بخش 91

Ella

NORTHAMPTON, AUGUST 12, 2008

Balmy and sunny, it was an ordinary day in August. A day like any other. Ella woke up early in the morning, prepared breakfast for her husband and children, watched them leave for work and chess and tennis clubs, went back to her kitchen, opened her cookbook, and chose the day’s menu: Spinach Soup with Creamy Mushroom Mash

Mussels with Mustard Mayonnaise

Seared Scallops with Tarragon-Butter Sauce

Garden Salad with Cranberries

Zucchini Rice Gratin

Rhubarb and Vanilla Cream Lattice Pie

It took her all afternoon to cook the dishes. When she was done, she took out her best china. She set the table, folded the napkins, and arranged the flowers. She set the oven timer for forty minutes, so that the gratin could be warm by seven o’clock. She prepared the croutons, put the dressing in the salad, thick and fatty, just as Avi preferred. It occurred to her to light the candles, but she changed her mind upon second thought. It was better to leave the table like this. Like an immaculate picture. Untouched. Unmoving.

Then she grabbed the suitcase she had earlier prepared and left her house. As she walked out, she murmured one of Shams’s rules. “It is never too late to ask yourself, ‘Am I ready to change the life I am living? Am I ready to change within?’ “Even if a single day in your life is the same as the day before, it surely is a pity. At every moment and with each new breath, one should be renewed and renewed again. There is only one way to be born into a new life: to die before death.”