Projection

by Priscila Uppal

  As we vacate the theatre, my mother is beaming. What a beautiful film—such a nice love story, with very good values: greed is not everything. Very realistic. You can’t find love if you are greedy. The head butler gives up his job because of his ethics. Ethics is everything.

  Although overweight, my mother walks briskly when she is excited, and I’m having a hard time catching up as she talks and walks and waves wildly to all the cinema employees.

  But that’s what I found so unrealistic, I reply. Who would give up his job after all those years to make a point that will be forgotten by the time the next labourer is hired?

  You’re right, of course, my mother concedes, not slowing down for a second, but that is why the point is made in a movie. And not for the first time, I wish we could actually devise a test for assessing whether or not people learn lessons from films and novels and other art forms, and what conditions are necessary for translating understanding into behaviour. The movie is optimistic. We should applaud that Mr. Marshall chose a common person for his wife. She is no longer a slave, but a public servant. This way we can imagine a better world. Art should educate the masses, and this movie educates. I will give this movie a very positive review.

  Dismayed by her artistic judgment and by the fact that she plans to set it all down in print, I voice my own review. What does it teach? Why should Marisa be interested in him? Because he is rich and powerful and famous? He has no moral qualities.

  He has no good qualities until Marisa gives them to him. This is the history of romance film. You must accept the premise.

  The premise is ridiculous, I counter. I won’t accept such an excuse for an offensive script so easily, but then relent somewhat on the basis of genre. I guess I’m not a fan of romance films. Which is true. I have a soft spot for teenage comedies with romance structures, as long as there’s lots of cringe-worthy coming-of-age embarrassment, classics from my own teen years like The Breakfast Club (which I will admit I have seen not a hundred but thirty or forty times), Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, and the more recent American Pie series and Napoleon Dynamite, but I don’t go in for the standard why-can’t-she-find-the-perfect-man-and-then-she-does variety of Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, and Jennifer Lopez. I have sympathy for the misguided and misplaced affections of clueless teenagers trying out love for size, but little for self-centred adults who ought to know better.

  I love romance films, my mother announces to the street as she hails a cab. Romance should only exist in film, then there would be no pain, no pain anywhere. Don’t you see? Films should be idealistic. Not realistic. Why go to relive misery? Love stories only last on film.

  And while I know my mother is expressing her own desire for freedom from the pain of love—which left her with a broken husband and a broken heart—her disappointment in love extends, apparently, to all. Does she assume I, too, have a broken heart? That I’ve never experienced true romance? That my relationship with Chris must be a sham, a recipe for misery? Doesn’t she realize that my fears in love always centre on abandonment, love withdrawn at a moment’s notice because loving is too hard in an imperfect world? That I learned this, profoundly, from her?

  Or is she warning me that she is incapable of love? Even for her own daughter, dropping into her life out of the blue like a convenient plot trigger?

  To counter, I quote Marisa: Letting someone believe something’s true when it’s not is just as much a lie as a lie is.

  As the words leave my mouth, I know this adage will haunt me. Haunt us as the trip progresses. Shallow films sometimes contain profound lines. This one reverberates as premonition. Haven’t we been forced to encourage lies for the better part of our lives?

  As the taxi weaves its way through the dark streets of Guarulhos, throngs of young men in jeans and T-shirts tapping their feet anxiously on the street corners, I am suddenly aware that my mother and I, notwithstanding shared blood and eight years living together at the same Ottawa address, come from vastly different worlds, both culturally and artistically. It’s as if we watched entirely different films, I think, my mother chattering in Portuguese with the taxi driver, recommending the movie. I might as well be strolling Manhattan while she bustles about São Paulo. I replay the movie in my mind, try to figure out why my mother and I diverge in opinion on nearly every aspect of the film, what this says about us. Head butler Lionel’s words stake a challenge: What we do, Miss Ventura, does not define who we are. What defines us is how well we rise after falling. But I think what defines us is what we would identify as a “rise” or a “fall.” Fall. Rise. Queda. Ascensão. We’re not even speaking the same language.

  The Day I Arrive: My Mother and Me in Front of a Bookstore

  2

  the big blue

  Enzo: So between Mamma, Roberto, and Alfredo, we yell and scream all day long. Except with Angelica. She just cries. And then, finally, we all end up kissing. Can you explain that to me? Huh? Because that’s what love is all about.

  *

  Jacques (showing his lover a photograph of a dolphin he keeps in his wallet): That’s my family. What kind of a man has such a family?

  The ocean has always terrified me. Even now as I anticipate my eighth trip to Barbados in over three years and the utter delight I will experience on the beach reading books I’ve set aside for such pleasure, intricate Victorian plots or snappy postmodern dialogue interrupted as soon as skin graduates from warm tingling to unbearable sweat for the joys of swimming in blue-green salt water, I am still uneasy about the unfathomable depth and width of the ocean waters and the entire cities of alien life housed within those currents.

  I do not stray too far from shore, I do not go in search of secluded beaches, I do not snorkel without a good deal of urging (even in St. Lucia, which boasts some of the best snorkelling in the world, my friend David Layton, who introduced me to the beauties of the Caribbean islands, had to shove the flippers on my feet before sending me floating into reams of barracuda). As awed as I am by schools of neon tropical fish shimmering by my flittering legs and outstretched arms or the translucent mushroom bodies of squid languidly bouncing up and down, slow-motion acrobats trailing shiny boas, I would rather experience such wonder behind the safety of glass.

  I’m a show-me-the-full-horror kind of person; then, at least, I can plan my escape. My brother is the opposite. He’d rather enjoy himself, blissfully unaware of what might be lurking under a rock or in the coral reef, and take his chances. Both are survival strategies; each has served us well. Me, I’m convinced unpredictable danger exists everywhere. Look at what happened to my father. I guess this was my fate, my father sometimes shrugs, his wheelchair a permanent sidekick. I am brave if danger can be controlled or overcome through my own talents or reserves, but am a hopeless coward if I have no information or experience in handling my adversary. Therefore, I am vindicated by the morbid predictability of classical and Shakespearean tragedies, confessional poets, Russian and Polish modernists, dysfunctional family dramas, horror movies, Lars von Trier and Ingmar Bergman films. My brother prefers underdogs and go-getters, feel-good sports films and animated adventures, the triumphs of lovable losers like Zach Galifianakis, Homer Simpson, and Adam Sandler. No tragedies, no satires. Only comedies and inspirational films with happy endings. Preferably with a catchy soundtrack you can dance to. Deep down, I’m convinced the universe is cruel and antagonistic; my brother, that if you keep your head up and believe, it might be benevolent.

  My first night in Brazil, in a four-star hotel furnished with two queen-sized beds with high thread-count white sheets, the marble and granite washroom impeccably scrubbed, double locks on the doors, ends up a painful and exhausting one. Anticipating that once we are dressed in our nightgowns (pink and black satin pajamas for me, a blue cotton sleep-dress for my mother) I will soon be able to surrender to the comfort of the bed, where I can close my eyes and assess the day’s thoughts to gain more solid footing on this pebbly, sand-shifting beach, before allowing myself
to be swept away into sleep, I am rudely countered from my purpose, as if by a violent tropical storm.

  My mother is a snorer. She snores like a predator, a loud, rumbly intake like the igniting roar of a lawn mower, the exhale an even louder high-pitched whistle. Oh no, I panic, but then reassure myself her body cannot sustain such a spirited performance forever. Either that or jet lag will inevitably overwhelm me. Be an optimist. Like my brother. Like my mother wishes me to be. I put on the eye mask we were given on the plane, the first time I’ve ever worn one, convinced I will wake up a new person.

  But the human calliope never shuts down. Not once over seven hours. I try to bury myself under the feather pillows; I try to whisper to her unconscious to cool it for just ten minutes so I can pass through the sleep wall to the other side; at one point I even poke her fleshy white arms and then, having grown desperate, I place my pillow over her mouth to see if I can stop the snoring by altering the air flow. Lack of sleep I know can cause terrible thoughts and actions to blossom from the otherwise tame, which is why sleep deprivation is such a successful form of torture. Anxious about this trip, I haven’t slept well in weeks. This isn’t good. I need to be alert for whatever dangers may arise.

  Over the course of the night, in an effort to escape the circus, I conjure up the two recurring dreams I have had about my mother since her disappearance. Both are elemental, one in water and one in the sky.

  Dream Sequence

  In the water dream, I am swimming without scuba gear deep in the ocean, doing my best to ignore the colourful schools of fish as I approach a shipwrecked boat at the bottom of the sea. I am carrying a pack of some sort and, once within reach of the wreckage, I stuff my sack with treasures: coins, pearls, tools, books. As I move from cabin to cabin, each full sack is replaced by a new empty one. My motions are calm, repetitive, natural; until my mother appears, bobbing up and down in the water like a tired mermaid, long hair tendrils clutching the legs of furniture. I attempt to claim her treasures of pearls and feather hats and makeup cases, but every time I reach out my hand, an unseen creature bites it. Eventually fed up, I slowly swim away, sad and defeated. I wake as I’m rising back to shore.

  In the sky dream, my mother is young. Younger than I ever remember her, maybe late teens, early twenties—cheeks rosy, body lithe—and she’s sitting in the upper branches of the maple tree in our yard, the same maple I would climb in defiance of my father’s warnings, dozens of bright red apples stashed in the lap of her skirt. The lower branches I usually use to hoist myself up are cut off. I jump up and down in futile frustration. My mother laughs, tenderly at first, then more forcefully, until thunder shakes the tree and a streak of lightning flies out her mouth. Then she starts pelting me with apples. Why? Why? I scream. I am made of sheet lightning, my mother replies. (I implement a variation of this line in a poem in my first book: I was made/of sheet lightning/which is why my life/was shockingly short.) The length of time between when she says this and how many more times I am pelted with apples before I wake varies, but her answer never does.

  Suddenly I am struck by the fact that I have, over the years in my dreams, pictured my mother running, screaming, eating, laughing, driving, bleeding, swimming, even shooting a gun; I have never imagined her sleeping.

  Finally my mother wakes. Instantly. No morning yawn or yoga stretch or lounging in bed—she is wide awake, extricating herself from her sheets like the sun from the horizon, grabbing her notebook and eagerly planning our day. I close my eyes, hoping I might get away with an hour or two if she thinks I’m too tired to register her stirring, but she hovers over me and booms:

  “It’s morning in Brazil! I’m starving!”

  Disappears. Shower flips on and off. Re-emergence in blue. Yesterday, orange. Today, blue. Blue blouse, blue skirt, blue scarf, blue costume jewellery. The over-coordination exudes the opposite effect: unevenness, unawareness, a woman so lacking in an organizing principle that a superficial one must be imposed to contain the chaos.

  Her mouth opens. It begins.

  She talks while I’m showering, while I’m using the toilet, while I’m changing, while I’m brushing my teeth, while I’m applying my makeup. Sometimes she forgets that I only speak English and French and flings streams of Portuguese. A language littered with “ao” sounds, long nasal vowels equivalent to an English “ow” as in “cow” or “wow” and stretched into a long melancholic whine, her commentary seems linguistically littered with hurt: ow, ow, ow, ow. Word wounds. The relentless picking of a scab. (Later on, when prodded to describe the Portuguese language to a friend, I will claim: Portuguese is the language of sorrow.)

  I’m happy you are so feminine. Like me. I feel more secure when people are predictable and the same. I am always the same. The most predictable person of my friends and family. Everyone always knows where to find me, any time of day, I am that predictable. I do not like unexpected things, changed personalities. If I don’t like reality, I go into another dimension. I go to the movies or somewhere else in my head. I left work once without my umbrella, coat, and sunglasses, but I refused to return to the elevator. I bought a new umbrella, coat, and sunglasses because I’d already left work in my mind and did not wish to return. I don’t own a single suit. I do not like to look severe. I am always nice to people. It’s fair for someone to say, Theresa is always nice to me, but still I don’t like her. I only hurt someone when I can’t help it. I do not like to fight; only if I absolutely have to fight will I fight. The rest of the family, they love fighting. My mother loves fighting. Me, I leave the place where the fighting is. That’s why I spend so much time in São Paolo. Let my mother fight with my brother. She never fights with my sister, but my brother also likes to fight. I am always cold. My father used to say, Theresa would be happy in the freezer. It’s warmer in the freezer. I’ve had five surgeries for the cancer . . .

  Declarations and contradictions flutter about me like swarming butterflies and I try to catch them, putting one in a jar labelled “True” and one in a jar labelled “False” from what I know so far, telling myself I can transfer a butterfly from one jar to another once I have more information about its species. My mother thinks she’s predictable. False. That she can always be found. False. That she lives in another dimension when she can’t handle reality. True. That she doesn’t own a suit. True. That she doesn’t like to fight. True. That she is eternally cold. True. That she hurts people only when she can’t help it. Don’t know. This butterfly I will pin to my collar. This butterfly is precious, and potentially poisonous.

  It is at breakfast when I realize that aside from questions about my flight, my mother has not asked me a single question about my life since I’ve landed. Whenever I interject to respond to something she has said, or to offer my own opinion, aside from our discussion of Maid in Manhattan, she cuts me off. I wonder if she’s worried about what I will say or ask in return or if this is merely nervous energy that will dissipate as we grow more comfortable with each other’s habits. She asks only polite social questions. Would you like this? Or, Is this seat okay? Or, Would you like more? She allows no time for silence. Or reflection. Or contemplation. Our schedule is packed with words. And food. We eat a lot for breakfast. I too have a very healthy appetite and am a sucker for a buffet. I blame it on growing up poor, worrying that one day there might be nothing good to eat in the fridge or pantry so load up while you can, even though my father was adamant that we would always have food on the table. And the fact that food is a reliable source of pleasure and comfort, unlike the other unpredictabilities of our lives.

  Montage from childhood

  While my father ate for the purpose of fuel an uninspiring daily diet of flaked tuna, cream of mushroom soup, Shake’n Bake chicken, Green Giant frozen peas and carrots, and a hot pot of cranberry juice to help soothe recurring bladder infections, my brother and I fought over food: pepperoni sticks, tangerine oranges, Pop-Tarts, Lucky Charms, mint chocolate chip ice cream. We would sneak behind each other’s backs to snatch
the last Chips Ahoy cookie or to wolf down the end of a brick of mozzarella cheese. Now, though my tastes are more refined and I’ve lost my sweet tooth, I still associate the enjoyment of food with a brief sojourn from sadness and worry. I know my brother does too. And this is why my father rarely yelled at us for our gorging. Also, as I have no food allergies, very few food dislikes, and fewer intolerances (only coffee and green tea, for some reason—my stomach bottoms out if I drink coffee and I pass out if I drink green tea), I try everything in sight. In our show-me-the-full-horror versus what-has-worked-in-the-past-will-work-again-in-the-present personalities, my brother, although an opulent eater, has highly restrictive food preferences (staples like pasta, pizza, cheese, steak, ordinary fruits; but no vegetables or fish or seafood, no “foreign” foods like Indian curries or Thai noodles or soy, and such an extreme dislike of cream sauces of any sort that his friends, playing off his name, now call sour cream “Jitronite”).