Her Mother's Daughter (59 page)

She stood up unsteadily.

“What is it? Do you want another drink?” She nodded. “I'll get them,” I said, taking her glass.

“Oh, will you, Anastasia? Thanks,” she said with relief, as if I had saved her from some horrible ordeal. She sat down again and waited until I returned with fresh drinks. We sipped. She was silent. I knew she would not speak again unless I did.

“But how did you feel about him?”

“I couldn't get over it.” She sipped and held the scotch in her mouth for a long time. I did the same. I didn't swallow until after she did.

“He'd told me he'd given her up, but all the while…I guess when he moved to Bunnell, he offered her a job there too and she took it. Maybe he'd been seeing her the whole time, I don't know. She was a secretary, she could always get a job….”

“What had he bought her?”

“A nightgown.” Her mouth twisted.

“After you caught him the first time, taking her out to dinner, he started taking us out to dinner, remember?”

She didn't.

“Yes, when we were looking for a house. We'd go out every Sunday and have dinner in a nice restaurant.”

She shrugged. “I guess so.”

“And it was the following Christmas that he gave you a present for the first time. Remember?”

She shrugged again. “If you say so.”

In the fall of 1945, Anastasia was a senior in high school, walking around in an emotional limbo, not knowing anything. She could not go to college, but she wanted to go to college, she would have to find a way, she couldn't think about it, she couldn't think about anything. She hung out with her friends and came home to eat, and wash the dishes. Then she either went out baby-sitting or went up to her room and read. When she turned out the light at night, she couldn't sleep, and would daydream. She'd imagine she lived in a beautiful place with her parents suddenly happy together, and she was meeting brilliant sexy boys who would immediately fall in love with her. She dated boys at the high school, but they were not anything much, they were not brilliant or sexy or even especially fun, and they all wanted to neck. She didn't.

She hardly knew what was going on around her. Her father, working late, her mother, hunched over the hats, Joy in and out. The tension was not as bad as it had been in the early part of the year, but it was not gone either. They had not gotten a divorce. Dad had gone on seeing the woman he'd been in love with, and Mother had found out because he wanted her to find out, just like the last time. Such a coward, he wants her to know but he doesn't come out and tell her, he manages for her to find out in sneaky underhanded ways. Then the fault for starting the argument is hers, and he can be silent. And she's silent anyway. Silent. Silent.

Still, her mother's plight hurt her: and although she used the money she had earned over the summer to buy her own clothes, she saved as much as she could in the fall to buy her mother a really nice Christmas present. She wanted to do something that would cheer her up. She had decided on a pocketbook, and went to the nicest store in Hempstead, Franklin Simon, to find it. She bought a beautiful black suede bag with a gold clasp, big enough to hold all Mother's eyeglasses, and her wallet and keys and handkerchief and everything. It cost $25, really expensive. You could buy a lovely bag for $4.95.

They no longer went to Jean and Eric's on Christmas Eve, since there were no longer any small children for whom a Santa had to be provided, and besides, she thought Mother had invited Jean to her new house and Jean had refused to come and Mother was angry about it. But about that she was only guessing. She had presents for Daddy (a belt) and Joy (fireman red Dr. Denton pajamas) as well. She knew she was getting clothes. She would probably not get presents from anyone else. Jean and Eric wouldn't give her a present unless they came over at Christmastime; and Eddie and Martha no longer came down from Boston every Christmas since Grandma died. This year they were not coming. But she didn't care what she got: she was so excited about the bag she bought for Mommy. It was a truly grown-up gift, a nice gift, one she would have to love. Anastasia wrapped it carefully.

They waited to open their presents until they had had breakfast and were all nicely dressed. They had decorated the tree the night before. But when Anastasia stooped under it to lay down the gifts she had brought downstairs from their hiding place, she noticed a box with Belle's name on it. She stood up sharply: Daddy had bought Mommy a present! Her heart began to beat a little faster than normal, and her color rose. He'd bought her a present! Maybe she'd be really happy this year! Anastasia began to sing “Joy to the World,” and Joy, giggling, joined in. Even Mommy was smiling when she sat down on the couch. Dad sat in the chair on one side of the fireplace, and Anastasia sat on the other. Mother said Anastasia should be Santa Claus; she was very pleased. She bent and picked up a present for Joy, and Joy's present for Dad, and handed them their boxes. Joy found a sloppy joe sweater, and cried out in delight. It was peach. She already had a pale blue one, so now she was rich. And Dad smiled over the socks that Joy had bought for him—although Anastasia knew that Mommy had given her the money, because Joy was too young to earn any by herself.

Then Anastasia bent and picked up the present marked “Belle.” It was very heavy. She walked across the room and handed it to Mommy, her eyes gleaming, her face hot with happiness.

“Oh, for me?” Mommy said in a little voice. “Oh, my.” She put on her glasses and started to tear off the wrapping paper. She had it only half off when she threw the box onto the couch and suddenly she stood up. She walked through the living room and up the stairs. She went into her room. They heard the door close.

Daddy and Joy and Anastasia sat. They did not look at each other. Then Daddy got up sighing and walked heavily up the stairs. They could hear him open the door and say, “Belle, aren't you coming down to open the rest of the presents?” They could not hear what she said, but he closed the door and came back downstairs.

“She doesn't feel well,” he said. He sighed heavily. “Oh, my,” he sighed. He left the room and walked through the house and went down to the cellar.

Anastasia jumped up and darted across the room and tore open the rest of the wrapping paper on Mother's gift. There was printing on the box. It said:
GE ELECTRIC IRON.

“So he gave her a nightgown and the next year he gave you an iron. You were furious.”

“Oh, maybe, Anastasia, I don't remember.” She was beginning to sound annoyed, and I knew it was time to stop. But I couldn't.

“That was the year I saved and saved and bought you a beautiful black suede bag. I paid twenty-five dollars for it,” I recalled.

“Did you? You should have told me. I didn't know it was a good bag. I just used it for everyday.”

She hadn't opened it at all until late at night. She lay in her bed all day. Anastasia made Joy open the gift from her, and she opened her presents—a pair of slacks and a sweater from Mom and Dad, and a string of fake pearls from Joy. The sisters looked at each other helplessly. Joy went to the telephone and called a number of her friends. No one could come out today, it was Christmas. But she stayed on the phone for several hours. Anastasia cleaned up the wrapping paper and went up to her room and lay on the bed and read. When the light began to fade, she became aware they hadn't had lunch, and she was hungry. She got up and knocked at her mother's door, but Mother couldn't hear her. She was lying on her good ear. Anastasia opened the door a little. Her voice was cool.

“Do you want me to start dinner?”

Her mother was a dark lump in the bed; the shades were drawn, the room dim. The lump stirred slightly. A weak voice spoke. “You can peel the potatoes and turn on the oven to four hundred degrees. You can peel the onions and string the beans. I'll be down in a little while.”

Grimly, Anastasia did as she was told. Then she marched back upstairs.

“What do you want me to do now?”

“Ask Dad to cut the turnip.”

“Daddy's out in the garage working on the car.”

Silence. “I'll come down.”

For Christmas dinner that year, they had rib roast, mashed white potatoes, creamed onions, mashed turnip, string beans with browned bread crumbs, and homemade cranberry sauce. They had an apple pie with a choice of cheddar cheese or vanilla ice cream to top it. It must have been a delicious meal if you could taste it. No one spoke during the meal, or afterward, during the cleaning up. When it was over and her mother was sitting in the dark porch, Anastasia carried her present to her mother.

“Oh, thanks, Anastasia,” Belle said in a weak voice, barely looking at it. “It's very nice.”

This little story has what is known as a happy ending. Belle and Ed stayed together. He never again, as far as anyone knows, strayed from the marital bed. Beds, because as soon as there was more money in the house, Belle bought twin beds, and refused ever again, even if they were staying in someone's house, to sleep in a double. If there was only a double, Ed slept on the couch, Belle being, it was understood, a poor sleeper. And every Christmas after that, for a number of years, Ed bought Belle a present. The year following the Christmas described above, he asked Anastasia to help him: he didn't know Belle's taste, he said, and she did. She took him to the best jewelry store in town and selected a dainty silver bracelet with matching earrings. When Belle opened the present on Christmas Day, she looked over at Ed and said sharply, “So you had Anastasia pick it out.” The following year, he tried on his own. A Saks had opened in Garden City, and there he bought her a beautiful hand mirror, gold-plated with an ornate border. She opened it, picked it up and looked in it, and put it down. “It's too weak,” she said. “The handle will break.” It was returned.

But, lover of happy endings, they stayed together. Isn't that worth everything? They grew old together, they are together still. They have together, if they care to dredge them up, a lifetime of memories. Ed no longer attempts to buy her presents: for years now, he has given her a hundred-dollar check in a box with some handkerchiefs. She buys him a large article of clothing—a coat or suit—and they go together to shop for it, usually after Christmas, when there are sales. It is now impossible to buy either of them presents: they have everything. Another happy ending: immigrant family makes good in the second generation. For they all did, my parents and their siblings. They all joined the middle class and sent their children to college and had cleaning women and gardeners in their later years. They all drove shiny cars. Isn't that what you want to hear? Hard work, sacrifice, and energy, especially when matched with intelligence, can still, or could still make one's fortune in America.

They stayed together and things improved for them. Slowly, but steadily. They did not change. Ed still has his gift for contentment, she has hers for misery; he is still unaware of what is going on around him; she is still aware, if no longer interested. His drawers are crammed with unworn shirts, sweaters, pajamas; hers with handkerchiefs, nightgowns (not one of which he bought her), slips, bras, panties, stockings, jewelry. Now she sighs when gifts are presented: Where am I going to put it? The time has long since passed when any gift could make her happy.
Was
there ever a time when it could?

There was, at least, a time when I thought gifts could make her happy, before I was able to give her much at all. And there were times, I think, when she enjoyed a gift—a few, anyway. I kept trying, though, for years, after she no longer cared, shopping, searching for just the right whatever, something that might make her smile. I still do, to tell the truth.

As if, as if…Oh, I sit here now knowing things I didn't know years ago, didn't know even when I began to compose this account…. Because we, Joy and I, for whom as she saw it she had given up her life, were not separate beings in whom she could sometimes take delight. We were like the brothers you find in fairy tale and romance, who, when they died, transferred their strength and energy to the next brother. This magical power made the third brother (they always come in threes) superhumanly strong once the other two have died in battle (they always die in battle). This fairy tale is another male usurpation of a female power—for the brothers are a magical imitation of the process of motherhood. A mother gives birth, drains herself to keep her daughter alive, and succeeds, but the mother, worn out by hard labor, dies young; she leaves her daughter in better circumstances than she had, and when that daughter gives birth, she also struggles to keep her child alive, and succeeds, leaving the granddaughter in strong circumstances. It is the granddaughter who questions the giving of birth, who wonders whether she should continue this process which sent her grandmother and mother to early graves.

Joy and I were all the vital identification Belle had. Having given up so much, she had nothing left to love with, and in any case, saw no need for something she had survived without. And having lived all her young life without it, she did not remember the need, and could not receive its symbols. Her neck refused to bend to a loving chest or shoulder, as if to take anything so little, so late, would make her sacrifice meaningless. To take anything from us—a gift, of whatever sort—would be to reverse the process, send the energy and strength backward through the “brothers,” allowing the dead to quicken, and since, in the fairy tale, all three brothers invariably love and desire the same woman, allowing competition and jealousy to enter their otherwise sealed and perfect bond.

In my innocence, or call it by its true name, stupid willfulness, I imagined I could escape from all this, could break the chain of mothers, could free myself from the clinging fingers of a ghostly fate. The times permit such delusions—there are buses and railroad trains, jobs in distant towns, telephones for intermittent contact, apartments for single women. What I wanted to escape from was not the past, but the pain, and for me they were identical, because by the time I was sixteen, I knew my mother's story, and her mother's, and I saw the bloody cord connecting us. I set my teeth to bite myself free. I would not take my place in the sacrificial ranks, would not live the way they did, would not pass on to my children—if, indeed, I ever had any—a legacy of suffering selflessness. I would not repeat their experience. Above all, I would construct a new personality for myself that did not, like hers, absorb all the light and air surrounding it and turn it into darkness, into a hunched-over shadowy mass in a dim room, surrounded by the proofs of my enslavement.