The Autobiography of My Mother (21 page)

•

Now and Then, Mrs. Sweet said to herself, though this was done only in her mind's eye, as she stood at the window, unmindful of the rage and hatred and utter disdain that her beloved Mr. Sweet nurtured in his small breast for her, now and then, seeing it as it presented itself, a series of tableaux. The mountains Green and Anthony, the lake, the river, the valley that lay spread out before her, all serene in their seeming permanence, all created by forces that answered to no known existence, were a refuge from that tormented landscape that made up Mrs. Sweet's fifty-two-year-old inner life. No morning arrived in all its freshness, its newness, bearing no trace of all the billions of mornings that had come before, that Mrs. Sweet didn't think, first thing, of the turbulent waters of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. She thought of that landscape before she opened her eyes and the thoughts surrounding that landscape made her open her eyes. Her eyes, dark, impenetrable Mr. Sweet would say, as he looked into them, at first he said the word impenetrable with delight, for he thought of discovering something not yet known to him, something that lay in Mrs. Sweet's eyes and that would make him free, free, free from all that bound him, and then he cursed her dark eyes, for they offered him nothing; in any case his own eyes were blue and Mrs. Sweet was indifferent to that particular feature of his. And if Mrs. Sweet's eyes were not impenetrable, everyone she met would have wished them so; for behind her eyes lay scenes of turbulence, upheavals, murders, betrayals, on foot, on land, and on the seas where horde upon horde of people were transported to places on the earth's surface that they had never heard of or even imagined, and murderer and murdered, betrayer and betrayed, the source of the turbulence, the instigator of the upheavals, were all mixed up, and the sorting out of the true, true truth and the rendering of judgments, or the acceptance of wrongs, and to accept that, to accept and lay still with being wronged will wear you down to nothing so that eventually you are not more than the substance that makes up the Imperial Sand Dunes in the Imperial Valley in California, or the pink beaches surrounding the rising shelf of landmass that is now, just now, the island of Barbuda, or the lawn of a house in Montclair, New Jersey. But those eyes of hers were not a veil to her soul, someone so substantial, so vivid, so full of the thing called life did not need a veil for she was her soul and her soul was herself; and her childhood and her youth and middle age, all of her was intact and complete; all of her, all of her, was not exempt from Imperial Sand Dunes or beaches on emerging landmasses or lawns in New Jersey, not so, not so, but all the same when she opened her eyes each morning that seemed not to know of the mornings that had come before, her now and her then was seen in the human light and she saw herself with tenderness and sympathy and even love, yes love, and turning herself, she saw next to her, Mr. Sweet: his hair vanishing, each strand forever lost one day at a time, a thin layer of dandruff covering his scalp and trapped in the thread-straight locks of the remaining hair, his breath perfumed by a properly digested dinner he had enjoyed the night before, but she did not see his disappointments:
The Albany Symphony
,
The Four Quartets
,
The Music Teacher
. Mrs. Sweet's eyes could see Mrs. Sweet very well in the little room off to the side of the kitchen and in that place she came alive in all her tenses, then, now, then again and she was in the little room off the kitchen and she sat at the desk that Donald had made for her and placed her hands on a tablet of writing paper.

•

And getting a mere glimpse of her in that pose, sitting humbly at the desk that Donald had made for her, her hands on a tablet of writing paper, made Mr. Sweet sigh in despair, for in truth, everyone, anyone, in the whole world knew that he was the true heir of the position of sitting at the desk and contemplating the blank mound of sheets of paper, and in a state of rage he walked up to his studio, situated above the garage of the Shirley Jackson house, and he sat down at his piano, and this was not made by Donald who had taken up carpentry as a hobby and so it was in that spirit, the spirit of love and free of care, he made Mrs. Sweet that desk; Mr. Sweet's piano was made by Steinway. And he struck a chord but no one could hear it, not anyone in the garage, there was no one in the garage, no one could hear him but he could hear the sound of the washing machine washing the clothes of his infernal family and in that entity he did not include himself: the children's clothes, his wife's gardening clothes, his wife's underwear, the table linen for Mrs. Sweet would not allow them to use paper napkins, the sheets and the pillowcases, the bath mats, the kitchen towels, the bath towels, all sorts of things had to be washed and he had never thought of things being washed, except when he was a student in Paris and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his things got washed but his things being washed didn't interfere with the striking of a chord. And now, so different from then; and then was a struggle and now the struggle would lead to his death; how happy, he thought to himself, to be alone, away from that woman who could and would walk into a room all by herself and sit at a desk Donald had made for her, and there she would think about her childhood, the misery that resulted from that wound, eventually becoming its own salve, from the wound itself, she made a world and this world that she had made out of her own horror was full of interest and was even attractive. To be away from her, this woman, now my wife, but then when I first met her, just a very thin girl, like a straying branch of a stray tree waiting for the pruning shears or a weed, nothing to be given a second thought as it was pulled out of the way for it interfered with something of real beauty and value; oh yes, how happy to be away from that woman, he was thinking and talking to himself of Mrs. Sweet, who could find the death of Homer a source of endless wonder, a man who had repaired a house in which they lived, seeing him dead and lying in his coffin, wearing his hunting clothes, just bought from the store and looking as if at any moment he would sit up and say something that would not be agreeable to Mr. Sweet but Mrs. Sweet would say it was so interesting and amazing: how amazing, was something she liked to say, and she said it about the simplest thing: a rainbow, for instance; three rainbows, one after the other, at the same time, as if drawn by a child who would be regarded with suspicion in any culture in any part of the world at any given time in human existence; as if it were the first time such a thing had appeared before; so Amazing, she says, would say, so said Mr. Sweet to himself, in his studio above the garage, and in the garage, to accommodate him, to prevent him from hearing any sounds that were not made by him, no cars were allowed. All the same, he could hear the dunning sound caused by the washing machine and the clothes dryer and the hub-hub of the household beyond: Mr. Pembroke is mowing the lawn, the heating oil man is filling up the heating oil tank, Blue Flame Gas is here to fill up those gas tanks, the man from CVPS is reading the meter, the furnace has just broken down even though it is only five years old, Heracles has tonsillitis, Persephone hates her mother Mrs. Sweet, Mrs. Sweet now looks exactly like Charles Laughton as he portrayed Captain Bligh in the film
Mutiny on the Bounty
, a girl student of Mr. Sweet would like to talk to him about his thoughts on
Pierrot Lunaire
over a glass of Pimm's Cup in Mrs. Sweet's garden, for that girl so loves gardens and perhaps Mr. Sweet so loves that girl. But that dunning sound, said Mr. Sweet to himself, and looking out, just then, of a window in the beautiful studio that Mrs. Sweet had insisted be built for him, so he could be isolated from the children who might be in a room next door and while there want to construct a creature from some material bought at Kmart that was meant to resemble the makeup of a being that was an imagined and yet factual being, and the children, Persephone and Heracles, beautiful and young, were so loud, so loud, and they would only get louder and Mr. Sweet could only wish them louder, for anything other than louder was unbearable and would kill even him. Yes, Mr. Sweet was so sad, for he had married and made the mother of his children, a woman who loved living in a small village in New England, a place where a man, who went hunting deer every autumn of his life, died in the midst of securing one of them onto the back of his truck, and it all made this woman he had come to regard as dreadful, like something in a tale read without thinking to children just before they went to bed, children whose fears had a source that was not properly known to them: The Brothers Grimm! Oh God!
The Runaway Bunny
!
Harold and the Purple Crayon
!
Goodnight Moon
!
The Tale of Two Bad Mice
!
The Tailor of Gloucester
!
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
!
Where the Wild Things Are
! Yes, Mr. Sweet was so sad, for he had married and made the mother of his children a woman who knew all sorts of things but she did not know him, that would be Mr. Sweet, but who could know such a person as this man, who carried himself not as a man, but as a rodent from that era, the Mesozoic, when the first mammals took that shape.

And then there in that room that was just above the garage and in spite of the infernal sounds coming from the big white metal boxes that served to make clothes clean, Mr. Sweet composed his nocturnes, for he only loved nocturnes, and this one he called
This Marriage Is Dead
and he placed all manner of rage in it and that rage was true and justified, for look, see, just out the window, outside, the young Heracles, a small boy just then, arranging his collection of shy Myrmidons, gifts tucked away in Happy Meals purchased from McDonalds, and he had no interest in the meal itself, only he wanted to collect the small plastic warriors who were made to look like the followers of a hero of the Trojan War; and now he was arranging them and rearranging them and making an imaginary storm descend on them, scattering them all over the green lawn which he made into an imaginary sea, and as the shy Myrmidons drowned again, coming to rest, legs in the air, held up by the blades of grass that would soon require cutting by Mr. Pembroke, Mr. Sweet set these scenes of battles and drowning to the music that made up the nocturne,
This Marriage Is Dead
, though sometimes he changed the title to
This Marriage Has Been Dead for a Long Time Now
. Oh, such wailing and gnashing of teeth, such beating of breast, so many tears were cried that it could have made a roaring river and you could have built a boat and sailed down into the ocean on it and looking back to see the wending ways of that river, you could give that river a name, so thought Mrs. Sweet, one day, one day when she first heard those words, though not when she first heard that nocturne performed in an auditorium, one night in winter, surrounded by friends and loved ones and clutching the hand of the young Heracles, for she had wanted him to hear his father's music, for she had wanted him to think that his father loved him, for she had wanted him to think that his father loved her, for she had wanted a great deal too much.

But all that aside, for all that would have its then and has its own now, Mr. Sweet sitting on a stool in the studio above the garage, the dun-dun, wooo-wooo, whoosh-whoosh noise made by the clothes-cleaning machines, and he sat there, hovered above the black and white keys of that musical instrument made by the company called Steinway, his hands poised above those keys, his fingers extended, his fingers resembling his long-ago ancestors who lived in that long-ago era, and he composed more nocturnes, more nocturnes, and more of both of those: his life was not what he wanted it to be, not what he had imagined it to be even though he had not imagined it to be anything in particular other than he would be princely and entitled to doormen and poor but princely and entitled to doormen and sad because he loved ballet and Wittgenstein and opera and entitled to doormen, no matter what, there must be doormen. But now, there just outside as he looked out the window, was the young Heracles saying, Dad, Dad, and he was playing golf now, imagining himself a champion and wearing a silly jacket in a specific shade of the color green, or a champion of something or the other and Mr. Sweet did loathe all that the boy enjoyed and would never, ever take him to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, but he would have taken him to the home of Dmitri Shostakovich if it was in Springfield, Massachusetts, and he wanted that boy, the young Heracles, dead and he wanted another boy, who could sit still in the movie theater and not need Adderall or any kind of stimulant that made you still, to take his place, and that someone saying, Dad! Dad! could be a boy who was alive even in stillness; but then, years later, now, now, now, the young Heracles, when asked to look back on the wreckage that had been made of his young life by those words which had become the title of a song, a book, a recipe for a kind of sponge cake, directions for removing stains left by food spilled on the front of your dress or shirt while feeding the baby, turning left when your spouse is certain you should have turned right:
This Marriage Is Dead
or sometimes known as
The Marriage Is Dead
and sometimes, when it has been reduced to a folk song, is called
Husband Left Her
, when asked about it in this way: “What now, young Heracles, for your life was such a wreck, but now it must look like an accident, a bunch of stuff all over the place, seen in the rearview mirror”; and the young Heracles, without pause, replied, “Yes, but objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.”

And so too, without pause, then and now, the dead marriage grew into a loud, beastly entity that could be seen dancing on the lawn just within view of Mr. Sweet as he sat in the room above the garage, writing and rewriting the nocturne itself, its arms touching the tops of the Taconic range in the west, its legs mixing freely with the boreal forest in the east, hovering above the various waterways named Hudson, Battenkill, Walloomsac, Hoosic, Mettowee, that lay in between. The dead marriage occupied each empty space that was innocently bare in that village in which the Sweets lived, even in the post office, where the postmistress looked at Mrs. Sweet with pity and scorn before handing her a notice of an overdue bill; so too, it was alive in the country store, for when Mrs. Sweet entered the premises all conversation stopped, and everyone looked at her with pity and scorn and perhaps were sorry that none of them had an overdue bill to hand to her, and perhaps were happy that none of them had an overdue bill for her and Mrs. Sweet purchased some cheese and yogurt made by Mrs. Burley.