An Absent Mind(18)
I know the doctor said not to argue with him or correct him, because he probably won’t remember what I say anyway. But sometimes I get so frustrated that I want to tear my hair out.
I made a pot of coffee, took some macaroons out of the ceramic jar in the pantry, and put them on the table. Florence kept staring out the window. I could see the tears welling up in her tired eyes. I used to watch him, too, but now I figure there’s nowhere he can go, so why drive myself crazy?
I told Florence about an incident last week with her father. He was screaming at the top of his lungs from the basement that there was an intruder in the house and I should call the police. I wasn’t sure what to do. I grabbed a kitchen knife and tiptoed over to the back stairs. All I could hear was him still yelling for me to call for help. I slowly made my way down the stairs. Saul was standing by the pool table, pointing. “There he is, there he is,” he kept saying.
“I don’t see anyone, mon cher,” I said, my hand still gripping the knife tightly in my fist.
He gestured toward the mirror in front of him. “Why don’t you call them?” he begged, “before he attacks us.”
I took his arm, turned him around, and led him back upstairs.
Saul
My Mother
“I can’t find it,” I screamed for the zillionth time. “Damn it! I can’t find it!”
Monique rushed into the room and asked me what I was looking for. My forehead scrunched up, and I slammed my fist into the wall.
“What?” she asked again. This time, her voice was only a whisper in the distance.
The wall suddenly took on different shades of yellow and orange, dancing in front of me like a well-orchestrated symphony. The notes zoomed in and out, faster and faster. Then, just as swiftly as they appeared, they vanished. Now the wall was once again its same old bland color. My head felt like a truck had rolled over it and reversed for good measure.
“What were you looking for, mon cher?” Monique asked softly, as she drew me to her bosom.
“I don’t know,” I replied. And I didn’t. I had a vague recollection that I had been searching for something, but it was only a distant thought. This wasn’t the first time I had blanked, and according to Dr. Tremblay, it wouldn’t be the last.
It’s ironic that I had often blanked—even when God wasn’t yet robbing me of my memory—when I was trying to reconstruct some of my childhood recollections.
Sure, I remembered splashing in the ocean off Cape Cod. Going to the lobster pound and staring into the dark blue tank that housed what seemed like thousands of giant lobsters, which were fighting and clawing to get nowhere but to my paper plate, alongside the fries and creamy coleslaw. And, of course, there was the merry-go-round at the amusement park, and the ever-present cotton candy on my chin. But those were the times spent with my aunt and uncle and cousins from Ontario.
My father was usually too busy to go with us, and my mother was often a no-show, depending on her social schedule, or perhaps I should say her “socialite” schedule. My mother’s calling on this earth was not to see, but to be seen. She loved being seen by the photographers from the Montreal Gazette, especially the ones from the social page, and mingling with the fancy folks who lived off the rarefied oxygen that was pumped only into upper Westmount. And not only was she was good at it; she was the best.
No one could ingratiate herself like Hannah. She was like a salamander, slithering up the hill from our apartment in Snowdon, which was then the Jewish ghetto. She was one of the few who didn’t need a special visa to get in, either. Her wardrobe spoke rich, her vocabulary spoke rich, and, to her credit, her sense of style spoke rich. But we weren’t rich. Like I told you before, my father was an accountant, but not to the rich. In fact, he hated the rich. Probably because he wasn’t and never would be. But my mother dragged him along on most of her outings, his body draped in the same tuxedo that she had bought him for one of his birthdays, instead of the fishing rod he asked for.
My mother was so good at what she did that she once had a woman over for tea who was the wife of one of the wealthiest men in the country. They lived in a mansion up on the hill. Mother all but redecorated the living room for the event. It looked like a movie set. I, of course, was instructed to disappear. But my sister, after much primping and a visit to the hairdresser at the tender age of twelve, was ordered to join the command performance, albeit for five minutes and no more, at which point she was expected to curtsy her way back to reality.
Sometimes I think Mother would have been happier in one of those loveless marriages where everyone gets what they want. She was certainly pretty enough to be a model. And I’m sure there were rich men, even if they were ugly, or old, or both, who would have liked a trophy wife. She probably wouldn’t have had to have sex that often. My guess is that she didn’t do too much of that with my father anyway, so at least she would have had the status that she so desperately wanted. My sister and I would not have been born, of course, which might not have been good for my sister. But then, she died too early—much too early.
Florence
Bernie’s Visit
It seems a lifetime ago that I first met Bernie. He certainly was more boisterous back then, but he’s mellowed over the years. Even then, he was kind and compassionate deep down, although it was almost as if he didn’t want anyone to know it.