest, maybe we'll know something the village doesn't know ... or has been trying very hard not to know. Or maybe the whole village knows and is just pretending, the way Little Nimi pretends to have whoopitis on purpose so he can stay free?
    If only we get out of this forest in one piece. It should be nighttime already and the whole world should be dark, but strangely, it doesn't come, it's holding back, as if under a spell.
    And what if Maya has gone very far away?
    What if she gets lost?
    What if we both lose our way inside the cobweb of the dense forest?
    And how long do we have, if we have any time at all, before it gets dark?
    Maybe they haven't started worrying about us at home yet. But they'll start soon.
    Matti sat that way for a long time, looking down at the valley from high up on the mountain, sunk in thoughts and imaginings. But he was actually trying to push away the fear that kept growing sharper every minute, creeping under his skin and making chills run down his spine: because Maya didn't come back and she didn't come back afterward, and even after that, she still hadn't given a sign. He was getting more and more cross with her: Where had she vanished to like that? Could she have gone back down to the village without him? And you know what, it would serve her right if I take off too and run back home right now before it gets dark.
    Then his anger at Maya turned into cold fear as he listened to the rustling of the tall trees, the silence, and the wind. He could already sense in the air the faint smell of the end of afternoon or the onset of evening, and the twilight wind began a whispered conversation with the rustle of the trees in the forest. Matti had already stood up and was planning to run home as fast as his legs could carry him when, through the whirring and whooshing of the wind in the pine needles, he thought he heard the barking of dogs again, coming from far, far away. For a moment, he also seemed to hear Maya calling faintly to him again