Fierce Attachments: A Memoir (8 page)
Read Fierce Attachments: A Memoir Online
Authors: Vivian Gornick
At the funeral parlor she tried to climb into the coffin. At the cemetery she tried to fling herself into the open grave. There were other moments at the funeral worthy of permanent record—my brother passed out, I looked so long into the casket I had to be pulled away, a political comrade announced at the grave that my father had been a wage slave in this America—but these moments are without clarity
or sharpness of outline. They pall in memory beside the brilliant relentlessness of Mama’s derangement.
or sharpness of outline. They pall in memory beside the brilliant relentlessness of Mama’s derangement.
The day of the funeral seemed to go on for ten days. There were never less than a dozen people wandering around the apartment. My mother lay on the couch weeping and fainting. One by one, each man and each woman in the apartment took a turn at her side, stared helplessly at her for a few minutes, assured her the worst that could happen had indeed happened, and then instructed her. This was
life.
There was nothing anyone could
do.
She had to gather herself to
gether
. And go
on
. That said, he or she would rise in relief and head for the kitchen, where there were always two to four women waiting to serve a cup of coffee, a bowl of soup, a plate of meat and vegetables. (I remember no cooking. Prepared food appeared magically every day. )
life.
There was nothing anyone could
do.
She had to gather herself to
gether
. And go
on
. That said, he or she would rise in relief and head for the kitchen, where there were always two to four women waiting to serve a cup of coffee, a bowl of soup, a plate of meat and vegetables. (I remember no cooking. Prepared food appeared magically every day. )
The kitchen was by far the most interesting place to be. Invariably, two of the women were my aunt Sarah and Mrs. Zimmerman, each of whom had less than a loving attachment to her own husband and certainly considered marriage an affliction. Both, however, had been silenced by my mother’s awesome performance. Except every now and then irrepressible Mrs. Zimmerman, stirring her own soup at the stove, would mutter, “She lays there crying like a lunatic. If I would come home and find mine dead, it would be a blessing.” Sarah would remain silent but someone else in the kitchen, another aunt, a cousin, a friend (why did it always seem to be a woman in a black hat with a dotted veil?), would reprimand Mrs. Zimmerman. “Please, missus!” she’d say.
“She
is not
you.
And a
little respect for the dead, if you don’t mind.” Mrs. Zimmerman would flush deeply and open her mouth wide, but before a sound came out Sarah would lay a hand on her arm and beg that there not be a scene. I’d be at the table, sitting on the wooden bench, often in the crook of Nettie’s arm. Animated by the exchange, I’d be disappointed by Sarah’s interference. Then Nettie’s head would drop, and I’d feel her mouth smiling into my hair. It was as good as if Mrs. Zimmerman had spoken. And shortly, Mrs. Zimmerman did speak. And another tart response cut the air.
“She
is not
you.
And a
little respect for the dead, if you don’t mind.” Mrs. Zimmerman would flush deeply and open her mouth wide, but before a sound came out Sarah would lay a hand on her arm and beg that there not be a scene. I’d be at the table, sitting on the wooden bench, often in the crook of Nettie’s arm. Animated by the exchange, I’d be disappointed by Sarah’s interference. Then Nettie’s head would drop, and I’d feel her mouth smiling into my hair. It was as good as if Mrs. Zimmerman had spoken. And shortly, Mrs. Zimmerman did speak. And another tart response cut the air.
I didn’t know that not every woman who had lost a husband would be carrying on like Mama, but I did know that the conversation in the kitchen was immensely interesting. One spoke sharply, another speculatively, a third imperiously. The talk was hard and bright, gave the room charge and intensity. Nettie, of course, hardly spoke at all but her body, often in close contact with mine, spoke for her, its speech hidden, restless, amused. I couldn’t figure out what was going on in the kitchen, but the responsiveness among the women told me this was a live issue. And the way they dived in! I loved it. Felt nourished and protected, delighted and relieved by it. I remember, especially, the relief.
There was no softness anywhere, not in the kitchen or in the living room, no bland or soothing element on which to heal yourself, or even rub a wound. Still, the difference between the living room and the kitchen was the difference between suffocation and survival. The living room was all monotonous dread, congealed and airless. Here you
took a deep breath, held it until you were smothering, then either got out or went under. In the kitchen there was pitch and tone, the atmosphere fell and rose, dwindled away, churned itself up again. There was movement and space, light and air. You could breathe. You could live.
took a deep breath, held it until you were smothering, then either got out or went under. In the kitchen there was pitch and tone, the atmosphere fell and rose, dwindled away, churned itself up again. There was movement and space, light and air. You could breathe. You could live.
Nettie was around much of the time. Around me, not Mama. She hovered in the doorway or the foyer, sat down shyly in the kitchen, but rarely did she enter the living room. All those respectable Jewish women: she couldn’t make her way past them to Mama. Once in a while she’d cross the threshold and stand there like a child, twisting her hands behind her back. My mother would have to spot her, stretch out her arm and wail, “Nettie! I’ve lost my beloved!” before Nettie felt free (that is, commanded) to rush over, fall to her knees beside the couch, and burst into tears herself.
With me, however, she felt not only free but equal and necessary. She sat with me on the kitchen bench, her arm slung around my neck in an easy embrace, combing my hair with her long fingers. We both knew she had neither the wisdom nor the authority to ease my anxiety (she wasn’t even a confidante, she’d always talked more easily to me than I to her), but she could become another orphan, snuggle down companionably with me as she had with Richie, give me the consolation of her warm, helpless body.
Something else began to happen during those funeral-week hours we shared on the kitchen bench. When the women talked about men and marriage, and I felt Nettie’s secret smile in my hair and she stifling her laughter against my back, a disturbing excitement ran through me. She
knew something no one else in the room knew, and I could feel her wanting to pull me into her knowledge, have me join her there, become her true friend.
knew something no one else in the room knew, and I could feel her wanting to pull me into her knowledge, have me join her there, become her true friend.
The invitation lay in the movement of her body against mine, its freedom and its intimacy. Her motions were rhythmic, her embrace reassuring. She stroked my hair and my shoulder. I felt soothed and sedated. I leaned into her. Her touch began to seem insistent. I felt myself being pulled. Toward what I didn’t know. It was as though Nettie stood at the mouth of something dark and soft, drawing me on, her body saying to me: Come. Don’t be afraid. I’ll pull you through. A dreamy, spreading blur dissolved in my head, my chest. I drowsed against her: open willing aroused.
Suddenly terror prickled on my skin. I felt myself pitching forward, headfirst. The soft dark place was a black void. And she? Who was she? Just a secret-smiling girl-woman, a big kid herself. When we traded fantasies I always felt older. If I went into the dark with her we’d be two kids in there, alone together. How could I trust her? She was no one to trust. My body stiffened in her embrace. She started up, as lost in the hypnotic moment as I, bewildered and alarmed by the suddenness of my withdrawal.
“I want to go see Mama,” I said.
Easy as a cat, Nettie’s eyes went opaque, her neck grew long, she rearranged her arms and legs. I was free to leave the table.
In the living room I sank to the floor beside my mother, who immediately pressed my head into her breasts. Her strong arms held me, her moans convulsed me. In a matter
of seconds the power of Nettie’s drowsy allure had been dissipated. I shivered inside myself as though I had made a narrow escape. My anxiety felt cold and scummy. I let Mama crush me against her hot chest. I did not resist. Mama was where I belonged. With Mama the issue was clear: I had trouble breathing but I was safe.
of seconds the power of Nettie’s drowsy allure had been dissipated. I shivered inside myself as though I had made a narrow escape. My anxiety felt cold and scummy. I let Mama crush me against her hot chest. I did not resist. Mama was where I belonged. With Mama the issue was clear: I had trouble breathing but I was safe.
It rained earlier in the day and now, at one in the afternoon, for a minute and a half, New York is washed clean. The streets glitter in the pale spring sunlight. Cars radiate dust-free happiness. Storefront windows sparkle mindlessly. Even people look made anew.
We’re walking down Eighth Avenue into the Village. At the corner of Eighth and Greenwich is a White Tower hamburger joint, where a group of derelicts in permanent residence entertain visiting out-of-towners from Fourteenth Street, Chelsea, even the Bowery. This afternoon the party on the corner, often raucous, is definitely on the gloomy side, untouched by weather renewal. As we pass the restaurant doors, however, one gentleman detaches from the group, takes two or three uncertain steps, and bars our way. He stands, swaying, before us. He is black, somewhere between twenty-five and sixty. His face is cut and swollen, the eyelids three-quarters shut. His hair is a hundred filthy matted little pigtails, his pants are held up by a piece of rope, his shoes are two sizes too large, the
feet inside them bare. So is his chest, visible beneath a grimy tweed coat that swings open whenever he moves. This creature confronts us, puts out his hand palm up, and speaks.
feet inside them bare. So is his chest, visible beneath a grimy tweed coat that swings open whenever he moves. This creature confronts us, puts out his hand palm up, and speaks.
“Can you ladies let me have a thousand dollars for a martini?” he inquires.
My mother looks directly into his face. “I know we’re in an inflation,” she says, “but a thousand dollars for a martini?”
His mouth drops. It’s the first time in God knows how long that a mark has acknowledged his existence. “You’re beautiful,” he burbles at her. “Beautiful.”
“Look on him,” she says to me in Yiddish. “Just look on him.”
He turns his bleary eyelids in my direction. “Whad-she-say?” he demands. “Whad-she-say?”
“She said you’re breaking her heart,” I tell him.
“She-say-that?” His eyes nearly open. “She-say-that?”
I nod. He whirls at her. “Take me home and make love to me,” he croons, and right there in the street, in the middle of the day, he begins to bay at the moon. “I need you,” he howls at my mother and doubles over, his fist in his stomach. “I need you.”
She nods at him. “I need too,” she says dryly. “Fortunately or unfortunately, it is not you I need.” And she propels me around the now motionless derelict. Paralyzed by recognition, he will no longer bar our progress down the street.
We cross Abingdon Square and walk into Bleecker Street. The gentrified West Village closes around us, makes us not peaceful but quiet. We walk through block after block
of antique stores, gourmet shops, boutiques, not speaking. But for how long can my mother and I not speak?
of antique stores, gourmet shops, boutiques, not speaking. But for how long can my mother and I not speak?
“So I’m reading the biography you gave me,” she says. I look at her, puzzled, and then I remember. “Oh!” I smile in wide delight. “Are you enjoying it?”
“Listen,” she begins. The smile drops off my face and my stomach contracts. That “listen” means she is about to trash the book I gave her to read. She is going to say, “What. What’s here? What’s here that I don’t already know? I
lived
through it. I know it all. What can this writer tell me that I don’t already know? Nothing. To you it’s interesting, but to me? How can this be interesting to me?”
lived
through it. I know it all. What can this writer tell me that I don’t already know? Nothing. To you it’s interesting, but to me? How can this be interesting to me?”
On and on she’ll go, the way she does when she thinks she doesn’t understand something and she’s scared, and she’s taking refuge in scorn and hypercriticality.
The book I gave her to read is a biography of Josephine Herbst, a thirties writer, a stubborn willful raging woman grabbing at politics and love and writing, in there punching until the last minute.
“Listen,” my mother says now in the patronizing tone she thinks conciliatory. “Maybe this is interesting to you, but not to me. I lived through all this. I know it all. What can I learn from this? Nothing. To you it’s interesting. Not to me.”
Invariably, when she speaks so, my head fills with blood and before the sentences have stopped pouring from her mouth I am lashing out at her. “You’re an ignoramus, you know nothing, only a know-nothing talks the way you do. The point of having lived through it, as you say, is only that the background is familiar, so the book is made richer, not that you could have written the book. People a thousand
times more educated than you have read and learned from this book, but you can’t learn from it?” On and on I would go, thoroughly ruining the afternoon for both of us.
times more educated than you have read and learned from this book, but you can’t learn from it?” On and on I would go, thoroughly ruining the afternoon for both of us.
However, in the past year an odd circumstance has begun to obtain. On occasion, my head fails to fill with blood. I become irritated but remain calm. Not falling into a rage, I do not make a holocaust of the afternoon. Today, it appears, one of those moments is upon us. I turn to my mother, throw my left arm around her still solid back, place my right hand on her upper arm, and say, “Ma, if this book is not interesting to you, that’s fine. You can say that.” She looks coyly at me, eyes large, head half-turned; now she’s interested. “But don’t say it has nothing to teach you. That there’s nothing here. That’s unworthy of you, and of the book, and of me. You demean us all when you say that.” Listen to me. Such wisdom. And all of it gained ten minutes ago.
Silence. Long silence. We walk another block. Silence. She’s looking off into that middle distance. I take my lead from her, matching my steps to hers. I do not speak, do not press her. Another silent block.
“That Josephine Herbst,” my mother says. “She certainly carried on, didn’t she?”
Relieved and happy, I hug her. “She didn’t know what she was doing either, Ma, but yes, she carried on.”
“I’m jealous,” my mother blurts at me. “I’m jealous she lived her life, I didn’t live mine.”
Mama went to work five weeks after my father died. He had left us two thousand dollars. To work or not to work was not a debatable question. But it’s hard to imagine what would have happened if economic necessity had not forced her out of the house. As it was, it seemed to me that she lay on a couch in a half-darkened room for twenty-five years with her hand across her forehead murmuring, “I can’t.” Even though she could, and did.
She pulled on her girdle and her old gray suit, stepped into her black suede chunky heels, applied powder and lipstick to her face, and took the subway downtown to an employment agency where she got a job clerking in an office for twenty-eight dollars a week. After that, she rose each morning, got dressed and drank coffee, made out a grocery list for me, left it together with money on the kitchen table, walked four blocks to the subway station, bought the
Times,
read it on the train, got off at Forty-second Street, entered her office building, sat down at her desk, put in a day’s work, made the trip home at five o’clock, came in the apartment door, slumped onto the kitchen bench for supper, then onto the couch where she instantly sank into a depression she welcomed like a warm bath. It was as though she had worked all day to earn the despair waiting faithfully for her at the end of her unwilling journey into daily life.
Times,
read it on the train, got off at Forty-second Street, entered her office building, sat down at her desk, put in a day’s work, made the trip home at five o’clock, came in the apartment door, slumped onto the kitchen bench for supper, then onto the couch where she instantly sank into a depression she welcomed like a warm bath. It was as though she had worked all day to earn the despair waiting faithfully for her at the end of her unwilling journey into daily life.
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