A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [152]
Auntie Mala and Uncle Staszek may not have any children, but they do of course have their pair of plump, lazy, blue-eyed Persian cats, Chopin and Schopenhauer (and as we make our way up Chancellor Street, I am treated to two thumbnail sketches, of chopin from my mother and of Schopenhauer from my father). Most of the time the cats doze curled up together on the sofa or on a pouffe, like a pair of hibernating polar bears. And in the corner, above the black piano, hangs the cage containing the ancient, bald bird, not in the best of health and blind in one eye. Its beak always hangs half open, as though it is thirsty. Sometimes Mala and Staszek call it Alma, and sometimes they call it Mirabelle. In its cage, too, is the other bird that Auntie Mala put there to relieve its solitude, made from a painted pinecone, with matchsticks for legs and a dark red sliver of wood for a beak. This new bird has wings made from real feathers that have fallen or been plucked from Alma-Mirabelle's wings. The feathers are turquoise and mauve.
Uncle Staszek is sitting smoking. One of his eyebrows, the left one, is always raised, as though expressing a doubt: is that really so, aren't you exaggerating a little? And one of his incisors is missing, giving him the look of a rough street kid. My mother hardly speaks. Auntie Mala, a blond woman who wears her hair in two plaits that sometimes fall elegantly over her shoulders and at other times are wrapped tightly around her head like a wreath, offers my parents a glass of tea and some apple cake. She can peel apples in a single spiral that winds around itself like a telephone cord. Both Staszek and Mala once dreamed of being farmers. They lived on a kibbutz for a couple of years, and then tried living on a cooperative farm for another couple of years, until it became clear that Auntie Mala was allergic to most wild plants, while Uncle Staszek was allergic to the sun (or, as he put it, the sun itself was allergic to him). So now Uncle Staszek works as a clerk in the Head Post Office, while Auntie Mala works as an assistant to a well-known dentist on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. When she serves us the apple cake, Father cannot resist complimenting her in his usual jocular fashion:
"Dear Mala, you bake the most heavenly cake, and I always adore the tea that you pour."
Mother says:
"That's enough, Arieh."
And for me, on condition I eat up a thick slice of cake like a big boy, Auntie Mala has a special treat: homemade cherryade. Her homemade cherryade compensates for being short on bubbles (evidently the soda bottle has suffered the consequences of standing around for too long with its hat off) by being so rich in red syrup that it is almost unbearably sweet.
So I politely eat all my cake (not bad at all), careful not to chew with my mouth open, to eat properly with a fork and not dirty my fingers, fully aware of the various dangers of stains, crumbs, and an overfull mouth, spearing each piece of cake on the fork and moving it through the air with extreme care, as though taking into account enemy aircraft that might intercept my cargo flight on the way from plate to mouth. I chew nicely, with my mouth closed, and swallow discreetly and without licking my lips. On the way I pluck the Rudnickis' admiring glances and my parents' pride and pin them to my air-force uniform. And I finally earn the promised prize: a glass of homemade cherryade, short on bubbles but very rich in syrup.
So rich in syrup, indeed, that it is completely, utterly, and totally un-drinkable.