Boston Adventure

by Jean Stafford

  “Yes, yes, well, that’s neither here nor there. I have made up my mind that you must have mountain air. I will see what I can do—come to think of it, I have a friend in the Adirondacks who might very well let me, that is, let you have the use of his cabin. Charming place, set in a grove of fir trees with a lake near by. The problem, of course, would be finding someone to take care of you.”

  “Oh, Sonie’s a good mother’s helper. She’s a dreamy girl and goes off a little crazy now and then, but she’s a sweet nurse all the same.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” said the doctor. Frustrated, unable for a moment to find his way to the fulfillment of his obvious scheme, he swore softly under his breath, apologized, and said he had just remembered an important engagement he had not kept that afternoon. Then he continued, “I don’t wish to interfere in the upbringing of your daughter, Mrs. Marburg, but it seems to me that this is a very important time of her life . . . that is, in school. That is to say, from my point of view, it would be actually dangerous to take her out of school now, just a few months before commencement. Why, she might not get her diploma! Where would she be then? No, I think you ought to let her finish the year out. I will find you a companion myself.”

  My mother’s eyes shone at the prospect of the mountains. It was the first time, to my knowledge, that she had ever earnestly wished to leave Chichester. I have never known anyone in whom wanderlust was so completely lacking. Perhaps she was incapable of imagining a place in America other than this seaside village, but tonight she was granted second sight. As if she were already listening to the wind through the fir trees, she murmured, “I love the mountains. They don’t smell of clams.”

  “True, true! And not only that but they’re healthful. Why, you’ll be a new woman in a month or so. I’ll just send my friend a telegram. You leave it up to me, Mrs. Marshall, I’ll arrange the whole thing.”

  My mother did not thank him, for, completely egocentric, she was never aware that the betterment of her fortunes initiated in anyone but herself. Yet for his reward, the doctor got a flashing smile of joy which so enlivened her pale face that he could not resist the temptation to touch her and he lifted her hand which still held the hoops and yarn and kissed it. I nearly cried out, for I was not only surprised at the doctor’s premature and uncircumspect advances, but I was afraid my mother would be shocked out of her placid daydream of the mountain cabin and would realize what his motives were. But either through greenness or complacency, she did not object to his caress. Barely conscious of it, in fact, she allowed her hand to lie in his until she was urged to go on with her humming bird.

  The doctor rose and as he did so, his greedy eyes suddenly widened with horror as he realized that they had been talking loud enough for me to hear. “I completely forgot! I brought you some flowers. The girl went out to my car to get them . . . it’s strange I didn’t hear her come in.”

  “She came in all right,” said my mother. “She’ll be out there doing her lessons. She wants to be a school teacher, doctor. Won’t that be a feather in my cap?”

  “It certainly will!” he cried passionately. “She’s a fine girl. Now I must be running along. Au revoir.”

  I slipped back to my place at the table and opened Literature and Life at random; the pages fell back at The Deserted Village. I pretended to be so engrossed that I did not hear the doctor come up behind me and jumped, startled, when he said, “Well, now that’s a coincidence. I was about to tell you that the village of Chichester is soon to be deserted by its gracious citizen, your mother. I have been thinking for some time that she needed mountain air to dry up those little scoundrels in her bronchial tubes, and I’ve got her consent to send her off to the Adirondacks.”

  “That’s awfully kind of you,” I said. “But we have no money even to pay her railroad fare, and I shouldn’t like to let her go alone anyhow.”

  “But she wouldn’t be alone. I would . . . that is, I intend to get a companion for her, a sort of nurse person, you know. I’ll pick up someone or other in New York.”

  “But the money . . . we haven’t any money at all.”

  “In questions of life and death, we cannot consider money. I understand that you intend to be a school teacher. Very well, then, when you have your post you can pay back the money I intend to advance you. No!” He raised his hand for silence. “I won’t hear any objections. I owe this to you. I have few pleasures in life. I am a lonely man, a widower, and where I can spread happiness, I will. Let me, I implore you, let me send your mother to the Adirondacks in memory of my wife.”

  He did not look at me as he spoke but gazed about the room and finally, his eye lighting on Dr. Brunson’s brandy, he seized his hat and cried, “I must get on at once. Now, Miss Marburg, I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer. I’m going to drive your mother down myself. Doesn’t that reassure you? I’ve got to run on to New York anyhow in a week or so and it will fit in perfectly. Good-by for the present. I’ll look in tomorrow.”

  My mother was delighted with the flowers and buried her face in them. She was still flushed with her thoughts of the mountains and she talked ecstatically. “My stars, darling, imagine it! It was fate that made me start doing the fir trees. Oh, how happy I am! I’ve been so unhappy! You don’t know how unhappy a person can be, baby girl.”

  “Mamma, don’t go away,” I said sadly. “I would be so lonesome without you.”

  “There! She’s cross that I’m happy! She doesn’t care if her mother dies. Oh, Sonia, I never thought you’d turn against me, I never did!” Tears started to her eyes and she drew up a pathetic cough. “All right, I won’t go. I’ll just die here. I suppose it was a whole cup of blood that came up this afternoon, but it don’t matter.” She caught her breath. “Give me the syrup . . . No, no, don’t give it to me. I’ll just go on and die now.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Mamma,” I said. “Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea?” But she refused. I sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her fancy-work toward me. “Oh, what a lovely humming-bird! You’re so clever, Mamma.”

  Pleased, instantly reconciled to me, she caught my hand and kissed it quickly. “Do you like it, darling? What do you say I do some of them around the hem of your voile dress?”

  “Well, I don’t know . . . ”

  “No, I don’t either. It might make the other little girls jealous. It might hurt their feelings. Oh, you’re good, dearie, always thinking of others. You’re my baby girl, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Mamma. Shall I turn out the lamp now or do you want to work a little longer?”

  “I’ll work a bit. I’ll tell you what, when I get my ivory hoops, I’ll make you a blouse with tulips on it!”

  As I studied, unable to concentrate, I heard her talking to herself. I thought that perhaps it was the approach of sleep that made her mutterings more and more incoherent. Several times I looked in, but she was wide awake, still multiplying the blossoms of the honeysuckle. At first she talked of the mountains and the fir trees, inquired of herself if she thought the snow would still be on the ground, said, “Yes, it will be a good thing for her. Shura, even as a child, didn’t like the smell of fish. She was real unusual about it, Mrs. Henderson.” She proceeded then to her work. “It’s not as easy as rolling off a log to do a sandpiper, Sonie, darling. Naturally it looks easy as pie to somebody that don’t know the first thing about needlework, but all the same I’m willing to make them. Do you want two on each side of the collar or just one? No, the sandpiper is not my favorite bird. Best I like peacocks, next best parrots, third best bluebird. Sandpiper is way down the list, maybe last.”

  Then she ceased to make sentences and though she did not raise her voice, it became intense as she uttered single nouns or strung together a group of unrelated verbs: “Run and swim and holler.” After a moment, “Mrs. Purple Grackle?” she inquired. “No, Mr. Humming-bird. Mister? Or Doctor Humming-bird?”

  I paid littl
e attention to her. Gradually I forgot about the doctor’s visit and I read hard at Ode on Intimations of Immortality, my next day’s assignment. My interpretation of the poem, nevertheless, was influenced by the childish prattle that issued from the bedroom and a part of my mind (the same shallow part that put into my mouth most preposterous errors when I was translating Latin at sight, making me read “In the midst of its boughs and yearly arms spread the opaque elm tree, huge, where sat Sleep vulgarly,” for “In medio ramos annosaque brachia pandit Ulmus opaca, ingens, quam sedem Somnia vulgo”), obeying the advice of my English teacher to bring literature into my life and vice versa, suggested to me that my mother was returning to her childhood and if her mood lasted, she might go even further and briefly visit her heavenly home.

  She talked continuously, then sang a little, then imitated a drunk, “They’re flying all around thish room. Get thosh boids out of thish room.” Something clattered to the floor. “Sonie!” she screamed. “Come quick!” I ran into the bedroom. She had flung off the bedding and was sitting up straight, her hands over her face.

  “Mamma!” I scolded her. “Put the covers over you. You’ll catch cold again.”

  “There were birds in here, Sonie!”

  “No, no, you only dreamed there were.” I put the back of my hand to her cheek. It was blazing. “There, now, you’ve got yourself worked up into a fever again,” I said and put the thermometer into her mouth. Troubled, I wondered if she had actually coughed blood that afternoon. I looked around for signs but saw none. Gently I drew the blankets up about her again but she cast them off, mumbling around the thermometer that I was trying to suffocate her. She did have a fever, higher than it had been since the last acute phase of her illness, but I told her that her temperature was normal. “You’re just tired, Mamma. It is a little warm, I guess. Would you like a sleeping powder now?”

  “Yes. And you come to bed, do, darling. I know there were birds in here. You keep watch for two hours and then wake me up and I’ll keep watch. I don’t want them to get tangled up in my hair. They do that! Especially the kind that are part mouse, you know the kind I mean.”

  “Bats?”

  “Yes. I wish I had a nightcap. I know, let me wear the little boy’s stocking cap.”

  I took the little red and white cap out of the bureau drawer. “It won’t fit,” I said. But she reached out her hand for it and set it on top of her head. She pulled at it but when she had let go, it immediately contracted, skimmed to the top of her head and sat there precariously. But she was satisfied: “It looks like a nightcap, anyway, don’t it? It’s like not letting a dog know that you’re afraid and he won’t bite you. I suppose it’s the same with bats.”

  She was still restless and insisted that I sit with her a little while. First the lamp, then the darkness after I had turned it out, harried her and she turned her head this way and that, groaning and sighing until at last she fell asleep and I went to bed on the pallet. Because I was exhausted and slept dreamlessly, I was sure I had only just closed my eyes when a cock’s crow and my mother’s shriek came simultaneously to my mummified mind and I awoke to the grisly light of early dawn and to my mother, kneeling at my side. She had had a nightmare. She was in the house of the witch who was no longer a woman but a man; a semicircle of people stood round about an ancient hag dressed in black who writhed in death-throes on the floor. The onlookers were solemnly interested but made no move to help the woman who had been poisoned by the witch. My mother was accosted by Ivan, grown into a tall young man, and he said, “That is my Mamma. We knew it would happen at the Reds of Easter. When is it your turn?” Suddenly, looking at her hands, she saw that they were covered with a crumbling brown incrustation, green in spots with mold, and the witch, who stood near her, touched her bare foot so that more of the crusty scabs appeared. He touched her at various other places until her whole body was infected; she could not get away from him although he was not holding her; her feet were rooted to the floor. A hideous scream came from the throats of the people who watched. At last, when she was entirely covered with the vile stuff, he seized her by the arms and kissed her lips until the blood streamed from them, soaking her blouse. She saw then that he intended to lift her up and carry her to a couch, set in a vast bowl of water through which swam goldfish with enormous human eyes that devilishly winked at her. In shame and fear she begged to be released, and as he laughed at her protest and lifted her up, she screamed and wakened.

  I got up and led her back to bed. She was crying now with horror at the memory of her loathesome skin and yet with relief that it had only been a dream. Her skin was cool and in spite of her tears she looked rested. I would have liked to go back to bed, for my head was throbbing from insufficient sleep and my eyes were hot, but my mother declared that she could not close her eyes again for fear the dream would go on to its dreadful climax. She asked for a lamp and while I was getting her breakfast, she commenced to work again on the proboscis of her humming-bird. “Talk to me, Sonie. You know, talk a blue streak so I’ll know you’re still there.”

  Sleepy and cross, impatient with her fancies, I talked, with an intended irony which missed its mark, of my stolid mistress, Mrs. Brunson, who slept until ten every morning, never had nightmares, was never ill, and did not depend upon her daughter for her amusement. I did not, it was true, have the slightest respect for her. She was growing stouter as the result of over-indulgence in chocolate creams and alcohol and although it never occurred to her to reduce her consumption of either, she had become extremely touchy on the subject of her expanding hips. If someone paid her the compliment, “How well you’re looking, Dorothy,” she interpreted it as meaning “How fat you’re getting,” and she would reply testily, “Same to you.” I had at no time envied Betty her mother, but this morning, as I waited for the tea to brew, I wished my own mother’s silliness were more like hers which did not rouse the household out of sound sleep and did not, even when she was drunk, conceive the notion that birds were flying about her bed. Moreover, Mrs. Brunson’s dreams, which she was fond of telling at the dinner table since her best ones came during her afternoon nap, were of the most pedestrian variety, as banal as her speech.

  “And Betty writes to her mother once a week from boarding school,” I was saying, “and every time says, please send me a white bengaline evening dress or please send me twenty-five dollars to have my picture taken. And Mrs. Brunson just says okay. She’s the most unselfish mother I ever knew. Mamma, are you listening?”

  “Sure. That Mrs. Brunson must be lazy. Why, I wouldn’t feel I was worth my weight in gold if I didn’t get up till ten o’clock.”

  “Do you by any chance mean worth your weight in salt?”

  “Toot toot toot toot toot! Somebody got out of the wrong side of bed this morning, it seems to me.”

  I went on with my narrative. The tempo of the Brunsons’ lives slowed down as I talked until, by the time the tea was ready, the dentist and his wife had become as inactive and unfeeling as the china family in Betty’s doll house.

  “I can’t wait all day for my breakfast,” called my mother.

  “It’s only five-thirty. The fire won’t get hot. Oh, Christmas, Mamma! Why can’t you be like other people?” I had not intended to be harsh, but I had burned my fingers on the metal teapot as I lifted it from the stove and since I was vexed already, the little injury enraged me. No reply came from the bedroom. When I took in her tray, my mother did not look up but stared at the back of her hands. “In the dream, the bones right there felt like they were broken under the sores. It was awful! I don’t know if I can eat anything, thinking about them.”

  Nevertheless, she lifted the teacup and drank a little. “Listen,” she said, “it wasn’t Luibka in the dream at all. It was a man, like I said, and he wasn’t a stranger either, but for the life of me I can’t think who it was. Not your father. Not Gonzales. Not Mr. Kadish. Who in the world was the nasty dog?” She named the men she kne
w: doddering old Mr. Brock at the Hotel, Mr. Henderson, the Fuller brush man who had given her the black tooth-brush, Mr. Greeley, her father, Nathan Kadish. The doctor did not cross her mind.

  I thought of going to the hospital after school to tell the doctor that my mother could not see him that evening, and yet I reasoned that I could give him no proper excuse, that I might offend him by appearing to be suspicious of him when perhaps he was only acting out of the goodness of his heart. All day I was anxious. I could feel my forehead wrinkle into a frown that did not come from my diligent following of the text of the Aeneid or the Ode. I did not hear my name called out in the Algebra class roll and I elicited from my teacher the remark, “I must be having a hallucination. I could swear someone was sitting in Sonie Marburg’s seat.”

  All the day I was thinking the word “insane.” In telling my mother that morning of the daily life of the Brunsons, I had recalled a recent conversation between the dentist and Dr. Roberts, the only other physician of the town besides Dr. Galbraith. The doctor had just been reading of new surgery which was now employed in some cases of insanity. “The cure, to my way of thinking, is as bad as the disease. To be sure, they don’t take after you with butcher knives and so on, but they become inhuman, have no feelings. The optic thalamus is put out of whack. Tell them somebody died and they’ll laugh their heads off. Tell them a rattlesnake is behind their chair and they’ll just grin. I’m an old-fashioned man. I believe in the good old-fashioned insane asylum.” Mrs. Brunson who, when she had had too much to drink, tried always to ask intelligent questions—perhaps to prove that she could still follow the talk even though she could not hold her fork in her hand and spilled water in her lap as she lifted her glass to her lips—said, “But that would be used only for violent cases, wouldn’t it? Not for the people that just say strange things and think they see pink elephants and so on?” The doctor, a man who in all things saw black or white, replied shortly, “I may be wrong, but personally, I think people who see pink elephants—unless they’re stuffing you—are insane. We all have our off moments, but I don’t think a healthy mind is ever off enough to see a pink elephant.”