Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Black Soles, White Light

2011; Springer International Publishing; Volume: 37; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

0311-4198

Siew Mei Lau,

Australian History and Society

The firmament had cracked like an egg, pouring out its golden yolk upon the inhabitants of the city below. Some ducked into the shadows, others hid themselves beneath hats and sunshades, but she ran with her bare feet on the sidewall in the full blaze. She passed him everyday as she ran up and down Adelaide Street as busy people walked towards their offices or shops. They seemed to have a purpose. She too had a purpose. No one could deny her that. Her life had worth and purpose. So every morning she ran without fail, whether it was a full sun or a rainy day. Only once or twice when it grew bitterly cold, she failed to materialise. He, shivering in his jacket, wondered if she had stayed home nursing a cold or whether someone, a kindly and well-meaning neighbour or Good Samaritan had taken her aside to advise her not to run on that day. She wore the same dress everyday he saw her. It was flimsy. That he could ascertain. It flapped loosely around her thighs as she ran. A summer dress, he thought. Possibly Indian cotton. The colour might have been blue but it was faded and almost white, although the blue showed up in patches, but then he was not an expert on women's clothing and it might have been the designer's intent. Her feet made a steady thud as they slapped onto the pavement. The soles of her feet were black. Her hair was a nondescript colour, a timid brown fading to washed-out blond. She was super-thin. Her bones showed in her arms and hands, her wrists were fragile. He doubted whether any of the passers-by knew her name. She was nameless to them as they were to her. She was simply a part of the fabric of the city. Once she had been pretty, even occasionally beautiful. You could still see traces of that in her face, if you ignored the dirt and wildness. Those unseeing eyes of hers--you could not look into them without a feeling of repulsion. They were mad. What was it about madness that repelled? Was it the fear that beneath one's normality was the very soul her eyes expressed? He shuddered to stare into her eyes. He had done so once upon a time. Once long ago she had bumped into him as he walked slowly along and he had swung around to catch a glimpse of her eyes close to his face before she had dashed off without any change to her demeanour. He could have been a post box or lamppost. Superstitious, he cursed himself for his tardiness. He would not have run into her if he had been on time to work but that morning, he was tired, more tired than previously. He did not know how long he could continue to drag his body along like an ancient tortoise its heavy shell. The doctor had told him to be patient and to take his medication but he was afraid. He sat in his corner at the base of an office building with his silver laptop on his knees and listened to the hum of the machine. Some passers-by stared at him as they walked past. No one greeted him. Once he would have known some of the office workers hurrying to the lifts of their buildings for their day's work. He had been one of them. Now, he sat, grateful for his little patch of ground under the shade of the building, smoked a cigarette, if he had one, and typed laboriously. The woman, who ran with such a fixed purpose every morning, went past him a few times in the course of her run. The street evidently held some sentiment. Once a very long time ago she had bought herself an evening dress in one of the many boutiques on that street. It was strapless and short. Her figure was slightly plumper than what it was now, which still rendered her slim, although with a curvier form. That dress, bought off the rack but more expensive than anything else she had bought before, clung to her form like the sheath of a tree. It made men look twice, thrice, maybe even four times at her as she walked into the restaurant, where she was meeting her date for the night. Her suitor was stunned. He blushed as he poured her drink, his hand trembling. He looked downwards at her bare legs and then at her shoes. …