Turn Us Again (37 page)

Sundays, we always get up late and have breakfast in bed, taking turns to make it. Then we lie in bed reading and smoking for a bit, and at some point we have sex, initiated by me. This often relaxes me enough to fall into a doze again. Psychologically, this combination of napping and conjugal harmony prepares me for the long slog of my working week.

This Sunday, I am awakened by an unpleasant odour injected into my nostrils. I open one eye to investigate and twist backwards so sharply I have whiplash for the rest of the day. April and her doll leer back at me.

“You're wake. You're wake!” she squeals, discharging more ungodly odour. Hummus and boiled egg?

I pull the blankets over my nose. “I'm not awake, April. Could you get out of my room and close the door please?”

Jenny curls around my back like a soft pillow. “Morning honey. April comes into my room in the mornings. Sometimes I give her breakfast so Susan can sleep in a bit, since she gets up with her every day.”

“Well, she's already had her breakfast by the stink of her, so what's she want?”

Jenny pats her pillow. “Come to Auntie Jenny, sweetie. Come to my side of the bed.”

But cats and kids are attracted to my repugnance like magnets. April climbs up beside me and presses her wretched doll against the visible part of my face. “Mr. KaKa foo up.”

“Yes, I can see some bits of throw-up adhering to your chin. When the content flowing from your nose reaches it the effect will be most interesting.”

Jenny giggles and I shrug the warm pillow. “It's not funny, for fuck's sake. She's grossing me out.”

Jenny scoops her off the bed and bears her away, frowning back at me in recrimination. “Language, language.”

At some point Jenny appears with a tray, which oozes aromas enticing enough to overcome April's effect on my appetite. Things are improving. I sit up and pat the covers next to me.

“There's nothing I want more than to enjoy Sunday morning with you, but I'm trying to be kind to my sister, because she's going through a hard time. All I'm asking from you to is to be pleasant. Can you do that for me? Otherwise, the only person you'll be hurting is me.”

Oh God, the third degree my first week back. “We have to talk about this, Jenny. I get the feeling there's a large gap between your sense of responsibility towards Susan and mine.”

“Well, of course there is. She's my sister.”

“I understand, but take into account how much Susan and I dislike each other. She has always been unpleasant to me.”

“She doesn't understand you.”

I frown. It's a bit more than lack of understanding. Susan just dislikes me. I have never understood it. Do we ever understand it when people don't like us?

I recall our first Thanksgiving together, a few months after Jenny and I had started going out. I had put all my effort into charming Susan and Dave during dinner. I supposed I sensed that Jenny might be a part of my life for a long time, and therefore these people would become my family.

Afterwards we sat in the sitting room, and they put the television on. There had been another terrorist attack in Israel. Ten dead.

“Isn't that terrible,” I murmured.

“Yes it is,” Susan said. “They should give the Palestinians their lands back already.”

“Well, it's a bit complicated when your partner in negotiations wants to blow you up.”

“I'd blow them up too if I were in that position.”

I breathed slowly. It's so easy to get emotional about these things. “Bombs haven't done them much good so far. The way for them to achieve independence is through negotiations. Violence makes their situation worse.”

“Maybe they don't want to negotiate with a partner who is basically committing genocide.”

“How can you say that?” My voice rose in spite of myself. “The Arabs started every single war, and then lost them. Every time they lost a war they lost a bit of land as well. They're in a rotten situation, but they're their own worst enemy. Where does genocide come into it?”

Jenny patted my knee on her way to the bathroom, pleased that I was talking so calmly when she knew how excitable I got. It was then that Susan turned from the television and looked at me. “You're Jewish, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

She rolled her eyes, looked back at the television.

“I'm sorry, why did you ask that?”

“Think about it. Maybe it will come to you.”

It was like she spat in my face. I'd categorized Jenny's family as nice and boring. This had come out of nowhere. I couldn't think of a single instance when I might have said something to offend her or even an occasion when we'd disagreed about something.

I kept waking up in the middle of the night, thinking about the way she had said: “You're Jewish, aren't you?” I didn't mention it to Jenny. Maybe it was shame. Like somebody pointing out that my hairline was receding. Not the type of thing you want to mention to your girlfriend.

Every time we met Susan after that, there would be some barb, a flash of unsheathed claws, usually when Jenny wasn't there. “You're a bit of a know-it-all, aren't you Gabriel?” she said, when I was explaining to Dave the advantages of the computer program FrameMaker over Word.

Or one time in a restaurant when I picked up the bill, “That's okay Dave, I'll get it.”

“Thanks,” said Dave. “Our turn next time.”

Jenny excused herself to go to the bathroom while I signed the credit card receipt and left money for a tip. I'm sure waiters prefer cash tips, so nobody knows how much they're getting.

Susan leans over to look at the tip. “Oh, very generous. You're all generosity tonight, aren't you Gabriel?”

“Is there some hidden meaning in that? Do you mean because I'm Jewish or something?”

“Jewish? Who said anything about Jewish? I've noticed you're a bit paranoid, Gabriel. Is that a Jewish trait?”

Actually it is, but I wasn't sure whether Susan would know that or not.

One day, I finally I said to her, “Is there something about me you don't like?”

“I don't like or dislike you. You're Jenny's boyfriend, one in a string of them. Excuse me if I don't make an effort.”

“I think you do make an effort — to be unpleasant.”

“You being paranoid again, Gabriel?”

In the beginning, it bothered me a lot. I wracked my brains trying to think what it was about me that turned her off. I tried harder to charm, was hurt and then strived for indifference. Put it down to a chemistry thing.

Now she was ensconced in my house, claws sheathed through necessity. Purring in my direction, but maybe hissing a little in Jenny's ear?

“Jenny, I know it's your sister and I will try to be nice, okay? But things can't be the same as before I came home. For one thing, our room has got to be off limits to April. One room in the house preserved from snot and barf.”

Jenny gives a long sigh. It's irritating how women lapse into martyrdom when you're trying to compromise. “All right. I'll try to explain to her that she can't come in the bedroom anymore. In return, you be nice to her and compassionate to Susan, who's going through such a hard time. It's time to grow up and stop being so egotistical.”

The rest of the day is surreal. In general, I'm a pretty easy-going guy, insofar as cleanliness is concerned. Jenny and I share the work. She directs and I follow. There are little lists outlining my duties pasted on the fridge, and I dutifully check them upon completion. If I don't check them fast enough, Jenny tends to make little remarks. For instance, if ‘Change bed sheets' appears on my list, she might jerk upright after lying down beside me and pick an imaginary crumb off the bed, flicking it onto the floor in distaste (but only if ‘Vacuuming' also appears on my list).

I, on the other hand, never criticize. I don't even look at her list, still less check to see if she's completed the task within a reasonable amount of time. Everything seems well run and clean to me, proof positive that I'm easy-going.

But I have never encountered the type of chaos created by April. Every single object that belongs in or on something now resides on the floor. Boxes are overturned, contents of drawers are investigated and discarded wherever, table surfaces are emptied with a sweep of the hand. I keep looking at Jenny or Susan, expecting them to take a pudgy little hand and smack it purple, but they just follow her around like servants after royalty, feebly saying “No, April” on occasion, cleaning up as they go, assuring me that they will tidy everything when April goes down for her nap.

But it's not so much the surface bedlam. Although the mess makes the home feel like a squat, this is bearable, so long as it's temporary. It's the fluids. There's always something dripping from one orifice or another. Where's it all going?

I put my cup of tea down on the table and April sidles over and attempts to pick it up with both hands.

“No, April,” I say, prying off her fingers one by one so it doesn't spill.

“Mine!” she announces.

“No, that's mine,” I say, removing it from her hot little grasp.

In slow motion, her face transforms into a red, wet caricature, and ungodly sounds jostle out of her expanding mouth. I am fascinated. The women are frantic. I can almost see their blood pressure shooting up.

“Does April want some tea? Here, Mummy will get you some tea of your own. Come with Mummy.”

“I want dat tea!” April demands, pointing to my cup in outrage.

“That's Uncle Gabriel's tea, sweetie. Mummy give April tea.”

April pinches my knee with great viciousness. Then she stamps her foot and smacks me. The current piece of snot swings dangerously at the end of her nose. I take her hand in one of mine and tap it, lightly. “Do not hit Uncle Gabriel, that's not nice.”

I thought she was crying before, but now screams spew out that threaten to rupture my eardrum. Susan rushes over and grabs April, enveloping her in a bear hug and exiting the room.

Jenny comes over to me and grabs my hand. For a minute I think she's going to smack it like I smacked April's.

“You must never hit April, Gabriel. Susan doesn't believe in that form of punishment.”

“I can tell. That kid is spoiled.”

“You can't judge what it's like to bring up a child until you have one yourself. I thought that she got away with a lot at the beginning too, but now I realize that she's not being naughty when she makes a mess. Think of her as a little explorer, investigating the world. It's a shame to hedge her in with rules just for the sake of cleanliness. Who cares?”

“The world cares. She has to learn to live within the rules of society, in order to be acceptable. If she behaves like this, she won't have any friends, and nobody will invite her to their houses.”

“The poor little thing will be inundated with rules when she's older, like us all. But she's just two, why can't she be free for a bit longer?”

“Because it will make it harder for her later on. Besides, I think children like to know their boundaries, so long as they are consistent. Hitting and pinching is just as unacceptable now as it will be later on.”

“Of course, we would have reprimanded her for that!”

“Your sister seems incapable of any type of reprimand. She's as hopeless in the parenting department as she seems to be in all aspects of life.”

“You've got to stop being so judgmental all the time! You know nothing about parenting!”

“If we all agree that reprimand is necessary when a child hits, then what's the problem?”

“Smacking isn't a suitable reprimand. How can you teach a child that smacking is bad when you yourself are doing it?”

“Easily. Adults are permitted to do lots of things that children can't, because they are adults. Like this.” I retrieve my cigarettes from the top of the mantel, where they are inconveniently placed to be out of harm's way. “Children cannot smoke, and adults can. They can't drink, drive, swear or hit. Adults can do these things because we possess the appropriate maturity and discipline to avoid the inherent downfalls.”

Jenny gives me the type of look which is imbued with significance. Women do it all the time. I have practised in front of the mirror without success. “Not all adults avoid the downfalls.”

I think, oh just spit it out and skip the weighty looks. “Right, my father did not. So we find his behaviour reprehensible, while it is natural in April. Natural, but undesirable. To be curbed.”

“Yes, but the point is, because all adults do not ‘hit' in appropriate ways — with such disastrous consequences — none of us should hit. Just in case.”

“Oh rubbish. That's like saying none of us should drink, because some people abuse the privilege.”

“Some of us shouldn't drink, if our backgrounds make us more susceptible to alcoholism.”