A Dove of the East
“But there is one of whom my memory is clear, and it is strange—she was so unimportant.
She was named Johanna, and I knew her for a summer when I worked in a typewriter-ribbon factory in the Bronx. It was very simple. She sat across from me on the production line all day long, and when either of us lifted our eyes we saw one another. Our job was to put the spools of ribbon in boxes—a very boring job—a job which left our hands automatic, and faces and eyes free so that we spent many days looking ...and talking. She was not such an attractive girl, and she knew it. These days I don’t like beautiful girls so much, any more. It makes them less able to cry and be sad, and I won’t have a girl who cannot cry and be sad.
Now Johanna had a big wide face, and big heavy limbs, although she was not fat by any means, just big. She was in fact bigger than me but she thought like a very delicate woman, and so she moved as if she were little. Although she was not in the least self-conscious about her body (I often saw her breasts as she leaned over to get more boxes and her open shirt came more open), she thought that perhaps she should be, and I could always tell that she was thinking to herself, I have to be more delicate about myself.MoreLess
She was named Johanna, and I knew her for a summer when I worked in a typewriter-ribbon factory in the Bronx. It was very simple. She sat across from me on the production line all day long, and when either of us lifted our eyes we saw one another. Our job was to put the spools of ribbon in boxes—a very boring job—a job which left our hands automatic, and faces and eyes free so that we spent many days looking ...and talking. She was not such an attractive girl, and she knew it. These days I don’t like beautiful girls so much, any more. It makes them less able to cry and be sad, and I won’t have a girl who cannot cry and be sad.
Now Johanna had a big wide face, and big heavy limbs, although she was not fat by any means, just big. She was in fact bigger than me but she thought like a very delicate woman, and so she moved as if she were little. Although she was not in the least self-conscious about her body (I often saw her breasts as she leaned over to get more boxes and her open shirt came more open), she thought that perhaps she should be, and I could always tell that she was thinking to herself, I have to be more delicate about myself.MoreLess
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