Don't Call Me Mother (16 page)

The music rises above us, lifting us to a higher plane of knowledge, a realm of experience untouched by the rest of life. Through Mr. Brauninger’s conducting—the swoop of his lanky arms, the shining in his eyes, his waving red hair—I am birthed into feelings I never knew possible, into a beauty that has no words, a connectedness I could never imagine. It soothes the sore places within me.

At each week’s rehearsal I am transported into this ethereal realm. The music is more than words or ideas or anything the mind can conceive of. It goes straight to my heart, the place under my breastbone where my cello rests.

Mr. Brauninger becomes a family friend. Gram invites him over for dinner one evening. I am overjoyed to have company because we so seldom do. Gram says, “Poor thing. He’s a bachelor all alone. He needs friends and a home-cooked meal. Now, you be sure to mind me…”

She goes on with a list of rules, but I don’t care. I am thinking only of Mr. Brauninger’s face when he urges us, “Come on, come on and play with everything you have,” gesturing with his whole body, his long arms swinging around wildly. I think of what he told us about Beethoven, that he wrote his music for God. The look of beatific surrender on Mr. B.’s face inspires us to take a leap of faith to this transcendent spirit in ourselves, even as we work so hard to play.

Mr. B. arrives with a present for Gram and a new ball of rosin for me. He brings his records so we can hear wonderful symphonic music. Gram fixes New York steak with mashed potatoes, a salad, and corn on the cob. After dinner, while Gram is still in the kitchen, he sits on the floor spread-eagled and begins to play marbles.

“Come and sit on the floor with me, Linda. We’ll have fun. Do you know how to play marbles?”

I tell him I want to learn. I smooth my dress and sit on the rug, careful to still look like a lady. I roll the cool, hard marbles in my hands. Gram comes into the living room with that look on her face. I hope she won’t say something bad to Mr. Brauninger. She says to me in a hardened tone, “Get up off that floor. Ladies do not sit on the floor with their legs spread like that.”

Mr. Brauninger gently tries to tease her. “Oh, it’s my fault. I just thought a little girl would like to play marbles. I loved them when I was a kid. Can’t she play with me?”

He looks up at Gram with a sweet, begging look, as innocent as a young boy, but she holds her line, not unfriendly but stern. “I’ll have you know that I am raising my grandchild to be a lady, and ladies never, ever sit on the floor wearing a dress. They never sit on the floor in the living room. Period. Get up, Linda Joy.”

I watch this exchange with interest, impressed that he does not simply try to please her, but actually stands up for me. After all, I am only ten and I should sometimes be allowed to play like a child. Still, I’m thoroughly conditioned by Gram’s insistence that I be a small grown-up, that I always have the best manners of any kid in town. In the state. In the universe. I get up.

Mr. Brauninger takes out his violin, caressing the deep red wood that is marked with beautiful patterns. He says, “There’s something I bet you don’t know. The wood that goes into making the violin has to come from trees grown at high altitudes, where it is very cold. They’re blown around by high winds and live through many years of bad storms before they are cut down for violin wood. If the wood grows where it is warm and where things are easy, it isn’t as strong and doesn’t make as good a sound. It needs the storm, it needs the cold to be able to make beautiful music.”

He pauses for a moment and wipes his violin with a soft cloth. He looks into my eyes and his look goes beyond words. I think he is telling me more than about wood, but I’m not sure what. It gives me a good feeling anyway. Mr. Brauninger is the nicest man I have ever known. Now he takes out a three-record set, recorded at the Prades Music Festival, and wipes each record with a soft cloth.

“Linda Joy, this is a recording by the greatest cellist in the world, Pablo Casals. He is Spanish and was exiled from his own country because of the terrible Franco regime that killed lots of people. He refuses to go back to Spain, as a protest against all the bad things happening there. Each year he conducts this wonderful festival with other great musicians—Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, and Dame Myra Hess—because he thinks that great music can help make the world better.”

Gram adds from the kitchen, “Dame Myra Hess gave free piano concerts at the National Gallery in London during the war—to cheer people up.” I see that Gram thinks this was a good thing. She and Mr. B. both know about wars and bad times, some more of the hidden history I have come to know all adults have inside.

Mr. Brauninger puts the first record on the turntable and carefully lays down the needle. Out pours the most sublime music I have ever heard. It fills the thick dusk of the living room—the burgundy Oriental rug, the maroon ceiling, the stern portrait of Rembrandt staring down at us—with light. Mr. Brauninger sits under the brass floor lamp by the piano, a golden glow all around him. Waves of peace, love, and serenity emanate from him. His face is composed, his usual grin replaced by a smile that suggests heaven. I take his cue and quit worrying about my grandmother.

I relax and let the music create a universe of harmony within me, as it seems to with Mr. Brauninger The hurt I usually feel inside from Gram’s scolding, my frustration from being held back and controlled by her, the deep aching for my mother and father, and my shame about my family—all of this is gone. Replacing it is a smooth, silky feeling. Peace and beauty beyond imagining fill me, and I am brought back to myself, the person that I really am. Mr. Brauninger sighs. I fold my hands over my stomach, sighing in perfect synchrony with him. For a time we are held and healed in this music.

When he leaves, and regular life takes hold again, I hold these memories inside me to guard against the darker days.

Who Do You
Want More?

One fall day during my tenth year, there is a knock at the door. Gram is still wearing her nightgown even though it’s one in the afternoon. She’s hunched over on the couch, newspapers, books, and letters strewn around her. Two ashtrays holding smashed butts ringed with lipstick overflow onto the stained, glass-topped coffee table. I pause, embarrassed to open the door.

Gram mutters, “Don’t answer it,” but I have already opened the door a crack. My body knows who it is before my mind absorbs it. An electrical jolt burns through me, leaving me shaky. A woman stands before me. At first she seems like a dream. It’s my mother—wearing a black hat and veil, a fine charcoal suit, silk blouse, and high heels. She carries a wrinkled paper shopping bag and a black leather purse with a gold clasp. On her lovely face is a small, wistful smile.

I say, “Mommy?”

I hear the hiss of Gram’s breath. I know what it means. I’m suspended on that thin wire strung between Mother and Gram. Gram is behind me, Mother before me, the screen door another veil between us as Mother waits to be let in. Gram is angry; Mother wants to be welcomed. Already, the battle line has been drawn.

I ask Mother how she got here; it seems to me that she has dropped from heaven, the answer to my prayers. She gestures toward Aunt Helen’s car putt-putting in front of the house. Aunt Helen waves at me and takes off, wisely deciding not to enter the lion’s den.

Mother waves her ivory cigarette holder as if to say, “Aren’t you going to let me in?” I open the screen door, watching while they exchange first glances. Gram seems to paw at the earth, itching for a fight.

Mother steps in and I put my arms around her to prove that she is real, her flesh soft against me, her musky scent a balm. I am overcome with relief, a letting down of tension I didn’t know I had; yet at the same time part of me ratchets up, preparing for what I know will come.

Mother’s visits all follow the same pattern. She comes in acting sweet, her voice soft and quiet. She unpacks her paper bag, lining up her pots of makeup on the hall table. Gram makes coffee. She and Mother speak to each other like civilized creatures for two or three hours. The details—how long they keep up the friendly façade; the precise content of the fight; the exact number of swear words spoken, and by whom; who cries, how much, and for how long—differ each time, yet I can predict how things will go. The rhythm of their grief, rage, and blame reverberate in my blood.

Who do you think you are, asking me for money, why do you talk to me like that, don’t you dare raise your voice, I’ll do what I damned well please, no you won’t this is my house, well if you feel that way about it, oh so you’re gonna run away, that’s what you did, what do you mean, oh never mind.

You don’t understand me, you never did, what’s there to understand, you’re wasting your life away, what’s the matter with you, are you an idiot, stop telling me I’m stupid, you don’t know what you’re talking about, and you’re so smart living here in this hell hole, you don’t clean the house, what are you teaching my daughter, well if you can do so much better, take her with you, you know I can’t, well don’t say anything, don’t try to control me, I’ll say what I want, not in my house you don’t, well then I’m leaving, I’ve had it, I’m calling Aunt Helen.

Smoke swirls. They circle each other, eyes glittering. The room crackles with their overloaded wires. There’s no place for me to go where I’m safe from their sting and burn.

After one bad fight Mother runs into the hall and throws her makeup, all the pots, liners, powder, and lipstick, into her Neiman-Marcus shopping bag. She folds her pink nightgown into a square, its musky scent rising in a cloud and settling over me. My mother’s aroma threatens to open the flap in my stomach that leads to an abyss of loneliness and sorrow. I don’t want to fall in, so I try to comfort Gram. A tear runs down her cheek, but her mouth is set in an angry sneer. “How dare she talk to me like that, after all I’ve done for her. She has no sense of other people; she just thinks of herself.”

I don’t want to hear bad things about Mother, so I make coffee, hastening their usual end-of-the-fight ceremony. I know how to make coffee by now, but I let Gram direct me. “Measure the water, exactly eight cups, and nine spoons of Folgers. Be sure to put the percolator top on.”

I dread the next phase, when I’m tormented by questions I don’t dare ask. I get water from the tap, making sure it hits the eight-cup line. I breathe in the fragrant coffee and measure it carefully. Meanwhile, my mind reels. What will happen now? Will Mommy go back to Chicago tonight? Can I go to Aunt Helen’s to see my mother, or would that be a betrayal of Gram? When will I see Mother again? I want to know the precise size and shape of my time with her, exactly when she’ll leave. I don’t want surprises. I don’t want to feel this aching hole in my stomach.

Soon Aunt Helen’s car coughs and mutters in the driveway. She leaves the headlights on and shuffles into the house wearing bedroom slippers. Her dyed blonde hair is in pin curls, and she wears a bathrobe over one of her working dresses. She is smiling, as usual, but doesn’t seem happy. “Well, well, well,” she says, her eyes taking in the scene: Gram blowing smoke from her chair while Mother smokes and paces, her heels threatening to punch holes in the floor.

“Josephine. Frances. Now look here. Jo, you can come to my house, and you can come too”—she gestures to me and Gram—“but I’ll have none of these shenanigans. I’m a Christian woman and believe in the Golden Rule, but Maj and I, we’ll have none of this malarkey in our house.”

“I just want peace and quiet,” Mother whispers as she rolls up her bag. She gathers her cigarettes and cigarette holder.

Gram glares. “Peace and quiet,” she says sarcastically, implying it was all my mother’s fault. “That would be nice.”

“I don’t know why I come here if this is the way you’re going to treat me,” Mother says, flouncing toward the dining room to grab a carton of Marlboros.

“I didn’t invite you,” Gram growls.

Mother faces her, eyes blazing. “Well, that’s a fine how-do-you-do. I’m not welcome with my own mother.”

Aunt Helen is ready to go out, her hand on the doorknob, but after this outburst Mother grabs her paper bag and her purse and her hat with the veil. She storms through the kitchen and makes her escape out the back door, shrieking about how unwelcome she feels, why does she bother. I hear her open the garage door and know she’s already out to the driveway. Panicked, I run after her. Aunt Helen’s car sits there idling, and Mother gets in. The car’s headlights blaze against the thick black night.

Aunt Helen comes out the front door and pauses beside me on her way to the car. “Are you coming or staying here?” she asks, tapping her foot. I stare at her in a panic. How can I decide that? I love both of them.

She repeats the question. “Are you coming with your mother or staying with your grandmother?” I just stare at her, speechless.

She gives up. “Call me,” she says, and gets in the driver’s seat. The car backs out of the driveway. My mother is huddled in the back seat illuminated only by the orange glow of her cigarette. The car climbs the hill and disappears into the night.

I go back inside the house, knowing that somehow I’ve made my decision, that I belong with Gram now. She sucks on a cigarette, slumping into the couch. The aroma of fresh coffee mixes with the stench of smoke and grief. I pour coffee into china cups, place them with the sugar bowl and creamer on the silver tray. I carry the tray into the dark living room with a smile on my face. Gram’s eyes glitter, as if with anticipation.