Mona in Three Acts

by Griet Op de Beeck

  “Daddy’s asleep and we’re not allowed to bother him.” When he’s being a pain, he always squints his eyes in this totally annoying way. I go over and push him away from the TV. Alexander falls to the floor. What a baby, it was only a tiny push. He begins to really scream now.

  “Stop it. If you don’t, Daddy will come down and then there’ll be trouble,” I say.

  Alexander scrambles to his feet, storms over to me with a super angry face, and before I see it coming, bites my arm like a dog. I scream, more in surprise than pain. He stops and darts back.

  “What are you doing, you idiot?” I’ve got teeth marks on my arm, it looks a bit bluish red, and there are tiny drops of blood. “Blood!” I cry. The teacher once told us that a dog bite can be really dangerous, that you can get a sickness from it I forgot the name of. Would it be the same with a brother? “Dumbass,” I say. He looks really shocked, but I’m not going to be kind to him. I swallow until my tears stop wanting to come. “I’m going to tell Daddy it’s your fault I had to disturb him.”

  “I’ll tell him you pushed me. It really hurt. And you cheated.” He cries in a whining way now, like a toddler, and sits down on the floor.

  I run upstairs and throw open the door, crying, “Daddy, Alexander—”

  Marie is sitting on top of Daddy without any clothes on. I can see her back and her right breast. All of it naked. She lets out a shriek, ducks down next to Daddy, and they pull the covers over themselves. “Goddamn it, Mona. What did I say?”

  I stand there frozen in my tracks. I hold up my arm to show what my evil brother has done, but Daddy doesn’t seem to see.

  “Go back downstairs, for god’s sake, and close the door behind you.”

  “What did Daddy say?” Alexander asks nervously.

  “Daddy and Marie are doing sex.”

  “Sex?” Alexander repeats.

  “You’re too little to understand,” I snap, knowing how much it will annoy him.

  He doesn’t dare say anything back. What should I do now? What if I’m getting a terrible illness from that bite? I go to the telephone and look up Uncle Artie’s number. He’ll be able to help me. I let the phone ring at least twelve times, but he doesn’t pick up.

  “You better hope I don’t die,” I shout to my brother. He looks sad. Then I fetch a towel, wrap it around my arm, crawl into the armchair, and put on The Sound of Music. Alexander sits down on the sofa next to me without a word.

  On the TV, the children march down the stairs, the dad blows a whistle, and they all stand in a row, like they’re soldiers. The girls and boys don’t look happy, though. Their father isn’t kind, but I can’t help thinking he would certainly do something if one of them bit another. I turn up the volume.

  9

  Ellen asked me how it feels to have a new mommy now. She gave me an Easter egg from the package she’d brought to school. We didn’t get any Easter eggs at home this year. All of a sudden, she asked that, on the playground. I wanted to know why she thought that. She told me she’d heard her mom tell her dad that it was a little soon for Vincent to have another woman already, but it might be good for us because we’d get a new mother. I like Ellen’s mom. When she laughs, she holds one hand in front of her mouth, and when she puts on her shoes she uses a spoon, the kind you eat with. She loves dogs, brown clothes, and Ellen. But I don’t like her saying things like that to Ellen’s dad, who I like as well.

  I replied that I didn’t have a new mommy, just a Marie, and that she didn’t come over that often. I hoped Ellen would stop asking questions and she did.

  This morning the teacher was talking about Jesus, who rose from the dead to save us. She sounded very serious when she said it. She said he’d risen from the dead. I thought it wasn’t very fair of God to only let his own child come back from the dead.

  “What do you think happens when people die, normal people who can’t rise up again?” I ask Ellen during art.

  “Daddy says they become stars in the sky. Like my grandad and my cat, Mitsy, she’s a star now.”

  A star, I think. They’re just stuck there. I don’t want to think of Mommy as a star. I don’t say this to Ellen because she seems happy for her grandad and her cat.

  To be honest, I’d actually find it creepy if Mommy was still around in some way. I heard someone say that on TV once: that the souls of the dead watch over you. I don’t think it can be true because how could she watch over me and Granny and Daddy and Alexander and her sisters and my cousins while we’re all in different places? But I can’t know for sure either. The man on TV did look smart. If it’s true, can those souls also know what you’re thinking? Because how can they really watch over you otherwise? But even if they can only see and hear what you’re doing and saying, and Mommy is one of those guardian spirits, I think she’d be really, really angry with me a lot of the time, and you don’t want to make Mommy mad, not even as a spirit.

  I draw a cat and a dog under a sky full of stars and it almost looks all right, I think.

  Could something like a new mommy exist? Actually, you call that a stepmother, like in Snow White, but hers wanted to poison her because she was prettier than her stepmother. Luckily I’m not prettier than Marie. Marie is the prettiest woman I know. Or at least prettier than my aunties and the teachers at school and our neighbor, but well, she’s sixty or eighty or something.

  Daddy said we can’t say anything to Granny about Marie, he said it would make Granny sad, and we don’t want that, do we? He said he’d tell her when the time was ripe. That’s a stupid expression. Ripe is for cherries on a tree, or melons in a fruit basket, or a zit on my cousin Emilie’s chin, and then it means “ready to be squeezed.” That’s what she said and she showed me once and it was disgusting. I hope I never get a zit, but Emilie says that zits mean you’re growing up and I do want to grow up. I don’t know when Daddy will think that the time’s ripe to tell Granny, but I hope it’s soon because I’m always worried I’m accidentally going to say Marie’s name when Granny’s around, and I’ve got enough stress in my life.

  When Daddy’s with Marie, he usually seems happier. Sometimes he’s angry with us, when we want to show or ask Marie something, for example. And the two of them disappear upstairs a lot, I know what for now. I always feel a bit nervous then because I’m worried something terrible will happen and there’ll be nobody I can go to for help.

  When it’s just Daddy and us, I sometimes worry he’ll die too. Like he’ll be lying on the floor in his office and we’ll only find him hours later and he’ll have stopped breathing and gone a bit cold. Dead people are cold, I know that. And then Uncle Artie won’t pick up the phone and I don’t know what will happen to us.

  I’d like to be a grown-up, urgently in fact. I’m now already ten and a quarter, but I mean really grown-up. Then I’d know everything. And I wouldn’t have to knit when the teacher says we had to knit. Wouldn’t have to go to sleep when Granny or Daddy or the babysitter says I have to sleep, while there are books waiting for me underneath the covers, next to my flashlight. I could decide when I wanted to eat candy, entirely on my own, without having to ask. I could choose never to have sex because it seems like such a strange thing to do. Love, that would be fine, because people live long and happy lives when they have love, at least sometimes, but all the things that come with that, I wouldn’t need them. And of course, when I’ve found love and the person dies, it will be sad, so perhaps it’d be better not to get married when I’m older. I’ll have to think hard about that.

  10

  Granny took us to Emilie’s birthday party today. Emilie is a Gemini because her birthday is May 23. That’s a nice sign to have because then you’re a twin and never alone. Daddy had to work, he said, even though it was a Saturday. Granny was supposed to bring us home after the party, around nine o’clock, she thought. But nearly everyone had left by seven thirty, so we left too.

  Granny parks the car in the driveway, and Alexander rushes to the front door, shouting, “I’m going to ring th
e bell.”

  “No need, I’ve got my key.”

  Granny comes inside with us, through the hall into the living room. Sad music is playing, loud. I open the door and see them right away, sitting there on the sofa. Marie with her legs folded over Daddy’s. I want to shout: Run away! Hide in the garden or in Daddy’s office or in the cupboard. But it’s pointless because Granny’s standing behind me and she can see exactly what I can see. Daddy springs up at once, like he’s been stung in the ass by a wasp. Marie’s feet fly up into the air and she ends up lying down a bit clumsily before she can get up again. It would have been funny, if it wasn’t all so unfunny. I look at Granny, who isn’t saying anything.

  “Um, this is—wow, you’re back early. Well, this is Marie.”

  Marie stands up. We stand there not moving, Alexander and me, like a shield between Granny and Daddy and Marie. She comes over to us, gives us a kiss, and holds out her hand to Granny.

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Marie’s got good manners too.

  Granny doesn’t respond immediately. Marie holds her hand out for a while before Granny finally shakes it briefly.

  I should have told Daddy, I knew something like this was going to happen. Mommy always said you shouldn’t lie because “the truth will out.” Though that’s not entirely true. For instance, I once said that I was home late from school because the teacher had asked me to help clean up, only I was actually with Ellen, stealing candy from Mariette’s shop. She’s so old it takes her ages to get to the front, so you can put some in your pockets before she gets there, and then you buy a little more candy and you’re off. We don’t think Mariette’s very nice, though, so it’s OK, we think. But this time Mommy was right.

  “I wanted to tell you this week, Josée, but there was never a good time, and I thought—”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself.” Granny glares at Daddy. When she looks at me like that, I do everything she says. Her expression reminds me of Mommy’s. “It’s only been nine months since Agnes—”

  “Yeah, maybe it’s a bit—”

  “I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses, Vincent. It confirms everything Agnes ever said about you. And—”

  Then Marie walks off, so suddenly that Granny stops talking. Alexander gives me a bewildered look, but I don’t know what to do or say either. Daddy sits back down and stares at his knees. “Let’s talk about it later, just the two of us. I understand that it’s not easy for you. It’s unpleasant that you had to find out like this, I—”

  “Oh shut up, you sanctimonious pig.”

  “Josée—” Daddy tries. He moves closer.

  “I won’t set foot in this house again. Figure it out on your own.”

  Then I take hold of Granny’s hand. She can’t just leave us, can she? She can’t let us down? I get that she’s angry with Daddy, and maybe with us too, because keeping quiet about something is also a kind of lying. But angry people can calm down again. And we’re her grandchildren, aren’t we? I look at her. I see her large bosom, the gold chain with the medallion she always wears when there’s a party, and above it her small face with all those tiny wrinkles. She keeps staring at Daddy for a while. Then she turns her back and says, in a strange, official tone, “Bye Mona, bye Alexander, I’ll see you again.” She marches out of the room. Even though the music is still playing, I hear the front door slam.

  Daddy immediately goes to the bathroom to see how Marie is. I go into the living room because the window overlooks the driveway. I crawl under the curtain, which hangs heavy around my shoulders and smells like dust and Sophie’s coat. I can see Granny putting on her seat belt. Then she turns on the headlights, even though it’s not that dark, and looks back so that she can reverse into the street. She pauses for a moment and I begin to wave, but she’s not looking at the house anymore. She just drives away. I stay there for a while. There’s nobody else outside. I wonder why everyone always leaves me.

  11

  “Kids, wouldn’t it be fun if we got married?” Daddy has a big smile, Marie lays her hand on his leg. This is absolutely a question where there’s only one right answer.

  Alexander rocks back and forth. “Will there be a big party? Will I get new clothes?”

  I think: throwing water balloons, like Ellen and I did yesterday in her garden, that’s fun, or a pillow fight with feathers flying around and not having to clean them up after. Or the teacher being sick and the class being allowed to quietly do something useful the whole afternoon.

  “When would that be?” I say it in a cheerful voice, I think.

  “End of August,” Marie replies. “The weather will hopefully be good, and we can have a nice outdoor party, and you’ll get new clothes, both of you.” She beams as she says it, probably because she’ll get new clothes too. Late August, I think. Mommy died on August 20. Wouldn’t Daddy find that strange?

  “Mona is so delighted, she’s lost her tongue. Right, Mona?”

  “Yes,” I say, nodding. I push up my sleeves and then pull them down again over my wrists.

  “Maybe you could write a poem and read it in the church? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Marie knows how much I like that kind of thing. For God knows how many people, perhaps a thousand, and me being allowed to read into a microphone, that does sound good, yes.

  “I’ll write a very long poem,” I say.

  “Or a shorter one,” Daddy says. “That would also be good. Give Marie a big kiss, kids.” Alexander and I get up at the same time and give Marie a kiss, each on one cheek. “Are you happy?”

  “Yes,” Alexander says, and he gets onto Marie’s lap.

  “’Course.” I lean against Daddy’s knee and put on a sweet face.

  “And we’ve got another lovely surprise for you: You can both call Marie Mommy from now on. We’ve decided you don’t have to wait for the wedding, because she’ll be spending more and more time here, since Granny, well—” He makes a face like he’s just told us we’ll finally be getting a kitten or a puppy. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Yes,” I reply, “wonderful.”

  “Well, we’re going to go upstairs for a rest now. You can have a Coke, if you like, to celebrate.” Daddy gets up.

  “Coke!” Alexander shouts as he rushes to the kitchen.

  “Mona, you pour it into glasses and don’t spill now, OK?”

  They’re on their way upstairs already.

  “What about Granny? Will she come to the party too?”

  “I don’t know,” Daddy says. His voice sounds normal, not sorry at all. Not guilty.

  I go to the kitchen. Alexander has already gotten the bottle out of the fridge. I take it from him, get the glasses, and fill them.

  “Are you happy?” I ask.

  He shrugs and glugs down his drink, then he makes a funny sound, like Daddy unclogging the toilet, only quieter.

  “What does that mean? You’re not sure?”

  “Parties are nice. Do you think we’ll be allowed to invite our friends?”

  “Maybe. You’ll have to ask later.”

  “Hmm,” Alexander says, like he’s thinking we shouldn’t have to ask.

  I refill his glass. “Are you going to call her Mommy?”

  He nods. “Daddy says we’re supposed to, so.”

  Alexander doesn’t seem to see the problem. He empties his second glass too and goes to play with his puzzle. Maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s strange. I already have a mommy, even if she’s dead, even though there’s probably not much left of her by now. How quickly can creepy crawlies eat a whole body? The creatures are smaller than Mommy, but there are a lot of them, I think.

  I think about Mommy when I smell hairspray. And when Daddy goes to a restaurant. And when I’m lying in bed at night sometimes. When I walk past the room in the basement. Or when I’m a little bit scared, even though I’m not sure exactly why. Sometimes I don’t think about her. Ellen once asked me whether I miss my mom. I didn’t answer her.

  And now we�
��re supposed to call Marie Mommy. That’s like getting two kittens and calling them both Fraggle, or two puppies and calling them Charlie. Alexander says he doesn’t really want to do his puzzle. He wants to play soccer. “Will you be the goalie?”

  “No, not now, I’ve got something else to do.”

  He looks disappointed but goes out to the yard on his own without complaining. Sometimes he is well behaved. I watch him go. I’m a bit jealous of him. Not because he’s a boy, and not because he’s still so little, and not because he always picks his nose and is a bad loser, but because everything seems easy for him. He accepts things as they come.

  That evening I’m lying in bed. I pull the covers up to my chin, they just smell of sheets. I can hear the sound of the TV downstairs, and a bird nearby cooing, and now and again a car driving past. I try to fall asleep by lying very still with my eyes closed, but it doesn’t work. Then I begin to think, because my mind does that on its own. I think of birds eating worms, and worms eating dead people, and dying, and that it can happen to children sometimes. More than just sometimes in Africa because they’re all starving there, which is because of us here, the people in this part of the world are being too selfish, that’s what Uncle Artie says. I’d like to share my food with the children in Africa, especially when it’s Belgian endive, or when Marie has cooked pork chops that are so dry and chewy you could beat a small animal to death with them. Daddy said that when Marie couldn’t hear him. Secretly I thought it was very funny of him.

  I wonder what we’ll eat at the wedding and whether there’ll be a big cake like in the movies, with circles that get smaller and smaller, and a heart on the top or something. Those kinds of cakes probably don’t exist in real life. In films, people are always saying “I love you,” even mommies and daddies say it to their children and that doesn’t really happen in real life, at least not in our country. I can still remember the way Mommy—I almost think about something, but then I stop because I don’t want to think about Mommy again tonight.