A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (28 page)

He shrugged as though he were bored to death by everything and gazed out the window with an impassive expression.

It was only a few weeks before summer vacation and Billy stayed in school until then. He was left alone, shunned by everyone, teachers and students alike.

An American girl called Susan who was so sugar sweet she made you want to throw up—a tall lean creature with large black eyes who was the boys’ favorite because she knew the words to songs and knew a million different games she’d learned in the Girl Scouts—came up to me in the hallway between classes and said, “I’m really sorry to hear your brother’s retarded.” Her voice warbled so tragically you’d have thought somebody had died. She seemed to be enjoying this moment tremendously, as much as I’d enjoyed mine in the car. For a second I hated us both equally.

I responded, “What do you know about anything, you’re a stupid cunt.” I had no idea what this word meant, but knew it was just about the worst thing you could say because when my father said it, my mother yelled at him. “Goddamnit, Bill,” she’d say, “don’t talk like that in front of the kids. You’re going to get us in trouble with those tight-ass parents of those embassy kids they go to school with.”

Susan obviously did not know what the word meant either, because her face registered confusion, and then her condescending look became tinged with doubt. She was probably worried that I knew something she did not (which was in all honesty a rare occasion) and she let it go at that. But the next day, Susan’s mother called the school and complained. The headmistress called me in and kindly asked me to refrain from such vulgarities, but she did not call my father; after the fiasco with my brother she doubtless wanted to avoid another confrontation with him.

We went to America for the summer, and my parents took Billy to one of the most famous and expensive psychiatrists in New York. Many years later, in a bar on Long Island, my brother told me his version of the story. This was at a time shortly after our father’s death when we were particularly close, and he would ask me to go barhopping with him as a pretext to drink enough so that he could relax and tell me about things he otherwise would not. Billy confided that not learning to read French had been a conscious decision on his part; he’d wanted to be as American as possible and had decided that English would be the only language he would learn to read and write. They didn’t offer English as a course, however, until third grade at École Internationale Bilingue.

My parents weren’t big on psychiatry to start with, but they saw no other recourse since Billy refused to discuss his “problem” with them, although they’d approached the matter in a most unhysterical way:

“Billy,” my mother said, “what’s this crap you’re learning disabled? You’re the smartest kid I know. What’s the problem?”

He looked up at her with those heavy, bored eyes, and shrugged.

In New York, my brother was given tests for the learning disabled while my mother discussed our family history privately with the psychiatrist. She was frank and candid, and told the doctor that my father was a writer with a busy social calendar and she, as his wife, wasn’t home much and relegated most of the maternal duties to Candida, our Portuguese nanny. She told him they made sure to have dinner with us at least twice a week and that every Sunday we had a family outing.

Billy had noticed in the psychiatrist’s waiting room that our mother was quite anxious—when she was in this condition her mouth twitched at the corners. He became even more convinced (although our parents had told him over and over that it was simply a test to see why he couldn’t learn to read) that the Americans were trying to decide whether our parents were fit to keep him. He’d had a few weeks to study up on what he thought the American Family was supposed to look like: he’d been religiously watching
The Brady Bunch
and
Leave it to Beaver
and several other sitcoms on the television in our hotel room.

“I think we’re more like
The Addams Family
, he’d told me after a long and gloomy deliberation.

The psychiatric tests divulged that Billy was not learning disabled, and now it was time for his interview.

“It’s very important that you tell me the truth,” the psychiatrist said to Billy. Billy nodded vigorously.

“How are things at home?” the doctor asked.

“Very good,” Billy said. “Mommy gets up every morning and makes breakfast and then she cleans, and then she does the laundry, and then she shines the shoes, and then she goes shopping, and then she makes
gouter
at four and dinner at seven-thirty.”

The psychiatrist was perplexed.

“Is she a good cook?”

Billy gave this question some thought.

“No.”

“Tell me about your daddy.”

“He killed a man once with his bayonet and he said he’ll do it again to anyone who tries to take me away from him,” Billy said flatly.

“Nobody wants to do that,” the doctor gently said. Billy glared at him, not remotely convinced.

“How do you like your school? Do you like your classmates and your teachers?”

“They’re Frogs, mostly,” he said, feeling patriotic. “I’d rather live in America.”

“Why?”

“They have better TV here. And much better candy. And anyway we’re American.”

After their conversation, the doctor recommended that our mother spend more time with us at home, and diagnosed that my brother was having an identity crisis over his nationality. He felt the best cure would be to enroll Billy in a strictly American school. My parents wrote letters immediately.

By the end of the summer, Billy had been accepted to a private American school in Paris, entirely through the mail.

Our father took it upon himself to explain to us why we were living in France.

“You see,” he said, “your mother won’t live anywhere in America but New York City, and I can’t write in New York. There’s too much going on and it’s too much fun.” He watched us for a reaction and we stared back, perplexed. “We’ll go on home when you kids get to be teenagers. Find someplace in between New York and peace and quiet. If we stay in France too long you’ll grow up to be Eurotrash brats, like all our friends’ kids did. They don’t know who the hell they are.”

We went home on the
SS France
at the end of the summer. Our mother told us she might be pregnant. “It’s incredible,” she said. “The doctor said I had a one-in-a-thousand chance of ever getting pregnant again. Well, it’s been two and a half months. How do you kids feel about having a little brother or sister?” She seemed flushed, almost overwhelmed by her good fortune.

I was horrified. First they bring me this donkey of a kid who isn’t even fun to play with and now there’s going to be another one? I thought. And what if Candida loves the new baby more than me? Candida had gone to Portugal for the summer, to visit her mother. She sent us postcards in her unreadable, bastardized French that said things like, “Ay Channe my
bébé
I miss you so I can’t wait for to see you back home. I kiss eberybody much.”

On the
SS France
, our dad always paid for two tiny rooms in the bowels of Tourist Class, and then, because he was a well-known writer and knew how to tip and bribe without offending, the steward (for a certain fee) would move us to two free rooms on the Veranda Deck. The steward’s tip was considerably less than the rooms would have cost our dad by going through normal channels, but that was not why he did it, he said. He just got a big kick out of screwing the System.

The Veranda deck was as chic as you could get and still be in Second Class—our parents didn’t like First Class; they found it too stuffy and dull. My mother, however, got a special passkey to the First Class swimming pool, sauna, and massage center. In the swimming pool of Second Class, an outdoor thing on an upper deck of the ship, Billy took to playing with the smaller children. The rocking of the ship made the water swish in big waves from side to side, and Billy swam around herding the little children toward the middle to keep them from banging into the edges. He explained to them about the waves and stood in the shallow end and caught them as they jumped into the water, squealing with laughter. He even taught one little boy to swim without his floater. “You see,” he explained gently, arms wrapped around the little waist, “your body is full of air too, just like a
bouée
.”

“What are you doing playing with little kids, Billy?” I asked him rather contemptuously.

Frowning, he responded, “I’m learning how to be a big brother. I’ve never been a big brother, so I’m learning.” This seemed like the most obvious thing in the world to him. I started imagining that he and the new little brother or sister were going to gang up on me and make my life more miserable than it already was.

Our mother miscarried in the third month and Billy was gloomy for several weeks.

Our rooms were separated by an archway and one night I woke up to his sobbing in his bed. I went to him and sat down beside him. In the beginning these crying fits in the middle of the night had been frequent, but lately they had completely disappeared.

“What is it?”

“The baby went away because I’m here and there isn’t enough room for him too.”

“No, no, no! That’s not it at all! There’s lots of room! Mommy’s sick, that’s all.”

It was like anything else I said to try to make him change his mind—useless. I shook him hard by the shoulder.

“Stop it! Stop it, do you hear me? IT’S NOT BECAUSE OF YOU!”

“Then maybe it’s because of you. Because you’re so terrible he didn’t want to come live in our family.”

It was almost as if he’d punched me right in the heart with all his strength.

Billy’s American school, which our dad said cost as much a year as a brand-new car, did not have a cafeteria. Candida had to make Billy sandwiches every morning. She’d cut a fourth off a baguette and slice it down the middle. He’d get ham and butter or scrambled eggs and butter. Candida did not have much of an imagination when it came to sandwiches. After about a month, my parents received a letter from Billy’s school:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Willis:

We were not aware that your son is a scholarship student, attending our school under the auspices of the American Embassy or an overseas company. Apparently Billy has been sitting quietly through lunch break without having a thing to eat, and refuses the half a sandwich his little neighbor, Davey Smith, has been offering him. May I be so bold as to recommend our Lunch Program for the Needy? Many of our students whose parents are not able to afford to give their children a lunch box, take advantage of this program which will offer your child a well-balanced lunch, as well as one One-A-Day vitamin, daily, at no extra cost to you.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Harriet Mackenzie, Director

Lunch Program for the Needy