TE15 Lithuanian Honey Cake

The Grand Piano Room

myself back. ‘We had a toilet, we had a bathroom.’ My wife looked at me as if I had been struck by lightning. ‘What are you on about, Jura?’ I left the room. I knew that she would say something like, ‘We’ve always gone to the closet outside. What’s up, Jura?’ It was impossible to prove that until quite recently (as it seemed to me) I had seen my wife and daughter use the bathroom and toilet. That was the thing; I didn’t doubt my wife’s sincerity for a second. Or the fact that she didn’t remember a thing. But it had been like that, I was certain. Like with the grand piano room. A couple of months later, I was unsurprised to see my parents carrying their night pots down the hall. And, though I knew that they didn’t have any choice, still they were in some ways diminished in my eyes. It was hard to explain. My father used to wear brand-new clothes (I remembered his beautiful fingers, the violin on his shoulder). Could that be him groaning in the living room (they had no bedroom of their own)? And I could hear all this. What respect could I have after that? Pity or understanding – yes. But it is enough to pity a person once, or see them powerless, and they lose something for ever. Something which I had so valued in our relationship. And all that sneaking around (running out with a night pot so nobody could see), and that suspiciously cheap smell of perfume in the living room after ‘it’...

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