by Ariel Leve
THE LETTERS ARE now in a maroon folder. I have brought them with me to Bali. I am seated at a table outside when the folder is suddenly blown open by a gust of wind. Pages are hoisted up into the air, swirling in all directions. I reach for a nearby book and slam it on top of the folder so that the remaining letters are secure. I bolt from the chair to pursue the others. Eight or nine of them have scattered and dance in the air, circling me in a whirlpool of words. I pounce, leaping after my past, clutching at it, securing it down, refusing to let it blow away.
18
The year is 1976. My mother has appeared in an article in People magazine. She talks about her glamorous life as a poet. She says that unlike Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, she stays sane by connecting with other women’s concerns. “Depression is an indulgence,” she cheerfully tells the reporter. In her bathroom, the mirrored medicine cabinet above the porcelain sink is stocked with a variety of sepia-colored prescription pill bottles. Tranquilizers prescribed by her psychiatrist after or before one of her “nervous breakdowns.” There are a dozen of these bottles. Medications she takes for a while, then stops. The prescriptions were useless, she said, causing her to act crazy. “I’m not taking anything ever again,” she tells me. “Except the occasional Valium.”
In the magazine, there is a striking photograph of her sitting on the piano bench leaning against the Steinway grand. She is dressed in a sleeveless black evening gown with a slit that goes up to just below her hip bone. Silver stiletto sandals on her feet. Her hair has been styled by a hairdresser and looks shiny and sleek. The caption says she has been called “a blond Sophia Loren” by some admirers. Behind the piano there is a door that is closed. It is my bedroom.
The other photo is of her skipping rope in Central Park without a bra. Off to the left, I can be seen seated on the ground, watching her play. I am in the article, too. My room is described in detail as my mother comments on how it’s filled with books and poems she wrote for me—one to make table manners and chores more palatable. “She’s my daughter and my best friend,” she says. She has said this all my life.
“I SHARE WITH you, you share with me. That’s what mothers and daughters do.” It’s a command, not a choice. Withholding is a rejection. “I’m your best friend,” she announces.
But I don’t know that. All I know is that I have never responded that she is my best friend, too. What’s not written in the article is that I have never spent a single day alone with my mother. Ever.
THE THIRD PHOTO is of my mother wearing a silver fox fur Dr. Zhivago pillbox hat and reading from a book of her poems. She holds one arm out in the air in an animated pose. She would wear that hat when her hair was dirty, often putting it on when she woke up and leaving it on all day. When she took off the hat, I was embarrassed by her matted, messy hair. In the photo she is surrounded by a dozen friends—some seated on my bed, others standing or leaning against the windowsill. There is a cardboard cutout of her latest novel. In the foreground, there is a baby’s pram used for dolls. The photo was taken in my bedroom, where often her guests would congregate during her parties, invading my space whether I wanted them to or not. My mother would enter to give an impromptu reading of her poetry. My bedroom was a sanctuary for everyone but me.
19
When I first met Donald, my mother’s boyfriend, I was six years old. He was drinking then. Dewar’s on the rocks. I see him sitting with a drink in his hand on the white slipcovered sofa in the living room at 180. His gold pinkie ring gently tapping the side of the glass. He is waiting, patiently, for my mother to get dressed.
I didn’t like him at first. He was another one of my mother’s boyfriends who occupied her attention. I needed her and she needed him. But in time, I became as attached to him as she was. He stopped drinking when I was ten, and after that, I could rely on him. He tried his best to come to my mother’s rescue, but it was impossible not to disappoint her. With me, it was different. Donald never let me down.
DONALD WAS IN his late sixties when they got together. She playfully joked about how he was a lothario, a ladies’ man, a playboy, and it wasn’t entirely untrue. Women adored Donald because in New York City he stood out. He looked like Charles Bronson, with the rugged reserve of a seasoned cowboy. He was a savvy, successful entrepreneur who’d made a fortune as the founder of Tad’s Steaks, a chain of restaurants he started in 1957. This endeavor earned him the title “grandfather of the fast-food business.” My mother saw his ingenuity as a talent; he created something from nothing. The way she turned a blank page into a poem, he turned a steak into an empire.
DONALD CAME FROM a different world, one in which common sense prevailed. He was what my mother called a straight shooter. No nonsense. He didn’t maneuver. He wasn’t neurotic. He was a shrewd businessman with a level-headedness that extended to how he operated in life. My mother says, “I listen to everything Donald tells me. He’s the smartest man I know.”
He grew up in North Dakota, the son of a cattle rancher, and his work ethic and self-made success defined him. He often spoke about how no one ever gave him anything in life and he tried to rein in my mother’s belief that the world owed her. He was, above all else, tolerant. When it came to her, this was his weakness.
DONALD MOVED THROUGH my mother’s world with consummate ease. He was pleasant and gracious and his sense of humor was raunchy and often lewd—he loved dirty jokes.
His appearance was, like his manner, dependable. He would wear denim jackets and shirts with a Western bolo tie—braided leather with a metal tip. Unless he was in a suit, I don’t remember ever seeing him in anything other than blue jeans.
DONALD FOSTERED A feeling in my mother of being taken care of. He was her benefactor, boyfriend, accountant, therapist, adviser, father, confidant, champion, and friend. He found her amusing, endearing, outrageous, and “one of a kind.”
MY MOTHER IS in the bedroom getting dressed to go out for the evening, which means most likely she is running a bath while sitting naked on her bed, talking on the phone. Donald doesn’t yell at her to hurry up. He doesn’t stand up, walk to the bedroom to check on her progress. He just sits and waits until she appears. The most he will do is call out, “The reservation was for eight o’clock.”
At eight-thirty, she will appear. She looks glamorous when she is dressed up. Her hair is blown dry and she is wearing high heels from Charles Jourdan and a lavender silk dress. She smells of Joy perfume. He will take her out to dinner, probably to Nicola’s, Parma, or Elaine’s.
Sometimes, before they went out, my mother would come in my bedroom to say goodnight. She looked beautiful. I would say, “Hold footie,” and she would sit on the edge of my bed and hold my bare foot for a few minutes before she left. In those minutes she was there for me in the way that I needed. I felt reassured by her.
LATER THAT EVENING, when they return to the apartment, the argument begins. Donald tells her he doesn’t want to sleep over. This was something he’d let her know ahead of time, but that she’d ignored. She talks him into coming upstairs to discuss it further. And at the point he decides he’s had enough, he gets up to go home.
From my bedroom I overhear the raised voices.
“I’m leaving,” he states.
“No, you’re not!”
She rushes him like a wildebeest, to block this from happening. He shoves her aside, but it doesn’t deter her. They are both drunk, unaware of the volume or velocity of their savage aggression.
Donald is unable to defuse the explosion. He is willful.
“Move out of the way, woman,” he commands. Sharply. Dismissive. This makes it worse.
The shoving sounds frighten me the most. The scuffing of the shoes on the hardwood floors. The tussling noises are a violent explosive dance.
“No!” I hear the stomp of her foot. “You promised!”
He didn’t promise.
“I’m leaving,” he says. “Too bad.”
THIS WAS HOW the bedlam began. Sometimes before a party started, ea
rlier in the afternoon, I would check with my mother to see if Donald was sleeping over that night. Because the nights he agreed to sleep over were negotiated ahead of time, and when I knew in advance it was a sleepover night, I felt less anxious. I could relax. But often, as the night went on, she would provoke an argument and it would escalate and the verbal attack would become intolerable and then he would change his mind. That’s when the assault would start.
Nothing will contain it. Their breathing is too loud and the recklessness is too frenzied. They are determined. Uninhibited and out of control.
I squeeze the pillow over my head and shut my eyes so tight that they ache. I can still hear the shoving, the sliding and slipping around, as they wrestle and he struggles to regain his balance and composure and pry himself away from her clutches.
“Owwwww, you’re pulling my hair out!” she wails. “You’re killing me—you’re killing me!” There is more shoving. “I’m bleeding—owwwwww—ARIEL, CALL THE POLICE!”
I jump up out of my bed and fling open my door. I see his hair in her hand—clumps of his white hair would be on the floor. His face is scratched, blood drawn by her long red fingernails. I stand frozen in my nightgown.
“Please, Mommy, let him go—let him go home!” I plead. “Let him go home!”
I am afraid for his safety, not hers.
She barricades the front door, not allowing him to leave. Her bathrobe is open and untied and Donald is fully dressed with his jacket on. He is trying to move her out of the way to no avail.
“You’re not leaving me!”
My mother is unaware of my presence as I stand by, watching her try to push him back to her bedroom. It is a lurch of graceless abandon.
“Mommy, stop!” I shout.
“Let go of me!” She spits this at Donald, who is trying to protect himself.
“Stop!” I shout.
I am a phantom presence. Standing there sobbing, as though I’m not making a sound.
The fighting is feral. She bites his hand as he tries to silence her. He tries to peel her off him.
“Call the police!” she screams again. “He’s trying to kill me!”
“Stop!” I shout, hysterical. “Please stop!”
MY MOTHER HUGS his calves so that he can’t move, but he drags her across the carpet to the elevator. The gates open and Charlie, the elevator man who works the night shift, waits as my mother and Donald continue to brawl.
“I’m going with you!” my mother shouts, pursuing him. Once the elevator doors shut, I am unable to calm down. Josie appears in her nightgown and takes me to her room off the kitchen; I crawl into bed with her so that I can sleep. I take slow, deep breaths to stop my heart from beating too fast, and she pats the back of my head in steady strokes. I am shaking and Josie’s presence—her body next to mine—helps to settle me down. I lie next to her, relieved that my mother is out of the apartment, that the raging scene is over. I close my eyes, hoping she stays away and spends the night at Donald’s.
THE FIGHT WITH Donald would continue in the lobby and then out on the sidewalk in front of the building. In the morning, when I went to my mother’s room to wake her up, I would know, if she wasn’t there, that she had insisted on staying the night at Donald’s house, and unable to get rid of her and weary from the effort, he had relented.
I WOULD LEAVE for school, and when I returned in the afternoon, she would be in her bedroom, happily typing away. She would wave me over, greet me with an effusive smile, and demand an affectionate greeting. “Ariel, darling, love of my life, come give Mommy a kiss! I am so happy to see you. How was school today?”
“It was fine,” I’d reply in a brooding voice, conveying an indifference a nine-year-old doesn’t yet understand.
She didn’t appreciate my attitude. “Don’t you want to give Mommy a kiss hello?”
I’d shake my head.
“She never kisses me,” she’d complain to whoever was around. “I can’t understand it.”
20
How could someone with so much feel so deprived? You look around at all the things you were given. Things that were purchased. Chairs that were reupholstered. You are told that the attention was there. That care was given, deeply felt. Renouncing this must be a failure of character. My force of rebellion is unwarranted. But emotional truth is at odds with reality. There were privileges, yes. Education, inspiration, encouragement, support. And there were riches. But the riches didn’t compensate. The privilege didn’t mollify. They were there, but they were decorative. The turmoil couldn’t be refunded. The memories couldn’t be reupholstered. Privilege was never about neighborhood. It was never about status. Or items. Or things.
PRIVILEGE WOULD HAVE been falling asleep at night without fear about what would happen as the night went on. Privilege would have been not being woken up with terror. Privilege would have been not having to disown negative feelings or suppress them because those feelings were not permitted. Not being punished for responding appropriately to inappropriate behavior. Privilege would have been not being held responsible for the stability of my mother’s psyche. Privilege would have been stability. An indemnity from being idealized one minute, devalued the next. Privilege would have been a parent capable of empathy. A protector.
SHE EMPHASIZES THE world she has provided for me and my lack of gratitude. It disturbs her. She tells me, “Count your blessings. You don’t know how good you have it.” She says this as a reproach. I have taken advantage of her. I am a taker. “You don’t appreciate what you have. Do I not give you everything you’ve ever wanted?”
There is the list. Everything is on it from the day I was born. A penthouse apartment. A bedroom of my own, with books and toys and a closet full of shoes. A private school. Piano lessons. A beautiful childhood. Happy. Not like hers. I had an exceptional mother. Who wanted me. An artist. A poet. A mentor. A friend. I was surrounded by artistic freedom and an affluence of advantage and opportunity. I was not living in squalor. I was not naked. I was not hungry.
The catalog of what she has given includes time, attention, and love. And what she has paid for. The numbers seem inflated, but I can’t argue. It was her money. She did spend it. I took from her. The appreciation has to be infinite. Any complaint is baseless. “Stop whining,” she says. “Don’t be a victim.”
SHE SACRIFICED HER career for me. She sacrificed her personal life for me. She could have had, she could have done, she could have saved, she could have gone. This is her narrative. It is indisputable. She gave up everything. Everything. For me.
HER DISTORTIONS ARE not always detectable to others. Disputing them requires a special magnifying glass. An X-ray of the truth. I am reluctant to explain myself for fear of whining. The adversity, when measured, feels slight.
IN 2011, I was commissioned to do an interview with a woman who had survived the Holocaust, seeking refuge from the Nazis in the sewers of Lvov, Poland. The memoir she’d written had been made into a film nominated that year for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards. During the war, she had been forced with her family to go underground to hide, and with the help of a Catholic man who worked in the sewer, they were able to live for fourteen months in the city sewer’s system. She was seven years old at the time.
I took a train to her home on the North Shore of Long Island, a two-hour ride from Manhattan. What was it that compelled her to overcome her tragic circumstances? The message of her memoir was life-affirming. She did not view herself as a victim. She did not feel handicapped by her past. I need to know: what was it that made this possible?
It was a frigid winter day and I could see my breath when I stepped off the train onto the outdoor platform of the station. The overcast sky put me at ease. I began the walk from the train station to her house. She had suggested I take a taxi, but I wanted to stroll through a suburban neighborhood and embrace the anonymity of passing by the conventional landscape where no one knew where I was. I walked briskly, avoiding the ice on the ground. A series of roads and hills and
nondescript modest houses.
We spoke for a while. The tragedy of her childhood did not diminish her. It did not break her. It was a painful period of her life, but the legacy was not painful. She told me her story, and afterward, as I ride the train back to Manhattan, I fixate on what shaped her sensibility.
Throughout the fourteen months the family spent underground, her mother and father were always optimistic. Despite the uncertainty, the inhuman conditions, the lack of fresh air, the stench, and the threat of death, they never gave in to despair. She felt endangered by circumstances, but protected by love.
This, I believed, was the formula for not being crippled by anger. A consistent optimism that was indestructible. It enabled her to defy the circumstances.
I HAD FRIENDS whose families owned cosmic Park Avenue apartments and country houses in the Hamptons. When I visited them, what I envied was not their properties, but a chance to spend time in a home without conflict. I had friends whose families lived in walk-ups on narrow streets in darkened neighborhoods and whose bedroom windows faced brick walls. When I visited them, what I envied was a chance to spend time in a home without feeling on edge. Serenity was affluence. Consistency was opulence. I didn’t care about the neighborhood. The status. Or the paintings on the wall. I valued moments that were not fraught and tumultuous. Time with my father. Time with Rita. Privilege was when I was not saturated with despair that didn’t belong to me. When I could be my own person and enjoy the advantage that others came by naturally: feeling safe in my home.
