In America by Susan Sontag Page A

and the meadows have gone bare of flowers. The high mountains now were still covered with snow—winters are long and harsh in the Tatras—but as the wagon passed along green meadows carpeted with purple crocuses, purple with a dash of dark blue, Jędrek’s passengers could hardly refuse to call it spring. Maryna reached the village excited, then edgy—feelings she identified as the elation that follows the making of a great decision and the restlessness that succeeds the familiar discomforts of the journey. It could not be a headache, she was sure, although this giddiness and pointless energy were not unlike what she would feel, sometimes, three or four hours before the onset of one. No, it could not be a headache. But as she stood with Bogdan admiring the sunset, she had to acknowledge that there was something wrong with the way she was seeing, it had become full of dazzles and zigzags and flicker and sprays of light, the sun seemed to be boiling, and she could no longer deny the throbbing in her right temple and the pressure in the nape of her neck. She who had never canceled a performance because of a headache collapsed for twenty-four hours, lying in the dim sleeping chamber with a towel wrapped tightly around her head in a leaden stuporous daze. Piotr tiptoed in and out, and asked when she was going to get up and clearly needed to be comforted, and she made the effort to keep the child with her for a while. It was all right if she patted his hair and kissed his hand with her eyes squeezed shut. Whenever she opened them, Piotr seemed very small and far away, as did Bogdan, crouching by the bed, asking again what he might bring her—they seemed to have lattices on their faces. There were faces enough peering out of the dark knots in the beams that supported the ceiling, which seemed to be just above her, pressing down on her, shimmering, scintillating. All she wanted was to be left alone. To vomit. To sleep.
    The headache she had later in their stay was mild compared to this, one of the worst Maryna could remember. But after she recovered she was very fretful. There were long insomniac nights watching the shadows on the wall (she kept one oil lamp lit) and listening to Piotr’s adenoidal breathing, Józefina’s snoring, Wanda’s coughing, a sheepdog barking. Once a night Piotr would crawl into her bed to tell her that he needed to use the outhouse and she had to come with him because a horrible witch lived in the yard who looked like old Mrs. Bachleda. And when they returned to the sleeping chamber, he would want to get back into her bed because, he explained, the witch would try to kill him in his dreams. Useless for Maryna to tell Piotr he was far too big to have such childish fears. But soon, hearing the noisy mouth-breathing that signified sleep, she could carry him to his mattress and go outside again to gaze up at the blackness spattered with stars. Then, finally, a few hours before dawn, it was her turn to sleep. And to have odd dreams, too: that her mother was a bird, that Bogdan had a knife and hurt himself with it, that something terrible was hanging from a tree.
    She was often tired. And some days she would feel “dangerously well,” as she put it, for any exceptional energy or high spirits might be a sign that she was to have one of her disabling headaches the following day. The antic thoughts, the uncontrollable urge to laugh or sing or whistle or dance—she would pay for these. Convinced the headaches were due to a slackening of effort, she took more strenuous walks than ever; it seemed that she had gathered her friends around her mostly in order to leave them.
    She walked partly to exhaust herself—and had no need of company. Bogdan helped her dress, tenderly booted her, and watched her until she disappeared, heading southwest. From the village to the higher meadow leading to Mount Giewont was about seven kilometers. From there she crossed into the forest