A Brief Lunacy (20 page)

“Warm me? I'm warm.”

“It's a chilly night. And the door was open. Have you lost your jacket?”

“No. No. I haven't.”

The sweatshirt smells of the woods and of Carl. We always
wear orange during hunting season. It's the law if you're in the woods. It keeps the hunters from mistaking us for deer and shooting us. A few years ago a woman wearing white mittens was hanging diapers on a clothesline in her yard with twins sleeping inside the house. She was shot because the hunter thought the mittens were a deer's flagging tail. I think he was fined. Perhaps I should be wearing the orange sweatshirt.

“What're you laughing about?” Jonah says.

I hadn't noticed my own laughter but there it is, coming out of my mouth. “Nothing,” I say. “Put this on. It's Carl's. He won't mind, will you, Carl?”

“First you get back over there. I'm not falling for any of your tricks. Back up.”

When I'm in the kitchen he places the gun down on his chair and his drink on the table, yanks the sweatshirt over his head, shoves his arms in. I don't have enough time to do anything. He's fast. The shirt is huge on him but he rolls the sleeves up, all the while watching me and not moving away from the gun. I've got to get him away from the gun.

He doesn't argue when I top off his glass. He's had a lot of liquor. Wine, cognac, and now the schnapps.

“The tape.”

“What's that, Carl?”

“Cut it. The tape.”

“Sure, Carl. When we're ready. Hold your water, so to speak. Speaking of water, do you need the pee pitcher again, Carl?”

“No. Not now.”

“Tomorrow.” The song won't leave my thoughts. Such a stupid song. It's from
Annie,
I think. That silly little girl singing “Tomorrow” into the face of Daddy What's-his-name. Tomorrow. Sylvie waddles into the house. We are both dead, spread higgledy-piggledy about on the floor. Or Carl is still in his chair, slumped over his knees. She's very pregnant. Jonah tells her,
I found them like this, how terrible, such a nice couple. I just went out for a few minutes. They needed milk. Isn't it horrible? Oh, honey, let me hold you.
Sylvie falls into his waiting arms, sobs, says,
I love you,
to the murderer of her own parents. What does Sylvie do without us? And the baby? What about the baby? Is there one? No, she can't find us like that.

“The dinner,” Jonah says. “Where's the fucking dinner?”

He's feeling the booze. His words slur, his head bobs back and forth, he swallows a mouthful of the schnapps, but he hangs on to that gun. The chicken and mushrooms have been simmering in tomato sauce for ages. I sprinkle some dried mixed herbs onto the top, add some fresh rosemary from my windowsill plant. When I sniff the mixture, vertigo makes me lean against the counter. It's the same vertigo that gives me the urge to jump when I'm in the pine tree. I'm hungry. That's all.

“Dinner is ready,” I say in as natural a hostesslike way as possible. “You can untape Carl's arms and legs now. He needs to come to the table to eat.”

“Oh no, you don't. You little cock tease. Carl can eat in his lovely chair. He likes his chair. You and I will eat in the kitchen.”

“What about Hans? He's hungry.”

“Hans?”

“The man in the driveway.”

“Oh, Hans. The little German man. There isn't enough for him.” He wobbles toward me with his drink and his gun. “Is this my mother's recipe?”

“No. It's mine. I don't have your mother's recipe.”

“Don't you know my mother? You look like her.” He reaches out and touches the tip of my braid, strokes the end. I talk to myself. Things like
Don't fall over. Don't push his hand away. Don't agitate him. Don't throw up.
His breath reeks of peppermint. He's too close to me.
Back up,
I say to my wobbly brain.
Back up.
Does Sylvie talk to herself about Jonah? About us? Does she tell herself to hug me so I'll think she's fine?

I command him to sit down and he obeys. Carl does not remind Jonah about promises he made to untape his legs. Rather, Carl calmly waits for his supper, like a nursing home patient strapped to a wheelchair. Jonah places the gun on the table to the right of his knife and waits to be served like a guest of honor at a reception, except that he is fairly drunk.

“Is she dead? Is my mother dead now?”

“I don't know. You tell me.”

“I think that perhaps she is. Yes. I think she is.” His words are garbled. His glass still has about an inch of liquor but I'm afraid to pour more in, to call attention to it.

“Did you know she was pregnant?”

“Who?”

“My mommy. Do you think I could have saved the baby? Just cut it out when she died? But I didn't have a knife. No knife for me. I was too little.”

“Here you go,” I say. His plate is overflowing with most of the potatoes and one of the chicken breasts and a slice of rye bread. If he eats everything he might sober up. I shouldn't have given him so much. I pick up a fork to take one potato back, but he grabs the gun and points it at my face. He thinks I was going to stab him with the fork. Could I do that?

“Stop that,” he says. “Just calm down. Keep your distance.”

“Are you afraid of me, Jonah?”

“No. I'm not afraid of anyone. Only God. I'm afraid of God.”

“I'm bringing Carl his dinner. I'll move slowly. I know, no funny stuff. I know.”

Carl sits, ready to eat. I slide a tray with his plate and a glass of water onto the small table next to his chair. I smell his blood. Streaks of it crisscross his arm, smear on his pants, still ooze from the wounds on his forearm. When I pour the peroxide onto his wound, it fizzes as if the wound were fresh, but it has been hours.

“Carl, I'm going to feed you your dinner,” I say.

“What are you doing over there?” Jonah says.

“I'm feeding Carl. Unless you want to cut him free.”

Jonah doesn't answer and I think he's started his dinner, because I hear the clink of a fork against a plate. When I lift
a bit of potato onto the fork, Carl opens his mouth like a small boy, oblivious to his own silent weeping, the tears dripping onto his lap.

“Oh, Carl,” I say. “Oh, Carl.”

“Jess, my Jess.”

“At least we know our names, don't we, my darling.”

His lips close over the fork. He chews the potato as I move the fork back to the plate for more. He shakes his head at the second forkful.

“No. I can't eat any more,” he says. “My teeth.”

“Please be alert, Carl. I'm trying to get us out of this.”

“Jess? I'm sorry about the . . . I . . . the shame. It is his.” Carl says. “The shame is his. And mine, too. I should have stopped him.”

We speak in hushed voices. Back in the kitchen, Jonah eats his meal. I hear him knock something over. The pepper mill? Then I hear him pour the last of the peppermint schnapps, which I left on the table in front of him, into his glass. I try to pick at the tape on Carl's arms but can't even find the ends.

I bend my head to Carl and he kisses the back of my neck, just like he does every day. But today he holds his lips there and I hold my neck for him to reach. His breath warms me.

“It's not your fault,” I say. “It doesn't matter. The sex. It doesn't matter. He doesn't know what he is doing.” I bring my head back up, cup my palm to his face.

“Is she pregnant? Sylvie?”

“I don't know,” I say. “Wouldn't someone have told us?”

“Maybe not. She's of age. And they might not even know.”

“What about tomorrow, Carl? What will happen tomorrow?”

“Come over here,” Jonah says. “He's had enough.”

Because I need my strength and because I have a pain in my stomach, I place a small piece of chicken and remnants of the burst potato onto a plate and sit at the opposite end of the table from Jonah. He rests his left hand over the gun handle, eats with the other hand. His plate is now empty except for one of the potatoes, which he cuts into with his knife. I have a knife, too. Not very sharp.

“When you're finished with your dinner, you can have some ice cream,” I say.

Charlie and Sam and Sylvie sat around the small table we had in the old cottage right on this spot, listened to the same words. That afternoon we made ice cream with peaches from our yard in Connecticut that we had packed carefully in a cooler for the long ride up. Carl was at a conference, so it was just the four of us. We bought cream from a farm down the road. Thick and yellow.

They took turns cranking the ice cream machine, although Sylvie insisted on deciding whose turn it was. The machine sat dripping on the counter, packed with ice and salt, packed with the essence of summer. Charlie was only five. They all finished their dinner, even the broccoli, which Charlie hated. I scooped ice cream into their bowls and mine with a wooden spoon until there was barely a smudge
left in the bottom of the metal canister, and we ate it without a word, the only sound the clicking of spoons against the sides of glass bowls. Sam was three and a half. Ice cream dripped down his chin and dotted his shorts and shirt. After we finished, I remember kissing all their faces, tasting the flavor of peaches and cream and children and a bit of broccoli. The next day I found chunks of broccoli in the pocket of every child, squished and smeared, in shoes, down socks, rolled in the hems of their shorts. Where was I? Why hadn't I noticed?

People don't do that today. It isn't de rigueur anymore to withhold dessert until plates are cleaned. I don't know what to think about that. If I had small children today, would I let them eat what they wanted? But what about trying new foods? When we have grandchildren, we'll have to decide what to do.

“I'd like some.”

“What?”

“I'd like some ice cream. What kind is it?”

“Oh,” I say. “Chocolate. Yes. Chocolate.”

His head drops and bolts up, as if he is drowsing. A shock of streaked blond bangs flops as he moves. Does he dye his hair? What a strange thing. I remove his plate, push his almost-empty glass of schnapps toward him. He slumps in the chair and his weapon hand drops to his lap. There's enough chocolate for one bowl. When I make the first scoop into the container, he focuses on me, on my hand, on my eyes; then he smiles, nods as if he approves, slumps back down into his chair.

In my pocket, my fingers clutch at the keys to the car,
Wait for the right moment.
Then I scoop another blob of ice cream into the bowl, watch him, watch him succumb to too much alcohol. I leave the empty carton on the counter next to the bowl, place my hand back into my pocket, and wait.

W
HY DID
J
ESSIE
give him my orange sweatshirt? It's mine. In one pocket there's a chunk of dried bear scat and in the other, a brown pastel crayon and that dangly silver earring that I found by the seagull rock. Private things. Pockets are private. And it's too big for him, even with the cuffs rolled up.

I open my mouth for the fork that Jessie offers me, half expecting her to open hers, too, go
Ah
until I swallow, the way she did with the kids when they were tots. I chew the dry potato just because food is in my mouth, not because I'm hungry. I can't eat any more. My mouth is sore and I feel as if I might not be able to keep the first forkful down in my stomach. A glass of water. That's what I need. But I can't ask her. It's too selfish. I shake my head when she offers another bite. No. I can't eat any more.

She asks me to pay attention. She's got a plan. I'm usually the one with the plans. I'm the plan guy. But I don't
have one. Nothing. I try to apologize for her violation but it falls flat. I can't even say the word in my head, let alone aloud. When I kiss her I smell a faint trace of peppermint. We talk about Sylvie, wonder if she is going to have a baby. It's impossible,
n'est-ce pas?

Jonah calls Jessie back into the kitchen. They sit like a married couple eating their dinner. My mouth is dry from the potato. My lips are cracking. I can taste the blood on my tongue. I should have asked for water.

Underneath the truck the day I left the camp I remember the thirst. The truck was supposed to leave in the morning, but it stayed parked in the yard next to the Gypsy camp for hours. I was only a few inches off the ground, jammed up against the hot, jagged metal and tied in with that leather strap around my back, which cut into my already mangled flesh.

If a guard stooped down to tie his boot, he'd see me and I'd be shot right in the harness. I could see just enough to know what was happening. I saw father's shame when the whip cracked on his body as he tried to get off Nonni. He called Mother's name, touched her dirty foot with his fingertips before they dragged her to the dead cart. Nonni rolled onto her belly to hide herself and lay as if dead, even when the whip touched her legs. They propped my father up, pushed him back into line with the rest. They made them stand there for hours and shot anyone who fell out of line. My last view of the Gypsy camp was of more bodies on the ground than standing. Nonni? I don't know. Father? I think he was one of the bodies on the ground.

When the truck finally drove away from the camp, it was full of SS. Above me, almost touching, was the rusted bottom of the truck bed. A few small holes allowed me to see through into the truck bed, where I'd sat many times with my violin on the way to a party or a wedding at the home of a Nazi Party member.

Through one of the holes I saw a man look directly into my eyes, blink, and look away. His eyes were blue. He was young. Not much older than I was.

The heat was blistering, even for August in Poland. I closed my eyes against the hot metal above me and imagined I was at the Camargue sea, imagined the sand beach and cool Mediterranean water at its edge, the lunch can Grammy filled with fresh bread and berries and chicken and nettle soup in a jar.