| Contents > Coffee at Nanna’s by Danuta Shaw |
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As in many conversations with the women of my family, I don’t answer the question. It is more about asking than knowing. The women repeat things three or four times, and don’t really want to hear anything until they have asked again and again. Maybe their method has something to do with processing the answer. It is foolish to think that they don’t listen. Every so often they will come out with a phrase or an expression that I have used in passing, when I didn’t think they heard a thing. Often the expression may be used as a weapon, a key point in an argument, or as a memory that will bring me into line with family expectations. But that is not the case today. Nanna is distilled childhood, talking in order to speak. Her voice is vital. Her spirit explodes around me like fireworks dancing over the Lake on New Year’s Eve.
If she could, she would be bouncing down the hall. That is the way Ka’yil walks, the way we all do. Despite anything and everything, life is abundant. Questions heap upon questions; phrases tumble out in half-spoken instructions. Nanna’s house is a world of contexts; a place where it is assumed that you know. Without turning her head to look at the screen door, she says, “Leave it, leave it!” Hardly ever does she leave the door unlocked, and so I know she is not only happy to see me: she feels safe because I am there. Also, she is probably waiting for somebody else to enter: maybe my Aunt.
“You didn’t come last week.”
I feel guilty; I never have enough time, and often I miss connections. I want to live more than I have. I want to see everybody, but I can’t. Besides which, there is something warlike about my family that keeps me away. Yet, while skirmishes explode at regular intervals, these wars are not caused by outright hatred. Rather, I think it might have more to do with being part of a group of people who are programmed to live ‘on the defensive’, as Mum would say.
She would tell me, “Nanna’s got to be like that. You don’t come through that war without some pretty successful survival skills.”
The residues of forced labour and German camps have found their way into Nanna’s kitchen.
“You weren’t here when I came, Nanna.” That’s the truth. I slow speech. I enunciate. I clarify. I want her to understand, and like my Australian father did, I sometimes fall into the habit of speaking like I am talking to a deaf person trying to lip-read. She probably hears things better than I do. I am pretty sure she is living a longer life that I will.
“When you come?” She speaks slowly too, not because her wits lack focus, but because her body sometimes struggles to make shape of the words. Her cheeks tremble when she speaks, as do her hands, but behind them the intellect is vibrant.
I explain that I came by on Tuesday, and not Wednesday, because I knew Wednesday is the day she goes to the Polish House. I explain that I did not come by on Thursday or Friday because I had to work. I say that I saw Mum on the weekend. I shuffle round the kitchen, looking for mugs and saucers to put them on. I offer coffee, turn on the kettle, drop heaped spoonfuls of Nescafe into cups. Nanna eases herself around a kitchen chair and settles at the table.
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| Contents > Coffee at Nanna’s by Danuta Shaw |