by Hilary Reyl
Mom: “So, you’re heading to London?”
Peter: “I might spend a day or two in Paris first.”
Mom: “Where are you staying?”
Peter: “Rue Cassette, in the sixth. A friend’s place.”
Mom: “Cute street.”
Peter: “You know it?”
Mom: “My ex-husband grew up in that neighborhood.”
When Mom used the term “ex-husband,” I got a jolt of nausea. So I moved on to a different conversation.
I figured it didn’t matter to the French kids what people were talking about. The moths don’t need substance. All they need is not to be locked out.
We moved away from Mom and Peter on to a small group of camera people, set designers, and grips. I didn’t have my usual problem looking at them head-on because I was too busy translating to register fear.
There was a lot of overlapping and interrupting in the crew’s speech. I latched on where I could.
“I got this awesome red wine called Chinon at the supermarket in town for like nine euros.”
“It’s supposed to rain on Tuesday. Sam’s going to have to change the schedule. We’re supposed to do that big scene with Gloria in the garden.”
“My wife has an obsession with this stinky French cheese. She says if I get it vacuum-packed the customs dogs won’t be able to smell it.”
“That Antoine guy at the castle is kind of an asshole.”
“So, wait, which red was it? Because there’s like twenty shelves of wine in that market.”
“We almost destroyed this ancient canopy bed. I can’t believe they let us use it. That thing is irreplaceable. Can you imagine that happening in the States? The insurance they would make you get for all this priceless furniture! And here they let us co-opt it for our shoots.”
“Fuck French wine. French wine is so overrated.”
Until dinner, the moths and I fluttered around together, eavesdropping. It got us to relax. People smiled at us. Elisabeth explained to me that the French kids were local color for us Americans. “Not only is it awesome that you have made friends and decided to invite them, but it lends a certain je ne sais quoi to Mom’s little get-together. It’s authentic.”
By the time Mom told everyone to grab a plate and fill it in the kitchen, the moths had chilled enough to talk to one another, and to me. We were our own subgroup of intimes within the clan. We were taking pictures. It was good.
We sat at a table together to eat. Gilberte/Alice was sitting next to me. I had imagined her eating my string beans. Only I had pictured her picking them up gracefully with her fingers and nibbling them down. In reality, she cut them with a knife and fork and ate them fast. This made me want to hold her.
Mom gave a toast about what a great guy Peter is, how it makes sense that two of history’s most powerful women would fight over him. She joked about how she was glad he wasn’t really dead from a jousting wound. Then Peter made a toast about how talented Mom is and about how she always has the happiest and best-fed crews, how she creates community.
I translated the toasts for the moths.
Afterward, Gilberte/Alice said that I was so good at translating that she was understanding the words from Mom’s and Peter’s lips and not from me at all. She used the word effacé, which means “erased,” to describe me. Then she said something nice but not accurate: “It’s kind of you to do this for us. It must be such a pain and such an effort.”
Under the table, she put her hand on my knee. To steady myself, I put my hand on top of her hand.
“Translating is automatic,” I managed to say through my excitement. “It’s not an effort to translate. It’s something you do. It helps you feel better too.”
“Yeah, well, it helps you feel better to be nice. Not everyone. You could be way more of a snob because you know these famous people and this movie world. It’s nice of you. That’s all.”
“Thanks.” I moved my hand to her knee and started rubbing it. Her kneecap was perfectly round. Her skin was soft.
She smiled at me. Through my jeans, she began rubbing my knee too. We didn’t talk about what we were doing. It just happened under the table, like fronds of seaweed moving together beneath the surface of a stream. Like a whole silent world.
“You’ll see,” she said, as though nothing incredible was happening to our knees, “the party at Simon’s, it won’t be this way at all.”
“I guess there won’t be so many adults at Simon’s, right?”
“Right,” she agreed. “There won’t be any adults. And everything will be completely not of the same class. You’ll see. I’m glad you’re still coming to Simon’s. I’m glad we’re friends. You . . .” Here she stared at my face, and I managed to stare back, even though I was erupting inside. “You’re not normal like other people. French people, they can get very upset when things and people are different.”
“You realize this. You’ve met some of your dad’s French relatives!”
I think I squeezed her knee too hard because she clenched her face. So I took my hand away. She rested hers on my thigh and kept it still.
She gave me a confused look. “Didn’t you mean to say ‘I’? ‘I’ve met some of my dad’s French relatives’?”
This was a moment when I could either stammer and drift away or let her in. I let her in.
“My pronouns are sometimes backward when I get anxious,” I said. “I start talking through a mirror, where I am you and you are me.”
“Weird.”
I had blown it. She thought I was weird. Not normal.
Before I could bolt, she went on. “I mean, weird in a very cool way. I don’t want things to be normal. It’s so boring.”
I must have smiled because she smiled back.
Marcel and Gilberte could not have had this moment. His Gilberte was too absorbed in her own world to notice his personality. My Gilberte/Alice saying what she thought of me was a real break from Search. This had its problems, but it was worth it.
There was a new kind of buzzing inside me. It did not scare me. It wasn’t fear. It was a series of small bursts, like a shoot pushing up through the soil.
Mom clinked her glass and announced that dessert was ready.
At dessert, there were cherry pits in Bernadette’s clafoutis. I swallowed six of them and spit out two. None of the French moths seemed to notice. I worried that Mom would be stressed about people choking or breaking teeth. I saw her glance around anxiously at the guests. When, after two minutes, there were no incidents, she visibly relaxed. I was happy, but not surprised, that Bernadette had stuck to her recipe.
When I said good-bye to the moths, Alice kissed me on both cheeks and then for a second on the lips. Marcel would have been desperate for this moment never to end. But I felt something else. I was astonished that life didn’t freeze. The party kept going on even though the greatest thing ever was happening to me.
The moths headed away from our cottage on their mopeds, making a noise like my flies. Only instead of going into themes and variations, the mopeds’ buzzing faded quickly into the night.
Mom had hired two women from the café in the village to help serve and clean up. They were clearing plates. The clanking was musical. Most everyone was gone by now. Asparagus Man was lingering in the kitchen.
Mom put her arm around me.
“Nice friends you’ve made.” She sounded hopeful and tired.
Sunday, June 12
6:40 p.m.
How was the party? Layla wrote today. How did the neurotypical moths behave?
My regrets were calmed. I let myself give in to the sweetness of the night.
Don’t be nostalgic, dear. It’s very middle class.
She was quoting Lady Grantham and I was quoting Marcel. We are both quoting now, I wrote. That’s why we’re friends.
Are we? Are you sure? How are we friends these days?
Of course I am sure. Are you angry because I had my moth friends at the party?
I’m not angry. I’m
worried that you are trying too hard for the people around you.
Do you mean Mom? Because Mom’s whole life is about connecting. She brings people together. It’s her way of being generous. She doesn’t care if I’m weird as long as I can connect. Does this make sense to you, Layla?
Instead of answering, Layla sent me a link to one of her articles about the neurodiversity movement. I already knew about this movement that wants society to accept people on the autistic spectrum for who they are instead of trying to cure them. But I’d never read an argument this clear. I couldn’t believe it. It was like I’d been color-blind my whole life and now suddenly I wasn’t. Everything looked different.
I read the article five times. In one section, it compared being on the autistic spectrum to being gay. Here is what it argued: Autism is not a problem to be fixed. It’s a way to be. Homosexuality is no longer called a disease. So why is autism?
The article quoted an autism rights activist named Jim Sinclair. He wrote:
It is not possible to separate the autism from the person . . . Therefore, when parents say, “I wish my child did not have autism,” what they’re really saying is, “I wish the autistic child I have did not exist and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead.” Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces.
Did everyone around me dream of turning me into a stranger?
My fingers trembled as I texted Layla. Thank you for the article. I am very glad you exist.
She texted back a video of her hands on the piano. They were playing “Let It Be.”
11:25 p.m.
Tonight was balmy. Mom, Elisabeth, Arthur, Asparagus Man, and I ate leftovers from the party out on the terrace. I had two pieces of clafoutis. Arthur said he was glad that Bernadette had not caved by pitting the cherries. This made me like him a lot. He is becoming less of a fur ball and more of a person. He’s skinny, not very tall, and he has a high forehead like Elisabeth’s, but no widow’s peak. Mom has stopped making comments about the age difference between Arthur and Elisabeth. She says Arthur is winning her over.
During dessert, Asparagus Man went inside to do the dishes. He was facing out the kitchen window above the sink, which was open onto the terrace. We could hear the water running. He didn’t want clafoutis because he says that Mom is making him fat. He says this a lot. He laughs loudly every time he says it.
The cottage has a dishwasher, but it is very tiny, and Mom says it’s not worth it. She says using a dishwasher in the French countryside feels vulgar when everything here is on such a human scale. Asparagus Man appears to agree with her. When he is at work at the sink, he whistles.
What bothers me about him most is that he’s inserted himself inside our world as if there’s always been a place for him here and we’ve been waiting for him to fill it. He acts way too comfortable. How can anyone step into a family and instantly behave as though they fit, with no familiarity, no repetition, no practice? It makes no sense to me. Intimacy is not like that. Even for people they call neurotypical. Asparagus Man must be a fake.
He was rinsing and clinking. Mom, Elisabeth, and Arthur were drinking wine.
I was trying to decide if I should say something about Layla’s article. Then I did.
“Mom, what if I was gay?”
“You’re not gay!” Mom said more loudly than she needed to, since there was no other talking to drown out. Then she did some of her yoga breaths, which helped her speak more softly. “Of course, it’s fine if you are gay. It never occurred to me. But I would be fine with it. Just fine. Are you gay, Martin?”
“No. I’m making an analogy.”
“Between what and what?” Mom asked. “I’m a little confused.”
“I’m finding out that there are a lot of us who hate that the world is trying to cure us. I think the point is that we don’t need to be cured, like gay people don’t need to be cured. A lot of us believe that.”
“A lot of us? A lot of who, Martin?”
“Autistic people who say that autism is a way to be in the world, like being gay. Not a disability. Not a disease. Some of us are offended at the idea that we need to be cured. Layla says it attacks us at our core.”
“So, you believe you’re always going to be autistic?” Mom’s face pinched. Her eyes got watery. “But we were trying . . .” She trailed off. I could tell she didn’t want to say anything too fast because it was complicated and she didn’t want to hurt my feelings. “Anything that is a part of your identity is fantastic, Martin. We all want you to be happy. You need the tools. That’s all. We don’t want to force anything on you. We want you to be able to be happy. We want to give you the tools.”
When she gets nervous, Mom repeats herself.
“Papa says that happiness is overrated.”
“Does he?” She reared her head like a startled snake. “It’s fair to say that, at this point, your father is not in a position to make such grand pronouncements, is he?”
“Do you hate Papa?”
“No, but I’m very disappointed in him.”
“He used to say you are disappointed a lot because of your high standards. He said they weren’t realistic.”
“He might have been right. But my personal standards aren’t the only issue here.”
“So, do you still want to cure me?”
“Martin, I want what you want. What’s this really about? Is it school, or your new friends? You’ve been doing so well.”
“Do you think that what I am is ‘sick’? Do you think I’m mentally ill and I need to be changed?”
“No. I don’t. I don’t know.”
Mom suddenly looked at Arthur, who was holding Elisabeth’s hand. He was staring up into the sky. I do this too, when I don’t want the people around to worry about me. It’s a way to be absent when you’re there.
“Might I add,” Asparagus Man called out from the open kitchen window, “that there was a French philosopher who said that mental illness is only real within a culture that recognizes it as such?”
“Foucault said that,” said Elisabeth. She’s so smart. I don’t know who Foucault is, but she was obviously right because Asparagus Man clucked and Mom nodded. I asked Elisabeth how to spell the name, and she told me. She was massaging the air with her spidery fingers. She turned to Asparagus Man, who was walking out of the kitchen, drying his hands on a blue dish towel. She asked: “So you’re saying that mental illness is in the eye of the beholder?”
“He’s not mentally ill!” Mom yelled. She started her deep breathing again. She tried to drink wine at the same time that she was inhaling, and she choked.
I patted her back. Her spine is like a rope.
“Martin.” Elisabeth sounded angry. “It’s easy for you to spout stuff about neurodiversity when you are high-functioning and could almost pass for nothing more than quirky. Do you honestly believe the really autistic people, the ones in diapers who bang their heads against walls, would advocate for themselves to stay that way? I would guess not. I’d like to help them become capable of making up their own minds.”
“Layla hates it when people say ‘quirky,’” I said. “She says that ‘quirky’ is an offensive euphemism.” I mostly said this to give myself time to think about what Elisabeth meant.
“What does Layla have to do with anything?” Elisabeth snapped. Then she looked at Arthur, who was still staring at the sky but was now rubbing her shoulders. Right away, she said, “I’m sorry, Martin.”
I tried not to look away but my gaze flew up to the stars. I began to count them so I wouldn’t start to rock or groan.
“Sweetheart,” Mom said to Elisabeth, “Layla is Martin’s closest friend. Of course he should be able to bring her into any discussion.”
“No one has answered my questio
n about curing me,” I reminded them.
Then Mom said, “Martin, if someday you end up complaining to your shrink—or your girlfriend, or your wife—that I made you do too much therapy, then I will be satisfied that I’ve done my job.”
“I’m sorry, Martin,” Elisabeth said again. She stood up and walked over to me. She took my chin gently and pulled it downward so that our eyes met.
“Whoa!” Asparagus Man laughed much too loudly. And then he made his point again, even though we were all way beyond it now. “I don’t mean to start a fight here. I’m only saying there is a school of thought that would say people, like for example Martin, are only divergent if that’s how they are labeled. If there’s no label, there’s no reality.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. I stopped counting stars. I had gotten to thirty-four. I looked down at my sneakers.
Of course, I understood what Asparagus Man meant, but I didn’t want to engage with him. I wanted him to realize that he was being inappropriate. I wanted him to shut up. And so I pretended to be confused to make him uncomfortable. This is what they call “disingenuous.” It’s new for me.
“It’s late, everyone,” Mom said. She stood up and stretched. Elisabeth, Arthur, and Asparagus Man all stood up and stretched too. I was the only one who did not move.
They all said it was time for bed. I said I was going to stay outside for a while and count more stars. Nobody tried to change my mind.
They all went inside, except Arthur, who gave Elisabeth a kiss and told her he would see her tomorrow. He smiled at me, picked up his bag from the ground, then looked up at the sky, like he was going to count stars too. My chest tightened. I wanted him to leave. I wanted to be alone.
Here is a list of the things I was feeling: pride, appreciation, sadness, gratitude, worry, anger, fear, loneliness, hope.
“Martin, I just wanted to say, the questions you are asking are interesting.”
His voice was not too loud and did not clash with the cricket song.
“Thank you,” I said, still looking up. I started to relax.
“I feel strange sometimes too,” he said. “Like I see stuff backward.”
