Skinny (12 page)
"OK, sorry, I don't know all the technical terminology. My point is, I'm trying to draw an analogy here, whether you get the
shot or Jen gets the shot doesn't matter. It's not just about how
you
play, Holly, it's about how you make everyone else play, too. That's why they need you."
Giselle comes on the bed and sits next to me.
"But sometimes things go wrong, you miss the shot, you get pounded in the parking lot, whatever, it's hard sometimes." She
pauses. "Are you going to tell Mom about Ford?"
"I'm telling you, now."
"Holly, nothing, nothing he said was true. Do you understand me?"
I nod at Giselle and curl into a tiny ball on her bed, blowing my nose into my T-shirt.
"Ow, Gizzy, my nose hurts, my head hurts."
"I know, I'm sorry, here, take one of these." She grabs a bottle of pills from her dresser and gets a glass of water from
the bathroom.
I try to control my breathing and let Giselle wipe the blood and snot from my nose and feed me pills. I feel the ache floating
in my head subside and sleep coming on. Giselle peels off my runners and puts a blanket over me and I stick a piece of Kleenex
up my nostril.
She lets out one of her long, slow sighs, sits back at her desk, picks up her pencil, and returns to her secret work.
TB epidemiology: The wave of the European epidemic began in 1780, during the industrial revolution, and peaked in the early
1800s. By the 1960s, huge control of the disease resulted in the shifting of demographics. Eighty percent of active TB were
elderly, and cases declined to about 30,000 per annum.
While Holly drools on my pillows, I read the pages of the TB chapter till my eyes are swimming. Finally, I close my book and,
when I'm certain Holly's asleep, I pull out the green clothbound book I found among Mom's old photographs while we were housecleaning.
It belongs to Dad. If Mom won't tell me the details of their escape, I'll have to find out on my own. It doesn't matter now,
I don't need her co-operation, I have this new-found evidence and from it I can reconstruct the night they left. Mom thinks
I can't read Hungarian but she doesn't remember Dad sitting me down and explaining phonetics, the vowels, and the consonant
combinations, just like I would do with Holly, in English, several years later. Pushing my tongue to the roof of my mouth,
I try pronouncing the words in my best imitation of my parents' exchanges.
Nem ertem. Nagyon
finom. Kosönöm steepen.
Maybe she thinks my memory of these words has been lost like this little book.
As I go through the aged, yellowed pages, I feel something strange flicker up inside me, which is what? Understanding? Proximity?
—
So what? He taught you a couple of foreign words when you were a
kid. Big deal.
—He tried.
Armed with a brand-new Hungarian-English dictionary, these last couple of nights I've been piecing together their past from
my father's professional and personal notes, and their old-world documents.
—
So what?
So what indeed. Why do I want to get into it? Why do I torture myself? If Mom's hiding something, she's probably trying to
protect me. Why do I want to know about his big fat stupid heart? What possible fascination could ancient notes in a forgotten
language about the blood-sugar levels of his patients and what Mom was wearing the night they escaped hold for me? His heart
never did anything except keep me out when he was alive and then shut down when I was twelve. So what? Why should I care?
Because, like some dogged old detective, I am convinced that there are clues that connect us, me and Dad. Convinced there's
something concrete that held him back from me. A man doesn't just wake up one morning and stop loving his daughter, just like
that, his flesh and blood, his
——
Why do you always have to push? Why can't you just accept that you
hated each other's guts?
—Because it's not supposed to be that way.
Because now I don't need her, or his ghost. I only need his heart's words, and tonight seems as good a night as any to take
on the challenge of the group therapy assignment to write about our families. So, after a lot of pacing, looking up words
in the dictionary, and trying to pronounce their foreign textures in my mouth, eating half a rotten apple from the bottom
of Holly's school bag, smoking a cigarette, and writing three ragged drafts, this is what I come up with:
The Story of Your Flight
On this balmy June night in 1971, outside a small village in northwestern Hungary, Thomas takes Vesla by the arm, detects
the flush of excitement from the surge of Chanel perfume off her neck, one of Misha's last gifts to his young bride-to-be,
he thinks. He reaches into his jacket pocket for his notebook and the pile of cash. After a little research, he's discovered
that rather than getting fake passports, it's more practical to arrive at the border without any documents. He has burned
their passports, along with all evidence of their identities: they've become untraceable. He is buying their freedom and has
already destroyed their past.
Reaching for the thick wad of cash—money he has carefully collected over the years—he withdraws it from his right breast pocket.
There's the fruit money: saved from summers when he was fifteen and plucked chalk-blue plums and pink peaches from trees on
his uncle's fields. Factory money: the mindless two-year stint where he greased and moulded mysterious bits of heavy metal
together in a village with a population of five hundred, when oil clotted under his nails like black seaweed stuck on a shoreline.
Finally, the greatest dividend: the blood money. After endless intern nights at the country's largest city hospital, where
he did not sleep for three years, he conceded, taking up a friend's offer of easy hours tending to the medical problems of
ranking party members.
He slips the money, the years of his past life stacked and accounted for, into Vesla's pocket; it will be safer with her.
He wonders, as he does almost every day of his life, about his decision not to join the party.
Years later, in Canada, in the mid-1970s, colleagues, friends, strangers at dinner parties will peer at him curiously and
ask, "Why did you leave?" He will smile back at them, pulling his lip self-consciously over his yellowed bottom teeth, while
running his tongue over the top stack of his brand-new dentures. He will take a sip of his cocktail and smile at these British
descendants, who recall only black-and-white images of smartly dressed women holding guns during the Hungarian revolution,
and a paprikas recipe, but who have no context, not really. Nobody has thought about his country since the October Revolution,
since the newsreel images showed Russian tanks rolling over cobbled streets. He will try to explain that success, in medicine,
in academics, in any field, was reserved only for those with Communist connections, with money, or those willing to become
good Communists. He will try to explain but the words will fail to come. Misha's name will not rise to his lips. He will not
ever say the words "murder" or "suicide" out loud. Instead, he will run his tongue over his smooth teeth and say, "Economic
reasons."
He knew politics intimately enough, he saw its bile clogging the arteries of the men he treated. Rich food, drink, and cigarettes:
the occupational hazards of powerful men. He measured their political clout according to their too-high heart rates, and,
listening to their fat hearts in their fat chests, he heard the echo of a thousand unknown stresses; this was the sound of
manifestos, the great levelling of class. At night he tempered the clang of their heartbeats by assisting at an illegal abortion
clinic. As he cleaned the women and pulled sheets over their hips, he noticed their collective silence and how the undetected
burst of a heart flame quelled offset the wild hearts that pounded out his days. And one day he woke up and thought, "This
is not me, this is not my life. My life is somewhere else."
All of those heartbeats, like the pile of cash in the pocket of Vesla's green dress, added up to this unfathomable future
moment of his life which was now here.
He slips his hand into the pocket of her coat for one lingering moment of stillness. Then, at once, in his temples, he hears
the racing stethoscope crash of sick thunder, babies screaming, a woman's groan.
A sliver of pain sluices his own heart, paralyzing him for an instant.
This is what it must feel like to die underwater.
He pulls his hand away from her side, presses it over his heart. It feels as hard as thick glass. Confused, he knocks his
knuckles against the weight of his glass heart, which, he realizes now, is the half-full bottle of vodka in his pocket that
he drained before meeting her.
The stillness gone, Thomas and Vesla walk out from the sanatorium, arm in arm. The pain has travelled to his stomach, lancing
it in criss-cross patterns. They've only got to walk through the mountains and surrender at the border. It's simple: they
state their purpose, stay in the camp, and then apply to Canada. They won't refuse a doctor and a nurse; he's heard Canada
wants professionals.
The large doors wheeze closed and he thinks of his failure to protect Misha. Misha, young, healthy as a mule, who, despite
this, complained of headaches, staring spells. Thomas wrote his diagnosis and recommendation in his journal, in his steady,
doctor's hand:
Prone to seizures. Order tests.
But his mind snaps closed, like a camera shutter. He hears the click in his head and turns to her.
She smiles grimly and walks fast so her thick-soled shoes do not sink into the dirt. He looks at her as she tugs him along
like a sleepy child and he is gripped by her determination to get through things, to run. He thinks of her slowly expanding
body beneath her snug green dress, about the child arriving in four short months, about his impending fatherhood, the way
her sleep has become deeper, the way she laces her fingers through his at night and pulls him close. He thinks of how surprised
he was to see her on the steps of the sanatorium, three weeks ago, with a single suitcase and a handful of wildflowers.
When they get to the edge of the forest he takes out his compass and checks. "West, right? We're going northwest."
West like the pictures he has seen in books in the city. West like cowboys, like James Dean's hair falling loosely. Fields
cluttered with trees, and wheat, and lakes, and farms. Thin white British ladies poking their pinkies up to the sky, teacups
flying into the air like tiny gold-plated spaceships. North like chimneys, fleshy polar-bear skins. West like Indian feathers
swaying in a dance. North like moccasins and beads sewn in the sun of August and worn in the damp of winter. North, where
the colour is red and white and brown and yellow; how sepia can disappear when you travel, when you move.
They start to run blind; he's now dragging her as they clop their hooves over leaves. They run on, waking animals, becoming
animals. She is screaming at him:
"What are you doing!? We don't have to run, Thomas, stop it!"
But he is running into another country. He is confused, thinking if he can keep going, keep pushing, keep dragging her along,
they won't even notice, they can run right to France and then leap right over the ocean like in fairy tales. He can jump over
the ocean, with a woman in his arms.
He runs right up against a large Austrian officer who catches him and tackles him to the ground. He lowers his head and surrenders,
to what, he isn't sure.
"It is part of the plan," he says.
"What plan?!" she screams. "There is no plan. Oh you, you've read too many books." Then she begs him to be quiet. "I'm sorry,
Officer," she says in perfect German. "My husband has been under a lot of stress lately, he's a bit confused, we've come from
the hospital, we have our papers here." She hands over two-thirds of Thomas's life savings in a ripped brown envelope and
smiles at the guard confidently. "I'm sure you'll find everything is in order."
Thomas considers his one-day sons, how they will never wear uniforms, will never have to bribe those in authority or compromise
themselves. Then he is sick, the combination of anxiety and alcohol too much for his weak heart and gut.
(He does not know yet that he will have no sons, that the only thing he passes on from this journey to me, his daughter, will
be the tiny dry skull of a monkey, and the fragments of this story I am now pooling together through the scant resources he
left me from that old life, from his journal with some of his medical papers folded into it. Also, there's a photograph of
a young man, which I slip between a folded sheet of paper; I am not ready for this piece of evidence yet. I cannot look.)
He then holds his hands above his head and feels the cool earth below enveloping his knees. He vomits, his belly sour and
betrayed. Afterwards he feels better than he has in years, vanquished, forgiven, done with. The heartbeats fade out, leaving
his mind quiet and still.
I have come a long way to prostrate myself before a stranger,
he thinks.
He was thirty-one, shit-scared, lonely, and sick with hope, my proud, fat-hearted father: an immigrant, at last.
That night I sleep on Giselle's bed and get woken up in the middle of the night because of Tammy's barking. Tammy, a small
annoying beagle, is the neighbour's dog. Mom is yelling at Giselle not to go out. When I get to the top of the stairs I see
Giselle's wearing her Walkman, she's got the keys to the car, and she's shouting at Mom through the loud music coming out
of her big earphones.
"Why are you always pushing me?!" Mom yells, wrapping her robe around herself and trying to get between Giselle and the door,
saying "Shuuuuuu, shut up you. Tammy-dog!" through the screen door. Mom yells something to Giselle in Hungarian and looks
up at me helplessly, as if I could stop Giselle from doing anything she wanted to.
"What's going on?" I go downstairs and let Tammy in. I bend down and the little dog licks my face, wagging her tail, excited
to be'part of this human nocturnal drama.
"Shut up, will you?" says Giselle, no lover of animals, as she kicks past both of us and wedges the door open. She turns to
me and says, "One day we have to sit down with a good psychiatrist, like a real one, with two PhDs, and sort out all the lies
in this family."
"Like which one?" I ask, standing up next to Mom.
"Ask her. Ask her yourself."
"OK," Mom says, pulling Giselle into the living room. "I'm telling you. I'm telling you everything now."
I can hear Mom's voice trying to calm Giselle down while Tammy clamours against the screen door. Part of me wants to listen
to Mom, to find out what the hell is going on, but I can't move. Ten minutes later Giselle rushes by me and slams the door.
Mom stands behind me and we watch as a furious Giselle revs the engine and squeals out of the driveway and down the street.
. . .
Giselle and Dad never got along so well, it's true. Now Giselle's on a mission to figure out why, or to punish Mom for their
relationship, or I don't know what. But they weren't always at each other's throats. Maybe Giselle can only remember the bad
stuff, but I remember some breaks from their tug-of-war screaming matches.
The summer before our father died the whole family took a trip to Europe. I must have been about four, Giselle eleven. I have
a funny memory, which feels more like a dream, of Europe being grey and dirty and all of us staying in a small hotel room
and Dad yelling at us to stop jumping on the springless bed.
What I do remember is Yugoslavia, which is no longer Yugoslavia now, I guess, because of the war.
Our parents took us to Split, where they had friends who owned a huge rundown hotel by the seashore. Every morning Giselle
and I would put on our bikini bottoms and run into the sea and let the salt water strip our skin dry. Afterwards, we'd sit
with our legs sprawled in the water and ogle breasts; it shocked and pleased us that Europeans strutted around half-naked.
That was the first time I saw a man naked and, that same summer, Giselle tried to teach me how to swim. I remember spending
hours and hours wearing those floaty wings and paddling, uselessly, between Giselle and whatever grown-up she had enlisted
for the job. I never did learn how to swim properly, and the ordeal usually ended up with me crying and Giselle splashing
water in my face and leaping into the water mermaid-style. She would swim away from me to do her long ocean laps alone.
Despite the swimming, Giselle and I got along very well and so did Giselle and Dad. Instead of fighting they simply ignored
each other. The only time he didn't ignore Giselle was when she was swimming. He'd follow her out and tread water no more
than ten feet away from her every time she went out. If Giselle noticed this, or cared, she never let on.
The grown-ups, our parents and the loud big-boned German couple, our parents' friends, were unpredictable. Now that I think
about it, they were probably drunk most of the time. They spoke, it seemed to me, about eight different languages and it was
usually hard to get their attention. But as soon as we realized that we were unwanted, we did just fine.
Our days were usually devoted to tormenting the small, strange salt-water tadpoles and trying to make fishing poles out of
whatever bits of string and branches we could find.
Our day would be interrupted only by grown-ups shoving bottles of Coke and salami and paprika sandwiches into our hands. Sometimes
we would shake Dad's pants out and collect the dinars that fell from the pocket to go down to the beach store to buy ice cream.
If it was raining, we'd play hide-and-seek in the cold hotel rooms, or put each other in the dumbwaiter, then run to the upper
floor and hoist it up.
I copied everything Giselle did in those days; I wore what she wore, said what she said, and did what she did. At home it
was a constant sore point, but for those three weeks by the seashore it didn't seem to bother Giselle that I had to wear my
matching sundress when she did, that I repeated every foreign word that she had somehow picked up. It didn't bother her that
I wanted to hold her hand. She combed my hair out and smoothed out my dress as if I were her favourite doll, before we walked
down the path to the beach.
At night we fell into our shared bed exhausted and happy, listening to our parents' strange and mysterious languages float
up from the stone terrace lit with tiny white Christmas lights, where the two couples sat at night, after dinner, drinking
and talking and smoking.
And Giselle and I weren't the only ones in love. Peeking out of our hotel room on a rare night when I could not sleep, I saw
my father jump up from the table of conversation, trying to distract my mother from the German woman's loud laughter. Giselle
pushed her arms onto the sill, to watch the adults, to watch our silly, drunken father.
He was tanned and had a cigarette clenched in his mouth. He was wearing a clean white shirt that was unbuttoned halfway to
expose his tanned chest. His dark hair was parted on the left side. He pulled my mother into a dance, and, as they moved to
the gypsy echo of the music coming in clearly from the nearby seaside restaurant, the Germans were quiet for once. I had a
flash of panic: things were too right, too peaceful, too calm.
Something terrible was going to happen.
We held our breath, watching them in that muted half-beat moment, while the sea lapped quietly and the music died low, and
then we sighed out together, into that huge, impossible cavity of dread.