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Show Motherlunge a novel 233 In the last half hour before the museum closed, we went into the cafeteria. This cafeteria, as you'll one day see for yourself, is an immense room, tall with columns and skylights, with sad and classy arcs of leaded glass above. Here we got a pot of tea-we ought to drink more tea, Eli and I impulsively agreed-and sat down at a table with our tray. At the next table was a German couple, younger than us, with good skin and neck scarves suggesting political engagement. Matching green backpacks sat on the floor next to their sturdy shoes. I felt myself leaning toward them. I pressed the teacup to my lips, pretending to blow. How the Germans gazed into each others' eyes through their serious but not unflattering pairs of glasses! How in touch with life they seemed, with the war-like urgency of their conversation, their glottal stops and throaty vowels. Motes of silver dust waltzed through the sunlight falling down on their table, and on ours. "Are we going to get married?" I heard myself ask Eli. I looked quickly back at him, and I saw his eyes fill up, brighten. "Are you proposing to me?" he asked. "No." My throat closed down around the word. The panic that I felt was as slow as literature, hope-filled. No! If this were what I wanted, I wanted him to ask me. It should be natural, unassisted; I should be the girl. And then, like the Germans next to us, our hands were clasped on top of a marble table, our fingers full of each others' fingers holding tight on either side of the institutional teapot. Eli swallowed. |
