Read Online Every House Needs a Balcony by Rina Frank - Free Book Online Page A

around, as many chairs as such a long table can accommodate. And along the room’s western wall, as if these chairs were not sufficient, there stood a further row of chairs belonging to the same dining room suite. The chairs were heavy, their edges decorated with a carved circular pattern, hand carved, of course. And most important, their red velvet upholstery had the soft, embracing feel of a loving chair. Like soldiers, Tante Lutzi and her husband Lazer’s chairs stood regally along the wall, and this is what Eugène Ionesco wrote his play about. The play tells the story of an elderly couple setting up chairs, arranging and rearranging them like soldiers, in anticipation of the arrival of invisible guests.
    The Chairs is 40 Stanton Street; at least that’s the story that was repeated proudly in our home.
    And my father, who spent five whole days taking Eugène Ionesco all over Haifa to provide him with inspiration, waited a long time for the play to be released, only to discover that he didn’t get so much as a credit in the list of acknowledgments.

 
    Mercedes was smiling broadly as she opened the door for them. “Hola,” Mercedes said, and kissed her on the right cheek, then the left, then the right again. She recoiled, jumped back, not understanding exactly—since when was she supposed to be kissing strangers?—and the man told her that in Spain people say hello and give each other three kisses. To her, it appeared very odd, and he went on to explain that in France the habit is to give two kisses, one on each cheek. In Spain it was three.
    At night, when she was introduced to Jorge, who also kissed her three times, she asked the man if she was supposed to kiss all the men in Barcelona, and he said that such was the custom, and it seemed a much nicer one to him than the limp handshake meted out by Israelis, as if they were doing you a favor. She agreed, recalling his firm handshake when they were first introduced and how impressed she had been by it.
    â€œSo why didn’t you kiss me three times when we were first introduced?” She laughed.
    â€œBelieve me, I wanted to.”
    â€œWell, why didn’t you, then?” she insisted, laughing.
    â€œBecause you would certainly have slapped my face.”
    Beyond the mandatory kisses, the two women were unable to exchange a single word. Like many Spaniards, Mercedes spoke no other language than Spanish and Catalonian. Mercedes was gorgeous and kindly and dressed in well-cut jeans, a button-up shirt, and killer heels, her taste exactly.
    The man took her suitcase into the very small bedroom she would be using. Mercedes’s room was much more spacious, and the living room was very pleasant. The apartment was extremely clean, and it was only after she’d learned to say a few consecutive sentences in Spanish and stayed for lunch with them a few times that she witnessed how the efficient Mercedes came home from work at lunchtime carrying shopping, stuck a chicken in the oven, washed down the floor, and served her boyfriend, Jorge, a glass of whiskey, straight to the armchair in which he was sitting watching sports on TV. When the meal was over, Mercedes would quickly wash the dishes and tidy up the kitchen; if Jorge was feeling horny in the afternoon, she would follow him into her bedroom and emit a few moans and groans before rushing off back to work, to unlock the office from four thirty until eight thirty in the evening. She could never understand where this pleasantwoman got all the energy to do so much work singlehandedly, while her boyfriend just sat there watching TV, and even to smile at him. Sometimes he’d get through half a bottle of whiskey during a single afternoon break. On such occasions, when he pushed Mercedes into their room, she would hear her moaning—but not with pleasure.
    She wanted to unpack her suitcase and hang up the clothes she had brought for the next three months, but the man said