The Greenhouse

Sixty-one

The child is developing incredibly fast. Every moment spent together, every morning while the mother of my child is immersed in some new genetic pool at the library, is a time when great strides are made and stupendous victories are won. When Anna comes home the achievements of the day are replayed. It’s something to look forward to all morning, that’s what the game is all about, being able to experience her wonderment and enchantment and receive confirmation that something important has taken place here while she was at the library, that I’ve been witness to a wonderful miracle which will now be repeated.

The heir to my greenhouse is standing on the floor in her stockings and holding onto the double bed with both hands. I’m looking for her sweater on the other side of the room when I notice a concentrated expression on her face as she first unclenches her minute fingers and lets go of one hand and then the other, carefully and yet, at the same time, strangely secure. Then she stands still for several moments, unsupported on the floor in front of the bed, her tummy out, before she sets off, boldly and confidently into the unknown, for a total of three steps. She holds her arms in the air to keep her balance; there are dimples on her knees.

When Anna gets home, I grab our daughter from the floor where she is sitting piling up letter cubes, tearing her away from a half-finished Tower of Babel, and stand her in the middle of the floor, like a strolling player in the middle of a square premiering a divine comedy. First I hold both her hands and then gradually release my grip, one finger at a time. Initially she stands there in the middle of the kitchen floor with an incredibly concentrated air, and then the miracle occurs; she shifts all her body weight onto one leg so that she can lift the other one off the floor and quickly turns it into a step forward. Then she repeats the process with the other leg and takes a total of four steps forward with growing confidence, by swinging her hips like a little robot. Her mother kneels to catch her and lifts her up in a tight embrace and cuddles her. I watch her hugging the child; that’s made my day, at least. I calmly wait for the mother of my offspring to express her amazement at the day’s achievements. I don’t have to wait long for a reaction.

— That’s incredible, she’s started to walk. You’ve taught her so many things, to sing loads of songs, to whistle, to put a twenty-piece jigsaw puzzle together, and now to walk.

She’s still tightly hugging the child. Although I’m touched by Anna’s joy, it’s like she’s in some kind of slight emotional over-drive. She seems agitated.

— I just feel it’s so much at once, to give birth to a child and then the next day she’s walking, and then the next thing you know she’s left home and maybe phones you once in a blue moon, and you’ve got no more say in the matter. There are tears in her eyes.

— Now, now, I say. It’s a bit far-fetched to say that she’s leaving home. It’s not as if I’m about to escort our daughter down the aisle.

— Sorry, says Anna, Flóra Sól is a wonderful child and I feel it’s so much responsibility being a mother. She hands me the child and dabs her tears.

— I wasn’t this worried before I had Flóra Sól. Now I’m worried about everything, I’m even afraid that you might not come back when you got out to the shop to buy goulash veal or to meet your film buff.

I’ve no control over my thoughts, because all of a sudden I long to sleep with her. I’m so troubled by my impulses that I immediately dress the child in her anorak and hood. I was supposed to be going to the garden, but instead I suddenly rush out with the child, without explanation. I feel the urge to be outside to grab a hold of myself. Still though, since we were, after all, intimate for a quarter of a night just a year and a half ago, it shouldn’t be such an incredibly big step to take.