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第84部分(第1页)

367

I AM ESTHER

I was putting lentil soup on the boil for our evening meal when Nesim said;

“There’s a visitor at the door。” I replied; “Make sure the soup doesn’t burn;”

handing  him  the  spoon  and  giving  it  a  couple  of  turns  in  the  pot  while

holding his aged hand。 If you don’t show them; they’ll stand there for hours

idly holding the spoon in the pot。

When I saw Black at the door I felt nothing but pity for him。 There was such

an expression on his face I was afraid to ask what had happened。

“Don’t  bother  to  e  inside;”  I  said;  “I’ll  be  out  as  soon  as  I  change

clothes。”

I  donned  the  pink  and  yellow  garments  that  I  wear  when  I’m  invited  to

Ramadan festivities; wealthy banquets and lengthy weddings; and took up my

holiday satchel。 “I’ll have my soup when I get back;” I said to poor Nesim。

Black and I had crossed one street in my little Jewish neighborhood whose

chimneys labor to expel their smoke; the way our kettles force out their steam;

and I said:

“Shekure’s former husband is back。”

Black fell silent and stayed that way until we left the neighborhood。 His face

was ashen; the color of the waning day。

“Where are they?” he asked sometime later。

From  this  question  I  guessed  that  Shekure  and  her  children  weren’t  at

home。  “They’re  at  their  house;”  I  said。  Because  I  meant  Shekure’s  previous

home; and knew at once that this would singe Black’s heart; I opened a door

of  hope  for  him  by  tacking  the  word  “probably”  onto  the  end  of  my

statement。

“Have you seen her newly returned husband?” he asked me; looking deep

into my eyes。

“I haven’t seen him; neither did I see Shekure’s flight from the house。”

“How did you know they’d left?”

“From your face。”

“Tell me everything;” he said decisively。

Black was so troubled he didn’t understand that Esther—her eye eternally

at the window; her ear eternally to the ground—could never “tell everything”

368

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