It was stuffy and men wiped foreheads with blemished handkerchiefs,
doffing synthetic shirts imbrued with perspiration. Someone turned on
the radio and off again. Others pressed frayed rags against the leaking
window frames.
"She is not herself since Sima died" - my grandmother intoned in vacant
words. No one mentioned Uzi, Dinah's only son, my cousin, my friend,
irrevocably adopted now. I thought to myself: Dinah may be sad on his
account as well. No one suggested that she misses him as badly as she
does her daughter and her husband, who deserted her, amidst this
budding emptiness, without saying why.
Mother served a round of roasting, grainy coffee, in tiny demitasses. A
symphony of smacking lips and groans of pleasure followed.
"What are we to do now?" - my grandma said, her voice monotonous, her
fingers curled around the trimmings of her dress - "She eloped with
this madman. What's wrong with her? She has a handsome, clever child, a
warm home, a steady job."
My mother stared at her and then away. My uncle, Gabi, said: "There's
more to life than these."
"What more is there to life?" - erupted my grandma, approaching him
with scorching eyes - "What do you have in yours? Do you have a wife, a
home, or children? Almost thirty years old and still a toddler,
unemployed, subsisting on the marrow of this old man here.
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