Pisan zapra—Malay for “the time it takes to eat a banana”
Luxuriating in the early morning heat on the veranda, with the Titiwangsa Mountains looming high above the leaves of the pokok pisang trees that ringed their property, Madeline Steele selected a banana from the bowl of fruit on the glass table, peeled it slowly, and savored that first delicious bite. There was no need to hurry. She had nothing to do today. Truth be told, she rarely had anything to do, out here on the edge of Kuala Lumpur, except for those occasional evenings when Roger brought a colleague home for tea. Even then, Cook prepared the meal, and their ayah Sarah set the table and cleaned up afterward. Madeline’s only job was to be decorative, to smile and laugh at the men’s jokes, and to pretend that she and Roger were happily married.
There were ripe bananas in the kitchen, but Cook knew that Madeline preferred them just before they ripened, their skin still veined a delicate, almost translucent green.
She chewed the firm flesh, not yet begun to soften, and a memory from the distant past tickled the back of her mind.
She had been a child in the Lake District of England—six or seven, perhaps, certainly no more than eight—and she had pinched one of Mummy’s sewing needles and carefully stuck it through the skin of an unopened banana, again and again, each time working it left and right as gently as she could, edge to edge. Later, when Daddy finished his eggs and bacon and reached for a postprandial banana and peeled it, as he did every morning— “Potassium!” he announced without fail, as Archimedes must have announced “Eureka!” in the bath—the fruit fell into his hands, already sliced into inch-long sections as if by magic. He had been absolutely amazed, and when Madeline showed him how she had accomplished the miracle, he had hugged her close and petted her and called her his little Houdini.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2016 من Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2016 من Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Playing The Ace
Same old Aggie.” Lieutenant Max Zagreb stepped outside the elevator and held the door for the long-legged woman in the short skirt and platform heels with a fake alligator bag slung from one bare bony shoulder.
The Book of Judges
McNulty’s apartment had the look and feel of a wake. In the front room, guys from the job milled around with beer bottles tight in their hands.
Pandora's Bluff
“I’ll see your bet,” Miss Parson said, “and raise you four dollars more.”
Louisa And The Silver Buckle
I was sitting on my porch in Cape May, New Jersey, when the mailman arrived. He dropped off the usual bills, a flier for half-price burgers at a local bar, and an invitation to a Cape May event.
Pisan Zapra
Pisan zapra—Malay for “the time it takes to eat a banana”