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Show in my father's house/ 194 for air. No, no, sinners burned in hell-fire; Aunt Elsa said that. How had I sinned? It had to be the lying. Even though I hadn't been baptized, I knew I had broken one of the Ten Commandments. The lies began with the ones we were told to tell, then grew like a big black bush inside me, blotting out the light. I had added to the things we rehearsed as a family. "My father is a traveling salesman," I would begin. But it sounded hollow. And there was the lie told in first grade, I had to cover somehow. "That is, he used to be. Before that he was a doctor, and then he was a service station attendant when we moved here. And then he quit because he didn't like grease under his fingernails - he has to keep his hands clean in case he has to stitch up a cut - and so he became caretaker of some property." My lies spawned questions. "Why isn't he a doctor anymore?" they would ask. "Did he let somebody die? That happened to Dr. Delmano and they took his license away." I would make up more lies to answer the questions. After awhile, I was terrified to have my schoolmates meet my family, certain that someone would let the wrong - or rather, the right - tale out. My only consolation was that my own string of lies ultimately had more truth in it than the story my family had adopted. One time, a schoolmate's mother asked, her eyes half-lidded, "Why is it that your mother and her sister are so dark, and you kids all so light - and such look-alikes!" I swallowed, remembering Aunt Helga's response to people who asked such questions. "I married my own brother-in-law," she would say firmly. |