Caught between a rock and a hard place? Knew the man was the ‘uncle who went to American and got lost’ according to ‘Dreams’...
and therefor couldn’t admit that he always knew where he was?
Lies, they sneak up on you so unpredictably.
ACCORDING TO MYTH: THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF DAVID IN ‘DREAMS FROM MY FATHER’
I remember how, a few days after my visit to Sarah’s, Auma and I happened to run into an acquaintance of the Old Man’s outside Barclay’s Bank. I could tell that Auma didn’t remember his name, so I held out my hand and introduced myself. The man smiled and said, “My, my-you have grown so tall. How’s your mother? And your brother Mark-has he graduated from university yet?”
At first I was confused. Did I know this person? And then Auma explained in a low voice that no, I was a different brother, Barack, who grew up in America, the child of a different mother. David had passed away. And then the awkwardness on all sides-the man nodding his head (“I’m sorry, I didn’t know”) but taking another look at me, as if to make sure what he’d heard was true; Auma trying to appear as if the situation, while sad, was somehow the normal stuff of tragedy; me standing to the side, wondering how to feel after having been mistaken for a ghost.
Later, back in her apartment, I asked Auma when she had last seen Mark and Ruth. She leaned her head against my shoulder and looked up at the ceiling.
“David’s funeral,” she said. “Although by then they had stopped speaking to us for a long time.”
Caught between a rock and a hard place? Knew the man was the ‘uncle who went to American and got lost’ according to ‘Dreams’...
and therefor couldn’t admit that he always knew where he was?
Lies, they sneak up on you so unpredictably.
Ah, that’s it. Lies have a way of ensnaring those who cast the network of lies.