Free Your Sad Eyes and Unforgettable Mouth by Edeet Ravel

fallen to Earth. With their impossibly deep glow, the buttercup petals were as beautiful, as thrilling, as any work of human art. If only I could do more than pluck one and stare at it.
    The Sparkly and Shine Dry Cleaners was the only successful enterprise in a row of small shops. Bambi Children’s Apparel promised Quality Clothing for Boys and Girls ; a sample of their goods was displayed on two child mannequins that must have been rescued from a Twilight Zone episode. A nameless store sold footwear for the entire family: red high-heels for women, black party shoes for girls, brown-and-white men’s loafers, tiny white baby shoes speckled with holes. Dusty and usually empty, these stores were unbearably depressing. If only I were rich, I thought, I’d go in and buy everything.
    I slipped the buttercup into my suede shoulder bag and entered the Sparkly and Shine Dry Cleaners. Mr. Hirshfeld, the owner of the shop and originator of its lopsided name, had apparently notgrasped the intricacies of English grammar—or any other grammar, as far as I could tell. Trapped in an inexhaustible, throttling rage, Mr. Hirshfeld was never heard to utter human sounds. Instead, he barked at anyone who came near.
    Nevertheless, business thrived. Mr. Hirshfeld was multilingual; he could bark in several languages. His customers brought him their droopy clothes and Mr. Hirshfeld, who knew how things were done in Europe, silently swept the disgraced items out of sight. And returned them the following day, all shiny and clean, as promised.
    Generally I avoided Mr. Hirshfeld, who was, I felt, particularly ill-disposed towards me, but now I entered his store without a second thought. Even seeing my mother, with her damp forehead and solid mountain of curls, working away at her sewing machine amidst the heat and steam and barking, deflecting compassion by unleashing her catalogue of persecutions—even seeing Fanya didn’t ruin my mood.
    “Hey,” I said.
    She looked up and flagged me with a fluster of arms— mamaleh mamaleh my only child my heart my life—
    “I need the key!” I finally managed to interject. “Key!”
    —ai ai ai the key I told you I told you—
    She reached for her black alligator purse and snapped open the big bronze buckle. The small red purse I’d given her was for going out in the evening to play cards. Mr. Hirshfeld was already barking at us, he wanted her to get back to work. My mother dismissed him with a truculent guffaw.
    —to work to work he is the whip I am the horse—
    Her perfumed chin wobbled as she laughed at her joke. Canadians, the little lambs, didn’t frighten my mother. Like my teachers, like bus drivers, Mr. Hirshfeld could do us no harm—that’s what it came down to. There was trickery everywhere: carpet cleaners damaged her carpets, the makers of cereal boxes deceived her with air, but they had no clout, and this safety catch gave mymother courage. With her pink nail polish and fishnet stockings held up by fat garter clips, she was armed to the teeth.
    —he is the whip I am the donkey—
    My mother laughed, Mr. Hirshfeld barked, I shouted “Key!”—it could have been an avant-garde performance piece—and in walked Rosie.
    In walked Rosie, lost inside a cloud of white nylon curtains, the kind that smelled of rust and made a small zed sound when you rubbed one fold against the other. The kind you hid behind when you were waiting to be carried off by Harry Belafonte.
    She unloaded the curtains on the counter and Mr. Hirshfeld barked, “Curtain! Two-ninety-nine!” Then, re-evaluating as he tugged at the fabric and found more than he’d anticipated, “Three-ninety-nine! Tuesday!” He took hold of the curtains in his strong arms: Mr. Hirshfeld and his bodiless bride.
    “Hi.” Rosie smiled. “I’m Rosie Michaeli. Are you Mrs. Levitsky’s daughter?”
    Hypnotized, I nodded. Not that I minded owning up, but right now any mention of my mother seemed intrusive. Luckily, she had returned to