See Now Then (3 page)

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And getting a mere glimpse of her in that pose, sitting humbly as if she were at the Moravian school in Points and before her was a copy of the Nelson West Indian Reader and at the desk that Donald had made for her, her hands on a tablet of writing paper, made Mr. Sweet sigh in despair, for in truth, everyone, anyone, in the whole world knew that he was the true heir of the position of sitting at the desk and contemplating the blank mound of sheets of paper, and in a state of rage he walked up to his studio, situated above the garage of the Shirley Jackson house, and he sat down at his piano, and this was not made by Donald who had taken up carpentry as a hobby and so it was in that spirit, the spirit of love and free of worldly worth, he had made Mrs. Sweet that desk; Mr. Sweet’s piano was made by Steinway. And Mr. Sweet struck a chord but no one could hear it, not anyone in the garage, there was no one in the garage, no one could hear him but he could hear the sound of the washing machine washing the clothes of his infernal family and in that entity he did not include himself: the children’s clothes, his wife’s gardening clothes, his wife’s underwear, the table linen for Mrs. Sweet would not allow them to use paper napkins, the sheets and the pillowcases, the bath mats, the kitchen towels, the bath towels, all sorts of things had to be washed and he had never thought of things being washed, except when he was a student in Paris, France, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his things got washed but his things being washed didn’t interfere with the striking of a chord. And now, so different from then; and then was a struggle and now the struggle would lead to his death; how happy, he thought to himself, to be alone, away from that woman who could and would walk into a room all by herself and sit at a desk Donald had made for her, and there she would think about her childhood, the misery that resulted from that wound, eventually becoming its own salve, from the wound itself, she made a world and this world that she had made out of her own horror was full of interest and was even attractive. To be away from her, this woman, now my wife, but then when I first met her, just a very thin girl, like a strayed branch of a stray tree waiting for the pruning shears or a weed, nothing to be given a second thought as it was pulled out of the way for it interfered with something of real beauty and value; oh yes, how happy to be away from that woman, he was thinking and talking to himself of Mrs. Sweet, who could find the death of Homer a source of endless wonder, a man who had repaired a house in which they lived, seeing him dead and lying in his coffin, wearing his hunting clothes, just bought from the store and looking as if at any moment he would sit up and say something that would not be agreeable to Mr. Sweet but Mrs. Sweet would say it was so interesting and amazing: how amazing, was something she liked to say, and she said it about the simplest thing: a rainbow, for instance; three rainbows, one after the other, at the same time, as if drawn by a child who would be regarded with suspicion in any culture in any part of the world at any given time in human existence; as if it were the first time such a thing had appeared before; so Amazing, she says, would say, so said Mr. Sweet to himself, in his studio above the garage, and in the garage, to accommodate him, to prevent him from hearing any sounds that were not made by him, no cars were allowed. All the same, he could hear the dunning sound caused by the washing machine and the clothes dryer and the hub-hub of the household beyond: Mr. Pembroke is mowing the lawn, the heating oil man from Green Oil is filling up the heating oil tank, Blue Flame Gas is here to fill up those gas tanks, the man from CVPS is reading the meter, the furnace has just broken down even though it is only five years old, Heracles has tonsillitis, Persephone hates her mother Mrs. Sweet, Mrs. Sweet now looks exactly like Charles Laughton as he portrayed Captain Bligh in the film
Mutiny on the Bounty
, a girl student of Mr. Sweet would like to talk to him about his thoughts on
Pierrot Lunaire
over a glass of Pimm’s Cup in Mrs. Sweet’s garden, for that girl so loves gardens and perhaps Mr. Sweet so loves that girl. But that dunning sound, said Mr. Sweet to himself, and looking out, just then, of a window in the beautiful studio that Mrs. Sweet had insisted be built for him, so he could be isolated from the children who might be in a room next door and, while there, want to construct a creature from some material bought at Kmart that was meant to resemble the makeup of a being that was an imagined and yet even so looked like something familiar, and the children, Persephone and Heracles, beautiful and young, were so loud, so loud, and they would only get louder and Mr. Sweet could only wish them louder, for anything other than louder was unbearable and would kill even him. Yes, Mr. Sweet was so sad, for he had married and made the mother of his children, a woman who loved living in a small village in New England, a place where a man, who went hunting deer every autumn of his life, died in the midst of securing one of them onto the back of his truck, and it all made this woman he had come to regard as dreadful, like something in a tale read without thinking to children just before they went to bed, children whose fears had a source that was not properly known to them: The Brothers Grimm! Oh God!
The Runaway Bunny
!
Harold and the Purple Crayon
!
Goodnight Moon
!
The Tale of Two Bad Mice
!
The Tailor of Gloucester
!
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
!
Where the Wild Things Are
! Yes, Mr. Sweet was so sad, for he had married and made the mother of his children a woman who knew all sorts of things but she did not know him, that would be Mr. Sweet, but who could know such a person as this man, who carried himself not as a man, but as a rodent from that era, the Mesozoic, when the first mammals took that shape.

And then there in that room that was just above the garage and in spite of the infernal sounds coming from the big white metal boxes that served to make clothes clean, Mr. Sweet composed his nocturnes, for he only loved nocturnes, and this one he called
This Marriage Is Dead
and he placed all manner of rage in it and that rage was true and justified, for look, see, just out the window, outside, the young Heracles, a small boy just then, arranging his collection of shy Myrmidons, gifts tucked away in Happy Meals purchased from McDonalds, and he had no interest in the meal itself, only he wanted to collect the small plastic warriors who were made to look like the followers of a hero of the Trojan War; and now he was arranging them and rearranging them and making an imaginary storm descend on them, scattering them all over the green lawn which he made into an imaginary sea, and as the shy Myrmidons drowned again, coming to rest, legs in the air, held up by the blades of grass that would soon require cutting by Mr. Pembroke, Mr. Sweet set these scenes of battles and drowning to the music that made up the nocturne,
This Marriage Is Dead
, though sometimes he changed the title to
This Marriage Has Been Dead for a Long Time Now
. Oh, such wailing and gnashing of teeth, such beating of breast, so many tears were cried that it could have made a roaring river and you could have built a boat and sailed down into the ocean on it and looking back to see the wending ways of that river, you could give that river a name, so thought Mrs. Sweet, one day, one day when she first heard those words This Marriage Is Dead, This Marriage Has Been Dead for a Long Time Now, though not when she first heard them as a nocturne performed in an auditorium, one night in winter, surrounded by friends and loved ones and clutching the hand of the young Heracles, for she had wanted him to hear his father’s music, for she had wanted him to think that his father loved him, for she had wanted him to think that his father loved her, for she had wanted a great deal too much; that time when she first heard that nocturne, she could see Dan revving the engine of the old Volvo, which was stopped at the red light in front of the coop in the square, next to a Porsche, and the driver of the Porsche was offended by the noise of the Volvo and when the red light changed to green, he sped ahead and Dan and Heracles stayed in place and laughed at him and they did not know who that driver was and they did not wonder if that driver knew of them, they only laughed and laughed.

But all that aside, for all that would have its then and has its own now, Mr. Sweet sitting on a stool in the studio above the garage, the dun-dun, wooo-wooo, whoosh-whoosh noise made by the clothes-cleaning machines, and he sat there, hovered above the black and white keys of that musical instrument made by the company called Steinway, his hands poised above those keys, his fingers extended, his fingers resembling his long-ago ancestors who lived in that long-ago era, and he composed more nocturnes, more nocturnes, and more of those: his life was not what he wanted it to be, not what he had imagined it to be even though he had not imagined it to be anything in particular other than he would be princely and entitled to doormen and poor but princely and entitled to doormen and sad because he loved ballet and Wittgenstein and opera and entitled to doormen, no matter what, there must be doormen. But now, there just outside as he looked out the window, was the young Heracles saying, Dad, Dad, and young Heracles was playing golf now, imagining himself a champion and wearing a silly jacket in a specific shade of the color green, or a champion of something or the other and Mr. Sweet did loathe all that the boy enjoyed and would never, ever take him to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, but he would have taken him to the home of Dmitri Shostakovich if it was in Springfield, Massachusetts, and he wanted that boy, the young Heracles, dead and he wanted another boy, who could sit still in the movie theater watching a cartoon, and not need Adderall or any kind of stimulant that made you still, to take his place, and that someone saying, Dad! Dad! could be a boy who was alive even in stillness; but then, years later, now, now, now, the young Heracles, when asked to look back on the wreckage that had been made of his young life by those words which had become the title of a song, a book, a recipe for a kind of sponge cake, directions for removing stains left by food spilled on the front of your dress or shirt while feeding the baby, turning left when your spouse is certain you should have turned right:
This Marriage Is Dead
or sometimes known as
The Marriage Is Dead
and sometimes, when it has been reduced to a folk song, is called
Husband Left Her
, when asked about it in this way: “What now, young Heracles, for your life was such a wreck, but now it must look like an accident, a bunch of stuff all over the place, seen in the rearview mirror”; and the young Heracles, without pause, replied, “Yes, but objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.”

And so too, without pause, then and now, the dead marriage grew into a loud, beastly entity that could be seen dancing on the lawn just within view of Mr. Sweet as he sat in the room above the garage, writing and rewriting the nocturne itself, its arms touching the tops of the Taconic range in the west, its legs mixing freely with the boreal forest in the east, hovering above the various waterways named Hudson, Battenkill, Walloomsac, Hoosic, Mettowee, that lay in between. The dead marriage occupied each empty space that was innocently bare in that village in which the Sweets lived, even in the post office, where the postmistress looked at Mrs. Sweet with pity and scorn before handing her a notice of an overdue bill; so too, it was alive in the country store, for when Mrs. Sweet entered the premises all conversation stopped, and everyone looked at her with pity and scorn and perhaps were sorry that none of them had an overdue bill to hand to her, and perhaps were happy that none of them had an overdue bill for her and Mrs. Sweet purchased some cheese and yogurt made by Mrs. Burley.

That nocturne
This Marriage Is Dead
or
The Marriage Has Been Dead for a Long Time Now
, or the popular folk song
Husband Left Her
, brought such joy to Mr. Sweet and he felt, for the first time in his life, fulfilled; his whole life had been lived, all his suffering for his whole life had ceased just then, for he had suffered much: the life of a prince, when he was a child and lived in an apartment across from that specially arranged plantation of greenness in New York City, Central Park, overwhelmed his whole being and he reached into the pocket of his tweed jacket, which bore the label of J. Press, a haberdasher on Madison Avenue and East Forty-sixth Street and he found a piece of paper, a note and he read it with the surprise of the new and he read it with the familiarity with which you say to yourself, in whatever incarnation you find yourself: child, adolescent, twenties, thirties, middle age, old, in a hospice hours before your heart becomes still, yes! Tell now, Tell then, the note had nothing written on it and the note had this written on it: This is how to live your life, and it was signed, Your Father.

Her hands now holding a pencil, Mrs. Sweet began to write on the pages before her:

“It is true that my mother loved me very much, so much that I thought love was the only emotion and even the only thing that existed; I only knew love then and I was an infant up to the age of seven and could not know that love itself, though true and a stable standard, is more varied and unstable than any element or substance that rises up from the earth’s core; my mother loved me and I did not know that I should love her in return; it never occurred to me that she would grow angry at me for not returning the love she gave to me; I accepted the love she gave me without a thought to her and took it for my own right to live in just the way that would please me; and then my mother became angry at me because I did not love her in return and then she became even more angry that I did not love her at all because I would not become her, I had an idea that I should become myself; it made her angry that I should have a self, a separate being that could never be known to her; she taught me to read and she was very pleased at how naturally I took to it, for she thought of reading as a climate and not everyone adapts to it; she did not know that before she taught me to read I knew how to write, she did not know that she herself was writing and that once I knew how to read I would then write about her; she wished me dead but not into eternity, she wished me dead at the end of day and that in the morning she would give birth to me again; in a small room of the public library of St. John’s, Antigua, she showed me books about the making of the earth, the workings of the human digestive system, the causes of some known diseases, the lives of some European composers of classical music, the meaning of pasteurization; I cannot remember that I was taught the alphabet, the letters A B and C one after the other in sequence with all the others ending in the letter Z, I can only see now that those letters formed into words and that the words themselves leapt up to meet my eyes and that my eyes then fed them to my lips and so between the darkness of my impenetrable eyes and my lips that are the shape of chaos before the tyranny of order is imposed on them is where I find myself, my true self and from that I write; but I knew how to write before I could read, for all that I would write about had existed before my knowing how to read and transport it into words and put it down on paper, and all of the world had existed before I even knew how to speak of it, had existed before I even knew how to understand it, and in looking at it even more closely, I don’t really know how to write because there is so much before me that I cannot yet read; I cannot write why I did not love my mother then when she loved me so completely; what I felt for her has no name that I can now find; I thought her love for me and her own self was one thing and that one thing was my own, completely my own, so much so that I was part of what was my own and I and my own were inseparable and so to love my mother was not known to me and so her anger directed toward me was incomprehensible to us both; my mother taught me to read, she and I at first could read together and then she and I could read separately but not be in conflict, but then, to see it now, only I would write; after she taught me to read, I caused such disruption in my mother’s everyday life: I asked her for more books and she had none to give me and so she sent me to a school that I would only be allowed in and admitted to if I was five years old; I was already taller than was expected for someone my age, three and a half years old, and my mother said to me, now remember when they ask you how old say you are five, over and over again, she made me repeat that I was five and when the teacher asked me how old I was I said that I was five years of age and she believed me; it is perhaps then that I became familiar with the idea that knowing how to read could alter my circumstances, that then I came to know that the truth could be unstable while a lie is hard and dark, for it was not a lie to say that I was five when I was three and a half years old, for three and a half years old then was now, and my five-year-old self then would soon be in my now; that teacher’s name was Mrs. Tanner and she was a very large woman, so large that she could not turn around quickly and we would take turns pinching her bottom, and by the time she looked to see which of us had done so we would assume a pose of innocence and she never knew which one of us had been so rude and mischievous; and it was while in Mrs. Tanner’s presence that I came to develop fully my two selves, then and now, united only through seeing, and it happened in this way: Mrs. Tanner was teaching us to read from a book with simple words and pictures, but since I already knew how to read I could see things within the book that I was not meant to see; the story in the book was about a man who was a farmer and his name was Mr. Joe and he had a dog named Mr. Dan and a cat named Miss Tibbs and a cow who did not have a name, the cow was only called the cow, and he had a hen and her name was Mother Hen and she had twelve chicks, eleven of them were ordinary, golden chicks, but the twelfth one was bigger than the others and had black feathers and he had a name, it was Percy; Percy caused his mother a great deal of worry, for he always would provoke the anger of Miss Tibbs and Mr. Dan by attempting to eat their food; but his mother’s greatest worry came when she saw him try to fly up to sit on the uppermost bar of the farm’s fence; he tried and tried and failed and then one day succeeded but only for a moment and then he fell down and broke one of his wings and one of his legs; it was Mr. Joe who said, ‘Percy the chick had a fall.’ I liked that sentence then and I like that sentence now but then I had no way of making any sense of it, I could only keep it in my mind’s eye, where it rested and grew in the embryo that would become my imagination; a good three and a half years later, I met Percy again but in another form; as a punishment for misbehaving in class, I was made to copy Books One and Two of
Paradise Lost
by John Milton and I fell in love with Lucifer, especially as he was portrayed in the illustration, standing victoriously on one foot on a charred globe, the other foot aloft, his arms flung out in that way of the victor, brandishing a sword in one of them, his head of hair thick and alive for his hair was all snakes poised to strike; I then remembered Percy and I do now know Percy.”