God's Callgirl

by Carla Van Raay

  THE VASE SHATTERS

  IN 1993, MY father turned eighty. He was ill from cancer that was devouring his bowel at a ferocious rate. It was thought that he would not live very much longer, so I flew over to stay at my sister Liesbet’s house, to be at his side. My two other sisters also flew in, Berta from Fremantle and Teresa from Canberra. We didn’t want our father to die in a hospital.

  Only six months before, he had hesitantly confided to me in his kitchen that he was suffering pain in his abdomen. He had groaned with the weight in his bowels and I should have suspected that something was really wrong at the time. My father rarely let on that he was in pain and his groan had been more than a complaint—it sounded like a ship sinking into the deep.

  It was so strange that he was to die before our mother. She had been in a nursing home for a whole year already, and he had been dreaming of the time he would be free, when he was no longer required to pick her up and wheel her around on her twice-weekly outings. It had been a painful decision to admit our mother to a nursing home. She had begged us with tears not to leave her in that place with the awful smells, the crowded conditions that meant she had to eat her meals on her lap for want of a dining room, and where corpses were carried out the back door so nobody would notice anyone had died in there, where there was nothing else to do. It was no wonder that her response to this environment was to become introspective, then senile—a deterioration increased by the medications she took for pain. And yet she was still physically robust, while her husband had only weeks to live.

  The four of us made a roster and tended our father day and night. His strength left him measurably every day; he watched this with incredulity. He had undergone an operation, but it had been too late: the cancer had spread upwards and into his lungs. Knowing that his time was limited, he had travelled to his beloved Germany for the last time, to say goodbye to family members there. He had to cut the visit short because of pain; he wryly remarked that he had flown back first class without being able to touch the free whisky.

  He would test out his still-strong legs and arms, shaking his head with disbelief, but soon he had to rely on a walking stick, then a walking frame, to get his trembling body around. It was awesome to watch the man who had once terrorised us, now become dependent on us, like a baby.

  It was so difficult for him. It was a while before he had the courage to ask us to clean his dentures, and let us see his shrunken face without them. The time came when he couldn’t wipe himself after letting go his evil-smelling faeces. His skin had become softer than a baby’s, so paperthin that he begged for gentleness as he stood there. Yet he would eat lots of food, as if this would somehow return his strength. In the end, we told him gently that the doctor had said he should only eat when really hungry. ‘What goes in has to come out again, so there’s no point,’ the doctor had said. My father silently considered this and acted on it immediately. From then on, only the ration provided passed his lips; he asked for nothing more. His acquiescence moved me deeply. It was a sign that he had accepted he was dying.

  It was one of my father’s last remaining pleasures to leave his bed at two every afternoon and install himself in front of the television to watch ‘Days of Our Lives’. For countless years, he and my mother had been spellbound by these beautiful, greedy men and women who reliably betrayed each other, year in, year out. I had the miserable bad luck, once, to arrive from the airport on one of my visits from Western Australia while my parents were watching their favourite show. The front door wasn’t locked, so I went in, announcing my arrival in a loud and cheery voice. No one came to greet me. I found them in the living room, their faces riveted to the demon screen. Without speaking, my father beckoned me imperiously to come in and sit down on the couch. My mother acknowledged my presence with a half glance as I crossed the path of her vision, without actually moving her head or meeting my eyes, her face contorted into an apologetic smile. I had arrived at crunch time for one of the characters. At last, they sighed deeply and I knew that it would soon be over and we’d have a cup of tea.

  My father continued his addiction to the lives of those dreadful sham males and bitchy women. We sat with him to keep him company, taking a risk that the sticky soap opera might rub off on us. About ten days before he died, he suddenly shook his head, uttered a loud, ‘Tch! Tch!’ through loosening false teeth, and wondered out loud how anyone could watch such awful stuff. ‘It’s disgusting what those people do to each other,’ he said, as if he had been asked for his opinion and this was his first ever review of the show. ‘How can they put on terrible shows like that!’ He got up to hobble back to his bed. We looked at each other openmouthed at this sudden sign of sane disillusionment. Was our father becoming enlightened?

  We four sisters shared a cup of tea in the kitchen while our father slept and discussed whether his frequent anger might have contributed to his physical condition. We could not accept that cancer can strike people for no reason. His outdoor lifestyle had been very healthy. Perhaps the destruction of his life-long efforts in the convent gardens had eaten away at him? Maybe our mother’s constant belittling of him had finally taken its toll? He had endured it so long and so bitterly. And his diet hadn’t been too good. He had been a closet chocaholic ever since he gave up smoking ten years previously.

  No one can really know what causes an illness, but I felt, rightly or wrongly, that the unresolved secrets and conflicts of the past had played the most important part. Our father had never finished any relationship business: he lived in unresolved conflict with every member of his large family, and with several other people in his life, such as Mother Albion. There were many skeletons in my father’s past, which might have taken up residence in his gut, to wreak their terrible havoc there.

  I hoped so much during those last weeks that my father would open his heart to us, tell us the things he regretted having done, ask our forgiveness and die in utter bliss surrounded by his broken-hearted family.

  He came close on two occasions: the first when we were sitting outside under a tree in dappled shade. I read while he sat silently musing to himself. ‘I’ve told Father Ben everything,’ he said to me after a while. ‘And that makes it all right now, doesn’t it?’

  Father Ben had heard my father’s confessions for many years, but the ‘doesn’t it?’ expressed a lurking doubt. I could see a tension in his face that wasn’t caused only by physical pain. I took my chances then and said, ‘Only you know if everything’s all right, Pa, or if you need to fix up anything with people as well as with God.’ I dared not be more explicit. My father laboured under the impression that no one in the family knew his secrets.

  He knitted his brows. He had to constantly confirm to himself that the Big Boss, as he called his Catholic God, had it all stitched up for him, in spite of his inner turmoil. And to the Big Boss he surrendered himself, like a good boy willing to accept anything from a stern father who knows best. He accepted his suffering as a punishment: the Big Boss was doing this to him for his own good. He repeatedly requested that no one should give him any medicines which might speed up his dying; he wanted his obedience to be absolute. When we finally administered the morphine by drip, he said he was frightened of being ‘bumped off’ and would only believe the word of the visiting nurse about his medication.

  ‘I am peaceful,’ he said suddenly, the next time we were both sitting outside again, enjoying the fresh air. I sat a little distance apart from him with my book. Chit-chat was not appropriate and he had rejected my offer of reading aloud to him. He was absorbing as best he could the queer fact of his dying, and the knowledge that he would be gone before his wife, after all.

  I replied, ‘I know you are peaceful, Pa, but I wish you could also be happy.’

  He looked extremely pensive at that, but I went back to my book. He piped up again to ask, ‘How do you know I’m not happy, Carla?’

  It was then that I let him down. I felt the deep import of his question, but didn’t give myself time to absorb it or do
him justice with my reply. Instead I fended him off in a way I later regretted more than I can say.

  ‘You know if you’re happy or not, Dad,’ I spluttered, then allowed my mind to blank out, unable to receive the sudden gift of his trust. It had been my cue and I had muffed it. I forgot to call on my own God or summon an angel to help me at that time. In the hour of his greatest need, or perhaps at a brief moment of unusual potential, I wasn’t there for him. Even when he repeated his question, I gave him the same inadequate answer, poor man.

  Still, there was an unexpected change in my father. Two nuns, old friends through long association, came to visit him and when they came out of the sick room one of them relayed an important message to me. It was Sister Victoire, our oldest friend, who had been charged to tell me that he was ‘sorry for being so hard on Carla’. My heart almost stopped, my mouth gaped open.

  I went in to see him shortly afterwards, when they had left. My father did not even look into my eyes, simply said in self-justification, ‘You were always so wilful, Carla,’ and turned his head. Did he remember then the absolute terror he had instilled in me in order to crush me into silence about his own wicked actions? He had apologised for being ‘so hard’, but not directly to me. I was breathless, nevertheless: it was the best he could do. It told me that his extraordinary violence had weighed on him, and he was sorry.

  The great secret of his other demeanours had been for the priest’s ears only and would not be discussed with the people he had hurt. It was too much to expect him to break his heart right open; even the knowledge of his impending death wasn’t going to breach his reticence. I cried inside, for both of us. What does it take, if leaving the body, the planet and your family for ever, doesn’t break down resistance? But in those last remaining days, he was loving and tender to all of us, giving us embraces which touched our hearts very deeply. He was showing love, and we could feel the realness of it. And yet he wouldn’t die a totally happy man, choosing instead to cling to his faith, which promised total forgiveness through confession to a priest, and daring his God to be true to him.

  MY MOTHER, MORE lucid during those extraordinary days than on many a previous occasion, asked to be brought to her dying husband’s side. She was dressed and groomed by a kindly nurse who had taken a special interest in her welfare. A taxi designed for wheelchairs brought her the few kilometres, and I wheeled her into the spacious room where her husband—who had gloated that he would make the most of life after she had gone—lay propped up on a small mountain of pillows. His eyes showed deep pleasure at this gesture from the woman who had always claimed to know better than him in any situation. She was now so frail and yet still assertive. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes intense, her face animated by an inner light as she approached him. I placed her wheelchair close to the bed, following her unspoken directions, and quietly left the room. I turned just before I closed the door and was transfixed by what I saw.

  My mother’s thin arm lay on his bed, her wasted twisted hand in his big bony one, and they were simply looking at each other, in wordless love. The light around them was almost visible; it shone with utter delight and passion from the eyes of my father, whose transfigured face I was able to see. The miracle of their love filled the room with a tangible vibrancy. Both of them were facing their impending final parting, and there was no room for anything else now but the utter truth of their love.

  I understood in a flash how they had loved each other all their lives, truly loved each other deeply, even as they fought, betrayed, hated and belittled each other. Many people who had watched them, like me, had said, ‘Why don’t you go your own ways, for God’s sake!’ But in those sacred moments of grace, they forgave each other utterly and were wedded again, this time as true lovers, not out for themselves but there to give their all at last. I realised that it had been mistaken of me to judge anything that had gone on between them in the past—only they knew how much of it was exactly what they had wanted.

  IN SPITE OF our rostered vigil, our father was alone when he breathed his last at four o’clock in the morning after our mother’s visit. None of us had slept much that night. We were in the kitchen, having a cup of tea, when we sensed more than heard his gasp, and ran in to see his pitifully gaping open mouth, no longer able to suck in air. It was crying out to heaven. My father’s spirit had begun the journey out of his body to freedom.

  Luckily, there were at least four hours before the undertakers came to take him away—time enough for my brothers to see him briefly for the last time. I wanted to leave him undisturbed as long as possible, to allow his spirit to completely leave the body, but my sisters—more troubled by death—insisted on the body’s speedy removal.

  The undertakers arrived. It was a Sunday—and so early that the two young men, dressed in neat black suits, had not fully recovered from their Saturday night out. They were silent and respectful, concentrating as precisely on their job as they could, aware that I was watching their every move. The stretcher, covered with an open plastic body bag, was placed beside the bed and they heaved the grotesque but oh so familiar form onto it.

  It was absolutely strange to me that my father, still dressed in his pyjamas, did nothing to stop this indignity. His still-supple and very tall body sagged in the middle and his arms and hands, no longer controlled by any consciousness, fell down either side. It was the sight of his strong, now lifeless hands that moved me most, no longer able to assert themselves in this world, finally useless. The undertakers tucked them into the black plastic bag, which they then zipped over his face.

  ‘Will the family want to see the body?’ we were asked. We said no; all of us had seen him. For the moment, we had forgotten about our mother. My father’s body was spared the disturbance of being embalmed, which meant being disembowelled, but the undertakers were not pleased when my mother insisted on seeing her dead husband a full day later. They managed a surprisingly pleasing presentation nevertheless, dressing my father in his best suit.

  After the undertakers had left that Sunday morning, we all sat together, stunned in spite of the long expectation of our father’s death. I was about to learn something new about myself. For an unacknowledged part of me, my father’s death was a moment of triumph, because I was still alive. In spite of the years of therapy—which had indeed transformed most of my sorrow, anger and fear into compassion for my parents—there was a tiny bitter corner where a spider lived. And she was about to unload her venom.

  ‘I wonder how much money he left after all he spent on prostitutes. The funny thing is, we all knew about it anyway,’ I added.

  The words drifted into silent space. My sisters were too dazed to answer. But my comments weren’t really aimed at my sisters; they were meant for the spirit I knew was hovering in the vicinity. In that moment when my father’s spirit might have been utterly vulnerable, I gave him this treacherous spider-woman’s bite because I was bitterly angry that he hadn’t found it in himself to be totally open with me. Everything had been kept under the carpet right to the very last. And religion had given him the means to do this with impunity.

  As soon as the words were out, I was pulled up by the impact of having said them. In the atmosphere around us, I could feel the chaotic emotional response of my dead father. I felt ill, realising that my revenge would have its own bitter consequences. The dead are helpless, after all, in our hands.

  Deep sorrow enveloped my heart. I wept for a long time after that, not only for the loss of my father but for the cruel way I had chosen to take my revenge on him. I begged his forgiveness in the darkness of the nights following; then, finally, had the conversation I’d always wished I’d had with him in life, pouring out my pain, telling him how it had been for me. I forgave him then, really and truly. I had wanted him to be open towards me, but how open had I been towards him? He had always done his best, and in his dying days he had surpassed himself magnificently. It had been my mistake to think I knew better and that he should have gone further.

  I did no
t stay for my father’s funeral. It was the middle of the Melbourne football season, which made it impossible to change my flight without having to pay extra for a first-class ticket. The main work had been done, as far as I was concerned, and I could not face the awful sentimentality of the religious ceremony that would accompany the burial.

  As it happened, it rained and rained on the day of the funeral and everyone got so wet that it was impossible to distinguish tears from the streaks of rain on their faces. A little under a year later, the same thing happened when my mother was buried beside him, in the same patch of mud. I heard all about both occasions, back in Western Australia. Sadly, I missed out on the opportunities of being intimately present with the other members of my family. I couldn’t have endured it, I told myself. What did I really know about what my father needed to heal? It was I who needed to continue to heal myself.

  NOTHING COULD EVER be the same again.

  I used my increasing spare time to write about my family history, which was becoming an important process for me, and to keep a daily journal of what was going on inside me. I did just enough massage work to keep myself alive.

  As before, I compromised in my work. Not as before, I faked an orgasm. I remember that moment as the nadir of my career. Bernard, my client, could feel the difference and he imitated the sounds I’d made to indicate that he knew I’d faked it. I had the very bad grace to deny it.

  Unpleasant things began to happen. They weren’t really new occurrences, but now they were right in my face, bothering me like they never did before. After I placed an advertisement, a competitor who wanted to do some damage would get a bogus client to phone and not hang up, keeping my line busy and preventing other callers from getting through. Working alone, I had limited capacity to compete with other individuals—let alone with brothels—but nevertheless I had to put up with this sort of harassment.