sometimes, copies of letters from Adam himself; she seemed often to need to jog his memory about something or other. There was an occasional copied page of her diary in which she appeared contented, and self-possessed: autonomous in a way I could not imagine for myself. She also had the nerve occasionally to address a letter to me. These always sounded as if she were feeling her way through fog. I trampled them. I routinely, and leisurely, read those from her which Adam left lying open at the back of his bottom desk drawer, the key to which I had long since duplicated. It was from one of her letters that I learned their son, Pierre, was coming to America.
Informing me he was going to a gathering of progressive religieux, Adam flew to Boston to meet him and was gone a week, helping Pierre settle into the life of Cambridge and Harvard. The boy was still far away, the breadth of the continent, so I did not worry. He remained in Cambridge for three years.
It was from her letters that I learned of Lisette’s illness. Diagnosed first as stress brought on by her political activity: she was active in the movement against French nuclear power plants, which, she wrote, dotted like dangerous pustules the once pristine countryside; later diagnosed as an ulcer. Then as a hernia. Then, finally, as stomach cancer. She petitioned Adam to permit Pierre to live with him and to attend Berkeley after her death. This Adam apparently agreed to do; I refused to let him bring up the subject with me.
It was during a period when I could not eat and was emaciated as a scarecrow; my clothes hung on me, and I wore nothing that wasn’t black. The week before, someone introduced to me by Adam said, with a snigger: “Ah, Adam and Eve lyn. How cute!” And I slapped him.
I felt the violence rising in me with every encounter with the world outside my home. Even inside it I frequently and with little cause, no cause, boxed Benny’s ears. If I made him squeal and cringe and look at me with eyes gone grave with love and incomprehension, I fancied I felt relief.
I was watching the street when the taxi came. A boxy, bright yellow, child’s cartoon of a taxi. The kind of taxi the world expects all American taxis to be. I glimpsed Pierre’s curly head before he got out, as he leaned forward to pay the driver. He was skinny and short, as if still a child. I watched the two of them, chatting like old friends, go around to the boot to take out his bags.
Still chatting, they did not notice the dark spectre floating near them: first to the door, then to the porch, then to the steps, alighting to stoop beside a large pile of stones I had begun to collect the very day I learned of Pierre’s birth. Large oblong stones from the roadside; heavy flat stones from the riverbank; sharp jagged shale stones from the fields.
As Pierre thanked the driver and turned toward the house, he saw me, and smiled. A large jagged stone, gray as grief, struck him just above the teeth. Blood spurted from his nose. I began to throw the stones as if, like Kali, I had a dozen arms, or as if my arms were a multiple catapult or a windmill. Stones rained upon him and upon the cab, which had started to pull off but screeched to a stop as the driver realized Pierre was under attack and sinking to one knee. I did not let up, but floated nearer, cradling an armful of stones. Pierre began to speak in a gibberish of French, which infuriated me. I dropped the stones in order to close my ears with the palms of my hands. During this interlude, the cabbie ran up to Pierre, grabbed him under the arms and dragged him out of sight.
I began to laugh, as the taxi disappeared down the street. In their cowardly haste they’d forgotten Pierre’s luggage. The brown suitcases sat, importunate and irrevocable, where he’d dropped them; more heavy baggage for me to lift and somehow carry. I would not. I dove forward, flapping my arms and shrieking hoarsely like a crow, to kick them into the street.
PART
Informing me he was going to a gathering of progressive religieux, Adam flew to Boston to meet him and was gone a week, helping Pierre settle into the life of Cambridge and Harvard. The boy was still far away, the breadth of the continent, so I did not worry. He remained in Cambridge for three years.
It was from her letters that I learned of Lisette’s illness. Diagnosed first as stress brought on by her political activity: she was active in the movement against French nuclear power plants, which, she wrote, dotted like dangerous pustules the once pristine countryside; later diagnosed as an ulcer. Then as a hernia. Then, finally, as stomach cancer. She petitioned Adam to permit Pierre to live with him and to attend Berkeley after her death. This Adam apparently agreed to do; I refused to let him bring up the subject with me.
It was during a period when I could not eat and was emaciated as a scarecrow; my clothes hung on me, and I wore nothing that wasn’t black. The week before, someone introduced to me by Adam said, with a snigger: “Ah, Adam and Eve lyn. How cute!” And I slapped him.
I felt the violence rising in me with every encounter with the world outside my home. Even inside it I frequently and with little cause, no cause, boxed Benny’s ears. If I made him squeal and cringe and look at me with eyes gone grave with love and incomprehension, I fancied I felt relief.
I was watching the street when the taxi came. A boxy, bright yellow, child’s cartoon of a taxi. The kind of taxi the world expects all American taxis to be. I glimpsed Pierre’s curly head before he got out, as he leaned forward to pay the driver. He was skinny and short, as if still a child. I watched the two of them, chatting like old friends, go around to the boot to take out his bags.
Still chatting, they did not notice the dark spectre floating near them: first to the door, then to the porch, then to the steps, alighting to stoop beside a large pile of stones I had begun to collect the very day I learned of Pierre’s birth. Large oblong stones from the roadside; heavy flat stones from the riverbank; sharp jagged shale stones from the fields.
As Pierre thanked the driver and turned toward the house, he saw me, and smiled. A large jagged stone, gray as grief, struck him just above the teeth. Blood spurted from his nose. I began to throw the stones as if, like Kali, I had a dozen arms, or as if my arms were a multiple catapult or a windmill. Stones rained upon him and upon the cab, which had started to pull off but screeched to a stop as the driver realized Pierre was under attack and sinking to one knee. I did not let up, but floated nearer, cradling an armful of stones. Pierre began to speak in a gibberish of French, which infuriated me. I dropped the stones in order to close my ears with the palms of my hands. During this interlude, the cabbie ran up to Pierre, grabbed him under the arms and dragged him out of sight.
I began to laugh, as the taxi disappeared down the street. In their cowardly haste they’d forgotten Pierre’s luggage. The brown suitcases sat, importunate and irrevocable, where he’d dropped them; more heavy baggage for me to lift and somehow carry. I would not. I dove forward, flapping my arms and shrieking hoarsely like a crow, to kick them into the street.
PART
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