Now, yummy, yum, yum, eat it all up. Sometimes Ella wants to smash the porridge bowl on Francis’ face. To pay him back for all the wrongs done to her and for all the pain. But like a fool, his mind now child-like, he just keeps smiling, his face desiccated, round-eyed, ears protruding and transparent in the sunlight. He no longer looks like a human being, more like some animal. A rodent maybe, thinks Ella.

When Francis returned from Siberia, Ella took away all his human rights. He was allowed only to work, eat and sleep. And he had to be grateful that Ella had taken him back. He had no right to hold any opinions. But the children very much loved their dad because he was skilled in all sorts of work; for example, making false dentures, playing the mouth organ, doing various tricks with matches and cards, screwing together all sorts of apparatus of use on the farm, carving spoons and ladles from wood, making benches, fixing the old radio and everyone’s shoes. He even knew how to sew new shoes, hammer on a wooden heal and what a fine pair of shoes they made!

But Francis very soon understood that Ella too could not do without him, the same as he could not do without Ella. He never took advantage of this knowledge maliciously. Only once, when he had drunk too much and Ella was again hounding him for something, he pounded his fist on the table and called Ella a whore. The next day Ella made him sign a paper that was written in his name as a confession that he had called her a whore.

Francis signed under the pseudonym – Pushkin. Ella did not call him to supper three days in a row.

The herring goes down like a dream, Francis thinks. Why does Ella talk so loud? When he can hear just fine. He just can’t form words any more. He is desiccated, exhausted, he very much wants the end to come. If only he could see his son and his granddaughters. Where did they all go to? He didn’t dare interfere, Ella was the one who organized it all. Since returning from Siberia, he hasn’t been himself at all. He was sent there because of foolishness, and had returned because of duty. He gazes at Ella’s wrinkled old face, at the mouth, which swallows empty air each time he swallows a mouthful. Ella had been a strapping young girl, she had borne him three children. But what love was, he only came to learn in Siberia. It’s good that Ella doesn’t know about it, if she knew, her sense of righteousness would become even more threatening.

“What a tasty, tasty herring.” Francis smiles at Ella.