Apart From Love (17 page)

This brings back a memory of ma calling me
Bitch
, because of what happened back then, when I was twelve, between Johnny and me. Me, I argued with her, insisting that no, don’t call me that, I get to decide who I am and what I am, and what I would be, I
—
and nobody else but me. And she countered that if he’d touched me, we already knew
—
beyond any doubt
—
what I’d become.

At this point the only thing, the only barrier that seems to make Ben stumble, and holds him back from taking me, is the sight of the dress
—
which Natasha used to wear
—
hanging stiffly, kinda like ice, over my body. I find myself grateful, awful grateful to her, ‘cause in a way, she’s shielding me.
 

This way, he can’t strip me naked
—
not even in his mind.

So I gather my strength, and before he can pour out his feelings, and confess to have fallen, like, under my power, and tell me he’s ruined, all because of me, I wave my hand and tell him to go, go away already.
 

Ben seems unhappy to be dismissed so casually. I bet he’s thinking me cruel to him. He’s asking himself, like, Why is the bitch playing so hard to get? She’s drawn me here, to her bed
—
hasn’t she? He seems so unsure about himself, about what, if anything, he is supposed to do now. But if he’s feeling ashamed, it’s not for wanting his old man’s woman
—
but sadly, for what he considers his own flow, his show of impotence.
 

He hesitates, then turns slowly, to walk out of the bedroom; at which time I can swear I see an outline there, over his shoulder, far in the depth of the corridor. Maybe I’m seeing things, but
—
for just a second
—
I detect a flash, reflected like, in someone’s glasses.
 

Down there in the shadow, someone’s recording every detail, listening to every damn whisper of this scene.
 

Record. Play
: a man and a woman, and nothing in between.

I want to ask, Is it you? Is it you, Lenny? Why ain’t you coming to my help? But instead,
I
just slam the door shut. All I want to be is alone.
Why do I feel guilty when I haven’t done nothing wrong.

Then I raise the corner of the mattress, which is where I’ve stashed away that old picture, the one that was glued in the middle of the second page of the album. The sight of it calms me down, at first.
 

I pick it up and study every detail
—
like I’ve done so many times before
—
because like, the image may go on fading, until in the end, nothing’s gonna be left. I’m so charmed by it. This moment delights me as if I had lived it, even though
—
or maybe because
—i
t’s stolen.

In it, a baby is about to be lifted from a cradle by his mama. His face, it’s awful close to the surface—but barely visible. You can only guess it, ‘cause the paper is a bit damaged, and most of the lines is like, out of focus—except for a dark contour, which is still intact, marking the shadow of his long, curved lashes.
 

I put a hand to my belly, and touch my lips to the image, right there, over that shadow. I wonder if this is how my baby’s gonna look, and marvel at the thought of how his eyes would change when he wakes, or falls asleep, or rolls them, like, in the sphere of his dreams, and then later, when he grows up to become a man, ‘cause it’s so easy to fill in the details on a page that’s like, almost blank.
 

On the other side, right there behind the cradle, the mother
—
whose lips, and cheeks, and freckled nose, they’re all just like mine
—
she’s leaning over him, with open arms.
 

Her face is serious, without the slightest smile. She’s looking directly at the camera, at the one taking the picture, whom I’ve
previously
imagined to be Lenny
—
but today, I find a change in her. This time, it’s me she is facing.
 

The way she looks at me is severe, critical, even disapproving. I bet it’s because the laugh lines have dimmed with time. But then, her eyes! Oh God, they’re so clear, so full of pure, glorious light; which, for a moment, brings me close to despair. I’m in awe. Look, I have goosebumps! The two of us look the same, just like sisters
—
but oh, how I wish I could be more like her!

Me, I don’t have nothing more I want to say in my defense
—
except to ask you again: put yourself in my place.
How can a girl like me ever claim to be innocent?

As Told by Ben

T
his is no nightmare—but it sure feels like one. I am gritting my teeth, determined to find my mother among the inhabitants of this place. If not for having a purpose here I would pinch myself, even though I know: Here, there is no waking up.
 

I am so astonished, coming in, by the attention my arrival seems to stir in these listless figures—some sitting, some standing here and there, scattered around the large dining hall—all of whom look more dead than alive.
 

One of them, a figure with lean, spindly hands drags herself towards me, knuckling down on the handles of her walking frame. With each shuffle, each jerk forward, her veined, confused eyes keep widening, as if by some hope, some wishful recognition. And then she thrusts her hands to grab me, and in a hollow voice, “
Mine kind!
” she shrieks, “
mine kind!
” which as I recall, is Yiddish for
my child
.
 

The words reverberate across the space, and they seem to agitate everyone around me. Moaning there in the background, a bent figure stands up and then, like a bat out of hell, echoes that earlier shriek, “
Mine!
Mine kind
...”

Another one, a seated figure hunching her shoulders over her empty hands, which are nestled in her lap, lifts her head for a moment to gape at me, and her mouth is black and utterly toothless. So now I begin to make sense of that which I thought I heard, even before the door opened: The trembling of her thin, strained voice.
 

It takes me a bit to take in the speech sounds, which are changed, because of the lack of teeth, and disjointed, because of an occasional catch, deep down in her throat. I am listening carefully—until at last I figure out that this, incredibly, is an old lullaby.
 

Twinkle... Twinkle... Little star
... Her black mouth breathes slowly into the air, into the gathering of these bent, misshapen shadows, in whom life seems to be no more than a dim residue.
How... I wonder... What you are...

What is this, I ask myself, what sort of a home have I entered? What is this place?

Meanwhile, standing there near the vase, by the long dining table, her busy hands covered with disposable plastic gloves, is a young staff member, dressed in a neat, light-blue nurse uniform. I should really say a
Care Giver
, which is what they prefer to be called around here, at Sunrise Assisted Living.
 

With swift, efficient moments, she is stretching open the mouth of a large garbage bag, replacing the flowers in the vase, wiping some spills off the Formica surface, and picking up spongy leftovers of white bread. I watch her for a while and finally make up my mind to approach her, and I ask—in a voice choked, suddenly, with excitement—about Mrs. Kaminsky.
 

“Who?” she says.

“Mrs. Kaminsky,” I repeat. “Natasha? Natasha Kaminsky?”
 

“Oh,” she says, and in place of an answer lifts her gloved hand and points over there, to a narrow window in the far corner of the room; where, slumped passively in a chair next to the bent figure, is my mother.

For a moment I cannot move, cannot even raise a hand to my heart, where it starts racing wildly, because I have to keep my grip, and clutch the photo album, which is hidden under my jacket, and which is quite heavy. It was Anita, my father’s new wife, who suggested I bring it along, just in case we may stumble, my mother and I, into a moment of embarrassment, or run out of things to talk about.
 

That woman, how can she offer advice when she knows nothing, really.

I dash towards mom, wondering how I failed to notice her just a minute ago, because clearly, she looks younger, I mean, younger than the rest of them, by two or three decades, at least. Mom is in her early fifties and so, she seems out of place here. Perhaps I should take her back home.

She must have been hidden from view, perhaps by that bent figure, whose skeletal arms hang there, shivering over her shoulders. So going around him I come closer to my mother, and now I can see her profile, which is lined so delicately with light, the late morning light streaming in through the glass.
 

Her eyelashes, which used to have a red tinge, are nearly transparent now. Except for an occasional blink, she sits there motionless, letting those cold, crinkly hands part her curls and comb them, as if she were someone’s broken doll.

Her lids fall shut over the hazel mist of her eyes, every time those fingers drift forward, brushing the hair, and casting a shadow over her head, which makes me uneasy. What is it with her?
 

Does she feel the quiver, the cold touch of these hands? Is it possible for her to ignore it? Has she grown used to it—or has she trained herself, somehow, to shut herself out, as if she were asleep, so she can no longer sense these figures around her, and this horrible place, which to me, seems like hell on earth?
 

And if so, how can I wake her up? Can I reach her at all? And how am I supposed to start over, I mean, to renew the conversation with my mother—in the presence of strangers?
 

Just looking at her stuns me, not only the light crowning her hair, a pale light which casts silver twists into that which used to be such a brilliant, fiery rust; nor the uneven gloss of her lips, which conveys a few touches, here and there, of discoloration; or the dry texture of her skin, which is gathered, in fine stitches, around the corner of her eye.
 

These things I have imagined a thousand times before. I have braced myself for any surprises, painting mom in my mind with one aspect of aging after another, because I knew—and said it repeatedly to myself, so as to fix it in my mind, and not to forget—that ten years, ten years have elapsed since the last time I saw her.
   

No. It is her distant, absentminded stare which astounds me most of all, and not because it is new to me—but somehow, just the opposite: Her expression—or more precisely, lack of one—seems so incredible to me exactly because in a flash, I recall that which I have hidden so well and so long from myself: The fact that I saw my mother that way, at least one time back then, in the past.
 

In spite of the marks of time, and the change of place, she seems to have gone back, and frozen, somehow, in that moment.
 

I remember: I had just come back from school, and pulled my bike up the stairs, and flicked the kickstand, which made the chain rattle. And my algebra book landed, suddenly, with a smack on the floor, but I left it there, because I was eager to tell mom about scoring an A—and in biology, no less—and to ask her about her upcoming performance, because it was to be Beethoven’s fifth, which to this day, I find deeply moving.
 

I found her sitting in her usual place, the bench down there, in the living room—but this time, she was turned with her back to the bust of Beethoven, and to the white piano.
 

My father who, for some reason, must have come early from work, and was watching her from some distance away, sitting by his tape recorder on the balcony, turned to me and—before I could utter a single word—made a subtle signal, putting his finger to his lips, indicating silence.