Liliana Heker - Please Talk to Me - Selected Stories

‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’ Now the woman was gathering up the tablecloth, trying not to let any crumbs fall. ‘I hate seeing everything in a mess, believe me, the thing is that, what with today being a holiday, the children didn’t get up until twelve. And then of course they went dashing out. I’ll just take this to the kitchen then I’m all yours.’

‘Señora, please, I still have lots of houses to visit and I haven’t had lunch yet. Could we just get down to—’

‘Oh my dear, what a monster I am! Here you are starving hungry and I haven’t even offered you a bite to eat. Look, I tell you what, since they’ve all gone and left me landed with lunch, come into the kitchen — come on — you can ask your questions and I’ll give you lunch. You’ll be doing me a favour, hand on heart, I’m not used to eating on my own.’

‘The thing is Señora, that I’m here in a particular capacity,’ said Ana, and she felt vaguely stupid.

‘Come on, you can’t fool me — I’m old enough to be your mother! Come with me to the kitchen, you look famished. My husband and the children love eating in the kitchen.’

Hadn’t she been praying until a few minutes ago for someone to offer her something to eat, even a miserable biscuit? Greedily she inhaled the smell of food and stood up.

The woman walked to a door that must lead into another room; she opened it then, as though she had seen something that displeased her, slammed it shut.

‘Good God, I was about to make you walk through the bedrooms,’ she said. ‘I forgot that I haven’t even made the beds today. Come this way’—and she stepped out of the door that led into the courtyard.

Ana shrugged and followed her, what did it matter, at the end of the day. The distant shouts of a woman and a boy’s voice could be heard on the other side of the partition wall. The next-door neighbours, she thought. This house has it all.

‘They shout at each other all day, it’s exhausting,’ the woman complained; she looked briefly at Ana and softened her tone. ‘Well, they’re children just like mine, aren’t they? One always sees the speck in another person’s eye. Anyway, here’s the kitchen — come in.’

A great pot was steaming on the hob. The woman took off the lid and stirred the contents with a wooden spoon. A succulent aroma dispersed through the kitchen.

‘Come, look at this, tell me you won’t leave me stuck with all this food — there’s enough to feed a regiment!’ she laughed good-naturedly. ‘I always make too much, what can I say, I mean this lot are forever showing up with another guest to feed.’

She’s sort of like the ideal mother, Ana thought. She sat down and got the forms ready while the woman set the table for two and ladled the food into a kind of tureen. Finally she brought the tureen to the table and sat down.

‘Ask away, dear, then we can eat in peace.’

She sat down and started serving the food onto plates. Ana picked up her pen.

‘How many people live in the house?’ she asked, although by this stage the question was redundant.

‘Only us,’ said the woman with a certain pride. ‘I’m sorry, you’ll want to know who we are and so on. There’s my husband, my three daughters and the boy: the little one.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Shall I tell you their ages?’

‘No, that’s not necessary. How many are working?’

‘My husband.’

‘Only him?’

‘Well yes, he supports all of us. I mean, my eldest daughter also works, she’s an interior decorator. But just as a hobby, you know. My husband didn’t want her to, but I’m with modern youth on this one.’

‘Yes, I see. Does anyone go to school?’

The woman laughed.

‘What a question — yes, of course. The boy is still in primary school. The youngest of the girls is in the fourth year of secondary and the next one up is finishing Medicine. She’s bright, that one, and I’m not saying it just because I’m her mother.’

Surreptitiously, Ana eyed the plate that had just been served. Paris was worth a Mass, it turned out.

‘How many bedrooms does the house have?’

‘What?’ The woman seemed first to brighten and then subside. ‘Ah, five. Five bedrooms.’

Ana glanced into the courtyard: it didn’t seem like a big place. Oh well. In the box she wrote ‘five.’ She looked at the woman.

‘Very well’—in the tone of a teacher at the end of a lesson.

‘Is that it?’

Ana put down her pencil and shuffled the forms together.

‘That’s it,’ she said.

She considered the woman’s fascinated expression for a moment before deciding to reach for the plate herself. Unexpectedly the woman sang softly to herself. She seemed younger now: she was glowing.

‘So that was it,’ she murmured thoughtfully.

Ana ate. The food was really delicious. And the woman could talk all she liked now. About her model husband and her three talented daughters and her cheeky blond boy, the family’s pride and joy. Why not? Everyone has a little treasure. Eating made her magnanimous.

‘It wasn’t that bad, was it?’ she asked playfully.

The woman shook her head. She seemed not entirely to have taken in all the extraordinary things that had just happened. Timidly, she pointed to the forms.

‘And this, where does it go?’ she asked.

‘This?’ Ana glanced charily at the papers. ‘I don’t know, I suppose they’ll use them for statistics, that sort of thing.’

‘Statistics,’ the woman repeated, dreamily.

On second thought, it might be better to finish eating quickly and get going, before the woman started talking again. ‘Get down from there immediately!’ she heard someone shout. ‘I’m not going to!’ The next-door neighbours: a rowdy bunch, as the woman had said. ‘Get down!’

‘I said I’m not coming down!’ louder now, or closer. ‘I want my skateboard!’

Ana looked towards where the voice was coming from. She saw a boy’s blond head appear over the partition wall. ‘I said get down. You’ll fall.’

‘Eat up quickly, or it will get cold.’

‘I want my skateboard,’ the boy repeated. ‘Amelia!’

‘ Señorita Amelia,’ the neighbour corrected.

‘Señorita Amelia!’ the boy shouted. ‘Are you there?’

Ana looked at the woman; she was eating with her eyes fixed on the plate.

‘Señorita Amelia!’ The boy spotted Ana in the kitchen. ‘Hey, you!’ he shouted, ‘is Señorita Amelia there?’

Ana looked at the woman, who was still focussing on her plate.

‘Listen,’ she said with exasperation. ‘They’re asking for Señorita Amelia — can’t you hear them?’

‘And what’s that to do with me?’ said the woman. ‘Am I expected to know everyone in the neighbourhood?’

‘Can you do me a favour?’ the boy asked Ana. ‘I lent it to her because she said it was for a nephew but now my mother says that she doesn’t have nephews or anything. You’re not her nephew, by any chance?’ he laughed, delighted by his joke, and the neighbour murmured something inaudible. ‘I have to get down now or she’ll kill me, but if you see Señorita Amelia, please tell her.’

And like an actor concluding his part, the boy and his blond mop disappeared back behind the wall.

‘Have you finished?’

Ana looked up, startled. The woman was standing right beside her. That overflowing quality that had earlier surrounded her like an aura seemed entirely to have disappeared.

She took away the plates and the tureen. Meticulously, determinedly, she threw all the food that was left into the rubbish bin. All that work wasted, Ana thought. She remembered the six dirty cups, the half-eaten toast, and wanted to get away from the flat as quickly as possible.