Klara and the Sun

Behind the Mother’s shoulder, I saw Manager’s lips part, as though about to speak. But she said nothing. Instead, meeting my gaze, she gave me the smallest of nods.

So I started to walk. I realized that, as well as the Mother — and of course Josie — the whole store was now watching and listening. I stepped beneath the arch, onto the Sun’s patterns spread across the floor. Then I went in the direction of the B3s standing mid-store, and the Glass Display Trolley. I did all I could to reproduce Josie’s walk just as I’d seen it, that first time after she’d got out of the taxi, when Rosa and I were in the window, then four days later, when she’d come towards the window after the Mother had removed her hand from her shoulder, then finally as I’d seen her a moment ago, hurrying to me with relieved happiness in her eyes.

When I reached the Glass Display Trolley I started to go around it, taking care not to lose the character of Josie’s walk even as I tried not to brush against the boy B3 standing beside the trolley.

But as I was about to start on the return lap, I glanced up and caught sight of the Mother, and something in what I saw made me stop. She was still watching me carefully, but it was as if her gaze was now focused straight through me, as if I was the glass in the window and she was trying to see something a long way behind it. I remained there beside the Glass Display Trolley, one foot poised, heel off the floor, and there was a strange stillness in the store. Then Manager said:

‘As you see, Klara has extraordinary observational ability. I’ve never known one like her.’

‘Mom.’ This time Josie’s voice was hushed. ‘Mom. Please.’

‘Very well. We’ll take her.’

Josie came hurrying to me. She put her arms around me and held me. When I gazed over the child’s head, I saw Manager smiling happily, and the Mother, her face drawn and serious, looking down to search in her shoulder bag.

PART TWO

The kitchen was especially difficult to navigate because so many of its elements would change their relationships to one another moment by moment. I now appreciated how in the store — surely out of consideration for us — Manager had carefully kept all the items, even smaller ones like the bracelets or the silver earrings box, in their correct places. Throughout Josie’s house, however, and in the kitchen in particular, Melania Housekeeper would constantly move items around, obliging me to start afresh in my learning. One morning, for instance, Melania Housekeeper altered the position of her food blender four times within as many minutes. But once I’d established the importance of the Island, things became much easier.

The Island was in the center of the kitchen, and perhaps to emphasize its fixed-down nature, had pale brown tiles that mimicked the bricks of a building. Sunk into its middle was a shiny basin, and there were three highstools along the longest edge where residents could sit. In those early days, when Josie was still quite strong, she often sat at the Island to do her tutorial work, or just to relax with her pencil and sketchpad. I found it hard at first to sit on the Island’s highstools because my feet couldn’t touch the floor, and if I tried to swing them, they would become obstructed by a rod that crossed the highstool frame. But then I copied Josie’s method of placing elbows firmly down on the Island’s surface, and from then on felt more secure — though there always remained the possibility that Melania Housekeeper would appear suddenly behind me, reach for the taps and make water come out with great force. The first time this happened, I was so startled I nearly lost balance, but Josie beside me barely moved, and I soon learned there was nothing to fear from a few specks of moisture.

The kitchen was an excellent room for the Sun to look into. There were large windows facing a wide sky and an outdoors almost permanently empty of traffic and passers-by. Standing at the large windows, it was possible to see the road rising over the hill past faraway trees. The kitchen often filled with the Sun’s best nourishment, and in addition to the large windows, there was a skylight on the high ceiling which could be revealed or concealed with a remote. I at first worried about the way Melania Housekeeper often made the blind come over the skylight just as the Sun was sending in his nourishment. But then I saw how easily Josie could grow too warm, and learned to use the remote myself if the Sun’s pattern over her became too intense.