Zozz said, “This isn’t an easy world.”
“For us two-leggers? No, it ain’t, but you don’t see me moving.”
Zozz said, “That’s good. I mean, here you’ve got a job anyway. There’s work.”
“That’s right.”
Unexpectedly Maria said, “We get enough to eat here, and me and Mark can find wood for the fire. Where we used to be there wasn’t anything to eat.”
Bananas asked, “You remember, honey?” “A little.”
Zozz said, “People are poor here.”
Bananas was taking off his shoes, scraping the street mud from them, and tossing it into the fire. He said, “If you mean us, us people are poor everyplace.” He jerked his head in the direction of the back room. “You ought to hear her tell about our world.”
“Your mother?”
Bananas nodded. “You should hear what she has to say.”
Maria said, “Daddy, how did Grandmother get here?”
“Same way we did.”
Mark said, “You mean she signed a thing?”
“A labor contract? No, she’s too old. She bought a ticket—you know, like you would buy something in a store.”
Maria said, “Why did she come, Daddy?”
“Shut up and play. Don’t bother us.”
Zozz said, “How did things go at work?”
“So-so.” Bananas looked toward the back room again. “She came into some money, but that’s her business. I never ask her anything about it.”
“Sure.”
“She says she spent every dollar to get here—you know, they haven’t used dollars even on Earth for fifty, sixty years, but she still says it. How do you like that?” He laughed and Zozz laughed too. “I asked how she was going to get back and she said she’s not going back. She’s going to die right here with us. What could I possibly answer?”
“I don’t know.” Zozz waited for Bananas to say something and, when he did not, added: “I mean, she is your mother, after all.”
“Yeah.”
Through the thin wall they heard the sick woman groan again and someone moving about. Zozz said, “I guess it’s been a long time since you saw her last.”
“Yeah—twenty-two years Newtonian. Listen, Zozzy—”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know something? I wish I had never set eyes on her again.”
Zozz said nothing, rubbing his hands, hands, hands.
“That sounds lousy, I guess.”
“I know what you mean.”
“She could have lived good for the rest of her life on what that ticket cost her.” Bananas was silent for a moment. “She used to be a big, fat woman when I was a kid, you know? A great big woman with a loud voice. Look at her now—dried up and bent over. It’s like she wasn’t my mother at all. You know the only thing that’s the same about her? That black dress. That’s the only thing I recognize, the only thing that hasn’t changed. She could be a stranger—she tells stories about me I don’t remember at all.”
Maria said, “She told us a story today.”
Mark added: “Before you came home. About this witch—”
Maria said, “—that brings the presents to children. Her name is La Befana, the Christmas Witch.”
Zozz drew his lips back from his double canines and jiggled his head. “I like stories.”
“She says it’s almost Christmas and on Christmas three wise men went looking for the Baby and they stopped at the old witch’s door and they asked which way it was and she told them and they said, ‘Come with us.’ ”
The door to the other room opened, and Teresa and Bananas’ mother came out. Bananas’ mother was holding a teakettle. She edged around Zozz to put it on the hook and swing it out over the fire.
“And she was sweeping and she wouldn’t come,” Maria resumed.
Mark added: “Said she’d come when she had finished. She was a real old, real ugly woman. Watch; I’ll show you how she walked.” He jumped up and began to hobble around the room.
Bananas looked at his wife and indicated the wall. “What’s this?”
“Some woman. I told you.”
“In there?”
