Lilac sprig on a forearm

The officer at the crossing unwrapped the damp sacking on my lap and found a sprig of lilac no longer than my forearm, its blossoms browning at the tips after three days on the train. He turned it over as if it might be a message in code. I told him it was for my mother's grave, which was half true, because she always said lilac would root in any soil that didn't argue with it.

He was young and had a moustache he was clearly proud of, and he asked for the name of the nursery. I gave him the name of the stall behind the bakery on Kossuth Street, where old Pal Varga used to sell cuttings out of a tin bath. Varga has been dead eleven years. The officer wrote the name down anyway, carefully, and stamped the form with a sound like a small door shutting.

After that he let it through, and I stood on the far side of the bridge with the wind coming off the river and nothing in my hands but the cutting. I wrapped it again and pressed it to my wrist, where the blossoms had kept a little of their smell. It was exactly as it had been on Varga's bench, sweet and slightly sour, like rain going off.

I am planting it under the kitchen window tomorrow, where the frost lingers longest, because that is where she wanted it. Come in April and bring the good scissors. If it takes, we will have something to cut for her table. If it doesn't, you can tell me I was a fool with a bad pass and a worse plan. Write soon.

Love, Ilona