Page 78 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

“Will I see you again?” he called after her. There was no
response. He thought about following her, but he changed his
mind and instead went back to the table to finish his beer.

2. A Formidable Figure

For as long as Harry could remember, his mother’s young-
est sister Sylvia toted a mass of perfectly-coiffed, pinkish-red
hair atop her tiny, four-foot ten-inch frame. Even curiouser,
were the hairpins that protruded just above either ear, like min-
iature antennas. They were supposed to set a wave in place, but
she never took the pins out, except for weddings, funerals and
bar mitzvahs. As she walked the streets of the northwest Bronx
dressed in 3-inch pumps to give her added height, she looked
like someone’s idea of a creature from outer space.

Despite her outlandish appearance, there was nothing un-
earthly about Harry’s aunt. She spent her entire adult life in
the same tiny Bronx apartment that she moved into with her
husband on September 28, 1945. Aside from the dumbwait-
er shaft in the kitchen that was sealed off during the 1960s,
the apartment looked the same today as it did 70 years ago:
the same furniture, the same kitchen appliances (the refriger-
ator was replaced once), the same leaky bathroom faucet that
dripped incessantly, adding layer upon layer of grit to an iron
stain that was more than half a century old. It was as if the fu-
ture came to a halt for Harry’s aunt in 1945 and all that came
afterwards was decay.

* * *

76