myself only a peep over the banister, unable to bear the combined embarrassment, perhaps even fear, at my father’s exposure, and my shrinking timidity.
It was my mother’s often melting warmth which offered me a rare opportunity to be the person I felt I truly was in contrast to the “Edward” who failed at school and sports, and could never match the manliness my father represented. And yet my relationship with her grew more ambivalent, and her disapproval of me became far more emotionally devastating to me than my father’s virile bullying and reproaches. One summer afternoon in Lebanon when I was sixteen and in more than usual need of her sympathy, she delivered a judgment on all her children that I have never forgotten. I had just spent the first of two unhappy years at Mount Hermon, a repressive New England boarding school, and this particular summer of 1952 was critically important, mainly because I could spend time with her. We had developed the habit of sitting together in the afternoons, talking quite intimately, exchanging news and opinions. Suddenly she said, “My children have all been a disappointment to me. All of them.” Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to say, “But surely not me,” even though it had been well established that I was her favorite, so much so (my sisters told me) that during my first year away from home she would lay a place forme at table on important occasions like Christmas Eve, and would not allow Beethoven’s Ninth (my preferred piece of music) to be played in the house.
“Why,” I asked, “why do you feel that way about us?” She pursed her lips and withdrew further into herself, physically and spiritually. “Please tell me why,” I continued. “What have I done?”
“Someday perhaps you will know, maybe after I die, but it’s very clear to me that you are all a great disappointment.” For some years I would re-ask my questions, to no avail: the reasons for her disappointment in us, and obviously in me, remained her best-kept secret, as well as a weapon in her arsenal for manipulating us, keeping us off balance, and putting me at odds with my sisters and the world. Had it always been like this? What did it mean that I had once believed our intimacy was so secure as to admit few doubts and no undermining at all of my position? Now as I looked back on my frank and, despite the disparity in age, deep liaison with my mother, I realized how her critical ambivalence had always been there.
During the GPS years my two oldest younger sisters, Rosy and Jean, and I began slowly, almost imperceptibly, to develop a contestatory relationship that played or was made to play in to my mother’s skills at managing and manipulating us. I had felt protective of Rosy: I helped her along, since she was somewhat younger and less physically adept than I; I cherished her and would frequently embrace her as we played on the balcony; I kept up a constant stream of chatter, to which she responded with smiles and chuckles. We went off to GPS together in the morning, but we separated once we got there since she was in a younger class. She had lots of giggling little girlfriends—Shahira, Nazli, Nadia, Vivette—and I, my “fighting” classmates like Dickie Cooper or Guy Mosseri. Quickly she established herself as a “good” girl, while I lurked about the school with a growing sense of discomfort, rebelliousness, drift, and loneliness.
After school the troubles began between us. They were accompanied by our enforced physical separation: no baths together, no wrestling or hugging, separate rooms, separate regimens, mine more physical and disciplined than hers. When Mother came home she would discuss my performance in contrast to my younger sister’s. “Look at Rosy. All the teachers say she’s doing very well.” Soonenough, Jean—exceptionally pretty in her thick, auburn pigtails—changed from a tagalong younger version of Rosy into another “good” girl, with her own circle of
It was my mother’s often melting warmth which offered me a rare opportunity to be the person I felt I truly was in contrast to the “Edward” who failed at school and sports, and could never match the manliness my father represented. And yet my relationship with her grew more ambivalent, and her disapproval of me became far more emotionally devastating to me than my father’s virile bullying and reproaches. One summer afternoon in Lebanon when I was sixteen and in more than usual need of her sympathy, she delivered a judgment on all her children that I have never forgotten. I had just spent the first of two unhappy years at Mount Hermon, a repressive New England boarding school, and this particular summer of 1952 was critically important, mainly because I could spend time with her. We had developed the habit of sitting together in the afternoons, talking quite intimately, exchanging news and opinions. Suddenly she said, “My children have all been a disappointment to me. All of them.” Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to say, “But surely not me,” even though it had been well established that I was her favorite, so much so (my sisters told me) that during my first year away from home she would lay a place forme at table on important occasions like Christmas Eve, and would not allow Beethoven’s Ninth (my preferred piece of music) to be played in the house.
“Why,” I asked, “why do you feel that way about us?” She pursed her lips and withdrew further into herself, physically and spiritually. “Please tell me why,” I continued. “What have I done?”
“Someday perhaps you will know, maybe after I die, but it’s very clear to me that you are all a great disappointment.” For some years I would re-ask my questions, to no avail: the reasons for her disappointment in us, and obviously in me, remained her best-kept secret, as well as a weapon in her arsenal for manipulating us, keeping us off balance, and putting me at odds with my sisters and the world. Had it always been like this? What did it mean that I had once believed our intimacy was so secure as to admit few doubts and no undermining at all of my position? Now as I looked back on my frank and, despite the disparity in age, deep liaison with my mother, I realized how her critical ambivalence had always been there.
During the GPS years my two oldest younger sisters, Rosy and Jean, and I began slowly, almost imperceptibly, to develop a contestatory relationship that played or was made to play in to my mother’s skills at managing and manipulating us. I had felt protective of Rosy: I helped her along, since she was somewhat younger and less physically adept than I; I cherished her and would frequently embrace her as we played on the balcony; I kept up a constant stream of chatter, to which she responded with smiles and chuckles. We went off to GPS together in the morning, but we separated once we got there since she was in a younger class. She had lots of giggling little girlfriends—Shahira, Nazli, Nadia, Vivette—and I, my “fighting” classmates like Dickie Cooper or Guy Mosseri. Quickly she established herself as a “good” girl, while I lurked about the school with a growing sense of discomfort, rebelliousness, drift, and loneliness.
After school the troubles began between us. They were accompanied by our enforced physical separation: no baths together, no wrestling or hugging, separate rooms, separate regimens, mine more physical and disciplined than hers. When Mother came home she would discuss my performance in contrast to my younger sister’s. “Look at Rosy. All the teachers say she’s doing very well.” Soonenough, Jean—exceptionally pretty in her thick, auburn pigtails—changed from a tagalong younger version of Rosy into another “good” girl, with her own circle of
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