If I Told You Once: A Novel (39 page)

Here you are, he said, we’ve been looking for you. Is it all done? Are you all taken care of?

No, I said.

Why not?

A man got killed, I said, right in front of me.

No way, he said.

I tried to tell them what had happened. The man with the gun and the blood spreading.

Oh come on, Vito said. You’re kidding, right?

Look at the blood on my shirt, I said.

Well, sure, he said, of course, you were in a hospital, there’s hurt people and blood and stuff all over the place in a hospital. That’s the whole damn point, right?

The men he was with all laughed in an ugly way but I did not look at them, not once, I looked only at Vito.

Come on, he said, admit it. You chickened out. You don’t have to make up a crazy story like that to cover it up.

But I saw it all. I was there. It was horrible.

I told them over and over what I had seen but it did not help, no one believed it. They told me I watched too much television. They told me to shut up and grow up and quit crying wolf.

Vito, I said, you believe me, don’t you?

He smiled, looked away, dug his toe in the sand.

Get away from me, I said, don’t touch me, don’t ever speak to me again.

I ran, and he called after me: Aw, come back, Nomie, come have a good time with us.

I kept running, and heard his friends laughing and him, and he called out: That’s right, you big baby, go crying home to mama.

Yes, I thought, I will, I will, but not before I’m good and ready.

I ran and my footprints followed behind me in curving and dancing lines, helter-skelter in branching patterns all over the beach.

*   *   *

Something washed up on the shore one day. A dark slumped shape as large as a horse. Seaweed clung to it in great soggy skeins, barnacles clutched at its sides. The waves touched its edges and slid away. Touched and slid. Touched and slid.

I walked closer and saw black hair, an outflung arm. I saw the edge of a face bloated with seawater. The skin was white, mottled, stretched tight. In spots it was scaly, iridescent.

I saw an eye, a brow that I thought I knew. But before I could be sure the waves drove up and pulled him back into the sea.

*   *   *

I had money that I had borrowed (no, stolen) from Mara’s drawer. I walked and I ran and I rode buses next to old women who fell asleep with their heads on my shoulder. I went a long way, and I looked all about me, and I saw ugliness and wonders that you would not believe if I told you.

I walked through snow and I sailed on water, and I went down below to the dark incredible colonies where people made their homes in deserted subway tunnels, and I went to another hospital and saw a baby the size of a jumbo shrimp living and breathing with the aid of machines, and I met a woman who had cut off her own foot because she heard voices that told her to do it and she was much at peace afterward, and I saw a child with the eyes of a saint and a head the size of a beach ball, and I saw another man shot and killed, this time for a tiny bit of white powder that everyone wanted because it could give them magical visions and the power to forget everything.

Ilana

I am trying to remember how I met Shmuel. I remember him falling out of a tree and lying in the snow, frozen and cold, his eyes like chipped blue glass and red beads at his throat where it had been torn open.

My son was a beautiful boy. He hung from the fire escape to impress me and could finish off a gallon of milk all by himself. Sometimes we called him Wolf and sometimes Eli, but I cannot remember why we gave him two names.

Yesterday I saw a harpy in the kitchen, a wild-haired harpy just like the ones we used to see back home, circling above the forest. This one was perched at the table, sipping from a glass and tipping her head back to let it slide down her throat. Tearing at the hunk of bread she gripped in her claws. She paused in her chewing to glare at me, and I saw that she wore my granddaughter’s face.

But how can that be? The harpies steal faces only from the dead, not the living. And Mara is not dead. Is she?

Perhaps she is dead, and I have forgotten about it.

I have not seen a harpy for so long. They do not come here, I think it is because they have no room to fly with these tall buildings all around. All these shiny, reflective surfaces would drive them mad.

What is my mother’s name? Did I ever know it?

There are so many things I cannot see clearly anymore, only catch glimpses of out of the corner of my eye.

I feel frightened these days. I am not sure why. It is not a thing that frightens me, but the absence of a thing. A sense of things spilling, rolling away from me, out of my grasp like beads of mercury skittering across the floor.

I know something is missing, though I cannot place what it is. What could be missing? Everything is right here where I put it: the bed, the chair, the candles, the pot of herbs on the windowsill.

Shmuel still comes and sits by the bed. He tells me not to worry. But I’m afraid to look at him, afraid I will not recognize his face anymore.

It weighs on me sometimes, this burden of remembering everyone’s name. When I misplace a name I feel such panic, as if I had killed someone.

But there are so many names, they are crushing me.

Sometimes I think that if I could share the load it would not he so bad.

Or have I already found someone to share it? Sometimes I think I have.

Other times I suspect it is only wishful thinking.

Sashie

Nomie has come home, thank heaven.

We had been out of our minds with worry.

She had been gone almost three weeks.

She seems fine, perfectly healthy and fine except for her clothes and shoes which were unspeakably filthy.

That was easily mended, I threw them out, bought her some new clothes, but she refused to wear them.

And she refused to speak.

When she came home she said not a word, ran straight to my mother and took her hands, buried her face in my mother’s lap. My mother said nothing either, just bent over her and stroked her head, the short bristly hairs.

Nomie will not tell us where she has been, what she has been doing, why on earth she wanted to run away from us like that.

I tried to put my arms around her but I miscalculated and struck her in the face instead. She must have grown, or shrunk, in the weeks she was gone.

Mara and I suspected that she talked to my mother when they were alone, though we were not able to catch them at it.

We did not tell her about our plans for my mother, we did not want to spoil her homecoming.

The nursing home was good news, of course, but perhaps Nomie would not see it that way. She is contrary sometimes.

The other night I cornered my mother alone and told her about the nursing home.

Isn’t it wonderful? I said.

It’s the luckiest thing, I added, the secretary there just called and said that someone had died! So you can move in right away!

She cried out as if I had struck her.

It’s a wonderful place, I told her, all nicely heated, and you’ll have a pretty little room with a nice roommate to keep you company, and the nurses will keep their eye on you and you’ll never have to go outside. Won’t that be wonderful?

Never, she said.

It’s what you need, I told her. You don’t realize it, but you can’t manage on your own anymore, and Mara and I aren’t able to do it all for you.

You can’t shut me in, she said.

It’s for your own good, I told her.

Barbed wire, she said.

I told her she was being stubborn. I told her she was acting like a child.

I know that place, she said. It has no doors.

What are you saying? Of course it does, I told her, they are automatic, you don’t even need to touch them, they fly open by themselves, and there are nice ramps for the wheelchairs.

There are no doors, she insisted, I have seen it. And the roof is covered with sticky tar so that when the pigeons land on it they stick fast. They starve to death, the roof is covered with bones.

All this time I was careful not to meet her eyes.

Not even the pigeons escape, she said.

Later I saw her clinging to Nomie and Nomie clung to her. It seemed more urgent than ever that we get her out of the apartment as soon as possible.

When Nomie heard about our plans she broke her silence to scream at us: You can’t do this. You can’t take her away.

We have to, I told her.

And Mara pulled Nomie aside and said softly: She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s sick, very sick. She’s losing her mind, she has no idea what she’s saying anymore. It’s obvious. Surely you can tell. It’s obvious to everyone but her.

Nomie glared at us.

Mara said: The best thing you can do for her, the best way to help her, is to help us take her to a place where they can take care of her.

I said: It’s not like she’ll be gone forever. You can visit her there.

No she can’t, Mara blurted and then flushed darkly.

Nomie stared at both of us. You can’t do this, she said again and fled the room.

After witnessing such behavior from Nomie, Mara and I were more convinced than ever that my mother had to go.

The sooner the better.

I have become more and more convinced that it is the right thing to do.

I know it is. It is for her own good.

And I know that she wants this too.

You see, after all these years I have finally learned how to listen to her, how to hear the truth behind her words. She
wants
help but her pride won’t let her admit it. She does not want to admit how weak and helpless she has become, doesn’t want to admit she needs the home. So she puts up this vigorous protest, this false swagger. It is all an act.

She says she doesn’t want this but I know she does.

Inside she is begging for help.

It’s obvious to me now.

And there is another reason why she should go.

I think that moving away will bring her peace, it will help her escape those women she keeps talking about who plague her so.

She keeps talking hysterically about three women who follow her everywhere and oppress her. I thought at first she was imagining them. Now I have finally realized who those three women must be.

Mara. And Nomie. And me.

Nomie

When I came home Mara and Sashie picked and tugged at me but all I wanted was to see Ilana and look in her eyes. I wanted to say that I believed it all. I wanted to ask her to tell me more.

But when I saw her I did not need to say a thing.

She understood.

She reached into her skirt, then, and in her cupped hands she showed me the egg that she had told me about. It was jeweled on the outside, like the ones Sashie had showed me in a museum once. But it had gone all rotten and neglected; the stones were dull, with dirt caught between them, long hairs and bits of lint clinging.

Look inside, she said.

So I looked.

There it was.

Do you see? she said.

Oh yes.

Good, she said and took it from me, hid it away in her dress.

We put our hands together, as we always did, and for the first time mine seemed a bit larger, my fingertips edging over hers, I must have grown. She took her hands away, smoothed them over my hair, again and again. I heard a strange sound.

They’re coming for me soon, those three, coming to take me away, she said. I can tell. Each time I see them they come a little closer.

Then she told me about the nursing home.

But I can’t go there, she said. I can’t be boxed in, those three will corner me for sure.

You can’t go in there, I said. I won’t let them do it, shut you up like that.

Ilana held my hand so tightly it hurt. I have to go away, she whispered, somewhere they will never find me.

Far away, she said, over the canyons and across the seas. To the very edge of the sky.

And then what? I said.

Then I will pierce right through it, she said, it’s only a painted paper backdrop after all.

Are you sure? I said.

More than anything.

Sashie

It’s the strangest thing. Yesterday I found a notice that had been slipped beneath our door. The logo at the top and the type were familiar though I could not remember where I had seen them before.

The notice stated that the building management had decided to engage a cleaning service to improve all apartments, at no cost to the tenants. The cleaners would come once a month and in addition to ordinary tasks they would shampoo carpets, repaint walls, and wash windows.

I am thrilled. And this is an especially convenient time for them to come. With my mother moving out, there will be an entire room to be cleared and redone.

I am so excited.

This news makes me forget all our petty little troubles.

Perhaps I will buy some new curtains.

We need to start living in a way more befitting our station, after all. We are not ordinary people like our neighbors; we are of nobler blood.

Some of this furniture might actually be quite pretty, once it’s dusted off and arranged properly.

It does seem a
little
strange, though, when I stop to think about it. The management has never taken much of an interest in us before. Our kitchen faucet has dripped for years, and the superintendent repeatedly brushes off my complaints about a rat in the wall.

And it is strange that the notice did not mention
when,
exactly, the cleaners will be coming. I want to know. I want to be ready for them, I do not want them to catch me unawares.

As the day wore on I began listening for them, several times I thought I heard their brisk steps in the street. The rattle of their cleaning machines.

Several times I heard the scrape of a broom in the hall, and swung the door open to look.

Nothing.

Last night I lay awake, eagerly listening to their scuttling, scratching. I heard them coming closer.

Closer and closer.

Too
close, perhaps. It seemed they were scrubbing and rasping just on the other side of the wall.