That Said (21 page)

and glass shatters safely underfoot.

 

She rewinds the tape back to the beginning,

to what she calls the “really funny part,”

back to before our murmuring guests

sit down in the rented chairs on that

sweltering June Sunday, 96 degrees,

freesia wilting, family close to fainting,

whipped cream on the cake about to turn,

back to before we stand under the canopy,

back to before the ceremony, back to when

my father presses the Record button, clears

his throat and says into the microphone:

“Testing, testing”
—a voice I last heard

years ago, a few days before he died.

 

Shocked, I hear my dead mother say,

“George, are you sure the tape recorder's

working?” And my father says, “I'm sure.”

My mother says, “George, are you
sure

the batteries aren't dead?” And my father

answers patiently at first, then wearily,

“Essie, I'm sure.” She asks him again,

and he answers again, and here they are,

arguing in my bedroom, in the house

my mother never set foot in.

My daughter's eyes shine with laughter;

mine with tears. Although I'd give anything

to have them back, even for a moment, I clamp

my hands over my ears (just as I used to

when I was growing up) and shut them out again.

Other mothers have their “Everything Stew,”

“Icebox Ragout,” “Kitchen-Sink Casserole.”

Mine had “Shit Soup,” a recipe she told me

standing in her kitchen in New Jersey.

“Find a big pot, the biggest pot you have.

Shit a quartered chicken into the pot.

If you have an old carcass lying around,

shit it in. Add three quarts of cold water

and salt, and bring to a boil. Skim off

the foam as it collects on the surface.

Slice one large or two medium onions.

Shit them in. Shit in some dill and parsley.

Dried is okay but fresh tastes better.

Cut into bite-size pieces some carrots,

a couple celery stalks. Shit them in.

Those lousy-looking zucchini squash,

withered wedges of cabbage, puckered peas.

In other words, anything in the fridge.

If you have fresh or frozen string beans,

shit them in. Shit in a few potatoes.

Peel the skin, dig out the eyes, cut off

the bad parts—and shit them in anyway,

they're filled with vitamins and minerals.

Friday's leftovers, oh, what the hell.

Shit them in, shit in twelve black peppercorns.

Want to know my secret ingredient?

One ripe tomato makes the broth taste sweet.

What's under that aluminum foil?

Shit it in. A little mold won't kill you.

My recipe? I don't measure. I just shit

a little of this in, a little of that.

Your Mama's Shit Soup. Enough for a week.

With a pot of this you'll never go hungry.”

Shit in “There wasn't time for me to go

to the ShopRite and buy steaks to broil

for your father's and your dinner.”

Shit in “I'd like to sell the store someday

and move to Florida.” Shit in the Recession,

the Second World War, the Great Depression.

Shit in “There's no rest for the weary.”

Shit in her bunions, her itchy skin.

Shit in “Rich or poor, it's nice to have money.”

Shit in “Marriage isn't made in heaven.”

Shit in the Republicans. Shit in her tumor.

Shit in where it spread to her liver

“like grains of rice,” the doctor said.

Shit in her daughters at the cemetery

crying over the hole when they lowered

her in. Shit in one last handful of dirt.

Cover the pot and reduce heat to low.

Simmer on the lowest possible flame

for two hours, or until vegetables

are fork tender, meat falls off the bone.

After her funeral, I swiped it,

swaddled it, and spirited it home.

I'd have preferred a plain unfussy one,

not this pewter cupid caryatid

bracing up a shining circle

flipping, two-faced, like a coin—

a regular mirror on one side,

a magnifying mirror on the other.

 

It was my mother's best friend,

worst enemy. As a girl, I watched her

stare into it for hours, examining

her wrinkles, tweezing her eyebrows.

Sometimes I'd walk in on her

inspecting her face pore by pore,

brow to chin. Once a week,

 

she'd smear her face with a white clay

beauty mask that hardened like porcelain,

broken only by the glittering peepholes

of her dark brown eyes.

She appraised her face

as if she were considering

a damaged antique vase, and weighing

the severity of its cracks.

 

Her jaw sagged, her chin doubled,

little bags puffed out

under her eyes.

Her right eye, then her left,

clouded over with cataracts.

The mirror never changed.

 

The day after her funeral, my sister

and I sat and divided up her things.

I got the diamond engagement ring,

the longer string of pearls.

I was the older daughter, the firstborn.

I felt I had the right.

 

Now, at fifty,

I stare into her mirror

glazed with our common face,

the face I'll pass down to my daughter,

who watches from behind me

with the same puzzled look I had

when I watched my mother,

out of the corner of her eye,

watching me.

 

But when I swivel the mirror

to its other side,

the face tilting up at me slides away

and returns twice its size,

with swollen nose, bulging eyes, unstable

flesh stretching like the taffy body

in the funhouse mirror

at Palisades Amusement Park,

where I used to go and gaze

at the girl I was.

 

I look away. What did I think?

That I'd stay fourteen forever?

“By the time you're fifty,”

my mother used to say,

“you get the face you deserve.”

Joyce opens her antique silk-covered box

and we shuffle twelve dozen ebony tiles

face-down on my kitchen table.

She calls this the “Twittering of the Sparrows.”

She's teaching my daughter, Emma, and me

how to play mah-jongg, the game

all the Jewish mothers played, except mine.

 

It's way past Emma's bedtime,

the harvest moon having risen hours ago

round and full as the one-dot

on its tile of worn ebony.

After we've stacked the tiles

and built a square Great Wall of China,

Joyce hands Emma a tiny box carved from bone,

which holds two tiny ivory dice,

small as her baby teeth I tucked away

in an envelope in my keepsake drawer.

 

This is weird. My generation of women

wouldn't be caught dead playing mah-jongg,

the game all the Jewish mothers played

summers at Applebaum's Bungalow Colony,

red fingernails clicking against the tiles.

 

Joyce's friend Susan taught her mah-jongg;

and like a big sister, Joyce wanted to teach me;

her favorite Bakelite bracelets

clunking noisily around her wrist.

Beginners, we are not yet ready

to gamble with real money.

We lay our tiles face-up on the table,

exposing our hands, so everyone can see.

 

At Applebaum's my mother would watch

the other mothers playing mah-jongg—

but she wouldn't sit down and join them.

Even when she took the summer off,

my mother was not about playing.

 

I roll the highest score on the dice,

so I am the East Wind, the dealer.

But I'm sitting at the foot of the table,

where the south, on a map, would be.

It's not the normal geography.

The South Wind sits to the left of me

clunking her bracelets,

and Emma's the North Wind, on my right.

Joyce tells us a little trick to remember

the clockwise order of play—

“Eat Soy With Noodles,”

(East, South, West, North)—

and to remind us who'll be the East Wind next.

 

Oh how I love the sound of the tiles

clicking together, the sound our nails make

clicking against the tiles,

the sound the ebony tiles make

scraping the oak table, the sound the dice make

bouncing softly on the wood,

the sound my mouth makes calling out

“Eight crack” and “Five bamboo” as I discard them,

the sounds the ivory counting sticks make

when we add up our scores,

and the names of the hands we have scored,