Loosening his embrace, dad stretches out his right hand, and lathers his brush. Then, with a quick touch, he paints the tip of my nose—the way he used to do back then, in the old times—with a dollop of soft, fluffy cream; which turns me for an instant, as if by magic, into that long lost boy of years ago.
Dead Man’s Fingers
Chapter 11
A minute ago I would have cut my wrists, hoping, that way, to win his tears—but already, my attitude has changed. Now, it is one of defiance: I throw his arms off my back, and in one big step I break his embrace, getting myself out of it, now getting entirely out of his reach.
In a quick reversal of mood, I feel completely swamped by his attention. At the same time, I am dying of thirst. I mean, really: a thirst so burning that I start wondering if it can ever be quenched.
My father just smiles, pouring me one cup of milk after another. “Well, now,” he says, once I have gulped down the last one. “Lets get some fresh air.”
And so, an hour or so later, the old man and I are down at Venice Beach, which is nearly deserted, barely a soul around.
There in front of us, closing in on an unclear horizon, is an autumn sun, reddening every ripple out there in the ocean, every little wrinkle here on the shore, and casting endless shadows, shadows made of vapor and dust, which seem to be flowing along, right over the surface.
We stand side by side. We smell the salt in the air. We step off the paved boardwalk and into the soft sand. All the while, I am listening to myself thinking. Slapped by a sudden backwash of emotion, I realize that just now, for the first time in years, something has changed in me: I have said something quite unusual, which came about without planning—but also, without regret. Three times I have named him and me, bringing the two together into a single word: becoming one, as in We.
For just a minute I lean on my father, to fold up my pant legs, take off my shoes and roll my socks in them. Then he leans on me, to do the same.
We cross the border between the wind-blown mounds of dry sand, and the saturated, nearly flat seaboard, trounced by the tide. The waves roll in, threatening to swallow us whole. With a roar in their widening mouth, they are leaping ahead, then lapping the sand angrily, foam on their lip.
And scattered here all around us—going away this way and that, across moist and dry land—are traces: footprints of things big and small. You can figure out what they might have been, by that which they have taken away, by what has gone missing, and how.
Here, these must have been flip flops, and those over there, tennis shoes. They have come and gone, leaving behind them dents in the sand, clear, neatly arranged dents, pressed in by some rubbery bumps, within the perimeter of each sole.
There, a barefoot child must have passed; farther out, an adult. Five toes and the ball of the foot, then again, five toes and the ball of the foot, boring round, shallow hollows, little basins, where water starts welling up now, in the wet sand.
And here, tiny webbed feet must have hopped and landed, hopped and landed, opening sharp, three-pronged holes in the sand, where a gull has sunk in its claws. Each set of footprints is distinct. Each is stamped, you see, with its own design, each with its own sole.
And all of them seem to be traveling with a certain purpose, which is unknown to me, criss crossing each other, forging ahead towards some unclear target, pressing on steadily—but in a zigzag fashion, left, right, left, right, as far as the eye can see, until all of a sudden, a high crested wave breaks ashore, rubbing out part of their path; and thus, erasing from the surface—and soon from memory, too—that which only a minute ago was still here, could still offer some clues, and let you jot down some notes of the journey.
“I wish,” says the old man, “we would never forget this hour.”
And I think, Why, what a grand sentiment! I wish you could just be quiet.
And he says, to himself this time, “Winter is coming. The day is shorter, it seems. And the shorter it is—the more precious each minute.”
And I think, No. Not for me.
My father says, as if he could hear me, “Maybe not.”
He stumbles over some piece of trash, and, having to steady him, I think, Too bad. He is too heavy for me. So is his talk.
He says, “You think I do not understand how hard, how painful it must be for you, coming here to a new reality: a home without your mom. I wish you would talk, Ben. Talk to me about it.”
And I think, Who the hell wants to do that.
He waits for an answer, but after a while he seems to give up. “My God!” he says then, gazing straight ahead. “This place! This place, it is almost too beautiful for words.”
Indeed, it is. I fill my lungs with air, and my spirit swings so high at the thought of wetting my toes, that I laugh out loud at what he is saying, whatever it is. Let him talk all evening if it makes him happy.
He says, “I wish I could write it, Ben.”
In place of an answer I run along the beach, the old man trailing farther and farther behind me. For a minute I stop, and stoop down to pick what at first I thought was a dead butterfly—but no, this is just an empty shell, the two halves of which are hinged together, bringing to mind a hardened pair of wings.
I touch it: dark-blue and rough on the outside, slick and pearly inside, it housed a mussel once. Now there it lays, far from the sea, no longer able to keep itself closed—nor can it attach itself to others out there, on the distant wave-washed rocks, from where it came.
I feel a strange affinity with this thing. It has been left here, to fill with dry, barren grains, now that life has left it. How did it arrive here? By what thrust, what rush of wave? Maybe, it loosened its shell—just a crack—waiting, waiting for high tide, for seawater to come through, to revive it. I imagine its flesh quivering there, inside its broken enclosure: so soft, so vulnerable. So much like me.
Perhaps, it tried to roll its way back, to cross the border between that which is bone dry, and that which can still nourish it. Snatched and quickly consumed, its shell has been picked clean by a bird of prey, or—when the waves finally came—by a starfish.
Then its armor was carelessly spat out by the water, having failed to serve its purpose. So much like me.
I throw it back, in the direction of the old man. I think I can hear him, calling me from afar, “Wait...”
A sudden gust has shaken my father and he falls, abruptly, out of sight. A second later, the top of his head reappears behind a mound of sand.
“Ben,” he cries, “wait for me!”
So I am standing there a long while, long enough for my father to have overtaken me already—but then, nothing. Finally I rush back, and there he is, in shallow water, wrapped in his black wool coat against the wind, collar flapping, hem dripping. He takes it off, and thrusts it into my hands.
Then, precariously, he takes a step deeper, and points, “Look, over there!”
Which is when I spot a beam of sunlight caught, somehow, by a grain of sand. It is shining there, as if through a diamond. Under that sparkle, protected from the surge by a jagged wall of rocks, is the pool: the tide pool, in which I used to splash my feet a long time ago, when I visited here as a child, with him. Dazed by the sight, and by the visions it brings out, in layer after layer of memories, I open my mouth and close it again, like a fish out of water.
Meanwhile, my father wades out to the rocks, leans over the edge, and waves his hand to me with something cupped in it, part of which is dangling down. I am reluctant to ask, Well, what is it? So I glance at this thing, this seaweed which is dark green and somewhat fuzzy, because of the hair on its swollen fingers. One finger wraps around a second one, which twists around, coiling over itself, creating a loop through which a third one feels its way, nicking here, pricking there, trying to penetrate.
“See?” he indicates. “Dead Man’s Fingers! Remember?”
“No, I do not,” I say.
He can tell I am lying, because really, how can I forget? It was he who, years ag
o, during our frequent strolls here, along the beach, taught me about algae and stuff.
“You forgot,” says my father, “about that summer? About us?”
“There is nothing I care to remember,” I say. “Not a thing.”
Now he avoids looking into my eyes. My father squints, facing the glowing horizon, where the sun is bleeding, so slowly, into its own reflections in the water.
I was nine, back then. Dad was employed—for nearly a year—by some organization, some nonprofit environmental thing. It set out to produce a report card of sorts, grading the coastal waters at various locations along the California coast, to indicate some risks, I mean, risks of adverse health effects to beach goers.
As a child, a sentence like that would seem like a mouthful to me, so I never asked what actual work he did there—but somehow, his knowledge about aquatic plants and creatures showed through; as did his enthusiasm, which swept me along.
And so, it was from him that I learned about this seaweed, called Dead Man’s Fingers. It can spread far and wide—which ignited my imagination—simply by attaching itself to ship hulls, oyster shells, and drag nets, or by floating along with ocean currents. Or, it can stay put. Dad showed me how it anchors to the surface of the rocks, upon which it lives.
Now the old man is spreading the fingers of this thing over his own hand, letting it rise and fall, rise and fall with the flow and the ebb; plunging it even deeper, as if trying to fish something out of the water; something that escapes him, comes back for just a second, and escapes him again.
“I so wish,” he says, “I could find the words. You know, I hoped to become a writer, when I was your age. I used to think I had it in me.”
To which I say, “It should come easy for you. You are so good with words.”
His smile is rather brief.
“No, not really,” he says. “Ask Anita. For the life of her, she cannot string together more than two syllables in a word—but if she could, she would tell you how devastating, even excruciatingly painful it is to read, or even just listen to my book.”
“Book? You’re writing a book now?”
“Yes; didn’t I mention it?”
“No, you did not,” I say indignantly. “Not to me, anyway.”
Which he tries to shrug off. “Anita cannot bear listening to it. She has a reluctant admiration, I think, for the fact that I keep at it with such patience, such dedication, even, keep crafting something which is so incredibly protracted, and in her mind, pointless. Somehow, I have managed to bore her to tears. Too fragmented. Too many words.”
“I guess you do not care to entertain her,” I taunt him.
“Exactly,” he says. “I do not aim to bring her to a quick climax, or to satisfy her with a happy end, either, because for me, the end—the end is rarely happy, and at this point, it is still obscure.”
“Then,” I glance at him slyly, “no wonder she is bored—”
He cuts in, “You must think me an old man. A man easily deceived.”
“No,” I say hastily. “You are reading me all wrong. She is not what I am interested in. It’s your writing. Tell me more about that.”
“For a time,” he says, “I tried to write in ways that would give her pleasure, but now, something must have changed in me. No longer do I wish to sweep her off her feet, so to speak. Instead, I wish to open myself—”
“Open yourself?” I cannot help but laugh out loud.
And taken aback, he asks, “Why, you find that funny?”
“Bullshit!” I cry. “This is nothing but crap! Mental masturbation, is what this is! A more secretive man than you is hard for me to imagine!”
So he corrects himself. “What I wish to open up is not me, but my characters—all of whom are parts of who I am—giving her the opportunity to know them, to come live in their skin, to see, hear, touch everything they do. Just, be there, inside my head for a while, which I admit, may be rather uneasy at times. If—if she cared to listen, which I doubt, she would allow me to pull her inside—so deep, so close to the core, that it would be hard to escape, hard to wake up.”
“And what if she wouldn’t?”
“Then, who cares? She might as well drift off, which is what she does, lately. If the story were written about her—which maybe it is!—she would not even be present to realize it! But you—you, I hope, would be interested in it. You would not close the book on me. My writing, you see, is no longer an attempt at fiction. It has changed. It has become more akin to collecting.”
“Collecting what?”
“That which is here, in front of us. That which will not remain. You. Me. That which is said between us. Our voices. This moment.”
He pauses for a minute. “Other things, too,” he adds. “Things other people may think mundane. The crash of waves. The shells of those mussels, out there. To me, son, they have a meaning, just as if they were some precious, historical artifacts.”
He waits for me to ask, What kind of meaning; but I keep silent. Finally he says, “Your mother, she used to string them together, to make a long necklace. She would stare at the inner layer of each shell, and tip it over this way and that to capture the light, saying it reminded her, somehow, of a rainbow. Remember?”
I cannot help but look away, as a sudden shiver goes through my spine. My father draws closer to me, and without taking no for an answer, he tightens my jacket around me and zips it up, to ward off the cold.
“There,” he says. “The sun is gone. Time to go home.”
On the way back he is quiet; reflecting, perhaps, on one more thing he wants to say. Then, opening the door, he comes up with, “Remember, Ben, how I taught you to use the tape recorder? I mean, to record your voice?”
And I say, “When was that?”
And he says, “Why, when you broke your foot.”
And I cry, “What? When did I ever break my foot?”
“You forgot,” he says, glancing at me, now with a hint of worry in his eyes. “Memory is such a fragile thing. I learned that when your mother—”
His voice trails off; then he finds it again. “You had just turned twelve,” he says, “which is when you broke your foot, climbing that branch; the one that used to lean there,” he points, “right over the balcony. It was a bit flimsy—remember?”
The image in my mind is a bit hazy at first; but then it starts clearing, and I can see, I can just see three eggs in a nest, just a little bit out of my reach.
“I had to saw the thing off,” he says, “so it would not be so tempting to climb it again.”
“Oh,” I say then. “I think I remember. Yes, I do.”
“You used to stand by the railing, looking bored, sad even, staring out there at the tree, gauging the distance to that nest over there; a distance which could no longer be bridged, with the branch cut off. My heart ached for you. So I had to do something, to take your mind off the sight of that broken limb.”
“Yes,” I say. “I remember. This was when you taught me to record my voice.”
He points at the tape recorder, which is wrapped in plastic on top of his desk. “You know,” says the old man, “the thing still works. If you ever get the urge, I mean, if you need to talk—”
“No,” I say hastily. “I do not think so, dad.”
“You used to think it was fun, Ben.”
“What I think, what I say to myself is private, you know—”
“I know, son: it is just like a diary. So do it for yourself, then; not for me. Keep the tape in your room; lock it in your suitcase, or something. One never knows,” he says. “You may want to listen to yourself one day, years later—”
“You still have my old tapes, dad?”
“I do,” he confirms. “A whole collection of them, in fact. Old ones, with your voice, and recent ones—with Anita’s.”
The mere mention of her name alarms me. From that woman, from what she might say on tape, he might get the wrong impression, I mean, about her and me. And then, I am afraid, then he may want
to kill me.
I feel bound hand and foot by the intensity of the look in his eyes—but then I figure, it is something else that burns in them; something completely different from temper. Of all things, compassion?
“And what about mom?” I ask. “What about her voice? Did you tape it, did you? Maybe, if—if you had her tell her own story, I mean, in her own words, you could use it, then, to reach her, to remind her of things; which could, perhaps, slow down the disease—”
“Sorry, Ben,” he says, and I detect the choked tone. “I wish I thought about it years ago. At this point all I have is her music, the last performance, Beethoven’s fifth—but unfortunately, not her voice.”
“You,” I say, with contempt. “You should be so angry with yourself. How, how could you lose the one chance—”
“By now,” he cuts in, “it is already too late.”
“No,” I say, “it cannot be.”
With great exhaustion, the old man takes off his glasses, and rubs his eyes with both hands. “Natasha, she no longer seems to recognize me,” he says. “I think that by now, she has forgotten who I am, what we used to be to each other. She has forgotten that she threw her ring at me. She has forgotten all the reasons why, why this anger in her, why the fury, which seems so, so futile in the end... And soon, when your mom loses the last trace of rage, when finally it goes away... I am afraid she would stop being herself, then.”
“You,” I charge, “you failed to keep her here, at home. Even worse, you lost who she was. You lost her voice!”
He slumps in his chair. “Back then,” he says, “it never occurred to me how much I would miss it. I thought she was invincible. I thought things would always remain as they are. Time was something I had. Time did not matter.”
“What is the point, then,” I glare at him. “What the hell is the point in that precious tape collection of yours.”
The White Piano (Still Life with Memories Book 2) Page 10
