Briar Rose (3 page)

"She may come round again," Becca said, almost pleading. '

often does. And you've both come so far to see her. You may get another ... another ... chance.

Not before she . . . " She coul bring herself to finish the sentence, as if death were too fi punctuation. "Let's not go already."

"Already? It's three o'clock and still snowing and we'll hav fight traffic soon." Sylvia held up her hand, the one with the w as if that added force to her argument. She was clearly uncom able, almost afraid.

Briar Rose

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"Traffic?"

"Oh, right, I forgot we're back in the boonies. No L.A. traffic here, then. Or Houston." She looked meaningfully at Shana.

Shana leaned over and put her arm around Becca. "Listen, we both know it's hardest on you and we're trying to make it easier, at least for today. You're the one who does all the visiting after all."

"But Mama and Daddy . . ." Becca said loyally.

'We know who does the most visiting," Shana said. "Everyone knows. So you don't have to try and share everything." She looked over at Sylvia and shook her head, as if to warn her off.

"But Bec," Sylvia said, ignoring the warnings and tapping her own head ominously.

"She is not crazy," Becca said, her voice rising to the old whine she couldn't help when she was around her sisters too long.

"Not, not crazy. Not at all. Only she thinks-she believes-she once lived in a castle! The true Belle au Bois Dormant " Sylvia's accent was impeccable. She'd studied at the Sorbonne her junior year in college.

"The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. A goddamned fairy tale princess, Becca. With a Yiddish accent. If she's not crazy believing it-you are. Grow up, Becca. Shan and I have."

"It's not that," Becca said, trying to explain. "I mean, it's not that I believe it. Or even that she does. It's like the story is metaphor. . . ."

Sylvia snorted, the familiar bickering overcoming what lingering grief she had felt. "A meddlefur, " she said, using the old baby word the family favored. "Thank goodness you decided against graduate school and stuck with that silly underground newspaper you work for."

"It's not underground; it's alternative and .

"What's the difference," Sylvia said, turning away. "The left vAng is the left wing whether it's above or below the dirt."

"You don't want to understand," Becca said, tears spilling down her cheeks and making her feel years younger than twenty-three, '41

he n

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-"Once upon a time . Gemma's voice interrupted them. All turned to stare at her. The old woman's eyes remained firmly closed.

"t

Now you've done it," Sylvia hissed. "She's awake again. She'll tell that beastly story."

... like a

24

Jane Yolen

"Which is all times and no times but not the very best of time!

the whispery voice continued, "there was a castle, And in it live(

king who wanted nothing more in the world but a child." Her vo seemed to be gathering strength from the telling and she moN

swiftly through the well-worn opening. "Now one day, finally a at last and about time, the queen went to bed and gave birth t, baby girl with a crown of red hair." Gemma tried to reach up touch her own hair, but the posie kept her from moving and hesitated as if the story had been-somehow-set awry. Then, dn ing in another whispery breath, she went on. "The child's face as beautiful as a wildflower and so the king named her . .

stopped.

"Briar Rose," the three sisters chorused, as quickly as if they v youngsters again enjoying the story though, by their faces, tw, least were angry and one-as red-haired as the princess in the t~

was in tears.

As if their antiphonal response was all the assurance she nee, the old woman fell asleep again.

Looking conspiratorially at another, Sylvia and Shana slipped away from the bed and he~

for the door.

"Bec-" Shana called from the doorway.

Becca shook her head and didn't move. She meant by that I shake that she would stay, that she forgave them their deser And she did. It was an awful, urine-smelling place and there v terrible sense of sadness and defeat underlying it, despite the !

tea service from which the residents drank their ten o'clock tei the four o'clock Happy Hour and the cheery crafts room an, desperate strains of "Clementine" and "Down by the Old Stream" drifting up the elevator shaft. She understood her s entirely and loved them, even though she often hated the t they said. It was why she came to the nursing home every aftex after work at the newspaper and stayed with Gemma three an(

hours each weekend, afraid that Gemma might become a

Hartshorn who never had visitors and made macrame of hei Or a Mrs. Benton who never stopped crying for a mother who came. Or a Mrs. Gedowski on Two West who sat in the hall ct in graphic detail that even rap singers would have envied.

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25

They left and Becca sat listening to their footsteps fade down the hall. She could hear the bustle of the Home outside the door: the elevator clanking and wheezing its way down to the first floor, a telephone ringing twice at the nurse's station before being answered by a weary voice. A cart rattled by, accompanied by the slip-slap of a nurse's cushioned shoes. The television announcer's cheery banter almost covered the sound of Mrs. Benton's weeping.

Standing, Becca went to the door ' closed it, then returned to her grandmother's bed. This time when she picked up Gemma's hand, there was a desperate strength in it.

"Rebecca?" Gemma's whispery voice seemed stronger. "Rebecca!"

"Here I am, Gemma."

The old woman opened her eyes. "I was the princess in the castle in the sleeping woods. And there came a great dark mist and we all fell asleep. But the prince kissed me awake. Only me."

"Yes, Gemma," Becca replied, soothingly.

The old woman struggled against the restraints, trying to sit up.

At last she stopped struggling and fell back helplessly. "I was the princess!" she cried again. "In the castle. The prince kissed me."

"Yes, Gemma."

"That castle is yours. It is all I have to leave you. You must find The castle in the sleeping woods. Promise me." She tried again to sit up, despite the posie, her face now spotty with agitation.

"I promise, Gemma."

"Promise me you will find the castle. Promise me you will find the prince. Promise me you will find the maker of the spells."

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"I said I promise, Gemma." Becca couldn't believe the strength in her grandmother's hand.

"Swear it."

"I swear, Gemma."

"On my grave, swear it."

"You're not dead, Gemma." She hated saying the word. As if saying it made it real.

"Swear it."

"I swear. On ... on your grave, Gemma."

The spottiness seemed to fade from the old woman's face and she lay back quietly, eyes closed again, whispering something that

Becca, even straining, could not hear.

Jane Men

Becca leaned over, putting her ear as close to the old woma mouth as she dared, fearing she might suffocate Gemma by a, dent. Finally she could make out the words.

"I am Briar Rose," Gemma was repeating. I am Briar Rose CHAPTER

"It's almost bedtime, " Gemma said.

"You promised I could stay up because I'm ten, " Sylvia said. "And I could have a story. "

"But not Sleeping Beauty, " Shana begged. "A new one.

"I want Sleeping Beauty, " Becca said. "It's my favorite." Favorite was her latest and most special word.

"Sleeping Beauty for Becca, and then she goes to bed. Then another story for your two old ladies. " Gemma smiled but Shana and Sylvia left the room.

"We'll be back when Sleeping Beauty is over!" Shana called from the other room.

"And not before, " Sylvia added

But the story was only barely begun when they crept to the door's edge and listened.

Gemma was saying. so the king said it was time for a party.

'A big party?" asked Becca, already knowing the answer.

"A terriflcally big party. With cake and ice cream and golden plates. And not to mention invitations sent to all the good fairies in the kingdom.

"But not the bad fairy. "

Gemma pulled the child closer to her. "Not the bad fairy. Not the one in black with big black boots and silver eagles on her hat.

"But she came. "

"She came, that angel of death. She came to the party and she said 'I Jane Men

curse you, Briar Rose. I curse you and your father the king a ' nd your moi the queen and all your uncles and cousins and aunts. And all the peopl, your village. And all the people who bear your name. ' " Gemma sh herself all over and Becca put her hand on her grandmother"s arm.

"It will be all right, Gemma. You'll see. The curse doesn't work.

Gemma gave her another hug and continued the story.

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The funeral was a small affair, only a couple dozen people at the synagogue. Gemma had been a private person and there wasn't much in the way of family. The rabbi had spoken about someone who had only vaguely resembled Gemma; Becca had had to keep bringing her mind back to the present and away from the stories

Gemma used to tell. When the cantor began singing with a great deal of vibrato and at least a quarter tone flat, she gave up and retreated to the castle of her grandmother's favorite tale.

There were even fewer people at the cemetery off King Street.

Trucks rumbled by as the rabbi said the final prayers, obscuring his words. Becca's soft snufflings were lost in the screech of tires as a teenager took off out of a driveway somewhere down the road, then honked his horn at a panicked squirrel.

Wrapped in a calf-length black mink coat, Sylvia shivered and spoke to her husband in a voice that carried. "April tenth and winter still. Why couldn't she have died in Florida, like your father?" She meant it as a whisper, as a bit of humor to buoy her own flagging spirits, but it was loud enough to cut across the rabbi's last words to the family. Becca looked at her sharply, the little wind bringing tears to both their eyes. Embarrassed, Sylvia bit her lip and looked down.

When Becca turned her attention back to the rabbi, he was Jane Yolen

done and, with an overturned shovel, was shifting a little dirt the open grave.

"Good-bye, Gemma," Becca whispered as the dirt patt down. She waited her turn to throw a handful in, first lifting earth to her nose. Sniffing it carefully, as if to be sure the grc Gemma was to lie in had the proper smell, she sighed. Then knelt, drew in a breath so deep it made her chest ache, and le dirt tumble slowly out of her palm.

"I promise, Gemma," she said under her breath. "I sw, When she stood again, her father threaded his arm through holding her tightly as if afraid he was going to lose her into the as well.

They walked back to the limc, arm in arm, and she h the heart to pry his fingers away, though she was sure he leaving bruises.

More people came to the house than had attended the se because most of their neighbors-men and women who had k

Gemma for over forty years-were Polish and Catholic and uncomfortable by the idea of going into a synagogue, as church still forbade it. The dining-room table groaned with funeral offerings: kielbasa, galumpkis, salads heavy with mayor lumpy pies.

The house smelled overwhelmingly like spring, the scents the bouquets overpowering even the smell of the food. N(

their neighbors believed that flowers were inappropriate for a'

funeral, though Becca had tried to tell them. Each time th(

door opened, or the back, letting in a new mourner, a fresh stirred the blossoms. Becca was sick with the smell.

Sylvia went upstairs to fix her hair one more time in front mirror in her old bedroom. The downstairs mirrors were all with cloth, not because the Berlins were religious enough to conservative funeral customs, but because the rabbi-who w ing his respects-would care. The draped mirrors had annoye(

so much, she stomped up the stairs, dropping mud from he and dumping her mink on the bed with an angry shrug. Brus]

the silk shirt to rid it of hairs only she could see, she stared c at her reflection.

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Her husband Mike smiled over her shoulder. "You lo4

babe," he said.

into

red the und she t the

ear."

hers, grave dn't was

vices own made f the their aise,

of all ne of wish front reeze

of the raped ollow s pay~

Sylvia boots ing off tically k fine,

Briar Rose

31

"Fine isn't geod enough." But she smiled back at him via the mirror, as if to assure him it was.

When they went out into the hall, they met Shana and her husband. Shana's cheeks had little bright spots on them, a clear indication that she and Howie had had another argument.

"Where's Becca?" Sylvia asked.

"Downstairs. Serving coffee, no doubt. Dividing lumpy pies.

Entertaining Gemma's friends. What else?" Shana answered, her fight with Howie making her sharper than she meant.

The men's eyes met above their wives' heads. Howie looked down first.

Becca was-in fact-cutting the pies and setting them out on the good china, a fork with each plate. She felt her hands needed something to do, unlike her mind, which she kept busy with a complicated fist of things still to be done, a comforting m nernonic more soothing than a mantra. But her hands kept shaking whenever they weren't working at something. She knew it was a simple reaction to the emotion of the day, but she always had such physical reactions: able to function in the immediate emergency, failing apart afterwards. just like her grandmother. It was a family joke.