Sunday, September 07, 2014
Cake Memory
Krutz flees in the dead of night.
No one to jeer that way.
His new country, though hardly
welcoming, is at least not sarcastic.
He brought a proverb: “Pay me,
I'll work hard. More, I'll work harder.”
He prospered, since the surrounding
citizens laughed at work.
At a folk fair, he spots the embroidered
wedding caps from the old country.
Enjoys a piece of Babka, sliced by a
young man.
Not! The pastry terrible, ashes of the
dead! And the young man apologizes.
His pretty sister rearranges the wedding
caps, and Krutz does a strange thing--
for any country: He places one on her head.
He isn't kidding, but neither is she. Short story
shorter: They marry and move to a new cottage,
with a room for the brother.
The trio flourishes, the caps becoming a fad
in this new country, worn by both sexes.
Krutz quits his job to manage the firm, and
the brother becomes its traveling salesman.
Who often goes to the border region and fetches
back Babka. Like eating bricks.
Years pass, Babka-deprived, and a man tells Krutz
an uncle bakes it up in the mountains of the old
country. The deal becomes five cakes for the
price of a wedding cap. He sends the money by Paypal.
But the border guards seize all but one.
So the brother makes his way home with that.
They sit at the table afraid to slice it, that it
will prove yet another disappointment.
But, heavenly!
Never able to get another, but that one lingers
forever in memory. Indeed, they have talked of
little else over the years.
Labels: Babka, foreigners, new country
