Other People's Lives (9 page)

“Oh my God! Look at this! I almost forgot!” she said, beaming again and pointing with pudgy, outspread hands to the carefully arranged table. “I don't want you to think I'm dogmatic, and I wouldn't want you to get the idea, especially
you,
Julia darling, that I would ever interfere with anyone's free choice, but this is one thing—
one thing
that I absolutely have to insist on. Honey! With
Lapsang Souchong,
if you put sugar in it, you might just as well pour it down the drain.”

Still sneezy and sniffling, Maria began pouring out the tea, carefully holding and turning the strainer as if it were either a total novelty or else an object she hadn't seen for so long a time that it might be calling up memories.

“Yucch, Mommy,” Matthew said, as the steam rose from the teapot and the cups. “It smells like bacon.”

“Oh, Maria! He's so
sensitive.
It's not as if I believe in heredity, everybody
knows
the difference that environment and exposure makes—otherwise what would be the point of it all! But just look at him! Listen to him! He's just like Dennis. Even his
nose
is sensitive!”

Maria said, “My nose is stopped off. Stopped up? And I can't smell anything. How can it be like bacon?”

“Because it's
smoked,
Maria. That's what's so specially marvelous about
Lapsang Souchong.
It has a wonderful distinct smoky aroma. And taste! So just don't anybody ask me for sugar because it's the honey that brings it out. Here!”

Rebecca put the jar of honey on the table. Louise saw no sunlight in the room, but a slow, golden, streamy, comfortable reverie: honey in a jar. There was no sunlight in the room but this leaden, brown, sticky syrup—a hot, sick, fevered, gluey ball. This sun was diseased and tropical, quarantined in a glass jar. “
Cordon Sanitaire
”—a technique conceived and named by Marcel Proust's father, a neat, precise French doctor, efficient and disciplined for the public good. A small man, probably, with a beard or mustache which he curled or pulled at, a characteristic gesture left over from his student days. In his high-ceilinged, large, neat, official room—bureaucratic, but his—he pulled at his mustache and puzzled over methods to improve life for people he would never know. And possibly didn't care to. At home, his small son choked, sneezed, drank tea with lime-flavored cookies, and dreamed and dreamed constantly in his own private
cordon sanitaire.
He had no regard at all for the public good.

“I'll have it open for you in one minute, don't worry,” Rebecca said as she struggled, banging and trying to turn the top of the sticky honey jar.

“You could run it under hot water,” Matthew said.

“I know, darling. Isn't he sweet? I always said you were sweet, Matthew. But with the way that boiler is working in there, by the time the water gets hot your tea'll be cold. Just don't get impatient and don't go looking for sugar.”

Julie said, “White sugar is very bad for you.”

“Oh, darling!” Rebecca said, throwing out her arms and immediately ending all her efforts with the honey jar. “I knew we'd agree! You're a wonderful girl and you have a wonderful mother—you were a
baby
practically when she wrote that book! So how could you have understood? In fact, you were probably the baby she wrote it
for.
Not that I want you to get the idea that your mother could
ever
have been the kind of person who would do a thing like that! Who could limit her interests and concerns to her own uterus. That would have gone against the grain of everything she believed in and worked for for years!”

“That's I think
too
much honey, Matthew, angel,” Maria said. She had, with almost no one noticing it, opened the honey jar, swiftly turning the top with the frayed end of her raincoat.

“Oh, Maria, thank you, dear. I don't know why I didn't think of asking you. You have the most marvelous hands. Just like Dennis. He has the most marvelous feet.”

Louise waited for Maria to say: Not any more, he doesn't. But instead she scratched some honey strands from the lining of her raincoat and said, “I teach him always hot water because I am afraid with banging there could be sometimes broken glass. Little pieces. It happened to me sometimes when I am too impatient.”

Rebecca said, “Julia, darling, now I
know
you'll understand what I mean. All the things parents have to think about and take into consideration. That's why what your mother did was so brave and heroic and absolutely idealistic.”

Julie spooned the honey into her tea and, examining the jar, said, “I don't know if it's natural.”

“But, darling! Of
course
it's natural. What you just don't understand is the climate of those times. It's too far away for you. When your mother wrote that book, it was the Age of Conformity. And I'm not just talking about gray flannel suits! What I'm talking about is all those people who got caught up—they couldn't help themselves—in the whole trend and sway and spirit of the times. Not that
I
got trapped into it even then. Because it always seemed escapist and reactionary to me. And that's all that was going
on
then—flight into the suburbs! Your own
lawn.
Your own
house.
Your own
psyche.
Your own little
garden—
and for some people, not so little! And
that,
Julia darling, was what your mother was up against! Forget the city and live in the trees! And these were genuinely progressive people, not just ordinary
shtunks!…
So
your
mother got the idea that if she could only
show
people,
explain
to them that if what they wanted was greens and the gratification of making something grow, you could do it in your own apartment. In the city. And you didn't have to run and flee! Because it's nothing new, everybody knows: since when is flight an answer?”

Rebecca stopped, took a long, resonating swallow of the tea which was now cold, and, opening her mouth again, exuded an odor which seemed to Louise like fish gone rancid. “Of course they were all very foolish to give up their old rent-controlled apartments, even
with
the increases. Though that's something your mother didn't mention. Not that she could have known it
then,
especially with her emphasis on plants—as if anyone could make a life out of pots and leaves! Although you should see all the nurseries around here! And the way people are taken
in
by them!”

“It's the same I think with the new flower stores, planting stores in the city. Cheatings only for what you can do yourself.”

“Of
course,
darling! Why do you think her mother's book was reissued? Capitalism! Consumption! And she
still
didn't mention a word about all those people who gave up their rent-controlled apartments. And believe me, are they jealous! I know! I'll
never
give up what we have, even
with
the increases—and of
course
landlords are bloodsuckers! They always were and they always will be. And everyone knows, especially the
young
people in my building who are wonderful and brave and forthright and outspoken, and it's pathetic! Because they know absolutely zero. And they keep on expecting the whole world to just fall into their laps the way their parents did!”

Maria said, “Rebecca, I still don't understand. What book? What did Julie's mother do?”

Julie looked around at Louise and Maria. “You mean you haven't heard of it? You haven't even seen the ads? It's called
Green Thoughts and Other City Surprises,
” Julie said bitterly. “
That's
my mother's book!” and slumping back, she suddenly looked to Louise as sallow as her olive-drab jacket.

“
Well,
Julia, darling! I see at least you memorized the title! It must mean something to you. I don't know what else you ever memorized in your life! And it's obvious that you don't even know where the title came from!” Rebecca was standing up now and focusing on Julie, her face again purple and her eyes enlarged.

“I think I probably never had such tea, Rebecca,” Maria said. “I wish only my God-damn nose wasn't stopped and I could smell it. It's definitely very good. I'm drinking more and more and still no aroma, God damn it!”

Julie said, “Me, too. I'm drinking too much, I have to pee. Elimination is right for your body.”

Rebecca said nothing; her expression had not changed. In the silence, which no one knew what to do with—only hailstones clapped against the windows in the useless, drugged safety of Ping-Pong balls in the lounge at Birch Hill-Rebecca continued to stare at Julie as if she could force her into paying attention. “Green thoughts,” she drew out deliberately. “A green thought?” It was not a hint, but a test.

Julie did not exactly get up, but began to move her body off the chair in a hollow, lithe, collapsible way that seemed both lazy and well executed at the same time. Clearly she believed that her legs themselves would lead her to the bathroom, though Louise could see no sign of where it might be.

Rebecca said, “No. Of course not. You don't know. You don't even have the vaguest idea of what I'm talking about. Why should you? You might have had to
learn
something! You might have had to read a poem! It's your own mother's book—I don't know whether to be furious or just disheartened. ‘A green thought in a green shade'—it's from a poem by Andrew Marvell. ‘The Garden.' Green! Hope! So that people could keep their hopes and their beliefs and not run away! And not turn their backs on society that needs them! Or go looking for phony prestige in big lawns and commuter trains! And
that's
what your mother meant, Julia! You
can't
turn your back. Because no man is an island! And even though Manhattan
is,
there's no reason why you can't make it pleasant and beautiful and as
green
as you want it. Not that she was saying it's Paradise. Because life never is—though that's all
you're
ever looking for! Because even up here, where it
is
Paradise, there are still drawbacks…”

“Green thoughts and green shades I think I
did
hear about,” Maria said. “When I was putting out the garbage, the newspapers. Because Matthew doesn't like to—I
know,
baby, angel, but if you leave them, there come only more roaches. And newspapers you must keep always separate. Anyway, I didn't realize, Julie, that it was your mother. I didn't know the picture. I didn't meet ever your mother. I only once spoke to her on the telephone.”

How had Julie's mother looked in the newspaper? Like Elisabeth? So that only if you knew her could you realize who it was? Or if you did recognize her instantly despite the purposeful subterfuge, would you still not have the slightest inkling of who she had once been or what her life was like?

Julie said, “The picture was probably terrific. Now all you have to do is get it together with the voice on the phone. Which is more than she ever did.”

“There's nothing I can say to you any more, Julia. Because I'm sure that Maria would come to an entirely different conclusion! In fact, I'm surprised that you
don't
know her, Maria, because she's always had so many friends and so many interests and you and Dennis were—”

“Because she's always taken such a big interest in my life!” Julie burst out.

“And she's an absolutely marvelous person, Maria, and you would love her! And in fact I even know the exact article and the exact interview you have in mind! It was in the
Post,
right? In the ‘At Home' section? Where they have an interview and a picture and a recipe?”

Maria shrugged. “I don't remember, really. I saw it in the garbage only.”

“Well, I do! I remember it perfectly!
Perfectly!
Because that's one of those things about me, and people are always remarking on it! And I know that's one of the first things that's supposed to go—your memory. And even Simone de
Beau
voir says so—and by the way, Julia, it's supposed to start at twenty-five, so don't think you're going to last like this forever! Although your
mother's
memory couldn't be that bad!” Rebecca's coloring began rising suspiciously. “Because it was
my
recipe she gave in that interview! Danish duck in wine sauce! That interview in the
Post
where you're supposed to be giving your own very
special
recipe. To show your own private,
characteristic
style of entertaining!”

Julie said, “My mother never cooked anything in her life. Except maybe steak. Or lamb chops. Her whole trip is cleaning.
You
know—throw it away, get rid of it.”

“Well, maybe she never
cooked
anything, but she definitely ate it! And I know where, too—in
my
house! And with my memory, I can probably even figure out
when!
Years and years ago, when I used to give those enormous, fantastic fund-raising dinners that everybody came to and everybody talked about! Because people still remember those dinners of mine, they made a tremendous impression. And in some cases, how
much
of an impression I didn't realize till I saw my own recipe staring right up at me under someone's else's face in the newspaper! Not that it makes any difference to me if she gets the credit—I'm very flattered! I'm only sorry that all those people who are going to cut out that recipe from the paper never had the chance to eat it when
I
made it. Because you have to really love
food—
for its own sake—to really do it right. Just like anything else in life. And food—it
gives
you life! I don't mean alone—so don't start up with me, Julia. You're not the first one to figure out that material things aren't everything! And I remember when lots of people were
really
hungry, and don't think I don't know that there are plenty of people who still are! Just tell me one thing, darling. How does it taste when your mother makes it?”