Singing from the Darktime by Weilbach S.;

Author:Weilbach, S.; [Weilbach, S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

They are in one enormous room, chilly though now it’s spring. The grey linoleum goes from wall to wall, marked with a murky once-yellow pattern reminding Lala of the vomit on the ship’s corridor floor. One window with a thin, fly-spotted net curtain overlooks a brick wall. Between brief intervals of quiet a locomotive thunders along its length, shaking walls, curtain, the floor. Opa whispers his prayers seated on a wooden chair in the room’s darkest corner. Near the window is a table covered with a once white, sour-smelling waxcloth. There are a few scratched wooden chairs. Her mother is hanging their clothes on the hooks along a wall. Several ramshackle folding-beds stand along another wall.

Someone knocks on their door and enters, bringing a warm meal in a cardboard box. Lala recognizes it is being offered with gestures of condescending pity. No conversation is possible with the English-speaking visitor, who wears a red cross on her sleeve and quickly departs again.

There is a drawer with steel cutlery and a small open cupboard with plates and mismatched cups. When they sit down to eat her father holds out his knife for her mother to see the food encrusted along its blade. Her mother gathers it all up and Lala watches her use a piece of soap, a stained dishtowel, and cold water to scrub each one. She sends Lala to fetch a clean hand towel from a suitcase in the comer with which to dry them.

Opa mutters a lowvoiced blessing. By now the food is cold. Lala eats the bits of potato which taste agreeably like the ones she used to bring to their yard dog at home – sampling a few nibbles on the way. There is a thick greenish paste which her mother says must be peas, but Lala gags when she tries to swallow it. She cannot bring herself to touch the grey slice of fish with pointed bones showing here and there. No-one notices because just then another train is surging past, and father glares with rage or fear, Lala cannot tell which, as the noise reverberates through the room, rattling the windowglass, the cups on the shelves. She has to go to the toilet and mother shows her the small windowless stall on the landing. There is no toilet paper, only some pieces of newspaper on a nail, like in the outhouse beside the stable at home.

When she comes back she is told to finish her meal. She sits and toys with the fish, lifts a few shreds to her lips, shudders and puts down her fork. Her father raises his voice over the oncoming noise of another train and orders her to finish what is on her plate. Lala tries, but a dry retching begins in her throat and it clenches shut. Her father tells her either to eat or get into her bed. Lala sits, head bowed over her plate.

Her mother pushes one of the beds away from the others, up close against a wall.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.