To Mervas by Elisabeth Rynell Read Free Book Online Page B

dinner table. The fact that his lectures often turned into loud, hateful rants of unbridled rage didn’t seem to have any effect on his appetite. He shoveled the food into hismouth between sentences, quickly and mechanically. The rest of us sat quietly trying to chew and swallow as best as we could while we carefully observed the characteristic and ill-boding quakes of anger that rippled through his thin body like an electric current.
    But it wasn’t enough for Dad to hold forth alone in front of a gloomy, silent audience. He wanted both assent and participation. The dinner lectures were part of his educational mission to elevate Mom, and especially us kids, to his level.
    â€œCan you understand this, Marta, that your mother, your own mother sitting there chewing her tough beef stew like a cow chews its cud, do you understand that genetically, she’s garbage? Do you grasp the meaning of these words, Marta?”
    He always had to turn to me. In his eyes, I was Daddy’s girl, and also more gifted than my older sister. He was speaking in a very low voice and his lips were thin and taut like rubber bands. When he lowered his light blue gaze into my wide-open eyes and fixed it there, lashed it there, I hated him so much I wanted him to die. The hate burned inside me like a dry chemical fire.
    â€œYes, Daddy, I understand.”
    â€œWell, then I’d like you to explain to me, and the rest of us, what it is you claim to understand. For example, what does the word genetic mean?”
    The word “genetic” sounded like the crack of a whip when he said it. I could sense the vibration of the word inside him; it seemed to fill the whole kitchen. If he’d had whiskers, they would have vibrated like those of a cat spotting a small bird.
    â€œWell, Marta. Genetic? ”
    The way he said “well” was forceful like a vise, and I often felt that I could kill him for the way he said it. It was also in conjunction withthe word “well” that the rug beater would be brought out and used in explosions of uncontrolled rage. The word “well” was a dam that at any moment could burst from the water pressing against its walls.
    â€œIt has . . . it has to do with inheritance,” I said. “It means hereditary, it’s hereditary.”
    Animal breeding was one of Dad’s special interests. He worked at the Department of Agriculture and specialized in hog breeding. Sometimes, to the relief of the entire family, he had to travel to different parts of the country to inspect selected groups of breeding hogs. It was on one of these occasions that Mom packed up some linens, clothes, some pots and pans, and toys in big boxes. Then an uncle we’d never met before came over and put Mom, the boxes, and us into a Volvo station wagon and took us away. That’s how we ended up in the two-room apartment, which Dad later started calling the Exception.
    Mom had evidently planned the move for some time, because the apartment was already furnished when we arrived. There was a worn sofa bed and a couple of plain beds, a kitchen table, some chairs and stools, a dresser, and a big brown radio with its green dial eye.
    Mom probably hadn’t asked her family for help before because she felt ashamed. After all, she’d been lucky to enter a good marriage with a well-educated man from a better family than her own. The way everyone saw it, she ought to be happy and content. The marriage to Dad had distanced her from her family, and as the years went by, the distance kept growing, especially because Dad didn’t think Mom’s relatives were good enough for him and his children. It was probably the doctors she met in the hospital after my sister’s birth who pushed her to get in contact with her family and tell them what was going on. All of us siblings immediately fell in love with our uncle. He was very tall and fat and had lots of amiable lines around his eyes. He constantly