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the foreign daughter
afternoon prayers, tidied the
kitchen a bit and ordered me
to finish the job, my mother
would go to bed, stretching
out on her side, knees bent,
with one hand under the
pillow supporting her head.
She shut her eyes, and was off,
was asleep, now breathing in
peaceful, measured fashion.
When the bell rang, I imagined
her leaping up and making
that first gesture, the most
important of all, putting her
hands to her head to see
what had happened to her
headscarf in the free-for-
all she imagined sleep must
have been. Quick and deft, I
was certain she would rapidly
undo the knot on the nape of
her neck and place the piece
of cloth back over her hair,
leaving only a couple of inches
exposed, a reminder of her
body’s prized jewel.
Before opening the door she
told me to put the water on
to boil, and, stretched out on
the
mtarbath
in the dining-
room, deep into my reading
of
Ramona, adéu,
2
I poked
out my feet to track down
slippers that had the strange
habit of pointing their toes
in opposite directions all of
their own accord when I was
on those warm, foamy seats.
I wasn’t worried about my
headscarf - that was never a
move I made. I arranged the
large cushions tidily along the
wall, with their velvety shapes
and such Moroccan scenes
that looked straight from a
Chinese plate.
I had filled the pan with water
to boil and grabbed the mint
and was now sorting it stem
2
Ramona, adéu,
a novel by
Montserrat Roig, from 1972, that
portrays three generations in the life
of a family living in Barcelona from the
mid-nineteenth century to the 1960s,
mainly from the perspective of the
women.