Thus wrote my father in the secret notebooks I found later, afterward.
8.
“Hysteria. Bipolarity. Schizophrenia.” The doctors assailed her with their medical jargon. First they failed her, then they jailed her. They said she was crazy as a jaybird and needed to be caged. I raged as they caged her chemically with their medication, and, polemically, with prescription upon prescription, all stamped with that ill-fated inscription: Rx. They caged her far from us, bringing her closer to the cuckoo birds. The object of my dread had now hit us on the head, along with fire and brimstone, right in our own home. Always a live wire, she had actually set our house on fire, attempting to burn away her sorrow with no thought for the morrow. In the innocent haze of happier days I had ignored the countdown, forgotten to track it, but now it was making an incessant racket. Like a disturbingly cracked alarm, an omen of woe and imminent harm; like a siren that makes your eardrums bleed, a barbaric noise that means you need to flee: the party has ended—brutally.
Yet, at the birth of our son, the contractions seemed to have dispelled some of the stormier, more outlandish aspects of Constance’s behavior. Watching her whisper greetings into the ear of our freshly swaddled babe was both beautiful and reassuring. The greetings’ very mundanity seemed to be proof of her sanity. Was the ordinariness of caring for a newborn contagious? It seemed to make her less outrageous. During his infancy, he seemed to put a check on her extravagancy. Her wildness seemed more contained, though embers of it still remained. She might say or do things bizarre and unexpected, but her words and acts were inconsequential; to the wider world, her strangeness went undetected.
But the babe grew into a child who toddled and babbled, then walked and talked; a small person—not a bird—who could absorb and repeat all the crazy things he heard. She raised him to be exquisitely polite, because she believed that civility proved your gentility. She taught him that etiquette was the main guardrail in life, and his manners he should mind as a mark of respect due to all humankind. Thus our son bowed and clicked his heels to all and sundry: shopkeepers, distant acquaintances, our demoiselle crane and our copious company. She also taught him to be gallant—in her mind, being chivalrous was never frivolous. She thought a kiss on the hand was an appropriate greeting when meeting little girls his own age. That made our strolls through parks rather outdated, charmingly antiquated. It was truly something to see when he scampered across a sandbox to smother a little girl’s gritty hand with kisses. They didn’t quite know how to react, those flabbergasted little misses. Or the faces of the women at the supermarket, dropping their shopping to gape, as he bowed with deference to express his reverence. Mothers watched him for a while, then—turning back to their own sons, slumped in the carts, drooling and sucking their thumbs—seemed to wonder: were their sons second-rate, or was ours going to wind up a madhouse inmate?
Our boy’s esteem for his mother knew no bounds, and she was so proud that she would have done anything to amaze and amuse him. What most kids do to show off to each other, making and taking dares and double dares, he did with his mother. Endlessly outdoing each other in cheek and imagination, their goal was to inspire each other to shriek in admiration, even if that meant turning our home upside down. They jumped, ran, burned, painted, giggled and crowed, eliminating any trace of drabness and filling our lives with cheerful madness. He’d stand before her with a swagger; reaching out a small hand to tag her, “I don’t think you can beat me, Mommy, it’s terribly risky you see; the winner’s sure to be me. So you’d best give up now, since you’re bound to lose anyhow!”
“Not a chance, little pup, do you hear me? This mom of yours will never give up, so watch, and cheer me!” Then with one last bounce on the couch, she’d catapult herself over the coffee table and land in a club chair, modestly acknowledging our kudos while patting her hair.
The lad was also endearingly attached to Mademoiselle Superfluous, our pet crane. For a few months, he never let her out of his sight, following her around day and night, imitating her neck movements, walking like her, trying to sleep with his head tucked under his arm, eating what she ate. One evening, we found them sharing a can of sardines in the kitchen, fingers and claws dripping with oil. He would try to get her to play with him, too. “Daddy, Mademoiselle doesn’t know how to play right. Can you teach me her language, so I can explain the rules to her?” he asked me one night, as the crane was trampling a board game.
“Talk to her with your hands, your eyes and your heart; that’s always the best way to communicate anyway,” I replied, without realizing that he would spend whole weeks with one hand over his heart, the other holding the bird’s head, so he could stare straight into her great, unblinking eyes.
As for me, I had accepted the role of ringmaster in their circus, of making their every whim come true, of conducting their boisterous grandstanding while helping them avoid hard landings. Not a day went by without its share of the unexpected, not one evening without an improvised dinner or an impromptu fête.
Coming home from a day’s work, I would run into my old pal the Senator in the stairwell, disheveled and sweaty from hauling crates of wine and armfuls of flowers. “Watch out, matey! I can feel it in the air! A storm is brewing up there. You don’t need a weather vane to see it’s going to be a real hurricane. We’re going to party hearty tonight!” he’d chortle with a look of delight. And I would find my son standing on the landing, doffing his pirate hat as he welcomed our guests, his chin smeared with a coal-black beard, a bandana over one eye, the other wide with pride as he clattered about on a homemade peg leg.
Inside, my lovely wife was clad in silk pirate breeches, her torso emblazoned with a skull-and-crossbones tattoo. Eyes sparkling like buried treasure on tropical beaches, her tapered fingers flew, as she dialed to enlist our friends to empty the last barrels from the hold of this already listing ship. “I’ve got to go, the captain just showed up. Don’t be late—the rum might evaporate!”
Our son would stay up late for those parties, learning to dance, to use a corkscrew and to shake cocktails. He and the Creep would put silly clothes and makeup on guests who fell asleep on the couch, then take their picture. Our boy would laugh his little head off when the Creep came out of his bedroom stark naked, wailing that he wanted to drown himself in a barrel of vodka. Together they had come up with a clever stratagem to lure both misses and missuses into the Senator’s lair. The Creep would discreetly designate his chosen belle for that night’s ball, and our son would materialize at her side, looking as innocent as a choirboy, offering her all sorts of colorful libations. Not wanting to hurt such a sweet little lad’s feelings, they accepted the drinks, unaware of the high jinks, until their heads were reeling.
That was when the Creep would come over and start boasting about his latest mission, his meetings with the president and the advantages of knowing a man in his position. Then, sucked in by his game, they’d follow him to the bedroom, where he fed them tidbits of power and crumbs of fame. One night, our son, having probably come to the conclusion that it was time to go into business for himself, managed to attract a lovely lady into his own room. He unbuttoned his shirt, took his little pants off and tossed his mini long johns aside, then started jumping up and down on the bed, naked as a newborn baby before the totally charmed, slightly flattered, and perhaps somewhat alarmed young lady.
All in all, it’s no real surprise that our offspring’s more formal education didn’t go as well as we’d hoped. Spending his evenings in the company of financial titans and defrocked monks, listening to the alcohol-fueled diatribes of inspired drunks, joining their overheated debates and excited confabulation must have made his schooldays and schoolmates appear rather dull and drab in relation.
To be honest, “days” is something of an exaggeration; “half days” would be more like it. After those late nights, we kept him home almost every morning. When Marine and I would show up, somewhat green around the gills, our eyes hidden behind dark morning-after glasses, fishi
ng for an absurd new excuse every day, the teacher would stare at us—at first in dismay, then with less and less hope.
Once, at the end of her rope, she blew up, yelling, “He can’t just waltz into school any time you two please!” To which my charming Louise, high as a kite, retorted with a touch of spite, “Well that’s too bad, because learning to waltz would at least be useful, unlike anything else you’re teaching him at this silly school. You give him children’s books, when at home he discusses great literature with authors and politicians, lays traps with ease for tipsy chickadees, debates the finer points of Newton’s Law and global finance with international bankers and prizewinners in science. He courts women, from common to Brahmin, and you expect us to care about what time he comes in? What do you want him to grow up to be—a pencil-pushing desk jockey? My son is a highbrow night owl, and you want to turn him into an oil-slicked gull in a sea of ennui! That’s why he shows up at noon, so don’t expect to see him in the morning any time soon!”
I stood there, mildly amused, as she unleashed that torrent of zany zings, while our son hung back, fanning the air with his imaginary highbrow night-owl wings. After that umpteenth skirmish, I knew our son’s schooldays were numbered. The solution would have to be homeschooling, as his teacher’s good will was rapidly cooling.
He thought it was just a game, so our little boy watched it all with joy. Convinced his mother was pretending, he didn’t realize her crazy act was never-ending. He thought it was just a game, so I acted as if I thought the same. No matter how out of line she’d get, I tried not to look too surprised or upset.
But one night, after a quiet day spent reading, Colette took off her glasses and rubbed her nose, then asked me, in a voice both fretful and pleading, “Pray tell me, monsieur—and please hurry—what’s going on, so I won’t have to worry. It says right here in this book—I can show you if you’d like to have a look—that Josephine Baker left Paris during the war. I don’t want to be a bore, but if it’s true, then consequentially, you couldn’t have run into her so providentially! Wherefore all the deceit and falsehood? You can’t be my grandfather, my good man. Either they’ve recorded the dates just anywise, or it’s all one big tissue of lies! This is impossible, it simply can’t be! Impossible, impossible, do you hear me? As it is I don’t have a name of my own, and now this book is whittling my family tree down to the bone! What will be left of me? How do I know if you’re really my spouse? Why do we even live in the same house? Will the next book I read prove that Dracula is no relation of yours? I’m so topsy-turvy I can’t tell the doors from the floors!”
For once her plea betrayed not a shred of fantasy; the distress in her voice had nothing to conceal: it was real. This, sadly, was no lark; her eyes had gone dark, as though turned inward, watching her world implode. Feeling the ground shift beneath my feet, I sensed imminent defeat.
While our son, giggling hilariously and scribbling a family tree that no one could make head nor tails of, Colette peered at me with neither hatred nor love—only curiosity, nothing more, like when you pass someone in the street and wonder where you’ve seen them before. Jabbing a finger at me, and with furrowed brow, I could see that she was lost to me now. Her head lolled, and as she trolled secret spells, I got the impression she was shaking herself gently to try to get things back into place and recover her sanity. “I have to go lie down for some bits, I’m at the end of my wits; I’m feeling bamboozled with all of your trumpery,” she said somewhat grumpily, as she headed to bed, looking calm, her head tipped to one side, watching her left thumb trace the lines on her right palm.
“So who is Mom again, actually? Can you explain it factually? She’s my grandmother, is that it? And Josephine Baker is my great-grandmother? It’s kind of a pain: our tree doesn’t fit the stencil, it’s all treetops, but no branches,” our son complained, chewing on his pencil.
“You know, son, your mom’s got lots of imagination. She fiddles with everything, even her filiation. But in your tree, Mom is your roots, your leaves, your branches and your treetop all at once, and we are her gardeners. So we’re going to do our best to keep our favorite tree standing upright, and not let it get uprooted, all right?” I replied, wrapping a muddled metaphor in faux gusto. He decided to accept the mission, albeit dubitatively, then retired to his room, muttering ruminatively.
After the fire though, there was no way to pretend it was a joke. The sound of the sirens, the billowing smoke. Madness may be in the eyes of the beholder, but it was no longer possible to ignore the sadness lurking behind her surges of rapture. I watched as my son covered his mom with the shiny survival sheet, pulling it up over her shoulders reflectively, hiding the puddles of plastic and flaky ashes. He pulled it up so he wouldn’t see, couldn’t see, the burned stigmata of his childish insouciance going up in smoke.
He displayed tremendous self-control throughout the ordeal, staying stiff-lipped and focused while his mother was questioned, first by the police and then the doctors. He never yielded an inch, not once did he flinch; not a single tear ran down his proud, composed face. Nothing betrayed his misery except his arms, stiff from jamming clenched fists into his pockets. His visage remained serious and focused as he analyzed the situation.
Still, when he learned that, in addition to being slightly burned, his mother was being interned, he slashed at the air with his foot, exclaiming, “We’re in a real pickle, but we’re going to find a way out, right, Dad? Life can’t just go on without her! We’ve got to find a way to give our troubles a kick in the butt!”
Going home alone with him that night, I decided he was right. I spared him the unbearable truth, and told him that the doctors had said that after plenty of rest in bed, his mom would come home someday, just not right away. In the meantime, we would do our bit by visiting her every day. They had said no such thing. For them, her condition was clearly worsening. That depressing mental ward was all we could look forward to. I had to lie; I couldn’t bear to tell our son that to spare other people’s lives, that was where his mom would have to die.
Walking down the street on that lovely spring night, I was no longer the “happy fool” I had prided myself on being for so long. The first word in my title was gone, but for my son’s sake, I would have to carry on. When I met his mother, I had made a major wager. I’d read the rules, signed the contract, accepted the conditions and clauses and initialed all the pages. I didn’t regret a thing. How could I regret that sweet wackiness, all that thumbing our noses at reality, those birds flipped at convention, clocks and seasons, at how things are supposed to be? At this point, there really was nothing left to do but to give rhyme and reason a kick in the butt, too. So I added one more clause to the contract. After years of frenetic festivities and esthetic inebriety, poetic eccentricity and kinetic gaiety, I couldn’t see myself telling my son that all the fun was done, from here on in, we would watch his mother drowning in madness in a loony bin. That she was mentally ill and not even the strongest pill could keep her afloat. So I lied, so as not to rock his boat.
Molly’s condition was unstable. We never knew what state we’d find her in, so every time we went to see her, I could sense our little boy’s chagrin, wondering if, when we got there, her private weather would be foul or fair. The pills they gave her provided some relief, helped her turn over a new leaf. Often she seemed like before, pleasantly loopy, though her eyelids were somewhat more droopy. But other times, when we opened the door, we found her conversing with her demons or rehearsing with phantoms, head bowed in prayer, reciting psalms she composed according to her own axioms. Within a few days, she had become the center of the maze; staff and patients alike adored and pampered her, called her “m’lady” and spoiled her like crazy.
Our son soon learned to make his way around the labyrinth of hallways where lost souls knocked around inside bodies wandering all ways. Somehow he found his marks, performed his rounds. You could even say he had some friends, in that surreal world without end. First he’d hold forth with a music-lovin
g schizophrenic, then test his bedside manner on a criminally insane woman rendered harmless through neurogenics.
His mom and I took advantage of his being out of the room to plot her jailbreak, a getaway worthy of the Great Escape, which we had christened “Operation Liberty Bojangles.” Molly was very enthusiastic about it, pointing out that if I were committed to the clinic, too, I wouldn’t feel out of place, I would be just another nutcase. “George, honey, you’re looking a bit morose. I would share my pills with you, but I’ve already swallowed my whole dose,” she said through a medicinal haze. “But tomorrow, I promise, I’ll leave some behind. You can’t tell me that Operation Liberty Bojangles is the product of a sound mind!”
Operation Liberty Bojangles was the kick in the butt our son had insisted we give our troubles. I couldn’t resign myself to bringing the novel of our lives to an end without a dramatic, quixotic twist, even if it meant bending reality yet again. We had to give our son a final chapter in the style to which he was accustomed: a plot bursting with surprises, joyful and overflowing with love and affection. Molly wanted to take responsibility for this final folly; the kidnapping stratagem was actually a diadem, crowning her, in absentia, Queen of the Loony Bin. She just wanted to amaze and amuse her son one last time. She did it for him, that’s all.
9.
A towering pine had always stood in front of the terrace, shooting up from some thirty feet below. In years when we spent the holidays in Spain, it would be our Christmas tree. We’d spend whole days on the decorations we’d bestow. With a tall ladder, we draped it in glittering tinsel and twinkling lights, strewed it with cotton snow. At the very top, a giant star would go. It was a majestic tree, and decorating it had always filled us with glee. But, like everyone, it had grown. From the moment that the castle became our hideout, Mom had been railing that it blocked the sun and spoiled the view. It kept us from seeing the lake, and if a big storm blew up one night, it would fall and break through the roof, killing us in our beds. As far as she was concerned, an assassin was looming right over our heads. She talked about it whenever it caught her eye, and since you could see it from every window, it was constantly in her line of vision. The tree didn’t really bother Dad or me; we could step around it easily for a view of the lake that was still great. But for Mom, it had become an obsession, and leaving it there was out of the question. Because the tree wasn’t actually on our property, Dad had to go into town, and ask the mayor for permission to cut it down. But the mayor said no, leave it be. If everyone cut down every tree that blocked a view, there’d be no more forest, then what would they do? On our way home, Dad said that he agreed with the mayor in theory, but that what with Mom so teary, we had to find a way to make her feel okay. I really didn’t know what to think: choosing between making Mom happy and saving the forest was enough to make you need a drink.
Waiting for Bojangles Page 8
