Face Tells the Secret

by Bernstein, Jane

  “Tammy is a stupid, nebby bitch.”

  “Whatever she is, she was trying to act responsibly, and so was I.”

  What seemed true before now felt like a sign that I lacked the milk of human kindness. He’s threatening to kill himself and you’re not going to call him because you’ve been advised? “Get some help, Harley. People struggle. They have bad patches. The world has changed. No one’s going to think you’re a wuss.”

  A pair of Nomi’s yoga students with their rolled-up mats worked their way around us. Harley began to weep. His despair was so raw. I tried not to let it pierce me. “We weren’t even together all that long. Check your calendar. We spent way more time breaking up than we ever spent being an actual couple. You need to accept that it’s over and move on.”

  I lowered my head as if Les might not notice me on the way upstairs.

  “I have accepted it. I live with it every day. What I don’t understand is why you can’t just talk to me once a week. You’re the only friend I have. Please. Once a week. If I abuse the privilege, I swear you can cut me off.”

  I didn’t want to call Harley. I wanted him to go away. Now, though, this fierce, futile desire for Harley to vanish brought to mind my untended mother and sister.

  Then Mindy’s voice, louder and more loving: don’t engage with him.

  “I can’t, Harley. It doesn’t work. It never has.”

  “I’m seeing a counselor. I’ve done everything you’ve asked. How about cutting me a break? Talking to me once a week. Would it kill you to take my call for five minutes once a week? Can you do that as a friend? Is that too much to ask?”

  No, I thought. “Yes,” I managed to say.

  “Just tell me one thing: What have I done to deserve this?”

  He dug into his pocket for a hankie. I raced upstairs.

  Les swiveled slowly in his chair when I walked into the office.

  “Am I mean? Tell me the truth, because I haven’t been leading him on.”

  “You’re a pushover, Rox.”

  “Really? I haven’t talked to him, haven’t taken his messages.” I collapsed in my chair.

  “Why didn’t you just walk past him instead of stopping?”

  “And you could do that after someone threatens suicide? Really?”

  “He’s playing you,” Les said. “You can see it a mile away.”

  I thought of Harley, weeping in the lobby. Maybe he was playing me, but his despair was deep and real. “I called his son. That’s why he’s upset. But I’m still worried. Harley won’t be honest with Yanni. His kids have no idea what he’s really like. Maybe I should take his calls.” I shrugged off my jacket. “If I do, the whole thing will start up again, but if I don’t he really could do something terrible to himself.”

  “And you have the power to prevent him from hurting himself? No. You don’t. And it’s not your job. It’s a job for a mental health professional.”

  The phone rang. We turned in unison, and listened to Kayleigh say, “Intelligent Designzzzzz.”

  Les said, “If you really want to be done with him, you know what you need to do?”

  “Yes. I’m supposed to cut his underwear into squares and set his car on fire.”

  “How about for a start if you just walk on by? There’s a lot of pain out there. You can’t let all of it in. Sometimes you have to turn away and walk on by.”

  All day, I heard Dionne Warwick sing, “Walk on By” in that amazing voice, ragged with emotion, and while it was good to have her back with a song I’d thought I’d forgotten, it did not keep me from thinking about Harley losing it in the lobby—his expression—all the rules about voice tone and decorum gone. Nor did it stop me from wishing someone could give me some guidelines. How much of others’ pain did a healthy person absorb? What was too much? What was too little? Why did everyone around me seem to instinctively understand?

  Each time I thought about the translator giving me his finished work, I imagined it the same way: We’d meet at the Coffee Tree, he’d slide the folder across the table and leave; I’d begin to read, and the question that had haunted me since Thanksgiving would be answered in these pages. She is Charlie; she is not Charlie. That’s all I expected to read.

  The sky stayed milky-looking day after day. Snow would have been nice, the kind of serious snow that starts as an inconvenience, and then brings everything to a halt. Snow that forces you to let go of all your plans. We’d had one of these storms not long after I’d moved to the city, and when I went outside on my little street, all my neighbors were there. The men who lived in the houses on either side of me couldn’t shovel—bad back, bad heart—so three of us, all women, dug out a single car and shared it for the next few days. Now, though, in this period when Aviva’s medical records were in someone else’s hands, there was no snow, only the gray sky.

  Les grew a beard then shaved it off while I was waiting for the translator. He let the stubble grow back. Shaved again. Left a soul patch, which looked good. I’d never wanted to be a man, never wished for a penis of my own, but the ability to change this way, to have a totally new look each week, was wildly appealing. A redesigned package: the contents new and improved! An updated Roxanne with a new E-Z opening, sweeter than the old formula. Less salty.

  I did not shave my head, dye my hair, get plastic surgery. I called a realtor, though. New residence, different life. This seemed a good way to begin again. The evening she arrived at my house, she thrust a carton into my arms, saying, “Ooh, Saks Fifth Avenue—someone’s a lucky girl!” I glanced at the box, which was addressed to me, and followed her through my rooms. She praised the assets of my lovely home, counseled me to repaint the walls a neutral color and “de-emphasize” the contents of the upstairs rooms.

  When she left I sliced the tape from the shipping carton, pulled out a satiny box, lifted a silver cashmere sweater nestled in tissue. Then the gift card. With love from Harley. I slid the box back into the carton, sealed up the sides, and propped it outside on my steps, hoping a burglar or mischievous kid would steal it. There were thieves around. The wheelbarrow in my yard had been stolen. It’s valuable, the cops had explained when I’d reported the theft. Handy to transport stolen goods.

  Whoever had swiped the wheelbarrow didn’t return for the box. Nor was it taken by neighborhood kids, the mail carrier, the joy killer next door. The box was there when I left for work, and there when I returned.

  I signed a contract with this woman and promised to ready the house for the spring market, which improbably began in February. I did not paint the walls. I did not call Harley, who owned the contents that needed to be de-emphasized.

  On the first Friday in February, a For Sale sign was pounded into the hard earth outside my house, and the translator emailed; just as I’d imagined, he suggested we meet on Monday evening at six at the Coffee Tree, and when I confirmed, the rest of the scenario played out in my head: the folder pushed across the table, the translator leaving, the answers in the text. She is Charlie; she is not Charlie.

  That same afternoon, Les said he was leaving work promptly at five to meet a guru from California, who was holding an introductory workshop in transformative breathing at Nomi’s studio. Nomi said he was wonderful, so he’d signed up for the all-day sessions on Saturday and Sunday too.

  “Nomi’s the one who sounds wonderful,” I said.

  “She is,” said Les, “an inspiration.”

  I followed him upstairs to catch a glimpse of the guru. The air smelled like burned sage. I perched on a bench beside Les as he took off his boots and his socks. It was strange to see his bare feet with their stubby white toes. After a few minutes the guru appeared from behind a rice paper screen. He looked like a rocker from the 80s—long layered hair, full beard, white T-shirt, drawstring pants. Bare feet—not strange. Nomi was a step behind, short wavy hair framing her pretty face, elongated limbs. Les rose, drawn by a fo
rce outside logic, and crossed the studio like a sleepwalker. It was something to see.

  Baruch came to mind, sitting beside me, listening. Ridiculous, I thought, and stayed where I was while the others joined the guru, waiting for equilibrium to return.

  On the way out of the studio, I heard the toneless voice of the odd girl with auburn curls and discolored teeth, and before I could back off, she pinched me. Her mother peeled the girl’s fingers from my arm and said, “I’m Jill, Nomi’s sister, and this is Jessie. We’ve met.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’m Roxanne from downstairs.” I wanted to say Aviva’s name, to say, what? I have a sister who… “Going home?” said the girl, reaching for me. Her mother stepped between us.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m going to skip the breathing and go home.”

  Charlie, not Charlie, I thought on my way downstairs. It would not be so simple.

  On Monday night, a parking spot opened up a few doors down from the Coffee Tree. I locked the car and walked to the café.

  The Everything

  Twenty

  The translator was sitting at the same square table in the back, tea in a mug, squeezed teabag in a saucer. He watched me unwind my scarf, watched as I unbuttoned my coat, then slid the folder to me, long-lashed eyes briefly meeting mine. There was no small talk this time. I gave him a check and he left.

  I was not exactly alone when I unwound the striped string looped between the button closures and withdrew two packets. Two strangers sat nearby—a bundled-up old woman, doing a word search on a folded square of newspaper, and a young man with a laptop and a tower of library books. All of us wanting proximity to other humans, without interaction; reassuring sounds that did not demand our attention. Quiet, but not silence.

  The Book of Aviva began with the medical records. My eye went right to “dislocated right hip” as if these words in the middle of the page were in bold. I made myself go back to the first line, to read the sentences in order.

  The medical history was scant, with no fleshed-out narrative, only dots I had to connect myself: Full-term delivery without complications. Smaller at birth than a twin sister “of normal health.” “Irritability reported” in the first weeks. Hospitalization at six months due to subdural hematoma. Surgery to remove the blood clot.” It had been reported that she had a neurogenic dislocated right hip, which happened at time of injury as an infant.”

  It had been reported.

  I looked up to place myself in this coffee shop I knew well, and heard Mrs. Silk’s question: did I have someone to sit beside me when I read these papers? These strangers engaged in their own lives were not enough, not then or ever.

  Irritability, dislocated right hip.

  I closed the file, took in the dark green walls, the framed drawings of coffee cups by a local artist. Jars of biscotti on the counter. Pastries behind glass. I could feel my pounding heart. Ceramic mugs clinked on the tray a barista was carrying into the back; the strip of bells strung on the door tinkled when a man walked in, a gust of frigid air blowing in with him.

  Dislocated right hip. Which happened at time of injury as an infant.

  I recalled the shadow across Ronit’s face when I asked about Aviva. My father’s sorrowful breathing. The newspaper photo of the woman who’d grabbed her baby from a high chair and threw her against the wall. My sister, our history, the bitterness of our mother’s milk.

  Okay, I thought. I closed my eyes, put my hand over the translated pages. It was like pressing down on a powerful force of nature. A force of nature—what my mother had been called at the festschrift held in her honor.

  It had been reported.

  I saw my mother’s warning gaze, the arched eyebrow that for so long kept me from knowing anything. There was no who in this report, no name or detail. Only my mother saying, “The mother is the villain. It’s always the mother’s fault.”

  This mother, whose parents had been taken—violently? While she watched? Who went on a train when she was very young, with the fake passport from a dead Aryan girl. Her mouth stuffed with chocolate so she would not speak, “safety” with cousins she loathed. Had someone in that family harmed her grievously? The father she despised? You learn not to ask. You learn it quickly. The look freezes everything inside you. Sometimes you can change the weather; not always, but sometimes. A dandelion bouquet, a clever caricature you’ve drawn, a silly song that might charm her, skills that become your armor, your only means. I beg to disagree!

  But look, now in the coffee shop, waiting for the clamor to die down, who is in your head just now? What’s happened to Aviva? Gone, because her story, Leona’s story—from the time before your birth—extinguishes everything in its killing heat.

  It had been reported. By whom?

  Something primitive gripped me. Turn the page or Aviva will burrow inside you like a man in a basement. Turn the page or you will never know her, will never understand what knowing her might mean.

  I began thumbing through the charts, dated entries, and health reports, until I found the sensory checklist Mrs. Silk had been urging me to read.

  It had been designed to help therapists and aides identify the sensory needs of a person who could not directly express her likes and dislikes, could not speak, might be unable to signal what was relaxing, distressing, stimulating. It was long and detailed—134 questions about every activity in a person’s day—sleeping, waking, eating, dressing. There were questions to assess Aviva’s response to others and to the environment, to movement, to her own body, to sound, smell and light, questions about behaviors that were self-injurious or self-stimulating. Did Aviva resist assistance for feeding? Dislike having her face wiped? Gag or spit out certain foods? Did she resist having her hair washed or her teeth brushed? Is she difficult to rouse, lethargic during the day? Did she strip off clothing, dislike being barefoot? Refuse to touch certain textures, dislike being in groups? Did she withdraw from staff, lick inedible objects, seek having body parts rubbed or touched? Did she gag in response to certain smells, like to listen to music, prefer dim lights? Was she hesitant to move unless holding onto something or someone, become irritable when transported by vehicle, dislike lying on her stomach? Did she like to rock or swing for long periods of time, stare at shiny objects or mouth them? Did she grind her teeth, poke her eyes, pinch her skin, become frustrated easily? Was she hard to calm when upset?

  Like me.

  A young group arrived, crowding around the tables near the window and filling the space with laughter and conversation.

  Sister, I thought. What did that entail? Had she bonded with anyone? With Baruch? With her therapists? Or Shelley, with her warm eyes and soft voice? And if they quit or retired? Would it make a difference to her? Did anything?

  All the questions in the checklist were answered with a yes, no, or not applicable, then entered on a worksheet that listed six sensory categories—proprioceptive, tactile, vestibular, auditory, olfactory, visual. The responses were meant to understand in what ways Aviva was oversensitive and in what ways under-sensitive, so an environment could be created in which she was alert and comfortable, with activities that might give her the greatest pleasure. Aviva’s immunizations were up to date; her health was stable. She liked the leaf swing, the vibrating snake upon her tray, hydrotherapy, music, movement, and touch.

  I was still reading when half the lights were extinguished. It was after ten p.m. I could say, as I gathered my papers, that my sister got sleepy in a dim room and was alert in the greenhouse and in the water with the man named Baruch. I could let myself believe she was living in a place where her caregivers were sensitive to her needs, would know if she cried out in the dark, frightened to find herself alone. If there was something more—a secret love for chicken nuggets and Shania Twain—I could not tell.

  I said good night to the barista, who stood by the door, waiting to lock up for the night. The bells tinkled, the lock cl
icked shut, and I was outside beneath the bare, lit-up trees.

  Who would Aviva have been? The question I had never let myself ask now fell from the night air. An artist, a designer? Standing beside the bare trees with their lit-up limbs, I could see a woman, with children and dogs, long hair half gathered with ornaments made of bone, and her voice—I would know it anywhere. And is she a mathematician? That one egg cleaved in the middle, giving her one set of skills and me the other. Even-steven! And we live nearby, talk all the time, and she gets body-word of my mood from miles away, and so do I. Hey, are you okay? Are you? We carry tiny bottles of Tabasco to spike our food, love moody subtitled movies and comedies meant for adolescent boys; our laugh is the same. You two are like twins!

  I got in my car. Could she laugh? The Aviva who lived in Chaverim. Was she able?

  When I started the engine, those other words rose. It had been reported.

  That night, Aviva laughed. In this dream, the first of many to come, we sat at a table, watching chickens peck the dust in the seams of the wooden floor, and her head was thrown back, neck arched, long, rippling hair, and when I woke, all I wanted was to hold onto the dream, as if there was something real in what I’d conjured, fragments from a life we’d shared, and if only I could recall the details I would have something of her always.

  

  In the weeks before Dr. Berenbaum called to say my mother was dying, I faced head-on what I had read. I turned away from it, sickened. I thought, something is better than nothing. Something is mass, is clay, you can work with it, change its shape, build onto it. I tried to believe this and briefly succeeded; then, felt that what I’d read would rip me in two and did not know how to escape it. Every day it was different.

  And still, I called mother every week, just as before, and listened to Sunny coax her to the phone, her tone gentle, playful, firm, and I said, “Hello, Ma? How are you, Mama?” And when Sunny told me she could no longer walk down the single flight of stairs and slept for much of the day, the words vanished, everything I’d read.