When Madeline Was Young

by Jane Hamilton

  Just when she was settled in her chair, she stood again, and we followed her lead, all eyes to the floor as we sang the Doxology, parents and children alike alarmed by the intimacy we'd been thrust into, raising our voices together.

  There was an extra sparkle in the very air the night the celebrity family came to the party. I suppose I'd been looking forward to Buddy's visit. Everyone pointed out what a special occasion it was, to have the Fullers in town for Christmas. I remember how adult he seemed with the youngest cousins, how he stood in the hall with his dark coat on, pulling off his leather gloves, a finger at a time, expressing exaggerated shock at the boys' and girls' miraculous growth. It was as if he'd paid attention to them when they were four and five and six. Suddenly, somehow, he was in the category of fun uncle, and they behaved accordingly, piling on him. Buddy, crawling with children, had stepped across the divide and wasn't one of us anymore. He kissed Cousin Mona demurely on the cheek--and we cousins who knew, who knew, exchanged glances. Although he had been held back and had not yet graduated from high school, he shook her college boyfriend's hand and then gave him a fraternal slap to the arm.

  The aunts and uncles of course were keen to know all the details of Figgy and Arthur's fascinating life. When Mrs. Kennedy had been restoring the White House, Figgy, brandishing her Radcliffe art-history degree, had finagled her way onto the committee that was researching paintings and locating period pieces. Those years had been a heady time for her, charging around the Executive Mansion examining paintings Dolley Madison had had commissioned, and going to New York, to auction houses, to have a look on the First Lady's behalf. It turned out Figgy had acumen as well as taste; one of her stock stories was about standing on a street corner on the Lower East Side in 1939 and becoming friends with de Kooning. Later she sent the impoverished artist checks, acquiring paintings for next to nothing. Also, she claimed to have picked out Pollock long before Mrs. Guggenheim took notice. After I graduated from college, she took me through the Metropolitan, stopping at her favorite paintings to clutch her heart, to tell me who was a homo, who had died cruelly of syphilis, who had gone mad. Over the years she developed an encyclopedic knowledge, something she curiously didn't often talk about or flash; her profession, perhaps, was where she practiced restraint. She traveled a great deal to Europe as a consultant, and eventually, well after her White House years, she was hired as the curator at the Phillips Collection. It was Mrs. Kennedy, she would say, who taught her much of what she knew, who gave her a start. Now that we understand so much about JFK's prodigious appetite, I wonder how or if Figgy escaped an encounter with him. Certainly there was no one who took Jack's death harder than my aunt.

  That Christmas was the last time Figgy came to a holiday party at our house, although it was primarily Arthur and my mother who argued. The dining-room table had been split open at its center and the five leaves put in, so that twenty of the adults and the older teenagers could sit together. Madeline always took her place right next to my mother, the two of them squeezed at the head of the table. In the living room there were four card tables for the younger children, the group of ten-year-old girls managing the toddlers' spilled milk and excusing them their vegetables. No amount of insisting could convince Russia to eat with the elders. For a few minutes she'd lean on a stool in the living room, her plate in her hands, before she set it down and again made the rounds with her rolls.

  My mother had simple ornaments, a blazing red tablecloth, greens that she and Madeline had gathered in the yard before the meal was served, the snow in a magical moment melting to glistening drops before the cloth was spotted with ordinary water stains. The brass candlesticks, gleaming after our labors, and with tall white tapers, gave the room at once its warmth and a churchlike solemnity. At Christmas I always had the sense that the neighbors fell away, that on the wide-open plain there was our single house, golden with light, the windows steamy with our breath, our life. My father's place was surrounded by the platters, and one by one, as the ritual goes, he heaped the plates with my mother's best efforts, adjusting for each person's taste, passing the wholesome turkey that had come from a family farm in Wisconsin, and the puffy damp stuffing, and steaming white potatoes from that same good farm, and an array of buttery vegetables including the detestable Brussels sprouts. There were the sweet things, too, fancy Jell-O molds that looked like the neighborhood women's church hats, and candied yams and cranberries popped open in their hot bath of maple syrup. I was always hungry in those days, and the sight of the turkey, its skin darkening and drawing taut and crisp over the breast as it was basted through the afternoon hours, filled me with a fluttery excitement.

  When at last everyone was served, my mother, ever the hostess, asked the opening question, the most important inquiry, according to manuals on manners, that should from the start draw the group into spirited but congenial conversation. "So, Arthur," she said mildly, "how much longer do you think the troops are going to be in Vietnam?"

  The relatives turned down the table to my mother, cocking their heads, as if they weren't sure they'd heard her. "You've got to love the woman," Figgy said, looking at the ceiling. Her tone was insincere, and I guessed that she was trying somehow to protect Arthur. He looked very tired, his lids at half-mast over his protruding eyes, as the vapors of his plate came up into his gray face.

  The active combat had really only begun for American troops. There were mixed messages coming from the administration, the secretary of defense saying victory would take time while others predicted a swift fight to the finish. In November there had been the first major engagement between the regular U. S. and North Vietnamese forces. Arthur did take up Mrs. Maciver's question, speaking with a quiet pride about how the Third Brigade, First Cavalry Division, had defeated the NVA Thirty-second, Thirty-third, and Sixty-sixth Regiments in the La Drang Valley.

  My mother, passing the cranberries, said quizzically, "The thing I've never understood is why Harry Truman didn't write Ho Chi Minh, back in, whenever that was, in 1945, it must have been, when Ho took over Hanoi. Have you ever read Ho's speech, the one he gave at the inauguration of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam?"

  Arthur had been about to put a buttered turnip in his mouth. "It's Christmas, for God's sake, Julia," Figgy said. "The president is suspending bombing for the holiday, and I suggest you do the same." Warming just a bit, she said, "And you should take off that apron."

  "Oh!" My mother reached behind her and undid the ties, bundled the thing in a ball, and pitched it through the arch that led to the kitchen. Maybe she couldn't help herself, her nerves unwinding up through her tongue after so many hours of cooking. She couldn't refrain from talking about how Roosevelt had waffled on Indochina through the years, how he and Churchill hadn't kept their pledge of self-government for the Vietnamese, and how Ho had lifted chunks from the Declaration of Independence for his speech, how he'd spoken about the pursuit of happiness.

  "I'm aware of the speech," Arthur said simply. He watched the butter slide off the turnip into his pear Jell-O. He was no longer interested in my mother's ideas. It seemed possible that he no longer wanted to be in our company. I realized I had looked forward to his excited questions, the way he'd gaze at you and wonder what you'd been reading and why you thought as you did. I hated to think that the Fullers' being in Washington with important people had automatically rendered us dull. I hated to think that we were dull, and that he'd never like us again.

  My father rarely interfered with his indefatigable wife, but at that moment he raised his glass to Winston Churchill, who had died the previous February. More gravely then, we toasted Grandmother, home in her bed, soon to join the prime minister in the hereafter. Some of the cousins were still watching Arthur to see if the expert, the man who was practically commander-in-chief, was going to say anything else. At last he set his turnip down, and, cutting through the few desultory conversations that had started up, he launched into his defense. He explained that President Johnson had made a generous offer in the
spring in exchange for peace, some kind of development opportunity to generate electricity in the Mekong Delta, which apparently Ho Chi Minh had rejected. Although he became more animated as he spoke, he hardly glanced at my mother, fixing his eyes on Cousin Nick across the table. He said at least twice that Ho Chi Minh was no better than Joseph Stalin, that thousands of landlords had been murdered in Ho's land-reform campaign and thousands sent to gulags.

  My mother was looking as beautiful as I'd ever seen her, the pinkness shining in her round face. I had once loved her thrill in the heat of the argument, but now I wished so much she wouldn't carry it on. "Oh, Art," she said, and she laughed a little, at her own folly, surely at her own foolishness. "All of that may be true, but can you really tell me that the United States is morally superior? You can't actually believe that, can you? We install and support Diem in Saigon, a tyrant who is every bit as brutal as those we anoint the Evil Ones--more gravy, Buddy?--and then we decide he's no good, and our men arrange for his assassination. Viva the democratic spirit. Now there's been coup after coup, mass chaos. It looks to me like we're the ones invading Vietnam--I know, I know, I don't have the whole picture. But I'll say it again. I've always had the impression that Ho Chi Minh is a nationalist at heart, rather than a dyed-in-the-wool communist, that first and foremost he's trying to liberate his country from colonists."

  "The impression?" Arthur hissed.

  "Wouldn't you, sweetie, with your bleeding sore heart, be such a breath of fresh air at our dinner parties!" Figgy said to my mother. "Shut up, both of you, I mean it, do you hear? Aaron"--she turned to my father--"help me out here. Stop talking to Nick about your dead old birds, and rescue this conversation from war talk so we can all part friends in honor of our Saviour. For one thing, I want to know what you kids have been doing this year. Mac, tell me about your plans for college."

  One of the little boys, who had brought his meat to his father to be cut, shouted out, "Mac dissected a monkey on the bar in the basement!"

  Before any of the others could express their disgust Madeline cried, "I helped him. I helped with the shark, too." She put her head down, shy again. "Poor monkey," she sniffed.

  "So you still want to be a doctor," Figgy said to me. "That's good. Although sawing apart an animal on a bar has to be against a law of some kind. Your father, I assume, gets the specimens from the museum?"

  "Leftovers," I said. Having the baboon in my possession hadn't exactly been illegal, but I wasn't supposed to advertise it. I'd been lucky to get it fresh from the local zoo about twenty-four hours after its death.

  "There's monkeys uptown!" Madeline said in another burst. She meant the two rhesus monkeys that were kept in a large glass case in one of the smaller department stores on Main Street. My mother and Madeline always stopped in to look at them when they went shopping.

  "How fascinating." Figgy smiled hard at Madeline without opening her mouth. "Honey," she added. I later realized that Figgy had been gone long enough to have missed the Mikey O'Day story, that she didn't know about Madeline's man. I wondered if she might have expressed more interest in her if she'd known. "Louise. What about your cello? You still on your way to Carnegie Hall?"

  "Unlikely," Louise said, without looking up from her turkey. "But not impossible."

  Figgy went on to interview the other teenagers, but before she'd gotten down the line Arthur couldn't help making a correction.

  My mother was talking with my uncle Fritz about the rumblings of the peace movement, the rumor that the second Tonkin Gulf Incident hadn't actually taken place. "Julia," Arthur called down the table, "we've established before that it's pointless to discuss these matters, you and I."

  When? When had they stopped arguing for their own amusement? When had their interchanges become pointless?

  "Not because you're not intelligent," he was saying, "but because you remain willfully misguided about a most complex situation. And yet perfectly happy to talk ad infinitum to anyone who will listen. You assume the administration is blithely ordering up troops, when in fact the discussions at every level are deeply somber. I shudder to think of your holding forth at the League of Women Voters, 'informing' your sisters. Again: do you tell them that Ho Chi Minh's pursuit of happiness involves the

  'political struggle' he's authorized for the Vietcong, which means assassinations of village authorities and other government officials, which amounts to about four thousand people a year? Do you remind your listeners of those men and women who no longer have their unalienable rights?"

  Madeline just then stood up and tapped my mother on the arm, expecting the usual in the absence of Mikey. Julia pushed back and drew her onto her lap. Arthur, who I guess had never seen Madeline reclining flat against the hostess at table, opened his mouth and gaped.

  "I know," my mother said from behind Madeline's velvet shoulder, "I know it's heretical to say so, but I'm just not sure that if Vietnam went communist it would be the end of the world." She stroked Madeline's hair, waiting for Arthur to pounce, giving him the chance. When he continued to stare she said, "Fewer people in the end will be dead. I'm not so certain that the rest of Asia and Europe will tumble to the Reds. We've already lost--what--something like six hundred or so of our troops? And our own boys--our own boys coming up to draft age. 'War,' " she quoted from the ancients, "'loves to prey upon the young.' "

  Although I'd eaten very little at that juncture, I stood and said, "May Buddy and I be excused?" I didn't know if Buddy wanted to leave, if he'd prefer to stay on since he'd been acting so adult. It was a relief to see the model guest gathering his plate and utensils to take to the kitchen. "Thanks, Aunt Julia," he said. "I can't remember when I've had a better dinner." He turned to me and, just as he used to, he snapped, "Let's go, Brains."

  Our departure was the signal for the rest of the children to fly off to other parts of the house, to the basement to play Ping-Pong, or out in the yard to assess the snow that had just begun to fall. In my room, Buddy slumped in the desk chair, his legs spread wide apart. I sat on the bed hugging my knees. It was hard not to be shy with my cousin, with him who was suddenly polite and mature, the stepson of an impressive man, someone my mother should never have challenged. The summer before, I had also found new reason to admire Buddy, and I was still, after six months, suffering from that rekindled awe. There had been an incident in July, all of us gathered in the Pindels' garage to see Buddy display not only wisdom, not only physical prowess, but, I would have gone so far as to say, nobility. It was an episode that still shamed me, that I hadn't mentioned to anyone.

  In the most casual way, sitting lazily in my chair, he announced that following his graduation at the end of May he figured he'd enlist in the army.

  "Oh," I said, nodding.

  He started to talk about his duty to his country, how his father had fought in World War II. Bill Eastman, according to Buddy, had always remarked that being in the army was one of the great experiences and had taught him important values. It was the first time Buddy had brought up his real father since his death a year before. Even though he'd rarely seen Bill, my cousin had lived through a tragedy I couldn't imagine, losing his parent, another thing that separated him from me. "And Arthur," Buddy said, "Arthur's been a good stepdad. He's never treated me like he thinks I'm a dumb-ass, you know that? I've screwed up however many times, and my parents have always bailed me out, always ready to give me another chance." He was speaking with a seriousness that was frightening in and of itself. "I guess I'm just ready to make them proud of me, and if I can protect democracy in the world at the same time--hey!--double whammy."

  I was speechless in the face of his resolve, his bravery. In the moment, I couldn't think of any flaw in his argument. Even if I'd remembered that Bill Eastman had drunk himself to death--in spite of the important values he'd learned in World War II--I wouldn't have mentioned it.

  "What about you?" he said. "You could enlist, too. With your brains they'd put you in Intelligence, send you to China to spy on the little
people."

  "Sure," I said, thinking that I'd have to, that it would be only right to follow in Buddy's footsteps. Vietnam seemed remote to me, on the whole, even though my mother spoke of it every day and was already part of the Chicago antiwar movement, the fledgling group made up of Quakers and clerics, women, and some students. She had assured me that I'd be able to attend the college of my choice, and that afterward, if the war was still going on, I could register as a conscientious objector. In my room, Buddy had spoken as many young men do who know very little about the war they are going off to fight. At the time, he seemed not only certain but knowledgeable. I wouldn't understand until years later that he couldn't figure out what else to do with himself. As if to remind me that the real Buddy was still inside his upright self, he told me that since he was enlisting I could be sure that he was living it up, that there were places not far from Fork Union to meet women--all of them sorry for the boys'

  hardships at the academy, and so helpful at easing their pain.

  It's probably not unusual for civilians to be vague about the intricacies of the military, fuzzy about the differences between the First Battalion, Second Infantry, and the First Squadron, Fourth Cavalry; the organization, the distinctions difficult to absorb unless you're on the inside. Buddy's career path all over the globe has seemed labyrinthine to me, but for him it became a clear course. No one could believe it when the news came in 1970 that he was going to re-enlist for a second tour, staying on when so many veterans were embittered. I remember my father saying, "He's well suited to it," a truth that put an end to the conversation.

  "I'm not afraid," he said that night in my room. "And besides, we're going to whip their yellow asses."

  "I'll probably end up going, too," I said, suddenly imagining our sneaking through the wet grass side by side, a thrill up my spine, the joy of our fear.

  Two of the small cousins barged in right then to tell us that the carolers had come, as if this were an excitement we'd been waiting for all year. We went downstairs to listen to the group assembled in the hall, the Van Norman family singers, including their relations, twenty-five of them packed in our entry. After a minute, Buddy squeezed past into the living room to talk to Mona, and I went into the kitchen to see if there were any more of Russia's rolls.