Lungs and Legs

Chapter 4

It is mid-winter and a little past the big celebrations when Rosa asks me to tell her where I come from.

Over the past months we have grown close. We spend much of our time together, doing chores or just talking. Rosa takes the time to let me gesture my way around the thoughts I would like to share with her. She seems rather fascinated by it and never loses patience. She laughs at my silly faces and urges me on whenever I get stuck on a difficult idea. Eventually, we have come up with a series of signs that make things easier for us both. She talks a lot too, and tells all sorts of marvelous stories: about far off lands, buzzing cities, princely courts, and empty wastelands; stories of passion and war, of love and magic, stories of treason and stories of redemption. I do not know how much of it is true and I do not care.
Everyone loves Rosa's stories. They often bring visitors to Berta's house – groups of children whom Berta let's stay for a tale or two before chasing them out to do some chores, friendly neighbors whom she lets sit for a while in the kitchen as Rosa talks and we all go about our tasks, and sometimes bigger parties, during the increasingly long evenings, for whom she cooks, muttering under her nose but smiling nevertheless. With time, however, I have started noticing something confusing in the way they all look at Rosa, a slight unease in their eyes and their gestures when she is around. I paid it no mind at first, assuming this was akin to the awed reactions the most beautiful of my sisters would get whenever we had company. But from snippets of conversations I heard around the village I gathered Rosa was not considered beautiful. I came to realize this was more like the way one would look at a wild animal should one wander into one's home – fascinating but ultimately out of place.
I do not complain, though, since this means whoever comes to listen to her marvelous tales eventually leaves and I enjoy the time the two of us get to spend together.

So when she asks for my story I want to tell her. The problem is I do not know how.
We are sitting in Berta's kitchen, peeling potatoes for the evening's stew. It is warm inside, but the village is all blanketed in snow. I like the world like this, calm and fuzzy, with rounded corners. I like the silence and the way every house becomes a bubble of its own, small and cozy and safe. I find it easier to talk in such a space. And yet, this tale seems too big to fit into any language we share.
"You don't want to tell me?" Rosa asks and when I protest she follows up with "You can't?". I spread my arms wide and she asks "Too big?". I nod. "Well, try me anyways!" she says, so I do. But no matter how much I wave my arms around and what faces I make, she still seems confused. I give up after a while and we sit in silence, resigned. Then Rosa brusquely gets up and says "Let's try something else!". She grabs a piece of charcoal from the fireplace, then leads me outside and into the barn. Here, she places the coal in my hand and points towards one of the plain wooden walls.
I hesitate for a moment, but she just stands there expectantly, so I start drawing. What I cannot draw, I complete with gestures. And this is how I tell her everything. About the kingdom under the sea and how curiosity brought me out of it time and again. I tell her how I fell in love with a human who was also a prince. "Oh dear!" Rosa only says at this point in the story and I think I understand. This does seem like a terrible idea now. Then I tell Rosa about the trade I have made, how I have come to live in this body and at what cost.
By this time, Rosa has found an old fur coat and has covered herself with it, sitting with her legs under her chin on a woodpile, offering as little surface to the cold as possible. But I do not feel the bite of frozen air. I am too engulfed in my memories. I realize only now living alone with them had not been easy.
When I am done, having told her about the impossible choice and my improbable escape, Rosa looks at me in silence for longer than feels comfortable.
"All of this happened to you?" she asks at last and I nod, fearful she will not believe me. But all she does is stand up, extend her arms and hug me. We stand there for a while, my face buried in the fur she is wearing and in her dark curls.

I do not believe Rosa would tell what she learned from me to just anyone. But the tale does get out. Maybe some kids snuck into the barn and saw the pictures. Maybe Rosa said a thing here and there and people pieced together the story. In any case, soon it becomes known and though I do not think the villagers believe it all actually happened to me, the story travels from the village further afield. And that is what brings the man with the little notebook.