Read Echoes of the White Giraffe for Free Online

words have you learned from your dictionary? Here, let’s open our French dictionaries to ‘M.’ You can test me on the meanings and spellings, then I’ll test you, just as we always do.
    â€œCome on, Bokhi,” I pleaded. “We haven’t done this for five days now. Bokhi, talk to me.” I felt powerless and silly. I didn’t know what I could do to make her feel better.
    Bokhi didn’t respond. Instead, she got up with her dictionary in her hand and went outside to walk along the seashore. I followed her and, walking beside her, I bravely looped my arm through hers with a smile. She didn’t pull away, but she also didn’t give my arm her usual squeeze. She didn’t seem to care one way or the other. She was somber and aloof, and we just kept walking, passing the rows and rows of gloomy refugee huts. We walked all the way to the jagged black rocks that jutted into the sea. In gloomy silence, we watched the waves crash violently onto the rocks, filling the air with cold, gray mist.
    My teeth chattered from the damp cold. Then Bokhi finally spoke. “Now, I am an orphan. I have no parents. Ever since I got separated from my parents, I dreamed of the happy day when I would be reunited with them. That dream kept me going. But now there is nothing for me to dream of. There’s nothing to keep me going.”
    My eyes filled with tears as she spoke. I pulled my arm from hers and hugged myself. I was chilly and tired, and I didn’t know what to say. Then, remembering the desperate, pleading faces of her guardians, I said, “Bokhi, don’t you see how sad and worried your aunt and uncle are? They are so afraid they have lost you, too.”
    â€œYes, I know I’ve worried them a great deal. I’ll try not to cry and make them sad anymore,” she said with determination.
    â€œBokhi, you’re wrong to think you have nothing to dream about and nothing to live for. Your parents now live in your dreams. Now they can dream with you about your future. They would want you to go on studying French and fulfill your dream of going to the Sorbonne.
They will travel with you to France and work with you to become a great poet.”
    I wasn’t sure whether she heard me, but she pulled out her small French dictionary and flipped through the pages intently.
    â€œWhat word are you looking for?” I asked, relieved to see her lifeless eyes search for something.
    â€œThe word for ‘sand,’ ” she said dryly.
    â€œSable.
Why? Are you going to write a poem in French about the seashore?”
    â€œNo, I wanted to know the word for ‘sand castle’ in French,” she said expressionlessly.
    â€œChâteau de sable
?” I said, trying to get a smile out of her.
    She didn’t even crack a smile but stared down at the black rocks below. Bending suddenly, she fiercely dug her fingers into the wet sand lodged in the crevices of the rock and grabbed a fistful of sand and pebbles. She hurled it angrily into the water. The small pebbles fell loudly into the dark, turgid water.
    â€œThere, see how the ocean swallows those little pebbles. We are helpless and insignificant, like the pebbles. The war comes, chases us from our homes, makes us refugees, and then swallows us up along with all our hopes and dreams. We just sink down to the bottom. Only then do we have peace. What’s the sense of trying? What’s the sense of studying?” She stared at the dark water, taking short breaths as her eyes filled with tears of sadness and helplessness.
    â€œBokhi, you are wrong,” I said firmly. “We can not be swallowed up like those little pebbles. We aren’t pebbles. We won’t just quietly sink to the bottom. We can run, we can fight, and we can work. We are not helpless unless we let ourselves be.”
    My words were lost in the wind. Staring out at the sea, she said with resignation, “Do you ever feel that we are