posted on 2024-11-12, 18:15authored byElleke Boehmer
SLIDE ONE The way she bent back the small girl's thumb, as if smoothing a wayward dogear in a favourite book. They sat in the white tiled foyer of the Community Museum, the Gemeentemuseum, the early winter dark settling into its comers and alcoves. The darker it grew, and the quieter, the more vigorously the girl swung her legs, her polished, Europe-bought Mary Janes. She swung deeper and higher, higher and deeper, feeling the edge of the oak bench on which they were both sitting digging into her skin. She hoped her energetic activity might distract the attention of the elderly lady who pressed so warmly against her side, whose eyes pressed so intently into her own.