Page 97 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

Hearing us arguing, my husband ran in to break it up. As soon as he tried, my
cousin made even more of a fuss. She said she had come here in order to prevent
a sin; this sin had been planned for decades, and so forth and so on. My husband

was baffled. It was odd that she didn’t bring up the issue of the box in front of
him. She just kept arguing, saying she had to stay here until the whole thing was
cleared up.
I thought this was a little fishy. I had placed the box in the loft. You could see
it if you stood in the middle of the room. Yet my cousin hadn’t mentioned
looking for it in the house, nor had she asked me where it was: this wasn’t where
her attention was focused. Everything was obscure. Maybe the box was nothing
but a pretext for staying in my home to satisfy her old maid’s curiosity or to take
revenge on me for something. She was too complicated. Since I couldn’t get a
feel for her temperament, I decided not to argue with her anymore. I acted as if
nothing was happening. At dinner, I talked with her as usual. She ignored my
overtures and kept a straight face. Then she turned to my son and spoke with him
of the subtle relationships between parents and children and took the opportunity

to develop this idea for a while.
“Sometimes it takes several generations for a sin to be completed,” she
announced complacently as she raised her head. My son listened to her piously
without blinking an eye. He adored this young auntie.
Not many people were as freewheeling as my cousin. She didn’t even have a
formal job but merely had a stall on the street where she sold cheap silk
stockings. The income from that kind of work was not very steady. She had
fallen out long ago with her parents—to the point where they no longer saw
anything of each other. So when business was slow and she lacked spending
money, she came here. Although I inwardly hated her, at the same time I also
admired her nimble and straightforward way of thinking, and I was
subconsciously affected by this. So I wasn’t against her staying, but I didn’t
expect her to aim the lance at me this time. It was as if she were determined to
pin down a certain private thing about me.
I was thoroughly annoyed. I didn’t know what kind of trouble my cousin
wanted to stir up. She didn’t care at all about my family. She claimed she had to

perform “surgery” on my family. When she said this, her face was absolutely
expressionless.
Today my boss had criticized me again because I was agitated and had made
mistakes in filling out reports. His tone was terribly harsh. I wanted to spit in his
face. I thought of the problem at home and felt it was time to drop a hint to my
cousin that it wasn’t right to interfere in other people’s lives. I kept thinking
about this, and on the way home I seemed to reach a decision.
As soon as I went inside, I heard laughter from her and my son. I had to