It was about 20 years ago, how time flies… I was getting settled in, a new adult, living in our first rented house in Co. Galway. I was very proud of the pizza I made from scratch. It took hours for the yeast dough to rise, in the cold, damp cottage. Then the tomato sauce, and the thinly sliced vegetables for the topping: peppers, mushrooms, onions… Real mozzarella too.
He was watching television with a friend. It was a program about the holocaust if I remember well. I didn’t mind them being in the sitting room watching television and me being in the kitchen, I was happy to think that I would soon be feeding them homemade pizza, contributing to the social atmosphere, playing housewife.
The pizza was cooked. He wasn’t hungry, he said. Accusingly, too: how can one be hungry when they watch the holocaust on television? I was hurt. I hadn’t watched the program. I was hungry. Besides, the holocaust happened 50 years ago. It happened, it was an awful, awful time in history. But the fact that it was on television that particular day, that particular time, was a totally random fact. It wasn’t happening right now, in our sitting room. If the neighbours had been watching the program and not us, should we still refrain from eating pizza? He’d be hungry later on, when the program was over and they had joked about other subjects. The holocaust would still have happened 50 years ago. You can’t stop eating pizza for the rest of your life just because the holocaust happened 50 years ago.
I should have thrown the pizza in the bin. I don’t remember what I did, but I’m pretty sure I ate it on my own in the kitchen, choking on tears, rage and anchovies. That would be me. I haven’t changed in 20 years.
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