A Brief Lunacy Page 17

  “I don’t hear anything,” I say. But I do hear someone outside the door, calling. German. It’s Hans. I can’t tell if he is closer than he was, because of the wind and the faint lapping of waves on the shore. The voice is frail. He won’t last the night out there in the cold with a bullet hole in his hip. Marte will come looking for him when he doesn’t return. But didn’t he tell us that Marte was going to Boston to see the children? Why can’t I remember? I glance at the telephone. It’s still lying on the floor, wire pulled out of the wall. If someone tries to call, will it sound like no one’s home, or will it sound busy? If the telephone is busy all evening, will someone find that suspicious and call the police? Will Charlie think something’s wrong?

  I stick my fork in the bit of chicken left on my plate. It’s cold and tough. Overcooked. But I chew and swallow while Jonah sips his amaretto and slumps a little more in his chair. His hand slides away from the revolver but stays on the table. His eyes stare at me. He smiles. Amaretto dribbles down his chin. From his throat comes a humming or a groaning. I can’t tell which. His hair flops into his eyes and he turns toward the pitch-dark window. Does he see something out there? It’s too dark to recognize anything. The gull boulder is obscured by night.

  We’re all waiting for something. Carl waits for me to act. Jonah waits for Sylvie. I wait for Jonah to collapse into a heap on the floor, leaving the gun on the table. Waiting is a quiet thing. Like waiting in a doctor’s office. Everyone sits and stares ahead or glances through Woman’s Day or an old New Yorker. Once while I was waiting at the dentist’s office, an old woman came over and said, “Knitting a stocking? Never see that nowadays.” She sat beside me, touched the sock with tentative fingers until the dentist called her in.

  I circle my fork on the dirty plate in front of me, picking up bits of exploded potato. They are tasteless, dry, cold. Jonah smiles again, licks at his ice cream spoon. I feel for the car keys in my pocket, trace the perimeter of the key ring gadget. He doesn’t seem to notice the clicking sound. I adjust myself in the chair. When the refrigerator hums, I flinch. He sits up, his hand sliding off the table onto his lap. After he drains the glass of amaretto, his hand goes to his chest as if he’s waiting for the next heartbeat. The other hand joins it, making him look like a corpse, hands crossed on chest, eyes closed. Can I reach across the table and pick up the gun? It’s too far. Why didn’t I sit next to him? How stupid.

  I think he’s forgotten about the gun. Well, let’s see about that. With the side of my palm, I push my plate toward the edge of the table little by little so he won’t notice. It’s a test. How far can I go? When it is almost as far off as it is on, I tip it over the edge. The sound of the plate’s breaking on the slate blasts into the night silence. Jonah jumps from his chair.

  “What the fuck? What is that? I’m sorry, Daddy. I didn’t mean to.”

  I say nothing. He looks around until he sees the pieces of pottery scattered over the floor. He hasn’t touched the gun. He wobbles back to his chair, lowers himself into it, licks the corners of his mouth. His arms hang down at his sides, sway slightly. Yes. I can do it.

  “Sylvie will be coming soon, Jonah. Isn’t that nice? She’ll be driving down the hill any minute. Won’t you be glad to see her?”

  “Sylvie. Yes. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Do you know her?”

  “Yes, I know her.”

  “She’s my girlfriend.”

  “Yes. She’s your girlfriend.”

  We speak soft words at each other about Sylvie in the dim light. His words come slowly, slurred at times. His hands occasionally touch the edge of the table, press on his heart. There is no sound from Carl and the calling from Hans has ceased. It is only Jonah and I at the kitchen table talking about Sylvie.

  The small wall lamp beams its light into the darkness, throwing shadows on his face. How funny, the things you never notice, like which lights you always turn on in the evening and when you do it. We usually eat with candles burning at the table and then Carl flicks on the overhead light after dinner when we read or play Scrabble. Jonah doesn’t question Sylvie’s driving a car. Doesn’t ask where she would get one. He doesn’t mention the baby. Oh, Christ, is there a baby? I try to picture Sylvie loving him. I almost can.

  Sylvie and I have talked about how she can’t take care of a baby. “Someday, my Sylvie, someday when you’re better,” I lied to her. She’ll never be well enough to have a baby. She’s almost too old already. If we live through this, Jonah, Ralph—I don’t even know his last name—will go to jail or to a hospital with locked doors and bars on the windows. And what of Sylvie? We’ll bring her back to Douglas House after the abortion and she’ll settle back down to making aprons on her sewing machine and stringing beads on thread. Shit. What am I thinking? If we don’t live through this, what will he tell her? What will he say about our last day? What will she think? Who will take care of her? I think I’m near the crazy place. Am I? Please tell me.

  Again my fingers find the car keys and the button on the key ring. My thumb circles the button. Should I press it? He’s drunk. It’s going to work. I press down hard on the button. It works. The horn sounds from the garage.

  “Listen, Jonah. Do you hear the horn?”

  I press again and again, leave a moment between each press. The horn beeps short blasts each time I press the button, unlocking, locking, unlocking, flicking lights that only Hans can see.

  “Do you hear the horn? It’s Sylvie. Go and see.”

  “Oh, Sylvie. Oh, she’s here.”

  “Quickly. Go and greet her.”

  He smiles at me, a kind but tired smile, the smile of a child at the end of a hard day at play. The gun remains on the pine table, looking like a still-life centerpiece, while Jonah staggers toward the door. I keep pressing the button until he opens the door. I move slowly toward the gun. I have time. I don’t want to upset him. The metal chills my palm. Carl begins to speak. I tell him to hush, whisper it across the room. Jonah closes the door behind him and we wait again.

  “Jess, hurry. Help me.”

  “No. I know what I’m doing. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  The gun is lighter than I expected. For such a lethal thing, shouldn’t it be heavy, almost too heavy to lift? If I put it in my pocket, it might go off and shoot my leg. My pocket isn’t big enough, either.

  “Jessie, give me the gun.”

  “Quiet, Carl.”

  “I’m almost free. Bring the scissors.”

  “I can handle this.”

  “Oh, please. Jess. You can’t do this alone.”

  “Shut up, Carl. Just shut up.”

  Perhaps I won’t need the gun. He’ll collapse outside and we’ll plug the phone back in and call the police. There’s no lock on the door. I can’t lock him out. My sneakers squeak on the slate floor as I pace back and forth. I raise the gun, point it at the refrigerator. My hand trembles. From fear? From hunger?

  In the background, I hear Carl thumping in the chair, calling out to me to set him free.

  The living room is warmer than the kitchen area. I sit on the couch near Carl’s chair and think. When you push your brain to think fast, it shuts down. Mine is shut down now. I barely remember where I am and why I am holding a gun. He’s coming back. The door opens. He’s weeping like a child.

  “Sylvie’s not there. Where is she?”

  “Come sit beside me. Come. Right here.”

  “Mom?”

  “Come on, Ralphie. Sit here.”

  I tuck the gun behind the pillow with the tiny round mirrors sewn all over the front, in a place that I can reach before he can.

  “But . . . but I . . . I’ve forgotten something. You’re my friend. What is it I’ve forgotten?” His legs crumple. He sinks into the couch beside me, his legs sprawled in front of him. His breath oozes almond and peppermint and I notice the zipper of his fly is still down. The opening gapes.

  Beside me on the table, on top of some books, lies the remote for the video machine and also the o
ne for the television. I flick them both on and press play. Sylvie pirouettes across the stage all alone. She was seven. The dance teacher asked where the natural sense of dance came from. “Which side of the family has dancers?” “No dancers that we know of.” “But she has such flair and a solid sense of rhythm that comes from being born with it.” “Oh, no. I dance but just for fun. And Carl? He has three left feet. Dancers must be way back.”

  I turn down the television volume. I can’t stand the Muzak. “See? That’s Sylvie. Isn’t she lovely?”

  “My Sylvie. She loves me. She’s my girl.”

  “Yes. She’s your girl.”

  “We’re having a . . . we’re . . .”

  “Hush,” I say.

  When Carl rustles around in his chair, clears his throat, I signal “Shut up” with my hand. Sylvie dances around the pine tree, trailing colored ribbons sewn to her white eyelet dress and tied to her fingers. Her hair is twisted with flowers, mostly goldenrod. The music turns in her own head, real sounds that we can’t hear. Does the music come from the crazy place? She leaps and turns, her bare feet pirouetting on the pine needles. When she discovers the camera, everything changes. Why? Why was it so terrible to film it? Why did she hate it so? She pulls ribbons off, rips goldenrod from her black hair. I press fast-forward on the remote.

  With my other hand I practice my grip on the revolver from behind the pillow. The handle is warm now. He doesn’t notice because he watches Sylvie covered in white feathers, dancing her dying swan on the stage in Hartford.

  “Jess, don’t show that one.”

  This time she knew we were filming her. The auditorium was full that night, mostly with parents and family of the ballet students. Her swan, sick with pain, suffers alone on the stage until it collapses on the bare wood, shudders, and lies deathlike. The audience sits still for a long moment before they are on their feet, clapping, yelling, “Bravo.” And the curtain closes. Each time I watch this, I feel distressed until the curtain calls show her standing up, smiling and bowing, blowing kisses to the audience, her white feathers askew, her hair springing out from the bobby pins we stuck in to keep her bun in place.

  “Pretty girl,” he says. He doesn’t look at me. The television screen holds him rapt. “Isn’t she pretty? She’s too young to have a baby.”

  A dancer from the corps brings her a bouquet of red roses interspersed with baby’s breath. Sylvie twirls around and around with the flowers, twirls around and around. I’d almost forgotten this part. She twirls and twirls to that music only she hears. She twirls too many times, and when I see the worried ballet teacher hurry onto the stage, I press the fast-forward button again.

  She is the loveliest creature in the world. Jonah is right. She is the fairest in the land. She’s my daughter and I love her. Do I love only what she used to be? What she promised to be? How about what she’s become? All three, I think, although it is difficult when she explodes, spews hatred at us. Her eyes are the worst. When she comes at me shrieking about how much she wants to hurt me, her eyes seem to belong to someone else. But they don’t. They belong to Sylvie. And Jonah’s eyes belong to him. Does his father love him? Perhaps not. Perhaps it has all been too much for him, the difficult times destroying the attachment of parent and child, the love a father has for his only son. Would he do just about anything to protect his child from some horror or another? Would he?

  22

  JESSIE

  “CAN WE SEE the pretty girl dance again?”

  I rewind the video for him, or is it for me? “There,” I say. “See her dance? I was there in the audience. That’s Sylvie. That’s my daughter.”

  Jonah’s eyes close and he rests his head on my chest. Sylvie dances across the stage again, covered in the white feathers of her swan, while I watch. I think Carl watches, too, because when the swan swoons, begins to die, Carl whispers something like, “Oh, God.” Jonah pulls his knees up close to him, faces me. I don’t want to see his eyes. They open and he turns and watches Sylvie’s swan sink to the floor. He nestles against my breast.

  “Oh, poor swan,” Jonah says. “Poor swan.”

  “That’s your Sylvie, you know.”

  “Yes. I know. She’s mine. Isn’t she lovely?”

  “She’s not ready for a baby,” I say.

  “The pills. I had some pills.”

  “Never mind the pills. You don’t need them.”

  “People say we’re too sick to have a baby. Are we too sick?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She’s going to buy a dress. White. With colored ribbons sewn all over it.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Are you my mom?”

  “Yes. I’m your mom.”

  “Do you love me? Remember when you twirled my bangs around your finger? Do you? Mom?”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  “Will you do that?”

  I don’t answer. I slide my finger across his forehead, under a lock of his hair that hangs there, and twist my finger around and around, allowing the slim strand to slide through. Jonah hums a little tune, very softly to himself. “Jesus loves me, this I know.” I join him. “For the Bible tells me so.” Where did I learn that? Sunday school? He stumbles, pauses, begins again. He snugs his body closer to mine while I watch Sylvie touch her toe into the cold bay, look back, smile, and plunge into the water. She swims back and forth like a seal. My free hand reaches behind the mirrored pillow. “Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.”

  Sylvie rises from the cold ocean, her black hair coating her skin like a selkie’s. Carl knows. He murmurs, “Jess, please. Please don’t.” But he isn’t a mother. And it’s a mother’s job, n’est-ce pas? It’s not the same for fathers. Sylvie waves to me behind the camera. When I wave back, she stubs her toe on the seagull rock, screams, “Bitch,” into the lens. “Bitch. You fucking bitch. I’m never coming here again. Never. You can’t force me.” I read every word on her lips, remember the sounds in my ears. I continued to run the movie camera. Why did I do that? Why didn’t I shut it off, wait for a better moment?

  My fingers grip the gun handle, find the important places. I pull back the cock thing as I saw Jonah do, and slide the gun out from behind the pillow. Sylvie and Charlie play badminton across the TV screen. It’s the same day as the “Bitch.” Sylvie wears white shorts and a chartreuse tank top, her hair now dry and spiraling down her back, swaying with each smack of the racket on the birdie.

  Jonah looks at me, smiles, says he likes the girl on the screen, the one playing badminton with bare feet. “Yes,” I say. “Isn’t she lovely?”

  I touch his back with the gun, move the tip up and to the left. He doesn’t feel it.

  “Jess,” Carl says. “Let’s call the police. Please.”

  I don’t answer.

  Jonah slumps forward and I slide the barrel of the gun up toward his shoulder blades, angle the path down, through his heart and into the cushion of the couch. His bangs are damp and my finger sticks, pulls his hair a tad. I slow down with the twirling. “Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.” He sings the song, every word, great pauses between lines. Sylvie picks a spent delphinium and holds it out to Charlie as a present for winning. Can I do this? Can I?

  “What ya got there?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “Pretty pillow. Look. It sparkles.” He picks at the mirrors on the pillow.

  “Yes. Now just lay your head right here.”

  “Yes, Jesus loves me.”

  “Watch the boy take the flower.”

  “The Bible tells me so.”

  “Jess. My Jess. Don’t.”

  “See the pretty flower, Ralphie,” I say.

  And then I pull the trigger.

  Jonah rises from me as if jerked by heaven with a great hook. When he slumps back down he shudders everywhere. His arm falls open onto my lap. His fingers curl. At the end of his great sigh, his body relaxes on mine, heavy and limp. It is done.

  Sylvie slices the air with her
racket, begs Charlie for another game. Charlie’s too tired and backs off, places his racket on the picnic table, shakes his head. I can’t watch Sylvie hit him with her racket, hit him hard in the face. I can’t watch Charlie wrest the racket from her and hold her tight while she bites at his shoulder. I press the power button on the remote and the room is still. The scent of almonds charges the air, covers the stink of fresh blood. I feel it, very warm, leaking from his heart onto my thigh. When I search for a hole in his back where the bullet went, my fingers touch the orange sweatshirt, the part covering his heart, find a small hole, like a cigarette burn. There is no blood there. No blood on his back. It comes from his front, dripping damp on my jeans. Sticky and still warm. I think Carl says my name over and over, gives me time in between to answer.

  How could he be dead? His bare arm touches mine, flung across me after the shot. His fingers are open now, no longer clenched. Dampness weeps from his mouth onto my clothes. Blood? No. I don’t think so. Is it over? No. It isn’t over. I lay my head on the back of the couch, close my eyes. Carl won’t stop calling me. He calls and calls. He breaks the silence each time. Stop it. Stop it.

  “Jessie. Please. Answer me.”

  Do I answer? How? What do I say? The handle fills my palm. There are more bullets in there. I don’t know where the first one is. I touch the sweatshirt on his front. Sticky. I slide my fingers up toward his heart. It has exploded. I hesitate at the edge of the crater. Too horrible. Such damage a bullet can cause. I had to do it. I had to.

  I think about love. I don’t think he felt anything at all. I don’t know what to do now. Carl’s pleas become louder. He asks me to look at him, to cut the tape around his ankles. But I hum a child’s tune, a simple ditty, something about a gray goose, telling someone the goose is dead. It’s a nice tune. The words come to me. I sing the words through my own weeping. I think Carl believes that I have lost my mind. Have I? Have I lost my mind?

  I can’t seem to move. Jonah is heavy against me. I’m not sure I can get up. I lift the gun. It feels heavy now, and cold. Where did the warmth go? Shot in the back. I shouldn’t have shot him in the back. I’ll have to do something with the gun. I hold my hand at the edge of the couch and release the thing. It falls to the floor. Thud.