The Night We Ate the Sparrow by Morris Lurie

Author:Morris Lurie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ligature Pty Limited
Published: 2021-11-09T20:55:01+00:00

Tell Me What You Want

‘But exactly!’ cried my aunt. ‘Chaim? It’s a miracle. I can’t believe it. Look how he smiles. It’s Sam to the inch.’

My uncle sat in a corner, his hand to his chin. ‘A little,’ he said. ‘Perhaps.’ He spoke slowly, quietly. ‘Perhaps there is something.’

‘Something? What do you mean something? Would I scream for a something? I opened the door and look what I saw. It’s Sam.’

She crossed her legs, tapped ash from her cigarette, sat back, leaned forward again, an excitable woman, intense, somewhere in her sixties, her firm eyes never once leaving my face. Aunt Rivkeh. While my uncle sat in his corner, slowly stroking his chin.

‘So,’ she said. ‘So.’ She smiled. I smiled back. She recrossed her legs. And then, suddenly serious, leaning forward, ‘But why didn’t you come sooner?’ She gave me no chance to reply. ‘Tell me,’ she said, looking straight into my eyes, ‘have you eaten?’

I nodded, quickly. ‘Please, don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I had something in Tel Aviv.’ My stomach growled. I tried to cover it by clearing my throat. I blushed. I reached quickly into my jacket for my cigarettes.

‘So you’re a smoker?’ Aunt Rivkeh said. ‘Here, an ashtray.’ She was up, she was sitting again, one minute stern, the next smiling, but her eyes always the same. She watched me light my cigarette. ‘So tell me,’ she said, ‘when did you arrive?’

‘I got into Haifa this afternoon,’ I said.

‘Haifa? You came by ship? Straight from Australia?’

‘Well, no … from Greece. Rhodes. I’ve been living there. Actually, I’ve been in Europe for nearly two years. I was in London …’

‘Nearly two years!’ She looked at me astounded. ‘So why didn’t you come here before?’

I had no answer. I looked down. ‘I was working,’ I said. ‘In London.’

‘London, London, what’s London? If you want London, take a trip. This is your home!’

I didn’t know what to say. I felt my skin prickling under my aunt’s firm eyes.

‘Well …’I said.

Silence sat heavy in the room. I had been judged and found guilty. I was shallow. I was a fool.

‘Rivkeh,’ my uncle said. ‘Make some tea.’

‘London,’ Aunt Rivkeh said. She gave me a hard look—puzzled? annoyed?—clicked her tongue, took one more puff of her cigarette and crushed it out, and then quickly she went out of the room. I heard her in the kitchen, plates rattling, cupboards closing with a bang. I looked across at my uncle, silent in his corner.

Was he older than my father, younger? It was impossible to tell. He sat hidden behind horn-rimmed spectacles, a solid man, serious, and perhaps he was even smiling at me.

‘Ah … you write books?’ I said. My uncle gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘We used to get them,’ I said. ‘At home.’

Still my uncle said nothing, one heavy hand slowly kneading his chin.

‘I’m afraid I didn’t read them,’ I said. ‘I can’t read Hebrew.’ My uncle said nothing. His face stayed the same. ‘Actually, dad didn’t read them either,’ I said. ‘Not one of them.

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