Mother Land

by Paul Theroux

  The following week I received the commitment ring back in a small padded envelope, by regular mail.

  I called Floyd, seeking consolation. He was not at home. I kept trying, leaving facetious messages.

  One morning I found a folded note tucked under my windshield wiper. In tiny, accusatory script: You fucking hypocrite. Stay away from me. I don’t want to see you or your wife.

  15

  Outsider

  The attentive reader who has gotten this far will have known for some time—long before it dawned on me—that Mother had somehow betrayed me. She had stitched me up, bent me over, shopped me to the rest of the family, blabbed my secret, probably in slurping installments, perhaps even elaborated on it, mentioned my state of mind, my physical condition, the drape of my clothes, none of her reports complimentary. This was how she was. You saw that, I didn’t.

  How had I been fooled? Blame my happiness. Even in my habitual stealth with the dangerous woman, I had smiled and dropped my guard. It is always fatal to share your joy with an envious malcontent. The family rule was: vigilance, never relax. But Mother, hyperalert on her throne, knew that a happy person was less watchful than a scowler, that it was simple to traduce someone who was at peace with the world.

  Yet I wasn’t very surprised by Mother’s behavior. I had never been convinced of the sacredness of motherhood. There were plenty of heroines who’d never had a child, and they were to me more heroic as spinsters because they were always belittled by the grudging mother-worshipers, Mother among them. “I gave birth to you!” she would howl as a boast and an exit line. Beyond its obvious factuality, what exactly did that mean?

  For the very reason a mother could be powerful, a mother could also be irresponsible—cold, abstracted, twisted, corrupt, manipulative, stubborn, vain, materialistic, dictatorial. A narcissist, a strangler. The worst tyrants began as oily-voiced sidling seducers, insinuating themselves into power through people’s affection.

  Mother’s wickedness was born as a germ. She had started life as a fibber, a trimmer, a needy child with two unhappy parents, and now in her old age she had all the attributes of a mad old queen. She was sentimental in unimportant ways but ruthless in the ones that mattered. Somehow she had lost even her animal affection for me.

  Why hadn’t I reminded myself of this? Oh, yes, I had been in love.

  Mother was dissatisfied: other people’s contentment niggled at her. She most of all resented her children’s happiness. If Mother had been happy, how different our lives would have been.

  I visited her. The first time, Franny’s Subaru was in the driveway—odd, in the middle of the week on a school day. I drove away. The second time, the coast was clear, Mother alone in her chair.

  I asked, “What have you said about me?”

  Her face was at once wiped clean of lines and guile. She assumed a bland expression of innocence—this was the face of Mother caught red-handed. Goggling at me in denial, she looked like a child. She had downy cheeks and hugged a shawl, drawing it around her narrow bony shoulders, becoming smaller, with a look of both innocence and defiance.

  “I never said a thing.” She enunciated stiffly, as though speaking a line in a play.

  She was affronted, insulted, now wincing slightly, looking offended by my question. All these moods I knew well: how haughty she grew when she was found out, how indignant she became when she was in the wrong.

  But I was calm. I believed I had everything in my favor—logic, truth, reason, morality. I was the victim. Her betrayal had cost me my lover, the only friend I had, my future. I needed Mother to see how she had hurt me.

  “You’re the only person I told,” I said.

  She stared at me, her eyes glittering. She did not say a word.

  “And now everyone knows.” A shrill note of pleading made my voice crack, yet I was struggling to sound reasonable and unruffled.

  Mother had a liar’s eyes, a liar’s fingers, a liar’s posture, all crooked. She was a lump of untruth, bulked against her big leather chair.

  “Why did you tell them?” I said loudly, because she had not said anything. “Ma?”

  She squinted at my pleading, partly in contempt, partly in pain, as if wounded by my accusation.

  “It was a secret! I told you it was a secret!” Now I was shouting, my throat pinched from the effort.

  “Do you have any idea how you’re upsetting me?” she said sharply.

  “What about me? Think how upset I am, knowing that everyone knows my secret. You told them everything, and they’re laughing at me.”

  “Do you think you’re that important?”

  “Ma, what do you mean?”

  “Why should anyone bother to laugh at you?”

  Why should they not? The answer was, because I was defeated. I had been married twice before, back in the days when I believed my family wished me well—when they hoped for me to fail; and I had failed. But I couldn’t say this to Mother now or else she would use it against me.

  “See? Everything’s going to be all right,” she said.

  “No,” I said in a hot whisper, “and it’s your fault.”

  Mother put her fingertips to her temples to indicate that she was suffering. “My head is ringing. I hope you’re happy. I won’t be able to sleep a wink tonight.”

  The phone rang at her elbow. She picked up the receiver with tormented fingers, exaggerating the effort to lift it, and said in a small persecuted voice, “Hello?”

  It was Franny—I heard her patronizing quack from six feet away. You okay, Ma?

  “I’m fine,” Mother said in a tone intended to convey that she was not fine at all. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  That meant I would be further betrayed. Yet while she had been on the phone I had regained my composure. Trembling to keep my anger in check, I waited for her to hang up, then said, “There is only one way the rest of the family could have known.”

  She drew her shawl tighter, eyed me in pity, and said, “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “Remember I said, ‘It’s a secret’?”

  “I thought you’d be proud.”

  She was maddening. Now, obliquely, she was admitting having revealed the secret and gossiping to the others. She was blaming me for not seeing that this was all charitable.

  “Most people would be proud to be in love. Proud to be engaged. I remember when Dad proposed to me, I couldn’t wait to tell the world. Just what are you ashamed of?”

  How could I tell her the consequences of her betrayal, that Missy had rejected me, that it was over, that I was alone? These were my humiliating secrets now. If I told her, she would reveal them too.

  The phone rang again, and as she answered it—Franny again—I left, cursing.

  My anger with Mother was also anger at myself, frustration with my pitiful state, which was of my own making. What shamed me most about losing Missy was that I had been halfhearted to begin with. It was desperate for me to think I could succeed with a much younger woman, who had a teenage child I found irritating. I had failed twice; I suspected I would fail again. And Missy was the sort of woman I feared—feared for her single-mindedness, feared that she was never casual, feared her intensity. I remembered how, the first time at my house, she had stood and twitched the withered leaves off my potted geranium, snatching at them with impatient fingers, grooming the plant, believing that she was improving the poor thing, but only leaving me with the foreboding that she would pluck at me that way.

  I couldn’t blame her—I sort of admired her passion. She was determined to find a husband for herself and a father for her child. Look after us! Such women have a practical morality and no time to waste. Their sharp sense for which men are serious and which aren’t reliable enough makes them quick studies, shrewd in sizing up a potential partner, and geniuses at sorting and rejection. Missy had been unsure of me, located the source of my equivocation, and seen that I simply did not have the heart—the stomach—to raise another teenager. She had been looking for a
n occasion to reject me, and I was waiting for the moment to withdraw gracefully. I had told her too much about Mother and me.

  Missy was a mother with a mission. I had good reason to steer clear of her and spare disappointing her. She was more passionate about being a mother than a wife.

  I began to doubt my innocence in sharing my news with Mother. Did I tell her my secret because I was certain that she would undo me? Perhaps.

  I was stewing the next day, disgusted with the amount of spare time I had now that Floyd had ditched me—and the others seemed to be enjoying my embarrassment—when the telephone rang. I hoped it was Missy. I wanted a miracle: Let’s put all that behind us. Let’s resume as though nothing has happened. I love you.

  But that was a weak man’s fantasy. Real life is remorseless, random, without miracles, without shortcuts or happy accidents. After a certain age—and I had passed it—there is no good news.

  It was Fred on the line, his voice stony. He had something on his mind.

  “Just talked to Franny. She says you upset Ma. Why do you keep doing this?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That this isn’t the first time,” Fred said. “Ma’s an old woman. Can’t you talk to her without shouting and blaming?”

  He was angry with me on Mother’s behalf; so was Franny, so was Rose, so was Gilbert. Hubby was in New Hampshire. Mother had told them all. Fred, as the eldest, was taking the initiative to reprimand me.

  “Don’t you see that she does the best she can? She deserves better than to be vilified by her children. We should be honoring her. She gave birth to us.”

  Mother’s own motto. But I was amazed. The woman who had betrayed my secret was now spreading the story that I had abused her. She egged them on to oppose me, to defend her. And what had I done? I had objected to her using me as gossip.

  “What exactly did Franny tell you?”

  “That she called Ma after you left. That Ma was so upset she couldn’t eat. She was in tears. She was a wreck. All because of what you said to her. Franny called again today. Ma hadn’t slept all night. So Franny called me. Why did you yell at her?”

  “Why don’t you ask me what really happened, instead of accusing me and putting me on the defensive?”

  “Because I know what happened. Ma told Franny everything.”

  Hearing Mother’s stubbornness and certainty in his tone, I bristled, my anger rising again.

  “Ma’s lying.”

  “I’m not going to listen to that.”

  “She’s trying to turn you against me.”

  “It’s all about you, isn’t it?”

  “Furthermore, she’s succeeding. You think I’m a shit.”

  “Yelling at an eighty-seven-year-old woman.”

  “I wasn’t yelling.”

  “Stop denying it. Show a little concern. Call her and apologize. The woman is seriously upset.”

  Instead of replying to this, I said, “Did someone tell you I’m getting married?”

  “I heard something about it.”

  “From whom?”

  “I don’t remember. It’s not news. Everyone knows.”

  His casual assumption was imperious, but then, he was Mother’s counselor and confidant. I said, “You didn’t say anything. Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “You could have congratulated me.”

  “I wanted to discuss it with you.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss!”

  “You might be making a big mistake.”

  That was Fred all over—big brother, taking no interest in my life except for his intrusions into my secrets, merely collecting data, and yet presuming to give me advice. He could be as big a scold and a bother as Mother, and he was indeed often Mother’s mouthpiece.

  “It was supposed to be a secret. Ma swore she wouldn’t tell anyone. That’s why I told her. She blabbed to everyone. She betrayed me.”

  “Get over it. You should be happy. You should be proud.”

  Just what Mother had said.

  “So when’s the big day?”

  I eliminated him by stabbing at the button in the receiver cradle and immediately called Mother.

  “Ma, what did you tell Franny?”

  “Nothing. Who is this?”

  “It’s Jay. Did you tell Franny that I upset you?”

  “Of course not. I have better things to do. I made some crab-apple jelly this morning. I went for a walk. I’m baking a pie.”

  “Fred said that Franny told him that you claimed you couldn’t eat.”

  “I just had my supper. Beef noodle soup. Franny brought me a big pot of it. And Jell-O for dessert.”

  “I mean yesterday. That’s what they said.”

  “I can’t remember. You’re confusing me.”

  “And that you couldn’t sleep.”

  “Today? It’s four o’clock. I just watched the news. I have a pie in the oven. I normally don’t go to bed until ten or eleven.”

  “Last night, I guess. And that you’re upset. And that it’s all my fault.”

  “Please stop shouting. You’re upsetting me now.”

  “And that you’re angry with me.”

  “Why should I be angry with you?”

  “That’s just what I was wondering. Look, Ma, what exactly did you say about me?” I was jarred by a cracking, a pleading that slanted into my voice, distorting it and making it miserable and boyish.

  “You’re giving me a headache. Is that why you called me? To give me a headache?”

  “Ma! What did you tell Franny?”

  “Does it give you pleasure to upset me? Why do you want to have an argument?”

  I took deep breaths; this was not going well. It was clear that Mother would never admit to complaining about me.

  I said, “I don’t want to have an argument.”

  “Good.” She snorted. “What’s the weather like?”

  “Cloudy.” And I hung up.

  I was not a man pushing sixty, with most of my life behind me. I was a ten-year-old, feeling trapped in the house on a snowy Saturday, begging to go out. Mother was blocking the door, standing before it with her arms folded.

  “But why can’t I go for a hike?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “I wanted to get some exercise.”

  “Then clean the bathroom. That’s good exercise. Get a mop and a bucket. Get the Ajax. Shine the fixtures and mop and wax the floor. Use elbow grease.”

  “You said I could go for a hike. You promised.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Then Franny appears from behind Mother. “He wants to fool around with his friends. He told Fred they shoot squirrels with their BB guns. They start fires.”

  “Jay’s a firebug,” Rose calls out from the next room. “Firebug!”

  “Stay out of this,” Mother says, but with a smile, because they are on her side.

  Franny is holding the mop and bucket. She gives them to Mother, who hands them to me.

  “I want to be able to see my face in those tiles,” Mother said.

  This memory had me dialing again, Franny’s number. I was breathing hard.

  “What did you tell Fred?”

  “Nothing.”

  “About my getting married. You told him.”

  “Oh, that. I was happy for you. I was bursting with pride. So was Ma. Was it the woman you took to the dance recital? She looked real nice.”

  “You told Fred that I upset Ma.”

  “He must have misunderstood.”

  “You told him that Ma couldn’t eat or sleep because I upset her.”

  From the way she breathed, I could tell that Franny was squirming and swallowing air.

  “You know how Ma is,” she finally said. “She exaggerates every little thing. She’s like a little girl. So who’s the lucky woman?”

  “And Floyd,” I said, ignoring Franny’s wheezing question—it was as though she’d blown it up a narrow o
rgan pipe, but to no avail, for there was no woman now in my life. “Floyd’s not answering the phone. He wrote me a wicked note. He’s really mad at me.”

  “Floyd’s worse than Ma!” Franny exclaimed. “Ma used to say how he was the most difficult baby, always crying. Always wanting to be picked up. And remember all his bedwetting?”

  Franny went on talking. Decades had dropped away. We were in the world of diapers and demands, rubber sheets and tantrums, the cloud of blame, Mother looming over us, for if she did not have her way, she would become hysterical: You’re upsetting me!

  There was hardly any distance between the world of childhood and the confusion I felt now, berated by Fred, snubbed by Floyd, trifled with by Franny, whispered about by Hubby and Rose, betrayed by Mother, who accused me of giving her headaches. I could easily see the small girl in big Franny. I could hear a domineering boy in Fred, the unhappiness in Floyd’s angry silence. We were competing children all over again, negotiating and testing our alliances. In every encounter in the family was an unspoken and desperate yearning: Please be my friend. Stand with me against all the others.

  Hubby came back from New Hampshire. He stopped by to help me with a plumbing problem, a glitch in my pump—a flange, a bushing, a warping of a gasket. As he tinkered, he told me he had been summoned to assist in a liver transplant operation that had taken fourteen hours. He related every suture, every ligation.

  “I just talked to Ma,” he finally said. “She was ragging on you. She says you’re really touchy.” And then with perfect mimicry he spoke in Mother’s voice. “‘But he’s always been that way, shawt-tempid. It seems I can’t do anything right.’”

  16

  Crazy Bastard

  Floyd was nowhere to be found. I took notice: in this family, being absent signified much more than being present. Floyd would not pick up the phone when I called, would not answer the door or reply to my letters and notes. One winter day of cold, dripping sea fog I thought I saw his shape as a beaky, staring shadow at an upper window in his tall old house as I turned to look again after my futile knocking. That was the strangest feeling of all, the sense of his observing my failure to find him, like a malevolent spirit gloating from another world.