Page 41 - WTP Vol. VII #6

him. “A nun?” I said to the mirror mimicking his voice. “She wants to be a nun,” I told my reflection.
notes of the piano.
“A nun,” I repeated solemnly and stared at the mirror as my father had stared at me.
“Why aren’t you eating?” my father asked.
But I felt glorious.
He gave me a meaningful look but looks never revive one’s appetite.
I had stumped them. Forgetting my desire to be a nun, I went to dinner feeling pleased. “You have noth-
My mother washed pots. Above the music and the roar of the water, she shouted, “He doesn’t even know Silverman, but he’s running there in the middle of the night.”
“The shadows of the branches moved
My father looked at his thin watch. “It’s six-thirty and I do know him, dear.” He said “dear” in his poisoned way: it was a quick snake let out onto the floor. My father rose from the table, washed up, got his hat and coat and left, locking the door with vigorous clicks.
on a red brick wall. There, was my beauty.”
The music continued. It was lovely. I ate a few cold string beans. “Too god-damn cheap to pay, that’s all!” my mother shouted at the kitchen sink. “Him and his stinking family!”
“Not hungry.”
ing and no one but yourself,” I thought. But I also had the book I had bought that afternoon.
Then she brought me a cup of applesauce. I scooped some up and held the spoon in my mouth. My tongue rested on a cool, soft, grained bed. I removed the spoon to look at the depression my tongue had made, and lick by lick, with the tip of my tongue, I ate the applesauce. The coolness of it caressed my lips while my mother clinked the plates as she put them away in the cabinet.
~ There was a discussion at dinner.
“Pay it and get it over with,” said my mother.
My father did not want to pay the amount stated in a letter from the housing office.
When she finished all the dishes my mother went into the living room and turned on the television. She sat down in her armchair to watch people laugh on the black and white screen.
“I’ll go see Silverman,” he said. “When?”
“After dinner.”
“Why don’t you sit with me?” she called out but I thought I could read my book now. I pretended I hadn’t heard and went into my bedroom.
My mother made her lips tight. My father stabbed his green beans ruthlessly with a fork. I pushed the food around on my plate. They always fought. They always would: they are children, I thought, holding myself above them.
Out of duty I opened my notebook to the vocabulary homework first. Jettison, corpulent, panacea: I did not know these words. I read the dictionary entry for jettison but remembered nothing. I resisted the book no longer.
“Once you’re home, you should stay home,” my mother spoke.
A month ago, I had overheard two teachers in my junior high school talking about a book called A Spy in the House of Love. The words of the title were like an enchanting wisp of blue smoke above a pine forest. I thought the House of Love must be something splen- did, rich and shining, a house of happiness. The word
“Is it written in the Torah?” he answered.
She gathered up her plate and silverware while he was still eating and went into the kitchen. The notes of a Schumann Arabesque twirled into the dining room from the kitchen radio. I listened to the perfect
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