I Served the King of England Read Online Free

laundress
     tweaked my ear, and I realized that neither of them would let her lap, her patch of
     hair, be wrapped in daisies or peonies, let alone sprigs of fir or mistletoe, like a
     joint of venison. So I polished the glasses, holding them up to the light from the bigwindows, and outside, people were walking past, cut off from the
     waist down, and I went on thinking about summer flowers, and I took them from their
     baskets one by one and lay blossoms or just petals in the lap of the beautiful blonde
     from Paradise’s, while she lay on her back with her legs spread apart, and when
     the blossoms slipped off I would stick them back with gum arabic or gently tack them in
     place with a small nail or a pin. So I did a fine job of polishing the glasses,
     something no one else wanted to do, rinsing each glass in water and holding it up to the
     window to make sure it was clean, though thinking all the time, through that glass,
     about what I would do at Paradise’s, until finally I ran out of garden flowers,
     field flowers, and forest flowers, and this made me feel sad, because what would I do in
     winter? Then I laughed and was happy, realizing that in winter the flowers would be even
     more beautiful, because I could buy cyclamen and magnolias, and I might even go to
     Prague for orchids. Or maybe I’d just move to Prague, for there must be restaurant
     jobs there too, and I’d have flowers all winter long. Then noontime came, and I
     set out the plates and napkins and served beer and raspberry and lemon grenadine, and
     right at noon, at the busiest time, the door opened and she stepped in, then turned to
     close the door behind her, that beautiful blonde from Paradise’s. She sat down and
     opened her purse, pulled out an envelope, and looked around. I knelt down and quickly
     tied my shoe, my heart beating against my knee. When the maître d’ came over
     and said, Quick, get to your place, all I could do was nod, my heart throbbing so hard
     that my knee seemed to merge and change places with it. But then I pulled myself
     together, stood up, and holdingmy head as high as I could, I threw
     a napkin over my arm and asked the girl what she’d like. She said she wanted to
     see me again, and a glass of raspberry grenadine. She was wearing a summer dress covered
     with peonies, she was surrounded by them, a prisoner of peony beds, and I caught fire
     and blushed like a peony, because I hadn’t expected this. My money, my thousand
     crowns, was gone, and what I was looking at now was completely free. So I went for a
     tray of raspberry grenadine, and when I came back with it the blonde had put the
     envelope on the tablecloth and the corners of my two hundred-crown notes were casually
     sticking out of it. The way she looked at me set the glasses of grenadine rattling and
     the first one slipped to the edge of the tray, slowly tipped over, and spilled into her
     lap. The maître d’ was right there, and the boss came running up, and they
     apologized, and the boss grabbed me by the ear and twisted it, which he shouldn’t
     have done, because the blonde cried out so that everyone in the restaurant could hear
     her, How dare you! The boss said, He’s ruined your dress and now I’ll have
     to pay for it. She: What business is that of yours? I want nothing from you. Why are you
     mistreating this man? The boss, sweetly: He spilled a drink on your dress. Everyone had
     stopped eating now, and she said, It’s none of your business and I forbid you to
     punish him. Just watch this. She took a glass of grenadine and poured it over her head
     and into her hair, and then another glass, and she was covered with raspberry syrup and
     soda-water bubbles. The last glass of raspberry grenadine she poured down the inside of
     her dress, then she asked for the bill. She walked out with the aroma of raspberries
     trailing behind her, out into the street in that silkdress covered
     with peonies, and the bees were already