Read Online After Auschwitz: A Love Story by Brenda Webster - Free Book Online Page B

Instead, I think of making a long list of all the dishes I cooked for her. Pasta with clams was one of her favorites, but I also made pasta Bolognese and
strozzaprete
with porcini mushrooms.
    (Hannah was gleeful about the suggestion that priests were being strangled. The pope had been friendly to the Germans; even now the present pope had trouble speaking to officials of the Israeli government.) I roasted baby lamb and potatoes and baked every sort of fish in the oven: rospo, swordfish, sea bass, all roasted with tiny tomatoes. For desert I made crème caramel and hot apple torte
    Another thing that frightened her was the idea she might lose her apartment. The one she had when I met her. She was paranoid about her landlady, whom she felt sure had been aFascist, because once when Hannah was late with the rent and had gone to hand it to her personally, Hannah had caught sight of the photo on the sideboard of a man in a Fascist uniform. It was all she could do to keep from cursing the woman, telling her how she had suffered from men like her husband and father. Instead she wrote a story. Black words leaking from her pen onto paper.
    Last night there was a thunderstorm. We were lying together in our bed under the eaves when the thunder started crashing right over our heads. The eaves are so close that we have to crawl into bed on our hands and knees. I started worrying about the baby gulls on the roof below our terrace. Was the soft fluff cradling their bodies enough to keep them dry? I knew their parents—mother or father—would spread their wings as far as they could and the chicks would cuddle close. I moved under Hannah’s arm and inhaled the slightly acrid but always pleasing scent, like warm grass mixed with lemon zest.
    Lightning flashed blue outside. Zigzagging across the sky, punctuated by the booming of thunder. Bang bang bang.
    I decided that tomorrow I would throw some bread or meat scraps down to the gulls. Our landlord, Barry, would be furious if he knew. He told our maid, Erminia, that he had poured boiling water on the eggs one year. Our terrace has a rickety iron staircase leading to a viewing platform that offers a 360 degrees view of red-tiled Roman roofs. He told her if they nested up there—they like to be able to see who’s coming—to take the eggs and throw them away. Erminia had taken them and put them on the edge of our fountain. Perhaps enchanted by their color she didn’t throw them out. People have a sentimental view of peasants, Liberals at least, but maybe Erminia had some other motive, something else entirely.
    Erminia did have a charming naïveté sometimes. She told me that her grandfather had fought in World War II (or would it have been her father?) and in the army he had his first sight of black men. It astonished him. Once a black soldier caughthim staring and asked him what he was staring at.
    â€œI was wondering if you were a Christian,” her grandfather answered.
    â€œBy ‘Christian’ he meant a human being like me,” she explained. Erminia didn’t remember what the man had answered.
    In the morning I went out to look at the gulls and found them sleeping in the sun, wedged into hollows made where the tiles joined a small chimney. Their parent stood guard on the chimney top. I went into the fridge and found some leftover beef with fat I could trim. The mother gull was enchanted and doubtless will process it for the chicks.
    I am in a strangely sentimental mood, wanting to see young creatures. There is a mother and baby who often come out on their terrace. They are there now, the baby all dressed up, with tiny socks and a matching hat. The mother is playing with it, tossing it up and making it laugh. She sees me looking and waves.
    â€œChe bel bambino,”
I call to her.
    â€œIt’s a girl,” she says.
    â€œSomeday you must come over and bring her for tea.”
    â€œI’d like that,” she said.
    She reminds me