My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(51)

And then, once again, her thoughts drift off to Granny and the Land-of-Almost-Awake. For if this woman is the sea-angel, basically she’s the third creature from that world, along with Wolfheart and the wurse, that lives in Elsa’s building. Elsa doesn’t know if this means that Granny took all her stories from the real world and placed them in Miamas, or if the stories from Miamas became so real that the creatures came across to the real world. But the Land-of-Almost-Awake and her house are obviously merging.

Elsa remembers how Granny said that “the best stories are never completely realistic and never entirely made-up.” That was what Granny meant when she called certain things “reality-challenged.” To Granny, there was nothing that was entirely one thing or another. Stories were completely for real and at the same time not.

Elsa just wishes Granny had said more about the curse of the sea-angel, and how to break it. Because she supposes this is why she sent Elsa here, and if Elsa doesn’t figure out what to do she’ll probably never find the next letter. And then she’ll never find the apology for Mum.

She looks up at the woman on the other side of the desk and clears her throat demonstratively. The woman’s eyelids flicker, but she keeps staring down at the letter.

“Did you ever hear about the woman who read herself to death?” asks Elsa.

The woman’s gaze glides up from the paper, brushes against her, and then flees back into the letter.

“I don’t know what . . . it means,” says the woman almost fearfully.

Elsa sighs.

“I’ve never seen so many books, it’s almost insane. Haven’t you heard of an iPad?”

The woman’s gaze suddenly moves up again. Lingers for a longer time on Elsa.

“I like books.”

“You think I don’t like books? You can keep your books on the iPad. You don’t need a million books in your office.”

The woman’s pupils dither back and forth over the desk. She gets out a mint tab from a little box and puts it on her tongue, with awkward movements as if her hand and tongue belonged to two different people.

“I like physical books.”

“You can have all sorts of books on an iPad.”

The woman’s fingers tremble slightly. She peers at Elsa, a little as one peers at a person one meets outside a bathroom, where one has spent just a tad too long.

“That’s not what I mean by ‘a book.’ I mean a ‘book’ in the sense of the dust jacket, the cover, the pages . . .”

“A book is the text. And you can read the text on an iPad!”

The woman’s eyes close and open like large fans.

“I like holding the book when I’m reading.”

“You can hold an iPad.”

“I mean I like being able to turn the pages,” the woman tries to explain.

“You can turn the pages on an iPad.”

The woman nods, with the slowest nod Elsa has seen in all her life. Elsa throws her arms out.

“But, you know, do what you like! Have a million books! I was only, like, asking. It’s still a book if you’re reading it on an iPad. Soup is soup whatever bowl it’s in.”

The woman’s mouth moves spasmodically at the corners, spreading cracks in the surrounding skin.

“I’ve never heard that proverb.”

“It’s from Miamas,” says Elsa.

The woman looks down at her lap. Doesn’t answer.

She really doesn’t look like an angel, thinks Elsa. But on the other hand she doesn’t look like a drunk either. So maybe it evens itself out. Maybe this is how halfway creatures look.

“Why did Granny bring Wolfheart here?” asks Elsa.

“Sorry—who?”

“You said Granny brought him here. And that’s why he’s afraid of you.”

“I didn’t know you called him Wolfheart.”

“That’s his name. Why is he afraid of you if you don’t even know who he is?”

The woman puts her hands in her lap and studies them as if she just caught sight of them for the first time and wonders what in the name of God they’re doing there.

“Your grandmother brought him here to talk about the war. She thought I’d be able to help him, but he got scared of me. He got scared of all my questions and scared of . . . of his memories, I think,” she says at last. “He has seen many, many wars. He has lived almost his whole life at war, in one way or another. It does . . . does unbearable things to a human.”

“Why does he carry on like that with his hands?”

“Sorry?”

“He washes his hands all the time. Like he’s trying to wash off a smell of poo, sort of thing.”

“Sometimes the brain does strange things to one after a tragedy. I think maybe he’s trying to wash away . . .”

She becomes silent. Looks down.

“What?” Elsa demands to know.

“ . . . the blood,” the woman concludes, emptily.

“Has he killed someone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he sick in the head?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a terropist, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t they be fixed, people who are sick in the head? Maybe it’s sort of rude to call them sick. Is it? Is he all broken up in the head?”