Disint2
Rarely did anyone accompany Siss to the cemetery now or meet her there. Although every morning seemed chillier than the preceding one, she welcomed the chill because it seemed to calm her anxiety. The leaves were turning, fluttering down and decorating the grass just as they had a year ago, when she and Doz had been taking walks together. How happy they had been! They hadn't even realized it. Christy and Jimmy had breakfast ready for her when she returned from the cemetery, although she kept telling them they didn't have to. How sweet of them! She gave both of them a big hug, but, unlike Jimmy, Christy seemed to take it as a routine gesture. As soon as she came home from work, Mom asked Jimmy to play the piece he was practicing and Christy to show her what she was painting. Christy helped her get supper and Jimmy helped her clean up afterwards. They enjoyed doing these things for or with her, but, otherwise, her company depressed them. How promptly they retired to their rooms to do their homework! It was then that the Novocain wore off. Dozlessness drove Siss through her gamut of distractions, ending with the flight to fresh air, cold enough now to whiten her breath. Her bedroom attracted and repelled her as cruelly as ever. While undressing one night, she succumbed to a frenzy of sniffing at Doz's clothes. Smelling sweat in the armpit of a sport coat, she buried her nose in it and groaned with pleasure. Suddenly ashamed, she sat on the floor sobbing violently. Had Christy heard? Of course she had! but she hadn't knocked on her door and climbed in bed with her.
Siss had accumulated a cinematheque of nightmares, most of which ended with a scream that woke her up. In one, she was sitting in front of a blazing fire in the living room. Doz appeared in the middle of the flames, writhing and groaning as they consumed him. In another, she was wrestling with him when, one by one, his arms and legs came off, then his head, and she was wallowing in his blood. Awake, she was bathed in sweat and hugging his pillow, which she threw on the floor in disgust. Entering his office in still another, she found him fornicating with Janet on top of his desk, black on white. Alone in still another, she faced the employees, they were shouting at her, they rushed her and were about to seize her when she woke up. Trying to guess what had made them so angry kept her from going back to sleep. In another nightmare, she entered a luxurious office with a large window through which she could see a city down below. Sitting behind an enormous desk, Suzy ignored her while giving David orders which he promptly obeyed. Siss entered a luxurious bedroom with a similar window
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and view. Lying like Olympia on an enormous bed, but not covering her pubis with her hand, Sabby grinned at her. Standing behind her were five or six Nathans, all of them as naked as she was and eager to please her. Her giant breasts were heaving as she breathed. Waving at the Nathans, she explained:
"One wasn't enough, so I cloned some more. There's enough for you too, Mom." Moving back: "Look, there's plenty of room. Come on! A little sex will cheer you up."
She had no nightmares about Reg and Wren, which puzzled her. She did have one about Jimmy similar to the one in which the employees attacked her. He was playing the piano, while an all-white audience was shouting so loudly that it drowned him out. Ignoring them, he continued to play until they rushed him. As they closed in on him, she screamed herself awake. Her nightmare about Christy upset her even more than the others. Hearing little girls giggling behind the door to her room, she opened it and found her and three or four others, all of them naked, piled in a writhing heap on her bed. This time, Mom screamed in anger rather than fear, but the ferocity of her own scream terrified her. Every time she had this nightmare, she searched her memory for symptoms of Lesbianism in her youngest daughter and could think of none.
Dominating the girls and intimidating the boys, Christy led the former in taunting the latter, but wasn't that typical of children her age? The more Mom thought of it, however, the greater her suspicion. Why didn't Christy knock on her door any more when nightmares made her scream? Did getting in bed with her mother seem indecent now? Had the intensity and duration of Mom's grief begun to bore her? Although Siss and Doz had kept all of their children informed about how parents engendered children, they had merely mentioned homosexuality to their younger children. Mom decided that she had better tell Christy more before puberty, when an objective discussion might no longer be possible. Despite her discretion in raising the subject, however, Christy replied that she already knew all that stuff and, turning on her heels, walked away. She had never treated her mother like that before, not even when she was angry with her. Mom didn't know whether to run after her, grab her arm, spin her around and scold her or leave her alone and hope she would regret her behavior. Her little girl was already too big for her to spank and she no longer had Doz to do it for her. Would she even have wanted him to, would he have wanted to himself? Christy might think he was punishing her for being different from other girls. Mom felt that she had to restore mutual confidence between
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Christy and herself, but how could she do that? who could tell her? She and Doz had always agreed that they would never consult psychologists except as a last resort. She could think of no friend, no acquaintance who could help. Although she knew some gays, they seemed like an even more desperate resort than psychologists. Besides, she had no proof that her daughter was a Lesbian, merely a few ambiguous clues. Yet merely watching and waiting seemed dangerous to her. She had to admit to herself that she hated the thought of Christy being a Lesbian, falling in love with a woman and not a man, leading a life that would alienate her from her mother, the memory of her father, her family, the society in which they had raised her. Christy might have lovers that Mom would never meet, might never even want to meet.
Suddenly Siss felt ashamed: wasn't she just yielding to the prejudices that poisoned relations between heterosexuals and homosexuals? Hadn't she heard and read enough about gays being what they were, having a right to that and deserving the same rights as straights? Mom decided to bring the subject up while she was driving her and Jimmy home after church that Sunday. At least Christy couldn't walk away! Although Mom had rehearsed what she was going to tell them, she found it difficult to inform them both sufficiently and impartially. Jimmy took an interest in her explanation, recalling his friends' jokes about queers and their contempt for them. Christy was listening too politely to be interested, or was she just pretending not to be? When she indulged in a slight shrug, however, Mom saw that she didn't really want to listen, let alone discuss the issue with her mother. In growing up, her daughter had jumped ahead while she was distracted by the loss of her husband. Torn between accusing and excusing herself, she couldn't animate Sunday dinner enough to entertain Jimmy and Christy, who squirmed to get it over with and leave. Losing Dad was bad enough, but Mom was making it worse. How gloomy could you get? They even ate their dessert, a cherry cobbler for which Mom had gone to some trouble, as if it were a chore they had to do politely. When both of them hurried off to see their friends, Mom felt devastated. How she envied them! She dared not call her parents, Freddy and Allison, Nelly, Easy and Evy, Mark. Burden them with her sorrow? Doz wouldn't like that. What would he have done if she had told him about Christy?
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Where had she left her keys? She ran to living room, the library, the kitchen and finally her bedroom, where she found them. Then she jerked a sweater over her head, tidied her hair, which looked whiter every time she looked, locked up, jumped in the Taurus and drove out to the road. Anxious to beat despair across the culvert, she nearly turned in front of an approaching car, which honked at her angrily. Where was she going in such a hurry? To the Library, she now realized. A recent annex dwarfed the neo-classical structure housing the reading room, where she and Doz had studied so often together and even once again last spring. Computers, DVD and CD players, etc. drew most of the readers to the annex leaving the reading room nearly deserted. She saw an old lady pouring over thick tomes back in one corner and a man her age with an equally impressive stack of books in front of him, although he was contemplating the decorative squares on the ceiling. The librarian who had looked strict and treated her and Doz with kindness and understanding had long since retired. A youngish woman, who looked more friendly and wasn't, had replaced her. Maybe she didn't want to look suspicious, but suspicious she looked. Siss headed for the shelf where the now computerized catalogue indicated that she would find books on Lesbianism. As she passed in front of another shelf, however, the ornate end of a large volume caught her eye. Stopping, she recognized the binding of the book by Phoebe and Samson Heath in which Doz had been studying Cellini's Perseus. She stooped, took it in both hands and carried it to the table where she had found him sitting twenty-five years ago. As she turned the pages, which were browning around the edges, almost every illustration recalled an experience she had shared with him, a remark one of them had made, an agreement or disagreement between them, comments by the Heaths themselves or Mark Jacob and especially the rediscovery of an illustrated work in a museum. How bittersweet it felt! Space and time slipped away from her.
Was that Doz's hair touching hers? They were sharing thoughts and emotions just as they always had. The illusion would captivate her for minutes at a time, then the empty chair beside her beckoned. How often she soared, how often she plummeted! When she turned the last shiny blank pages and closed the back cover, she tried to cling to her delight as it slipped away and grief welled in her chest. A cry reverberated in the space around her even before she realized that she had uttered it and tears streamed down her face before she could snatch her handkerchief and wipe them away. The librarian shifted from one meager buttock to the other trying to keep her eyes down on her book. The man who had been contemplating the ceiling busied himself with his books, while the lady who
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had been busy with hers glanced at Siss over her narrow lenses. Mortified, Siss took her tome back to its shelf and slipped behind the stacks to the old exit, which she found locked. Faced with the necessity of passing through the reading room again, she sat down on the bench beside the doors where she had waited for Doz. She had disturbed the readers by shrieking then too when she saw him contemplating the nakedly resplendent Perseus. Trembling and sobbing now, she tried to throttle her distress to avoid detection. It must have taken her a quarter of an hour to get over it, recompose herself, slip back through the reading room and head for the new exit. According to the clock over the new circulation desk, she had spent two hours pouring over the book.
Only when she had turned into the driveway and gotten beyond the culvert did she realize that she had forgotten to look for books about Lesbianism. Jimmy and Christy were particularly kind to her that evening. Maybe they realized that they hadn't appreciated her efforts earlier in the day. Christy insisted on preparing supper alone and Jimmy refused to let her help with the dishes. The traits they had inherited from Doz consoled her, Jimmy's laugh and the way Christy turned her head, although no pony tail had ever flopped back and forth behind Doz's head. It was the first real fun they had had together since the explosion. After supper, they watched a DVD of "The Pianist," which Jimmy had borrowed from the local branch of the Library. The film impressed them without depressing them. The children asked many questions about the Nazis' attempt to exterminate the Jews and, as Mom answered them, she realized that they were congenial with each other again. That night, she managed to get some sleep, although Christy's ponytail kept flopping back and forth in her mind's eye.
The Library had a lot more works on homosexuality in general and gay men in particular than Lesbianism. All of the latter were by Lesbians who had a bitter axe to grind. After trying to make do for a week, Siss decided that she had learned many details and few ideas of any use to her. She and Doz had never considered that one of their children might be a homosexual. Although she had no proof of that, she did have to be ready in case it proved true. What could she do and how should she do it? She drove to the cemetery and, speaking softly for fear someone might hear, she explained her predicament to Doz. Hearing the gravel crunch behind her, she turned and saw Hank with only a few white hairs on his head and deep crevices in his cheeks pushing his wheelbarrow by.
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"Excuse me, Mrs. Chinski. I have to go this way to do my job. Don't worry! Lots of people talk to them, it's all right and, you know... they can hear you, they are listening. I have been working here long enough to know that."
"Thank you, Hank! I'm glad you don't think I'm crazy."
"Naw! Of course I don't!" And he went his way.
Doz: "Siss?"
"Yes?"
"Talk to Bernie Kimittis."
He reminded her of the sermon Bernie had preached before his death: the Free Faith Assembly had always welcomed gays, defended their rights and advocated their integration. A few gays served as ministers and no one had objected to the appointment of a young Lesbian minister to Pentecost Tabernacle in Concordia. The trouble began, however, when she married a Lesbian couple without consulting the vestry or the congregation. Most of her parishioners learned of the marriage from the press. Although it surprized nearly all of them, it divided them into those who praised her for setting a welcome precedent and those who blamed her for abusing her authority. Defenders of homosexual marriage insisted on absolutely equal rights for all couples, while opponents protested that only a man and a woman could have a child, the object of marriage. The same-sexers, not all of whom were homosexuals, deplored the unfair privilege of heterosexuals; the both-sexers, some of whom were homosexuals, objected that the ability to procreate wasn't a privilege, but rather a duty that involved sacrifice. Mediators proposed another kind of union that would parallel marriage in every respect except those involved in procreation. This compromise satisfied most of the both-sexers, but few of the same-sexers who demanded identical social and legal recognition of homosexual couples who wanted to have children. At this point, disagreement split both camps. Some both-sexers argued that all children needed a male father and a female mother, while others insisted that they also needed parents united by legal and religious matrimony. Many on both sides observed that orphans tended to benefit from any parents willing to adopt them. The same-sexers disagreed over the use of surrogate mothers and fathers, whether they participated in in-vitro fertilization or simply had intercourse with someone of the opposite sex, a distinction that divided them further. After heated debate, the Zenia Council decided to annul the Lesbian marriage, reprimand and reassign the Lesbian minister and organize a discussion of the issue for one year followed by a referendum.
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The National Council accepted the proposal and the pot was still boiling when Siss called Bernie.
"Hello?"
"Berny, this is Siss Chinski."
"Hello Siss! What can I do for you?"
"I'm worried about Christy. You know how old she is, I don't have to tell you what she's about to go through and me along with her!"
"If only cute little girls didn't have to grow up! Rachel gave us a fit. There were times... "
"Nobody could ever guess! But I wouldn't bother you with that kind of thing. There may be a complicating factor in Christy's case. I wonder if she isn't beginning to show signs of Lesbianism."
"Uh oh! Such as?"
She told him what she had so far observed. "So I can't say for sure, but I do have to take precautions and I don't know which ones."
"Of course. It can't be easy for heterosexual parents who have a homosexual child."
"I feel helpless without Doz. I went to the Library and borrowed some books about Lesbianism. I studied them, I read some of them all the way through and I feel as if I don't know any more than before. Maybe my ignorance is just more profound."
"Mine is as profound as yours, but I do have an idea or two. Maybe you ought to talk to an enlightened Lesbian. Not a fanatic, not a militant, just one who, by her experience, knowledge and character, can feel at ease with a mother who wonders if her daughter is a Lesbian and wants to treat her correctly."
"That's exactly why I called you. Do you know anybody like that?"
"Not the minister who tried to marry a Lesbian couple!"
"No, not her!"
"I don't know anybody, but I know a few people who might. Would you like for me to call them and see what they have to say?"
"Please do, Berny. I would really appreciate it."
"Siss?"
Janet was standing at the door waiting for permission to enter, despite the usual etiquette of knocking and entering when the door was open.
"Janet! Come in... Is something wrong?"
"Well... " She hesitated to sit down.
"Have a seat, please!"
Janet sat down, avoiding Siss's eyes. She looked as if she felt guilty. Siss had never seen her like that. She stood up and started for the door:
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"Shall I shut it?"
"Oh yes, please do! I forgot."
Janet had never been absent-minded. Siss shut the door, came back and stood beside her:
"If there's anything I can do for you... "
Janet rolled her eyes up at Siss, who had never seen that much white before.
"Actually, it's something... I might be able to do for you."
Siss put her hand on her shoulder before she realized what she was doing.
"What else could I ask? You are already doing a plenty keeping us in the black."
"Thanks, Siss! This isn't really about the company, except that everything is, at least a little bit... I heard you were looking for 'an enlightened Lesbian.' Is that what you called it?"
Siss sat down in the other chair beside her. "Yes, that's what I told Bernie."
"Well, that's what Bernie told me, once he found out about me."
"I knew you were enlightened... Are you a Lesbian?"
"Yes, I guess I am. When you and I were growing up, everybody hated queers. I didn't know any but they sounded awful! I loved to play football with the guys, I even liked bumping into them. I always wondered: how could a girl like... [higher note] girls?"
Siss resisted the urge to laugh. "Well, you still like guys too, don't you?"
"Yes, of course I do, but not... that way."
"When did you find out?"
"Well, I don't remember when I stopped wondering and started knowing. Maybe ten years ago, I looked for help and met a lot of people who told me I didn't need any. They were gays too. They told me it's all right to be a gay... Do you think it's all right to be a gay?"
"Is it all right to be black? Tall or short? Have hay fever every spring?... Fall in love?"
"Sure, Siss. But is it all right for me to offer you my help... ?"
"With Christy? Of course, it's all right. I need it, you can give it and Doz would be ashamed of me if I made any excuses... What can you do? I have no idea."
"I could be a kind of godmother. Godmothers are usually ceremonial, but some take a real interest in their godchild. I could ask Christy about her painting. Since I don't know anything about art, she could teach me. Maybe she would enjoy it. I could take her to things when you have something else to do. I wouldn't say anything about Lesbians unless she asked me."
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"That would be really sweet of you, Janet... Would you have liked to have children?"
"Yes, I really would have. It's too late now. I have been thinking about this: I would like to have a godchild. If Christy accepts me... "
Siss invited her to supper that evening. As she served a soufflet, Christy admired its orange yellow, so Janet asked her if she could mix paint that color. While Jimmy was washing the dishes and Mom, wiping them, Christy took Janet to her studio, where Amenhotep accompanied them. She not only reproduced the orange yellow, but also painted the soufflet reproducing the texture of the surface. The soufflet came to life with a wisp of vapor curling up from it.
"It's breathing!" said Janet.
"Yes, M'am!" Christy gave the painting to Janet, who, overjoyed, took her to a frame shop and let her choose a frame. Christy also helped her decide where to hang it in her townhouse. From there, they went to the Mapleton Museum, where she gave her a guided tour of her favorite paintings. She surprized her by her subtle distinctions between the Italian Madonnas, who had always looked so much alike to her. They were looking at a Lippi when Christy giggled.
"What's so funny?"
"The baby. I guess he just didn't count."
When Janet brought her home afterwards, they were such good friends that Siss had mixed emotions: wasn't this friendship another sign of Lesbianism?
"How do you know Christy feels anything more than friendship with Janet?"
"I don't. All I know is that she doesn't feel any for me sometimes."
"Well, so far, so good! And you have finally forgiven Janet for playing football with me."
"What are you talking about?"
"Ha! Ha! Ha!"
"Reg is getting B's now. Wren has him studying harder than we ever could."
"How did she do that?"
"She told him he would have to work while she goes to college."
"Is he still trying to find the sport that will put him on the sports page?"
"Wren has to ration him: if he's late picking her up after work... "
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"What are David and Suzy going to do next year?"
"Start on an MBA at MU. He thinks it was his idea!"
"Nobody pregnant so far?"
"No. Sabby has Nathan taking an extra course in psychology with her. What a couple! Are they really a couple?"
"There are as many different kinds as there are ways to love each other."
"More sex than love!"
"Ha! Ha! Ha!"
"What's so funny?"
"I thought they were the same thing."
"The hell you did!"
"Well, how about Jimmy and Marsha?"
"I guess that's love too!"
"What's wrong with it?"
"Music keeps them together. I'm afraid it will separate them."
"Why? Art never separated us."
"We were different."
"Ha! Ha! Ha!"
"You are laughing again."
"This time I'm laughing because it's true."
Before she left, Siss went over to Hank and, after beating around the bush, asked him if others had heard the dead laugh. He didn't know whether to laugh himself. No, he hadn't heard anything about that, but he couldn't see why they wouldn't. If Mr. Chinski was laughing, he must be happy.
Neither Doz nor anyone else understood why Siss continued to attend mass at St. Francis of Assisi on Sunday morning before taking Jimmy and Christy to Kingdom Tabernacle. Did she feel obliged to honor his duty to the sisters who had adopted, raised and educated him? Although she tried to explain, none of her reasons convinced her herself.
"I guess I don't know why."
Because of her tight schedule, Fuss, Maud, Reg, Wren, Freddy, Allison and their boys always left room for three more in the row halfway down the aisle on the left-hand side. Although none of them questioned her further, they thought visiting Doz's grave was enough. While they shared her grief and sympathized with her loss, they considered mass an exaggeration. Fuss, Maud and Freddy were afraid she would devote the second half of her life to mourning. A few days later, Mom invited her to lunch at Zhu's. Despite an overcast sky, the sun broke through from time to time, brightening Mapleton here and there.
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Maud: "It's too bad we don't have Christy with us. Think what she could do with this landscape!"
"I will have to bring her up here on a day like this."
"How about Jimmy? We haven't heard from him lately."
"Oh, don't worry about him. He's a local celebrity now... Maybe you should worry about him, celebrity's bad for him."
"It is?"
"You saw what happened a few years ago. All that success, then nothing! We were afraid we would lose him. Now everybody who can use a teenage pianist is after him. They keep him and Marsha busy."
"I have forgotten what she plays."
"The flute. They are really cute together." Siss was cheerful for the first time since Doz's death. "They are going to play for the Kindergarten next Wednesday. Why don't you and Dad come? I can arrange it."
"We would love to, but I don't know if Fuss can make it. If he has an up-day, I will bring him. If he has a down-day, I will have to stay home and take care of him. He won't just grumble, he will roar like a wounded lion."
"Poor Dad! He always wanted to take care of other people."
"You have to be ready, Siss. Nobody knows how long he will hang on, but I'm afraid.. "
"I don't know whether it's better to see it coming or not." Tears pearled her eyes. "I don't guess I will ever be a merry widow."
Maud gave her a motherly look: "Are you ready to hear something you aren't going to like?"
Scared, Siss stared, then nodded.
"Would Doz have wanted you to make a monument of everything he left behind?"
She was less afraid to guess than to admit what she had already guessed: "You mean... ?"
"Yes, Dear. You have to get rid of things... "
"How could I... ?"
"You have another forty or fifty years to live, Child."
"There are times when I wonder if I can survive the rest of this one."
"Nonsense! You know you can and will. Even if your children, your family, your friends and the company weren't counting on you! Times? How about right now? Isn't it time to stop mourning and start living? Look! Here is how I think you ought to start: once a week to the cemetery, once a month to mass... "
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Siss nodded reluctantly.
"And get rid of Doz's clothes."
Gasp!
"Yes, Dear. Every time you dress and undress, they will torment you. The longer you keep them in your closet, the harder it will be to let him go... You have to let him go, Siss!"
The sun broke through the clouds and lighted Sheffield, where both of them lived.
Desperately: "I have to keep his sport coat, I could never let that go."
"All right, Dear. Keep his sport coat. I'm coming over Saturday morning and we are going to get his other clothes ready. It's either you or them. I will call the Free Faith Campaign. They will see that people who need them get them."
"It's robust like him, it has wonderful earth colors, the cloth feels rough and soft, it's a genuine Scottish tweed. I went with him to buy it in Inverness, it was a little shop in a narrow street and I discussed the alterations with the tailor, they still had tailors in Scotland."
Saturday morning was the hardest time Siss had had since the week after Doz's death. She felt as if she were tearing her flesh from her body. Again and again, she cried that she was going to keep this or that, a necktie, a shoe horn, cuff buttons... but Maud was resolute:
"No, Dear. The sport coat is enough. Let him go."
When the volunteers from the Campaign left with them, Siss felt so desperate that Maud took her home on the fib that her father had made that a condition for leaving him alone the whole morning. Siss knew it was a fib, that's why she dared not refuse. The next Wednesday was an up-day for Fuss, so he came to the concert with Maud and they sat together with Siss on the front row. Fuss had never cared for classical music until he heard Jimmy play, he still didn't listen to it except when Jimmy played or he heard a piece that he played, but then he smiled and his eyes shone as if he had drunk too much. The sound of the music and the spectacle of the couple playing it together whetted his enthusiasm. The obscure Suite for Piano and Flute by the even more obscure Foster Scroggs suited Jimmy and Marsha perfectly with its interplay between the two instruments, sometimes cheerful, sometimes sad, sometimes angry and always seeking a mysterious elsewhere. The cues Jimmy and Marsha gave each other by glances and nods charmed the audience and Fuss even more than the others. Likewise the way he bent over the piano, leaned back from it and sometimes swung his head back and forth, the way her slender figure
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swayed, her arms waved her flute and her eyelids fluttered with high notes. Constantly she reminded Fuss, Maud and Siss of the remark Doz had made last Thanksgiving comparing her with Siss when she was her age. Every time she smiled, forgetting her braces, Fuss poked Siss in the ribs with his elbow. Members of the Kindergarten who remembered his severity wondered if he were senile. Once the couple had made a final bow after their third encore, Fuss ran up and hugged Marsha off of the floor. Everyone was surprized and most were pleased, but Marsha's parents didn't like it at all: who was this old man hugging their daughter? When Siss introduced her parents, the Schwellings expected an apology and didn't get one. Elated, on the other hand, Marsha threw her arm around Jimmy, who shyly slipped his around her.
Ten days later, Fuss had a heart attack and died. His death seemed to have an even more devastating effect on his daughter than his wife, who clenched her jaws and held the tears back. You could tell how much it hurt only by a slight trembling of her second chin. Chagrin bent Siss a further degree and silvered her hair so completely that she no longer tried to keep it dyed. Although she didn't cry, she had black circles around her eyes and they sometimes focused beyond people who were speaking to her. When they came up to express their sympathy, they weren't sure she noticed them. Friends as close as Easy and Mark started to kiss her on the cheek, but shook her hand instead. Only Nelly dared to hug her. Grief had crushed Freddy's humor, while his older brother Jim, who had flown from Angola, was bewildered. Freddy, Siss and Maud hardly recognized Jim at first, because he had gained too much weight and grown a bushy gray moustache and beard. He had acquired a habit of forcing his voice down into an unnaturally low register and he left a wake of aftershave behind him everywhere he went. More wooden than sad, his face conformed with conventional mourning. Yet the panic in his eyes moved Siss to throw her arms around him:
"Oh, Jim!"
Surprized at first, he slipped his around her: "Siss!" he said, unable to think of anything else.
After he returned to Angola, Freddy remarked:
"He seemed like a real Fossez after that."
Before he left, he tried to befriend his Chinski nephews and nieces, their wife and companions. Some of them detected the sincerity behind his formality more easily than others, David more easily than Sabby, Reg more easily than Jimmy, but Christy, who was holding Janet's hand, not at all.
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Although Jim said nothing, he thought Christy was too old to hold a woman's hand and Janet, who saw the look in his eye, was so embarrassed she couldn't find anything to say. As soon as Siss noticed the impasse, she came over and explained:
"Jim: Janet is Christy's godmother. She's also our chief financial officer and we couldn't do without her."
The expression on Christy's face showed that she resented Uncle Jim's perplexity and the harder he tried to appease her, the less she forgave him. The situation embarrassed Jim so badly that he called Reg "Jimmy". Home for the funeral, David and Sabby found Mom even more affectionate than usual.
Mom regretted seeing so little of Jimmy, who explained that he was practicing with Marsha. Why didn't they practice at Five Sides so Mom could listen? The couple accepted the invitation, but Mom noticed that, when she was in another room, the music would stop and she dared not return without making some noise, by shutting a door for instance. Even after such a precaution, she sometimes found Marsha standing up or Jimmy sitting down in a hurry and both of them embarrassed. Well, so what? Hadn't Siss had her silences with Doz, hadn't they had their little embarrassments? Why they had even enjoyed them! Nothing enriched their intimacy more than discovery by someone else. Looking for laundry to fill the washing machine, she found a trace of lipstick on the back of Jimmy's collar. Shrugging, she removed it and threw the shirt in with some other clothes, doused them with detergent, closed the cover and started the machine. As it began to chug, she backed up against it to feel it working behind her and let it warm her. When she and Doz were dating, they, her parents and everyone else agreed that you shouldn't do "that", as everyone was calling it, until you were married. Oh they knew lots of other couples who were doing it more or less secretly. Now most of them were doing it and making no secret of it. Why should they wait for a ceremony that no longer had more than legal and sentimental significance? Weren't they ready for sex? Why shouldn't they enjoy it? Didn't the creator intend for them to? Did he endow them with it to tempt them, trap them, find an excuse to punish them? Nonsense! The more Siss persuaded herself, however, the less she convinced herself. Her abstract teenage couple resembled Jimmy and Marsha too much to spare her free thought. She was just chugging away like the washer behind her, precipitating dirt from cloth to water. Clean clothes and dirty water!
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The washer stopped chugging and, after a silent pause, started whirring as it whirled and shook her with its violence. She turned and leaned on it with her hands and forearms, not to steady it, but rather to feel it shaking. It was really a kind of friend, it kept you company and you didn't have to entertain it. Although it couldn't understand, it helped you to understand. She and Doz had had a happy marriage and family because they had accepted the discipline imposed on them by society in those days. The sentimental and legal aspects had meant rather little to them in comparison to the mutual commitment to live together, have children and raise them. Since Doz had no family of his own except for the sisters, the Fossez family had adopted him and the Chinskis had branched off from the Fossez tree. So what if the name had come from a Carminian telephone directory? Doz had distinguished it, she was proud of it and it survived in their children. Yet the Chinski branch of the Fossez tree would eventually die unless further branches grew from it. Now the washer was chugging again. Chug, chug, chug! David would make a good father, but would Suzy bother with children? They might ruin her figure, inhibit her ambition! Although Nathan would make a good father too, why would Sabby choose him instead of someone else? Among men, she chose sexual partners and not potential fathers. Already married, Reg and Wren seemed like a stable couple despite her initial assault on him. Since both had embarked on a career, would they take time off to have children and bring them up? Mom had higher hopes for them than the others. Wren's gratitude towards Doz would inspire her to have his grandchildren, as she had said several times. Although Jimmy and Marsha were an affectionate couple, music and sex had united them before adulthood. Such couples rarely survived maturity. Since he had more talent and ambition than she did, success would tend to separate them. The tendency to blame his limitations on racial prejudice also threatened an interracial couple. Few musicians earned a comfortable living, so Jimmy and Marsha might even face economic constraints. Christy? Mom's youngest child inspired her greatest anxiety. So far the adolescent had shown few signs of the heterosexual tolerance that had finally endeared Janet to Siss. Would she choose one or more women as sexual partners? Would she eventually live with one or more? Would she decide to have one or more children? Adopt them or get a man to sire them? Adopted children wouldn't descend from Doz, sired children would dishonor his descent.
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Did Mom's relations with her children really depend on happy marriages and happy families? Yes, because a happy marriage had given them life and a happy family had conditioned their childhood and adolescence. No, because Doz and Siss lived in them and she would always love him in them whatever they did, even if they disgraced his memory. Yes, because happy marriages and happy families would provide all three generations with opportunities to associate, celebrate and cooperate. No, because the impermanence of couples and the fragmentation of families plaguing society intensified the needs each generation had for the others. Yes and no, yes and no... So many dangers ahead! Potential conflicts between a gay daughter and a straight mother, a promiscuous daughter and a chaste mother, a black son and a white mother, the husband of a reformed delinquent and a righteous mother, a subservient son and a proud mother. So little could she do to prepare for the crises lying in wait for her, so much would depend on spontaneous reactions that would spell the difference between success and failure. Innocent curiosity about Christy might expose Mom to an accusation of prejudice against gays; about Jimmy, of racism; about Wren, to resentment by Reg; about Nathan, to suspicion by Sabby; about Suzy, to David's resentment. Siss had to face these tribulations alone.
"Oh, Doz!"
As Thanksgiving approached, she hesitated to resume the tradition of assembling family and friends. None of the actual or potential in-laws would dispute her priority since she had lost both her husband and her father. Five Sides needed the commotion of Chinskis, Fossezes and their friends talking, laughing and even fussing. The rug needed a spilled drink, an accident that always incited helpful emotions. The rooms needed people moving around in them, bumping into each other, telling each other jokes or stories. Bertrand needed somebody to throw his ball for him, he was lying around too much. Amenhotep needed to sulk over the invasion of guests, for he had become arrogant reigning over his kingdom. Siss needed to worry about getting everything ready, to hear the crunch of tires on the gravel outside, to recognize the voices as her guests arrived and to feel the excitement of greeting them. As soon as her enthusiasm rose, however, memories of her last Thanksgiving dashed it. Hadn't euphoria lifted her then for a harder fall? Doz's anticipation of his death had caught up with her at the very moment when she wanted to evoke their happiness together. Hadn't that been a warning? What warning could have prepared her for what had happened? Wouldn't these very thoughts spoil another Thanksgiving dinner at Five Sides? How could she play the role of a cheerful hostess? How could she restore the happy cohesion that Doz had always inspired? He couldn't have explained this virtue himself.
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Enter Maud who told her daughter she had to do it:
"You need it, your family needs it, your friends need it, nobody else can do it... Don't worry about help, all of us will pitch in, Freddy and Allison have promised... Jim called"
"Jim?"
"He asked if you were going to do it and he promised to come if you did."
"All the way from Angola?"
"All the way from Angola."
Siss limited her invitations to Fossezes, Chinskis, old friends of Chinskis and Wren's mother Edith who would otherwise be all by herself at Thanksgiving. Once everyone had accepted, however, Wren called Siss, apologized for changing her mind and explained that her brother Warren had come home from Korea. She felt obligated to have Thanksgiving with him and her mother.
"But Wren, why don't you and Edith just bring him with you? Your brother is welcome. He's a member of our family too."
"That's awfully kind of you Mrs. Chinski, but... I'm afraid it would be a little awkward. You see, Warren's been in the Army for three years and he just spent one of them in Korea. He was already a little rough before he joined up and now the Army has made him worse. He would probably say or do something that would shock everybody."
"Do we have a right to be shocked? Your brother has been doing us a favor, and especially in Korea. We owe him our hospitality. I have never met anyone so rough that he didn't appreciate a warm welcome. Servicemen are usually eager to accept invitations by civilians."
"I'm sure he would appreciate your invitation, Mrs. Chinski, but he might offend you without meaning to, he might offend Reg."
"But he has nothing against us. If he offends us without meaning to, we will understand that. He knows about Reg, doesn't he?"
"He sure does, after the letters I sent him!"
"Did he have any objection to your marriage?"
"No, M'am... "
"Has he met Reg?"
"No, M'am, I'm going to introduce them at Thanksgiving."
"If you had Thanksgiving with him and your mother, wouldn't you have to include Reg?"
"... I'm worried about that too."
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"Why don't you take Reg to meet your brother first? He's staying with your mother, isn't he? You could go there before you come here. If he doesn't want to come, we will understand. I'm sure your mother wants to, she was enthusiastic when I spoke to her."
"... Maybe I should speak to Mom first."
"I hope all four of you will come. You know we will miss you if you don't."
"... You don't know Warren, Mrs. Chinski. He's always had a chip on his shoulder, he gets in fights, he's been in trouble in the Army... I'm really afraid to bring him to your house. You have been very kind, Mr. Chinski was too, if it weren't for him, I don't know what would have become of me. I used to be a little bit like Warren myself."
"You will never be like that again... All right, here is what I would like to do. I would like to invite Warren to meet me some place for coffee."
Gasp: "Oh Mrs. Chinski, I wouldn't do that! You don't know him. He will certainly insult you, he may even hurt you, he's... he's... dangerous."
Mrs. Chinski laughed. "So he's dangerous, is he? He's going to get a surprise, he's going to meet a woman who's not afraid of him. I talk to movers all the time. Let's see what I can do with a soldier."
They recognized each other right away. The tall, slender, silver-haired woman at the table near the window had to be Wren's mother-in-law. The block-headed man with the big brass earring, the massive biceps decorated by a coiled cobra on one side and an eagle attacking its prey on the other, the half-closed, shifting, searching eyes, the sharp, scarred face and the walk that rolled his shoulders and hips had to be Wren's brother. Seeing that she had aged, Warren regretted that he hadn't discovered her before it happened. Siss wondered whether she had seen him in a police series before zapping it with her remote. "Fuck You!" exploded in jagged letters from the black T-shirt over his barrel chest. Was he wearing it for her? Probably. Unable to detect the usual symptoms of panic in her, Warren nursed his disappointment by the conviction that she was just putting on. Siss detected his disappointment by his more energetic attempts to shock her, such as dropping into the seat across from her without even speaking to her. The chair cracked loudly: what if it collapsed and he fell on the floor?
"Whazofunny?"
"You are," she replied looking him in the eye.
He couldn't decide whether to get mad or be indifferent, drown her in profanity and obscenity or shrug and sneer her to oblivion.
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"Coffee?"
He stared at her: "... OK, coffee... Black," he added as if he suspected her of trying to slip cream into it.
"All right." She waved to a hefty waitress: "Two black coffees. No sugar."
"Hey, what's wrong with sugar?"
She smiled: "It's sweet."
He didn't like it when a woman told him something he didn't understand. He liked it even less if she smiled: was she making fun of him?
"Do you want coffee or syrup?"
The waitress was waiting.
"Syrup?... No, I don't want no syrup hey where did you get that from?"
She shrugged.
He guessed that sugar in your coffee was sissy. He nodded to the waitress.
What a nod!
He had shown up twenty minutes late: when was she going to complain?
"So you have been away for a year?"
"Yeah!"
"What's changed? You must have noticed."
He had been expecting other questions. Finally he thought of something: "These rumpled clothes girls are wearing. You'd think they wanted to look bad. Gook girls don't wear no rumpled clothes." He wanted to say: 'but they got funny little legs,' he didn't dare and he hated himself for not daring.
"Yes, you would, I think so too. I tell my girls they would look nicer, but of course they don't listen to me!"
Squinting an eye: "How many you got?"
"Two. Isn't that enough?"
Leaning back in his chair, he smiled too, not at what she had said, but rather at what he was going to say. Slipping a pack of cigarettes from one pocket and a lighter from the other one, he lit up elaborately, sucked his lungs full of smoke and blew a cloud noisily up in the air. "Me, I don't know how many I got."
"I'm afraid it's against the law to smoke here."
Squinting an eye, he mimicked her: "Against the law?"
"That's right, Sir," said the waitress placing an ashtray in front of him. "You can either put your cigarette out or you can step outside and finish it."
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He was trying to scowl his embarrassment away.
Neither the waitress nor Siss was impressed.
"Shiii... !" He plunged the cigarette into his glass of water.
With a shrug of disgust, the waitress whisked the glass away.
Although Siss saw she was getting somewhere with Warren, she didn't want to take him in that direction. He was listening all right, but he was looking at her as if wondering whether he might like to seduce her. More surprized than offended, she explained that she was giving a Thanksgiving dinner and she hoped he would come.
"Do you have a girl friend, Warren?"
Surprized again and surprized that he was surprized, he mumbled: "Me, a girl friend?... Yeah, I got some... You don't want me to bring one of them, do you?"
"Sure, why not? Pick a nice one, one who knows how to dress and behave when she's invited to Thanksgiving dinner. One you will be proud of."
He snickered. "If she's nice, maybe I wouldn't be so proud of her... OK, I know one like that... " He grinned knowingly: "so you think she will keep me out of trouble!"
"No. You are the only one who can keep you out of trouble. Have you seen Wren since you came home?"
"No, I heard she's... she's... respectable!"
"Yes, respectable. I think you are going to be proud of her. I am... Maybe that's something we will have in common."
When they left each other, Warren was almost polite, to his own surprise as well as Siss's. Seeing this surprise, she was worried: would he come to Five Sides determined to compensate for his docility?
The dinner party began well enough as the guests arrived in a sober but cordial mood. Edith had persuaded Warren to wear a green Shetland and gray slacks instead of his favorite T-shirt, although he had outgrown them by building his muscles. Sabby immediately recognized the girl he had invited, Patsy Dupont, the high school friend from the Orchard who had identified Reg's assailants for her, including Wren. Patsy was talking to Sabby and Warren was admiring her bosom, so Wren tried somewhat successfully to get him interested in something else. Siss was keeping an eye on Warren without letting him notice. Feeling more at ease than after his father's death, Jim was curious about Five Sides, which he hadn't seen before, so Mom asked Christy to give him a tour. Edith, Suzy, Allison and Maud got in each other's way helping in the kitchen, so Siss had to direct
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traffic. Freddy, who was serving drinks, brought Warren the beer he had requested. Warren gulped it down in one draft and looked for Freddy to ask for another, but Freddy had left. Everyone served himself in the dining room and sat in the living room or library. Freddy served red or white wine and a second beer to Warren, who gulped it down and looked for another, but Freddy ignored him. Jimmy and Marsha entertained the guests with extracts from the Scroggs suite, which everyone admired except Warren, who was curling his lips. Patsy, Wren and others collaborated on entertaining him and he appreciated the attention at first, but then he began to look suspicious when people approached him.
Although he had been at Patsy's side, he suddenly left her while she was talking to Jim and intercepted Sabby who had been avoiding him.
"Hey! How about another Bud?"
She gave him a look that reminded him of her mother. It rebuked him, but more forcefully.
He laughed uneasily.
"How many have you had?"
"I dunno. I lost count." He was feasting his eyes on her bosom.
Suddenly, she grabbed his arm, jerked the door to the patio open and yanked him outside.
"Hey, are you crazy? It's cold out here."
"As cold as Korea?"
"I was just asking for another Bud."
"That's not all you want."
Grinning: "I'll take that too.. "
"All right, Warren. Take a good look." There were only a few inches between them. "This is as close as you are ever going to get."
No one had ever given him as fierce a look as that. At a loss for words, he tried to think of something obscene enough to punish her.
"Now you listen to me! Everybody here wants to be your friend. Don't spoil it!"
Astonished, he took it without any backtalk, without a smirk. He felt even more humiliated than when the first sergeant, who had killed seven gooks in Vietnam, chewed him out. This fierce little man hadn't raised his voice, made violent gestures or used profanity, but he had made Warren squirm. So did this cunt with the mountains. Christ! Had he ever seen tits that big before?
"OK, Warren?"
He nodded and hated himself for nodding.
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She went back inside, leaving the door open for him, and he followed, closing it behind him, as everyone noticed.
For another quarter of an hour, he hovered around Patsy, who was having a good time talking to people, but he neither listened nor spoke himself. Suddenly he left her heading for the kitchen, where everyone guessed he was going to ask for another beer. Freddy and Reg followed him into the kitchen, where Siss and the other women were cleaning up. Ignoring them, he went straight to the refrigerator, yanked the door open and ripped a can of Bud loose from a six pack. Freddy, Reg and Siss converged on him.
Siss snatched the can away from him: "This is not your house, Warren, and this is not your refrigerator and," putting it back, "this is not your can of beer." She shut the door and faced him.
Grabbing her by the arm, he yanked her away from the refrigerator so that she turned and fell, hitting the back of her head on the kitchen table Crack! On her back she laid with blood oozing from the back of her head, reddening her silver hair and puddling the floor. The women were screaming and the men were shouting. Some of both gathered around Siss, while Allison stanched the bleeding with a dishtowel. David took her in his arms, picked her up and put her in a chair. How light she seemed! Others were surrounding Warren who, with his eyes shifting back and forth, was trying to decide which one to hit. Reg and Sabby were going to attack him when Wren slipped between them and confronted him.
"You remember who I am, Warren?"
He was no longer trying to decide who to hit, but looking for a way out.
"Why don't you hit me too?"
With a shriek, Edith ran up, grabbed his arms and jerked him towards the door. "Come on, Warren, I'm taking you home."
At first, he let her drag him away, but, near the door, he spun away from her and spat on a stack of plates on the table. A split second later, Edith's palm hit his cheek Pow! and he staggered. The violence of the blow startled everyone including Warren and his mother.
Edith hustled him out of the kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind them and leaving everyone stunned. Wren ran over to Mom, threw herself down on her knees and hugged her:
"If it weren't for Mr. Chinski, I would still be like that!"
Mom stroked her hair: "If Doz had been here, it wouldn't have happened."
Patsy took the plate with the spittle, rinsed with hot water, scrubbed it with detergent and stuck it in the dish rack. The others joined in the cleanup,
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which soothed their nerves. Several of them wanted to take Siss to the emergency room, but she preferred the Better Band-Aid only a half mile away, so Reg drove her there and Wren came along. The doctor on duty found that the wound was superficial, a nurse cleaned and bandaged it, and they told Siss how to take care of it.
The next day, she called Edith:
"I accept responsibility for what happened yesterday. I insisted that you and Wren bring Warren... "
"You treated him kind and he tried to take advantage of you. You served him a plenty of beer and he tried to take even more. [Raising her voice:] My son bit the hand that fed him! My son!"
"A year in a combat unit across the border from a hostile and fanatic enemy hardly prepared him for Thanksgiving with a family he didn't know."
"It didn't? It should have! Wasn't he ready for some nice people and some nice food in a nice house? He behaved as if he was in a bar across the street from a base."
"He didn't mean to hit my head against the table and the wound was superficial. Another week and it will be gone."
"That's what ticks me off, Mrs. Chinski: he didn't mean to do it, he can't control himself. They don't like that in the Army either. Arrogant and violent with his own buddies!"
"I had the impression he was sorry."
"... Yes, he was. He packed his bag and left without another word. I probably won't hear from him for months, maybe even a year. Lord knows what kind of trouble he will get into!"
"It's too bad about Patsy. I told him to bring a nice girl and he did. He needs someone like her."
"He wants respect and he knows he doesn't deserve it, so he tries to punish people who don't respect him. I don't see any end to that."