Hunger's Brides (28 page)

17 Apr [1989]

I just couldn't figure it out why he did it kept thinking this wasn't like him. Another business-trip-guilt-gift from Mexico—does he think we all don't know why he
really
goes there? But not the usual airport gift-rack inspiration. So perfect … look at the binding it's hand-sewn he says feel the soft leather—
THREE POETS OF THE BAROQUE: Louise Labé, Gaspara Stampa, Juana Inés de la Cruz.
²

Thanks thank you it's beautiful. Really. Sorry for asking why are you giving me this? He looks at mummy for a second it all starts spilling out how I could still have it all, how I must know that, how I had everything beauty brains graduating not even seventeen in spite of all my—how if I would only get a little help talk some of these things out—he sees my face and stops. There's an inscription inside.

I couldn't remember ever seeing his handwriting.
I'm sorry for all the pain you've had to endure. Please know I love you like a daughter. Love Jonas
. Staring stupidly at him I still don't get it.

He wanted to say first of all my mother'd always wanted to tell—but he'd been against it. Now everyone knew it had been a mistake but mistakes happen. Right that's true. He hadn't wanted me to grow up feeling different—she says Beulah this is going to be terrible for you. What is?—
what?

Jonas … tick tick tick … was not—I knew I
knew
then what she was going to say, this was too good to be true come on
say
it—
Jonas is not your real father
—it feels like a dream write it down circle it with stars—
***not your natural father***
My unnatural father then? Don't—
please
—don't say anything for a minute—just one minute for Christ's sake. Your fath—Jonas thought we should wait and tell you when you were bigger.

I'm bigger.

Did I know he'd come to this country as a teenager? I knew. Enough that he was different—they never let up on him no matter how hard he'd tried to fit to learn their language perfectly he was always going to be some wog—Jonas, Joanie they called him Joanie Rhinoceros Joanie Rhino try to understand—shut up I wanted to
scream
shut the fuck up WHO IS MY FATHER?—

So then she wasn't my mother? Oh Beulah—of course I am. She always suspected I knew all along. I'd always known hadn't I it was a lie?—a white lie?
Yes inside me I have always known
. Jonas believes it's where your troubles started—troubles?—you know, your troubles with reality—My troubles with reality, how sweet daddy can I still call you that?—even though it was a white lie to protect me. Protect me…. It was why I'd been having these fantasies about—about
him
.

They said there was an accident when I was just a baby my father was killed—they tell you ok great news you've got a
real
father but the bad bad news is he's dead. They were so sorry. But it was time for the whole
truth. They weren't lying now. They wouldn't lie about a thing like this. No no of course not, nothing but the truth so help them god keep their stories straight. Jonas was your father's best friend—so who needs enemies right?—
their
fathers were best friends back in Vigo. Jonas and Andy—his name's Andy?—Andrés—
my father's name is Andrés
—came over from Spain together as boys. They did everything together. Yes I can see that. Her face puffing up red like from a slap. Shut your dirty mouth—now
this
was more like it more like the old homestead—couldn't I just shut it and listen? What kind of ‘accident' was this anyway? I look him right in the fucking face she starts to bawl. Beulah
please
they were like brothers. Sure Cain and Abel.

He worked like an animal Honey driving that truck he was always away starting to change starting to act strange. Then it got worse. When I got pregnant with you he … he didn't believe you were …
his
. Because of him. Because of that fucking hypocrite over there my own father couldn't believe I was really his little girl. He started drinking—oh Honey we were all so unhappy then. Mummy never ever drank at all before that time if it weren't for Jonas she would have gone out of her mind. Andy became so—she was afraid for all of us. She begged him to get help—
You
should get help Mummy get help getting all these people to get help.

There was an accident, with the truck. They say he'd been drinking—he was
ill
. In his mind. It wasn't just the drinking. Jonas says they've identified genes, genetic diseases. Mental diseases passed down from one generation to—
I know what genes are
. We want you to go for some tests. To the hospital. Just a few tests. Just for a few days. All my problems could be from—from
him
—specialists developing new therapies—I thought you said tests now it's therapy. You're trying to do the same to me as you did to him—blame the dead guy well I don't believe he
is
dead ok? I don't believe a fucking word. You want to put me where nobody will listen where nobody can hear me. But I can hurt you out here can't I? I want to hurt
you
now.

eX-daddy wanted me to stop this right this instant I shouldn't do this to my mother. We shouldn't do this to each other. We were a family.

8 [May 1989]

This man this great and famous […] who did these things was not your daddy. You were someone else's little girl. And you took it all—because
your daddy could never do anything to hurt you but now he isn't your daddy […] Your daddy would never do anything to hurt you but if he wasn't your daddy and he
had
hurt you it hurt so much still. But then he had a son a little boy of his own and it didn't hurt Gavin because your daddy could never do anything to hurt you. But Gavin cried and said they hurt him too but if that was true then your daddy and not your daddy could hurt when he loved you but hurt too when he didn't care. Or if they hurt it proved he didn't love you so you never wanted it to and if he loved you it proved it couldn't hurt not really. And if you loved him enough then maybe maybe it wouldn't if you could just believe hard enough he loved you. And maybe if he was not your daddy he had to do hurtful things but not hurt you to show he loved you because if it hurt he didn't care. He did these things […] you were little but now you're big—

They only need you when you're small.

And now they want to tell the world you're crazy because of the crazy things you say.

They are trying to make me insane.

[10 May 1989]

Nine hundred eighty-two thousand four hundred twelve. Two hundred sixty nine thousand thirteen, five hundred twenty two thousand seven hundred seventeen …

4 Sept 1989

Rereading this now I have never in my whole life felt stronger but I know if not for her … with her as my guide I have learned to control my destiny. Under her protection I have learned to rule
them
.

Together we have learned to make sacrifices
.

Mummy cried—so afraid for me she said but she was afraid
of
me. She pretends not to know what's happening but it wasn't my father's disease it was
his
. And now
I
know and I have never felt such

Pure

  Clear

    joy—

      HE IS NOT MY FATHER. I will not eat his disease.

He tries to bully me screams at me to think of the children in Africa—good let's start thinking about the little children now—to stop being so ridiculous.

We have stopped being ridiculous.

He pretends to be furious but he is afraid too—it has been so
easy
. By August they'd have done anything to get rid of us. University? Of course. Money? No problem. My own place? Perhaps it was for the best. Hospital? No, not just now, but thanks for caring.

13 Apr 1990

… Fuck. I
deserve
this—am I such a child to let you slip to the floor like a forgotten doll? So sure you would be where I left you lying there so sure I could go back any time and pick you up. And now to have my nose rubbed in my own shit. Someone else comes along and finds you lying there, picks you up dusts you off and now a whole nation of cattle on couches steers on sectionals munching to the rhythm of the radio
³
knows more of you than I do.

You spoke to me once but I stopped hearing. You taught me secret things but I stopped learning. I'll find you. And if you'll only speak to me again I'll really listen and never stop. I will do anything, I will make sacrifices—if you'll just come back to me.

Talk to me.

Protect me.

I give you power over me.
⁴

S
TONE
G
UEST
        

11 Feb [1993 Calgary]

H
E'S STARTING TO TAKE CHANCES
. Dinner for two. In public. Even in the back, in a booth. Even in a French restaurant on a Thursday night. Not that people looking at us—at me—would assume, not automatically. But then he takes my hand and it's so obvious for anyone walking past …

Starched white tablecloth, peach polyester napkins folded in fans. Reflections smear in the cutlery. I sit there like a stone. I can't help it, can't move.

Cat got my tongue?—he didn't think he'd ever seen me looking nervous. I wasn't going to sit there like that all night was I? All these
people
—nonsense, he smiles the winning smile, nobody was looking at us way back here. A little wine wouldn't hurt tonight for once would it? And where the hell
is
the waiter?

Ayez l'obligeance de nous apporter une bouteille du Griotte-Chambertin. Le '92, Monsieur? Non, le '91—bien evidemment. Ah oui, Monsieur
.

See that? sly prick tried to unload their '92 on us. At the same
price
.

See brave Doctor Gregory working so hard over the corpse of his statue—plug the nose, seal the lips, puff.

Not to worry: he and Madeleine never came down here, never left their neverland, northwest Calgary. She liked to call herself a northerner … their little joke. Yes, good one, Doctor. Sorry bad storyform to talk about her. How was the research going?

He doesn't want to know. Yes he did—no
really
. Mr. Sincerity. Well … just questions mostly. Questions were good, a very good sign. Such as? Such as what her confessor is like….

Yes? Go on, he was here to help—the brawny scholar paw reaches out. Okay, she wrote poetry in Nahuatl too, so isn't she just possibly the greatest Nahuatl poet—her time's greatest living writer in
two
languages? I need to understand better what Isis means to her, and her poetry was full of Greek and Egyptian myths yet only rarely Mexican, and what is it to be consumed by knowledge—or need—or Mind—

Okayokay whoa slow down a bit. Now. Listen, there was something we absolutely had to talk about. Absolutely, Don, then let's. I knew, didn't I, that I could write just about anything for him—and yes we were only talking about an honour's thesis—and I still had two months to cook
something up for grad school, but the time had come—pause for drrrummrollll—to say this was getting worrisome. What is? I surely had to know I hadn't presented him with a single topic even close to suitable. Unsuitable how? Don't be disingenuous. Be genuous then, Don, and tell me. Well for one thing, I knew purrfectly well none of this was what was meant by American literature. So Mexico is not America? or Mexico is just not literate. Very funny—but no one in the department was qualified to sit on my thesis committee. They didn't even read Spanish. But
he
does. Painfully, yes—which most certainly did not make him qualified to supervise on just any topic I could come up with.

No wait—I am studying under one of the leading authorities on early American literature but can't do research on the greatest American poet of the 16th, 17th, 18th—I don't know, Doctor Gregory, you tell
me
when to stop—Whitman, Dickinson, Eliot, Frost? Or is she better than everybody on the approved list of
any
American century? What is she then,
un
-American?