“Well for heaven’s sake.”
She got up to get the potatoes. Her dress fell open for a second, so I could see her leg. When she gave me the potatoes, I couldn’t eat “Well there now. After all that, and now he doesn’t want them.”
“Hokay. But he have’m, if he want’m.”
“I’m not hungry. I ate a big lunch.”
He acted like he had won a great victory, and now he would forgive her, like the big guy he was. “She is a all right. She is my little white bird. She is my little white dove.”
He winked and went upstairs. She and I sat there, and didn’t say a word. When he came down he had a big bottle and a guitar. He poured some out of the bottle, but it was sweet Greek wine, and made me sick to my stomach. He started to sing. He had a tenor voice, not one of these little tenors like you hear on the radio, but a big tenor, and on the high notes he would put in a sob like on a Caruso record. But I couldn’t listen to him now. I was feeling worse by the minute.
He saw my face and took me outside. “Out in a air, you feel better.”
“ ’S all right. I’ll be all right.”
“Sit down. Keep quiet.”
“Go ahead in. I just ate too much lunch. I’ll be all right.”