Klara and the Sun

They may not have understood why I’d called out as I had, and perhaps believed Josie was in sudden danger. So when they burst into the bedroom, they must have been relieved to find her asleep as before, breathing steadily. She was lying on her side as she often did, her face mostly hidden by the hair falling over it. There was nothing unexpected about Josie herself, but the room was another matter. The Sun’s patterns were falling over various sections of wall, floor and ceiling with unusual intensity – a deep orange triangle above the dresser, a bright curved line crossing the Button Couch, brilliant bars across the carpet. But Josie herself, in her bed, was in shadow, as were many other parts of the room. Then the shadows started to move and I realized – my vision adjusting – that they were being created by Melania Housekeeper, standing at the front window, tugging at the blind and the curtains. The blind was already fully lowered, and she was pulling the curtains over it to form a double layer, and yet the piercing light was somehow coming past the edges to create the shapes around the room.

‘Damn Sun!’ Melania Housekeeper called out. ‘Go away, damn Sun!’

‘No, no!’ I went quickly to Melania Housekeeper. ‘We must open them, open everything! We must let the Sun do his best!’

I tried to take the curtain material from her, and though she at first didn’t let go, she did so eventually with a look of surprise. By then, Rick had appeared at my side and, seemingly coming to some intuitive conclusion, also reached forward to raise the blind and pull back the curtains.

The Sun’s nourishment then came into the room so abundantly Rick and I reeled back, almost losing balance. Melania Housekeeper, her hands covering her face, said again: ‘Damn Sun!’ But she made no further attempt to block his nourishment.

I’d stepped back from the window, but not before noticing that outside the wind was as powerful as ever, and that not only were the trees still waving, there were many tiny funnels and pyramids – each looking as though drawn in sharp pencil lines – blowing swiftly across the sky. But the Sun had broken through the dark clouds, and all at once – as if each of us in the room had received a secret message – we turned to look at Josie.

The Sun was illuminating her, and the entire bed, in a ferocious half-disc of orange, and the Mother, standing closest to the bed, was having to raise her hands to her face. Rick seemed now somehow to have guessed what was occurring, but I was interested to observe how both the Mother and Melania Housekeeper seemed also to have grasped its essence. So, for the next few moments, we all remained in our fixed positions as the Sun focused ever more brightly on Josie. We watched and waited, and even when at one point the orange half-disc looked as if it might catch alight, none of us did anything. Then Josie stirred, and with squinting eyes, held a hand up in the air.

‘Hey. What’s with this light anyway?’ she said.

The Sun continued relentlessly to shine on her, and she shifted till she was on her back, propped up by the pillows and headboard.

‘What’s going on?’

‘How are you feeling, honey?’ the Mother asked in a whisper, staring at Josie as if in fear.

Josie slumped back against her pillows till she was almost looking up at the ceiling. But there was an obvious new strength to the way she’d maneuvered herself.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Is the blind stuck or something?’

The loose piece of house structure was still banging somewhere, and when I next glanced out of the window, the darkness was once more spreading across the sky. Then even as we watched, the Sun’s patterns faded over Josie, till she was lying there in the gray of an overcast morning.

‘Josie?’ the Mother said. ‘How do you feel?’

Josie looked at her with a tired expression, shifting herself to face us better. The Mother, seeing this, moved forward, perhaps with the intention of making Josie lie down again. But even as she reached Josie, she appeared to change her mind, and began to assist Josie in finding a more comfortable sitting posture.

‘You look better, honey,’ the Mother said.

‘Look, what’s going on?’ Josie asked. ‘Why’s everyone here? What are you all staring at?’

‘Hey, Josie,’ Rick said suddenly, his voice filled with excitement. ‘You look a complete mess.’

‘Thanks. You’re looking pretty good yourself.’ Then she said: ‘But you know, I do feel better. Kind of dizzy though.’

‘That’s enough,’ the Mother said. ‘Just take it easy. Do you want to drink something?’

‘Water maybe?’

‘Okay, let’s assume nothing,’ the Mother said. ‘We have to take this one step at a time.’

PART SIX

The Sun’s special nourishment proved as effective for Josie as it had for Beggar Man, and after the dark sky morning, she grew not only stronger, but from a child into an adult.