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Tuesday, June 10, 2003
My Ethnic Identity
By Paul Ford
A short story.
My father and mother were whistling the Kaddish when !Mbeki and Joseph O'Connor knocked and entered our marble hut. “I spoke briefly to the ex-KGB man,” said !Mbeki.
“He's here?” said my mother, clutching her jewelry.
“I am hungry!” said Jub Jub, the changeling baby that the fairies had left with us when we moved to County Sligo, in New York City. My father adjusted his tie, that symbol of of his life as a civil servant, which he called "the white man's noose," except that he too was white.
“He's asking about Dr. Prawn,” said Joseph O'Connor, the drunken priest.
“Is Dr. Prawn the other?” asked Jub Jub.
“Jub jub! We are the other!” I said. I wanted to grow up and write novels.
“I miss our ceremonies and homeland,” said father, praying one of the 12 times he was obligated to pray for that day as a Methodist.
“I want new sneakers from the Reebok factory!” I thought, and then underwent clitoridectomy at my aunt's suggestion.
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