Turn Us Again (33 page)

They visited Crater Lake, formed by a volcano, and found a beautiful campsite nearby, with a fresh stream of water gurgling near their tent and lulling them to sleep. Signs throughout the campsite warned visitors not to feed the bears. No matter how much alcohol she had imbibed, Madelyn made sure to wrap up every remnant of food and store it behind the locked doors of their car. On the third night in Crater Lake, she woke up in a sweat to the sound of scuffling and rocking just outside the tent. She remembered a tin of soup powder on the bench of the picnic table, which she had caught sight of several times during the evening, reminding herself each time to lock it up before going to bed. The scuffling seemed to turn into huffing, and Madelyn lay petrified, unsure whether her terror was due to the necessity of waking Sam from his precious slumber, or to the presence of vicious animals on the other side of the smelly canvas wall.

She nudged Sam, producing a hiccupped snore, and then, as the sniffing sound seemed to hover on the very edge of the tent, elbowed him.

“Whassamatter…” he said in the dense voice of half-sleep.

“Bears! There are bears outside,” she hissed, as low as she could so the bears wouldn't realize that something more substantial than soup powder was available.

Sam leapt to the door of the tent and ripped it open in excitement, while Madelyn cowered under the covers, hoping that his flesh alone would satisfy their hunger.

“There's nothing here,” he said, moving the flap aside so she could see for herself. “Don't be so bloody stupid next time!” he barked at her in a subdued fashion, so as not to wake Gabriel.

The next day she saw that all the spoons were in disarray.

“Look, Sam. I left all the spoons on the table in a neat row on the towel for them to dry. Now there are some on the ground, on the bench, even three in the soup powder box. What do you say to that?”

“Elementary, my dear Watson. Unable to eat the soup powder with the spoons, the frustrated bears chucked them on the floor.”

And a few minutes later to Gabriel, “Do you think there is a chance you have inherited your mother's brains, you poor thing?”

Time became pertinent again, and the remainder of the journey had to be planned in order to get back to Vancouver for the beginning of term. Sam became morose and quiet, even as they swivelled the nose of their trusty little car around for the return journey. Sarcastic comments and unprovoked snaps erupted, and he retired to bed soon after Gabriel, as if he wanted to conserve the energies that would soon be under onslaught.

They extended their holiday as long as possible, arriving back just in time for the commencement of classes. There was some pleasure in returning to the relative luxury of their home, and Madelyn tried to stave off Sam's depression by taking him for long walks on the beach and drinks in the bar. It was exciting to ‘pop out' to the bar for a drink — the experience was so different from the sedate English pubs. In the 1950s Vancouver resembled a frontier town, and the rough men downing their liquor and glaring around created a cowboy movie atmosphere that ignited Sam's imagination. People were thrown out for drunkenness and brawling nightly. Sam himself once lunged across the room to pluck a broken bottle out of the hand of a drunk who was just about to plunge it into somebody's face. The apathetic non-intervention of the onlookers amazed him. Not a hand was lifted to stop the gratuitous destruction of a man's face. It didn't look like fear, just drunken lack of interest.

Madelyn even bought tickets to the opera, daringly, as it was expensive. Watching Don Giovanni in a movie theatre, due to the lack of an opera house, was an unforgettable experience.

Despite these efforts, Sam came in dragging his feet with exhaustion after his first day. “The department has changed, Mummy. People aren't nice and friendly anymore. I think they hate me.”

Madelyn put his dinner on the table. “I'm sure they don't hate you. Why do you think that?”

“I'm not a total idiot. If I feel that things have changed, they've changed. Let's just say nobody came up and clapped me on the back. Instead, I got tight smiles and averted looks. Steve Baker took me aside and told me that it was imperative that I get my PhD in order to continue teaching.”

“Well, why don't you?”

“I'm the best fucking teacher they've got, and they know it. What is the relevance of a PhD?”

Madelyn recognized that unhappiness and stress equaled irritation and foul language at home. Yet as always, her will battled with her common sense, and she spoke out even as her heart shrank inside her breast.

“The relevance is that they'd have to give you tenure and they wouldn't be able to kick you out. You'd be secure forever, even if they hated you.”

“They don't just give you tenure. If they don't like me they'll find some other excuse. Like insufficient publications.”

“Well, look for a job at some other university, if you think it will be better elsewhere.”

“What if it's the same everywhere?”

“It will be, because you alienate people by rudeness. Unless you change the pattern of your behaviour, you'll have the same experience wherever you go.”

Sam's voice climbed several decibels. “So it's my fault? They're not frightened because I speak the truth and refuse to be superficial, sheep-like, and mediocre like they are. They just don't like me because I'm rude!”

“I am trying to be a supportive, helpful wife…”

Sam howled with simulated laughter. “You cannot be that, if you identify with their feelings and despise mine.”

“I don't despise yours. I just think you might succeed more if you stopped treating everyone with contempt. Go out for coffee after work and talk to people, make contacts. That's what they all do! You can conform a little bit without losing face — that's what life is like.”

“From the mouths of babes, the meaning of life. You supply such a paltry motive to my struggles to remain ethical. Fear of losing face — what do I care about that? You aren't capable of understanding what integrity means. What a shame you didn't marry that idiot Drake, since you want someone who is like everybody else. And I should have married somebody who doesn't undermine my integrity and my self under the guise of wifely support,” Sam yelled and marched into his study.

The weather continued warm and balmy well into November, and Madelyn decided to have a picnic one Saturday in an effort to dispel the increasingly tense atmosphere within the house. They piled into their little car and set off towards a pretty little beach some distance away from the university.

“What dat?” Gabriel demanded from the back, gesturing towards a large building sporting a Star of David.

“That's a synagogue. It's where Jews go to pray, like Christians pray in churches,” answered Madelyn.

“Where are more sin-gogs?”

“The largest number of synagogues is in Israel.”

“Don't be a bloody fool,” Sam interjected, “there are more synagogues in the U.S. than in Israel.”

Madelyn ignored him and twisted around in her seat to smile at Gabriel. “All Jews feel that their first allegiance is to Israel. That means they love Israel more than any other country. ”

“More than Mummies?”

“Well no, they prefer their mothers, of course.”

“You be my wife and Mummy.”

Madelyn winked and turned to face the front again, sliding her eyes over the stiff lump of anger beside her. ‘Oh for God's sake,' she thought, ‘he's going to ruin our day by sulking now. I'm just trying to make conversation and encourage his son's interest in bloody Judaism.'

When they got to the beach there were several other families spread out on the sand. As usual, they tramped for ages until they reached a spot as far away from the rest of mankind as possible. And as usual, newcomers drifted in their direction, unaware of the murderous intentions their proximity provoked.

Gabriel jumped up and down in front of the picnic basket.

“Food!” he yelled. “Food!”

“Have a little swim first, sweetie. To whet your appetite so the food will taste even better.”

Several other kids were playing in the shallow waters, and there was no sign of dangerous rubber duckies. Gabriel ran off, and Sam disappeared for a walk along the beach. Madelyn took the picnic things out of the basket and arranged them on the blanket, hiding dessert as a little surprise for later. She looked up as Sam loomed in front of her. He smacked her across the face. She did not move a muscle, as if she was turned to stone. Sam continued his measured tread to the other side of the shore. Then he turned around and came back, pausing to whack her again. She sat there frozen, her eyes fixed on Gabriel, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

TWENTY-SEVEN

I
stop reading and look up at my father, sitting with his heavy head propped up on his right hand. It seems to me that my world has shifted a little. I am filled with such pain, thinking of my mother. Her youthful belief that her life would be different from other peoples', better than her mother's had been. Then her spirit slowly crushed. In the end, it was worse. Was there anything that she could have done? Or is the destiny of our lives fixed, and we are guiltless because we aren't in control? Maybe our destiny is random. We are happy, or not, according to some uncontrollable, unjust force. The mixture of anger and pity I feel for the man opposite me is confusing. I wish that I had been conscious of what was going on at the time. I wish I had smacked his face at the beach, screaming and forcing all the onlookers to pay attention and do something. Embarrass him to such an extent that he would never do it again. If I had helped my mother, maybe it would never have happened.

My father shuffles on the bench, reaches for the thermos to pour himself another cup of tea, asks if I want one. I do. He sets our cups down on the bench between us. I resist the urge to thank him, an instinct bred into me over years. I will not break the silence, neither to talk to him nor to continue reading. I will force him to say something.

He drinks half his tea in one gulp, then belches.

“Are we reading any more now, or shall we go home?”

“Actually, that last bit upset me. You've told me again and again to ask you questions, to get your perspective on things. I guess up till now it's been easier to see your side. I think I need a little help here.”

“Judaism was always a sore point between us. For one thing, I felt that it was a religion I had abandoned. I had always rejected my mother's form of religion in spirit, but when I married your mother I really made the final break with that part of my life. We did have a second marriage in a synagogue, but only because my mother insisted on it. I felt that Christ's doctrine of ‘turn the other cheek' was more in line with my spiritual leanings than the more brutal, unforgiving Jewish God. You know we celebrated all the Christian holidays. I especially loved Christmas, with those lovely carols. But for some reason Mummy was intent on proving that it was a whole way of being which couldn't be abandoned. She was also inherently racist — she disliked the Jews, so every time she intimated that I was a Jew, she was insulting me.”

“That sounds a little paranoid to me.”

“It's true, though it's hard to explain. She disliked the race. Every time she met a Jew she'd act like a frightened rabbit, nervous and trying to show she was clever at the same time. Little racist comments would slip out — you've seen them even in this careful manuscript, comments about our noses or our love of money. She thought Jews were uncultured Philistines. Of course she didn't think I was a Philistine, but she never let me forget that she viewed me as a Jew. It got so I couldn't bear her saying anything about the Jews.”

“Dad, I just don't think there's any justification for violence. Ever.”

“Of course there isn't!” he barks. Then, “I am trying to justify myself all the time. Can we just take it as a given that I was, am, a flawed person? Do I have to preface everything that I say with that fact? I had Grandma Golden for a mother, for Christ's sake. I was told that I was brilliant and stupid every day. I was desperate for people to think that I was superior and terrified that I wasn't. Madelyn was so quietly critical about everything, from my inability to fix faucets to my inept social skills. And she hated my moods. There was nothing I could do about them.” He sighs. “I am justifying again. I felt such shame, afterwards. Too much shame even to admit wrongness.”

And my father throws his head back and bellows, “I'M SORRY MADELYN! I'M SORRY!”

The lovers sitting near us jump to their feet and hurry away. We sit in silence for a while.

“Shall we read the last chapter now?” I ask my father. “I think it's the last chapter.”

He moves his shaggy head in opposition and heaves himself to his feet. “I think we need to be fortified with drink for this last chapter. Let's go home for a nap and we can read it this evening.”

As usual, my father gathers up the manuscript himself, insinuating that he does not trust me. I find this annoying, even though I'm aware that the temptation to ‘skim' the rest at the earliest opportunity would overpower me.

We walk slowly home and I bring him a cup of tea to bed. He has started to let me do little things for him, instead of insisting on doing everything himself. He even seems to enjoy the attention.

He calls me back as I turn to go. “Do you remember Fleabag?”

“Of course. You brought her home on my tenth birthday. She was a lazy little mutt. Even during those first days she resisted going for walks.”

“She was timid. She didn't resist because she was lazy, she resisted because she was frightened that you were taking her back to the pound. You got angrier and angrier with her, pulling her down the street by force.”

I wasn't going to let him justify his outrageous behaviour by comparing it to a child. “So? I was ten? What's your point?”

“It got worse, didn't it? You never liked Fleabag too much because her timidity was unjustified and annoying. You were so good to that dog, you tried so hard. You sat by her every day while she ate, you brushed her, pouring obscene amounts of affection over her — kissing her on the lips all the time.” My father makes a moue of disgust. The idea of kissing a dog revolts him. “You even held her on your lap while we ate dinner — a hugely fat mutt eyeing the food with lust and looking sheepish at the same time.”

We both laugh. I get the most acute enjoyment when my father recounts things. I remember them clearly and wonder how I had forgotten. That absurd dog, placidly accepting everything I did to her, but never evincing much enjoyment, despite her humble beginnings at the pound. She was so pampered and loved and so unaware how lucky she was.

“You tried to train her to do tricks, but Fleabag had a lazy streak, or maybe she was stupid. She never responded well to your training, despite your hours of patience.”

Yes, I remember that too — walking back and forth along our driveway trying to make her heel, yanking her back every time she pressed forward or stopped for a little forage by the wayside. I remember how proud I was of my own patience, repressing my fury at her inability to learn, which I put down to stubbornness. Sometimes, very rarely, a corner of my blanket of patience slipped and I would yank a little harder than usual, maybe yell at the same time. I shift on my feet, uncomfortable. I know where this is going, and I won't let him do it. There is no comparison.

He watches my face, and smiles.

“I think you know what I mean.”

“No, I'm sorry but I don't. A child yanking a stupid dog after hours of patience is not the same as belting a grown woman.”

My father wears a pained expression. For a second he props his great head in his hands again, maybe he is shedding tears. I am glad that the remembrance of what he did to my mother is painful for him. “I didn't mean it was the same. What I did to your mother was shameful. There is no justification for it. However, there are feelings leading up to such behaviour which I believe you have experienced, and I'm trying to recreate them for you. Not to justify, but because it wasn't just an outrageous hit in the middle of nothing. It was the result of a complex hybrid of feelings which your mother exacerbated instead of dissipating.”

I feel a heaviness in my chest. If he tries to put the blame on my mother I will crush him. He is infinitely crushable. I am big and he is dying. Why does the ability for revenge outlast the need?

“The story doesn't end with yanking Fleabag's collar. When you yanked her, she fell on her back in a subservient position. You were contrite and spent several days patting her and spoiling her in apology, but Fleabag still trembled when you made a sudden movement. The injustice of her fear when you had always been so good to her was infuriating, and you asked me about it. We were sitting side by side just like we do every evening, except that we were sitting by a real wood fire, not a nasty electric thing like the one in this house. Fleabag had just made some unnecessary cringing motion as your hand approached for a caress, and you said, ‘Daddy, I hate Fleabag!'

“I was surprised, because I had observed the munificence of your affections. I asked what you meant and you said, ‘I am so good to her, always! I shouted at her once, when she deserved it anyway, and since then she's been cringing and minging as though I'm a cruel tyrant.'

“‘She's a timid dog. It's a shame we didn't notice it at the pound, and pick another one. You will have to be gentle with her always, if she is so easily cowed.'

“‘I can't be gentle always! She should love me anyway, the way that I am! Because I am so good to her.'

“And then of course, it happened again, because she was a stupid, irritating dog and impossible to train. And the next time she cringed in exaggerated terror you thought you might as well be hung for a wolf as for a lamb, and you belted her. Then she cringed all the time, and you began to hate her and ignore her.”

“Yes, I remember some of this. I remember that I was upset about something one day, and I took her for a walk to calm my nerves. I tripped on a stone or something and she leapt to one side as though I meant to kill her. I was having a bad day and I lost control. I grabbed her and smacked her again and again. It made me feel terrible, and I sucked up to her for days afterwards.”

“I ‘sucked up' as you call it, to your mother as well. She exploited my conciliatory mood more efficiently than Fleabag.”

“It's not the same,” I shout, furious.

“The feelings are the same. The desire, the struggle to be good, the slight lapse (which, in the beginning, is barely a lapse) followed by endless recriminations.”

“Barely a lapse?”

“You've read about her family, how they lived with each other's faults without saying ‘boo' to one another. In my family we yelled all the time. I don't think one way is worse than the other. Neither are ideal modes of communication. But in the beginning I just yelled and was treated like a pariah for reacting the only way I knew how. She never helped me to change by being understanding or communicating about how she felt. She just put on a cold face and ceased to talk to me, sometimes for days. So I grew indifferent. The first time I hit her I was drunk. That didn't excuse it but if she had come and held my hands, said this mustn't happen again, what can we do to prevent it? What can we both do, not just me, then maybe the situation wouldn't have deteriorated in the way that it did. Instead she opted for long faces, recriminatory silences and cringes, yes. An exaggerated, unfair reaction, almost as if she were pretending to be frightened, because how could she really be, when she knew I loved her so much?”

“At the beginning.”

“Yes, at the beginning. These things get worse, if they are not resolved, as you know.”

“What do you mean, as I know? Because I got angrier at Fleabag? How can you compare the two?”

“I'm sorry. I thought that if you had this temperament, it would show up in your relationships as well.”

My outrage at his comparing his wife-beating activities to my childhood anger with a dog shudders to a stop as I think about Jenny.

Christmas 2003, Jenny's parents — with whom I have no real relationship — and her sister who has a toddler called April. They are boring, staid, they do not converse. They regard me warily, as I try to talk about interesting things like the government's wheeling dealings with our tax money, slipping it to friends and losing millions in embarrassing holes. The political situation in the Middle East. They chew their cud and nod agreement, never contributing any ideas of their own. They drain my energies, but it wouldn't matter if only they saw me as dynamic and interesting. Perhaps rather unstable, but a worthy mate for Jenny — she provides the stability and the sanity, and I provide the excitement.

I am warming to my subject despite the lack of input, waving my fork about a little. Jenny nudges me and says, “You're upsetting April.”

I am astounded. “Excuse me? I'm just talking. Surely April can stand listening to animated conversation once in a while.”

“You're shouting.”

This is outrageous. “I am NOT shouting — evidently you don't know the difference. THIS IS SHOUTING, ALL RIGHT?” Pursed lips, bent heads, judgment and recrimination all around the table.

I still struggle to be good, to be quiet, but I can feel my anger welling up inside, the same way that Jenny says her tears well up when she has PMS. She wants to quell them, but she can't, they come anyway.

I half-rise to cut myself another slice of bread from the loaf on the table. The knife slips and the sudden pain as it slices into my finger makes me yelp, “FUCK!”

Both Jenny and her sister leap to their feet in anger. The sister claps her hands over April's ears. “Come on sweetie. Let's go watch TV.”

I leap to my feet too and snap after them, “Yes, go vegetate in front of the idiot box. I'm sure April will learn more important truths from the television than the fact that adults get angry and yell once in a while.” I raise my voice to make sure it reaches them as they scurry down the stairs to the den. “It's good for her to realize people get upset and yell, and the world isn't going to fall apart! You bring a child up wrapped in cotton wool, she'll feel ashamed of her own emotions.”