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Excerpted Inspirations #207

  • Writer: Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
    Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
  • 5 days ago
  • 0 min read
[Willa’s daughter Tig (Antigone) is telling her mother about her experience living in Cuba. She now works in a local restaurant near her parents’ home in New Jersey.] “I’ll tell you the best date of my life. We went to a restaurant.” “Was it a special occasion?” “Oh yeah. It was a fancy place, way too expensive for every day. It was Lorenzo and Natalia’s fortieth anniversary. Toto’s parents. They took the whole family out.” The best date of her life was a celebration of her ex-boyfriend’s parents’ anniversary. Willa took this personally. Her mothering had driven her daughter to seek asylum in a family of foreigners. “It must have been some restaurant.” “Oh God, was it ever. It’s in an old house, hundreds of years old. The family has had it since before the revolution so a lot of the furniture is original and everything in the whole place is beautiful and old and perfect. Like the china and silver, candlesticks, handmade lace tablecloths, napkins. We were all dressed up, and when they seated us I just sat there holding my breath, looking at the table set with those pretty china plates and silverware and sparkly crystal glasses. Every single thing on that table had to be over fifty years old, Mom. From before the embargo. Different tables had different settings, what do you call them, china patterns. Not all just alike. And none of it’s broken, and all of it is twice as old as me. It was the most amazing experience.” Willa wanted to understand, but as far as she’d ever known, Tig cared less than nothing for the likes of china and flatware. “So did they feed you, or just dazzle you with the presentation?” “Oh, the food was amazing. And the music. They had this super smooth band playing mambos and sarabandas. The singer looked all prim but then opens her mouth and out comes this killing sexy voice, and of course we all danced, between courses. Everybody dances in Cuba. They’ve perfected all the fun things that don’t cost anything, like dancing and sex. But Mom, think about it. When did you ever see fifty-year-old china in a restaurant?” She thought about this. “Never. It’s always generic white plates. In fancy places, fancy generic I guess. But new. Probably it’s all made in China, for restaurants.” “Exactly. I asked them here, at the restaurant, and Yari told me they have to reorder every year because it gets chipped and messed up. People are careless. If they break it there’s always more. But in Cuba, whatever it is, you probably can’t get more, so people take care. When you pick up a glass it’s like you’re raising a toast to all the people who drank from it before. All those happy anniversaries, in a beautiful place, and all the future ones. It made me so happy, Mom. That night was our turn. We got to be in the treasure chest of time.” Barbara Kingsolver, Unsheltered (2018), pp. 317-318

 
 
 
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