The Illusion of Separateness (6 page)

I thought of Grandpa John.

It’s late afternoon in England. He’s in the conservatory. It’s raining. Soft thuds on the glass. My grandmother’s steps keep him going. The memory of her steps keeps him going.

He’s watering his plants.

Classical music is on.

During the war, he had a gun in someone’s mouth. The man was trying to scream. A burst lip from the pushing metal. Eyes watering with fear and rage.

JOHN

FRANCE,

1944

I.

J
OHN
B
RAY FELL
silently through the night sky, his body less than it ever was, his life a collage devoid of single meaning.

The impact was so intense that John mistook his panic for death itself. Smoke and freezing air filled the cabin. The B-24 nosed into a dive. He formed a ladder with the syllables of his wife’s name. Each syllable a rung closer to her, but further from God. A moment before jumping, John realized his leg was on fire and then a sudden freeze and darkness that meant he had made it. He tore at the harness, no time to count, he pulled at everything.

The navigator lived long enough to release his parachute, then fell without moving, a ring of stars in each eye. The others were captured or died from injuries soon after landing.

As the canopy spread and swung wildly, John feared for an instant that he was still attached to the aircraft. Then he looked around and saw nothing. He gripped the straps until his hands went numb. Breathing was quick and his lungs bled with cold. One of his feet was badly injured. A dense throb as though his heart had fallen into his boot.

He was still saying the word
Harriet
long after he’d forgotten he was doing it. Shaken loose from the association of memory, it was an awkward sound with no meaning.

He knew the enemy would find wings, the fuselage, bits of wire, a tail section, small fires.

He might never see Harriet again. They were married but had not yet lived together as man and wife. He might never see the diner where he grew up, or the street upon which he had played baseball and ridden his bicycle. He might never see the dog, or pet it on his way upstairs. He might never go out for ice cream on summer nights with his new wife in sandals, never stand in line at the post office, or ask to borrow the car. He would never stroll the boardwalk at Coney Island, and his dream of living with Harriet, kissing over tea at Lord & Taylor, dancing at the Palace, dizzy with happiness, would end before it had even begun.

His life was here now in the dark, in the emptiness, drifting through the air over Belgium or France.

It no longer mattered where.

Everything that happened to him from this moment on would be an encore.

JOHN

L
ONG
I
SLAND,

1939

II.

T
HE DINER WAS
full of large parties. The air swirled in currents of smoke and laughter. Outside: Plymouths, Packards, and Fords held life in the haunches of their gleaming coats.

John clearing dishes. His mother’s voice saying good-bye in the distance. The register and its tight bell. The smell of syrup. The fire of yolk over white plates. Uneaten crusts of toast. A single fork under the table. The ashtrays completely full. And somebody has forgotten a coat.

John lifted it from the back of the chair.

He or she would soon return with cold hands and the car running outside with the door open.

The coat was long with a belt. It was soft and possessed of a scent that seemed to lift him. It filled his body and was strongest on the collar. There were hairs, too, streaks of honey in waves upon the wool.

John took the coat into the staff room, and buried his face in the fabric. He held it against his body, to get an idea of her size. A name tag sewn below the collar spelled out her name, and like a vein, it pulsed beneath his fingers.

H
arriet wasn’t serious about John at first. He was three years younger and doted on her. But then after the attack on Pearl Harbor, she considered what her life would be like if he was sent to fight.

She harnessed the passion she had withheld and proposed marriage on a day trip to Montauk. It was what they both wanted. The sky was blue and cloudless. After lunch they watched seagulls. Fishing boats. Bristling lines of white frothed against the bow.

Across the ocean, Europe smoldered.

J
ohn found basic training difficult. It also hurt to be away. He couldn’t do a lot of the things they wanted. He was told he would have to kill—would have to cross a field of guts to come home. John could tell that some of the others were ready, and it reassured him that one day he might be, too.

On Sundays he rode a bicycle into the countryside near the base, with a sketchbook and pencils. He sent Harriet his drawings of plants and never signed his letters. In the evenings he dressed and went into town in search of music. His superiors sometimes recognized him and waved from the orchestra section.

He stayed up late with the other men playing cards and smoking cigarettes. He showed the picture of Harriet at Coney Island, and looked at it before bed. He never felt alone and always had someone to help when his weapon jammed during rifle practice.

John was well liked at home, too. His family had owned a diner for twenty-four years. He worked there after school for tips. He had a lifetime of stories. Pilots from Garden City would come in on their way back to Manhattan. Others drove for miles just to taste his mother’s brisket.

The only fights John had in high school got as far as him being pushed over. He played clarinet in band. He collected stamps and kept them in a shoe box.

His parents were quiet people. During the Depression, families they didn’t recognize came in and ate quickly without talking. When the check arrived, it was always the same: fathers rifling through pockets for wallets that must have been dropped, lost, or even left in the pew at church.

John’s parents always gave the same answer. “Next time, then.” They figured it was going on all over the country, and had agreed never to humiliate a man in front of his children.

In the years following the Depression, John remembers his father calling him over to the counter from time to time as he sorted the day’s mail. Sometimes the envelopes would include a letter, and once a photograph of a house with children standing in front of it. But mostly they just contained checks for the exact amount of the meal, folded once, and with no return address.

John’s father worked hard and listened to everything his wife said, even if he disagreed. He never raised his voice and liked to go to Mitchell Field to watch airplanes land.

The worst event of John’s childhood was when his little cousin Jean got polio. She was taken away one morning and came back a year later in the body of an old woman.

JOHN

FRAN
CE,

1944

III.

I
N THE DISTANCE,
sudden flare-ups of light. The crackle of guns. John wondered where their B-24 had hit the ground. The flash of impact. He thought of his crew and tried to remember wives or mothers. He imagined a field of wreckage and the farmer for years to come, tripping on twists of charred metal. The pieces would sit in a bucket and outlive everyone involved.

He remembered that his pistol was still under the navigator’s seat along with his wallet. Harriet would have rolled her eyes. “Typical John.”

Then another shade of black that meant ground. He hit too soon to prepare and lost feeling in his injured foot. The ground was softer than he remembered at training because Europe is wetter.

John collected his billowing canopy and looked for a place to hide it. The sky glowed with dawn.

Then shapes appeared in the distance, dark figures approaching. He dropped his parachute and ran. Sharp pain forked up his torso; parts of his body dragged because he couldn’t feel them. He ran for other shadows ahead, dense, motionless, ancient.

He imagined he was running for Harriet’s coat in the forest before him. Leaves stuck to the wool, a hand appears, then arms, shoulders and the breathless climb to her neck. He would feel for the collar, then thread his life through the loops and hollows of her name.

The ground was thick with fallen leaves. If he could burrow, he had a chance. He must die and come back to life. He would recite the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud by simply declaring the name of someone he loved. He would trap the contents of his life in the safety of a single word, like a bubble in the sea.

H
arriet was a young wife. She lay under sheets without moving.

Moonlight washed over her bed and chair.

The street outside was quiet, but the silence unbearable.

She could not feel the mud stuffed into John’s mouth to prevent a fatal sneeze or cough, or the mess of shattered bones in his foot.

Instead she crept downstairs and built a large fire.

Her father woke to the snap of flames. He grabbed his robe and rushed out of the bedroom. The house glowed with the heat of his daughter’s blaze, but he stopped halfway on the stairs, hypnotized by the flickering shadows and by the outline of his crying child.

He imagined the fighting overseas. The flashes and the cries. He could taste it in his mouth.

And as he stood there, not moving, his heart opened upon the many fields of dead, with their helmets on and their eyes pretending to see.

Love is also a violence, and cannot be undone.

MR. HUGO

MANCHESTER, ENGLAN
D,

2010

I.

1948.
W
OKE UP
screaming in a Paris hospital.

Soon after—sent to another ward where people walked around. Played games. Stared out the windows. Lay on the floor.

I learned to watch others for clues.

I had to watch, because I understood nothing.

I waited to eat. I waited for night.

Night came.

I waited for day.

First light.

Day.

I kept touching where my head should have been. I wanted to know why and understood nothing. I said nothing but watched all.

I nodded yes. I went along with all.

I was afraid and had nowhere else to go. I wondered about outside. I wondered from where I was.

Later on I was taken to the hospital garden. Amazed by wind. Wanted to be alone to watch people passing. There were so many people outside the hospital. I couldn’t believe it. Thought we were the main ones.

Years passed. I started to understand what they said. The same sounds over and over. I got used to them. I learned them and used them, too.

I spoke and understood some.

Paris liberated seven years ago, they said.

Everyone had a story. Nurse just a girl, father tortured.

I had been shot in the face, they said, and showed pictures of me in a magazine:

Years tossed things upon the shore. Souvenirs of what was.

Knew the faces of those I had slaughtered but said nothing. You have to understand that I was one of
those
: hated.

I remember the gray sleeves. Could feel the weight of a rifle. The helmets got cool at night. Buildings on fire. Flames drowned out the screaming. Watching calmly as a man scoops up the remains of his child with such gentleness we thought she was asleep.

There was a time before when I was a boy.

One memory is of a man with ropes in his hands, bumps of hot soup against my lips, then the bowl crashing to the kitchen floor. Soup fills the cracks beneath. Pieces of the broken bowl like teeth.

Father maybe.

A
nother memory is an open door. The smell of mud. Delicate, wet feet. Bare feet. A woman is outside. An open door. Mud. A woman is out there. Buried. Find her, I’m telling myself,
find her
. But it’s a dream.

Mother maybe.

I
t took years to speak again. My French was not perfect. But any sound was a miracle.

It wasn’t an easy life in there, but not bad. Other patients kept me company, and there were always others coming and going. Some liked talking. Some lay on the floor and wouldn’t get up. Some smashed their heads against the wall so there was blood. Then nurses running. A struggle. Injection anywhere. Carried away in sleep.

One day they said I had to go. I packed a bag with my clothes, shoes, and soap. My name was written on the case (in case).

Driven to Gare du Nord. Sat in Gare du Nord. Slept in Gare du Nord. Beaten in Gare du Nord.

I found petrified bread in the bins and drank from a tap. Mostly I sat watching. The clap of the timetable. Even at night, in darkness, the applause of letters falling.

I slept under newspapers. Hid in the stories of others.

At night, I watched distant lights grow into bright eyes. Trains approaching. Then in summer, there were tourists and the gendarmes made us leave. I went outside and lived on the streets then. No more applause. No more beating. No more wet platforms or bright eyes.

Outside was okay. There were so many others. The sky very open. Unlimited breathing, I thought.

I used to watch the river. A cool muscle. There were always boats in the rippling with music inside. People dancing. No sound except rushing. I couldn’t see the river at night but heard it. Couples walked along its banks. The rhythm of shoes. Chains of lamplight flickering on the water.

Also, the sound of laughter. Children up late, pointing, shouting back to their parents, then running, not away but deeper: happiness, not fear.

P
eople were always staring, of course. You can imagine. Who can blame them? Half a man’s head is missing. From one side I looked normal. Like before but with no memory of before. Then I, Mr. Hugo, turn my head, people gasp. Afraid of what is
not there
. From the front my eyes look okay, my neck looks fine—but then suddenly half a head is missing, and did I mention that I have only one ear?

I didn’t mind sitting. I got numb, but it was quiet. I waited for night. Night came. I fought to keep warm. With the armor of dawn came relief. I watched day unfold from inside, then slept where sunlight pooled.

Anyone who is desperate or alone will agree there is comfort in routine.

I hit the usual benches, boulevards. Notre Dame. The cinemas were safe for sleeping if you didn’t get caught. Parks were safe, too, if others joined. There was one park we all knew, where a small boy, a baker’s boy, came running (young thief), with a sack of croissants, chocolate buns, bread, tarts, whatever he grabbed. We gobbled. Always gave me extra, and didn’t mind my head. Ate fast, we all did—despite the agony of teeth.

I liked mornings there. I felt light. I glanced up even—to Him. I talked quietly to Him. I felt Him listening.
Lost my way
, I told Him. But He knows. Was there when it happened.

I started to stop at every church. I hunched below colored windows, and drowned in stories of mankind. Some faces drawn in the glass had small but powerful eyes. Sometimes a priest would come and sit with me, talk to me, touch my hand. It felt nice. I wondered if His hand touches all, or if ours touch His. I remembered then, books in an attic. Small hands. Forbidden but they crawled through boxes anyway. Boxes of books and other boxes. Then I thought of the boy who brings cakes to the park for us. I wanted to boast to the priest. I felt proud to know someone like that, he knows Him, but I know Someone, too. A child with the power to save us.

There were always men beside the river. In summer we were there all night. Some had red faces and staggered when they stood. I was offered drink and something to smoke. But it wasn’t allowed at the hospital, so I wasn’t used to it. It was the right idea sitting under bridges, though. There were many shady places away from the crowd. It was cool in summer, with my back against the stone. I didn’t mind being alone. I watched all. I listened. Slept. Felt okay if I never woke up.

Sleeping under the Pont des Arts one day. A doctor from the hospital out with her kids noticed me sleeping (knew my head of course). She was shocked to see Mr. Hugo.

She drove me back to the hospital. There was lots of pointing and raised voices.

The chief visited the next day. He said he needed a janitor. I would live in another part of the hospital near the attic. It was the perfect solution, he said, and gave me money for new clothes, soap, a comb, shoelaces, even. I lived in the old part, above wards that were closed in 1890. There were many empty rooms. Most were locked.

I was maybe in my thirties then. At least young enough to still dream of what I would never have.

I spent free time in the parks, sometimes recognizing an old face—I was happy to share lunch, I wanted to, even, and brought more.

I often went to the library. I was reading by then. I read a lot. I liked poetry. I read it in French. I learned some English too. Great escapes. I will admit I knew what German was, had the sounds in my head, like eggs ready to hatch when I heard it spoken in the street. Those sounds belonged to me, yet I had no memory of them. I felt dread when I heard it, shame, even. I went home after and defecated on myself. I sat there in the smell. I made myself. I made myself sit there in the smell. I was one of those, remember—one of those:
hated
.

A
nyway, as a janitor I woke up at 5:00 a.m. Beyond each pane were the outlines of things coming—a world drawn fresh from the memory of yesterday.

My job started at 6:00 a.m. I wore blue overalls. I had a heavy key. There was a cupboard of mops, brushes, and basic tools. There were insects living in the cupboard, but they were there before me, so I tried not to disturb them.

I shared ideas with the people who came. They were not all idiots and criminals; there were intelligent ones too, respected men and women with jobs and homes, families who would visit and sob quietly.

Patients came and went. Some escaped and left their bodies behind. I thought I’d die in there too, and I wanted to, mostly in the evening.

Yet here I am, years later, between this page and your eye. Part of someone else’s story.

A
fter nineteen years, the hospital closed down. The same chief came to see me. He was a widower by then and about to retire. His children had grown too. I have to admit we were used to each other.

He made phone calls for me.
Would arrange things
, he said. There was a janitorial position at the Manchester Royal Infirmary in England.
Same job
, he said.
Room to grow, even
.

He drove me in his car to England.

It took two days. We had to share a bed in a small hotel.

He talked about his wife. Cried. I listened to all. I watched all through the car window. When we got there, he helped me find a place to live.

It had taken months to get a passport.

The authorities said I didn’t exist. There was only one official document: the hospital admission form for an unidentified male with a rifle wound to the head. Former hospital staff were telephoned. But there were so many injured. Most died.

Then an old woman who once worked in the kitchen said she could faintly recall:
Left to die in the street
, she said.
Without any identification, rags for clothes, pockets empty except for a novel by Victor Hugo. It was the admitting doctor’s idea for a name. Didn’t think I’d live.

I had to go down to the passport office with the chief. I had to show what was left of my face.

They stopped what they were doing.

Was a victim of war
, he explained,
no first name known
, he said.
No last name known
, he said.
Exceptions had to be made.

Exceptions were made. Passport: Victor Hugo. Born Paris 1922. Number: 88140175.

T
he English streets are dark and gray. It’s hard to understand what people are saying.

And the damp!

I learned to take hot baths before bed.

T
hree
major things happened in the decades after Paris:

1. I joined a monthly poetry group.

2. I became friends with a boy who moved in next door for a few years.

3. I built a greenhouse for the cultivating of tomatoes.

O
ne day I was told I had to retire. Why? I asked.

Laughed, they all did. Told me was time to enjoy my life. There was a small party. People who didn’t know me got drunk. I sat down. I watched all. Listened. Wondered if He could see.

I spoke English well by then. But still they looked, still they pitied, still they feared and sometimes spat.

And life kept going . . . kept dragging me along in its teeth.

A
man came to see me last month at the house. At first I wouldn’t let him in. Then he told me he worked at the BBC. I wondered if I was watching too much.
Had a friend in America
, he said.
Asked if he would deliver a letter to an old neighbor called Mr. Hugo.

It was something I had been too afraid to wish for. Some days I wondered if I had imagined him.

He told me to read the letter. Think it over. He would come back in a couple of weeks and help make arrangements if it was something I wanted. He told me to consider the next few years. He asked if I would get lonely. (I laughed at that one.)

He said California is always sunny. He said Danny is a famous director now and his films are shown all over the world.
Would be a nice place to spend time
, he said.
The retirement center even has a pool and small garden.

I asked him to stay for dinner and cooked fish fingers. He arranged french fries in the oven dish. I put on children’s programs. We watched and ate off trays. It got late. He touched my hand before he left. I gave him tomatoes.

Went to bed. Lay awake with my eyes open. Would have to leave my home. Would have to leave my poetry group—would not catch the bus twice a month on Tuesday, would not sit at the back and read names and messages scratched into the glass. Would not know that:

Daz luvz Raz

Gareth is a Twat

Lizzie is a slag

Declarations of love or anger.

To think:

Most fought until the end,

Murdered until the end,

Hated
until the end.

And I was one of those, remember—one of those:
hated
.

I
should tell Danny. He has a right to know what Mr. Hugo did.

O
n nights when the poetry group meets, I boil an egg in the kettle. I take it with me on the bus. It keeps my hands warm until eaten. Sometimes I take a bag of tomatoes that I cultivated in the greenhouse and give them out. I will miss all that. I am attached to things most people find insignificant.