Mother Land

by Paul Theroux

  Floyd had made literary pilgrimages to Pola and Tirana and Burwash, “for obvious reasons.” He boasted of owning a rare set of the New York Edition of Henry James, he had met and ranted at Beckett in Paris, he could read Greek, he knew sign language from his years as a Trappist monk, and as a result of a subsequent spell in a Franciscan monastery, he was fluent in conversational Latin. This learning was part of his language, his set of references, his jokes. When he talked he often mocked bystanders who had no idea what he was saying, exactly like those new immigrants who feel safe in a crowd of English speakers, talking to each other and jeering at people within earshot, who have no idea that they are the butt of the joke.

  In seeming to yak at Jonty and Franny, Floyd had been talking to me. What had seemed like random teasing and byplay at the lunch was a conversation, Floyd and I settling into an old form of discourse. We understood each other; no one else did. And this was a great relief, the pleasure of being able to talk to someone in one’s own language without needing to edit or simplify or explain.

  I knew that when Floyd had scowled and said, “The House of Atreus!” he was in his Oresteia rant, identifying Mother as Clytemnestra. In his day, Father had been Agamemnon. But Mother was also Queen Lear, and when she spoke about her will, she was Volpone. He called Fred’s wife Rappaccini’s daughter; he made a joke about being Peer Gynt and Mother being Åse; he called Franny’s husband Claggart, Fred he called Pecksniff, and Rose’s family the Veneerings.

  I was the only one present who understood him, who could reply, and so I knew he looked upon me with respect, a little relieved that his learning was appreciated.

  “I've been puzzling for a means to take the strut out of you, you posturing snob,” he said, quoting Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh and pretending to brandish a whip, and to Walter’s picture-taking he had said, “It can’t be true—it ain’t complicated enough,” quoting Flem Snopes.

  His reading was a reflection of how much he hated Harvard and his fellow professors with narrow interests. “Fact fetishists! Fanatical explicators!” Floyd was obsessive, addicted to books, print-hungry, more partial to the glissade of an elaborate metaphor than to its function, because its use was to dazzle, not to advance a narrative. He hated a pithy declarative sentence like this one. His definition of a savage was a nonreader, not an illiterate but someone who knew how and didn’t do it. At the lunch I was reminded that he was a kindred soul, sharing my language, a brother in a profound sense. I was sorry for all the years of silence and recriminations, but I knew there was hope for something better, for—sadly—we didn’t have anyone else.

  Mother’s birthday lunch had been one of the important events of the family, a way-marker, like Father’s funeral (which everyone went to), Jonty’s wedding (which some of us had snubbed), my failed romance with Missy, and Floyd’s crazy, accusatory essay about me—pivotal, awkward, revelatory.

  Walter sent everyone a set of pictures. Most of them were generic snapshots of us eating—jumbled faces, busy arms—or of Mother posing with Fred and Gilbert, then with Franny and Rose. Hubby was shown sneaking a second helping of cake; Jonty’s daughter Jilly looked like a furious dwarf in a folktale, her face splashed with chocolate. One of Mother—amazing how the camera doesn’t lie—made her seem like a Roman matriarch, one of those poisoners and plotters. From the snapshots it was clearly a heavy family, with sour mouths, greedy eyes, food-smeared cheeks, sitting in rigid postures that told how they resented having to be together at the same table, hunched joylessly with fixed expressions, only Mother exulting.

  The frowning faces and the eyes reddened by Walter’s flash attachment made the whole group grimmer. We looked like grumpy and misshapen orphans, crowding their demonic housemother.

  The best picture, one I had hoped for, and treasured, showed us all, with Charlie and Julie in front, little Patrick on Charlie’s knee. I was crouched next to them. Mother was right behind them, recoiling slightly, but affecting a pose of superiority in the way she leaned back, the better to be seen.

  This was my prize. I made a number of copies of that group picture, enlarged so as to give the photograph the formality of a portrait. Then I sat down and wrote a little note, and made multiple copies of it:

  I am enclosing a picture taken at Mother’s birthday party, which shows my son Charlie, his wife Julia, and my grandson Patrick. You may remember that he was born in 1961. He has come into my life and is a part of my family. I omitted to mention this on the day.

  This I sent, with a picture, to everyone. It was a dig, of course. They had not deserved to be introduced to them. They had blamed me when Charlie was born, had never inquired about him, had forgotten about him. At the party, as an anonymous stranger—but a cheery soul—he had been ignored. Yet here he was with a name, my flesh and blood, prosperous and happy, with obvious family features. I wondered what they would say.

  Mother was the first to call. She was at once combative, cross that she had been upstaged, and, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  It was an indictment. As a stranger, Charlie had excited no interest; as my long-lost son, he was sought after.

  “No one talked to him,” I said.

  “We didn’t know him.”

  “You were angry because I brought him.”

  “How was I to know he was your son?”

  “That’s the point. He was a guest, someone close to me. You thought he ate too much. Afterward, when I mentioned him, you said to me, ‘You can’t just show up and expect people to be at your beck and call.’”

  “I never said that.”

  “Those very words.”

  “I am a warm and hospitable woman who would never send a helpless person from my door.”

  “Charlie has a lovely house. He owns a big company.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “I want to write to him.”

  “He’s forty-two years old. Isn’t it a bit late for a letter?”

  “I am his grandmother!” I could tell, even on the phone, that Mother rapped these words with her fist on the arm of her chair as she spoke them.

  “You were angry when he was born. You said I should be ashamed. You never went to see him at the Mass. General.”

  Snorts on the phone indicated that Mother had begun to cry.

  “Want to hear the funny part?” I said.

  Mother’s sobbing sounded to me like she was swallowing soup, gulping it, all the snufflings and throat noises of a meal she seemed to be enjoying.

  “I want to send him a little something,” Mother said, smacking her lips.

  “That’s the funny part,” I said. “He’s a multimillionaire.”

  “Jay,” Mother said, moaning my name with regret. “You can be so cruel.”

  Fred called. He said, “You made me feel like a fool. You didn’t say anything about him.”

  “I left it up to you. It was a test of initiative. You failed, Freddy. Everyone failed. Ma failed.”

  “She called me. She told me you insulted her. She’s a wreck.”

  I had no sooner banged the phone down than Franny called.

  “I had a feeling,” Franny said. “I thought he looked like you. I knew all along. I didn’t want to say anything.”

  Rose didn’t call. Gilbert sent me a postcard from Bahrain. Hubby said, “I was just a little kid when he was born. As Dad would say, it’s ancient history.”

  Floyd sent me a postcard with an enigmatic image on it, a painting by Goya, titled Perro Semihundido en la Arena—Dog Half-Submerged—a dark study of a little mutt buried up to its ears in sand, its snout upturned, its eyes imploring, under a big, smoky-yellow sky. Floyd’s message: I think this just about sums it up.

  Not wishing to let him have the last word, I replied with a postcard of my own, a more hopeful one, Poussin’s painting of Moses discovered in the bulrushes, and wrote, Or this.

  That was the only way of dealing with it—obliquely, for I had been oblique. But e
veryone got the message—that I was angry over something that had happened almost forty years ago (in our family this was yesterday), and that inviting Charlie to Mother’s party and not introducing him was pure hostility, an act of rejection.

  32

  Station Identification

  For years, nothing happened. Then, in a matter of days, everything happened. The long, steady slog toward a large family gathering—funeral, wedding, birthday—was always followed by a period of surprises, sudden and sometimes shocking. We crested that event and were tipped over, sped rapidly downward in all the foolish postures of tumbled clowns, glimpsed in our weakness, one revelation after another, bump, bump, bump.

  Mother begged me for Charlie’s address. I refused to hand it over; too late, I said. Rose accused me of persecuting Mother. “Jonty was wondering if you could put him in touch with Charlie,” Franny asked. “Jilly could play with Patrick.” Jonty had heard that Charlie was wealthy; this was a networking move—his wife was an insurance agent, always looking for a new client and cash flow. I said, “Please leave him alone.” Hubby wondered if Charlie fished—Hubby was a fisherman.

  I said, “He’s busy.”

  Rebuffing them invigorated me and made me as confident as a traffic cop. I loved especially turning down Mother’s request. Her response was to spread the word that I was cruel.

  Charlie kept in touch, met me at Baxter’s on Hyannis Harbor for lunch, and told me the story of his upbringing. This sunny narrative convinced me that Mona had done the right thing in handing him over to people better able to take care of him: they had been grateful, they loved him, they raised him in a small, uncomplicated family, without rivalries.

  “I’d like to meet your adoptive parents,” I said.

  “They’re not ready for that.”

  Now I knew what it was like to be rebuffed. I was reminded that I had no rights.

  “It must have been tough for you and Mona,” he said another day, another lunch, Centerville Pizza.

  “The worst year of my life,” I said. “It was also the best year. Do you understand that? How it made me?”

  “I guess so.” But how could he? He had grown up in a generous household. He did not need to learn anything about struggle and savagery, about the bitching and counterbitching that was a dialogue of Mother Land.

  “What did your father think about your finding your birth parents?”

  “Like I said, ‘Don’t give them any money!’” And Charlie laughed at the thought of it.

  Being with Charlie, this unsuspicious and appreciative soul, so positive, so polite, was a tonic to me. He did not draw off my energy, as my family did. He lifted my spirits, and I always felt stronger after I was with him. I knew this because afterward, when I was with someone in my family, I felt diminished, exhausted by their deviousness.

  Fred came by. He, too, wanted to get in touch with Charlie. “We’re opening a Boston office. We could throw some money his way—our computer installation is still out for bids. He might like the business.”

  “He seems to be doing fine. I don’t think he needs you.”

  No one in the family ever said what they meant. I had to translate. Mother had said, “I can’t give him money—you know I don’t have much—but I can knit a sweater for little Patrick.” Yet what she really needed was to atone, to be forgiven for ignoring him from birth. Franny wanted to patronize him, Jonty wanted a wealthy friend, everyone wanted something from him. None of us had anything to offer him; he didn’t need us. He had grown up fulfilled, while we had been raised like wolves.

  I said to Fred, “He’s got plenty of business.”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  In Mother Land this meant the opposite: he wanted Charlie to help him, perhaps find him clients. Was it possible to be a lawyer and not behave like a predator?

  We were in my yard, Fred and I. I had been sweeping sand off my driveway. I kept sweeping—passive aggressive. Years ago I would have invited Fred into the house for a beer. No longer.

  “Excuse me?” I bumped the broom on his shoes.

  “Sorry.”

  He stepped aside, and I swept where his feet had been, a technique Mother had taught me. This broom-bumping meant: You are idle and in the way.

  “I just came from Ma’s,” he said. He took out a piece of paper and unfolded it—a used envelope scribbled in blue ink. “She says to me, ‘Freddy, will you check and see if I paid my water bill? Those damn people sent me a reminder notice, charging me fifty cents interest for nonpayment.’”

  “Don’t laugh. Half a buck is a lot of money for Ma.”

  “That’s what I used to think.”

  He gave me a sly look.

  “You mean half a buck is not a lot of money to Ma?” I asked.

  “Sixteen thousand is probably a more reliable figure. That’s what she gave Franny.”

  I put down my broom, crossed my arms, and gave him my full attention. He was holding the creased envelope in his cupped palm, referring to it like a speechmaker glancing at his notes.

  “Gave her sixteen grand, did you say?”

  “To renovate her kitchen. I saw the check stub. And”—he glanced down again—“eleven thousand to Rose, to put in a new septic system at the cottage. And you remember that the cottage was a gift.” He lifted his hand to his face, examined the paper, and went on. “Eight thousand toward a new car for Franny. Five thousand for Bingo’s college tuition. Two thousand for something called ‘dental work’ for Franny. Oh, and Hubby got a few thousand for a paint job.”

  “But all of them got land or houses,” I said.

  “Right. And money. These are rough figures.” Seeing that I had dropped my broom and was craning my neck for a look at the scribbled envelope, he folded it smaller and crammed it into his pocket. “I was looking through Ma’s accounts, as I said.” He was smiling because he had caught my interest. “These are the figures that stuck out. About forty grand over the past year or so.”

  “That’s unfair.”

  “But, look, it’s Ma’s money,” he said, trifling with me.

  “Ma handed over forty grand?”

  “Probably more. I didn’t have much time to examine the books.” Fred was casual, and he could afford to be, because I was riveted by this disclosure.

  “They’re shaking Ma down!”

  “Not really. She can do what she wants. It’s her money.” Now, having seized my full attention, Fred said, “Gotta go.”

  So his revenge on me for not putting me in touch with Charlie was to drop this scandal into my lap and then vanish. It was Mother’s method: a wicked word in your ear and then she would withdraw, and might deny ever having said the wicked word.

  “Almost forgot,” Fred said. “Walter got fifty dollars for taking pictures at the birthday party.”

  “They weren’t even good pictures.”

  Fred was still walking to his car, as I followed, picking up my broom on the way. He got in, started the engine, and rolled down the window.

  “What I just told you?” he said. “It’s confidential. Don’t tell anyone.”

  That, too, meant the opposite. Tell everyone, he was saying. But I was not sure whom to tell.

  Fred’s showing up with that news unsettled me, which had been his intention. It was a family of droppers-in. Remember me? they seemed to say. They looked for gossip, they left some gossip behind. Where do I stand? they wondered. The whole process of showing up and nudging me, leaving me stirred. Station identification.

  Even my sons did it, but benignly, making sure I was all right, for as they had indicated a few years before, they were the adults and we were the children.

  They had phoned from London to say how sorry they were to have missed Mother’s ninetieth. They had not known they weren’t invited. I didn’t tell them that Jonty was criticized for bringing Jilly, that I had been jeered at for inviting Charlie—that is, until they realized he was my millionaire son. But I had broken the news to them of Charlie’s existence,
and told them that I’d invited him and his family to the party. Each mention of Charlie to them, I felt, was a way of easing him into their consciousness.

  Julian arrived first, having called from Boston. “I had some business in New York.”

  He didn’t have business in New York. He was trying not to condescend, or obligate me, with his sudden worried visit.

  “I haven’t heard from you for ages,” he said. “Also, I wanted to bring Grandma a birthday present. Amazing that she’s ninety.”

  “What did you bring her?”

  “Green bananas. And a long book,” he said. “She’s going to last forever.”

  I loved his visits, despite knowing that it was a form of station identification. I liked the glare of his intelligent scrutiny. I could not hide anything from him. I felt even better when Harry showed up a few days later. Together they were more relaxed, their gaze less intense. They enjoyed each other’s company, and mine. Because they were among the few people I spoke with who had a genuine interest in my work, I told them about my Africa book.

  “I spent a lot of time in buses and beat-up trucks.”

  “Trust Dad to find the slowest way of crossing Africa,” Julian said.

  Harry said with mock seriousness, “You must have met a lot of English kids, traveling on their gap year. That’s what they do, take buses in banana republics.”

  We were having lunch in the sushi bar in Yarmouth Port. I had declared a holiday because of their visit and put my work aside.

  “I’m sorry I missed Grandma’s birthday,” Julian said. “She said I would have loved it.”

  Now that the party was over, it was safe for Grandma to lament their absence.

  I said, “Grandma had a good time. No one else did.”

  “Charlie said he liked it,” Harry said. “He emailed me. He sent some pictures.”

  “I mailed that group photo to everyone with a note,” I said, and told them how I had worded it.

  “That is pure hostility,” Harry said.