Free Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje

sound. But this was tempting. A woman’s voice, a
tune that seemed to have no scaffolding, almost too casual to be good, although
the voice was clear, waterlike. Anna stood where she was a moment
longer. She saw a sparrow leaping from branch to branch, clumsily, hardly
adept. She strolled towards the clearing, stopping once or twice, trying to
interpret the tune.
    She came into the open fi eld, where there was a woman, and also a
man, sitting in a straight-backed chair, accompanying her on what looked to be
a guitar. They didn ’ t see her
at fi rst, but
they must have sensed something—a sudden quietness in the trees above her,
perhaps—for the woman turned and, when she saw Anna, stopped singing and strode
away, leaving the man alone in the open fi eld.
    France had meant a quiet
and anonymous time for Anna. Apart from the visits of Monsieur and Madame Q,
she saw no one. And there was nothing in the house of the writer to remind her
of North America. She was escaping the various aspects of her professional
life—acquaintances, deadlines, requests for prefaces—all of which, if she were
in her real world, would be essential duties. The only thing that had truly
jostled her in the time she had spent so far in the Gers region of France was
the group of men at the crossroads with their dogs, the men’s tongues lolling
in parody and their fists twisting in the air as she walked away. She felt at
ease in the modest house, her curiosity almost aimless, as if she were
beginning a new life. She was enjoying the process of filling a notebook with
fragments and even drawings, something quite apart from her research. If there
was the sound of a bird through the open door by her table she would try to
articulate it phonetically on the page. She did this whenever she heard one
clearly enough. And when she leafed through her obsessive notes, Anna would
find a series of chords of birdsong, or her drawing of a thistle, or of the Qs’
Renault.
    The man with the guitar
had turned his head to look at her. Feeling she needed to make a gesture to
avoid being rude, Anna moved forward to say something, and he watched the uneven
grass she crossed as she approached him.
    Hello. I’m
sorry.
    As if she had come here
and interrupted him to tell him she was sorry!
One thing, she felt completely safe. It was not the obvious fact that he was
holding a guitar and not a weapon, it was his look, as
though he had been just taken from refuge, and she was now insisting him back
to earth. While she walked those last few yards towards him, she realized she
must have also heard his playing when she entered the clearing, a subliminal
hum and strum, a rhythm and a melody—which was why the woman had needed none in
her song. The woman was accompanying him. So now it was as if everything
she had heard was being replayed in her memory, recalled differently. He had
been the one drawing her into the clearing.
It was a tattered guitar. When she got close she could see his hands had been
bitten by insects, were scarred. His clothes, which had looked formal from a
distance, were unironed, muddy at the cuffs; the waistcoat had lost buttons.
But it was the hands that were too lived in, overused.
She looked in the direction the woman had gone, and saw a caravan in the
shadows, within the trees.
This was the same clearing where Anna and her friend Branka had stood the
second night after her arrival at Dému, more than a week before. The grass had
felt like a fl at receptacle then, a moon pasture. She was wearing a sleeveless
dress, had just done a cartwheel and scooped up some golden broom, which had
been colourless in that light. She ’ d had no awareness then that there was a caravan or any inhabitant
in the vicinity, save for herself and Branka, who had driven her down from
Paris. Branka, an architect, was staying for only a day. It was she who had
helped Anna arrange the rental of the writer ’ s house,
through a contact in her fi rm. They had walked back to the