84
PARTISAN REVIEW
Perhaps the commotion of so many confused voices coming from
down below overwhelmed her, allowed her to forget, but suddenly she
had turned around, pushing against the little midget's scrawny neck and
dislodging him from his nest.
In
any event, her bony, dampish shoulder
could not replace, even in the child's memory or dreams, the plump,
fresh cheeks of the pillow he craved.
The hands that touched the neck and the matchstick arms of the lit–
tle savage were those of the lady in the white uniform. The lady was
smiling at the little midget, bending over him, the red cross on her fore–
head shining, coming nearer. She held out the bag of biscuits and the tin
cup.
The cup was hot. The little beast's cheeks bent over the yellowish,
liquid circle, into the fragrant steam. A pleasure that could not last; a
pleasure one should not dare prolong, no matter what happiness one
felt. An impossible pleasure, but real, because the hall was real too, and
buzzing, and he heard the bag being ripped open over his head, and his
hand filled with biscuits.
The boy sipped, numb with pleasure, frightened. He understood that
everything was real and, therefore, that it would end; it was he, giddy
with delight, who impatiently hastened its end. The cup was half emp–
tied. He stopped drinking and looked at the stubby, fat biscuits in the
palm of his hand. He began to nibble, patiently, on one of the grainy,
sweet, scallop-edged shells. Only then did he feel hunger. He grabbed the
bag with one hand.
In
the other he held the cup. He shoved a fistful of
biscuits into his mouth. A little midget who inspired tenderness however
ghastly he looked, and so the lady put an extra bag in his mother's hand.
"Drink the tea also. Drink, while it's still hot."
Perhaps the souls of those we've lost do indeed take refuge in inani–
mate objects. They remain absent until the moment they feel our pres–
ence nearby and call out to us for recognition, to free them from death.
Perhaps, indeed, the past cannot be brought back on command, but is
resurrected only by that strange, spontaneous sensation we feel when un–
expectedly we come across the smell, the taste, the flavor of some inert
accessory from the past.
But the aroma of that heavenly drink could not be reminiscent of
anything; he had never experienced such pleasure. This magic potion
could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called "tea."
So it was necessary to look up toward the sky of dirty stone, where
black clouds of flies swarmed, and where he expected Grandfather to
appear, the only person who would have had an answer.
They had gathered, as usual, around him, everyone was holding his
hot cup of greenish water infused with local herbs picked in those alien
places, to which Grandfather would add, whenever he found them, aca-
