I have a photograph of my father wearing a black tuxedo and holding a suckling pig under his arm. He’s on stage. Two dark-eyed beauties in low-cut party dresses are standing next to him and giggling. He’s laughing too. The pig has its mouth open, but it doesn’t look as if it’s laughing.
It’s New Year’s Eve. The year is 1926. They are in some kind of nightclub. At midnight the lights were turned off, and the pig was let go. In the pandemonium that ensued, my father caught the squealing animal. It was now his. After the bows, he got a rope from the waiter and tied the pig to the leg of their table.
He and the girls visited several other establishments that night. The pig went with them on a rope. They made it drink champagne and wear a party hat. “Poor pig,” my father said years later.
At daybreak they were alone, the pig and my father, drinking in a low dive by the railroad station. At the next table a drunken priest was marrying a young couple. He crossed the knife and the fork to bless the newlyweds. My father gave them the pig as a wedding present. Poor pig.
*
That’s not the end of the story, however. In 1948, when my father was already on his way to America and we were starving back in Belgrade, we used to barter our possessions for food. You could get a chicken for a good pair of men’s shoes. Our clocks, silverware, crystal vases, and fancy china were exchanged for bacon, lard, sausages, and such things. Once an old gypsy man wanted my father’s top hat. It didn’t even fit him. With that hat way down over his eyes, he handed over a live duck.
A few weeks later his brother came to see us. He looked prosperous. Gold teeth in front, two wristwatches, one on each hand. The other brother, it seems, had noticed a tuxedo we had. It was true. We let these people walk from room to room appraising the merchandise. They made themselves at home, opening drawers, peeking into closets. They knew we wouldn’t object. We were very hungry.
Anyway, my mother brought out the 1926 tuxedo. We could see immediately the man was in love with it. He offered us first one, then two chickens for it. For some reason my mother got stubborn. The holidays were coming. She wanted a suckling pig. The gypsy got angry, or pretended to. A pig was too much. My mother, however, wouldn’t give in. When she set her mind to it, she could really haggle. Years later in Dover, New Hampshire, I watched her drive a furniture salesman nuts. He offered to give her the couch for free just to get rid of her.
The gypsy was tougher. He marched out. Then, a few days later, he came back to take another look. He stood looking at the tux my mother had in the meantime brushed off. He looked and we looked. Finally, he let out a big sigh like a man making a difficult and irreversible decision. We got the pig the next day. It was alive and looked just like the one in the picture.
____________
Written in 1986 as an introduction to the issue of Ploughshares magazine which I edited.