Читаем Witz полностью

Hanna, for one, if she hadn’t been dead, her weight leaned up against the ovenunit, the rangy stove with its four burners crisping curiosity atop while her son, her only son in older age if ever He’d make it He’s in for the weekend, just visiting, doubling up on a family reunion with an amorphous sort of business conference He won’t talk about, He shouldn’t, just sitting at a table in a kitchen in a house that once was His, no longer, at His size sitting around the table, sitting around the house with that laugh even younger than Him by now, grayaged and wrinkled, He’s worlded down, ground meat into a miser, miserable amid the dust, a loser and filthy still, morose and fatter than ever, dissatisfied with even His more rewarding dissatisfactions, His attainment to mediocrity, employment/maritalstatus; until, this sour older barren bitch as thin as a spine He’s too ashamed of her to bring her home who’d guilted Him into a commitment while it’s He who should be committed — into the minimum compatibility of a ring that’ll tarnish her finger upon the morning and a ceremony inviting at least the two of them, a rabbi and then her only friend whom He hates who hates Him worse; entirely unhappy, lifeless though unfortunately still alive, interested in nothing save what He’s forking away at, whatever Hanna’s served Him, leftovers foiled and heated then blown upon cooling, better than anything He could ever make, than even she the new she knows how to, neither can cook, He’ll never get past the microwave, the defrost stage, flashes of 12:00, the toaster and just add milk…

It’s about time, Hanna’s friends would have said that, too, echoes up from the voids crenate between the whitened teeth, a chorus of caloriecounters, carbohydratecharters, when she’d tell them the news, whether over the phone immediately after He’d told her, let it slip, coughed into conversation, confessed or else, if Hanna could contain herself a day or two, probably not, then at their weekly brunch and bookclub, their planningcommittee or schoolboard meeting — tonight at eight, don’t forget.

How long was He going to make us wait? Congratulations. Mazel. Mazl. Mzl.

No, I’m off apples for the time being, it’s the acids and plus they’re a sugar, and no more pumpernickel for me that’s a starch, trying to stay away from them, what were you saying: Edy Koenigsburg, whose own marriage was by her own admission less than Eden.

It’s about time. How old is He now? And she? Ask miscellaneous shop assistants, the secretary to the investment mamzer, even her travelagent, frizzily flushed, in pants of spandex overstretched.

How long was He going to make me wait? Which means, now I can die in peace. Says Hanna to Israel later that night. Israel who might disagree with his son’s choice, but are you crazy not in front of the wife.

Anyway, it’s moot — an opportunity will never arise.