Songs of Enchantment
“WHEN we got home we didn’t sleep and we were silent. We sat on the floor, with a single candle burning on the table. The door was wide open. The wind brought in the advancing smells of too much perfume, beneath which lurked the faint odour of dung, though it could only have been the intensity of a secret desperation. When dad returned we knew our hunger had driven him into a shameful line of work that we noticed in retrospect and never mentioned. There was no shame on his face as he came in dru...nk and spread on the table the amount of money he had earned doing something that eroded his spirit years in advance. He was quite drunk, his boots stank of mud and disinfectant, and he had an abstracted look on his face. He kept creaking his neck as if he had been carrying loads more infernal than they were heavy. He struggled to smile, to display an exuberant lack of care, but our silence made him awkward. He was drunk and couldn’t seem to light his cigarette. He was drunk on a secret shame.MoreLess
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