Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka

Author:Marina Lewycka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Marta regrets that she didn’t manage to bring a chicken with her for their supper, but her views about food have changed in the last few days. After dropping off their passengers in Dover, they make their way back to their favorite spot by the carrot field, where she manages to improvise a delicious supper from white bread, margarine, and cold fish, supplemented with carrots and garnished with lemon slices and roadside herbs.

Yola and Tomasz are helping to peel the carrots, and Yola is telling Tomasz about her disagreements with Geta. Tomasz gazes with fascination into Yola’s eyes, asking her to repeat the sounds she made in the toilet, which she does in her typical vulgar way, and they both fall about laughing like children. And Marta thinks, here we go again.

She remembers the last time this happened, when Yola met a nice man, a plump greengrocer, and it was all holding hands and giggling and stolen kisses. And then Yola took the man back to her house in Zdroj, and as soon as he met little Mirek, as soon as he took one look at the boy, he was out through the door again like a cornered tomcat. He didn’t even take off his hat. He didn’t even let go of the box of liqueur chocolates in his hand.

“I piss on your cabbages!” Yola shouted at his retreating back, but the words slid off him like butter off a hot dumpling.

It took Yola a long time to get over that. And you have to give her credit for this—she didn’t blame Mirek. Not once.

“Yola,” says Marta, lighting the gas for the stove, “why don’t you show Tomasz your photos?”

“I’m sure Tomasz has no desire to see my uninteresting photos.” Yola gives Marta a kick on the shins. Yes, her shins are already quite bruised.

“I would like very much to see your photos,” says Tomasz.

So Yola has to get out the three photos she always carries with her. The pretty house in Zdroj, with its garden sloping down to the river and its orchard of plums and cherries. The four Masurian goats, a bit blurred, because they wouldn’t keep still. And Mirek, sitting on a swing in the garden, that sweet smile on his big round face, his tongue sticking out, his cute pointy eyes wrinkled up with laughter.

“This is your son?”

“My beloved son, Mirek.”

“I would like very much to meet him.”

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