1998 short list:
In the Misleading Absence of Light
by Joanne Gerber
published by Coteau Books
Excerpt from the chapter entitled "Glass Marbles"
Published with permission from the author.
This excerpt is copyright protected.
He sat and unwrapped that marble which he carried in a handkerchief in the pocket of his shirt, where it couldn't fall out or be lost. It was a silver speckled. He had others which looked like it, but this had been his very first. It was like his mother's Christmas ball, a globe of clearest glass. Inside, glitter hung like snow.
He lifted the alley to his eye. He leaned back carefully on the hard seat until the marble caught the light over the door. Then, even though its brightness was painful, he squinted and stared into the tiny globe. He wanted to remember.
Once, years ago, he had knelt to stare at a million minnows frozen deep in the ice of a creek. There were clouded walls and transparent rooms of glass, right underneath him. In the rooms, slivers of silver that turned out to be tiny fish, making him cry out. Never in his whole life had he seen anything so wonderful. His father was near - Julio shouted for him to come and see, too. Papa came at once, sliding and almost falling. But not to see the little fish. Instead, he pulled Julio up with anger, saying he hadn't brought his son to Riverdale for this.
"Get up and look at the skaters," he cried, "These ladies of Canada are like swans in bladed boots!!"
Julio didn't know what swans were, but he wished Papa would look down for one moment at the silver fish, which were like magic coins in a fountain.
"Get up!! Is my son a dog, to be lying on his belly so, licking the ice?"
Julio had not been licking the ice, just pressing his face close to see the minnows, but he stood and said nothing. Shivering at the edge of the pond, he watched the skaters in their colourful clothes. It was true that they moved across the ice in a moment, forwards or backwards, without stumbling. And never, in South America, had Papa seen this. Julio had heard him say so earlier-had heard many words between his father and his mother about watching the skating.
She'd been afraid, shaking her head and crying that Julio would surely catch cold, or fall through
the creek and be lost. Papa had called her a crazy woman, who would ruin his son. This one time, he'd shouted, he was going to take the boy along-his boy! Truly, Julio thought, although his feet were so cold that he began to feel sorry for the minnows caught swimming, it was good of Papa to want him. And to promise him hot chestnuts and milk coffee aferwards.
That whole day was captured in the speckled marble. Reluctantly, he rewrapped and put it away. After sitting for a few more minutes, thinking, he stood, rubbing where the seat had pressed into the back of his legs. Mama had been wrong, he hadn't fallen through the creek. And now, she knew nothing of his life at school. As she had known nothing of Papa's life, of what it meant to be a man. She knew only what it meant to be a woman, and afraid.
