{"id":824,"date":"2013-06-24T16:03:33","date_gmt":"2013-06-24T14:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joseph-wresinski.org\/en\/the-can-of-peas\/"},"modified":"2019-11-30T16:52:28","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T15:52:28","slug":"the-can-of-peas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joseph-wresinski.org\/en\/the-can-of-peas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Can of Peas"},"content":{"rendered":"

An extract from “Tomorrow will be different” (Paroles pour demain)<\/em><\/p>\n

The Can of Peas
\nIt had been brewing for months.
\nThe situation was so bad
\nthat he could no longer endure the humiliation
\nof not having a job, of the hunger,
\nof their home turned upside down.
\nOne day, he took off and stayed away for three weeks.
\n\u201cWith another woman,\u201d said the neighbors.
\n\u201cMaybe not,\u201d answered his wife.
\nThat evening, he came back to fetch his things.
\nThe neighbors had alerted me, so I came too
\nand stood in the middle of the cluttered room.
\nNo one was speaking.
\nThe children were climbing all over the sagging couch, scuffling,
\nfalling head over heels on the floor and starting over again.
\nTheir father was piling his clothes any which way
\ninto two open suitcases on the table.
\nIt all seemed ridiculous–the sofa, the children,
\ntheir father, the table, the suitcases, the clothes.
\nTo match the depth of his shame and their unhappiness,
\nI could find no words to offer him.
\nI knew he did not really want to leave again.
\nI was sure he was waiting
\nfor his wife and children to tell him to stay.
\nBut, like me, they didn\u2019t dare say anything to him.
\nHaving been born into poverty, we sensed intuitively
\nthat words nearly always distort, diminish, damage
\nthe intensity of our feelings.
\nFinally, I held him in my arms
\nand hugged him with all my might
\nso that he would feel just how much we all loved him.
\nThen his wife, who had been hovering in the shadows,
\nventured out of the back room
\nwhere, like a wounded animal, she had taken refuge
\nto hide her sorrow, her loneliness, her misery.
\nHer face was on fire, swollen, deformed, yet so beautiful,
\nas if in sadness the faces of the utterly forgotten
\nheld onto a kind of pride,
\na determination to live and to love.
\nPointing toward the children, she said simply,
\n\u201cThe cupboard\u2019s been empty for three days…
\nI haven\u2019t asked for anything from anyone.\u201d
\nHer words were short and to the point
\nas she wrestled with the facts and the pain:
\n\u201cHe\u2019s come to fetch his things. He\u2019s leaving.
\nWhat will become of us?\u201d
\nShe wasn\u2019t really talking to me, but to him indirectly.
\nI was still squeezing his arm.
\nThe seven children were still keeping busy in their corner.
\nAround this table,
\nwhere the future of a family was being played out,
\nanything could touch off a tragic ending:
\nthe wife\u2019s complaint, the children\u2019s indifference,
\nthe humiliated husband\u2019s silence…
\n\u201cHe\u2019ll stay,\u201d I told her,
\n\u201cOtherwise, he wouldn\u2019t have come back.\u201d
\nI led them into the kitchen where not one bit of food,
\nnor any smell of cooking, remained.
\nDuring the past days,
\nthe children had scraped up every last crumb
\nand scratched the cupboard walls bare
\nuntil there was really nothing left at all.
\nThey had started to eat at the neighbors\u2019 instead.
\nOne after another had taken them in,
\nfeeding them
\nand complaining all the while about their father\u2019s leaving home.
\nSome blamed him; others blamed her,
\nas if there were no unemployment,
\nas if hunger had not twisted their stomachs,
\nas if they had not known shame.
\nNow the silence was broken.
\nThere we all were. He was sitting; she was standing.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve suffered a lot too,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWhat about us?\u201d she asked.
\n\u201cI worked,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cSo you\u2019ve got some money?\u201d He didn\u2019t answer.
\nInstantly, she understood that if he left again
\nshe would stay there penniless,
\nthat she would have to plead poverty despite her pride,
\nthat she would have no choice but to beg
\nso that the children could eat.
\nThen with a sob, she burst out,
\n\u201cDo you realize I sold a can of peas to write to you? \u201d
\nThis can symbolized a cry of despair,
\na sign of support from the neighbors
\nwho had given it to her.
\nSelling it was a revelation of unfathomable love,
\npushing hunger, suffering, and shame into the background.
\nWe relapsed into silence.
\nIt had all been said.
\nMore words would have been useless.
\nWhen I left them, I knew he would not leave again.
\nFrom now on, he would find the strength
\nto overcome their neighbors\u2019 mockeries,
\nbecause they had both renewed their commitment of love.
\nAt the front door,
\ntheir seven-year-old daughter reached for my hand,
\ngently squeezing it again and again as if to say, \u201cThank you.\u201d
\nI thought about the can of peas,
\nsold for the price of a stamp
\nso a letter could be written to a man fleeing his family
\nto tell him to come back because he was still loved.
\nDid the children take in this declaration of love?
\nI think so.
\nBesides, they needed no proof.
\nThey knew all along that their parents loved each other.
\nWhat unexpected secret
\nhides itself in the hearts of the poor?
\nWhat love binds them so closely together?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An extract from “Tomorrow will be different” (Paroles pour demain) The Can of Peas It had been brewing for months. 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