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My Real Name

David J. Thompson

She asks me if I want chocolate cake
for dessert. No, Maria, I say, showing her
both my palms in an I give up gesture.
I can’t eat another bite. Really, I can’t.

It’s my weekly dinner with the old woman
across the hall. She’s skinny as can be
with the world’s most narrow face
framed by thin white hair hanging lifeless
and uncombed to the collar of her housecoat.

Thanks for dinner, Maria, I tell her
as I push back my chair to stand up.
I’m in a hurry to get back to my apartment
for a ballgame that starts in a few minutes.
She motions for me to stop, says softly,
You know, Maria isn’t my real name.
Really? I answer. What is it then?
She looks away toward the back window.
I don’t know, she replies like she’s talking
to herself. C’mon, I say. How can you not know
your own name? She grips her wine glass
but doesn’t drink, and without any emotion
she says, At the end of the war I was
in a camp for lost children, you know,
and it seemed like weeks since I had eaten.
They gave me a cardboard badge
with my name on it, but while I stood
in the next long line, I was so hungry
that I couldn’t resist eating it. That’s all
I remember except that it tasted pretty good
and everyone started calling me Maria.

For a few seconds all I could hear was
the faint hum of the refrigerator.
Sweet Jesus, Ma . . ., I said breaking off
the last word about halfway and pulling
my chair back up to the table. Do you have
any ice cream to go with that cake?

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