THAT WINDOW

THAT WINDOW

In the golden , liquid light of the morning ___it was not yet mid morning____tiny specks of dust, moved by some draft , some gust were hovering in the midair in that room, with a very worn, even broken brick floor. The sloping floor made almost a hole about at the centre of the room. That was a room in the old part of the house, mostly used to relegate abandoned things. It was a passage room, accessible ( by) going down three steps at the end of a corridor. Not that it was a great difference in height between the corridor and the room, yet always, when she went down the three steps to enter the room , every time again, that strong feeling of GOING DOWN.

Blanche , letting her footsteps slide on the cracked red brick floor, worn by time, approached the narrow window, embedded in the wall, with old eaten wooden shutters, with rusty fixtures. Who knows how long that window hadn’t been opened, she said herself, and not so much for the opaque, even dirty panes of the window, but for that kind of laces stretched between one jamb and the other outside of the window, which looked a little like cobwebs, a little like strings formed by the dust that over time had clotted up perhaps on a thread of a spider’s web. Those kind of thin strips, or laces, seemed also ( had the appearance of) ethereal cords, made of a light, soft yet very resistant material. A light wind, but even just the air was enough to make them move,  to make them wobble, the ethereal laces as resistant ( strong) as a very thin, almost invisible ,wire of a ductile metal. And, moving under the intense, bright light of the morning, those ethereal laces, which seemed to be made of nothing, at times, (now and then,) they cast shadows on the window panes. So that, to her, standing in front of that window, it happened, at moments, to have the feeling , and also the vision, to be face to face with an immense sky, very close to it, where soft, white clouds played with shadows just a bit darker than white.

Blanche knew that she should have opened the window to clean the glass ( panes),and that would have destroyed  those thin laces, which seemed to be made of impalpable matter, like that of the clouds. The closed window of that old and even almost decrepit room made her think of another window about which her friend Judith  often spoke. But it was a window that, except Judith, no one had ever seen. Since years now Blanche had heard Judith mention that window, which had to be very special, if it really existed. The first time she had heard of it had been at a dinner at Judith’s house.  Towards the end of the dinner, which was attended by other people besides Blanche, at the time of fruit, the landlady, Judith, had brought to the table three trays filled with a wide variety of fruits : apples, pears, oranges, peaches, apricots, and even pineapples , and bananas, cherries and strawberries, medlars, as well as coconut , papaya, mango. Blanche hadn’t taken ant of the fruits brought to the table. “ But how, donìt you like fruit?” Judith, almost sorry, had asked to her. “Oh, after your very delicious dinner the only fruit I would like to eat would be grapes…white grapes. You know, I mean that grape with beautiful full grains….tasty. Excuse me, but I don’t want to eat any other fruit “ Blanche had said. “ Oh, well, so you would like white grapes with nice full grains. No problem. I didn’t find any grapes at the greengrocer’s , but I can still ask for it to my magic window….Wait a moment, and you will see!” Judith had exclaimed, smiling. Then she had come out of the room, to come back shortly after, holding a great bunch of grapes , with full grains of a tender, bright yellow in her hand. “ This is Topaz grape.I think you will like it” she had said, placing that honey smelling bunch of grapes on the table in front of Blanche. Two vine leaves were still attached to the bunch of grapes, at its beginning, over the grains. The large vine leaves were no longer green , but of a reddish brown that evoked the time of the harvest, between the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. Before even being able to appreciate it, tasting its flavor, Blanche had been stunned, enchanted by (at) the sight of that great bunch of grapes, which seemed to come out of a still life of Caravaggio.

After that evening it had happened other times that Judith had resorted to what (which) she called___MY MAGIC WINDOW___to fulfill various ( several/ not a few) requests or wishes not oly of Blanche, but even of other friends. None of them had ever seen that window,nor did they know where it was, that is, in what (which) room or area of the house it was located, since everyone thought it (that window)should be in Judith’s home anyway.

The greatest benefit Blanche had gotten ( gained) thanks to that Judith’s very special window had been a week in Paris about two years earlier. That time she had really believed in the existence of that magic window, which allowed, made it easy for Judith to fulfill the wishes of her friends( others). One day, while she was talking with Judith, Blanche had said, sighing, ah, how much she would have liked to travel, there were so many places she would have wanted to see, but, unfortunately, at least for now, she could only afford short trips, just a few days of vacation in nearby places, from time to time. “ And where would you like to go, instead?” Judith had asked, insisting also that she, Blanche, say a name, only a name, of a place, of only a place she would have liked to go ( she would like). As she had remained when, two days later, Judith hadhanded her the round.trip tocket to Paris, and the reservation for a week in a hotel in the same city.

At first she had thought of a joke, yes, that Judith wanted to make fun of her. Then,when she had realized that she was really going to fly to Paris, where she could stay a week, living in a magnificent hotel, “ But you…how is it possible that you give me this…this wonderful trip?” she , completey stunned, had asked, since Blanche knew that Judith was not rich at all, nor she was even wealthy. “Eh….my magic window, not me, had thought about this journey for you” Judith had said, imperturbable.

Blanche, as other people, had seen many of her wishes fulfilled by…by Judith’s magic window. Even though, all of them who had been benefied from it, continued to wonder if really that magic window, through which Judith fulfilled so many of their desires,( if really) it existed. All of them would have liked to see that magic window, “ But what magic window!” Paul said. “ I would rather believe that Judith was a witch, than theexistence of that magical window of hers”

Jackie claimed that what Judith called____my magic window___was really a drawer of a cabinet, a very special drawer, that when she, Judith, opened it, it gave accesso to unknown place and unknown spacesm where Judith found all the gifts she gave them.

Who knows if Judith’s magic window really existed, who knows what it really was, Blanche was wondering, while she was approaching the small window in that old room.

Among those strips of dust stretched between one corner and the othe of the window, a butterflay was circking up and down, making its wings flutter. Blanche thought that even that narrwi, small window in the old room, was probably a magic window.