of course … I kept to my far-flung corner and imagined
the rest of the city from there, and especially from the riverbank, where I went every
day to have a look around, because it wasn’t far and there was always a chance to
get out of the house. Of course I never let a chance go by. I accompanied Mom on all her
errands … I always had, because she didn’t dare leave me alone in the room,
imagining all sorts of disasters, I guess. But now I had come up with a specially fun
method of accompanying her. I had to turn every pleasure into a vice, a mania. There
were no half measures with me. Mom had to resign herself to it, although it was a
constant source of problems and worries. What I did was to “tail” her.
I’d let her get ahead, a hundred meters or so, while I hid, and then I’d
follow her, remaining hidden, going from tree to tree, doorway to doorway … I hid
(it was sheer love of fiction on my part, because she soon wearied of the game and
stopped turning around to look) behind anything that would afford me cover: a parked
car, a lamp post, a pedestrian … When she turned a corner, I ran and hid behind
it, spying on her, letting her get ahead again, waiting for a new opportunity to sneak
up on her under cover … If I saw her go into a store, I’d wait in hiding,
my eyes fixed on the door … When she went back home, it was an anticlimax.
I’d wait for half an hour on the corner to see if she was going to come out again,
and then, finally, I’d go in, usually to be greeted with a slap; my ruses had
understandably frayed her nerves. I almost always lost her. I tried to be too clever,
made it unnecessarily hard, to the point where the distance between us was neither short
nor long, because it had simply evaporated. Then I would go home and hide in the
hallway, not knowing if she had come back or not … and sometimes she had to cut
short her shopping and come home, when it became obvious that I wasn’t following
her … Then she would give me a slap and go out again, dragging me by the hand
this time, squeezing it until the bones cracked … I was incorrigible. The game
was my freedom. Oddly, while I was playing it, I never issued any of my famous mental
instructions, although the game would have been perfect for them … I guess my
tailing was already, in itself, a series of instructions, and maps, for making a city
… Mom stayed within a fairly small radius around our home: always the same
streets, the same routes, the grocery store, the butcher’s, the
fishmonger’s, the fruit and vegetable store … There was no danger of me
getting lost. I always lost track of her sooner or later, but I didn’t get lost
myself. Although she never stopped fearing that I would. And neither of us would have
been surprised if I had. I can’t understand why I never did.
What I couldn’t work out was how I managed to lose her, how she eluded my
tenacious, lucid pursuit; it should have been simple to tail her, the simplest task in
the world. Subconsciously I knew that the last thing Mom wanted was for me to lose sight
of her. It was only in my game that she was a wily criminal who noticed the ingenious
detective on her trail, and threw her off, or tried to, with cunning ploys … Poor
Mom must have wished she could walk me on a leash … but since she couldn’t
stop me hiding in a doorway until she got a certain distance ahead, all she asked was
that I stay within sight of her. She would gladly have left a trail of breadcrumbs or
buttons, or made herself phosphorescent or carried a flag on a pole, so her idiotic
daughter wouldn’t lose her again … But she couldn’t. She
couldn’t make herself too obvious, because that would have meant she was playing
my game. It would have been easy for her to walk slowly in the middle of the sidewalk,
remaining clearly visible, stopping for a minute at every corner, or before entering a
the rest of the city from there, and especially from the riverbank, where I went every
day to have a look around, because it wasn’t far and there was always a chance to
get out of the house. Of course I never let a chance go by. I accompanied Mom on all her
errands … I always had, because she didn’t dare leave me alone in the room,
imagining all sorts of disasters, I guess. But now I had come up with a specially fun
method of accompanying her. I had to turn every pleasure into a vice, a mania. There
were no half measures with me. Mom had to resign herself to it, although it was a
constant source of problems and worries. What I did was to “tail” her.
I’d let her get ahead, a hundred meters or so, while I hid, and then I’d
follow her, remaining hidden, going from tree to tree, doorway to doorway … I hid
(it was sheer love of fiction on my part, because she soon wearied of the game and
stopped turning around to look) behind anything that would afford me cover: a parked
car, a lamp post, a pedestrian … When she turned a corner, I ran and hid behind
it, spying on her, letting her get ahead again, waiting for a new opportunity to sneak
up on her under cover … If I saw her go into a store, I’d wait in hiding,
my eyes fixed on the door … When she went back home, it was an anticlimax.
I’d wait for half an hour on the corner to see if she was going to come out again,
and then, finally, I’d go in, usually to be greeted with a slap; my ruses had
understandably frayed her nerves. I almost always lost her. I tried to be too clever,
made it unnecessarily hard, to the point where the distance between us was neither short
nor long, because it had simply evaporated. Then I would go home and hide in the
hallway, not knowing if she had come back or not … and sometimes she had to cut
short her shopping and come home, when it became obvious that I wasn’t following
her … Then she would give me a slap and go out again, dragging me by the hand
this time, squeezing it until the bones cracked … I was incorrigible. The game
was my freedom. Oddly, while I was playing it, I never issued any of my famous mental
instructions, although the game would have been perfect for them … I guess my
tailing was already, in itself, a series of instructions, and maps, for making a city
… Mom stayed within a fairly small radius around our home: always the same
streets, the same routes, the grocery store, the butcher’s, the
fishmonger’s, the fruit and vegetable store … There was no danger of me
getting lost. I always lost track of her sooner or later, but I didn’t get lost
myself. Although she never stopped fearing that I would. And neither of us would have
been surprised if I had. I can’t understand why I never did.
What I couldn’t work out was how I managed to lose her, how she eluded my
tenacious, lucid pursuit; it should have been simple to tail her, the simplest task in
the world. Subconsciously I knew that the last thing Mom wanted was for me to lose sight
of her. It was only in my game that she was a wily criminal who noticed the ingenious
detective on her trail, and threw her off, or tried to, with cunning ploys … Poor
Mom must have wished she could walk me on a leash … but since she couldn’t
stop me hiding in a doorway until she got a certain distance ahead, all she asked was
that I stay within sight of her. She would gladly have left a trail of breadcrumbs or
buttons, or made herself phosphorescent or carried a flag on a pole, so her idiotic
daughter wouldn’t lose her again … But she couldn’t. She
couldn’t make herself too obvious, because that would have meant she was playing
my game. It would have been easy for her to walk slowly in the middle of the sidewalk,
remaining clearly visible, stopping for a minute at every corner, or before entering a
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