Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You

by Sue William Silverman

  I don’t move. Still, the neighborhood is silent. In this absence of sound I think I hear a warning. Because of the utter stillness of this moment I can now hear. I glance around. What is the warning? Where is it? What does it want from me?

  At the bottom of the hill, there, nestled beside the woods, is our pretty house, our neat yard, my father’s work shed. From the outside, the shed looks quiet and peaceful, too. Yet inside is my father’s electric saw. Sometimes when he uses it, even when I’m in the house, I think I feel the windows vibrate against my fingertips and the floorboards beneath my feet. And for this moment as I pause on top of the hill, in this stillness, I believe I hear, faintly at first, then louder, the whir of my father’s saw turning, the silver blade spinning. But it is my body there—not a plank or a piece of plywood but rather my body clamped in the vise, my shoulder blades pressed against metal. And I must speed to it, to my body, save it—this is the warning—and I am speeding, quickly, quickly, back down the hill. Wands of sunlight reflect off the handlebar, circles of light spin in spokes of bicycle wheels, as I rush toward the shed, rush toward my body. But before I reach it…

  I see the parked car clearly. There is no distracting traffic. There are no dogs, no children, no sudden noises. Only circles and circles of silver light wheeling down the pavement. And I must crash. I must. I crash into a parked car, crumpling my bike, shredding skin off my face.

  Light hurts my face. So now, while I’m healing, I’m allowed to stay in the house with curtains drawn. This is what I wanted: to hide inside, behind curtains, where no one can smell the leakage from my body; to be safe inside, behind curtains, where I can be close to my body clamped to my father’s electric saw. Besides, I am now able to weight the house with my constant presence. Otherwise, gravity would loosen its grip and the house would float away. I wouldn’t be able to bear losing my house and my family, for I believe I am overwhelmingly loved by this family. Camp is bad, school is bad, not my home or my family. After all, my father holds me on his lap, my face against his undershirt, and strokes my hair. My parents buy me pretty dresses. My mother cooks us dinner and wears beautiful red lipstick. My father shows me his love, over and over, when he teaches me new things.

  I am addicted to these terrifying new things. Addicted to terror. For terror, feel love. With terror, my body feels loved. Terror is the definition of love, a synonym proving love’s existence. So I stubbornly sit in this house in order to enable my parents to love me. I need for my father to love me. And I believe that he does.

  Night after night in the bathtub I watch my rubber duck. Its round rubber eyes watch me, too, for it is the first to see. Bits of scum float on the murky surface of water, and I believe it is pieces of skin scaled from my body. Perhaps I am losing bits of skin, parts of my body. Soon, perhaps, there will be nothing left. I don’t look down at my daddy’s hand. I don’t look down at my body. I don’t move. Not a finger. Not a toe. I’m not aware of breathing. But his breath—his—rushes. This is the only sound, this, I feel his breath as it rushes toward me across the water. There is no other sound in the house, none outside the white wood door of the bathroom. No one will enter; I know this. No one will knock on the door. Night after night my daddy bathes me and no one knocks. No one touches the knob. No one ever will. Even if someone did enter, what could she see in the steamy mirror, in the misty room that is underwater wet? Days. Weeks. Months. His rubbing grows more insistent. Soon small bubbles of panic rise in the water, and the duck jerks away in a fierce ripple of tides.

  I close my eyes. I feel the skin of my eyes slip far far back in my skull. As his finger penetrates deep, deeper, I no longer have eyes. I no longer have my body. It is Dina, Dina, Dina. You do it, Dina, I say to her, in a voice only I can hear. You do it. You want this. You, Dina, with your straight black hair, olive-colored skin, and the blackest of eyes. It is her legs parted like that with his finger inside her … while I disappear in a bubble of water. Concentrate on the bubbles of water. They make soft explosions as they crash against the surface, but then another rise rise rises out the roof of my head. But the room is still, yes. I am. My legs are paralyzed. My arms are useless. I am bloated with hot, heavy water, yet weightless, too: here, not here. I am opposites at the same time. And from the distance of my bubble my hazel eyes watch my daddy stick his finger inside Dina, telling her, whispering to her how much he loves her—me—us, loves her—me—us, with a love that is everlasting and true.

  I hide inside bubbles. I hide inside words, in my own invented words that soothe, in my own vocabulary, my own language, for surely my parents teach me no words that are useful. I soar on magical carpets woven with silken words and images that no one else understands. For example, when I learn the alphabet, it is not this endless string of anonymous letters that interests me. In particular, I never hear the individual letters L, M, N, O. Rather, to me these letters slur together to form the imaginary word “elimeno,” really more image than true language. It is this magically real image—landing smack in the middle of A through Z—that interrupts the droning litany of the one-after-another letters.

  The image “elimeno” is a school of elementary minnows darting through cool pools of water, weaving around undulating grasses in the lap-lap of the sea. I believe the minnows swim to elementary school, swimming past coral reefs the color of fire and opals, their bodies glittering like sun shafts deep in the sea.

  Then, like turning a kaleidoscope, as the beauty of this image fades, “elimeno” is magically transformed into a gorgeous yellow lemon. Now it is this taste in my mouth, this sunny summery taste of puckered lemonyellow, this taste, no other, as if “lemonyellow” is the only word I need ever know. The only word I want ever to taste. So when I’m in the bathtub—no—I’m not there: I’m in the sea with minnows; and when I taste something else in my mouth—no—it vanishes, replaced with a sunny lemon taste. And then I live—I am so lucky to live in the most beautiful place in the world.

  There is one home I visit in the neighborhood. There is one person I want to see, although she’s barely a person yet, just the smallest of babies. For hours I sit next to Beth’s crib. Pale eyelashes of her sleeping eyes form half-moons on the lids. Sunlight burnishes her wispy, gold-red hair and sometimes I whisper my fingers through it like a comb, careful not to tug it. Saliva bubbles her tiny lips and baby powder clumps in creases of elbows and knees and toes. Sometimes I worry who will wipe the saliva and who will clean the creases. I worry her diapers need changing. I worry her body needs bathing. I worry about who will change them and who will bathe her. I want to be able to watch her endlessly, never take my eyes off her, although I don’t understand this need. She opens her eyes. I smile, my face pressed against the bars of the crib. She gurgles and coos. Do I wonder who you are? Do I wonder if I were ever a baby like you?

  When officials from the Trust Territories are in town, they dine with us at the house: Governors Paul McNutt of the Philippines, Oren Long of Hawaii, Ernest Gruening of Alaska, Luis Muñoz-Marin of Puerto Rico, Phelps Phelps of Samoa, Morris de Castro of the Virgin Islands. My daddy and I greet our company at the door while my mother cooks in the kitchen. I wear frilly dresses with white socks and patent-leather shoes. I offer hors d’oeuvres arranged on monkeypod platters and carry drinks in white linen cocktail napkins. I smile. I sing songs. I love to show off my dolls. I am a beloved pet performing, showing what a happy child I am, what a happy family we are.

  After everyone leaves, the house again is quiet. No, it is more than quiet. Where is my sister? I never know. I stand in the living room in my pretty dress staring out the picture window into the nighttime yard. But I see no yard. In the glass the living room is reflected, so there is no outside world at all: no yard, no trees, nothing beyond that window. And I—all of us—are trapped inside the glass, for even if my sister fled the house, her flight, her need for flight, is the trap itself. And inside the house, if I scream, no one will hear. If I could scream, I know that glass would shatter.

  B
ut my father is the only one with a voice, the only one who knows how to scream. If something went wrong during the party … if the food were not perfect… if some detail were overlooked, then, after everyone leaves, his rage is swift and solid. But the glass on the window will never shatter, for his wrath is turned on us, his three little girls. It is our brittle bones that will absorb the shock of his voice. We are the only ones who will ever hear him, for everyone outside the house believes my father is perfect. In the midst of his anger, my mother will cry. I will cry. My sister will be dry and vacant. I wait to be hit. If I am, then later, while my mother washes dishes, my father and I go down the hall to the bathroom, to the bathtub, where he loves to soothe me. Perhaps I am almost asleep by the time he undresses me and slips me into the water. His voice whispers that he adores me, that all he wants is to make me happy. “Suzie, my most precious daughter. You are more precious to me than life,” he tells me, while his finger, ever so gently, enters my drowsy body.

  I wake in the middle of the night. It is quiet. I am alone—but not quiet. Earlier, my mother had told me stories about her war, a war that, even though she didn’t experience it directly, haunts her. That song about Hitler is not all she’s taught me. So I am restless, unable to sleep. I lie in bed gazing out the high windows in my room. But all I can see are the thousands of yellow stars once sewn on clothes of Jewish children, marking them, identifying them. I wonder why parents hadn’t ripped off the stars and transformed their children with costumes and masks.

  When Eisenhower is elected President, my father loses his position with the government. He stays home, inside the house, unable to leave the house for weeks. Without a job he must be very frightened, although my mother claims—to friends, to neighbors, to her daughters—that he suffers from pneumonia. Since I am still home from school, I am assigned to care for him. We are truant together.

  My father lies in bed day after day, week after week, in a dark bedroom, the curtains drawn. I also close the raw silk curtains in the living room, believing darkness is comforting and will heal my father back to health. I spoon-feed him soup for lunch. I nudge saltine crackers against his mouth. I hold a straw for him to drink liquids. His stillness scares me. I am scared he will die and that somehow, if he does, all three of his girls will die with him.

  My mother drifts in and out of my consciousness, in and out of the house. She goes shopping. She visits neighbors. My sister bangs into the house after school, changes her clothes, bangs outside again to play with friends. But let her go, I think. I don’t care. My father will love me more because I’m the good girl who stays with him, even better than my mother. I will care for him until he is well. I am the only one who can cure him.

  Evening wilts over the eaves of the house. I hear my mother in the kitchen fixing dinner. I sit in the bedroom with my father. No, I am not sitting in the bedroom with my father. I am lying in bed next to him. He holds up the sheet and motions me to get under the covers. He presses me close, and I believe my body itself can nurse him back to health. He takes my hand and slips it inside his boxer shorts and places it on this thing. I don’t know what it is; it must be swelling caused by pneumonia. It must be, but it is hard and scary and all I want is for him to be well soon, for the swelling to go down. As he guides my hand, I fall farther and farther into the darkness of the room, sheets lowering over us like banks of clouds descending. Until I am jolted back—when the sickness of this swelling erupts all over my hand. The suddenness of it on my hand—and I … I think it is blood and pus, that he is bleeding to death, that I have caused it to bleed, and I scream, once, for my mother, struggling with sheets, trying to run to the kitchen for my mother, before he slaps me across the mouth with such force my head cracks against the headboard. And I am stunned, forever, into silence.

  My mother doesn’t come; she must not have heard me. But soon I am okay. His loving words return, so I know he’s not dying, that I haven’t done anything to kill him. He tells me I am his precious, his only precious, that I am healing my daddy, that my mommy doesn’t know how to do this, that I am the only one in the world who will make daddy better, and now I must lick my hand clean, lick him clean, that my beautiful, beautiful tongue can heal him—haven’t I seen cats lick their kittens?—and when I finish he kisses me on my mouth, but no, it is Dina who licks us clean, Dina who loves my father without question, Dina who opens her mouth, the way he teaches us, and Dina is the best pupil.

  While he is sick we spend hours together. When my mother is home I’m in my clothes, sitting on a chair or on the edge of the bed. Only when she leaves can I truly begin to cure him. No, you, Dina, you heal him. In the movement of her head nodding, I become a glimmer of light on the darkest pane of glass. Watching Dina in bed with my father, I am a mote of dust or a ripple in the bedroom curtain. When he whispers he loves her, she whispers back. He caresses her body. He teaches her to let him put his mouth and tongue between her legs, teaches her how to put her mouth where he is sick, on the swelling. But why is it that after Dina finishes, why is it that after, it is my mouth that tastes this? Why is it that my jaw feels weary, and not Dina’s? I am angry at Dina for not doing a better job. You will do a better job, I rage at her. You will not leave me with this mess to clean up, it is your mess to clean up —it isn’t mine. I put gobs of toothpaste in my mouth. But every time I swallow, I taste it.

  I have disappeared. No one knows where I am. I sit in a tiny cupboard, but even I don’t know where I am, which room I hide in. I’m not even sure whether I’m hiding or whether I’m merely lost. I don’t know how long I’ve been here or how I came to be here, why I’m here. The only connection I have to that which is outside the cupboard is a crack of light surrounding the cupboard door. I hear my mother’s voice calling, but I don’t know my name and there is no voice with which to answer. I feel nothing. There is no cramp in my legs, even though I am hunched tight. I don’t even feel as if I have legs. I don’t know whether I wear clothes or not. The smell of my body overpowers all other senses.

  Finally the door is yanked open. I am yanked out. My legs buckle and I slide onto the floor—the bathroom floor—this is where I am, in blinding light. I wear only an undershirt and blood is smudged on my thighs. No, no, look more closely: The blood is between your thighs, you, Dina, between your disgusting, filthy thighs. No wonder your mother must slap you, slap you, scream at you, you, your mother must call you disgusting, you bad, bad girl, what did you do to yourself, you slutslutslut. But neither Dina nor I can answer her; we don’t understand the source of the blood. In our silence, she fills the tub with water and throws us in. No, you Dina, she throws you in, her hand rough, rough, scrubbing you between your legs, that disgusting place. She scrubs and scrubs and scrubs, first with her sharp fingers, then with a white terry washcloth until you burn, asking you what you did to yourself, telling you, screaming at you, you slut. No man will marry you. Men don’t marry sluts.

  I watch slow swirls of blood tint the water. I am this blood. And I know I will drown.

  She throws the washcloth in the garbage and empties the water. She tells me to put my feet on opposite sides of the tub, and she inserts a rubber nozzle attached to our enema bottle into that spot. She will clean this dirty, disgusting slut inside and out. She has mixed something in the bottle and I am relieved, for I know my body needs a potion stronger than water, perhaps an astringent, in order to clean it well. At first it stings. I feel a deep burn pulsing through me. Soon I become the burning itself; there is no difference.I want to be. My body needs to be cleansed with, as much as I need to become, white hot heat. And I am no longer a body.

  Afterwards our house is rigid. I am rigid. Rigidly, we cook and clean, speak and eat. My legs are the most rigid of all. My breaths are short and shallow, my steps small. Every time I move I believe I rip out all the stitches that hold my body together.

  The curtains in the house are open. My father gets out of bed. He is to open a bank in St. Thomas with Congressman Fred Crawford, and we will al
l move to the tropics. With this news I feel released. My father is no longer sick. He leaves the house. A siege has ended. That swelling on his body must have gone down.

  I even go outside, wander in the woods behind our house. In the early winter a few gold and red leaves still cling to trees. I gather fallen leaves from the ground and press them to my face: They smell of woodsmoke, of deep burgundy, of last traces of sunlight as well as the first white scent of winter. The leaves feel fragile and smell as cool as the ground. These scents seem new; I don’t remember smelling them before. And now I won’t see autumn again for a long time. Yet while it’s peaceful here, and beautiful, I am not nostalgic. I want to move. I believe that who we are here, who I am here, will be left behind; we will be new people in the tropics. My father won’t catch pneumonia again in the warm, peaceful tropics.

  A creek winds through the woods. Low bushes and branches drip. This is all—there are no voices, no calls from birds—only the sound of water rushing, this gray scent of riverwater. I hover on the bank, the warmth of sun-reflected water brushing my legs, and watch the current swirling around a large rock in the middle of the creek. What power, I think, that the rock can interrupt the flow of water of the fast-moving stream.

  Then I know it isn’t water that draws me. For I’m afraid of water, afraid of what is hidden below the surface. Rather, I’m drawn to the rock. I want to sit on it. By leaping from stone to stone I near it, careful the water not touch me.