My Heart Hemmed In

37. They still want to take care of their aging daughter

This early morning in my son’s house goes by exactly like the one before.

“You’ll go with Ralph on his rounds,” Wilma tells me.

“Yes,” I say, “very gladly.”

And my son acquiesces, without displeasure, as Wilma cuts up big pieces of duck pâté on her plate and puts them in her mouth with her fingers, trembling slightly with what I now know to be a desire so savage and an appetite so fierce that it hurts.

And my son drives me back down to the seafront. We hardly say a word, but I sense that he’s already used to my being there, I sense he’s forgotten, in a way, that the woman beside him is his mother, who so filled him with rancor and rage. I myself never forget that this is my son sitting beside me.

I’m so happy to be riding with you, I would tell him if I weren’t still afraid of his reaction. Was that you breathing so loudly last night? I’d like to ask. Or, I’d say, were you buried under the covers, waiting in terror for that woman to fall asleep at last?

He parks his car in the hospital lot. He’s going to visit Nathalie’s child.

“I’ll meet you back here,” I tell him, “I don’t want to go up.”

He gives me a long look, then silently turns away and strides off to the hospital door, his big medical bag slapping his calf just as his schoolboy satchel once did. Unconcerned that he might see me (because my son knows perfectly well where my steps will take me, he knows perfectly well, and maybe he’s glad), I hurry straight back to the little street.

I’ll walk by my parents’ house again, I tell myself, but I won’t go in, not yet. I feel my cheeks and forehead turn red. No sooner have I taken one step onto the refreshingly breeze-swept street than the words and melody of another song begin to float in the sweet, shimmering air.

I’m in diapers,

The child wails,

Oh, how long will he wail?

Again I recognize my mother’s voice, even grown piercing and thin with old age. That worn little bell of a voice won’t give up, it flutters down the street, drowning out the hum of televisions or conversations drifting over the other houses’ walls.

I’m in diapers and I’m hurting,

Oh Mama, how I’m hurting,

Will that child wail forever?

I’ve never heard that song before. But, I ask myself, almost angry, is that a song fit for the ears of a tiny little girl?

The brave, battered goat bell of my mother’s voice draws me in spite of myself. I’m not far from the house. The door is wide open. Now my mother seems to be singing at the top of her lungs. My legs weak, I walk into my parents’ house.

My mother stops singing. She’s standing near the sink, tiny and slight in the very cool kitchen. Her white hair is gathered into a wispy ponytail at the back of her neck. She’s wearing a long beige cotton dress, ornamented with arabesques.

The baby, Souhar, her fingers hooked around the bars of a playpen, gives me a slightly blasé, superior look. Then she turns her eyes to my mother, waiting to see her reaction and no doubt match hers to it. My mother seems uneasy, expectant—but, oh God, what is she expecting?

“Yes?” she finally asks, in her language.

I swallow. In a murmur, I answer, “It’s me, your daughter.”

“Which one?” my mother asks in French, after a pause.

“Nadia,” I say.

“Nadia?” my mother repeats.

She puts her hands to her hair, as if to hide it, as if there were some rule that a daughter mustn’t see her neglected old mother’s hair. She glances at Souhar, looking lost. The child sees her bewilderment and grows worried, her chin quivering. My mother forces a reassuring smile, but Souhar seems not to trust her, watching for that false smile to fray, and my mother valiantly keeps it up.

“Don’t you recognize me?” I say.

“Of course I do,” says my mother.

“No, you don’t,” I say, “I can see it.”

And even though I’ve spent thirty-five years of my life doing all I could to ensure that no one in my family, should by some exceptional circumstance I run into them in the city, would recognize my face and my manner, at least not enough to approach me and speak to me; even though I inwardly snuffed out every visible trace of my upbringing so it wouldn’t leave its mark on my face or my way of speaking or standing; and even though the most glorious proof of those efforts’ success, the proof that would have delighted me most, would have been that on meeting this old woman I would summon up nothing in her maternal memory, I find myself somehow disappointed, almost shocked.

“Sit down, Nadia,” says my mother.

She sounds as if she’s saying my name to make sure she won’t forget it. I sit down at the table. My mother picks up Souhar, gives her a hug, and sits down in turn with the child on her knees. More for something to say than because I want to know, I ask, “Do you know where the baby’s mother is? Yasmine?”

My mother begins to shake all over, from her head to her feet, whose flip-flops I suddenly hear clapping against the floor tiles. Her eyes fill with tears. She stands up, walks into another room. She comes back without the child in her arms, softly telling me she’s put her to bed. She sits down again.

“You’ve seen the woman up there?” she whispers.

“Wilma? Yes.”

“She was the one who took Yasmine,” says my mother in a low, hissing, sorrowful voice.

I repeat, “Took her?”

But my mother presses her lips tight to keep herself quiet. She makes a hurried little gesture, pretending to toss something into her mouth.

“Don’t eat any meat up there,” she mumbles, quick as she can. “If they try to give you some, say no. You haven’t eaten any, have you?”

“No,” I say, frantic, sensing I’d be expelled from my parents’ house at once if I told the truth.

My mother reaches out, strokes my hand.

“I think I do recognize you now,” she says, “but you’ve gotten so fat, what could have made you put on all that weight?”

“It’s menopause,” I say.

“Yes,” says my mother, “that happens, my little girl.”

The sound of my father’s footsteps comes from outside the door. He’s heard our voices, and he’s wondering if he should come in.

“Look here, it’s Nadia,” my mother gaily cries in her language, “your daughter Nadia, she’s come back.”

My father lets out a loud shout.

A little later, in the kitchen grown quiet again, as if itself again, with Souhar still asleep, my mother confides, “Ralph brought the baby here so that woman wouldn’t take her too. He was afraid.”

My father nods vigorously. The glances he gives me are still shy, but now they’re filled with joy.

“That’s right,” he says, “he was afraid for the little one.”

“That woman,” says my mother, “she put a spell on him.”

There’s no hatred in her tone, no revolt, only the acceptance of something fated, an acknowledgement of bonds that can’t be undone. I then catch my father staring at my forehead—ardent, blissful. So, I tell myself, he loves the unlovely woman I’ve become, he still loves her…

“Don’t go back there,” adds my mother. “She’ll take you next.”

“Oh no,” begs my father, “don’t go back!”

“Stay here, we have a room for you,” says my mother.

I whisper, “You don’t feel any rancor?”

They look at me blankly, vague smiles on their faces. The meaning of that word escapes them.

“My poor son, my poor Ralph,” I say, “so I have to leave him alone in that house, with her…”

“There’s no fighting these things,” says my mother.