NORMAN
MANEA
85
cia blossoms.
High up on the arched ceiling of the waiting room, where the light
bulbs attracted billows of insects, Grandfather appeared as if on a round
screen, and Grandmother, and his parents, and his aunt. They were
warming their hands on the steaming cups, all of them staring at the
same point high above, in front of them. Anda was there, too, of course.
She took part, humble, submissive, but shameless enough, nevertheless,
not to miss the tea ritual to which Grandfather summoned everybody,
sometimes looking at each person a long time, letting them know that
he knew everything about everybody, even about his son-in-law and this
beautiful and guilty granddaughter.
Grandfather did not take his eyes off the little white cube of sugar
that hung, as usual, from the ceiling lamp . They all had to stare at it in–
tensely for some minutes before sipping the hot water. Those who re–
membered the taste of sugar, those, that is, who had the time, before the
disaster, to accustom their palates to the sweetness of the little white
lumps, gradually felt their lips become wet and sticky. The brackish green
drink became sweet, good, "real tea," as Grandfather would say.
The ceremony was repeated almost every afternoon, presided over
stemly yet not without a touch of humor by the old man, his unkempt
beard mottled in black. He was convinced that he would return home,
and he conserved as a symbol of that world, and for that world, a dirty
sugar cube. While the boiling water was being poured, no one was al–
lowed to look anywhere but in his own cup, and one waited to hear
the water splash and bubble in the neighboring cup, until one by one all
of them were filled. Then everyone raised his eyes toward the lamp from
which a tiny parallelepiped of almost white sugar hung on a string. They
had to stare at it patiently for a long time, and had to sip the tea slowly,
until everyone felt his lips, tongue, mouth, his entire being refreshed,
mellowed by the memory of a world they must not give up, because,
Grandfather firmly believed, it had not given them up and could not do
without them. The tea steamed in the cups; everyone was silent, all con–
centrating, as they had been told to, on a small, dirty cube of sugar that
Grandfather had had the idea to save and hang up in front of them every
day.
Up there, above the din in which the poor wretches tried, uselessly,
to return to another life, up there, in an open space, isolated from the
huge waiting room, Grandfather, confident in a return that would not
come to pass, could have assured them that the magic potion was indeed
proof that the world had welcomed them back. But even this strange
drink did not remotely resemble "real tea."
"Dunk the biscuits in the tea. Drink it while it's hot."
"Drink while it's hot," repeated now one woman, now another.
