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E. A. Markham

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From a Waitress at the Franziskaner Hotel, Wurzburg, 1999

We are grown into tolerance, my friends
Support grannies and trees in places
We might never visit. No jokes now
About deck-chairs on early-morning beaches
Of my father’s time: we take our turn like the rest of them.

And when he came into the restaurant I didn’t flinch,
Just reflex tightening of thighs and creepy-
Crawleys up the back to your neck. Yes,
I saw him on television that time (those times)
And how did he get here so far from Rwanda?

And the decades of preparation against instinct
Will prove us changed. The table is white:
I and my blouse are white. He will think of brides
And brides and brides. He will worship Germany.
And then, then he claims to know -

With a million dead in his own country -
That one wine is dryer than another wine. Good.
This is good. Then his grilled fish comes
And he insults the judgement of the Chef
Who is not a gastarbeiter. I have studied Latin

At the Gymnasium, yes, and toyed with voting
For Herr Schröder. My friend has been to the Turkish
Café in the north. Though we can’t screw around because
Of Aids and black babies, we are not my father.
But Turk, Ostlander, Slav and black man

Who escape bodies in their village have come here
To sip white wine and monitor our taste. This one
Instructs us how to grill the fish. In the hotel his bed
Is made the normal way. And will there be complaints in the morning?
And will my father always be right?

 


E.A. Markham’s selected stories, Taking the Drawing-room Through Customs (Peepal Tree) and his seventh book of poems, A Rough Climate (Anvil) are published in the summer and autumn, respectively, of 2001. A Papua New Guinea Sojourn (Carcanet, 1998) and the campus novel, Marking Time (Peepal Tree, 1999) reflect his work in overseas development and in education. Markham is professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University.

 

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