"The horse isn't too big. It's Mathias who is too small because he won't stand up. Always on all fours like an animal! You're not an animal!"

He is holding the child's chin to force him to look into his eyes. He says firmly, "If you don't walk now you will never walk. Never, do you understand?"

The child starts bawling. Yasmine grabs him from Lucas.

"Leave him alone! He'll walk soon enough."

She sits the child on the horse's back. She holds him upright.

Lucas says, "I have to go. Put the child to bed and wait for me. I won't be long."

He goes into the kitchen. He cuts the roast duck in two, puts half on a warm plate, surrounds it with vegetables and potatoes, and wraps the plate in a cloth. The meal is still warm when he arrives at the priest's house.

After they have eaten, Lucas says, "I'm sorry, Father, I have to go home. I'm expected."

The priest says, "I know, my son. To be honest, I'm surprised you came this evening. I know that you live in sin with a sinful woman, and with the fruit of her immoral love. That child isn't even baptized, although he bears the name of one of our saints."

Lucas is silent.

The priest says, "Come to mass, both of you, if only for this evening."

Lucas says, "We can't leave the child alone."

"Then come yourself."

Lucas says, "You're talking down to me, Father."

"Forgive me, Lucas. I was carried away by my anger. But it's because I think of you as my own son, and I fear for your immortal soul."

Lucas says, "Treat me as your son, Father. It pleases me. But you know very well I never go to church."

Lucas goes home. All the lights in Grandmother's house are out. The cat and the dog are asleep in the kitchen. The other half of the roast duck stands uneaten on the table.

Lucas tries to go into the bedroom. The door is locked. He knocks. Yasmine doesn't answer.

Lucas goes into town. Candles burn in the windows. The bars are closed. Lucas wanders through the streets for a long time, then he goes into the church. The big church is cold, almost empty. Lucas leans against the wall next to the door. Far off, at the other end of the church, the priest conducts mass at the altar.

Lucas feels a hand on his shoulder. Peter says, "Come on, Lucas. Let's go."

Outside he asks, "What were you doing there?" "What about you, Peter?"

"I followed you. I saw you as I was leaving Victor's."

Lucas says, "I feel lost in this town when the bars are closed."

"I feel lost here all the time. Come back to my place to warm yourself up before you go home."

Peter lives in a beautiful house in the main square. There are deep armchairs, bookcases covering the walls; it is warm. Peter brings out the brandy.

"I have no friends in this town apart from Victor, who is kind and cultured, but rather boring. He never stops complaining."

Lucas goes to sleep. At daybreak, when he wakes up, Peter is still there, sitting opposite, watching him.

The following summer the child stands upright. Clinging to the dog's back, he shouts, "Lucas! Look! Look!"

Lucas rushes in. The child says, "Mathi is bigger than the dog. Mathi can stand."

The dog moves away, the child falls. Lucas takes him in his arms, he lifts him over his head, he says, "Mathias is bigger than Lucas!"

The child laughs. The next day, Lucas buys him a tricycle.

Yasmine says to Lucas, "You spend too much money on toys."

Lucas says, "The tricycle will help his legs develop."

By autumn the child is walking with confidence, but with a pronounced limp.

One morning, Lucas says to Yasmine, "After lunch, bathe the child and dress him in clean clothes. I'm taking him to a doctor."

"To a doctor? Why?"

"Can't you see he's limping?"

Yasmine replies, "It's a miracle he's even walking."

Lucas says, "I want him to walk like everyone else."

Yasmine's eyes fill with tears. "I accept him as he is."

When the child has been washed and dressed, Lucas takes him by the hand.

"We're going for a long walk, Mathias. When you feel tired, I'll carry you."

Yasmine asks, "You're going to walk across town with him, all the way to the hospital?"

"Why not?" "People will look at you. You could bump into my aunt."

Lucas doesn't answer.

Yasmine continues, "If they want to keep him, you won't let them, will you, Lucas?"

Lucas says, "What a question!"

When he comes back from the hospital, Lucas says simply, "You were right, Yasmine."

He locks himself in his room, listens to records. When the child beats on his door, he doesn't open it.

That evening, after Yasmine has put the child to bed, Lucas comes into Grandmother's room. As on every other evening he sits beside the cradle and tells Mathias a story. When he finishes the story, he says, "Your cradle will soon be too small for you. I'll have to make you a bed."

The child says, "We'll keep the cradle for the dog and the cat."

"Yes, we'll keep the cradle. I'll also build you some shelves for the books you already own and all the ones I'm going to buy you."

The child says, "tell me another story."

"I have to go to work."

"People don't work at night."

"I work all the time. I have to earn lots of money."

"What's money for?"

"To buy the things we need, the three of us."

"Clothes and shoes?"

"Yes. And toys, books, and records."

"Toys and books, that's good. Go to work."

Lucas says, "And you go to sleep, so you can grow bigger."

The child says, "I'll never grow bigger, you know that. The doctor said so."

"You misunderstood, Mathias. You will grow. Not as quickly as the other children, but you will grow."

The child asks, "Why not as quickly?"

"Because everyone is different. You won't be as big as the others, but you'll be more intelligent. Your size isn't important. Only intelligence matters."

Lucas goes out. But instead of going into town he goes down to the river. He sits on the damp grass and stares into the dark, muddy water.

3

Lucas says to Victor, "These children's books are all the same. The stories in them are stupid. They're not good enough for a child of four."

Victor shrugs his shoulders. "What can I do? It's the same for adults. Look. Novels written to the greater glory of the regime. You'd think there weren't any writers left in our country."

Lucas says, "Yes, I know those novels. They're not worth the paper they're printed on. What has happened to the old books?"

"Banned. Disappeared. Pulled out of circulation. You might find some at the library, if it still exists."

"A library here in this town? I never knew there was one. Where is it?"

"The first street on the left after the castle. I can't tell you the name of the street, it keeps changing all the time. They're constantly renaming all the streets."

Lucas says, "I'll find it."

The street that Victor described is empty of people. Lucas waits. An old man comes out of a house. Lucas asks him, "Do you know where the library is?"

The old man points to an old, gray, dilapidated building.

"It's there. But not for much longer, I think. It seems like they're moving out. Every week a truck arrives to take away a load of books."

Lucas goes into the gray building. He goes down a long, dark corridor, which ends at a glass-paneled door with a rusted plaque reading PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Lucas knocks. A woman's voice replies, "Come in!"

Lucas enters a huge room lit by the setting sun. A gray-haired woman is sitting behind a desk. She asks, "What do you want?"

"I'd like to borrow some books."

The woman takes off her glasses and looks at Lucas.

"Borrow some books? Since I've been here no one has come to borrow books."