"And then the toasts began, as they had for centuries. The largest man, rotund with a beaming red face and a mayoral disposition, rose with his glass in his hand, and began to speak.
Otari the tamada began an elegy to women, benediction, dedication, acknowledgment. After women, Otari elaborated his toasts into a series of the family, on children, on wives (everyone laughed - wives were, after all, a necessary evil), grandparents (one of his daughters had recently given birth to a boy), to sons (to grow up strong and take your place in the future), to love, to happiness (which does not depend on money but only on the things that had been previously drunk to).
I was happy; charmed, drunk and beguiled like thousands of guests and invaders before me, in the land of hospitality."
Wendell Steavenson "The Stories I Stole"
No comments:
Post a Comment