Harrowing (16 page)

Sandy Bleckley glared with hostility over the auburn frames of her horn-rimmed reading glasses.

“I’m disappointed in you, Annasuya,” she said, compressing her lips into a flat line of disapproval. “I’ve had several complaints about you over the past few days. Is something wrong?”

I teetered before her on my two-inch heels, across the desk from her, and started wringing my hands unconsciously. Something started jiggling in my stomach. I wished she would invite me to have a seat.

“What’s... what’s wrong with my work?” I gasped out almost in a whisper. “I wasn’t aware that I’d done anything wrong.”

Sandy sighed, arranged her glasses carefully on her desk and folded her hands around her glasses.

“Quite frankly, I was a bit surprised myself. Up until now your work has been impeccable. Everyone has been very content.”

She pulled out a few printed sheets.

“Do you see the date on this email?” She laid the print-out of an email before me.

Since she hadn’t invited me to sit, I had to lean over to read it. I hoped she’d take the hint and ask me to take a seat, but she didn’t.

“Do you see the date you’d indicated to the client for the meeting? It says April the eighth, right? Now check the date of the email itself.” Her hand glided over the pertinent area. “May fourth. Now tell me, Annasuya, how in the world was the client supposed to meet with Jim Donovan on April the eighth if the date had already passed? Unless he just happened to possess a time machine, of course.”

I gulped.

“I assume that you meant to write
May
eighth,” she continued without pausing. “And one mistake I can overlook. But here is another one.”

She shoved another email at me, her gestures brusque with impatience.

“You booked a room at the Hyatt Regency in Washington D.C. for our CFO for his business trip. Isn’t that right?”

I nodded, trembling and wondering where I’d gone wrong. Sandy pulled out some plane tickets.

“Look at these tickets. What destination can see you on them?”

She pressed the plane tickets into my reluctant fingers. I hardly dared to glance down at them. Did so anyways, intimidated by the menacing expression on Sandy’s face, and swallowed hard.

“Can you read that to me? What does it say?”

“Mon... Montreal, ma’am,” I managed to stammer out. I felt blood rushing into my cheeks.

“Other than the fact that both are located in the north-eastern part of North America, I really cannot distinguish any similarities between Washington D.C. and Montreal, Annasuya. Can you?” Sandy snatched the tickets from me, her tone scathing.

I bit my lips and shook my head.

I really for the life of me could not recall having committed such a gross error. I clearly remembered the sheet of handwritten paper that Reginald, the CFO, had plunked onto my desk the other morning, requesting a reservation at the Hyatt Regency of Washington D.C. But I had no way of proving it. I had, naturally, tossed the paper into the bin after making the reservation.

“I’m... I’m sorry, Sandy. I don’t know what got into me,” I blubbered. “It won’t happen again.”

But Sandy wasn’t finished with me.

“It won’t happen again, you say, Annasuya?” She arched her eyebrows at me. “Ah, but it has already happened again.”

She pulled out another sheet, her demeanour hard and brisk, this time making no effort to conceal her anger.

“Who did you address this email to, Annasuya? Who?” Her voice rose shrilly.

I glanced at the email.

“Mrs... Mrs... Weatherspoon, ma’am?” My voice was scarcely audible.

Sandy banged another sheet of paper before me.

“Yes, you addressed the CEO of Dunn’s Furnishings as Mrs. Weatherspoon. And according to this informational pamphlet, who is the CEO of Dunn’s Furnishings?”

My eyes paraded over the name “Kerry Williams” printed neatly across the back of the pamphlet. I was struck mute.

Sandy sighed.

“This can’t go on, Annasuya,” she said. “I’ve been patient with you, because until these last few days, your work has been above reproach. But we’re a business, not a psychology clinic. If you’re not up to your tasks, I’m sorry but I will have to ask for someone to replace you.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to utter a single word. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I glanced towards the corner of the room to dissimulate. I had no idea how I could have made such serious mistakes. From what I could remember, the name of the CEO on the pamphlet had been printed as “Kerry Weatherspoon”. I sank onto a chair uninvited.

Sandy studied me, her expression softening.

“Look, Annasuya, this might not sound professional, but I won’t deny that I think you’re a good person, with the best intentions in the world. I know you didn’t make any of these mistakes on purpose.”

She leaned across her table and withdrew all the papers from me.

“So I’ll give you one more opportunity. I’ll give you a week’s trial.”

She straightened the papers neatly.

“But if I find even one mistake during this week, I’m sorry but I’m afraid I’ll have to call the temp agency.”

She stood up smartly and flung her handbag over her shoulder.

“Before we leave, is there anything you want to tell me? Are you having problems at home? Is there anything going on between you and any of the employees here?”

I shook my head, staring at the floor. Sandy sauntered out from behind her desk.

“If there’s something you want to tell me... If any of the other employees has been giving you any problems...” She reached out and touched my shoulder, awkwardly. “Please, if you tell me about these things, don’t feel like you’re tattling or betraying anybody. The only loyalty here is to the company and to a job well done.”

I nodded, swallowing back tears.

Sandy scooped into her handbag and flashed out her mobile.

“Look, it’s late. It’s almost six o’clock. I’m sorry I’ve kept you after hours. Do you want a lift somewhere? I remember you said something about having to pick up your son?”

I wrung my hands and shook my head. I couldn’t say a single word. Sandy strode towards the door. I followed her, not daring to raise my head.

“Well, if you’re sure?” Sandy stepped out of her office and switched off the light, then headed towards the door of the suite.

“Come on, Annasuya. I have to close up.”

I switched off my computer hastily, then grabbed my blazer and handbag and squeezed rudely past Sandy into the corridor. Sandy stalked towards the elevators and pressed the button, tapping her foot impatiently. Her high-heeled pumps made brief staccato noises on the polished marble floor.

I brushed against her and stumbled against the stairwell door, slamming it open with a clang. Sandy stared at me in surprise.

“Where are you going?” she called after me. “The elevator won’t take long.”

Shaking my head, I barged into the stairwell and tumbled down the stairs two at a time, my breath catching in my throat. I couldn’t restrain the sobs that heaved out of me as I shoved my way through the fire escape door into the freedom and anonymity of the polluted streets.

Once at a safe distance from the building, where I was sure I wouldn’t bump into Sandy, I fished my mobile out of my bag with trembling hands and dialled the number of Romeo’s school. To my relief, it was Mrs. Garrison, Romeo’s homeroom teacher, who answered.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” I stammered into the phone. “I’m so, so sorry for the inconvenience. I know I’ve done this to you too many times, and I haven’t got any excuse...”

“Don’t worry, Ms. Adler,” Mrs. Garrison’s voice gushed enthusiastically into my ear. “Someone’s already come by to pick up Romeo. His father, I believe. Don’t worry, he’s in good hands. Take your time. Breathe.”

I took her instructions literally. My breath hissed out with relief, audibly. I heard Mrs. Garrison chuckle.

“Have a wonderful evening, Ms. Adler,” she said before hanging up.

I stared at the phone. Something niggled at me. I wondered when she had started to consider Calvin Romeo’s father. I knew that Mrs. Garrison was aware of how close our relationship had become, and that maybe she was even starting to suspect that one day soon, Romeo might enjoy the advantages of having a new stepfather. But for the moment, I’d never given her any sort of indication that she could refer to Calvin as Romeo’s father – yet.

I shook the phone and tossed it into my bag. I worried too much, I thought. But then again, on the other hand, I was a mother. Worrying was a mother’s prerogative, wasn’t it?

I tottered towards the subway station, relief at not having to rush to Romeo’s school alternating with that vague sick feeling at the prospect of losing my job. If Sandy sent me packing, I didn’t think Geri would give me another chance. My stomach churned. Typing and preparing PowerPoint presentations were the only things I knew how to do. If the temp agency dropped me, I knew my chances of finding another job were almost nil.

True, I could always apply at other temp agencies. But they would ask for references. And somehow I didn’t think Geri would be too keen on recommending me to anyone after this.

I fell against the glass door of the subway station, wavering on my two-inch heels as if they were stilettos. A gentleman I had never seen before caught a hold of my elbow to steady me. I glanced at him in alarm and scurried down the escalator before I realized how paranoid I was acting. I hurled myself, almost leapt, into the subway train as soon as the doors parted in front of me, sobbing like a schoolchild. I hunched onto a seat and cried during the whole trip, burying my face behind my handbag to guard myself from embarrassed gazes.

Eglinton subway station, my stop, rushed past me, then Lawrence. When I finally recovered enough presence of mind to raise my head and stare out the window, I discovered we were already pulling into the last station. Finch. End of the line. If I didn’t leave now they’d chase us all out like recalcitrant, naughty schoolkids.

I tumbled out onto the platform, numb with dread. End of the line. End of all my hopes and dreams and aspirations as well, it seemed. And maybe the end of our stay on Old Forest Hill Road, to boot. Next stop, a bench in High Park for me and state custody for Romeo, in all likelihood.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I directed myself like an automaton towards the escalators to change onto the trains heading in the opposite direction. But suddenly, I realized that I was close to the cemetery.

The cemetery. How could I forget? How long had it been since I’d come to visit my mother?

I rarely came to the cemetery to talk to her anymore. I preferred to hold my imaginary conversations with her in the privacy of my bedroom. I imagined that she would be hovering just above my head, like an omnipresent and ever-loving angel, hanging on to every word I breathed.

My mother had left the world during my third year at university. For a short while afterwards, my father had hung on, sad-eyed and mournful, a dismal fixture rocking back and forth in the living-room, refusing to return to work and drinking himself into a stupor ever more frequently.

Then one day, he’d shown up with a twinkle in his eye and poured the contents of all his bottles down the drain.

“I’m going to present you to Ravenna,” he said.

Ravenna was twenty years younger than him. She was ravishingly beautiful. Dark curls framing a heart-shaped face with olive skin and blood-red lips, lush eyelashes a mile long even without mascara. Ravenna was everything my mother hadn’t been: young, red-cheeked, voluptuous, just bursting with health from every pore. Before a year had passed, my father had sold the family home and used the money to elope with Ravenna to Australia. That was the last I’d ever heard from him.

I struggled out of the subway station to the street. A cool wind whistled past me, harsh, unseasonal. Almost bearing the ice of winter again even though it was late May. My feet twisted under me. I stumbled ahead, grazed against a street lamp covered with mould and staples and wrenched-out bits of papers. I wrapped my arms around the pole to steady myself. If anyone was looking at me at this moment, for sure they would think I was drunk.

And I
was
drunk. Drunk with grief. Drunk with worry. Drunk with anxiety about our future. My future and Romeo’s.

I pulled myself upright haughtily. I wasn’t going to teeter about and make a fool of myself in front of everyone. I tucked my blouse carelessly into the waistband of my dress pants, tugged on the hem of my jacket and straightened the jacket over me. Holding my head up high, I strode confidently down Finch Avenue towards the cemetery.

It was a long walk, but I figured I more than needed the fresh air. Halfway down the street, my foot rolled over a stone, nearly pitching me to the ground again. I grabbed at thin air, cursing, then realized perhaps it was a sign from heaven. A reminder. It had been several years since I’d returned to the cemetery, and I’d almost forgotten about the stone.

I picked the stone up and dropped it into my pocket.

“Thank you, Mama,” I whispered.

I stalked down the street in a hurry. I couldn’t remember when the cemetery closed, if it
did
close. I didn’t want to find myself locked out, for once that I passed down that way.

Storm clouds mingled with the darkness of the approaching night when I finally reached the sturdy stone wall that guarded the entrance to Beth Tzedec Memorial Park. I heaved a sigh of relief to see the gates swinging wide open, welcoming me with comforting arms, and I careened forward as though I were a crazed mourner who actually expected a re-encounter with my deceased loved one alive and kicking among the graves.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. I tried to remember when was the last time I’d come here. Romeo was a baby, I recalled, and I’d brought him to visit his grandmother’s grave, trying to push a path across the lawn with his stroller. And now Romeo was ten. I’d neglected my mother for almost a decade. Although I didn’t
feel
as if I’d abandoned her at all. After all I talked with her every day, often even said a prayer with her –
with
her, not
for
her, for I felt as if she accompanied me whenever I tried to speak with God alone in my bedroom – before going to sleep at night.

I strolled solemnly down the vast avenues of the burial ground, trying to remember exactly where my mother’s grave was located. My feet retraced the steps of their own accord, kinaesthetic memory taking over where my conscious brain flunked out. Down to about the middle of the terrain and a faint angling towards the left. Just opposite the second star to the right. Opposite and on the other side of the universe from Paradise.

I found my mother’s tombstone easily after that. Just one ordinary, square slab flanked by dozens of identical white markers, anonymous and forgotten except for the humble stones perched atop them that indicated that someone still remembered and had taken the time to pass by. It was a Jewish custom: instead of bringing flowers, we left small stones.

My mother’s tomb was practically the only one bare of stones. Her only daughter, I was the sole member of her family still remaining in the city. And I’d abandoned her for ten years.

I settled on the grass next to my mother’s headstone and just stared at the faint writing for a while without saying a word.
“Fayge Adler, beloved wife and mother | We will never forget you”,
proclaimed the engraving in shades of limpid grey. And just above it, in writing as clean and crisp, her name in Hebrew:
“Rachel Leah bat Chaim”.
Then her dates of birth and death. Hers had been a short life, only forty-five years. Only twenty in which to enjoy the company of her only child.

I curled up on the ground next to my mother’s grave, wrapped my hands about my legs and rocked myself back and forth. Then I rested my chin against my knees and tried to sob, but the tears wouldn’t come anymore. Now that I had the freedom to cry as I wished, just bawl away as much as I pleased, the tears simply wouldn’t flow.

I heaved a deep sigh.

“You don’t know how hard it’s been, Mama,” I began. My voice echoed in the empty field and disappeared into the breeze. “Or maybe you do. I remember you telling me how hard it had been for you and Dad, starting out anew in a foreign country.”

The youngest and only living child of Holocaust survivors who had settled in France after the war, the teenaged Fayge Biederman followed Dov Adler, an American university student spending a year in France, to the States after the untimely death of her parents in a car accident. She had no one else to turn to. No aunts, no cousins, no grandparents. She was all alone in the world, and by a fortuitous turn of fate Dov, my father, just happened to be there, by her side, in her most vulnerable moment. He promised to take good care of her.

With nowhere else to go and nothing better to do, she agreed. The pair arrived in New York on Independence Day of 1974. For the first few years, they drifted aimlessly, wandering from city to city, even stumbling across borderlines. They eventually settled and rented a cheap, rundown apartment in the city where one day I would arrive, squalling and protesting, into the world.

Dov, my father, dabbled in the current hippie sub-culture of Flower Children and acid trips. Marijuana and LSD occupied most of his time while all alone and locked up in their minuscule apartment, my mother did her best to run a decent household and perform the way loving housewives were supposed to, with the memory of her own parents as models. She cleaned up after my father’s multiple drunken orgies and swept the traces of drugs underneath the beds when his relatives came to visit. In one unfortunate incident, moved by the urge to support her husband through thick and thin, she followed him with fierce loyalty when he tottered, drunk and pissed out of his mind one sunny Saturday morning, into the Holy Blossom Temple, a Reform Shul, to mock the devoted followers congregated there.

They were both kicked out on their butts and soon became notorious in the city. It was mortifying for her. It went against the grain of everything she believed in. But in her mind, supporting her husband, showing the world that she had his back, came first and foremost before all other considerations.

People scoffed at this unlikely bond formed between the daughter of Holocaust survivors who followed traditional customs, raised in post-war France, and the irresponsible and frivolous Flower Child who flirted with pseudo-magic, mysticism and Transcendental Meditation. No one believed their union would last more than a day but somehow, they made it through, thanks mainly to my mother’s stoic patience.

Even after settling down with a job and a career, my father’s wild parties with sexy young things and plenty of booze didn’t come to an end. My mother would sit at home with infinite patience, waiting for him to arrive and still cleaning up his messes for him. Calling in sick for him at his company when he couldn’t get out of bed due to a massive hangover. Inviting his boss to dinner so he wouldn’t lose his job and just generally picking up all the pieces.

One day it all became too much for her. Hunching down in her kitchen, she tied on her prim white apron and baked two loaves of braided bread, challot, for the Holy Shabat. When evening arrived, all alone in her darkening living-room, she lit some candles and waited for Dov to return from his latest drunken rampage.

At last, around midnight, my father crawled in sheepishly through the doorway on his hands and knees. He had scarcely enough sense to stay on his feet, but my mother hauled him up anyways and plonked him rudely onto a chair at the table. She fixed him with a fiery stare.

Then she began to sing.

“Shalom Aleichem malachei ha-sharit, Malachei Elyon,”
she intoned almost in a whisper.
“Mi-melech malche ha-melachim Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu.”

The haunting, melancholy melody whispered in my mother’s sweet soprano wrenched my father out of his senseless daze. His eyes widened in astonishment and he truly paid attention to his wife for the first time since he’d brought her over the sea.

“When I was a child, not a single week went by that we didn’t sing this on Friday night,” she began, settling on a chair next to my father and lacing her fingers together on the table in front of her. “We weren’t religious, but this was important to us. Mama told me, when they were in the ghetto, even when all else was falling apart and they were literally starving to death, they still tried to keep the Shabat. They would scrimp and save the whole week long in order to collect enough flour to bake two challot for the family. And every time they sang this song, they knew, they just
knew,
perhaps it would be the final time. Their last Shabat together.

“And as they expected, one week it was indeed the last time. The very last time the six of them would gather and sing together around the table. The following Monday, all the residents of the ghetto were deported on cattle trains and sent to Auschwitz.

“Mama was the only member of her family who survived. Her father and two brothers were torn from her arms as soon as they arrived. And soon afterwards, her mother succumbed to illness. Only she and her sister, Batya, remained. Batya died of typhoid on January third, 1945. Mama was the only one left.

“And now this is how you defile the memory of these noble, humble people, and all that they stood for, by
drinking
yourself into a hellhole every day, Dov? Smoking weed, taking all those things that give you hallucinations that you call flying trips? How easy it is to see that you are indeed nothing but a crass and vulgar American after all. One of those pampered people who suffered nothing during the war.”

My mother banged her fist on the table. My father jumped, in spite of the obvious numbing of his nerves.

“We-we had the Depression,” he murmured, cowed and unconvincing.

“The Depression, bah. That wasn’t suffering.” My mother slammed her hands palm down on the table. “I will tell you what is suffering, Dov Adler. I will tell you what is a flying trip. A flying trip is being squeezed into a tiny cattle car with no room to even sit down, and no place to pee. If you wanted to pee you peed on your shoes. That was what my mama did. That was what everyone did. For two days and nights. The air was so fetid, many people died. Yes, died. Just from the bad air alone.

“When Mama survived, she vowed she would make babies. Lots of babies, in memory of all those who’d died, and to prove to the Nazis that they would never, ever defeat us. That life goes on no matter what. That you could take a person’s family away from him. His photos, his livelihood, his home and even his life. But you couldn’t take away his memory. You couldn’t kill everyone who would remember him. And you couldn’t kill an entire race with all its dreams, its memories, its memorials and everything that has ever been sacred to them or meant anything to these people. Someone would still survive. Something would still remain.

“After the war, my mother married and tried to make babies. They both wanted children more than anything. But my mother was broken. Something inside her had broken, and she kept losing her babies. She lost three baby girls, all of them named Batya for her sister, because she was the one who’d survived the longest.

“At last, more than ten years later, I came into the world in a slum in Paris, the blessed, longed-for child they’d been praying for for years. My mother wanted to call me Batya as well, but she didn’t dare. She was afraid that if she did, I’d share the same fate as all those other unfortunate little Batyas. So she called me Fayge, ‘so I could fly free and not be contained by steel bars’, she always explained when I asked her.

“I have tried to keep this memory sacred, Dov. I’ve tried to be the wife to you that Mama was to Papa. But it just isn’t working. Mama and Papa worked hard. They worked very hard. They had to. Life wasn’t easy after the war. And it isn’t easy for me, today, either. And I just can’t take it anymore.”