Jennie (25 page)

Christmas dinner, I think it was 1972, the doorbell rang. Jennie raced to the door—she was always the first to answer the door—and opened it. There was my mother. Jennie blocked the door and made that terrible gesture. My mother burst into tears. You see, she had just lost her husband, my father, and this was her first Christmas alone. It was so grotesque. Jennie blocking her and making this hateful gesture. I don't know how she was able to hurt someone like that. And Jennie liked my mother.

Then of course the Jehovah's Witnesses came by and Jennie stole the lady's hat. When she asked for it back, Jennie made that gesture. It was so embarrassing. I suppose I should look at the bright side, because they never came back. Clearly we were beyond saving! [Laughs.]

And then Dr. Prentiss. Jennie started up on that with Dr. Prentiss, and she came marching into the house with her pinched face and said we needed to have a serious talk. As if I were some monster of a mother. She was such a—a
bitch
. Excuse me. You should've heard the mouth on her! When she lost her temper—the words that came out of her mouth! She swore like a sailor.

She was also outraged at Jennie's drinking. “Forcing liquor on a poor defenseless animal.” Defenseless! And Sandy started being so rude to Dr. Prentiss. Oh dear. He was rude to everybody, of course. But he was so smart, and he knew exactly how to get under
Dr. Prentiss's skin. He would accuse her of conducting “fascistic behavior modification experiments” on his “sister.” Her relationship to Jennie was “bourgeois,” whatever that was supposed to mean. The accusations were, I have to admit, unfair. If I for a moment thought that Dr. Prentiss was abusing Jennie in any way I would have sent her packing. It made Dr. Prentiss wild to be accused like that. She considered herself a bit of a rebel, you see, and to be accused of having middle-class values made her hopping mad. She felt Sandy was trying to turn Jennie against her. And I think he was, but it didn't work. Jennie loved and trusted Dr. Prentiss. I don't really know why, but she did. Sandy, you know, was the first to see through that woman.

I will say this however: Sandy never said anything to Jennie that was bad about me. We had our differences, but Sandy never tried to turn Jennie against
me
. Or Hugo.

Everything seemed to change so fast. It was a very difficult time. Oh, it was so very difficult. I had this feeling that something awful was going to happen.

[E
XCERPTS
from the journals of the Rev. Hendricks Palliser.]

This morning it was frigid. When I went for my morning walk the brook was frozen. I could hear the water running underneath the ice. But the brisk walk did nothing to shake off a lethargy that has settled on my soul since the death of Reba.

Today marks exactly one month since her passing. There is so much death in the world today, the death of fine young men in the jungles of Vietnam, the murder in our cities, the protests, the killing of college students. I can hardly accept this is my beloved country anymore. God said “Thou shalt not kill.” I do not recall His mentioning any exceptions to the rule. All the great pillars of my life are crumbling. I must constantly remind myself that I am not the only grieving person in the world. And yet, the loss of Reba is a terrible cross to bear and I do not think I have the strength for it.

When Jennie arrived for her weekly lesson this morning, I felt a great weight being lifted. She is so cheerful and so untouched by the sorrows of the world that she cannot but gladden a person's heart. I watched her wander about the living room, picking objects up, smelling and tasting them, rolling them around between her palms, and dropping them on the rug when they had lost her attention. I did not have the heart to discipline her. It reminded me of how it used to irritate Reba and I shed a tear or two, and when Jennie noticed she came over with a look of great concern furrowing her brow. She embraced me with much affection and touched and patted my tears, trying to wipe them away. Kindness and love are God's greatest gifts and Jennie has them in abundance. I need look no further than this to find proof that Jennie is a child of God.

And now I wonder if my failed effort to bring a Christian commitment to Jennie's life was, in truth, an exercise of not seeing the forest for the trees. In every way, at every moment, Jennie shows kindness and altruism that reveal her to be a child of grace. Just as babies and severely retarded children are saved by grace despite their lack of intellectual understanding, so is Jennie's grace revealed by her Christian responses to those around her. If spontaneous kindness, without cunning or forethought of reward, is not proof of grace, what can be proof? I am aware that this may be a radical conclusion, perhaps at variance with my church. So be it. I seem to be at variance with so much in my church these days.

I am resolved to finally deliver that sermon on Jennie. Fear of ridicule has held me back.

After Jennie arrived, I played on the hi-fi one of my favorite pieces of religious music, Duruflé's
Requiem
, and Jennie was quieted by it and sat on the floor listening. I signed to her that the piece was about God and Jennie looked at me with interest but did not respond.

In the middle of last night, I heard a squirrel in the chimney and now I am afraid to light a fire. I was under the impression that squirrels hibernated in the winter.

Jennie was very lively today. She announced her desire to listen to music by banging on the hi-fi, and I obliged by playing Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. She is greatly taken with loud organ music. To her great delight she has discovered the knob that controls the volume, and she turns it up whenever my back is turned, hoping, perhaps, I will not notice.

We perused the latest issue of
Pennies from Heaven
and she signed
Jesus Jesus
when we came to a picture of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. It showed Lazarus lying in a robe, and then him rising with a radiant light around his head. Then Jennie began signing
What that?
and pointing at the picture, and I tried to explain the story of Lazarus. The conversation was rather peculiar, and, indeed, astonishing in its own way. I will here insert the relevant sections from my Jennie notes:

Myself:
Man dead
.

Jennie:
What?

Myself:
Man dead
.

Jennie:
What?
(By this I think she possibly meant
Why?
)

Myself:
Man dead, Jesus make man alive
.

Jennie stared at the picture with utmost interest. I thought she probably did not understand. She repeated
what
five or six times, slowly. Then she finally signed:
Dead, dead, dead, dead
. Over and over again. I repeated the story,
Man dead, Jesus make man alive
. Jennie furrowed her brow and scratched and squeaked and hooted to herself, as if lost in deep thought.

Then she signed something followed by the word “dead.” Like so:——
dead
. I could not find any meaning in the ASL dictionary
for the——sign, except
bug
which of course must be wrong. She continued signing——
dead
quite insistently. At the same time she exhibited all the signs of puzzlement, as if the word “dead” itself held some mystery for her. As indeed it should. It is one of the oldest and most baffling questions that faced Mankind until God revealed himself through His Son Jesus Christ, and when that happened, truly then, death lost its mystery. I hope that Jennie at some point in her life can come to this realization, although it may be beyond her intellectual capabilities.

We continued our peculiar conversation.

Myself:
Jesus make dead man alive
.

Jennie:
Dead, dead, dead man
.

Myself:
Man dead
. (And I pointed to the picture)

Jennie:
What dead?

Myself:
Man
.

Jennie became frustrated at this.
What dead?
she signed several times in rapid succession. I realized that she must be asking “What is it to be dead? What is death?” So I responded,
Death like sleep
.

She stamped on the floor and hooted loudly.
Dead! Dead!
she signed, and then signed
What dead?

I responded by lying down and pretending to be dead. This silenced Jennie, and when I peeked out of an eye I saw that she was looking at me with a terrible grimace of fear. I had frightened the poor thing! I quickly got up and she signed
Hug, hug
over and over again. Then she picked up the book and threw it down on the floor and slapped it and kicked it across the room. Death is obviously as distasteful a subject to a chimpanzee as it is to a human being.

I did not, however, wish to leave the subject. I felt a breakthrough might be imminent. The fear of death is what brings many to God, and I have often thought that God gave us this terrible fear for that very reason. Therefore, as painful as it was to me, I introduced Reba into the conversation.

I signed,
Reba dead
.

Jennie looked at me.

Remember Reba?
I asked.

Jennie signed
Reba
.

Reba dead
I signed.

Jennie signed
Reba!
several times, as if she had forgotten about Reba. Then she looked about wildly. I do believe that she realized, for the first time, that Reba had been missing for a while.

Right away she turned and ran up the stairs and pounded on the door to Reba's old bedroom, which I keep shut but unlocked. Reba had spent several months there before the end. I went up the stairs after her, and by the time I arrived she had thrown the bedroom door open and was standing on the threshhold. Then she whirled around and came racing past me in the hall and went back downstairs—myself struggling to keep up—and headed into the kitchen, the other place where Reba was often found. When I caught up with her, she was standing in the middle of the kitchen looking confused.

Where Reba?
she signed.

Reba dead
, I signed.
Reba in Heaven
. My heart was pounding so awfully, with a mixture of sorrow and anticipation. I felt that some very profound revelation was taking place in Jennie's understanding. And I felt so terribly sad at the same time.

Jennie signed,
Where Reba!
again with both hands.

Reba dead
, I repeated.
Reba with God in Heaven
. I pointed to the sky.
Reba dead, gone to Heaven. Reba with God
.

She looked so utterly lost that I signed
Jennie, what you think?

She looked at me and signed again,
Where Reba?
and stamped her feet on the ground in frustration.

And then I remembered Jennie's kitten, which she owned for a short time some years ago and which died. I signed
Remember cat? Jennie's cat? Jennie's cat dead. Reba dead. Same. Same
.

Jennie became very still, looking at me. I repeated:
Jennie's cat dead. Reba dead. Same
.

At this, a most dramatic reaction occurred. Jennie remained frozen, but her hair slowly began to rise up on end, and she swayed back and forth on her knuckles, while making a peculiar squeaking noise in the bottom of her throat. A noise I had never heard before, but clearly one of profound distress. I do not know whether she was affrighted or grieving. I suspect the former.

She then signed
Jennie's cat
several times and went and sat in the corner, facing the wall, hugging herself and squeaking. She would not allow me to approach or comfort her, which was very unlike her. My heart was in turmoil. I was divided between thinking that Jennie was sharing in her own way my grief, and wondering if what Jennie was actually experiencing was that terrible and unassuagable fear of death that often strikes nonbelievers in the middle years of life. I could hardly breathe.

I attempted to comfort her in my own limited way.
Reba happy. Reba in Heaven. Reba with God and Jesus
. Jennie continued signing to herself
Jennie's cat
and
Reba Reba Reba
and rocking back and forth, lost in her private and powerful emotion, without paying me the slightest attention. I finally took her hand and led her home. She was passive and unresponsive.

Knowledge of death—which is, in a peculiar way, also the knowledge of good and evil—is the most terrible burden that we human beings must bear, and I wonder now if it wasn't cruel to force that knowledge on Jennie.

[F
ROM
Recollecting a Life
by Hugo Archibald.]

By the fall of 1971, we noticed that Jennie was growing up fast. Every day she seemed to get bigger and stronger, more self-assured and less dependent. She abandoned many of her childish ways. She stopped hoarding her toys and guarding them obsessively. She became more at ease with strangers. She was less likely to throw a
tantrum, but when she did her tantrums were more prolonged and violent.

At the same time our son was going through the throes of adolescence. He grew his hair long and participated in a protest of the Vietnam War in Kibbencook Square. It was a tame protest—a candlelight March for Peace—and we insisted on coming along, partly because we agreed with the protesters, but mostly because we did not want to see Sandy arrested or injured if the police should overreact. Jennie, naturally, came along as well.

The marchers gathered at the high school parking lot at sunset and proceeded down Grove Street to the clock tower in Kibbencook Square. There were several hundred marchers, mostly young people from the high school, along with a number of worried parents. Sandy and his young friends wore flowers in their hair and they carried candles. Lea and I followed behind, keeping one eye on them and another on the police. We were worried that one of Sandy's less-intelligent friends would light up a marijuana cigarette and give the police a reason to arrest everyone.