Laugh to keep from crying

“Anna, dear, you look wonderful,” Sarah announced as she collapsed into a chair. “Look who’s here… Arthur, you old fart!” She cackled at her own joke. “No, no, keep your insults to yourself. Stay away from me, you menace! Oh, Anna, before I forget, let me show you the picture.”

She rummaged through the cavern of her handbag, muttering to herself until, with a flourish, she pulled out a photograph.

“Here it is! Well? What do you think?” she cried triumphantly. “That’s me. Eighty-two and still going strong! Look at this bikini. Don’t I look fabulous? Some man even offered me money for this picture.”

“Sarah, honestly…” someone from the group sneered, half mocking, half amused.

She stood there, shoulders slightly stooped but still slender, balancing precariously on high heels. Trinkets and ballpoint pens jutted from her thick, blazing blond hair. Her grey-green eyes, set wide apart in a sharply cheekboned face, carried a permanent expression of astonishment, as though the world could still surprise her.

“I can do it,” she declared, planting her hands on her hips. Her eyes flashed with fierce Gypsy fire. “How do I look? No, no, I won’t show this picture to a bum like you. Get lost, shit-face! I know I look fantastic!”

Then, suddenly, she rose and began to dance to the faint music of a street organ drifting in from outside. Around and around she waltzed, clutching the photograph in one hand like a trophy.

“I was in a concentration camp. They killed my family—my father, my mother, my grandparents, my brothers… everyone.”

The words came without warning.

She sat quietly sipping her coffee while rain lashed against the windows in heavy silver sheets beneath a sky bruised with storm clouds. Her voice was low, almost monotonous.

“That creep,” she continued. “I told him to keep his head down, but the horny bastard couldn’t stay away from that young slut. We were hiding. It was dangerous even to be seen. You couldn’t trust anybody. And our baby was with us.”

She paused, jaw tightening.

“To risk our child—our own flesh and blood—because he couldn’t control himself. Bastard.”

Silence settled briefly between us.

Then, with sudden bitterness, she added, “Still, one good thing came of it. He left me his business. I want for nothing material now. The creep.”

She shook her head and drew slowly on her cigarette pipe, staring out through the rain-streaked window.

Then she shot me a quick, piercing glance and made a small dismissive gesture, as if to say: don’t dwell on it.

Outside, the storm softened into a steady drizzle.