Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

My Mother’s Tears

if the head of the laboratory allows. My father couldn’t bear the fact that he had hit me. He was repentant. He hoped his tears would absolve him, would dilute his despair. Just as I was about to tell him how little it mattered, how much I loved him, just as I was about to nestle into his arms, to smell the scent of his skin, that same triumphant voice full of belligerent glee suddenly returned, that voice come to quicken our sorrow and complete my father’s humiliation: Now that you’ve seen... Go! Disappear! And the gray of my mother’s dress gleamed with indomitable radiance. * What can you expect of a man who goes into raptures at the sight of a fruit’s pulp, or bowing sunflowers, or the flight of a dragonfly, or a shade of nail polish?... What can you expect of a man who is satisfied with burr marigolds, the smell of hyacinths, a man who searches for the words to describe not only these things, but their gradual decay as well?... You take each of my fingers in turn and pull on them until they crack. You push them backwards. You bite the tips and smile, perhaps with love.

155