Godmother Night

by Rachel Pollack

  “No, Kate darling. You are the only one of you who has ever existed.”

  “Oh.”

  Kate was silent all the way down the stairs. When they got into the car, however, Kate said, “Do you know Uncle Mark and Aunt Louise?”

  Godmother shrugged and waved her hand. “Oh, I know everybody,” she said.

  In the car on the way back to school that day, Kate thought about the grown-ups in her life, and what they thought or knew about her godmother. She wished she could ask her mother. Her real mother, that is. She loved Laurie-Mommy very much, but she just couldn’t talk to her. If her Jaqe-Mommy hadn’t died, Kate bet, she could have told Kate all about Godmother. And they could all do things together. She wished Jaqe-Mommy could have come and looked at the star with them. Jaqe-Mommy would have liked Godmother and wouldn’t have told Kate not to talk about her.

  Kate knew this because of the time she had asked Godmother about her name. She’d been almost five at the time, and it suddenly struck her that she’d always just called her Godmother, and didn’t even know her name. That night she pretended to fall asleep until Laurie had left the bedroom and closed the door. Then Kate had scrunched her face up and squeezed her hands and whispered, “I want my godmother to come.” When she opened her eyes, there stood Godmother, wearing the patchwork dress Kate loved so much.

  “What’s your name?” Kate asked her after she’d hugged her and kissed her, and Godmother was sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Well, that’s not so easy to answer. I have a great many names.”

  “You mean like middle names? My middle name is Alice.”

  “Yes, darling,” Godmother said. “I know.” She stroked Kate’s cheek. “But that’s not really what I meant. You see, I move around a great deal. And when I go to so many places, it’s just much easier for people in each place to call me something in their own language.”

  “But what’s your real name?”

  Godmother put her face closer to Kate’s, as if she was telling her a special secret. “Call me Mother Night,” she whispered.

  “Mother Night?” Kate repeated, keeping her voice equally low. “That’s not a name. That’s—” She couldn’t think of the word she wanted. “It’s like a book.”

  “Ah,” said Godmother. “You mean a title.” She nodded her head slightly. “But you know,” she said, “it’s not really a title. My name, that is. Older women used to be called Mother all the time. And Night is a perfectly good name, don’t you think?” Before Kate could answer, Godmother added, “And most of all, dear, it’s the name your mother calls me.”

  “Laurie?” Kate said.

  Godmother smiled. “Jaqe.”

  Kate’s mouth fell open. “You knew my Mommy Jaqe?”

  “I know her very well,” Mother Night said. “She asked me to look after you, because she misses you so much.”

  Kate smiled happily. After a moment, the smile faded, as she thought about what Godmother had said. She asked, “Can dead people miss people?”

  “Of course,” Mother Night said. “Living people miss dead people, isn’t that true? You miss Jaqe, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” Kate said.

  Godmother laughed a little. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. Not really miss her, that is. You were very young at the time.”

  “Can I go see her?” Kate asked.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Yes. I want to see her.”

  Godmother touched Kate’s shoulder, but Kate jerked away. Godmother said, “It’s just not possible.”

  “It is!” Kate shouted. She jumped out of bed. “If she misses me so much, why won’t you let me see her?” With Laurie, Kate knew, she could sometimes get what she wanted just by saying it enough. But now Godmother took Kate’s shoulders in her hands, holding her in a grip that didn’t hurt but wouldn’t let her squirm away. Not that she didn’t try. She thrashed about saying, “It is! It is! I want to see her!” while Godmother said nothing at all until finally Kate just stopped, breathing very fast and very loudly.

  They stood there for a while, Kate shaking, Godmother on one knee to look Kate in the face. “I will make you a promise,” Godmother said finally. “As soon as it becomes possible, I will take you to see her. All right?”

  “I guess,” Kate said.

  “Good.” Godmother stood up and took Kate’s hand. “Now you need to go back to bed.” She picked Kate up and set her down on the mattress, next to Nora, Kate’s stuffed lion. “Goodnight,” Godmother said, and kissed her cheek. As Kate closed her eyes, she wondered when she would get to meet Jaqe. And then she wondered why Laurie hadn’t come running in when Kate had shouted at Mother Night. And then she stopped wondering about anything much at all as she fell asleep.

  If it frustrated Kate that she couldn’t see her Jaqe-Mommy, it bothered her much more that she couldn’t tell people about her godmother. After all, Laurie just didn’t like Godmother for some reason. That was too bad, but there really was nothing she could do about it. But if other people didn’t know Kate’s godmother, they could hardly dislike her, could they? So it was so unfair that Kate couldn’t talk about her.

  Actually, it wasn’t that Godmother forbid her. Mother Night didn’t seem worried about it at all (except that she didn’t want to upset Laurie). The problem was, people just didn’t believe Kate. In school she found this out early, when she tried to tell a girl named Sylvia about a trip she had taken with Godmother in a balloon. The balloon was bright red with white stripes, and they had flown so high all the houses looked smaller than the houses on the train set Sylvia’s brother acted so creepy about. (That was why she’d told Sylvia instead of anyone else, because it was such a good joke on Sylvia’s brother.) They’d flown so high that Kate had gotten to wear Cara’s red leather jacket. (Cara was one of Godmother’s friends. There were five of them and they were the coolest women in the world; they rode real motorcycles, and sometimes Godmother would let one of them take Kate for a ride.) Up there, they found themselves among a whole bunch of crows, big black things flapping and flapping just to keep their place while they all cawed and cawed. Godmother said they were having a conference, which was like a big meeting, to try and decide something they’d been arguing about for a very long time. Godmother had explained it to her, but Kate didn’t really pay attention. She just liked listening to the sound of them all cawing at each other. Finally, Godmother said that Kate needed to get back to school. Cara played around with the balloon for a bit, and then they floated down to Earth.

  When afternoon recess came, Kate pulled Sylvia over behind the jungle gym and told her everything. But instead of getting excited, or laughing at how the birds sounded, Sylvia just looked at Kate like she was really weird. Finally, Sylvia said, “That’s stupid. That’s a stupid story, and you’re stupid.”

  “It’s not,” Kate said, and soon, before she even realized it, she and Sylvia were pushing and pulling at each other. Kate won, kind of, because Sylvia ended up running away, though she stopped a few feet back and shouted, “I don’t care! It’s still stupid.”

  That afternoon, when Laurie offered to take Kate over to see her friend Jeannette, Kate said no, she just wanted to stay home. She tried to sound cheerful, but she must have messed it up, because Laurie kept saying, “Sweetheart? Pumpkin? Is something wrong?” and poor Kate had to keep saying no, she was okay, until finally Laurie just let her watch TV, though every now and then she’d look at her with her worried-mommy face.

  The next morning, everything seemed all right again. Kate woke up Laurie by sneaking up to her on the sofa bed and tickling her feet, which gave both of them a chance to tickle and hug each other before they had to get dressed and eat breakfast. It was always easiest for Laurie to hug Kate first thing in the morning, before she had any time to think about it. School went fine, but then right before the bell rang, Mrs. MacCracken gave Kate a note and told her to give it to her mother. “I’ll expect an answer back,” she said, “so make sure you give it to
her.”

  Kate didn’t exactly give Laurie the note, but she did allow Laurie to find it when she emptied Kate’s frog-shaped lunchbox. Kate was playing with a toy fire truck, pretending that the two little figures on top were a handsome prince and a beautiful princess, when Laurie called her in to the kitchen. Kate stared at the floor as Laurie said, “This is a note from Mrs. MacCracken. She says you’re making up stories. Is that true?” (To herself, Laurie thought, What a ridiculous question, but she managed to keep from smiling.) Kate said nothing. “Well?” Laurie said. “I want to know.”

  It was so unfair! Kate thought. All she’d done was tell the truth, but now she was going to have to lie and pretend that she’d lied. When she hadn’t. Otherwise, Laurie would find out she’d lied about not seeing Godmother anymore.

  Laurie was standing with her arms folded and all her weight on one leg. “I’m still waiting,” she said. “Did you make up stories?”

  “I guess,” Kate said.

  “You guess?”

  “I just told Sylvia. That’s all. And it’s her fault, anyway, because she said I was stupid.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t say that. That’s not a nice word. But what did you tell her?”

  “That I—that we went up in a big balloon and we could see all the houses.”

  Laurie bent down next to her. She stroked Kate’s shoulder for a moment, but then she pulled back her arm. She said, “I guess that doesn’t really sound so bad. Is that what you’d like to do, sweetheart? Go up in a balloon?”

  “Yeah,” Kate said. “It’s real cool. You can see birds flying up close.” Maybe if Laurie liked the idea, the next time Mother Night came to take Kate in a balloon, they could bring Laurie along. She imagined them flying over Sylvia’s house and dropping things on her until she’d look up and they all could make faces and wave.

  Laurie said, “Well, maybe sometime for a special day we can find someplace that gives balloon rides.”

  Kate tried to sound enthusiastic as she said okay.

  Laurie switched now to her teacher-mommy voice. “But you have to remember, sweetie, it’s okay to tell people stories, but you have to admit you made them up. Otherwise, they won’t like it.”

  Kate managed to stop herself from screaming, I didn’t make it up.

  Laurie went on, “Telling stories is good, but only if we do it for fun. If we do it to impress people and it didn’t really happen, that’s not so good. Do you understand?”

  “I guess,” Kate said.

  Laurie stood up. She said, “Good. Then I’ll write Mrs. MacCracken a note saying we talked about it and it won’t happen again.”

  “Okay,” Kate said, and then she went back to her prince and princess, sending them to put out a fire in the royal palace.

  But Kate hadn’t really finished with the question. The next time she saw her godmother, before Mother Night could even say if she planned anything special for them, Kate said, “Can we go fly in the balloon again? And can we take Sylvia?” But Godmother said no. Even when Kate pleaded and begged, and offered to pay her a quarter, Godmother refused. “But I want to show her I’m not lying,” Kate said.

  “Of course,” Godmother said. “Few things draw us more powerfully than vindication. But I’m afraid, Kate, it simply will not work. Even if you could convince Sylvia, so that she completely supported you, the others would turn against you both. I’m afraid, Kate, there are some battles no one can win.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care about any others. I just want to show Sylvia.”

  Godmother shook her head. “No. And I will tell you why. We could take Sylvia with us everywhere, show her everything, and she still would not believe. She would refuse to see. She would think we were tricking her. Kate, darling, people believe what they have learned to believe. Never anything more, and never anything less. If you show them something different, they just will not hear it or see it. I’m sorry, dear, but that is simply the way people are.”

  “But I’m not like that,” Kate said.

  Godmother smiled happily. “That’s because I’ve been visiting you since you were a baby.”

  After her fight with Sylvia, Kate decided she really didn’t like most kids very much. It was so much more fun to do things with Godmother and the Motorcycle Girls. The girls didn’t come along all the time, so it felt very special when they did. Their names were Gloria, Lillian, Amy, Cara, and Ester. Sometimes only one or two came along, maybe to drive Godmother’s big blue car while Godmother played with Kate in the backseat. At other times all of them showed up, and they’d go roaring down the road, Godmother in her car with Kate next to her, the MGs all alongside or behind. They drove very fast, it seemed, at least a lot faster than Grandpa Lang in his station wagon. And no one ever got in their way, and they never had to stop for a light. It was so much fun that Kate never got bored, or hungry, or even needed to go to the bathroom.

  Best of all was when Godmother let Kate ride with one of the MGs. Usually it was Cara, who talked in a tough voice and looked a little like a boy, with her short hair and small breasts and hips, and her hard hands, as if she worked outside in winter and never wore any gloves. But she also was very gentle with Kate, helping her climb over things if they were out walking in some rocky field, or giving Kate her jacket to wear if they went someplace cold.

  Kate loved wearing Cara’s jacket. Even though it reached all the way down past her behind, and her hands disappeared inside the sleeves, and it weighed so much her shoulders hurt the next day, she always got excited wearing it, and pretending to walk tough, like Cara. They all said she looked like one of them, with her red hair. She could have been their kid sister. She wished Godmother would give her her own jacket, but Godmother only promised to do so “later,” whenever that was. She could imagine how cool it would look, the dark red leather with the ridges on the shoulders, the gold silk lining, and the words “Mother Night” stitched on the back, above that funny picture of the circles with lines in them. “Mother Night” were the first words that Kate ever learned to write. Even before Godmother told her that was her name, Kate learned the words by tracing her finger endlessly over the letters on Cara’s jacket while she sat on the back of her motorcycle.

  Though Cara was Kate’s favorite, she also loved Lillian and Amy. Lillian was extremely tall and very beautiful, with hair that was almost as short as Cara’s, but somehow didn’t look at all like a boy. The same with her voice, which sounded even deeper than Cara’s. Amy looked more like a girl than the others. She had long curly hair, and big soft breasts, and a bottom that rolled when she walked. At home Kate sometimes tried walking first like Cara and then Amy (though never Lillian, who moved in some kind of way that Kate loved to look at but could never figure out). Amy wore more makeup than the others. Sometimes she even wore a dress, usually with lots of color and pictures of flowers. Kate didn’t see Gloria or Ester as often. Godmother said they had to do errands for her, and Kate imagined them riding their motorcycles into the supermarket to pick up a chocolate cake or a bottle of milk. But they were still Motorcycle Girls, and so Kate loved them.

  And if the Motorcycle Girls weren’t enough friends, Kate could play with the dead people. Kate was almost six before she realized that not everybody could play or talk with dead people. Godmother had taken her to see them so often she just thought everybody knew them. She only began to understand when Louise came over one day all unhappy and crying, and when Laurie was making tea for her, Louise said something about her aunt dying and how bad Louise felt that she never got to tell her something. “Well, why don’t you go tell her?” Kate said. “Then you can make her happy.”

  Laurie said, “That’s very sweet, honey.”

  Kate said, “Well, why doesn’t she then?”

  Louise bent down to hold Kate’s shoulders. She was crying. “Little Kate,” she said, “that’s really kind of you. And I wish, I really wish I could do that. But we can’t really talk to dead people, you know. That’s what makes it so sad when people
die.” Kate said nothing.

  The next time she saw her godmother, Kate asked her, “Can’t most people talk to dead people?”

  “I’m afraid not, darling Kate,” Godmother said. “It’s something I do and the girls do. And you do it because you come with us. Do you understand that?”

  Kate nodded. “I think so.” Then she added, “But why don’t they?”

  “People used to,” Godmother said. “But a long time ago people got scared. And so they stopped doing it, and they didn’t teach their children, and soon everyone forgot. And now, they can’t even hear or see the dead when the dead are standing in front of them.”

  The funny thing was, the dead sometimes did just that—stand in front of people waving their arms or making funny noises. This didn’t happen all that often. Most dead people kept to themselves, either alone or in groups. But sometimes one dead, or a group of them, would go all crazy and run around in traffic jams, banging on car windows and waving their arms, or else dance all around people walking in the street. Kate just thought it so funny that dead people could go right up to someone’s face and stick their tongues out or jump up and down, and the living person would go right on talking to friends about where to go for dinner, or how you couldn’t take children to the movies anymore because of the violence.

  Actually, the “raucous dead,” as Godmother called them, didn’t act up very often. Most of the dead people Kate saw didn’t bother living people much. Sometimes they just stood and looked at things. She would see them standing at a bus stop reading the sign over and over. Or else she’d see one examining a door, or staring down into a garbage pail. Others were more cheerful. They played music on big radios and danced up and down the street, waving their arms and strutting. When they danced, Kate loved to watch them. She would ask her godmother to stop the car and let her out to dance with them. Sometimes Godmother refused, saying they were going someplace special (like the day with the dying star), but other times they all got out and danced. Kate would wave her arms and stamp, the MGs would clap their hands, and even Mother Night once or twice twirled about, holding out the ends of her dress like a bright banner of many colors.