My mother beseeched him softly, shocking us all:
"Go away, Janusz, Dinah is tired."
It was the first thing she said that evening. She then stood up,
stretching her pygmy frame, pinning on Janusz her kaleidoscopic
brown-green gaze. Her hair braked, cropped, atop her shoulders. Janusz,
taken aback, studied her as one would an exotic species. His hands, two
violent spirals, breached desperately the musty air. My mother stepped
up to him and, looking into befuddled eyes, she reiterated her pleading
command:
"Go away, Janusz" - and, then, soothingly - "Dinah will see you
tomorrow."
Janusz's body crumbled. His shoulders bowed, he took his glasses off,
withdrew a patterned flannel shirt from his trousers and polished them
meticulously. His lake-blue eyesight fluttered. He placed his eyecups
back, forgetting to restore his attire.
"I only want to talk to her" - he protested tamely - "I only want to
tell her to marry me because I love her."
My mother nodded understandingly:
"This is not the time. You must go now. It is Passover, the Seder
night, and you are intruding."
He reciprocated miserably and retreated crab-like, sideways, afraid to
turn his back on the hostile room.
Dinah watched him from the kitchen, numbed.
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