Prayers for the Living (48 page)

“Please, no.”

“I want someone there.”

“Not him . . .”

“Mama?”

“I'll call Daniel. I like him. He'll come up.”

“Okay, Mama. I'm going to board the plane now.”

And I could imagine my Manny, his dark suit, his white hair, the slender little briefcase in his hand, taking big strides toward the entrance to the airplane, a distinguished man in an undistinguished hurry.

H
E HAD BEEN
there for what turned out to be a final meeting with the board of the company next on the horizon—with the biggest shareholders from the board—and he was giving them assurances, assurances all afternoon long. There had been a faction of people owning stock, family members, younger people, who wanted him to acknowledge that he would turn around some of the company's policies in that part of the world, America the south, where it owned most of its property, and these he gave assurances to also, and so—surprised as he was that these Boston people wanted something more than just the money for their shares—he gave his assurances to the ones who wanted only the money that their money would be there—and before you knew it he was the majority in this biggest company of all that he had ever owned. My Manny the majority!

“
She has gone far enough!
”

This was Mord—who came over at Manny's call.

“
She has gone too far!
”

Mord claimed, he
claimed
that he had woken up that morning and known that something was going to go wrong.

He was writhing in a dream, turning his body to the tune of a Bedouin flute while beasts of burden—camels, horses, asses—tested the lengths of their tethers, hawing, spitting, snorting, and the moon rose over an ocean of dunes. There was music in this dream, the splattering of tambourines and the punching of drums, the jangling of wristlets and bracelets, a moaning chorus of camel drivers.

            
Zum bah nim

            
Sum akh

            
Zum bah nim

            
Sum akh

Some strange singing in dreams! And some strange goings on! For a man who lived like a monk—from all reports, including his own, this was the way he lived—there was also some funny business with a boy all greased up and dancing.

Some dark night, warm with cirrus clouds, flavored with citrus winds, he and the greased child had sipped mint tea together, and spoke in the language of the dream songs.

            
Mustah markhim zum bah nim
.

            
Alia goh beem, go beem
.

Words like this, like that.

And he had traced a map of the unknown country in which he lived while asleep on the sand, on the boy's dried, bony chest, turning his flat nipples into oases, his head into a hairy mountain—and elsewhere? Well, on this subject he didn't go into too much more detail.

But he said that when he awoke his scalp bristled with an electricity only danger can generate, his skin prickled with it. In his nose, the smell of camels, elephants even, the prominent odors of his neighbor the Central Park Zoo.

He was so furious when he arrived at the apartment I thought his bald head would turn so red-hot he could cook an egg on it.

“I've called the police in Jersey and here, and I've called the FBI.”

“You called the who?”

“The FBI. This is interstate, Mama”—hardly his mother I was, but he called me this anyway, and I let him, because who doesn't feel sorry for a man such as this, no matter what his successes? “They told me they have to wait a certain number of hours before they can start on a case.”

“A case? This is a case? A girl took her mother on a picnic. How can that be called a case?”

This man, he was the only person in the family I didn't like, even if I had some sympathy for him. I wanted to wash my hands of him—he was driving my Manny so hard, showing him what he must do, one thing after another. And now he wants the FBI,
kinnahurra,
to come and chase my granddaughter?

“It's that school,” he said, pacing around the apartment. “Manny should never have let her go to that school.”

“He's a good father,” I defended him. “She went where she wanted to go. A little crazy, but it's what she wanted. And what do I know about school, anyway?”

“Well, look where it's got her.”

“Where has it got her? She took her mother on a picnic.”

“She's kidnapped her out of the hospital,” he said.

“Don't yell at me, mister, please.”

“What's all this?” Manny breathed hard as he came in the door.

“He's yelling at me and we're not even related,” I said to my son.

“Mord?”

“Have you called the New England state troopers, Manny?”

“They've already found them,” he said. “I talked to them from the airport.”

“Where?”

“In Vermont. At her teacher's house. Out in the country.”

“They were having a picnic?”

“Yes, Mama, I suppose you could say that,” my Manny answered me.

T
HEY HAD DRIVEN
directly to Vermont from Owl Valley, a trip that took several hours. The sun was going down when they arrived. Maby was asleep in the back of the car, but she woke up abruptly when they stopped at the apartment on the campus where Peale the painter stayed when she was up from the city.

“It's too dark for a picnic now, isn't it?” Maby said. “When will we do it?”

“Tomorrow,” Peale said.

“Tomorrow, that's good,” Sadie said.

“And what do we do tonight? Do we go back to Owl Valley? It's a long ride, isn't it?”

“We'll stay here tonight, Mom. We'll eat dinner indoors. And you can come to class with me tomorrow. Would you like that?”

“I would love it,” Maby said. And she climbed out of the car as enthusiastically as a child arriving at the house of a relative whom she loves dearly and desires to see.

“Is this where you live?” she asked the painter woman after they stepped inside. The walls were cluttered with more of Peale's giant woman paintings, breasts, ears, fluted noses, the Vs of thigh and crotch, tents of leg and hair, here and there an entire body or two clutching together as if falling through a terrible empty space.

“Liberated territory of the super-gyn,” the painter said. “Right, Sadie?”

“Right.”

“It sounds like fun,” Maby said. “I never had fun when I was Sadie's age.”

“Things are different now,” the painter said with a smile, as she led her into the kitchen and began to look about for the makings of a meal.

“I never was
your
age,” Maby said.

The painter laughed. She lighted a funny cigarette and after sucking in smoke passed it to Sadie's mama.

“What's this?”

“Try it, you'll like it,” the painter said, pursing her thin cruel mouth into a crooked smile.

Maby took the little stick in her hand, studied it, took a puff, and coughed, choking. She kept trying. “Strange,” she said after a few minutes. She helped with the salad while the painter cooked something in a skillet and Sadie set the table, as if mother and
daughter had become daughters and the stranger, the painter, was the mother.

“They give you a lot of medication there, don't they, Mama?” Sadie asked as they were sitting down.

Maby nodded.

“No more of that, though,” the painter said. “They drug us, it's the tranquilization of an entire gender, and we're not going to let that kind of shit go down anymore.”

“Hell no,” Sadie said.

“Strange,” her mother muttered, staring at her plate. “Are you thinking of driving me home now?”

“No, no, Mama,” Sadie said. “It's too far. We're not taking you back. You're going to stay with us here awhile. You're going to get all that stuff out of your system. You're going to enjoy the country air. We're going to take walks, we're going to swim when the water warms up a little.”

“Does your father know about this?”

“Fuck the fathers,” Peale said. “Fuck and fuck and fuck them dead, with their dangly tissue of machinery looking like chicken guts and their great thoughts about themselves.”

“Strange,” said Maby.

“She doesn't mean kill them, Mama. She just means that we have to throw off the yoke of oppression all those generations of patriarchs have put on us.”

“And brothers?” Maby said.

“Them, too,” Peale said, looking Maby hard in the eye. “Why? Did your brother oppress you as well as your father?”

Maby lowered her head until her brow touched the edge of her plate and began to whimper like a hurt little beast.

“I'd better go back,” she said after a minute. Sadie was touching her shoulder.

“There, there,” she was saying. “There, there.”

“I should want this, shouldn't I?” Maby was saying. “I should, I should.”

“Mama . . .”

Sadie kept on stroking her shoulder.

“We're damaged women. We have to help ourselves repair ourselves. Do you see?”

“I see you.”

“What?”

Maby picked up a knife from the table, sliced it across the tender underside of her right forefinger, and drew in quick bloody strokes on the tablecloth: