دانلود رمان انگلیسی “مرا تماشا کن”

When I open the cupboard, the shelves are empty. This is no surprise, of course; the shelves have been empty for weeks. It’s for Clara’s sake that I make a show of opening them every morning, pretending there might be more than the same skittering cockroach living inside. I close the cabinet door, then turn to face her. Clara never leaves the bed unless I carry her; today she’s sitting up and staring out the icy window, her pale eyes made paler by the blast of early morning light. Her hand trembles as she twitches the threadbare curtain, and a blue glare briefly illuminates the glass. “We’re out of bread,” I announce. “I’m heading out.” Some days Clara lets me leave without asking questions. Other days she asks me how I pay for the food I bring home. Today she says, “I dreamed of Mama last night.” I keep my face impassive. “Again?” Clara turns toward me, so gaunt her eyes appear sunken in her face. “She wasn’t well, Rosa. She was suffering.” I step into my boots, shaking my head as I move into a shaft of light. “It was only a dream,” I say to her. “The dead don’t suffer.” Clara looks away again. “You always say that.” “And you stare at her photograph too much,” I say, knotting my laces. My right hand doesn’t shake today, and I experience a rush of relief as I straighten, then a flash of terror as I note the dwindling fire in the hearth—and the disappearing pile of firewood beside it. I force the terror down. “Besides,” I add, “you hardly knew her.” “Well, you hardly speak of her,” Clara counters with a sigh. Through the window I glimpse a redheaded woodpecker and watch, transfixed, as it hammers its beak into a mossy trunk. It’s been just over a decade since the fall of The Reestablishment—just over a decade since we’ve lived here, on Ark Island—and I, too, wish I could bash my head over and over against a hard surface every day. I take a sharp breath, ignoring the ever-present ache of hunger.