Broken for You (7 page)

Sometimes Margaret rummaged through a smelly box of photographs of her mother which she'd found while playing in the attic, photographs which predated marriage and maternity and showed her mother in the open air, in the light, dressed in tennis skirts, skiing ensembles, swim-suits. In all the pictures, she was wearing smiling expressions that Margaret had never seen; incredibly, her mother must have once been happy.
In other photos, she was in the company of other laughing and athletic-looking young people; even harder to believe was the possibility that her mother had once had friends.

Margaret concluded that something terrible had happened to make her mother the way she was; being a child, and an only child at that, she naturally assumed that
she
was that something. Luckily, though, this assumption did not engender a loss of self-esteem; Margaret was a happy child, loved in all the right and good ways that children need to be loved. Papa O and Cook petted and kissed and hugged her; she was disciplined when such measures were required, praised and rewarded for her successes; the rooms of the house were always teeming with people, so she never suffered from loneliness or neglect.

Her relationship with her mother was one a curious child might have with a rarely glimpsed neighbor living behind shuttered windows. And just as it is the absent guest who excites the most conversation, so it was that Margaret's mother became a great stimulant to her creative powers. She spent much of her young life imagining what was going on in her mother's head, giving voice to her stony silence.

It was not uncommon for Margaret to overhear grown-ups remark what a shame it was that the child looked so much like the father. But she didn't mind. She was proud to be allied with her father, in both her pudgy physique and her sunny disposition. Over time, she came to think of her mother as an ice-hearted queen, a sourpuss with whom no one kept counsel. She was fascinating, but only from a great distance, and only as a tantalizing fiction.

Margaret had two distinct memories involving her mother, two stories that she could have told. Like so many family stories, they had one meaning when viewed through the eyes of a child, but quite another after the veil of childhood was lifted.

In the first memory, Margaret is seven years old and dressed in an ornate shepherdess costume: linen blouse, rose-patterned brocade skirt, maroon bodice with a lace-up front, a bright shawl, a headpiece of silk flowers. Papa O had the costume made for her in Europe, just for her, there is no other like it anywhere in the world, and she is modeling it for him. He is applauding and laughing. He pops a sweet into her
mouth, a rum truffle. He holds out a package. She unwraps it, carefully; she knows there will be something very fragile inside.

It is a small statue of a shepherdess. And look! She is wearing a costume exactly like Margaret's!

"Oh, Papa O!" Margaret cries. "It's beautiful! Thank you!"

She is about to hug him when he stops her.

"But wait, darling. This time when I am gone, I hear from the Sisters and the staff you are such a good girl that I have brought for you
two
figurines. Here."

She opens the second box and brings out a figurine which is an exact duplicate of the first, with one striking difference.

"Isn't it glorious?" Papa O's voice is so soft and low, he sounds like he's at Confession.

"But, Papa. It's all white. There are no colors on this one."

"Ah! That is because the kaolin, the clay in this one, is so pure, so rare, so magnificent, that it requires nothing else. Just form and light. Here. Let us put them both together on this table."

He sets the figurines side by side and then sits down in the armchair again and takes her hands. "Margaret, dear one, I know how much you love your gaudy colors, but here, close you eyes now. Touch them, one with each hand, Can you feel the difference? Can you?"

"Yes," Margaret lies. "I feel the difference."

"Now open your eyes and look. Which one is the original, and which is the copy?"

It is never hard to guess what Papa O wants her to say. And she does so love pleasing him. Margaret points. "This one. And this is the copy."

"Yes, Margaret, yes! So you see," Papa O explains, pulling her into his arms, "they both have value, of course they do. But this one ... ah! This one comes from the purest clay and the finest factory in all the world: Meissen, darling. 1748. Now say it."

"Meissen," Margaret repeats. "1748."

"And this one is from Chelsea, 1753."

"Chelsea."

"Good girl. Remember always, my love, how important it is to recognize purity. Recognize it,
and prize
it. Papa O will not always be here to tell you what is the pure and what is the copy, do you understand?"
Margaret becomes aware of her mother, leaning against the door frame, looking on with her empty expression. "I see you're training the child early," she says.

Margaret's father looks up briefly, smiles, squeezes her even tighter. "She makes a beautiful shepherdess, don't you think, Cassandra?"

"Come see the figurines Papa brought me," Margaret says to her mother. "They are from Meissen and—"

"No thank you, Margaret. I've seen enough of your father's treasures. I'm going to bed."

Years later, many elements of this memory took on a new meaning for Margaret. But what struck her as the most obvious and important thing was the way her father had costumed her—not as the original, but as the object of lesser worth.

The other memory takes place a few years later, early one morning in 1934.

Margaret is dressed for school and eating her breakfast in the sunny atrium. She is waiting for Papa O to join her when she hears her mother's voice. It is hoarse and ragged.

"Margaret! Margaret! Where are you?"

Margaret's mother bursts through the French doors. She must have come from outside, Margaret realizes, incredulous, because the edges of her peignoir are grass-stained and soaked with dew, and because she is clutching the morning newspaper to her chest. Her feet are bare and muddy, and as she steps into the atrium she slips wildly on the tiled floor. Margaret is sure she will fall, but she somehow makes it to the table and stops herself by crashing into it. Behind her is Vidkun, the head butler. He is very pale and frightened.

Cook waddles in with the hot pastries and then stops, her mouth gaping "Missus?"

"Clara," Vidkun says, "Get one of the girls to summon Mr. Hauptmann."

"Where-?"

"He's taking his exercise in the ballroom. Tell him he's needed right away. And call the doctor."

"Yes, sir," Clara says. "Begging your pardon, missus. Here's hot pop-overs, in case you're wanting breakfast today."

"Thank you, Clara." Margaret's mother is tearing frantically through the newspaper, panting. The ink rubs off on her elegant fingers and they start to become smudged and gray. It's as if she is sickening with an insidious and fast-moving plague that turns human skin the color of ash. Vi
dk
un starts to approach her from behind; she senses him, snatches a butter knife, whirls around, and points the knife in his direction. She stares for a few seconds and slows her breath; when she speaks again, her voice is calm.

"Vidkun. I'd like some toast, please. Brown toast with no butter. I would also very much like some time alone with my daughter."

Margaret is astonished. She cannot remember her mother ever expressing such a desire.

"Very well, madame." He walks backward into the kitchen, his receding face the color of flour paste.

"Here it is." She slams the opened newspaper on top of Margaret's eggs and sausages. "Your father is always showing you, teaching you, and now I have something to show you too. Something to teach. You won't find it on the front page, no no no, you'll only find it here, right down here. Look, Margaret, look! In very small print, buried at the bottom of this page. Read it. Read! That expensive education your father is providing should be good for something!"

Margaret hears Papa O's footsteps thundering down the stairs, coming closer. She has never known her father to move this quickly.

"Please, Margaret, please." There are tears in her mother's eyes. "Read, darling."

Margaret isn't able to read much, and what she does read makes little sense. The article is about shops in places whose names are unfamiliar. Breslau, Munich. It is about men with beards. Judges, lawyers. There are other things in the story she does not understand. Storm troopers? Boy cots? And some people it says are tearing the beards of the men. What does that mean?

Papa O arrives. Vidkun and Clara emerge from the kitchen. Margaret's mother sits down at Papa O's place at the table and, with a perfectly composed attitude of decorum, shakes the linen napkin onto her lap.
"Has your mother been troubling you, Margaret?" It is the only time Margaret has ever seen her father angry. She knows he is angry, even though he is not yelling, because his face is purplish red and his voice has sharp edges. "Look what she's done to your lovely breakfast." He removes the newspaper from Margaret's plate and pummels it into a ball. "Mother is sorry. Mother is not feeling well."

"Actually, I'm feeling very well," Margaret's mother says. "I just ordered toast."

Papa O moves across the room. His footfalls are so heavy that the china and fine crystal quiver against one another and make timid ringing sounds. "Mother has one of her headaches and will be going to bed."

"No," Margaret's mother says. "I'm hungry."

"Clara, put this newspaper out with the trash, and please see that Margaret gets a new plate. Come with me, Cassandra."

Margaret's mother and Papa O stare at one another, like a pair of stone lions. And then, without warning, Margaret's mother slowly plucks her linen napkin from her lap and starts stuffing it down her throat.

Papa O rushes toward her. His bulky body blocks her from Margaret's view, but Margaret hears gagging, grunting. Her mother's pale thin arms encircle her father and flail against his massive torso. The shape they make is like a gigantic beetle at war with itself. Vidkun rushes in and is absorbed into the creature. The table jumps up and down, the crystal glasses tip, roll, shatter. Clara hoists Margaret out of her chair and bulldozes her from room to room until she is out the front door and on her way to school.

Margaret's mother did not appear at dinner that night, nor at any meal ever again. Shortly afterward, Margaret arrived home from school to find Papa O's Mercedes-Benz and the doctor's Oldsmobile outside the house and a gathering of somber faces within. Cook put her arms around her and led her to the kitchen. She set her down before a cup of warm milk and ginger snaps, and then gently informed her that the maid who regularly awakened Madame Hauptmann to deliver afternoon tea had found the mistress dead.

"But what happened?" Margaret asked again and again, never satisfied with the answers.

"The mistress died in her sleep," Cook cooed, nestling Margaret in her dumpling arms and stroking her hair. "We should all wish for such a peaceful death."

But what if it wasn't peaceful?
Margaret wondered.
What if she was having a nightmare?

"She had a kind of explosion in her brain," the doctor explained. "You see, Margaret dear, the body cannot survive such an explosion, any more than a building can."

My mother wasn't a building!
Margaret wanted to shout.
Is that the best you can do?

Her school friends hinted that perhaps Margaret's mother, like Catherine in
Wuthering Heights,
had been pining for a lost love and died of nothing more complicated (or less romantic) than a broken heart.

"There was nothing wrong with her heart," Margaret griped. "Whatever killed her was in her
brain."

It wasn't sadness she felt, not exactly; it was frustration. Margaret had been following her mother's bread crumb trail of mystifying behavior, quietly and diligently gathering information and extrapolating on it. She'd expected to follow this trail for years and then one day catch up to her mother and confront her:
See?
she would say.
I
understand now! I know what made you the way you are!
But in dying so suddenly her mother had become a riddle at the gate instead of the road you walked to get there—a too-brief, too-clever construction of memories, impressions, a few facts, and little else.

Of course, Margaret could make a guess. She could answer the riddle in any of a hundred ways, probably. But what if her answer wasn't the right one?

Ultimately it was her father's words that gave her some relief. "Mother had thoughts in her mind that hurt her," he said, in that straightforward way she loved. He never lied to her, never made her feel stupid or babyish. "She put a poison in herself by thinking. Remember this, dear one: Thoughts can be like a sickness. Wrong thoughts in the mind can be as hurtful to the body as bullets."