"Apple, apple, fallen in the water,"
begins the song we learn in the
camerata choir. We are all girls,
desperate to distinguish ourselves in notes,
exclusive for our clandestine pleasure in the
friction between voices that all want to be the star.
Give me grace, please God, as I appropriate
his Hungarian folk songs. Forgive me for the lie
I tell: that my grandfather, a refugee of
just another Soviet-occupied country, used to
know these songs and sing them to me.
Let me have this one, since he floated away when I was young;
Make this my apology: a lie about a song that he
never hummed to me, which becomes a segue to his story.
Over dinner, I share the song with my mother, who,
pregnant with her own longing, reminds us of his
question — Why do they take from me? He was at a
riot in the streets, after which a priest in
Szombathely proclaimed, "Our young have left us."
Terror comes here, too: I left him
under the covers of his hospital bed in the den, a
vegetable who knew how to grow cherries on vines,
while I breakfasted on pop tarts filled with
xanthine gum and other things unpronounceable. Like
yarn unravelling, I relegate him to a private
zenith, where my version of him knows the song I claim is ours.
About the Creator
Catherine Dorian
Writer and teacher. Sometimes, I write about teaching.
✨
For me, writing is compulsive, but it never feels self-destructive; it’s the safest medium by which I can confront what scares me.
I've been told my Instagram needs a makeover.
Comments (3)
Makes my heart ache. You were only a baby when he sang to you and danced with you cheek to cheek.
So beautifully done, Catherine! Someone once told me that of all the outlets we use for words, we 'feel' poems more. I can feel the longing and the gauzy way we remember people. History and family, too. However, I can taste the pop tart!
Wonderful and full of depth