Swans Are Fat Too Read Free

leaned against the sink and looked at the other plate. This one had little cakes with meringue frosting. The frosting looked like crusted snow. If she pushed her finger into it would the crust break? She tried it. The meringue popped with a little crackling noise. She licked her finger and pushed it into the next piece. She didn't notice the teenager until he was standing over her. He was very tall. She jumped guiltily and looked around at the shambles she had made of the refreshments. What would her grandmother say? She wished she were dead. She couldn't say a word––she just stared at the boy with her cheeks flaming red and her finger in her mouth. They looked at each other for a long moment.
    "Were you hungry?" he asked. She shook her head, and mumbled something, tears starting to her eyes.
    "The refreshments are always too long in coming, aren't they?" he said.
    He put down the book he was holding and chopped the meringues into pieces to disguise the holes she had made. He took the platter into the other room and she heard him apologizing to his mother. He was very sorry––he'd dropped the cheesecake on the floor. So clumsy of him.
    She had run from the kitchen, found the door to the apartment, heaved it open with difficulty, and fled downstairs to her grandmother's apartment.
     
    Horrible. It had been horrible. A memory that always brought an inward cringe. Please don't let him remember.
    "You came to tea once, I think, when you were quite small."
    "Yes."
    Now she was blushing. Thank goodness it was fairly dark on the landing. And here she was so fat. He was probably thinking she hadn't changed, was still so greedy. Oh, why was she so overweight? There was no dignity in it. However, one did what one could. She pulled herself together.
    "You saved me, I remember. I had eaten all the cakes and you covered for me. I ran away and never thanked you. Please accept my sincere thanks now––even if twenty years late." Her slow speech and outward poise gave her a certain majesty.
    He smiled very slightly. "That I only vaguely recollect." ("Were you hungry?" he had asked. He had liked her straightforward answer: "No, I just felt like it.") "I believe you were wearing a pinkish dress with ruffley things and had sugar on your face."
    Horrible.
     
    He changed his tone, as if suddenly remembering why she must be there. "I'm sorry about your grandmother. I'm afraid I couldn't make it to the funeral––I had a shift at the hospital."
    A doctor then. He would be, of course.
    "I missed it too," Hania said wearily. "The plane was delayed. And now no one seems to be home."
    "Did they know you were coming?" He leaned over and knocked hard on the door. "I ask, because I saw your aunt and uncle getting into their car earlier with luggage. But perhaps they came back...Anyway, the children should be here." He knocked again, harder yet, with the natural air of someone accustomed to helping others out of difficulties.
    From within a high female voice called "coming!" in a rather irritated tone.
    "There you are, then." Konstanty Radzimoyski gave Hania another slight and distant smile, his eyes already looking somewhere over her head, (problem solved––goodbye, pani ) and had reached the next landing before the door opened.
     
    With a sinking heart, Hania waited for her aunt to open the door. Instead, it was pulled back only to the length of the chain and a shank of dishwater hair and a pair of eyes, one above the other, appeared in the crack. There was no light in the apartment, and the light had gone out on the stairs again, but she thought the eyes must belong to her cousin.
    "Kalina?" she questioned.
    "Who are you?"
    "Hania. Your cousin, Hania."
    There was a long pause, and the sound of whispering behind the door. Then:
    "Prove it."
    Hania was so taken aback for a second she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But this was ridiculous.
    "Kalina, is your mother or father at home?"
    "Why do you ask?"
    A second, younger voice added,