The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (99 page)

Peggy was carrying an enormous vase full of lilies, a funereal flower if ever there was one. Hi, Peggy, I said. Some flowers you’ve got there. Melinda here, too? Hi, Aunt Lulu, Melinda called from the hall, where she was studying the magical glade. I had a sudden memory of the guy who’d given Nana that painting—Mr. Berman. What a handsome old man! He was one of Nana’s suitors after she booted out Dad’s dad. Dad used to refer to Mr. Berman as the Great Big Jew. Mr. Berman was very nice, as I remember, and rich and handsome, but Nana was sick of getting married, so he moved on, and Nana never looked back, I think. It wasn’t in her nature.

Peggy was staring at the TV. Goodness me, she said, and picked up the remote. A few sluttish teenagers flounced around a room with studio decor. That’s better, Peggy said. She chuckled wanly. I calculated: the big gloomy bouquet must have cost about what I make in a week. Hey, Melinda, I said, as she wandered into the room; they brought you along, great. My sitter’s mad at me, she said, they didn’t have any choice. She looked at me—Alternative? Sure, I said, that’s fine: they didn’t have any alternative. The hell we didn’t, Bill said. We could have left her on a mountain with her ankles pierced. Melinda swiveled her head toward him, then swiveled it back. Your father’s just being funny, I said. You thought that was funny, Aunt Lulu? Melinda said. Cute outfit, hon, Peggy told me, fanciful; the fun shirt is what? Pucci, I said, early seventies? An as-is—there’s a cigarette burn, see?

Hey, Granana, Melinda said, watchin’ a show, huh. She peered at Nana scientifically and waggled her fingers in a little wave. Then she walked backward into the sofa and plopped down, showing her teeth for a moment as though she’d performed a trick. So what’s going on? she asked no one in particular.

There were about five teenagers. One was a boy. They were all making faces and pausing for the silent audience to laugh, apparently. Peggy, who had a gift, rubbed Nana’s hands and sort of chattered. Nana looked around and spoke in the strange voice that sounded like it had been shut away, gathering dust. Everyone, she said. Hi, Nana! we all said. Hello, Lulu, dear, she said, are you here? She blinked once, like a cat, and yawned. It was an odd sight, our elegant Nana’s body and its needs taking precedence that way. She looked back at the TV, and said, What.

What the hell is this? Bill said, squinting at the flouncing, mugging teenagers. He flicked the remote, and there were those familiar guys again, standing around a podium beneath a huge flag. Bill grunted, and set the remote back on the table with a sharp little click. He forgot about the TV and started ranging around the room, absently picking up objects and turning them over, as though he was expecting to see price tags. Poor Bill. He was frowning a frown, which he’d no doubt perfected in front of his clients, that clearly referred to weighty matters. Terrible, he was muttering; terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. His feelings for Nana were complicated, I knew (though he didn’t seem to), heavily tinged with rage and resentment, like his feelings for everyone else. Our brother Peter was the quote unquote outstanding one, so Bill, as the other boy, had naturally suffered a lot growing up and was kind of arrested, being so compensatorily dutiful. He looked as if he was incredibly tired, too. Poor Nana, he said. Poor, poor, poor Nana.

Trip okay, hon? Peggy asked me. Where are you staying? One-two punch, huh, I said. You’re so funny, Peggy said vaguely. You always make me laugh. She looked tired herself. Outside, someone was making some sort of commotion. Screaming or something. Bill went to the window and closed it. Listen, he said to me, thank you for coming. He had already acquired a drink, I noticed—how had he managed that? I’m glad to be here, I said; it’s natural, isn’t it? You don’t have to thank me. Good, he said. He frowned his frown again. I’m glad you decided to come. Because decisions have to be made, and I wanted us to be united. Against? I said.

Against? he said. Decisions have to be made and I wanted you to be part of the process.

I’ve had a lot of practice in not getting pissed off at Bill, who can’t help his patronizing, autocratic nature. I reminded myself severely (a) that he’s just a poor trembling soul, trying to keep himself together in whatever way he can, that I should appreciate that it was Bill, obviously, who was dealing with Nana’s whole thing here, and (b) that I wouldn’t want to start regressing all over the place. Thanks, I said. Thanks for including me.

Bill nodded, I nodded.

Thanks for including me, I said again. But I don’t have anything to contribute, remember?

I never
said
that, he said. I
never
said that you don’t have anything to contribute. Be straightforward for a moment. Do you think you could be straightforward for a moment? That’s merely the construction you chose to put on a perfectly harmless suggestion I made once—once!—that you might try just a little harder, in certain circumstances. We’ll go into another room for a minute, shall we, you and I?

Melinda and I will stay right here with your nana, said Peggy, who has a sort of genius for pointless remarks. Bill and I strolled down the long hall to the dining room. I don’t suppose you happen to know where the, um, liquor cabinet is, I said. What is it you require, Bill said, absinthe? There’s not enough stuff right over there on the credenza? Huh? I said. He said, That’s what it’s called, a credenza—is that all right with you? I said, Maybe you could be a little straightforward yourself. He said, Sorry. I’m under a lot of, um…

Poor Bill. Obviously Dad wasn’t going to be pitching in here. Or Peter, who’s in Melbourne these days. Peter left the whole scene practically as soon as he could
walk
. When Peter was little everyone thought he’d be the one to find a cure for cancer, but he became sort of an importer instead, of things that are rare wherever he happens to be living, so he can be away all the time. From anywhere. Away, away. Away away away away away. Bill at least gets some satisfaction in thinking Peter’s work is trivial—which really makes Jeff snicker, since Bill works for insurance companies, basically figuring out why they don’t have to pay the policyholders. Now,
there’s
something trivial, Jeff said. But then he said no, actually, that it wasn’t trivial at all, was it, it was huge. And that Peggy was even worse than Bill, because Bill was born exploitative and venal and he can’t help it, but Peggy actually
cultivates
those qualities.

I remember once, in this very apartment, overhearing Nana telling my father that he was weak and that he resorted to the weapon of the weak—violent rage—and that he used his charm to disguise the fact that he was always just about to do whatever would make everyone most miserable. I provided you with grandchildren, Dad told her. Does that make you miserable? I thought that was what every mother wanted from her child. How can you complain about your grandchildren?

How? Nana said. Peter is brilliant, but damaged. Lucille is certainly well meaning, and she isn’t a ninny, despite appearances, but she’s afraid of reality just like you. Only
she
expresses it in immaturity, laziness, confusion, and mental passivity.

Well, that was a long, long time ago, of course, but I still remember feeling kind of sick and how quiet it was. It was so quiet I could hear the foliage in the painting rustle and the silvery dust particles clashing together. What about Bill, my father said. Surely you don’t intend to spare Bill? Even from behind the door where I was hiding, I could hear Nana sigh. Poor Bill, she said. That poor, poor Bill.

Hey, that’s my brother you’re talking about, I told Jeff when he criticized Bill, but the fact is, I guess I did that thing that people say people do. Which is that one quality I evidently sought out in my lover is a quality that runs in my family—the quality of having a lot of opinions about other people. Low opinions, specifically.

And Nana would have to recognize now, if she were only compos, that Bill had taken charge of her well-being all by himself, and that he was doing a pretty good job of it. Eileen, for example. Eileen seemed terrific, nothing wrong with Eileen. Listen! I said to Bill. Listen, I want to tell you this with complete sincerity: I know you’ve had to deal with a lot here, and I’m really, truly sorry I haven’t been much help. How could you have been any help? Bill said. You live on the other side of the country.

And besides, I said.

Bill did something with his jaw that made it click. There were dust covers over the chairs. He pulled one aside and sat down. Then he got up and pulled another aside for me. When did she stop going out? I said. When did she stop going out, he said, hooking the words up like the cars of a little toy train, when did she stop going out. When she stopped being able to walk, Lucille? After her first stroke? Kind of hard to get around if you can’t walk.

Well, I guess I assumed she’d use a wheelchair or something, I said. Or that someone would take her. A driver, or someone.

Anyhow, she didn’t want to see anyone, he said. I told you that, I know I told you that. And more to the point I suppose, she didn’t want anyone to see her.

Bill was looking stricken. The fact is, Nana was an amazing person, even if she had been pretty rough with our father, who obviously deserved it anyway. She had seen a lot in her life, she’d experienced a lot, but from all those experiences there weren’t going to be many, you might say, artifacts, except for, oh, the tea service and maybe a bit of jewelry and a few pamphlets or little books, I guess, that she’d written for the institute (foundation?) she worked with. At. With. At.
The tradition of liberal humanism,
I remember Dad saying once, with hatred, as though something or other. Anyhow, there wasn’t going to be much for the world to remember our shiny Nana by, except for example her small, hard, rectangular book on currency. It’s incredible, I can’t ever quite wrap my head around it—that each life is amazingly abundant, no matter what, and every moment of experience is so intense. But so little evidence of that exists outside the living body! Billions of intense, abundant human lives on this earth, Nana’s among them, vanishing. Leaving nothing more than inscrutable little piles of commemorative trash.

I could see that Bill was suffering from those thoughts, too. I put a hand on his arm and said, She didn’t want people to see her, but she let
you
see her.

Bill flushed. I don’t count, he said.

As far back as I can remember, he was subject to sudden flashes of empathy that made him almost ill for a moment, after which he was sure to behave as if someone had kicked the kick me sign on his rear end. Anyhow, you and I have to make some decisions, he said. Like what? I said.

He gave me plenty of time to observe his expression.

Do you know how much this sort of private care costs? he said. Sure, she was well-to-do by your standards. And by mine. But you might pause to consider what will have happened to her portfolio in this last year or so. Mine will go back up in due course, yours will go back up—Portfolio? I said. But hers won’t, Bill said. She doesn’t have the time. In another year, if she lives, she’ll be propped up over a subway grating in the freezing cold with a paper cup to collect change. So the point is that every single thing here has to be decided. And it has to be decided either by
us
, or by
me
. None of it’s going to happen automatically. Honestly, Lulu—you still don’t seem to get it. How do you think Nana came by her nurses? Do you think they just showed up on the doorstep one morning?

Bill rubbed the bridge of his nose as if
I
were the one having the tantrum. The point is, he said, there seems to be no chance of significant recovery. So what will happen with her things, for example? Who will go through her papers? Can we find a better place for her to be? These are decisions.

These were
not
decisions, I didn’t bother to point out to Bill, who was looking really
so
pathetic with his silly jacket and premature potbelly, they were questions. This is Nana’s apartment, I said. This is where she lives. We can’t just, what, send her off on an ice floe.

I appreciate your horror of the sordid mechanics, Bill said. But stay on task, please, focus. I mean, driver! Good lord, Lulu.
What
driver? You know, Geoff is a fine man, I like Geoff, and it’s a big relief to see you settled down, finally, with someone other than a blatant madman. But Geoff is as impractical as you are. More impractical, if possible. He takes an extreme view of things, and I know he encourages you in that as well.

I’m capable of forming my own extreme views, I said. And if you’re referring to the tree painting project, it was hardly
extreme
. We all just picked one tree that was going to be deforested, and commemorated that particular tree in paint. I don’t call that
extreme
.

I agree, Bill said. It’s perfectly harmless. And that’s great, because you have to be prudent. Courage is one thing, and simplistic rashness is another. There are lists, you know. Lists, lists, lists.

Simplistic
rashness
? I said. You know what Jeff has been doing, you know what he’s been studying! I was shouting at Bill but I was thinking about poor Jeff, lying in bed this last month or so, scrawling on sheets of paper. When I’d urge him to eat, he’d start intoning statistics—how many babies born with this, how many babies born with that. I know, I said the other day, I know; don’t tell
me
, tell
them
. We’ve
told
them, he said, that’s why they cut off the funding! He did manage to write a song or two about it, at least, and he sang one on his friend Bobby Baines’s 6 a.m. radio slot. You’d be surprised what Jeff can wrap a good tune around. I wish he’d get back to his music. It used to be so much fun, hanging out with his band. My mouth was still open, I noticed, and yelling at my brother. The funding’s been cut off, my mouth was yelling. For the whole study! And now they’re saying, Depleted uranium, wow, it’s great for you, sprinkle it on your breakfast cereal! Is it any wonder Jeff isn’t a barrel of laughs these days? Is it any wonder he’s on a short fuse? Extreme! You’re the one who’s extreme! I can absolutely
hear
how you’re trying to pretend his name is spelled! Jeff is
Jewish
, okay? Do you think you can handle it? His name is Jeff with a
J
, not Waspy, Waspy Geoff with a G, but every time you send us so much as a note, it’s Dear Lulu and Geoff with a
G
!