The Sparrow (61 page)
Authors: Mary Doria Russell
She sneaks a look over her shoulder at the clock. It's past time, but no one's come to bully her into bed. Watching the lightning, she feels like a naughty child, thrilled to stay up late, and like a child, she falls asleep although she'd rather not. Memories blur into dreams, and back again. Who was that girl in the dream? Cousin Natasha! Now, what brought her to mind?
When Rivka wakes again, it's to the sound of footsteps. She doesn't see the soldier enter her room, her attention caught instead by the people running in the streets, just beneath her balcony. "Natasha, look!" she says, before she can stop herself. Now I really am senile! she thinks.
She smiles and shakes her head at her own foolishness, which spoils the soldier's shot.
"Scheisse,"
he swears irritably. Averting his face from the fountaining blood, he presses the gun barrel to the old Jew's skull, and finishes the job.
A paleoanthropologist known for work on cannibalism and craniofacial biomechanics, M
ARY
D
ORIA
R
USSELL
is the author of
The Sparrow
and
Children of God
, which have earned her a number of awards and have been translated into a dozen languages, and A
Thread of Grace
. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband and their son. Her website is
www.MaryDoriaRussell.info
.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1996 by Mary Doria Russell
Reader's Guide copyright © 1997 by Mary Doria Russell and The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Ballantine Reader's Circle and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-90649
This edition published by arrangement with Villard Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
Villard Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51088-4
v3.0_r1