by Susan Hahn
At the lunch with Celine, Deidre spoke about how disappointed her husband, Harrold, was with her because they had only produced a daughter, although intellectually he knew it was his sperm that made that determination. “I, too, know something about masculine narcissism, domination, and coldness,” she confided to Celine, adding, “I fled a first husband reckless with testosterone. We honeymooned in Las Vegas. I can still picture him ogling the showgirls, their tight thighs, their bare breasts, their painted nipples, and doll faces. I began to feel dizzy and, after a day there, did get physically sick with a high fever, which he paid no attention to—just kept having sex with me, taking me to places the cartographers had yet to map!”
Celine said, “Celie, she acted as if she were proud of this. Then, she segued into the questions—the rumors that were circulating about some critic and Cecilia. Had he really threatened Cecilia? Tried to ruin her career? Attacked her? Asking who is this Herr M—the one mentioned in her most recently published poem—‘The Interior of the Sun?’”
Frankly, the thing that impressed Celie most about what Celine reported was that Celine could actually remember so many details of what Deidre had said. As if she had memorized them. But, then again, they did have to do with sex—Celine’s favorite topic. Although, she did continue her reportage with the same specificity, making Celie wonder if she had taken notes right afterward or perhaps had placed a small recording device inside her bra. Everyone knows how much she forever wants to impress upon Cecilia and Cecily that she is as sharp as they are—or sharper.
Celine confirmed to Celie that she stayed quiet as she was instructed to do, while Deidre continued with a relish she could not quite cover up, “The gossip is everywhere,” she said in as compassionate a voice as she could muster, and went on. “All her recently published poems are imbued with an eerie beauty, yet filled with unseemly acts of violence. Very Edgar Allen Poe-like.” After a pause, she continued, “Did she really let the critic hit her for his own delight or, worse, for hers? Did she deep down hate herself that much? Or was she just making it all up to add to the effectiveness of her writing?” Again, she paused, then said with great authority, “You know, some writers do this.”
Celine thought the questions impertinent and beyond this, could not envision any of it, given her own conquests. Failure with men was just not in Celine’s repertoire. Nor was she as intrigued as everyone else seemed to be by “whoever or whatever this Herr M was.” It was clear to Celine that Deidre led a fairly barren life, yet if Cecilia would just give her some attention she would feel immediately filled up—which Celine did feel “was a little bent.”
All of this Celine told Celie and Celie, in turn, told Cecilia. That Deidre even said to Celine, “I wish Cecilia and I could share our pain, our poetry—become sisters in the art. Maybe even save each other. I do see Cecilia in me, if only she’d see me in her.” It was then that Deidre’s talk made Celine feel “really creeped out” so she changed the subject to clothes and asked what Deidre had bought recently at the shop.
Deidre told her about the lamb’s wool sweater and how Cecilia had bought the same one. Celine just could not get her off the subject of Cecilia, and once again Celine tried to change the topic—this time to men. She talked about how some man in the far corner could not stop looking at her. How difficult it was to avoid his stare. She talked about how cute the waiter was, how he could not stop smiling at her. Did Deidre notice? Which again turned the conversation back to Cecilia and the critic with Deidre asking, “Is he obsessed with her? Do you know what happened between them? Do you?” Then she quoted lines from Cecilia’s poem “The Interior of the Sun”:
… Hit me,
she whispered ….
. . It’s summer again
and someone loves her.
This made Celine almost totally crazy, quickly asking for the check so as to get away from this “Cecilia-crazed woman.”
Celine was so enraged that Celie and Cecilia had sent her on this mission that to calm her Celie immediately gave her another of her shop discounts—forty percent off. Satisfied, Celine went off to buy a short-sleeved pink angora sweater, which greatly pleased her.
Sometimes Celie feels truly sad for Deidre, especially when she watches her looking at herself in the shop’s triple mirrors. She thinks, “Yes, she does look ‘like a peony drying up.’” Celine had added that Deidre all too casually mentioned, “My second husband never comes near me. We never have sex. Harrold is the opposite of my first, and I chose him in large part because of this.” Then, Deidre had snorted out a laugh and continued, “I guess, when you make your bed, you do have to sleep in it.”
When reporting this to Celie, Celine shook her head from side to side as if she were trying to get rid of such a thought, and said, “I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not, but I couldn’t take any more of such talk. Anyway, why would anyone share that? Just nuts!”
It is true, a life of such celibacy would be like death to Celine. However, Celie believes what Deidre said is true, as she watches her in the mirror. She does look like she has been pickled in a jar—well preserved, but with a blood-lessness to her flesh as if she has not been touched. Sadly, Celie’s own skin has a similar look.
After Celie filled Cecilia in on all of this, they concluded that however pathetic Deidre was, she seemed fairly harmless and maybe if Cecilia blanked out anytime she encountered Deidre and Celie stopped all “Slaughter talk,” Deidre would grow tired and eventually get the message and keep her distance. Though Celie hates to lose such a customer—she buys so much, especially if she knows Cecilia has bought it first.
Today, however, while Celie was wrapping the Hermès scarf Deidre had just bought, Deidre told her that she heard that Cecily had written a play about a poet and a critic and she asked, “Did you know of this?” Celie was astonished that she had such information, but stayed calm on the surface and said, “I did not.” Which, of course, was not true. Deidre then asked, “Are you worried?” Celie replied, “No,” which seemed like a joke inside herself, for Celie worries about everything. She just cannot show it, especially after certain things that have happened to her and seem to be known by everybody.
Celie diverted her attention to a black Calvin Klein coat, telling her that Cecilia had just purchased one, which she knew was not nice. Of course, Deidre immediately tried it on in her size and there Celie was, ringing up another large sale.
While she did this, Deidre said, cautiously and softly, “I’ve heard that Cecilia is having thoughts of suicide because of this man she calls Herr M—you know, the one in the poem.” She then paused to see if Celie would react and when she did not, Deidre continued, “Isn’t that why Idyth Slaughter was sedated and locked away, because she attempted to kill herself?” It was then that Celie became completely shaken by Deidre’s not so subtle, manipulative intrusions. She felt her old vertigo returning, but carefully and rather coldly answered—avoiding the mention of a Herr M or Grandmother Idyth—“Oh, no. It’s true she’s thinking about the subject of suicide for a book, but that’s it. Something she’s going to do all in verse.” “How interesting!” Deidre replied, with a certain amount of doubt and disingenuous enthusiasm in her voice, as Celie felt the floor begin to move even more.
After she left, Celie took her pills and called Cecilia, telling her, “I’ve concluded she really won’t be that easy to get rid of. Her curiosity is becoming more meddlesome, more aggressive.” Then she added, “Cecilia, who is Herr M?” Cecilia quickly answered in a weakening voice, “No one, Celie. No one. Just a fiction.” She then said, “Thank you, Celie, for all you’ve already done, but I might have to ask you to do one additional small thing.” After a sigh, she continued, “Did you know that Deidre told Celine that she’s thinking of changing her name to Ceil, so that she can feel she’s more a part of our family? Celine just told me this.” Astonished, Celie said, “No!” and wondered why Celine had failed to report this. Then she figured that Celine had been too distracted choosing a
purchase with the discount—or maybe, on second thought, she had saved the best tidbit of information to tell to Cecilia directly, so as to prove, once again, her high value.
Cecilia continued, “Maybe we’ll have to take care of this with a poem.” Celie did not know exactly what she meant, except that the floor had straightened and she accepted that Cecilia knew what she was doing, unlike myself who understood more and more, as the years passed and my disappearance to beneath the ground lengthened, that this was not always true and became most especially obvious to me with Cecilia’s encounters with a very real Herr M. All of which coincided with her mother’s long, final journey toward what humans call death—the place where I now live and more than exist.
THE DEVIL’S LEGS
His pants unzip fast
and he stands in his pure white
underwear, which he pulls down
and kicks off.
His hard curvy
calves, a perfect pair,
kiss each other
like well-matched lovers,
while his thighs rise and rise
to the heaven above, to the
promise of his mountainous
voice calling to her from her
cold place down
on the floor.
Touch Me Up
Here. I’ll Take You
In. Be Your Heat.
And with her palms stretched
to their widest,
she pushes herself over
the silent flat world—her thin
legs soon to encircle
all that is round, all that is
pumped, all that is hyped, all that
is hot, all
that is brash, all that is his
full unending
laugh.
c. slaughter
DURING THE TIME Cecilia’s mother was dying, Cecilia was trying to tell her something about herself that she knew her mother would rather not know—something Aunt Lettie would not want to carry with her to the next world. Yet Cecilia continued, even though it was clear Aunt Lettie chose to skip over Cecilia’s small but consistent mentions of Herr M. Maybe it was the nickname Cecilia had given him that bothered Aunt Lettie so much, proving to be a trigger—a reminder—for her. The Herr, of course, too German. However, the more Cecilia used it, the more his real name faded, until finally, the latter did not have the acute impact within herself as to what he—Herr M—had done to her. The metaphoric distance she created with this pseudonym did help. Every time she heard his real name mentioned Cecilia would grow nauseous and her body would quiver. At those moments she would feel like a small, trapped animal.
Aunt Lettie would never live to know Herr M’s real name, and for this I knew she was grateful. It was not that she did not feel enormous concern for Cecilia. It was, I believe, quite the opposite. Given her own history, even if she had been healthy she probably would have thought that she was the last person who could help her daughter. Yet, it was so clear how much Cecilia wanted to tell her mother. Cecilia thought, “After all, she is still here. She is still my mother. And I need her.”
Because Aunt Lettie could not seem to stand to hear even an edge of her talk about Herr M, she would abruptly change the subject and say, “Cecilia, could you adjust my pillow?” or “Could you bring me another blanket?” Cecilia was more than happy to do this for she knew her mother was close to death and she would have done anything she felt might extend her life by a day, an hour—even minutes. During those days, hours, and minutes, they were standing in separate earth—separate dirt—as Aunt Lettie was about to leave this world, leave Cecilia in what Aunt Lettie was known to call “this fallen place.” The only thing Cecilia could not seem to do for her mother was to stop bringing up Herr M.
Cecilia watched her mother’s whole being become translucent and she envied her—her thinning journey out of this life almost over. There Aunt Lettie sat with that permanent shunt—just the right place for a beautiful pin, except this was under layers of her skin—for the transfusions that gave her back a little life for a week or two. They allowed her to go home and even go out to lunch and for a drive next to the lake right after new blood was infused into her. However, as her sickness progressed, the more quickly the healthy cells became polluted with her disease, and ultimately all a transfusion did was to give her enough energy to leave her bedroom and go downstairs for some sunlight for an hour or two. Then, Cecilia’s father would carry her back to her upstairs room, which she kept dark—the shades always drawn.
Her bully-critic was not literary, but all too literal—Adonai, solemn in the temple, about to inscribe her in the Book of Death, Lucifer grinning in hell hoping to greet her or, going the furthest back Cecilia could remember, the god Thoth waiting patiently to weigh her soul. “Who knows?” she thought.
Flashes of Karl would arrive more quickly to Lettie the sicker she became. Sometimes she would see him in his uniform standing over her and then, just as quickly, his image would evaporate into the stale hospital room air as if he were never there. Had never existed. He would always show up unexpectedly in the corners of her room, frightening her. So nothing had really changed from when she was at the camp, except that after she got out and came to America, married Samuel, and had Cecilia, he did show up less and less. She had almost begun to believe it was possible that someday he would disappear forever. It was only when she got sick for the final time that he started appearing more frequently.
Sometimes, too, her own mother and father would appear in the hospital room, waving “goodbye”—or was it “hello”? Each had one arm in the air, so together they formed the wings of a single bird. And sometimes a gorgeous bird would quietly materialize next to her bed and carefully fan her, try to cool her. Lettie would reach out to it when it appeared and attempt to touch its feathered tips, as if by doing so she would be transformed into a healthy being by the bird’s majesty. But she could never quite get to it—touch it—before it, too, disappeared.
She would tell Cecilia about the bird—that she thought it was an ibis. “A scarlet ibis!” she would exclaim, and then she would remind Cecilia to make sure to bury her in her red suit. She told her many times where to find it in her closet.
Lettie knew Cecilia would try hard to appear calm as she went along with her ibis image. Cecilia would tell her about how in ancient Egypt the ibis was always buried in the deceased Pharaoh’s tomb so as to ensure the Pharaoh safe passage to the next world and Lettie, not quite listening, would smile and return to the story of her parents’ last wave to her—how its arc had formed the wings of a single bird. She did let Cecilia in on a bit of the less awful details of her past as Cecilia got older—and that wave seemed safe enough. They would have this conversation, over and over. Almost all talk near the end became a repetition. Lettie made sure of this.
In fact, the last time she had seen her parents and they waved goodbye was many years ago. A Tuesday at 9:20 A.M. She still had her watch on—no one had yet taken it from her—and for some reason it felt important to make a record of that moment in her mind. Tuesday, February 1—a day filled with a heavy, awful smell that she would learn to live with, a smell she would never entirely forget, from which she would never get clean enough.
Her parents’ wave had been so casual, as if nothing too terrible was happening—as if they were trying to assure her and her sister, Leah, that they, “of course,” would see them both tomorrow. That is how Lettie would always remember it—and all the moments that came before and after…
Lettie’s mother, Miriam, had gently pushed Leah and her out of their line when the officer shouted for “Doctors” and “Twins,” whispering to them in Yiddish, “Geyn, Geyn” in her most gentle mother voice. Joseph, their father, nodded with a forced smile as if saying, “Do as your mother says,” as he often told them out loud in better times. And, as always, Lettie and Leah did what they were told to do, because Miriam and Joseph were good parents and had always given them the best advice.
Often when Lettie focused on her own daughter—her daughter with the auburn hair and violet eyes—it was easy to forget about the past. “Beauty does that,” she would tell Samuel, who never wanted to hear her mention any of it—meaning the camp and Karl. She did understand this, though there were times she wished he would allow her to talk about it. All of it. She wanted to think at least she was able to do that with her husband if she had chosen to, but it was not true.
Now, in the hospital, she has become more like Samuel when Cecilia tries to talk to her about this man, Herr M, whom she knows has hurt her daughter. She sometimes even wonders if Cecilia calls him this because of the stories she has heard from relatives about the German. She had forbidden herself to share too much of her sad history with Cecilia. She wanted so much to protect her, always fearing others cared about this less.
She does, however, have moments when she thinks if she were given just one more remission, if she could become a little stronger, maybe she could help Cecilia—talk with her. That is what she ambivalently prays for to her “so-called God”—the one she can never quite believe in again or forgive. But she also feels that whatever has happened to her daughter is already done and that she is most probably not the right person to ease Cecilia’s pain—and so this prayer only rises to a weak flutter inside her.
Another way Aunt Lettie would change the subject was to ask Cecilia to read to her, to take out the books filled with the “good pictures” on the nightstand shelf next to her railed hospital bed. The ones on Nijinsky, Pavlova, and Stravinsky. It was the old Europe—before both wars—that she loved to drift back to, a time before she was born—Paris, 1912. The performance of Afternoon of a Faun. Her mother, Miriam, had gone there with her own mother to see the great Nijinsky dance. Miriam was twelve. The same age Lettie was when Miriam let go of her hand and uttered the words, “Geyn, Geyn.”
