Archive of the Day

From The Book of Intimate Grammar by David Grossman:

On Thursdays they walked Yaeli to her ballet class in the Valley of the Cross and waited outside for her like bodyguards. One time Madame Nikova passed by them, diminutive and wrinkled, and stopped and turned. “Always the two of you are with her, no?” she asked in her thick Russian accent. They nodded. Madame Nikova glanced astutely from the boys to Yaeli. There was a flicker of amused approval in her eyes. Her crimson mouth assumed a smile, and Yaeli bowed her head as though feigning modesty. The old ballet mistress seemed about to say more, perhaps she was reminded of her past, but she seemed to think better of it and turned away again, and Aron had a sneaky suspicion that such things were not unknown, that theirs was not a unique and unprecedented relationship; that the outcome was inevitable.