Art in Nature

“Don’t make it hard for me. You know I can’t. I just can’t. I’ve told you!”

  “Okay,” Elena said. “Fine. You can’t. We can’t even talk about it. Forbidden territory.” She turned on the radio and started quietly whistling to the music. Rosa threw off the covers and stood up.

  “Are you going home?”

  “Yes. It’s after eleven.”

  Elena’s room was large and very barren. She didn’t like furniture. Nothing on the walls, not a trace of all the stuff that gradually accumulates in a home – no fabrics, no cushions, just a bare room with heaps and piles of books and papers, mostly on the floor. Even the telephone was on the floor, as if Elena had just moved in. In the beginning, Rosa admired the feeling of nonchalant impermanence. Later it struck her as a kind of defiant affectation. It was an insolent room. “But why do you put everything on the floor?” she burst out, pulling on her stockings so quickly she got a run at the ankle.

  “I’ve told you not to pull on your stockings that way,” Elena said. “Shall I call you a taxi?”

  “No. I’ll walk.”

  “I thought we could have some tea. It’s raining. Little Mouse doesn’t have a raincoat. Take mine.”

  “I’m fine the way I am. I don’t need a thing.”

  “Well, tomorrow, then. Are you coming tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know,” Rosa said. “I don’t know about tomorrow. Maybe I’ll call.”

  Elena wound her clock, her straight dark hair falling down over her face. “Okay,” she said. “Do what you like.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  She went home and opened the door as carefully as she could, very slowly. She extracted the key and stood silently in the dark hall. One time, she ran into her father out on the stairs; he’d taken off his shoes and was holding them in one hand. But it didn’t help much. He knocked down some hangers, he always did when he was trying to be quiet. Anyway – he knew perfectly well that Mama was lying awake.

  They’d given his clothes to the Salvation Army, all of them. That was a long time ago now.

  The lock closed with a little click. She let her coat slip to the floor, removed her shoes and put them down without a sound.

  “Rosa, my dear,” Mama said. “I put out a plate of food for you in the kitchen. Did you have a nice time?”

  “Very nice. But you really didn’t need to … Did I wake you?”

  “No, no. Not at all.”

  Rosa stared into the warm darkness of the bedroom. “You’re not in pain?”

  “No, I’m just fine. I read for a long time. That Margaret Millar is wonderful. Psychological, you know; not just the murder itself and the police work … Very entertaining. You’ll see. Do you think you could get me some more of hers?”

  “I’ll get you some more of them,” Rosa said and went out to the kitchen. She turned on the ceiling light and looked at her sandwiches. Sausage, cheese, marmalade, beer and cigarettes. And a vase of flowers. She sat down at the table but didn’t feel like eating. I’ll get some more Millars. Monday after work. Tomorrow I’ll go get tickets for that film. Or else I’ll stay home all evening. She didn’t ask who I was out with; she hasn’t asked for a long time. I’m tired. I’m terribly tired. I don’t feel well … She put the sandwiches in the ice box and turned out the light. Mama was quiet while her daughter undressed and went to bed. Only then did she say, as she always did, “Good night, darling daughter.” And Rosa answered, “Good night, dear mother.” It was what they always said.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Sunday. Rosa’s mother braided her white hair into two small tails that she knotted together at the back of her neck. She sat very straight. Her book was propped against the coffee maker, and every time she turned a page she secured it with a hairpin. She held the hairpins in her mouth as usual, an old, tightly pursed and wrinkled mouth. She never wore a dressing gown but dressed as soon as she got up, resting a little after the corset and the stockings, then continued with her hair.

  Rosa often said, “Mama could sit on her hair when she was young. And it’s still the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen.” And Elena replied, “I know. Everything she has is the prettiest you’ve ever seen. Perfect. Everything she has and does and says is perfect.” And Rosa, “You’re jealous! You’re being unfair. She does whatever she can to make me feel free.” “Funny,” said Elena slowly. “It’s so funny that you don’t feel free. And rather tiresome for us.”

  In the beginning, Elena had come home to tea, to dinner. They might go to a movie, all three of them, and Elena would take Mama by the arm and support her as she walked. “I feel so safe,” said Mama and laughed. “You take me in tow like a man.” That evening she said, “It’s so nice you’ve found such a good friend. A really nice person you can depend on.”

  But it was some time now since Elena’s last visit.

  As Mama sat resting after knotting her hair, she wondered out loud how Elena was doing these days.

  “Good,” Rosa said. “She’s got a lot of work at the paper just now.”

  Mama went back to bed, pulled the covers up tight and opened the big atlas. “Rosa, would you mind?” she said. “I’ve mislaid them again somewhere. I think they’re in the bathroom.” Rosa went to find the glasses and Mama said, “You’re an angel. I ought to have them on a chain around my neck, but it looks so silly.” And she rested the atlas on her knees and started reading along the coastline. Today it was South America.

  It would soon be too late for Mama’s great journey. She’d been planning it for twenty years – no, longer, right from the beginning, in the early days, when the promises were made and detailed in the nursery along with big hugs. “I’ll take you with me. I’ll steal you away from Papa. We’ll go to the jungle or out on the Mediterranean … I’ll build you a castle where you can be the queen.” And they told each other what the castle would look like both outside and in. They took turns furnishing each room, but they always did the throne room together.

  The question of a trip had come up again from time to time as the years went by, but there is so much that never gets done. And then there was Papa, of course.

  Rosa stood at the window. Without turning around, she asked, “Where would you go if you could choose?”

  “Maybe to Gafsa.”

  “Gafsa? Where’s that?”

  “North Africa. A place called Gafsa.”

  “But Mama, why there of all places?”

  Mama laughed, her own mysterious laugh that was almost an amused giggle. “It sounds nice. I don’t really know… It occurred to me.”

  “But do you really want to go there in particular?”

  “Don’t look so concerned,” Mama said. “I don’t need to go anywhere.”

  “But still, you do think it would be fun.”

  “Of course. Of course it would be fun.”

  Rosa compressed her lips. She didn’t see the empty Sunday streets, she was looking inwards and backwards to that confusing time when all of a sudden Mama no longer wanted to make decisions or take responsibility. Everything had suddenly lost its framework; there was nothing to hold on to. Mama simply dodged, did not want to decide, not give advice, and if you pressed her she made a little face and left the room. “I’m sure you know best,” she’d say. Or “It’s hard to tell.” Or nothing at all and change the subject. It was frighteningly unlike her. “It scares me,” Rosa said one evening and Elena shrugged her shoulders and said, “Naturally. Of course you’re frightened. Here she’s gone her whole life and told you what to do and think and wish for, and arranged everything for you until you can’t do a thing on your own or have a thought of your own in your own head. And then all at once she gets old and retires and your father goes and dies. And she lets go. Don’t you get it? Now it’s your turn. It’s like the changing of the guard, and she’s absolutely right. It happens all the time, it’s natural.” She studied Rosa’s narrow uncertain face with its anxious mouth and added, brutally, “Try to get it through our head that your queen no longer has what it takes to mak
e decisions.” And, more gently, “Come here. Don’t look like that. I want you to be free and smell the breeze. Forget her for a while.” And Rosa drew back and struck. “Oh. And so now you’re going to be the queen, right?”

  “Dear God,” Elena said. “These older daughters and their mothers! I can’t get free of them. You’re all so tough and petrified and hopeless.”

  And Rosa wept and was comforted.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  She had been uneasy the first time she brought Elena home. But it had gone well right from the start. Elena got Mama to be funny, absolutely playful. She managed to get her telling stories in a completely new way. They had laughed a lot. Rosa was enormously relieved, breathless with relief and gratitude. And afterwards when Elena had gone, Mama went on talking about things that had happened long ago, but not the stories her daughter had heard so many times before. Suddenly her stories had colour – the encounters and journeys, the disappointments and surprises at work and in love – they had all become convincing and vivid. It was Elena that had brought them to life. Elena took Mama the right way. She found her amusing, showed her a kind of casual tenderness and smiled at her in a way that suggested tacit understanding. Elena was a magician who could pull anything at all from her hat. When she felt like it. But now she’d put her hat on the shelf and had stopped coming.

  “It’s better I stay away,” Elena said. “Anyway, how much does she know?”

  “Nothing. She knows nothing about such things. But she’s disappointed that you never come.”

  Elena shrugged her shoulders and said she’d run through her entire register and didn’t like to repeat herself. And the last time she’d come had been awkward. Rosa remembered. They’d sat on the sofa watching TV, and when the programme ended they sat where they were, close together, and suddenly the silence grew compact and alien. It had nothing to do with the programme, a rather conventional documentary about marsh birds. Elena straightened up, and behind Mama’s back she felt for Rosa’s hand. Rosa pulled it away. So Elena put her hand on Mama’s shoulder. “Birds,” she said slowly. “A big marsh no one ever visits, mile after mile of water and reeds, and birds we know nothing about, that have nothing to do with us … Isn’t it remarkable? I mean, there they are, the whole time, and we leave them in peace …”

  Mama sat still without saying a word. Then she stood up and said, “You know what? You’re electric. Your hands are electric.” And she laughed in her peculiar way – giggled. Rosa felt herself blushing, and she looked at the other two, Elena leaning back in the sofa with a smile, Mama standing there looking back at her over her shoulder. It was nothing, nothing at all, just a very great tension. A little while later, Elena went home.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I must give Mama her journey. I must hurry, because time is running out. I must find the one best place, a place that is both restful and exciting, where it’s beautiful and warm, far enough away to be a real journey but not too far, in case she gets sick. I need to make reservations early and try to get time off from the bank, and it mustn’t be too hot, I need to find out about the climate … The train will be too strenuous, and flying is dangerous for old people; they can have a stroke when the plane descends. If it descends too fast …

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Elena, have you ever been to a place called Gafsa?”

  “God forbid. What’s it supposed to be? Is that where she wants go to?”

  “She doesn’t really know … She said something about a place in North Africa called Gafsa.”

  “Poor Little Mouse,” Elena said. “What’s up? Are you trying to get me to plan your trip? Shall I scare you? I’ve applied for a travel grant, and it looks like I might get it.” Her gaze was fixed steadily on Rosa. Finally she said, “Your face is falling. There’s nothing in the world makes you so little and grey as the need to choose and decide.”

  “But we’ve got time – there’s plenty of time,” Rosa mumbled.

  Elena answered, “Don’t be too sure.” And then she spoke of other things entirely, lightly, heedlessly. She encapsulated the danger and pushed it away, presented it to her friend. A ruthless gift.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Now, this empty late winter day, Mama lay reading her way along the coast of South America. Florianopolis, she read. Rio Grande. San Pedro. Montevideo. The Rio de la Plata is right here … San Antonio … She whispered their names.

  “Listen,” Rosa said. “What do you know about those places? Nothing. Nothing at all. Don’t you have any desire to read about them, find out about them? Why don’t you ever want travel books? Only murder mysteries?” Her voice was mean, she could hear it herself.

  “I don’t really know,” Mama said. “They’re such pretty names …Maybe I just like to imagine what they look like. And murder mysteries … You know, they’re so relaxing. And it amuses me trying to figure out who the murderer is before the author does the summing up in the library.” She giggled and added, “But sometimes I peek at the end. It’s unbelievable the trouble they take to fool the reader. Mostly pretty contrived. But I’m on to them. Bahia. We could go to Bahia.”

  And, like a billowing sea, love for her mother swept over her. She was utterly helpless in its grip. She said, “We’ll travel. We’ll go somewhere, we’ll go now. But are you really sure Gafsa is where you want to go?”

  Mama took off her glasses and smiled. “Rosa,” she said, “you shouldn’t worry so much. Come here. Are you all alone in the woods?”

  They played their game. With her face against her mother’s throat, as close as she could come. “Yes, I’m all alone in the woods.”

  “And does someone find you?”

  “Yes, someone finds me.”

  Hands caressed the back of her neck, and suddenly the hands were unbearable. She tore herself loose and her temper flared, but she said nothing. Mama raised the atlas again and turned a little towards the wall.

  They ate at two o’clock: Sunday chicken with vegetables.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  She went down to the corner to call. “Can I come over?”

  “Come ahead,” Elena said. “But I’m warning you, I’m in a bad mood. You know how I loathe Sundays.”

  Every time Rosa walked into the bare, serious room, she felt a thrill of expectation, of unease. It was like daring to enter a no-man’s-land where you might encounter anything at all. The room was empty.

  “Hi,” Elena said from the kitchen door. She held two glasses in her hand. “I thought we might need a drink. Why do you have your coat on? Are you cold?”

  “It is a little chilly. I’ll take it off in a minute.” Rosa took her glass and sat down.

  “Well, has Little Mouse been thinking?”

  “About what?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Elena said. “Here’s to the great journey.”

  Rosa drank without a word.

  “Sitting there like that,” Elena went on, “on the edge of your chair and with your coat on, you look like something at a railway station. When does the train leave? Or are you flying?” She threw herself on the bed and closed her eyes. “Sundays,” she said. “I despise them. Have you got any cigarettes?”

  Rosa threw her cigarette pack and threw it hard. It hit Elena in the face.

  “Aha,” said Elena without moving. “So the Mouse has a temper. Well, how about the lighter. Try again.”

  “You know perfectly well,” Rosa shouted. “You know perfectly well that I can’t go off and leave her alone! It’s out of the question. There’s nothing more to say on the subject. There’s no one who can stay with her while I’m gone. And I can’t leave her with a stranger!”

  “Fine, fine,” Elena said. “Okay. I get it. She can’t have a stranger in the house. She can only have you. Clear as a bell.”

  Rosa got up. “I’m going now,” she said, and waited. Elena lay where she was and stared at the ceiling with an unlit cigarette between her lips. Someone was playing the piano somewhere in the building – they could hear it very faintly. Whoever it
was always played on Sundays and always operetta tunes. Rosa walked over to the bed and lit her lighter. “I’m going now,” she repeated. Elena raised her head. Resting on her elbow, she took the light. “Do as you like,” she said. “It isn’t much fun around here.”

  “Shall I refill your glass?” Rosa asked.

  “Yes, thanks.”

  She took the glass out to the kitchen. There were no curtains, no furniture, everything was simply white. Standing in the middle of the room, Rosa felt suddenly sick to her stomach with a sense of impending catastrophe. Something awful was happening, something unavoidable. I can’t deal with this … No one could deal with this. But I haven’t promised anything, absolutely nothing, it was just playing, the way people play with words. Elena must have understood that I wasn’t serious … I’m not going anywhere! Not with anyone …

  “What’s the matter with you,” Elena said, standing beside her.

  “I don’t feel well. I’m going to throw up.”

  “Here’s the slops,” Elena said. “Lean forward. Try. Stick your finger down your throat.” Her strong hands held Rosa’s forehead and she said, “Do as I say. Get rid of it so I can talk to you.”

  Afterwards she said, “Sit down here. Are you afraid of me?”

  “I’m afraid of disappointing you.”

  “The only thing you’re really afraid of”, Elena said, “is that it’s your fault. Everything’s been your fault since the day you were born, and that’s why no one can ever be happy with you. I don’t want to travel with you as long as you think you ought to be somewhere else. And neither does your mother.”

  Rosa said, “She doesn’t know what it’s like for me.”

  “Of course she does. She’s not dumb. She tries as best she can to set you free, but you stick to her like glue and roll yourself in your bad conscience. What is it you want?”

  Rosa didn’t answer.

  “I know,” Elena said. “You’d really like to travel with both of us, and however hopeless that trip turned out to be, you’d be happy because it wasn’t your fault. Am I right? You’d be content.”