“Please don’t worry, Mom,” I tell her, and now I feel guilty for stressing her out when I’m not even up to helping with the cooking.
Dad makes a face when I say Mrs. G. is coming. “I was going to have a nice nap in front of the TV. Now I’ll have to dress up?” he asks.
“Not dress up—just dress, Dad,” I tell him. He’s still in his pajamas.
It’s his turn to pout. “And what will we talk about? We have nothing in common.”
I’m beginning to feel a little stressed myself now, so I go and lie down on the sofa. To my surprise I go to sleep and when I wake up, Mom is poking something in my face.
“Here, Kasia—taste this,” Mom says, holding out a spoon of brownish mush. “It’s a curried lentil dish. I didn’t have all of the ingredients, so I don’t know if it’s all right or not.”
I taste the food, and I’m about to tell her it’s fine when suddenly it feels like my mouth is on fire! I rush for a glass of water, but it’s a long time before I can speak.
“Oh, Mom! How much chili did you put in that?” I ask, my eyes watering.
“I’m not sure,” she says. “So—no good then?” She takes a taste, too.
We look at each other—and then suddenly we’re both laughing. Mom’s usually so good at cooking, but this is really terrible.
Dad comes and looks at us, laughing and crying together, and backs off hastily, muttering in Polish.
“Oh dear,” Mom says when she can talk again. “I’m running out of time. I’ll make a salad, too—that will have to do.”
When Mrs. G. arrives, she brings a large plastic bowl with a lid. “I couldn’t expect you to cook specially for me,” she says, “so I’ve made a dish with chickpeas and vegetables that we can all share.”
“It smells wonderful,” says Mom, smiling.
Mrs. G.’s dish is full of flavor, but it isn’t spicy-hot at all. Even Dad tries some of it and declares it delicious. “Complements the turkey perfectly,” he tells Mrs. G., who beams back at him, delighted.
We talk about the snowy Christmases in Poland, and Mrs. G. tells us about her first experience of snow when she came to this country in 1974. Mom then tells her about when we moved to the UK.
“We came in 2005—the economy was so bad in Poland. Stefan realized that he could earn as much here in one week, no—one day, as he could earn in a month in Lodz.”
“That’s why you came?” Mrs. G. asks.
“Yes—we thought we were coming to paradise, you know? We found an amazing house on the internet, and the price looked so good. It was near Manor House and Seven Sisters. Then we arrived and discovered we were paying for one room only. There were twenty other people sharing the house! It was such a shock. Later, we met kinder people, though—people who helped us.”
Mom and Dad ask Mrs. G. about her life and family, but she gives short answers and quickly turns the conversation back to us. Dad starts telling us jokes, and some even make Mrs. G. laugh out loud. She surprises us by telling a few good ones herself. Then Dad does his party trick of making his ears waggle. His face goes bright red when he does it, and his eyes look like they’re popping out.
“Well, in all my years, I have never met anyone who can do that!” Mrs. G. chuckles. “I am having the loveliest time. Thank you so much.”
“And now please join us in our special after-dinner ceremony!” Dad announces.
Mrs. G. looks slightly worried.
“What ceremony?” I demand.
“The ‘let’s sit in the family room and watch TV’ ceremony,” Dad says, waving his arms in a triumphant gesture.
Mrs. G. smiles with relief.
“Are you up to watching a little, my kotku?” Dad asks me.
I’ve been having a good day, but now I realize I need a rest. The glands in my neck have started throbbing, and my legs feel achy. I can’t cope with watching TV, but I lie on the sofa with my eyes shut while the others all watch a movie. I am so happy we invited Mrs. G.—they are all getting along so well.
Afterward we play charades. I’m not up to performing but guess some of the answers. I laugh so hard at Dad’s James Bond impression that my throat hurts. I’m feeling happy, though, when I excuse myself and go upstairs to bed.
9
I’m sitting in the kitchen with Mom, eating freshly baked orange and almond cake. It’s one of my grandmother’s recipes that Mom is trying to re-create from memory. She’s always wishing she had the old family recipe book, but that got left behind in Poland. I’m lucky that I don’t gain weight easily, even though I’m not exercising much—but still, I am trying not to eat too much cake.
“It’s not like my mother’s. What do you think, Kasia?”
“It’s so good!” I moan.
“It’s a big one—I’ll have to freeze most of it,” Mom tells me.
“Can I take some to Mrs. Gayatri?” I ask.
“What a nice idea,” says Mom. “I think she enjoyed Christmas with us, didn’t she?”
She cuts a large slice of cake and wraps it in foil, while I put my coat on. It’s the middle of January and getting colder every day and dark so early, too. I knock on the door. I wait, knowing that as usual she may take some time. Maybe it’s just the cold, but I feel as if I’ve been waiting longer than usual. I knock again. There’s still no answer. Maybe Mrs. G. is out on one of her rare trips to the stores. I turn to go back home but something stops me. What if she is there, but she’s sick or something? I knock harder. Then I lift the mail slot flap and call through.
“Mrs. Gayatri! It’s Kasia.”
No answer. I try to look through the mail slot in the door. It isn’t easy to see through, but I’m sure there’s a dark shape on the floor at the end of the hallway by the kitchen.
“Mrs. Gayatri! It’s Kasia. Are you okay?”
As my eyes adjust to the gloom, I make out a shoe shape. A shoe and part of a leg. I gasp. It’s her! She’s lying there on the floor, not moving…not moving at all.
I try the side gate, but it’s locked, so I come back to the front. I put the cake down on the doorstep and keep calling her through the mail slot, at the same time reaching into my coat pocket for my phone. My hand is shaking, and I can hardly get a grip on it. I call 911.
“Ambulance please!” My voice comes out squeaky, not like my normal voice at all. “It’s my neighbor. She’s lying on the floor in her hallway, and she’s not moving. I can see her through her mail slot. It’s forty-seven New Weald Road.”