White Walls

by Judy Batalion

  Now, at the airport, Mom was frantic, packing and repacking her important documents, while Dad, hands-in-pockets, whistled an off-key tune and stared into the terminal’s distance. No trace of his former recognition.

  I did not worry this would be the last time I’d ever see them. I did not worry. Instead, I pushed them through security and waved good-bye from behind the black rope. My cheeks were dry. My throat, lumpless. I did not know where my life was going. I did not know where I belonged in any grand sense, but for now, I was going back home, to my solo apartment. I had created my own protective walls, even if they were made of cardboard in a radical enclave in East London.

  There, I opened my new laptop—a graduation gift from my parents—and started to write my first one-woman show. At thirty, at last, I could be alone.

  3RD TRIMESTER:

  The Bedroom

  • TWELVE •

  27 WEEKS: LINEA NIGRA

  California, 2011

  I walked onto the dining veranda by myself, slightly worried that I’d have no one to eat dinner with, but only slightly. This writing conference was particularly social, especially—and to my shock—to someone with a bump de bébé.

  “Mama Judy!” a table of voices called and I turned, flushed with pride at belonging. “We’re saving you a seat.” These writers, from across states, ages, and religions had become my crowd; we often discussed children. My pregnancy reminded them of their own. People were rarely bored talking about their kids, or providing advice about mine in utero. Instead of Bird by Bird, my new friends and I would write Burp by Burp. I’d been so worried that a fetal mound, which preempted me with its allusions to sex, rattles, and milk stains, would alienate colleagues, make me seem uncommitted, not serious, tracing for the world my diminishing cerebral capacity and identity. Instead, pregnancy turned out to be the one universal topic that connected me to strangers. Plus, I had the strongest identity of all. Everyone knew who I was. The moment I’d arrived the man who was helping people unload suitcases beelined to my massive torso and exclaimed: “You’re the pregnant one!”

  “No,” I’d answered. “Just kidding.”

  Then he lugged my luggage first. People had never been so nice.

  Even my roommate, a forty-year-old housekeeper turned genius novelist with a husky cigarette voice and a following of doting adolescent gay men, completely uninterested in the world o’ child, was intrigued by my maternal ambivalence. “I’m not that into it either!” I confessed, to her surprise and endless questioning.

  “So why did you do it? How will you manage?” Being pregnant, an utterly private experience, meant very publicly doing a thing that most people had strong feelings about, evoking passionate memories and opinions, coaxing them to share—even their doubt. I was the catalyst.

  I breathed in the fresh air, focusing on the vista of wiry thin trees that extended to the sky, the rugged brown mountains that glistened in the leaking red sunset. The land felt old, ancient enough to inspire new age ideas. I’d never been to Northern California before. Here I was, pregnant, and lo and behold, I’d traveled alone to a fresh place. I was still growing, and not just around my abdomen. I motioned to my callers that I’d be with them after visiting the buffet. I hadn’t known a single one of them before this week, I mused. I was still free, able to do new things, meet new people.

  If anything, the conference had been the most enjoyable of my career. I did not feel the need to attend every lecture, schmooze every success story, or provide rehearsed speeches about my incredibly keen interest in Victorian asylums. Finally, I thought, I was ready for college. I was constantly reminded that there was life outside my brain.

  Life inside me. I put my hand on my belly and felt a little foot ram my ribs, darling kneecaps smash my kidneys, my insides twisting in new ways. Being fused to another being had its existential and physical ramifications, including that I was never alone. I was always part of a pair, a member of a team. And yet, still me. Even more in tune with my desires and instincts.

  “Don’t eat that,” a woman who I’d not yet met whispered as I hovered over the tiramisu. “Fetal alcohol syndrome,” she said, enunciating each word.

  “Thanks for the warning,” I replied, flashing to all the people who “tsked” me in the past few months. Diet Coke, coffee, yogic inversions, C-section anesthetics, public toilets, bending down—all verboten, worthy of public shaming. Suddenly, though, I really didn’t care. The California air brought out my inner confidence. And my good old brashness. “Good news is, I’ve cut down on my heroin use, so the baby should be OK.”

  GO WEST

  London, 2007

  The first thing I thought when I saw Jon across the crowded British pub was: what a Jew. He was short and bald, and, Dan had been right about his condition. A few weeks earlier, Dan and his girlfriend Lara had taken me to a nouveau British nose-to-tail restaurant for my thirtieth birthday, ordering up a storm of nostril fricassee and tentacle-inspired small plates. As I tried to hide my half-eaten (completely uneaten), insanely expensive foodstuffs under my particularly airy bread (why did the holes have to be so big?) I shocked myself by blurting out: “Hey, don’t you guys know any single Jewish men who are nice, somewhat normal, and solvent?”

  “Well, I do know one,” Dan had said after a moment’s pause. “But I have to warn you, he’s very hairy.”

  “So what?” I’d replied. “So am I.”

  It hit me later that evening: “Nice, somewhat normal, and solvent” was what I wanted, clean and clear. I could be open about it and not seem pathetic. Besides, I wasn’t even really looking. My PhD was done, the museum exhibition over, my visa and lease soon up for renewal. I was working on my one-woman show that had recently been commissioned to be performed in Edinburgh! Combining comedy and research, it was a story about Jewish identity in England, and felt like the culmination of my London experience. After that, I would go home, as soon as I figured out where that might be.

  In any case, I hadn’t been particularly concerned about Jon’s hirsuteness until now, in the bar, as I, fashionably late in a pink peacoat and retro glasses, approached the table where Chewbacca was waiting.

  “You look like you said you did on the phone. A fabulous Anne Frank.” He laughed snarkily. “That was pretty obnoxious.”

  “Thanks,” I responded, annoyed that I’d bothered shaving my legs. He was even more crass than he’d been when he’d called, weeks after Dan passed on my details, going on about how he knew Montreal for its superior strip clubs.

  “You don’t look a day over thirty-two,” he said.

  I was thirty. It was sparks from the start. Nuclear sparks.

  It was my turn. “What do you do? What’s your passion? Your dream?” The words crashed out of my mouth. I wouldn’t normally have launched in like this (in England, no less), but there was no time to waste. He had booked us tickets to a show about to begin, and apparently, I was aging rapidly.

  “I don’t have ambition,” he said.

  Great, I thought. A real winner. Then I learned that the show he planned to woo me with was a ukulele concert. We made our way to the venue upstairs. He started panicking. “Since you were so late, we might not get seats.”

  “Chillax,” I said, plunking myself down on the floor. I could already tell this was a wasted evening. There was no point maintaining pretenses. Forget ladylike leg-crossings. Forget the list of preplanned conversation topics and selection of witty anecdotes demonstrating savvy yet vulnerable sides of myself. Forget breath mints.

  “I’m not used to being in the audience,” I said, surprisingly insufferable. “I perform.”

  “Wow, that’s odious,” he said.

  “Thanks.” What was this—a date or a fight?

  Between sets, he leaned into me. “You’re brutal, you’re honest, you say what you mean. You’re so not British.”

  “No-duh,” I snapped. “I thought
the white teeth gave it away.”

  “What are you looking for in relationships?” he asked.

  “Here’s my policy,” I said, speaking curtly over the ukuleles like I never spoke to anyone. “One stray and you’re out. I don’t forgive infidelity. EVER.” Why would I say that? I amazed myself with my unfeminine frankness, with the clarity of my protocols.

  “So you know what you want,” he said, smirking.

  “You lack ambition and don’t.” I smirked back.

  “Fair enough.” He looked at his watch. I assumed it was because he wanted to go, but it turned out he was freaked out about missing the last tube. He had come to the dangerous cool east of London, and he needed to get back to his suburban-mama-boy west. “Where’s the train? How long will it take me to get there?”

  “You can’t take a cab?” I asked. “How cheap are you?”

  “That’s my rule,” he said. “No cabs. We all have rules.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I tried to describe the route to the station, but he was so annoyingly nervous that I walked him there. We arrived just in time. “I wouldn’t want you to feel worried,” I said, noticing he didn’t seem worried that I now had to walk home alone. This was antichivalry.

  “I’ll call you.” He ran to catch the train.

  Good-bye, weirdo, I thought, as I bounded down the street. The brutality of our conversation had left me strangely energized. I’d survived plenty of rejection; a date that climaxed in the guy dashing for public transportation didn’t send me into a spiral of self-critical depression. I was pleased with my lack of disappointment. I was fine on my own.

  So it surprised me when I arrived home to find an e-mail from Jon. Apparently, he’d had a great time. Really? I went to sleep.

  • • •

  THE NEXT DAY, Maya and I conducted a postmortem, giggling over the lack of courtliness. I felt good about not feeling bad. “What did you write back?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” I was proud of my restraint.

  “Are you crazy?” Her tone changed to serious. “He’s a single Jewish guy who likes you and isn’t totally insane. Give him another chance.”

  Aware of her unluckiness in love, I had to admit she had a point (not to mention, a rather low opinion of my romantic appeal). That night, I semireluctantly texted Jon a thanks. Then, I didn’t hear from him.

  That was fine. I was busy with my one-woman show, and about to go on a second date with David, my ultimate match-on-paper. An American pursuing his successful social justice career, he had an Ivy League degree like I did, yet was better-looking—chiseled, built, serious with an underlying smile. We saw a Pinter matinee, for which he called me twice to make sure I was on time. The three-hour play was about a 1950s dysfunctional abusive asylum for suicidals. It made me want to check in. After the curtain fell, I was about to mock the depressive tone when David exclaimed: “Genius! A fascinating representation of cultural malaise.” Then he added, “I’m on a cleanse, so let’s just sit outside and chat.”

  I followed, careful of how my legs were crossed so my calves’ fatness careened away from him. He semireclined his muscular physique and launched into a full-scale analysis of his previous relationships with “powerful-yet-insecure/push-pull” women. He mentioned he was going to a hip East End club that evening. I was about to begin my usual spiel, to impress with my savvy knowledge of hot spots and get myself invited so I could show up late and coyly grab his attention that I would never fully have, eventually seducing him while not seeming like I cared. But as I looked at his “Yidonis” figure, aloof, checking out his surrounds, glancing at me intermittently, explaining his “tendency to recycle intimacies,” it just felt like so much work. Andy, Evan, Christ the hoarder. I was too tired.

  So when I retreated to the restroom and noticed a missed call from Jon, I was pleasantly surprised. I sat on the toilet listening to his voice mail. “I know it’s last minute, but will you come see a comic poet tonight? That is, if you can bear being in the audience. If not, let’s make another plan. I’d like to see you again—soon.” His message was direct. Fresh. His voice felt alive. For a second all “the rules” flashed through me: a last-minute date? But thinking of David (probably still talking about himself), I realized: who cared! Our first date had been fun. I felt like seeing this guy. His brashness brought out my own, a quality I had desperately tried to conceal in this repressed country. I texted him right away. “See you there.”

  “Great,” he texted back.

  I didn’t even go home to change.

  “Twice in a week,” Jon said, his eyes sparkling, greeting me at the theater door. “People will talk.”

  “So let them,” I said. “Nu, where’s my beer?”

  “At the bar,” he said. “Go get it. And get me one too.” He smiled and went. As I waited for him in the audience, I thought about the backwardness of this Jon situation. No chiseled features. No save-the-world. No romance, chivalry, flirting, mystery, or any of the usual titillation. Not civil and choreographed, but candid and chaotic. No polite beating around the bush, but a burning bush. No flirty self, but more of myself. Less Carrie and Mr. Big, more Homer and Marge.

  That night, after the show, after we decided to look for hot food (not an easy task at ten p.m. in London), after I loved the all-night clubbers’ hamburger joint (“You’re so not British,” he repeated), and after I asked him about his greatest weakness and he answered, “Gambling” (what!? I’d thought, that sounds like a neon red flag, but then reminded myself that at least it was honest), he dropped me off at my flat. There was no kiss, not even a hug. “See you later,” he said.

  “Call me,” I answered.

  As I walked up the stairs, it struck me in a flash. “I don’t even like this guy,” I said aloud. “My luck, we’ll get married.”

  • • •

  DATE NUMBER THREE was fairly good. After I’d expertly suggested a hit French film about breast cancer, infidelity, and funerals, and Jon had met me at the cinema only to inquire as to whether perhaps I’d want to do something that sounded a little more, well, fun, and said he’d booked two seats at the bar at a nearby swanky restaurant, and after I wondered if that was controlling but then realized that yes, of course I wanted to do something more fun, and after we’d sat at the bar, joking, eating fifty-dollar salmon and zucchini blossoms like they were an afterthought, and then after we took a walk to Waterloo station, and a vagrant saw us holding hands among the day’s commuters’ debris which looked like a light snow littered across the stone floor and called out, “Take care of each other forever,” and then, in the tunnel where my train was due, he suddenly pulled me into him and kissed me quickly on the lips, a staccato gesture, conversational, invitational—after all that, I thought, that wasn’t too bad.

  But now two weeks later, I wondered if maybe it was. Why’d he ask me to pick an outing if he had his own plans? Did he—a lawyer turned business advisor—shun high art? Hate my taste? He’d said I should come to his flat tonight to say good-bye before he left for a month of traveling and that he’d call me to finalize, but I hadn’t heard a peep. Maybe he wasn’t as plainspoken as I thought. Then again, he’d never been quick to call. Then again, I wasn’t looking for love. I needed to leave London. Who knew? I told myself, as I wandered into a liquor store to pick up wine for Maya’s first annual summer barbecue.

  My phone buzzed with Mom’s name. “Hi,” I answered, happy for the distraction.

  “Judy.” She was breathless. “There’s no point in my going on. I can’t see a way out of the mess I’m in. I should just say good-bye now.”

  “Mom.” I sighed. This is a disease, my memory calmly whispered. A family disease, our coat of arms. “You need to get help.”

  I could have told her how much I loved her and needed her and didn’t want to hear her talk that way. I could have changed topics to distract her and shift her mood. (The ot
her day, I’d immediately swerved her into a monologue about how I should date men who read fiction because they were empathetic, but not men who wrote fiction, because they were overly sensitive and self-involved. Lately I’ve been telling Dad, she joked, “If you don’t do what I say, I won’t divorce you!”) I could have told her I’d met my Harry Goldenblatt, asked her why he hadn’t called, whether I should call him.

  But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to talk about Jon just to soothe her rage.

  I also realized that I knew the answer: I shouldn’t call Jon. Not because of the Rules or playing hard to get, but because I didn’t want to. The truth was, I was shy, and he’d said he’d call me. I needed to be with someone reliable who could ease my anxieties and make me feel comfortable, not make me pretend to be the extrovert I really wasn’t.

  “I’ve gotta go to a barbecue,” I said instead. “You’ll find a way out of the mess.”

  Then, just as I walked into the party—Jon. “Are you coming over tonight?”

  “Oh, OK,” I said, acting surprised, not-saying Why didn’t you call yesterday or Dude, do you even like me? Was I being too passive? Not honest? Or was some game acceptable, as long as it was fun?