How I Became A Nun Read Free Page A

it seemed like
     pure malevolence to him. I sensed that he was prepared to force the vendor to taste it.
     The vendor, on the other hand, was in what he thought was a win-win situation: he could
     try the ice cream and even if it turned out to have an odd, slightly bitter or medicinal
     taste, he could launch into an endless debate about the incommunicability or
     undecideability of taste sensations. At that moment two teenagers walked in. The ice
     cream vendor turned to them with a look of triumph on his face.
    “Two one-peso cones.”
    The one-peso ice creams were big: four scoops. At the time two pesos was a considerable
     sum. The scene underwent a radical change. It was transformed by a new light, the light
     of prosperity and normality; the wide world had entered the shop in the form of those
     two teenagers. The sinister figure of the madman complaining about some nuance in the
     flavor of a ten-cent ice cream had been swept aside. This opening up of the situation
     called for new rules. Rational rules, which had been lacking. Any relationship, even (or
     especially) mine with Dad, has its rules. But there were also the general rules for the
     game of life.
    The ice cream vendor was quick to realize this, and it was the last thing he realized.
     Without changing his triumphant expression, he said, “Let’s see about this
     strawberry then.”
    He was talking more to the newcomers than to Dad. It was the clincher, his final show of
     mastery. My father was still holding the sad little cone of melted ice cream. The vendor
     wasn’t going to taste that mess; he would sample his good ice cream, untouched and
     fresh from the drum.
    Dad got worried. He felt defeated. “No, try this …” he said. But he
     said it without much conviction. It didn’t make sense. And yet, in a way, it did.
     All things considered, he was right to keep that card up his sleeve. If the ice cream
     from the drum turned out to be all right, he could still fall back on the cone.
    The vendor lifted the lid, took a clean spoon, scraped the surface with it and lifted it
     to his mouth like a connoisseur. The reaction was instantaneous and automatic. He spat
     to one side. “You’re right. It’s horrible. I hadn’t tried
     it.”
    He said it just like that. Like the most natural thing in the world. It didn’t
     occur to him to say sorry. It really was out of order. It was too much for Dad. Hatred,
     the destructive instinct, overwhelmed him in an instant with the force of a physical
     blow.
    “Is that all you’ve got to say to me? After …”
    “Hey, calm down! How was I supposed to know?”
    At this point, the only option left open, the only way forward, for both of them, was
     sheer, untrammeled violence. Neither was about to back down. Dad leant over the counter
     to thump the ice cream vendor, who braced himself behind the cash register. The two
     teenagers ran out, past me (I was standing on the threshold, transfixed, engaged in a
     warped attempt to connect up the different logics that had supplanted one another in the
     course of the dispute) and watched from outside. Dad had jumped over the counter and was
     aiming all his punches at his opponent’s head. The vendor was fat, clumsy, and
     unable to hit back; all he could do was shield himself, more or less. Dad was shouting
     like a lunatic. He was beside himself. A punch that happened to land square on the
     vendor’s ear spun him through ninety degrees. He ended up facing away from Dad,
     who grabbed him by the nape of the neck with both hands, pushed up against him from
     behind (as if he were raping him), and put his head into the drum of strawberry ice
     cream, which was still open.
    “Go on, eat it! Eat it!”
    “Nooo! Get him … uggh … off me!”
    “Go on …!”
    “Uggh!!”
    “Eat it!”
    With herculean force he shoved the vendor’s face into the ice cream and kept
     pressing down. The victim’s movements became spasmodic, less and less frequent
     … and