Where the Bird Sings Best Read Online Free Page B

“I don’t have to. He left with the children.” And with that, he jumped on top of her, tearing her dress and underwear to pieces. They possessed each other with such passion that the bed collapsed. When it fell, it knocked over a brazier. The burning coals scattered over the floor. The wood began to burn. Enormous flames devoured furniture and walls. My grandparents noticed nothing. Not for an instant did they interrupt their caresses. Perhaps because the sweat from their bodies soaked the sheets, perhaps due to divine intervention, the fire never touched the bed. After the final orgasmic explosion, they returned to reality and found themselves resting in a house reduced to smoking ruins.
    “No regrets,” said Teresa to my grandfather. “Things happen when it’s time for them to happen.”
    “That I know,” he answered, “because when you’ve got faith, all things happen for the better.”
    “Well then, follow me. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
    In the stone barn at the far end of the yard, the children, who were pretending to be statues of salt under a cloud of bees, hadn’t noticed a thing. Teresa clapped her hands three times like a circus ringmaster, and the children, grimly, began to bottle the honey as the bees resumed their duties within their little cells.
    “Take a good look at the hives, Alejandro. Do any look odd to you?”
    No matter how hard he looked, my grandfather could find nothing abnormal.
    “Ask you-know-who.”
    Obeying his wife, he thought of his friend from the Interworld. The Rabbi, who was floating around in the shape of a tiny cloud, recovered his human form and walked over to point to a hive much like the others.
    “Something tells me it’s this one, Teresa.”
    “And in what way is it different from the others, Alejandro?”
    My grandfather swallowed hard and glanced obliquely toward the Rabbi, who told him, “There are fewer bees entering and leaving through its door.”
    “You’re right! You’re a great observer! It took me four years to realize it.”
    “Can you tell me why?”
    “Because it has a false bottom, Teresa.”
    “Bravo! Congratulations, Alejandro! That is the case.”
    This praise was a painful blow to my grandfather’s humility. Embracing her judgment as his own, his eyes filled with tears and his throat with sobs.
    “You’re more of a child than the children,” said my grandmother. “When will you learn to accept your merits? Being just serves only to make you unaware of those who humiliate and take advantage of you!” And to console him, Teresa sank his face between her bosoms.
    To him it seemed that his nose traced a mile of cleavage before it touched the warm depth that vibrated with each beat of her enormous heart.
    “Come along with me!” she said.
    My grandmother led him by the hand to the hive. She pulled out a few nails and freed up the rear door. Within the hiding place was a leather coffer. When she opened it, Alejandro stopped weeping, lost control of his facial muscles, and opened his eyes so wide that his eyeballs were ready to pop out. The jewel box was filled with gold coins!
    Teresa burst into a nervous giggle. “Yes, my friend, this cramped neighborhood, filled with bearded fanatics and bald witches, is finished! We’re going to a free world where we don’t have to believe in that cruel God who demands our absolute adoration and rewards us with massacres!”
    “But Teresa, where did all this wealth come from?”
    “I’m going to read you a letter from my father that I found under the coins.”
     
I’m writing this in case some day you find this treasure, which for me has been useless. For three generations or more we’ve been building it up by making huge sacrifices. Moisés, my father, received a large part of it from David, my grandfather, who was a state tax collector in Hungary. That was the only position the gentiles allowed Jews to occupy, because for them it was despicable to debase oneself by charging money. He