Home care worker - part two, Short story

[Bassim]

Dear people,
Please, would you proofread my text.

Shuffling her feet, Katarina led me inside her living room. The walls were covered in paintings and old, framed, black and white photographs. The paintings were landscapes showing bucolic scenes from the nineteen century and the photographs were portraits of men and women one usually sees at the beginning of the last century.
"Please, sit down," she said nodding with her head at the dark brown chesterfield. Another chesterfield was opposite it, and in between them, a solid wooden table with a Tiffany lamp on the centre of it.
"What would you like to drink? Coffee, tea or brandy. Unfortunately, I do not have slivovits from your homeland, but a glass of Calvados will do, I hope?
Again, her tin lips stretched for a split of a second that probably meant another smile.
"Coffee will be fine."
"I'll put the kettle on," she said and shuffled to the kitchen. When he came back she sat on the club chair which was in the same colour as the sofas.
"How many children do you have?
"Two, two girls."
"Nice."
"And your wife? Does she work too?
"She is working with children at a day nursery."
"It must feel good not to live on handouts from the state?"
For a moment, I felt a tinge of anger because both my wife and I started working as soon as we finished our course in Swedish. But Katarina guffawed and said, "I am just joking. I know how hard working people you Bosnian are."
She served us coffee and a sponge cake which she baked herself. When I told her that the cake tasted wonderful she answered that apparently she was still alive and guffawed again.
That morning she told me what I was suppose to do. Among other things, I should follow her to the shops, take short promenades with her, go with her to the doctors and help her with small task in their flat.
I looked at her wrinkled face and first now I understood how beautiful woman she must have been when she was young. Her high cheekbones in combination with her blue eyes, small nose and blond hair made her look like Barbie. She was tall and even when old age had bent her spine she was still taller then myself. I also noticed that her feet were not dainty, as writers use to describe that part of human body, but rather strong, gnarled masculine feet size 43. On that morning she sat without socks and even in the winter when outside was cold she seldom used them. Instead, when her blood circulation was bad, she would put on a pair of a blue felt sleepers and shuffled around.
Before I left her flat she warned me never to come before nine o'clock because every morning she used to run a hot bath and sit inside for half an hour.
I walked the street to the car park and turning my head to the left and right to be sure that nobody was beside me I said aloud, "Thank God I have survived!"

To be continued...