A Brief Lunacy Page 5

  “Where are you going with all this knowledge?” I ask. “What do you want to do with it?”

  “Research on endangered birds, I think. Especially ducks. Do you know the harlequin? That’s what I’m looking for. I’ve heard they’ve been seen near here.”

  “Do they look like a clown?”

  “They do, in fact. Give me a piece of paper and some markers or crayons. I’ll draw one.”

  “But the game isn’t finished,” Hans says.

  Jonah follows me to the chest where we keep our painting supplies. I hand him a sketch pad and a package of colored pencils.

  “What’s that?” he asks.

  “Just a tree. A pine tree.”

  “Why so many paintings of a tree?”

  “I like trees.”

  Jonah’s audacity intrigues me. His social skills are lacking but he’s bright. Jessie might call him sassy.

  Back at the table, he draws a squat duck with a ringed neck and white head spots. “There it is. Ever see one?”

  “No,” Jessie says. “Not like that.” She’s fine now. There is no sign of hysteria about Sylvie. The young man seems just a tad eccentric but many intelligent people are a bit odd. The poor kid. Sometimes I wonder why I’m so rude and insensitive to people.

  “How about it, Carl?” Jonah says. “Have you got a spot on that couch for my poor bod? I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning. Check out the police station. Well, what do you say?”

  “Well, I suppose that’s the least I could do,” I say.

  “What’s the least you could do, Carl?” Jonah asks.

  “Let you sleep on the couch,” I say. “I’ll think about it.”

  Hans and Marte seem surprised I even entertained the thought, but they don’t speak up. I wouldn’t put up with them if it weren’t for Jessie. She needs friends. Hans and Marte make leaving noises, say that Marte needs her sleep because she has to head out early tomorrow. Hans says maybe he’ll drop by. I’m glad to see them go but I should have asked them to drive the boy to the top of the hill. I would have if Hans hadn’t commented on how mean I was.

  “Mr. Jensen,” Jonah says, “I truly appreciate your letting me stay.”

  “That’s Dr. Jensen, and I said you could have dinner. Not spend the night.”

  “I beg to differ,” Jonah says. “You clearly invited me for the night.”

  “Carl, the boy doesn’t even have a hat. Remember Sam when he hitched to Alabama and people put him up?”

  “Jess, we don’t know this boy.”

  “And what of Sylvie? Is someone letting her sleep on their couch?”

  “There’s a tent in the garage, isn’t there, Jess?”

  “Don’t be such a curmudgeon,” she says.

  “I’ll split that wood after breakfast and I’ll be gone.”

  Jonah asks for videos. He says he has a hard time falling asleep in a strange place. Jessie pulls out what few videos we have: The Piano, Thelma and Louise, Fried Green Tomates, Sophie’s Choice, all women’s movies. I don’t watch movies very often. I apologize for the selection, but he says they’re fine, that he’ll keep the sound turned down so as not to bother our sleep.

  She goes upstairs and I notice she looks behind her for the dog that’s been dead for weeks. Jonah watches while I maneuver the pillow down from the top shelf in the closet and choose a couple of warm wool blankets from the basket on the floor.

  “Wow. You play the violin?”

  “Not anymore. A long time ago. In another life.”

  “Looks like no one’s played it for years. That’s too bad. What happened to the bridge? And the neck looks a little warped. Looks like it’s been around.” Jonah reaches for the violin.

  “Please leave it alone,” I say.

  “I used to play violin. Suzuki. When I was little. And then the youth orchestra. What did you play? Classical? Bluegrass?”

  “I told you. I don’t play anymore.”

  “But what did you play when you played?”

  “Just little tunes. It’s late. I’m going up.”

  Did I really invite him to stay? Why did I do that? Is it too late to throw him out? Jessie would have a fit. I don’t offer him anything to sleep in. My pajamas are too big, and besides, young people don’t wear pajamas anymore. When I climb the stairs I hear him rustling around with the blankets, popping the video box open, slipping the movie into the VCR. And somewhere inside me there is a dread that I haven’t felt since the war and I don’t know what to do with it.

  Jessie is asleep. She’s an angel. Her hair feathers over the pillow like gray corn silk. This is the only time I see her hair loose, and it reminds me of my mother’s hair. When we arrived at the camp her hair was dark as a moonless night, but it turned gray, actually almost white. We were allowed to keep our hair. Isn’t that strange? The others we could see over the fence had their heads shaved but families on our block didn’t. When we were made to remove our clothes, the women tried to hide their nakedness with their hair, but of course that was futile. My grandmother tried. She held strands of silver hair over her flapping breasts when they took her. She couldn’t look at us. She was too ashamed. Many of us had our hair turn from black to white in a short period of time. Even some of the young women.

  I kiss Jessie’s forehead and she stirs. I undress in the near dark, the only light coming from the downstairs television. My pajamas are somewhere on the floor where I dropped them this morning. Was it only this morning? The day seems long. Was it just today Jessie made the smoked salmon omelet? The pajamas are nowhere. Then I notice them folded on my pillow. Jessie. When I reach for them, the fish on my arm glimmers as if it had real scales. What kind of a fish is it? I don’t know. I just told them to cover up what was there with something else. Something peaceful. No lions or skulls. No naked women. They chose a fish. Just some kind of fish. It doesn’t matter what kind it is.

  She turns toward me when I lower myself into the bed. Her mouth moves in sleep, making me wonder about her dream. I bring her close to me until her breath warms my neck. The television drones on and on. Should I go down and ask him to switch it off? We turn in our bed, toward each other, away from each other, together. Jessie sleeps like a child except that every once in a while she snorts or hums and I think she is dreaming of our daughter.

  Sylvie was the most enchanting child. “Popsie,” she called me. If she weren’t ill, she could be a model or a leading lady or a dancer. I used to imagine that she came from the woods, even before she was born. That’s why I named her Sylvie, for the forest. A sprite. An elf. A fairy. She loved the pine tree. She still does. I think it’s because she can hide there in the safe spot where the large branch juts from the trunk. Now it has that crack. We’ll probably lose it in the next storm.

  “Giddyap, Popsie,” she said. “To the magic tree. Faster.”

  She rode on my shoulders, long legs dangling on my chest while she held fast around my neck and kicked her feet on my ribs. It was a game we played. We’d leave the boys with Jessie and spend the morning in the woods. In those days we only spent a few weeks up here every summer in the little cabin, which is long gone.

  “Come on, Popsie, you come up, too.”

  “I’m too big to climb trees.”

  “But I’ll be all alone up here and they’ll get you.”

  “Who, little sprite? There’s no one here.”

  She perched on the lowest limb with her arms spread out and begged me to climb, to get away from them, to be safe. I should have realized something then. But aren’t all kids scared of the boogeyman?

  “Look, Pops, there. And there. Behind the rock. They’re coming. The tree will protect us.”

  “OK. I’ll try.” And I’d climb. Me. Big, bulky me. It wasn’t really difficult because there were stubs of branches we’d thinned that made perfect steps. At the crotch was a hollowed-out place where we stored our cookies and juice. We covered it with an old plastic dishpan to keep it dry. And there we’d sit for a long time, our legs hangi
ng down, watching for intruders. Once, we sat so still that a doe browsed with her fawns right underneath us until Sylvie sneezed. I haven’t climbed that tree in years.

  Jonah finishes Thelma and Louise and I picture the soar into the Grand Canyon. He gets up from the couch. I can hear the springs creak. Another video goes into the VCR. It’s Sophie’s Choice. I know because of the music.

  The clock reads almost two. I consider shutting the bedroom door but I don’t feel comfortable with the door shut. And besides, I want to know what is going on downstairs. I hear the dialogue, the piano music, and occasional hushed comments from Jonah, and I wish he would fall asleep. I pad over to the door and swing it toward the jamb. Not shut tight. Ajar enough for me to hear movement.

  My hand slips underneath Jessie’s nightgown to her breasts, where it is warm and slightly damp. When she was young they were hard, dense, but now they rest like empty silk sacks in my palm. When Sylvie was born, Jessie had a hard time nursing because she was so full, breasts hard as tennis balls, but she kept at it. When Sylvie was just a week old, I came home from the hospital to find Jessie sitting in the living room in a straight-backed chair, sobbing quietly while Sylvie sucked at her. I guided her to the rocker, folded a warm facecloth on her forehead, sang a little song. And there we sat while Sylvie nursed for the first time with vigor until Jessie’s breasts were almost emptied. She didn’t wean her until she was pregnant with Charlie.

  Sylvie was two and a half. Was that the first sign of trouble? Jessie’s obstetrician said we must wean her right away. “Do it ‘cold turkey,’” he’d said. “Just stop. Tell her no.” Sylvie screamed until a neighbor came over to see if there was a problem. Jessie went to her sister’s, over an hour away, and left me with Sylvie for the weekend. When she came back, Sylvie was weaned. When Charlie was finally born, Sylvie ignored him and we thought that was better than being jealous.

  Now I knew it was a mistake, sending Jessie away like that, her breasts swollen and sore. We should never have listened to the doctor. It was too hard on her, leaving Sylvie. Jessie did her best with the children, and Charlie and Sam are good men, successful, kind. But I know she aches for Sylvie. Sometimes I think she believes that Sylvie will come out of it, have a husband, children, give us grandchildren.

  Rain pings on our metal roof. That’s why we went with the metal. We both love the rain and the sound it makes. It blots out most of the noise of the television and the sound of Jonah’s utterances.

  Jessie presses against me and asks if I am asleep. I tell her that I am, indeed, sound asleep. She turns and slides her arms around me.

  “Is it going to be all right?”

  “Yes, my pet. It is.”

  8

  JESSIE

  I HEAR CARL RUSTLING around in the near dark searching for his pajamas and wonder how long it will take for him to notice that I’ve folded them on his pillow. That man, Jonah, is still watching a movie and it’s the middle of the night, for God’s sake. And the telephone is silent. Where is Sylvie sleeping? In a shelter? A Dumpster? In a motel room with someone she just met? With Ralph? Or is Ralph here? Tomorrow I’m going to ask him.

  Carl mutters something when he finds the pajamas. Why is it taking him so long to get into bed? When he finally pulls the covers back and slides in beside me, I nestle close to him. His body makes me feel warm and protected. When I awake again, music from The Piano makes me wonder for a moment where I am. Carl’s hand is under my nightgown and he’s holding my breasts. It’s raining onto the metal roof and we’re both awake. I turn toward him.

  “Is it going to be all right?” I ask.

  “Yes, my pet,” he says. “It is.”

  He kisses my hair and murmurs something I can’t hear. When he pulls me hard against him, I smell his scent, the scent that allows blindfolded mothers to find their children. I imagine that when he’s gone, I’ll sleep with his pajamas on my pillow. I loosen the tie around his waist until my hand slides down his smooth skin. When he pushes my nightgown up, we press against each other and he tells me he loves me. Why do we say that after forty years? I don’t know.

  He rolls on top of me and opens me. Charlie was shocked that we still do this. I don’t remember how the subject came up but it was at some holiday dinner. Charlie said, “Mom? Dad?” looking from one to the other. “Really?” he said. He chuckled and patted my hand but I think he was horrified.

  When Carl goes into me, I feel safe, not excited. Safe. After it’s finished, he stays in me while we fall asleep. I don’t sleep well. Each time I awaken, I find Carl sitting up in bed alert. The sound of videos from downstairs continues through the night but I have to strain to hear it.

  When I finally wake up to the sunrise, Carl’s side of the bed is empty and cold and there’s no sound, no rain on the roof, no movie noise. My nightgown is pushed up around my waist. It’s been a long time since we made love with anyone else in the house.

  Yesterday I woke up thinking about what I wanted to paint, and today I think of Sylvie and wonder why the phone has been silent all night. Perhaps that’s good. And the strange boy, Jonah. I’ll ask him this morning if he knows her.

  I’ll finish that sock and start another today. When Sylvie comes for Christmas, we’ll knit together. She wants to learn to turn a heel. We’ll light a fire in the new woodstove and sit at the window watching the ice heave against itself along the shore and the ospreys steal fish from eagles, and we’ll knit while we talk about our lives. Perhaps she’ll tell me about Ralph. Perhaps he’s a lovely man who’s been through some trauma and is recovering. Or perhaps he’s Jonah.

  Sylvie, the old Sylvie, lies somewhere underneath all the layers of craziness. It’s just a matter of digging her out. I’ve read that sometimes mentally ill people return to their old selves suddenly, without warning, and lead productive lives. This Ralph may be just the thing. One moment I hope she is with him, and the next I don’t. He can take care of her, make sure she doesn’t get hurt. She’s never had a serious relationship with a man before but she says Ralph loves her. Sylvie would love her children if she had them. Please, God, let him be a good man. Sometimes I say things like Please, God this and Please, God that, but there isn’t really any God. It makes me feel safe to say the words. Isn’t that crazy?

  On the way down the stairs I hear breakfast sounds. The seldom-used coffeepot blurps on the gas burner, and the toaster pops. They sit at the table, Jonah in my place. Why didn’t Carl ask him to sit in the other seat? Jonah appears disheveled and his hand bounces staccato-like on the table. Carl meets me by the stove, kisses my neck, says, “Good morning, my pet,” and I’m glad Jonah isn’t watching. That’s kind of a private thing, isn’t it?

  He’s filled the teakettle too full again and the water is still tepid. I put it back on the flaming burner to boil.

  “Did you sleep at all?” I ask Jonah.

  “Not much,” he says.

  “How were the videos?”

  For the first time this morning, I see his face. It’s younger than it was yesterday, or perhaps it’s the morning light. His eyelids droop from lack of sleep but there’s a kindness that I hadn’t noticed before, an old-soul look to him. His tongue flicks at the edges of his mouth as if food is stuck there, and his T-shirt is old, faded. I notice his wool jacket draped over the arm of the couch.

  “Do you have others?” he asks.

  “Others?”

  “Videos.”

  “No. Not many. A few old family movies. A couple of documentaries. Planet of the Apes.” Why would he want to know?

  I do morning things. Check the answering machine just in case we didn’t hear the ring. Lift the receiver of the telephone, just to check. There are two melons left in the fridge. I cut them both in half, scoop out the seeds, slice the halves into sections, and place them on a Blue Willow platter in the center of the table. A perfect still life, the orange flesh of the melons scattered over the deep blue figures against the background of the yellow table. It’s perfect. Carl has set
three place mats with small plates and knives to butter the bagels.

  When I pass Jonah the spoon for his melon, we touch. I feel an excitement between us, a bond of some kind. It’s just because he’s so good looking, provocative, intriguing. When you get old, a bit of that memory of lusty youth keeps you going. That’s why I love to daydream. Sometimes Carl and I tell each other our dreams while we lie together upstairs, just for fun. Carl was one of my first lovers, so I figure I owe myself a few fantasies.

  “Coffee ready?” Jonah asks.

  “I’ll get it,” I say. “Cream? Sugar?”

  “No. Nothing. Black.”

  “Did you hear the telephone during the night?”

  “Not a sound,” he says.

  “Did you see all the bird books? On the shelf?”

  “No.”

  “Why do gulls face the sun?”

  “You asked me that yesterday,” he says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  The three of us sit at the table, eating ripe cantaloupe while the morning sun exposes dust drifting across the room. My seagulls stand one-legged in the wind, their feathery bottoms tilted up toward us. Jonah doesn’t speak but his hand has ceased its tapping and is now gripping a hot cup of coffee. The only sounds come from eating and drinking. Carl and I usually chat at breakfast. When I look at him he seems bewildered by Jonah’s taciturn manner.

  “Are you tired?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Would you like to call your mother to pick you up now?”

  “No. Not yet. She’ll be sleeping.”

  “Another bagel?”

  “I’d like to go to the tree,” he says. “The pine tree in the painting.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” Carl asks.

  “To prepare the way.”

  “What?” Carl asks. “Prepare what way?”

  “Did Sylvie climb that tree?” Jonah asks. “Did she?”

  Why does he ask? I glance at Carl. Yes. He wonders, too.