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Show A PROPER INTRODUCTION-28 Buber? Diaper service." She must have been pregnant then with Paul. Once she let me feel the kicking in her stomach, which was surprisingly hard and strong. In the early years, there seemed to be an abundance of human love in the house, although I felt oddly excluded from it. One Christmas Dad bought her an organdy housedress with cascades of white ruffles down the front and along the bottom. When she emerged from the bedroom wearing it, he picked her up at the waist and whirled her round and round the living room. Then he kissed her as if I weren't there. I often found them kissing. More often, I just heard them, because Mother made a noise on the letter "m" at those times. Now I take the hymnal out of the den, brush it clean with my hand, and place it on the marble-topped table in the living room, opened to the shepherd hymn. Then I resume my search for the dancers. I find them, finally, in the basement in a small white cardboard box, lying in their various ecstatic poses among the excelsior. The sight of them makes my eyes feel as if a sudden wind had struck them, and I sit for a long time beside the box, remembering. Mother bought the figurines on a trip to Germany while we lived in Rome. Overseas, Mother's passion for thinking flowered, and she undertook the study of the great religions and philosophies. She sat up late into the night at the dining room table with books piled high around her. She tried to share her interest with us, but Paul was too young, I was too absorbed with boys, and Dad sat, as always, in his easy chair, saying little, sighing often. Mother took to writing, and early mornings I'd find the kitchen table strewn with her papers. She learned to clear them away before Dad came down, for he expected his breakfast on time and at a tidy table. After she bought the Dresden dancers, she kept them in a glass cupboard just above where she wrote, and brought them |
