Description: The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Er ndira and Her Heartless GrandmotberEr ndira was bathing her grandmother when the wind of her misfortune began to blow. The enormous mansion of moonlike concrete lost in the solitude of the desert trembled down to its foundations with the first attack. But Er ndira and her grandmother were used to the risks of the wild nature there, and in the bathroom decorated with a series of peacocks and childish mosaics of Roman baths they scarcely paid any attention to the caliber of the wind.The grandmother, naked and huge in the marble tub, looked like a handsome white whale. The granddaughter had just turned fourteen and was languid, soft-boned, and too meek for her age. With a parsimony that had something like sacred rigor about it, she was bathing her grandmother with water in which purifying herbs and aromatic leaveshad been boiled, the latter clinging to the succulent back, the flowing metal-colored hair, and the powerful shoulders which were so mercilessly tattooed as to put sailors to shame."Last night I dreamt I was expecting a letter," the grandmother said.Er ndira, who never spoke except when it was unavoidable, asked: "What day was it in the dream?""Thursday.""Then it was a letter with bad news," Er ndira said, "but it will never arrive."When she had finished bathing her grandmother, she took her to her bedroom. The grandmother was so fat that she could only walk

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