Eva's Sins.

LXII

„Will we live again times that will never turn back?"

  Bardain's trembling hand grabbed the box, the size of a bible, that was under his bed and he slowly dragged it to him, almost noiseless, till it has been only half-seen. Then, the movement of the hand stopped and froze above that „ghost-book."

  And... Brian used to call that box „ghost-book," each time he was seeing it through the cloth of the ragbag, which the old teamster used to take with him everywhere, calling it „saint relict with memories," which was making him feel as if having a big treasure, something that was awakening emotions in his chest, feelings that made his breath stop at that moment and his hand froze above the box.

  However, even if that box was something that Bardain cared the most about, and even if many could often see it, nobody knew what exactly was kept inside it. And that nescience wasn't caused by Bardain's stubbornness of not showing the box's content to the world, even if it was his desire, too, but because the object itself wasn't something very interesting to watch.

  Besides its small size, of a cubic rectangle form, what, as we said before, looked like a bible, with those few insignificant perches above it and of its color of a dark brown, the box was really crude, and many of those who ever saw it felt sick only with thinking of touching it, and this was due to the fact that the box was made from a wooden material, enough coarse, even uncouth we can say, and it was often making someone think that it was in fact greasy as if being kept not at safe into the teamster's ragbag, but somewhere at the kitchen, where a chubby and ruddy cook would have „fried" it continuously into lard.

  But it was just an appearance. However, the only one who knew that was Bardain, whose heart started to pound, catching sight of the two angular edges seen under the bed and also because of the half-seen pattern from the middle, a pattern above which the old man passed the tip of his fingers, deeply feeling its outline that was representing two letters hidden in the middle of a five-pointed star.

  Suddenly he winced, hearing the bed squeaking, and he right away looked there. But Stan hadn't awakened: he only moved in his sleep, turning his face toward the old man. And the boy smiled, so sweetly smiled, that made the old man sketch a smile too, even if before this his heart had pounded with sadness.

  „He probably dreams about something beautiful," the old man told himself. „Let him dream then. He's still young. He still has time for sorrow and disappointment," the invisible lips of Bardain's mind whispered, and his hands, so coarse and calloused because of harsh work and memories, stopped touching the box and held the edge of the blanket, which he later pulled up, covering the boy's body up to the neck, not to feel the cold.

  Stan, feeling the warmth around his body, wrapped himself in the blanket, catching its edges under his body, as if he was Moon laying on a hot kiln, and, soon after, the boy started to „purr" like a cat and it sounded so comic, heard coming out of the boy's mouth. „He had probably learned it from the cat while sleeping together," Bardain made a joke in his head and, after that, he turned to what he was doing, but not before making sure that the boy was sleeping like a log.

  Only then did the old man dare to take the box out of under the bed and, holding it with both hands and somehow squeezing it not to drop it, even if it wasn't heavy, he crawled on the floor toward the door of the stove through which the fire was roaring because of the hard oak wood he put inside the stove only a few minutes ago just to warm better their little room that they have received from Brian and Eva. But... even if the old man knew that they gave him and Stan that room in good faith, he still considered it as being too much.