"Elizabeth Hand - Calypso in Berlin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hand Elizabeth)

far, just a few streets over. I thanked her, bought several pairs of thick argyle wool socks, and left.

I found the shop without any trouble. I know how to knit, though I haven't done so for a long time. I
found a pattern I liked in a book of Icelandic designs. I bought the book, bought the special circular
needles you use for sweaters, bought an extra skein of wool in a color I liked because it reminded me of
woad, not quite as deep a blue as indigo. I would work this yarn into the background. Then I returned
home.

I had nearly a week before Philip arrived. I was too wound up to paint. But I continued to walk each
day, finding my way around the hidden parts of the city. Small forgotten parks scarcely larger than a
backyard, where European foxes big as dogs peered from beneath patches of brambles; a Persian
restaurant near my flat, where the smells of coriander and roasting garlic made me think of my island long
ago. A narrow canal like a secret outlet of the Spree, where I watched a kingfisher dive from an
overhanging willow. I carried my leather satchel with me, the one that held my sketchbooks and charcoal
pencils and watercolors. I wanted to try using watercolors.

But now the satchel held my knitting, too, the balls of wool and the pattern book and the half-knit
sweater. When I found I couldn't paint or draw, I'd take the sweater out and work on it. It was repetitive
work, dreamlike, soothing. And one night, back in the flat, I dug around in the bureau drawer until I
found something else I'd brought with me, an envelope I'd stuck into one of my notebooks.

Inside the envelope was a curl of hair I'd cut from Philip's head one night while he slept. I set the
envelope in a safe place and, one by one, carefully teased out the hairs. Over the next few days I wove
them into the sweater. Now and then I would pluck one of my own hairs, much longer, finer, ash gold,
and knit that into the pattern as well.

They were utterly concealed, of course, his dark curls, my fair, straight hair: all invisible. I finished the
sweater the morning Philip arrived.



·····


It was wonderful seeing him. He took a taxi from the airport. I had coffee waiting. We fell into bed.
Afterward I gave him the sweater.

"Here," I said. "I made you something."

He sat naked on the bed and stared at it, puzzled. "Is this mine?"

"Try it on. I want to see if it fits."

He shrugged, then pulled it on over his bare chest.
"Does it fit?" I asked. "I had to guess the measurements."

"It seems to." He smoothed the thick wool, October gold and russet flecked with woad; then tugged at a
loose bit of yarn on the hem.

"Oops," I said, frowning. "Don't worry, I'll fix that."