A joke, you see, can earn a place for anyone. People want to laugh, and when I realized I could do it sometimes, I tried to do it every minute. I became a performer, an artist skilled at distraction, control: “Look at me, but don’t see. Watch, but not too closely.” What I said to myself had nothing to do with what I told anyone. I went on the lookout for every word or gesture that might betray me.
A few years ago, a publisher read a draft of a book I was working on, something I was proud of. He eyed me, looked uncomfortable. “It’s so internal,” he said, as if naming some spectacular offense. Of course, he was a straight man. He never had to go inside. He was comfortable just where he was.
The thing about being a watcher is this: You are never really a part of things, especially if the person you must watch is yourself, always, just to make sure no one ever really sees you.
. . .
Earleen is raving about the dentist who screwed up her upper plate because he wanted to go play golf. The teeth cost $750. They have hurt Earleen’s mouth for a year and she is going to take the dentist to a review board in Jefferson City. “We’re gonna clean that jaybird’s clock,” she says as we watch my mother, hovering close as it seems her balance is off today.
Betty goes to the refrigerator to take out a bowl of pineapple that she drops on the floor and breaks. She yells out as if there has been a gunshot. I clean the sticky juice off the linoleum and wipe the front of her gown as she fidgets, then looks away. Finally, I settle her, distracting her with a pile of postcards from Europe from the end table as Earleen starts the vacuum in the back of the house.
“Where are these from?” she asks. “Who wrote these?” I tell her that she wrote them, note her handwriting, as it was, so familiar. She wrinkles her brow, as if trying to remember. “I never could write a pretty hand like that,” she says. “Not now.” It’s true. Her letters look like shaky forgeries.
The cards were written on my parents’ trip to Europe; it was a grand occasion, the only time they ever went there together. I was in New York by then; they didn’t take that many trips, but came every Christmas to go to Radio City while I worked. They loved that Christmas show. They were so delighted by it. I never went with them. When they came to visit, I always took breaks from them. Partially because I had to; there were always deadlines. Partially because I could not bear to let our talk stray too far from what I was comfortable saying about my life.
When I let my mind wander back that far, what I see is how hard we tried to be our best for one another.
In Europe, my parents took some cruise on a river that streamed through many countries, the Danube or the Rhine. For months in advance they spoke of this trip as if they were teenagers. Europe: across the big wavy sea where luxury liners crossed, carrying queens with hats and heroes with medals. Europe: where the wars had been: Europe: where the mountains and landscapes were beautiful, and the food was rich and unforgettable and available, on the barge on which they traveled, twenty-four hours daily, in unlimited quantities.
“I’ll just bet it’s going to be very nice,” my mother said before they left. She was so eager. “June loves to go on a barge. I hope your father will have a good time. He deserves a chance to relax after all these years.”
. . .
“We flew into somewhere in Germany,” Betty says, holding a card the sun streaks through, but she doesn’t remember much else. “What is a beautiful city in Czechoslovakia?” she asks.
“Prague,” I suggest.
“Yes, that’s it.”
And then, “What is a beautiful city in Germany?”
I suggest, “Berlin, maybe. I don’t know how pretty it is, really.”
She says, “No, no.”
I suggest, “Munich.”
She says, “No, no. That’s where they blew up the Olympics. That nearly killed your father. They blew up the Jews!”
I say, “Hamburg.” She looks a little excited, but even more, relieved. “Yes, that’s it. That’s where we flew in. I used my passport and your father kept looking up everything about the war . . . I didn’t care about the war. I didn’t care if they blew up the Olympics, to tell you the truth.” She looks at me. “They go on forever,” she adds.
“I wanted to buy a new sweater or a dress and see some of the countryside. It rained a lot . . . I’m trying to think of another city, another place in Germany. Oh yes, it was Berlin. That’s what it was. But his knee was hurting him and we didn’t get to do much. The time changed, you know, and I never could sleep much. The time changed on us. The time changed. I think just once. It could have been more than that.”
She looks good today; the new moisturizer from Saks is doing wonders for her face, though I am often surprised to find myself licking Estée Lauder products off my fingers. Her cheeks are pinkish, their skin softer, and it seems that the wrinkled places under her eyes have almost been smoothed away. Sometimes she even smiles back. She wants to give me a pleasant afternoon, but fears she has little to offer, so she hands me the cards, one after the other, and looks hopeful. She wants us to have fun, to share the experience, but she can’t remember it. “The cities,” she says. “They were nice and green.”