Good on Paper

by Rachel Cantor

  Thank you for thinking I look pretty. I take after you.

  •

  Jeanette greeted me at the door, a cosmopolitan at the ready. She confided during intermission that she was going through The Change.

  Fasten your seat belts, she said, it’s going to be a bumpy night!

  PART FIVE

  DEATH

  40

  YOU DON’T THINK THE APOCALYPSE CAN HAPPEN

  Every so often we indulged Ahmad’s craving for things Russian. Sometimes this meant Brighton Beach, solyanka in the shadow of the Cyclone. More often it meant midtown and the Balalaika. Fish eggs didn’t agree with Andi, or so she said, so when Ahmad and I went out, Jeanette’s daughter Dotty babysat. Dotty was eighteen and postponing Harvard to volunteer for U2K, a Y2K-preparedness group; she’d go to college in January, she said, if there were any colleges left.

  Andi had organized her school stuff to show Dotty, her Pretty Princess backpack leaning against a tower of textbooks, Tink, newly rehabilitated, standing guard on top.

  Guess what! she said, taking Dotty’s hand as soon as she walked in the door. Ahmad’s going to buy me a bike! A pink one, with a basket for Tink!

  Ahmad! I said.

  Every kid should have a bike, he said. He was trying to do jovial, but Ahmad didn’t do jovial.

  Every kid in Connecticut has a bike, Andi said. I’m going to be every kid in Connecticut!

  Honey, I said, trying to control my voice, we’re not going to Connecticut.

  Aw, Mom!

  You’ll thank me later.

  I doubt it. Is there apple picking in Manhattan?

  I stared at her.

  I didn’t think so, she said.

  I shook my head and turned to Dotty.

  How’s the Y2K business?

  I brought a list of everything you’ll need, she said, digging in her backpack. Then she saw my expression. Poor dears! she said. You don’t think the apocalypse can happen! Even if our government cared for us, which it doesn’t, it could never untangle our dependence on computers. She read to us from a list: Canned food, and don’t forget a manual can opener. Twenty pounds of wheat per person, per month; a grain mill; ten pounds of soybeans. Food-grade plastic containers. We’re vulnerable, she said, but we don’t have to despair! There’s a great safe-house site on the Internet …, and she was digging again in her backpack.

  We managed to slip out, eventually. Reservations, I said, though the Balalaika always had room for Ahmad.

  Of course, Dotty said. We can talk about this later.

  No dessert for Andi, Ahmad said from the door, unless she finishes her corn. And make sure she doesn’t get her cast wet when she brushes her teeth. She splashes.

  I couldn’t visualize this, but let it go.

  And we were off! Just three stops to the best borscht in all Manhattan.

  I loved the Balalaika, the Dr. Zhivago soundtrack notwithstanding. Ahmad would flirt with gawky Anton, who’d mumble to hide his buck teeth: he’d ask about girlfriends, make Anton blush and smile and cover his mouth with his hand. After dinner, Ahmad would join Gorky in wild Russian dancing: he’d squat and thrust to the vast amusement of the Balalaika regulars, rough-looking chaps who drank their vodka neat at the bar. Breathless, Ahmad would laugh with the waiters, exchange jokes in Russian. Soviet humor, he’d say, wiping his eyes. Untranslatable.

  We’d left Indian summer behind us and were back in steaming July; evening, if anything, had only made it worse. Ahmad was walking briskly; I could keep up only with an occasional hop, skip, and jump. Early years in Pakistan had taught Ahmad to love the heat; Manhattan hadn’t quite done the same for me. We descended into the subway and it became clear we should have cabbed it. The humidity was rainforest grade. Before we reached the platform, I was wiping sweat from my forehead and neck. Around us, everyone concentrated on not moving, their hair pasted onto their foreheads, or they fanned themselves without commitment.

  I followed Ahmad to the end of the platform. Near us, a Columbia student huddled over a copy of War and Peace, marking the margins with a mechanical pencil. A mother with a double stroller hummed abstractedly with her Walkman while the younger of her children pointed excitedly at something on the tracks. I hoped it wasn’t a rat.

  Moisture, moisture everywhere, and not a drop to drink. Ahmad wouldn’t look at me—not a good sign. He pulled a bottle of Evian out of his bag, took a swig, replaced it without sharing. Perspiration had accumulated inside my bra, on the small of my back. I wiped my face again and wondered why I never thought to bring water of my own. And watched Ahmad, as if I might find some clue to his coldness in the wrinkle of his shirt, the angle of his tie.

  What’s wrong? I finally asked. I was tired, my blouse was sticking to my chest. I didn’t want to battle.

  What makes you think something’s wrong? he said, still not looking at me, as our express roared into the station.

  There’s obviously something wrong, I said, following Ahmad onto the train. The cool inside should have been a relief, but it wasn’t. Is it Mirabella? Something at work?

  Not now, Shira, Ahmad said, sitting neatly in the one available seat, hands folded on his pressed-together knees. I clutched a steel pole as we started hurtling south.

  What do you mean, not now? We need to talk about it, whatever it is!

  Shira, he said, looking at me finally, you need to get off my back!

  I won’t! I said.

  He made as if he hadn’t heard, but the vein at his temple was pulsing.

  Was that your final answer, by the way? he asked.

  Was what my final answer?

  You told Andi you weren’t going to Connecticut. I’m asking if that’s your final answer.

  I told you already we weren’t going!

  You were going to think about it, is what you said, for Andrea’s sake.

  I’d never said that, but the car was screeching to a halt. Seventy-second Street. People pushed past me, squeezing right and left, some making a sudden rush for the exit when a local pulled in across the platform.

  I waited till we’d pulled away. Ahmad was studying graffiti etched into the Plexiglas windows behind me.

  Listen, I said, I know you’re in a tough spot …

  Save the fake empathy, Shira. You want to be in New York so you can be with your boyfriend, even though being in Connecticut, being together, is better for our daughter.

  My boyfriend? What boyfriend? What are you talking about?

  You’d give up everything for him, wouldn’t you? You’d give up our family, you’d give up Andrea’s happiness. That’s the one thing we said we’d never do, or had you forgotten?

  I don’t have a boyfriend! You’re out of your mind!

  Ahmad shook his head—sadly, as if disappointed with me.

  If you’re not willing to do what’s best for your daughter, Shira, then you don’t deserve her.

  I wrapped both hands tight now around my pole, so Ahmad wouldn’t see them shake.

  You don’t think I can raise Andi on my own? I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

  Keep your voice down, he said, though I hadn’t been shouting. What I said was, if you’re not willing to put your daughter first, then you don’t deserve her.

  What are you saying? I said. Say what you mean!

  Ahmad said something I couldn’t hear over the crackling loudspeaker—then we were at Times Square. More pushing, more squeezing and shoving. When the train pulled away, I could see a seat some distance away, but I didn’t move.

  What did you say? I asked.

  I said, I had to go to Andrea’s school today.

  You what? I maneuvered a few inches closer to his seat. You had to go to Andi’s school?

  Mrs. Chao asked to see us.

  See us? About what?

  Ahmad drank some water, put his bottle back in his bag.

  She sent a note home with Andrea.

  Andi came home with a note?

  You were on your hot date. She ga
ve it to me this morning.

  My hot date? Was he talking about Jeanette? I’d been tired and tipsy after the third Eve, it was Ahmad’s turn with Andi this morning, so I’d stayed over. Too late for me to call, but I’d had my phone with me had anyone tried to reach me, which they hadn’t.

  I didn’t have a hot date! What’s going on here? I said. I sensed betrayal, smelled it, like old blood.

  Someone has to be there for our daughter, someone has to be responsible. It has to be me, doesn’t it? It always has to be me.

  Tell me why you had to go to Andi’s school!

  Ahmad’s face was an infuriating blank; my arms and knees were shaking.

  What is going on with my daughter? I said, my voice rising again.

  I’m waiting for you to stop shouting, he said.

  Fuck you! I shouted. The people around us went quiet, looked to each other for reassurance. If Andi has a problem, I said, lowering my voice, you need to tell me what it is.

  Ahmad crossed his arms against his chest.

  Tell me! I shouted.

  Know this, Shira. I will do whatever it takes to make sure no one ever hurts our daughter. Do you understand me? Our stop, he said then, standing and smoothing his pants. You coming?

  People began flowing out the door—people with suitcases, large bags, a woman with a cat box, young people, their hands locked, a Chinese grandmother holding a grocery bag in one hand, a child’s hand in the other. I stared at Ahmad, watched him shrug and exit without me.

  I clung to my pole and pinched my arm, savagely, to keep myself from crying. He thought I was seeing Benny, and for this he was becoming crazy? Calling me a bad mother? Saying I didn’t deserve my daughter? Of course, I’d seen it before: Ahmad attacking—when he thought he was losing something, when he had lost something. It clearly wasn’t me he was worried about losing; if it was Andi, he might try problem-solving with me instead of issuing ultimatums and manipulating our girl behind my back—or, radical idea, he might wait till he’d heard about Hassan! It was nine months till summer: What was his rush? But then we were at Fourteenth Street. I allowed the crowd to carry me onto the platform. Hundreds of bedraggled passengers swarmed past me to this exit or that, many already checking their cell phones. Ahmad had gone to the Balalaika, I was sure of it; did he think I’d double back and join him? I wouldn’t.

  I pushed through the turnstile. Seventh Avenue and Twelfth Street. The Village—well outside my Comfort Zone. The Stations of my Loss, I called it; I never came down here. It was just there, on Fourteenth Street, that Jonah walked in front of a cab, crossing the street to meet us. Ahmad had said terrible things to me that night as well. He waved at Jonah from across the street, but it was me Jonah watched as he stepped into that road, the picture of the flying girl in his hand, me he was looking at when he was hit.

  And it was here, at St. Vincent’s, that he died.

  And over there, south of the Vanguard, my father’s place, where I broke up with T. Where my father and I moved after we returned from Rome without my mother. A new apartment for a new life, he’d said, face grim. Where he was rolled away: I’ve made mistakes, he said. Don’t hate me.

  Ahmad thought I was a bad mother? A bad mother? My father and I waited at the Rome airport. At Kennedy, a light snow falling, we waited some more. I was Andi’s age when my mother left us. Despite the blankets on my New York bed, the sun shining through the window, I was always cold, I felt myself on an ice floe alone, floating farther and farther from the shore. My father saw none of this. Go back to bed, he’d say, slouched dull with grappa. Wrapping his bathrobe tight around his chest. Leave your daddy alone, he said, you need to leave your daddy alone.

  Later, I threw things from my bunk, breakable things, dolls with china heads, souvenir ashtrays he brought back from his trips, then tiptoed through the shards, daring my skin to break. Until the neighbors complained about the noise.

  It’s nothing, I said, hiding my scarred toes under a blanket. The neighbors are crazy.

  Good, my father said, and left the room, fishing in his bathrobe for a pipe.

  When I was older, I tested the elasticity of his not-being-there. I stayed away nights: I could always find a boy in Washington Square, a man even, to take me home. When I returned, I found him sleeping, his arm slung over his easy chair, glass in hand, grappa staining the carpet. If he’d tried to stay up, he hadn’t made it.

  At my father’s funeral, Emma, newly Orthodox, wearing stockings with visible seams, a wig too dark for her pale face, said, Never question your father, he always did right by you.

  I wasn’t aware he’d done anything for me, I said.

  She slapped me.

  Your mother wouldn’t care for you! she said. She wouldn’t nurse you, she wouldn’t touch you! I had to fly in from California, you and your colic. Your father put up with a lot!

  After the funeral, I found letters my mother had written him before I was born. They smelled like her! I burned them unread. And threw my father’s decanters, his ashtrays still filmed with ash against the wall, threw his papers, the minutes from his precious Archaic Greek Research Organization meetings, his statuary photos into the flames, his books, in Latin and other ancient scripts into overflowing boxes, dragged them onto the street. His wedding ring—he’d saved his wedding ring!—with its improbable inscription, I sent to Emma. Then I screamed for him, I screamed at him, at both of them, for always leaving me so alone. Then swept up the shards, mopped the grappa from the floor.

  She did this to us, she abandoned us, she turned my father into a drunk. Ahmad knew something about bad mothers? He knew nothing about bad mothers!

  A Directory Assistance robot connected me to Angeline Chao. I was sorry to bother her, but Ahmad-this, and missed-messages-that, and what had her note been about?

  She’d been concerned about Andi’s story, she said. She’d wanted to make sure everything was okay in our happy home. Ahmad had charmed her. It was no big deal.

  You’re wrong, I thought. It’s a big deal, a very big deal.

  41

  THE HERO’S DESCENT

  I slept little that night, imagining the worst: Ahmad and I no longer speaking, the metamorphosis mural on Andrea’s wall whitewashed, replaced by lifelike portraits of Ahmad’s four sons, pensive, their chins jutting out in the noble Pakistani style. Ahmad ensconced in his Connecticut mansion, Andi and I at the Y, Andi noting my shortcomings in her Observations Notebook, crying for Ahmad as once I’d cried for my mother: only Ahmad can draw her bath, only Ahmad can tell her what to wear. I am helpless to comfort her: I don’t want you, she says, I want him. Blaming me, leaving me, walking to Connecticut, a store of apples in her knapsack.

  I’d made a wrong turn, somehow; the connective tissue that bound my life had become fragile: under pressure, it threatened to tear apart. The lives of others were held together by a mightier gravity, I thought: they orbited their suns happily, their moons securely in place, tugging at their tides in love and gratitude.

  Too many metaphors for such a late hour, but I was at a loss. How could I have thought Ahmad and I strong enough to be loco parenti? Friends for six months at fifteen, reacquainted for a few hours at thirty-five; both times he’d turned on me. This was Ahmad, this was who he was—did I think he’d changed? People don’t change!

  Dreams flickered like clouds: temp jobs I’d had, the flash of T.’s ring, which was my father’s ring. Buttoning my blouse on Fourteenth Street while Gal Monday through Friday filled my former desk with soybeans and food-grade plastic containers. I was climbing a mountain, Andi behind me. On top were incredible wonders, but Andi was falling behind, I could feel the pull of her suffering: Sweetheart, come on, the top is just there! Wait! she cried. Wait for me! Come along! I called. But she was falling! Hurtling toward earth, my baby, my little child! Like Icarus dropped from the sky, my flying, my falling girl! I reached for her, but my arms weren’t long enough. I screamed for her, but my scream wasn’t strong enough. I called for Ahmad, for any
one, I flailed my arms, hoping to grab onto something. But Ahmad wasn’t there, he’d never been there, not for any of it—I was as alone as I ever was, as alone as I’d ever be, floating on that ice floe alone. I threw myself off the mountain after her, but Andi was gone. I awoke to find that I was crying.

  42

  HEAD OF THE CANONICAL CLASS

  I didn’t get up till Andi and Ahmad were gone: my body was too heavy, my eyes too raw. I heard the call of the Flying Girl, but I wasn’t in the mood. I brought “Screen” to Joe’s, and ordered a cinnamon bun, thighs be damned. I asked Joe if he’d seen Nate.

  Who? he asked.

  I chose a seat by the window, nodded at the black man with the deformed hand. Out the window, everything was as it always was: people mucking through sidewalk bins at the Dollar Store, ladies patting their hair in the Love Drugstore window. Bike messengers threading through traffic, buses exhaling at the light. It was as it always was, not as it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be new.

  Without enthusiasm, I returned to Romei’s poem about the babbled phone calls—Romei calling Esther, her husband also on the line, their fractured voices speaking Italian, English, Romanian, language become Romei’s screen.

  I made a note in my notebook: Ask Romei about the Romanian, or find someone to translate it. Then saw what should have been obvious: if I translated the Italian and Romanian into English, there’d be only one language on the page, not three. The terza rima—or Romei’s approximation thereof—would collapse, as would the meaning of the poem.

  The poem was untranslatable.

  Shit. I put the folder down and looked around. I must have looked like I was looking for something because Joe ambled over. His wife was leaning, unconcerned, against the counter, the twins where she could see them, pulling each others’ hair and laughing by the jukebox. Fine white flour dusted the hair that tufted from his shirt. I was glad for his company, but he didn’t stay, just suggested I try the sachertorte. This from the man who used to bring me baked goods, unconcerned about crumbs between the sheets. He’d been sweet and light, like all my affairs, like Clyde, who’d recited dirty limericks and called me his lemon drop. How I missed them—kind of. I wanted more now—maybe. But I wasn’t capable, was I? No man could inspire me to change, as Romei suggested. There would be no charming chiasmus.