Laura

The sun had just begun to gild the tops of the apple trees when, without knowing why, I vaulted over the leaning picket fence of my neighbor's garden. It was a sultry summer; even at dawn the air was thick with the smell of rotting leaves and the earth warmed by the day. I walked at random, pushing aside the dew-drenched branches, and suddenly froze.

She stood half-turned to me—swarthy, slender, wearing a sun-bleached headscarf tucked in haphazardly. Her fingers deftly cut the heavy bunches of grapes, and her dark, squinting eyes stared somewhere past the vines. I opened my mouth, but my tongue seemed stuck to the roof of my mouth. The blood rushed to my face, then receded, leaving a chill in my fingertips. Shame, delight, and a kind of foolish, puppy-like happiness mingled in my chest. I wanted to say something very simple, something summery: about the river, about the dawns, about how nice it would be to stand next to her and remain silent. But I blurted out what seemed like a stupid thought.

She didn't turn around right away: first she put the knife in the wicker basket and wiped her palms on her dress. Then she looked at me directly, without the girlish coquetry I usually see from girls, and smiled with the corner of her lips.

I remember how the wind shook the maple tree near the gate and the carved leaves began to tremble rapidly, casting a shadow on her face.

"We're gathering a partisan detachment, a Moldovan one," she said, her voice sounding very close to me. "The partisans left home early this year."

The bunch of grapes swayed in her hand.

— The road to the partisans awaits you, into the dense forest.