Mona in Three Acts

by Griet Op de Beeck

Daddy didn’t give her any compliments, which is a bit of a shame.

  Granny and Auntie Rose go off toward the kitchen, each carrying a pile of plates. Daddy shouts after them, “Can you bring back a bottle of red?”

  “And the corkscrew,” Uncle Artie adds.

  When Granny returns, she’s empty-handed and begins to tidy away the glasses. Auntie Rose puts a bottle of Coke and another of water on the table. “Who wants soda, and who wants coffee?”

  “And who wants wine?” my father roars gaily. He keeps his hand on his glass to make sure no one can take it.

  “I think enough wine has been served,” Granny says, pulling her mouth into a thin strip.

  “I’ll get it,” Uncle Artie says.

  But before he has the chance to stand up, Granny insists, “I think enough wine has been served.”

  Uncle Artie bursts out laughing, he never really cares, but Daddy doesn’t find it funny. I can see that from the way he does something with his mouth, twisting it to the right.

  “This is and will remain my house. Artie, feel free to get another bottle. You know where to find them.” He doesn’t raise his voice, his face has gone red, he stares at Granny, in rather a mean way, I think.

  “I’ve gone to all this trouble,” Granny says, “on a day that’s difficult for me, the first time without her, and I won’t sit back and watch things deteriorate.”

  “Deteriorate? You just can’t handle a bit of fun. Having a difficult time is no reason not to be able to enjoy ourselves on a day like this.”

  “A bit of respect for your wife who only recently left us would be nice.”

  “What do you know about what I do or don’t respect? It’s Christmas. And my family’s here, and we’re thirsty. And I think we need to celebrate properly so we can bear it all on a daily basis. By ‘it all,’ I mean your meddling, your cleaning frenzies, your judgmental silence.”

  I’m panicking now. What is Daddy saying? Granny doesn’t deserve this. Mommy wouldn’t think so either.

  Auntie Emma says, “Come on, Mom, let’s go to the kitchen. I can help with the dishes.”

  Auntie Rose interrupts her. “No, we’re not going to do the dishes. Is this the thanks we get for standing by you all this time, and our mother even more than us?”

  “I never asked for it,” Daddy cries. “Marcella’s here to help with all the practical stuff, and her breath doesn’t stink.”

  Daddy does have a point. Sometimes when Granny talks, it smells like the fish heads and bones Mommy used to make sauce from.

  “How low can you go, Vincent? Insulting your own mother-in-law. Someone who has done everything for you and your children.”

  “I never asked for it.”

  He already said that, I think.

  “She’s not doing it for you, she’s doing it for the children. Our mom would never work her knuckles to the bone for you—never. Not after everything we heard. You think Agnes never told us what went on here?”

  Much quieter than the others, Auntie Emma says, “Let’s calm down. Come on now, it’s Christmas.”

  But Auntie Rose is on a roll now. “Oh, you want to let him get away with it again? You know what Agnes thought of things. How she complained about his absences, his stinginess, his lack of interest in the children, his lack of interest in her? How his brothers and friends and neighbors always took priority—always. How she had to cook for the whole mob of them and fetch drinks too. And that she was sick and tired of it. And I won’t talk about the other thing with everyone sitting here.”

  Then Uncle Artie gets involved. “And why do you think my brother was always inviting people over? Because Agnes was such a warm, cheerful, loving, supportive wife who gave him and her children everything they needed?”

  At this, Granny goes to the kitchen with Auntie Emma following. None of us at the kids’ table move.

  “Artie,” Uncle Olivier says, “let it go.”

  “All right, but he should be allowed to say something in his own defense. We all know that there’s another side to the story.”

  “The children,” Auntie Elke says, moving her head in the direction of where we’re sitting. She says it quietly but we still hear.

  “The children should know that there’s more to life than Christmas trees and presents. What’s more, these children have known that for a long time. Besides, they don’t understand what we’re talking about anyway.” Uncle Artie throws his napkin down on the table, knocking over a glass with a little bit of red wine still in it. Red wine stains.

  Daddy is standing up. He shouts to make sure that Granny can hear it in the kitchen, I think. “Nobody has to take care of me or my children. We can manage ourselves. You all have no idea what—”

  Auntie Rose doesn’t let him finish. “That’s true. It’s not like we lost our sister! Surely we don’t have a clue what mourning and grief can do to a person. Not a clue.” At which point, she disappears to the kitchen. Emilie darts after her and closes the door behind them.

  I don’t understand all of it, which is annoying. Maybe Auntie Rose is just saying those things to hurt Daddy. That’s what people do when they’re angry. Once, when I’d won at Dead or Alive four times in a row, Sophie told me that I might not have died in the game but that my mommy had in real life. I nearly cried. But later the teacher explained that Sophie only said it because she was angry and then Sophie said sorry.

  All the other kids stay in their seats. I wonder if I should go to Granny. I’m worried she’ll stop coming. Who would cook for us then? What she makes isn’t always that good but sometimes it is. Daddy can only warm things up, and fry eggs on weekends, and Marcella’s never cooked for us, so I don’t know whether she can or not.

  “Calm down now, bro,” Uncle Olivier says to Daddy. “Why don’t you have some coffee? Or go get a breath of fresh air?”

  I think a breath of fresh air is a funny expression. I always imagine little men with oxygen tanks taking puffs like divers.

  “Like coffee and fresh air can fix this,” Daddy says, calmer now.

  He sits back down. Auntie Elke pours him a glass of Coke and puts it in front of his nose. There’s silence. Auntie Elke rubs Daddy’s back. He doesn’t react, just like he never does when I do things like that. It makes me feel better—I mean, at least in terms of that.

  7

  I have to do a drawing of spring for school because spring officially starts tomorrow. I’m not that happy about it, but it might also be because I’m not very good at drawing, for a ten-year-old. Mommy said I didn’t have much of an artistic bent. I thought bent was a strange word to use, but she was right. It’s been more than six months now since she left us, and I still keep hearing all the things she used to say to me. Granny says I should just practice drawing more.

  Daddy is nervous today and that makes me nervous too, which doesn’t help with the drawing: weird tree, grass too high, a bird that looks more like a mole in the sky—I think it’s ugly, so I tear up the paper and start again. If you do something, you should do it well.

  We’ve got a visitor coming this afternoon, Daddy told us, but that’s not unusual. And now he’s changed his clothes twice. He shouted at Alexander because he spilled something on his sweater, and he poured himself a glass of beer and then suddenly dumped it down the sink.

  “Who’s coming?” I ask.

  “A friend of Daddy’s named Marie. I’m sure you’ll both like her.”

  “Marie’s a stupid name,” Alexander says. He’s sitting playing with his Playmobil.

  “Don’t you say that to her, Alexander. It wouldn’t be polite.”

  Alexander shrugs and cries “Wee-ooo, wee-ooo” as he drives his police car over the rug.

  “Alexander, please don’t make so much noise.” Daddy sighs. “I hope you’ll both behave yourselves later. Would you do that for Daddy?”

  I want to do that, of course I do. I’ve been ten, in the double digits, for seven weeks now. But whether Alexander will manage, that’s the question. He nev
er understands what being well behaved means. I’m constantly explaining it to him, but sometimes it just seems hopeless.

  The bell suddenly rings and I run to the front door to be the first. “Good day, ma’am, how can I be of assistance?” I say it especially loudly for Daddy’s benefit. It sounds polite enough to count as well behaved, I think.

  “I’m Marie. Your father invited me,” she says.

  “Come in, please. He’s expecting you.” I’ve got good manners, I know it. If I do my best, at least.

  Marie has long dark hair with lighter stripes in it, as though someone dyed a few strands and forgot the rest. Her bangs have been dried into a curl that points outward to make sure she can still see properly, I guess. She’s wearing a lot of makeup and she’s got big eyes, which are quite pretty, I think. Her whole body is big, she’s almost as tall as Daddy, but she’s wearing shoes with really high heels, which is cheating of course. She’s wearing a minidress that is black, white, and bright blue. Her brown leather coat is unbuttoned.

  “Can I take your coat, ma’am?”

  “That’s very sweet.” She takes it off and gives it to me.

  My father goes right up to her and kisses her, not on the cheek, but on the lips. I’ve never seen Daddy kiss anyone on the lips, not even Mommy. She only got a kiss on the cheek, if she got any kind at all.

  Marie smiles at him, a big smile, then walks over to Alexander, squats down next to him, and says, “You must be Alexander,” which is kind of a stupid thing to say, I think. I don’t like people saying the totally obvious.

  Alexander barely looks up. He’s trying to put a little man in his fire engine.

  “Shall I help?” She doesn’t wait for a reply but takes the Playmobil man from his hand and clicks it in. “There you go,” she says, smiling again.

  “You can be the fire department, I’ll be the police,” Alexander says. “Because there’s been an accident. A car accident with my mommy—”

  “Kids, let’s not bother Marie. She’s going to sit down with Daddy first and have a drink.”

  Marie strokes Alexander’s head, gets back up, and carefully sits down in the biggest armchair. She’s wearing blue nail polish to match the blue in her dress. Daddy gives her the glass of white wine he poured in the kitchen; she puts it down on the coffee table.

  “Merci,” she says with a giggle I don’t understand, and then keeps smiling. Her teeth are very white, much whiter than Daddy’s, buttermilk compared to banana skin.

  “And you must be Mona?”

  I don’t reply. It’s not like I can say anything, it wouldn’t be polite to.

  Then she adds, “I heard you read a lot of books. What are you reading at the moment?”

  “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” I reply, “by Roald Dahl. It’s very funny.”

  “Maybe you can read some to me later?”

  I don’t know whether it’s just a coincidence but I love reading aloud. The teacher lets me read to the class sometimes because she thinks I’m good at it. At least, she asks me more often than the others, so I think she thinks that. I pay attention to that kind of thing. I don’t tell Marie, though, because boasting isn’t polite. “If Daddy says I can,” I reply.

  “Yes, of course, later on,” he says, emphasizing the “later” part. He sits down quite close to her, the way you would sit down next to a girlfriend. “Maybe you could go and read or play for a while so that Daddy and Marie can talk. And later in the afternoon, she can listen to you read, all right?”

  I can tell this is one of those questions Daddy asks that there’s only one possible answer to. It can be confusing. Sometimes he really wants to know whether something’s all right, and sometimes a question is actually a kind of command, but it’s not always easy to know which is which. Without saying anything, I sit down at the table with my mini weaving loom. Granny gave it to me for my birthday and it’s less frumpy than I thought at first. She said I could weave a scarf for Daddy, which I haven’t done yet. I’m happy that Granny has kept coming just as often since Christmas. Daddy does his best to be friendly to her, I can tell.

  Alexander doesn’t seem very interested at all, but I keep an eye on Daddy and Marie from behind my loom. They talk in hushed voices, most of the time I can’t hear, but they both laugh all the time, like they’re constantly cracking jokes. Sometimes Daddy can really be hilarious. I like Daddy when he’s happy, so it’s annoying I can’t sit with them. I make three squares of cloth, one of them in blue, white, and black, like Marie’s dress, though I don’t have exactly the same colors. Maybe I’ll give it to her as a present, but I’m not sure yet.

  When Daddy finally gets up to go to the bathroom, he says to me, “Show Marie your book now, if you want.”

  I rush to the window seat, grab Charlie, and hurry to the sitting room as fast as I can so Alexander can’t get her attention before me. “Here it is,” I say proudly, even though it’s not like I wrote it myself.

  “Come and sit on my lap, then, you can read and I can look at the pictures if there are any.” She reaches out her arms. That seems weird. Mommy thought I was too big to sit on laps years ago, and now I’m even bigger.

  “OK,” I say as calmly as I can before climbing onto her lap. She smells strange: a lot of perfume that reminds me of hairspray and lavender and apples. She puts her hands on my sides, and looks over my right shoulder at the book. Her hair tickles my face.

  “Is this where you are?”

  I nod and begin to read, making sure I articulate properly. The teacher always says that: “Ar-ti-cu-late properly,” breaking the word down into chunks. I hope that Marie will say stop when it starts to get boring, because I can read for ages. She seems to be listening carefully because she even laughs along twice, which makes me feel warm inside. Daddy sits back down again with us. I look at him when I finish the chapter.

  “Nicely done,” he says. I suspect what he means is that I should stop now, so I close the book. “Mona is very good at reading and writing,” he says. “You should see some of her compositions, she’s almost always asked to read them out loud in class. She’s very advanced for her age.”

  I begin to blush. I’ve never heard Daddy say anything like that. It makes me happy that he thinks it’s important for Marie to know this about me.

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Marie says. “Will you read again next time I come?”

  “You’re coming again?” asks Alexander, who has walked over to us, his police car in his hand.

  “Alexander, what did I say about impolite questions?”

  Alexander says nothing and looks angry, which I don’t find very well behaved of him. Daddy’s staring at Marie again. I get the feeling I’m in the way, so I jump off her lap.

  “Do you want to play a game?” she asks. “Just a quick one, before I go.”

  “I guess,” Alexander replies. I run to the cupboard and get out Mastermind.

  “You need to pick something Alexander can play too,” Daddy says in a strict voice, which makes me feel guilty for only thinking about myself.

  “Sorry, then?”

  “Yes!” my brother cries, not angry anymore.

  The four of us sit at the table and play. Marie smokes a cigarette, Daddy drinks a glass of wine, just like her, even though he usually drinks beer or coffee. Daddy has never played a game with us before, but now he seems enthusiastic. There’s a lot of laughing. When it’s not my turn, I stare outside. It’s cold today, but the sun’s shining all the same.

  8

  They went upstairs. Daddy said they were tired and that they were going to take a nap. At two thirty in the afternoon. And that we shouldn’t go upstairs because we might wake them up. They’d come back down in about an hour, he said. And we could watch television if we wanted.

  We recently got a VCR. Nobody else in my class has one, but we do. We’ve got movies too. The one I like best is The Sound of Music. It’s funny and a little sad because the dad is very strict with his children, at first, but then it
gets better when he falls in love, and then it’s sad because there’s something about the war, and they have to run away, which is scary, but then it turns out all right, which I like. I like to sing along to the songs in the film even though they’re in English, but I can already speak some English as well as Dutch. Uncle Artie sometimes teaches me new words. Uncle Artie can speak lots of languages. I like Uncle Artie.

  “We’ll watch The Sound of Music, all right?” I ask Alexander, and I want it to sound like the kind of question when you’re sure the person will agree.

  “I want to watch Robin Hood.”

  “But we watched Robin Hood last week, when Daddy had to spend the whole afternoon on the phone in the kitchen.”

  “The Sound of Music is boring,” Alexander says, making the o very long.

  “But those kids and all those songs—you like them too, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “We could flip a coin.” I take a coin from the change jar on the side table next to the door.

  He hesitates for a moment, straightens his sweater, and then says in a serious voice, “I’ll take tails.”

  I throw the coin up in the air, it flips over a few times, falls onto the floor, heads up.

  “Ha, so The Sound of Music. You can either watch or play with your Playmobil,” I say in a happy voice as I go to find the tape.

  Alexander stays standing there, stamps his foot on the floor in anger, and shouts, “It doesn’t count. The coin has to land in your hand. If it falls on the ground, you have to flip it again. That’s the rules.”

  Alexander can’t stand losing. I don’t mind letting him win now and then because he’s the youngest and I have to remember that, but now he’s overreacting. He’s sort of right about that rule, but we didn’t say it beforehand, so it doesn’t count.

  “You have to learn to be a good loser,” I reply. Alexander starts to cry, not because he’s sad but because he wants to get his way. “Crying is for babies,” I say, putting in the tape and pressing “Play.” He stands in front of the television so that I can’t see. “Alexander, don’t be so annoying, or I’ll tell Daddy on you.”