Read Online By the Light of My Father's Smile by Alice Walker - Free Book Online Page A

dragged away from the door; her back was now against Irene’s small wooden bed.
    There are also wonderful tapes, said Irene. But best of all are the soap operas. In every nationality they are the best way to learn a language.
    No kidding? said Susannah, sipping her tea.
    No kidding, said Irene, mocking Susannah’s tone, but with her own amusing, to Susannah, accent.
    But why do women come to you? asked Susannah. And, more important, why do you receive them?
    Myself, said the dwarf, pointing to her rounded chest, I think they are drawn by my red curtains.
    I certainly was, said Susannah, smiling.
    Why does it surprise you that I, even I, should have a thirst for life? said Irene. A woman living alone. A small woman. A very small woman. In a room in back of a white church. A very white church, because I whitewash it every year. In a room with red curtains.
    The very description is intriguing, you have to admit! said Susannah, laughing.
    And yet Petros had not been intrigued. Nor even interested.
    She’s a dwarf, she lives alone. She’s made her peace with it. Leave her alone. He had been saddened by Irene’s fate, Susannah thought now, without really knowing it.
    Why don’t you ever leave? she asked.
    In the old days, when I was young, it was forbidden. I was beaten if I left. Dragged back. There was no place to go, either. My mother was dead. Nobody wanted me.
    It is difficult to sit across from anyone and to imagine that they were not wanted. The truth of what Irene said, proved by the lifeshe led, pained Susannah, who still could not quite fathom it. She had been born into a family that wanted her, loved her. But she had somehow discovered a rejecting power in herself, even in childhood, and had used it to shut her father out.
    As Irene smoked, and worked on her embroidery, which was a tablecloth that would be sold to tourists, Susannah’s mind drifted. She saw her father coming toward her, smiling, and holding out a handful of green-apple jellybeans. He’d carefully removed all the other flavors, because he knew green apple was her favorite. There the candy lay, glossy and fresh, in his large tan palm. They had stopped at a country store as they drove across Texas on their way home from Mexico. He must have bought the candy then.
    She felt her hand begin reaching for the candy, and felt her eyes responding to his smile. And then, just then, before she actually reached, she heard June, Mad Dog, Magdalena, clear her throat. She heard her say, though their father had not yet asked her: I do not care for any. And Susannah’s hand had remained in her lap, and her eyes had lowered themselves. She heard her father’s disappointed Okay, then. And heard him turn away, go around the front of the car, and get in. She’d longed for the taste of those jellybeans! Yet June’s cough had made it impossible for her to accept them. Once again she was drawn back to the keyhole. Once again she saw her father turn into a man she did not know.
    From the backseat, while her mother and June slept, she had studied the back of her father’s head. The way his hair waved, just above his neck, even though it was cut very short. The way his ears stuck out. Theirs had always been a relationship that thrived on touching. In the old days, before she saw him punish June, she would have reached up and run her fingers across the wavy ridgesof his hair, and played with the comical stuck-out ears. Now she felt unable to lift her hand. Even though he sat just in front of her, it felt as if he were far away. Only now, as a middle-aged woman, sipping tea with an elderly Greek dwarf during a warm evening on a small island in the middle of a maroon sea, did she wonder what her father must have thought.

Relatives
    That night, in bed with Petros, Susannah tossed and turned. Petros thought her restlessness could be calmed by lovemaking, but she did not desire him. The next day she asked if he would accompany her on a