Apart From Love (11 page)

These sheets have been replaced, recently, with a royal blue bedspread. Pretentiously royal, I should say. It reminds me of a storm at sea, because of the color, I guess, and because of the folds rising and sinking here every which way, as if a gust of wind has blown across the surface, creating friction between that which is air and that which is fluid, and drawing ripples all around.

And there, lying on top of them is Anita, the woman who displaced my mother. Her rest, if you can call it that, is agitated—but then, at the sound of my father’s voice, coming faintly from the other end of the apartment, she spreads open her hands and her face brightens. She seems to relax, even smile.

From here, it sounds as if there is some distress in his voice. “This is Lenny,” he says, starting a different conversation now.

I can see how her eyelashes start flickering, ever so lightly, over the freckles.
 

“It’s me,” he repeats, to someone out there. “Me, Len.”

My father talks now with an unusually slow manner, and with clear intervals, stressing every word; which makes me curious. I wonder who is it now, who is at the other end of the line.
 

He lowers his voice, but I can still hear him saying, “Just listen, dear. It’s me. It’s Lenny.”

By now Anita is trying to open her eyes, if only by a crack. I have no idea if she could hear anything, or if she has caught sight of me. I wonder, can she see my outline, can she make it out against the bright sunlight in the window, and does she recognize, through the narrow interval between her eyelids, who I am.
 

So I whisper to her, “Anita...” which makes her nod her head.

“I carried you here,” I say, “because you were dizzy. I mean, you fell.”

She mumbles a long sentence, most of which I can barely understand.
 

“So, how are you feeling?” I ask. “Any better, now?”

Anita opens her mouth and out comes a big yawn.
 

I wait for an answer and before long, I can hear her purring softly, and from time to time, shivering slightly in her sleep. The rhythm of her breathing is regular now. So I unfurl the blanket over her, and cover her up to her ears.
 

I imagine my father standing right here, in my place at the foot of the bed. I step back and in my mind, picture him taking a step forward, lifting the edge of the blanket, which is still settling over her.
 

His hands go in, searching playfully for her feet, touching the creamy skin, fondling her toes, rolling each one of them ever so slightly between his fingers; which makes her arch her back, stretch out her arms, and twist her body around until she is turned over, on her back. She points her toes towards him with a cry of pleasure.
 

Anita utters a groan as he applies gentle pressure to the soles of her feet, caresses the arches, the heels, the ankles. Her knees spread open and fall apart, until she takes control of herself and brings them together—only to have them spread open again.

I close my eyes because this way, I can see with greater clarity. The entire blanket is coming alive, folding and unfolding, stirring with their passionate tangle. From time to time the ripples rise to mark the line of his back, or the curve of her embrace.
 

Waves come and go, crests roll in, followed by deep troughs, all giving a hint here, a hint there of the ways of their bodies, aching for each other, desperate to cling, to hold, to be taken.
 

Then, in my mind I conjure up the missing presence. The presence of the forgotten woman.
 

I gasp, for there she is: mom steps in from the shadow behind the mirror. Even if I try, I cannot grasp her. She advances slowly until she is standing right here, a few steps removed from the bed, tired, covered with a fine layer of dust, the dust of a long travel. By now it has caked on her face, because of the sweat that has already dried up. And in that crust, a crack here, a crack there bring out the crow feet by the corners of her eyes.
 

There is a stack of sheet music in her hands, which mom lets scatter in her path across the floor. Perhaps by now she has grown weary of her journey. I imagine it has been a while since she heard an ovation, since she took her bow in front of a crowd. And now, somewhere out there, a kid must be playing, practicing notes which are drifting in through the open window, out of sequence, confused.
 

She is wavering in her mind whether she should stay here, in this bedroom—which is hers after all—or walk out the door.
 

Finally, her exhaustion weighs in. Mom looks around her for a quiet place, and as if she were a stranger, she tiptoes—so as not to disturb—to the corner of this bed, where she turns her back to the two of them.
 

Her weight makes barely a dent on the mattress. She curls herself, tightening her arms over her knees and interlacing her fingers, which helps her keep loneliness away. Then she starts falling asleep, in the same place where the monogram—Natasha over Leonard—used to be.
 

It is then that I open my eyes and walk out of the room, closing the door behind me as softly and as gently as I can.

As Told by Ben

F
rom here I see the wheelchair, deserted. My father has managed to rise from it and now I can hear him down the hall, cackling in victory over this thing, this contraption, this symbol of his handicap, which is despicable to him. He is trying to walk. More precisely, he is swinging his crutches, a bit precariously I think—and in return, he is being swung by them, back and forth and over and again, making a small advance, a minute one really, with each attempted step. For him, this must be a dance of triumph.

Stopping for a moment by the console table he dials, listens, and redials. His ear is pressed to the handset, which is connected by a long, spiral cord to the phone, which is nearly buried by various papers, and hidden behind an old alarm clock. The cord is stretching tensely in midair, or slithering behind his back as he goes back to hobbling to and fro across the floor.
 

There he goes, reaching the wall, banging it accidentally with the bottom of the crutch and then, somehow, turning around, aiming to reach the opposite wall and bang, turning around again, while listening intently to the earphone. With each footfall, my father attempts to cut through some stutter. He tries, it seems, to restart a conversation.
 

He pays no attention to me. Still, his voice is deliberately lowered, which tells me this is private. I should turn away, really, and keep myself far out of earshot—but for some reason I make no move, and no sound either. Why is the connection so bad, I wonder, and who is it, who could it be at the other end of the line?

My father swallows his breath several times, his face turning pale, his eyes—miserable, until finally he bursts out shouting, “Listen, it’s Lenny! Can you hear me, dear? In God’s name, Natasha, it’s me—”
 

Which makes me take a step forward, fumbling to find the right tone, the right words but at the same time, crying, “What? You’re talking to mom? Where—where is she? Give me, let me talk to her—”

For a moment, his eyes seem to pop right out of their sockets, and his face reddens in embarrassment, as if he has just been caught in a covert little hideaway, committing some shocking, scandalous sin. He freezes, with the handset suspended in midair. Then slowly, and with full intention, he sets it down in its cradle, and stays there guarding the thing, which is still clasped firmly in his hand.

“What is that? What are you doing?” I plead. “Mom is back! It has been a long time, five years I think, since I heard her voice—”

“Yes,” he says. “It has been that: five years. But first, we need to talk—"

"We,” I insist, “have nothing to talk about. All I know is, mom is back from her tour.” And with that I leap forward and try to snatch the thing, I yank it right out of his hold; which is when he pounces on me, and his knuckles turn bone-white around my arm, and I feel him gripping me tightly, until it hurts. I have forgotten how strong he is.
 

"Listen,” says my father, between clenched teeth. “Listen to me! It is about her.”
 

By now I am yowling in distress, “What? What the hell do you mean? What is it, about mom?”
 

And so he releases me. “You better sit down,” he says. “It is something you need to hear.”
 

For a moment I consider the pleasure I could get out of arguing with him over whether or not I should sit, and what does he know about me, about what I need, or about anything else, for that matter—but then I take control of myself and, noting that there is no chair here, in the hall, I just clear some papers off the console table, and stand there, with my back to it, leaning against its edge.
 

All the while I consider what to say, and how to stay on the attack, before he can come out—as I know he will—and give me some bad news.

And so, I charge him, “It is always secrets with you. I hate you for that."
 

Which, to my surprise, he accepts. "I hate it too,” he admits. “Having to have secrets."

“With mom,” I say, “things are simpler. You know, from time to time she would tell me something about herself. She would write to me, even.”

“Oh yeah?” he says. “And how long ago was that?”

I figure that the last note I received from mom was—let’s see—at least two years ago, maybe three. It amazes me now that all this time, I have given little thought, if any, to the silence between us.
 

I suppose I did not feel like telling her about myself, because around that time I quit everything. I left my studies at the Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia in the university of Firenze, after only a couple of years. And so, I figured, the less letters from my parents—the better.
 

I isolated myself, and attributed the sporadic nature of our correspondence to the frequent changes of my address, as I moved often, from one place to another across Italy.

“And her handwriting,” says my father, pressing steadily ahead. “To you, son, was it clear?”

Her beautiful handwriting. It is engraved in my memory. As a child, I used to study it and copy it repeatedly, beginning at age five, when she wrapped her hand over mine, and taught me how to hold a pen. Between the first and middle fingers, she said, and hold it in place like this, by the thumb.
 

Mom used to draw text with the nib of a calligraphy pen. She would produce a smooth, fluent line, changing it—as if by a magic wand—from thick to thin, connecting the end of one glyph to the beginning of the another, with a stroke that was so fine, truly, fine to the point of becoming invisible, almost. It had such a consistent slant, just like that monogram, embroidered on her silk sheets.
 

But then, this note—the last note she sent me—which I can see before my eyes as if it were right here, rustling in my hands, this one, I must admit, was different. It had none of these delicate pen strokes.
 

On the contrary, here was an ugly mess. The words were scattered. Some of them were scratched over, as if some frenzied chickens got loose on the page. What happened? What could possibly explain this unusual sloppiness?
 

Back then I decided to gloss over it, thinking that on her tour, mom must have scribbled this note hastily, while rocking, perhaps, in a car of some clunky old train, or taking off in a small airplane, fighting stormy weather on the way to her next performance.

“Well, son?” he says. “Have you ever wondered about that note?”

I glare at him without saying a word.
 

So he takes a step closer, which makes me lean back.
 

“You know,” he says, “she wasted ten sheets of paper, maybe more, to write this thing to you. She labored so hard and so long over it, until finally it was written, and then she threw the pen away, to the other side of the room, saying she was too tired to try this again.”