I sit out on the porch all day long doing nothing. It looks like I'm searching the sky or the hills, or waiting for something. I am dangling myself into the world from a fine armchair. This is the most I can do: to sit and wait. My father made my chair, he did not begrudge me the yellow Siberian pine, did not care that it was a protected species. He barked at me to be quiet, to shut my mouth, it was the best kind of timber in the area, and his crippled son deserved a good chair at least, seeing as he didn't have legs. Because with my two legs, it's like not having legs at all, it's knees I haven't got, my legs don't bend. They got broken once, a long time ago, I don't remember now. They say a bear broke my legs, there are lots of bears around here. And my father's hated me ever since, and that is harder to bear than my useless legs. This will kill me in the end. Otherwise, it's fine, sitting in the chair, he made it as comfortable as he could. In wintertime, like now, I wrap up warm in sheepskins, it's very cold out. I could freeze to death in minutes and no one would notice, few people come this way. My father is rarely home, almost never. He comes maybe once a week, sometimes cooks something, goes down to the village, buys this and that, drink, cigarettes always, then disappears into the woods again. No one knows where he goes. They say that he's a poacher, but they daren't say it to his face, only whisper behind his back. He is a big man. He hates me because he's saddled with me, a cripple, no use to him at all. Actually, I can stand up if I really want to, I can even walk a couple of steps, but only with my two dogwood sticks. Chopping wood is difficult for me, mostly because of the bending. But my arms are stronger than anyone would think. I don't complain. Whenever I can, I sit out on the porch, watching time pass, sometimes I can almost see it, or feel it in my bones, I can hardly wait for the next day, for spring, the following winter, I don't know what exactly.

...

Gábor Vida
is a literary editor of the Hungarian-language literary monthly Látó, published in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mures, Romania). The short story published here appeared in the fourth collection of his short stories which is reviewed by Zsolt Láng on pp. 127–133 of this issue.