might have been no
good for town, but one thing he could do was dance, and the other thing he did was
bow. She put my one hand on my belly and my one hand on my back. She reshowed me how
to do my eyes. My mother was explaining how the best of women shunted men who seemed
too green, or insincere, or men who were too proud to think that bowing to a woman
wasimportant. I did not want a woman who would find my wink too fetching. I did not want
a woman who was taken up by gifts of rhinestones, or by women’s magazines and talkshows
on the radio or TV. I did not want a woman who required much improvement.
All of this I understood. But still I struggled. I felt spastic, gawky, severed—“a
chicken with his head cut off”—I feared I was a little ox, a lumox, a lumberer whose
bones had grown beyond the jurisdiction of the signalways that meant to move them.
I could not feel myself. My mother must have seen this. She held me, put her one hand
at my waist, pressed me with the other at the shoulderblades. She put her fingertips
against my eyelids. She said, “Feel?” She asked me, “Can you tell the difference?”
And then my mother let me go it on my own awhile; and then she picked me up again, and we rehearsed the whole routine, from
the proper introductions and the proper dance, to the proper curtsies, bows, and proper
partings. My mother said, “That’s it,” and, “Yes, you’re doing fine,” but I knew I
was not. My mother tapped me on the forehead, told me I should think, and don’t forget,
but it was more to me like giving up then than succeeding, it felt to me as if remembering
would be unthinkable, a willful reproduction of a tender failure—masochistic, in the
long run, awfully Catholic, maybe, not too shrewd.
She walked away from me. And then my mother asked me, as if she had forgotten she
had asked me once already, “Does it smell much like a barn in here?” She said, “Are
you sure you know what we are doing?”
My mother turned to me, just enough to show me what I thought of as her good side,
where her hair came down across the eyebrow, just above the cheekbone, exposing just
the very bottom of her earlobe, where she wore an earring, a tremendous, mateless,silver hoop, which put me at the time in mind of someone not a mother, a woman more
alone than mothers were, and prettier, I might say now, predatory, I suppose, wan
and catlike; she must have seemed to me a great, hunted cat, wounded, abandoned in
the dusk to pant and bleed and wanly ponder what had struck her.
I think I knew that it was Papa.
I think my mother knew I knew that it was Papa.
My mother pinched this earring, she rubbed it; she was thinking, I thought, looking
forward to the end of something she was trying to remember.
My mother said, “I wasn’t going to have you with your daddy. I wanted you to see the
world, all the oceans and museums. When I was just a little girl,” she said, “I used
to play-pretend that you were walking with me through a slew of foreign airports.
You were just as pretty as you are. We were both so pretty. I was younger. People
looked at us. We wore the smartest clothes. We were mostly on our way to see St. Peter’s.
Or we were coming back from there. My friend, Amelia, Mrs. Dangberg—Owen’s mommy?—she
went over there and brought back home a T-shirt and a metal pigeon. She said that
giant negroes sold them. Skinny ones. She says if I could see how beautiful—and also
scary—a giant, skinny negro was, then I wouldn’t be so quick to call her metal pigeon
ticky-tack. But in my heart, I wasn’t having any piece of Rome Amelia Dangberg was
describing. I went right on having us be over there. For us, whenever we would go,
we had a favorite secret color. It was blue. That way, every day the sun was shining,
we could always see a little bit of home, when we were at St. Peter’s, and we could
always see a little of St.
good for town, but one thing he could do was dance, and the other thing he did was
bow. She put my one hand on my belly and my one hand on my back. She reshowed me how
to do my eyes. My mother was explaining how the best of women shunted men who seemed
too green, or insincere, or men who were too proud to think that bowing to a woman
wasimportant. I did not want a woman who would find my wink too fetching. I did not want
a woman who was taken up by gifts of rhinestones, or by women’s magazines and talkshows
on the radio or TV. I did not want a woman who required much improvement.
All of this I understood. But still I struggled. I felt spastic, gawky, severed—“a
chicken with his head cut off”—I feared I was a little ox, a lumox, a lumberer whose
bones had grown beyond the jurisdiction of the signalways that meant to move them.
I could not feel myself. My mother must have seen this. She held me, put her one hand
at my waist, pressed me with the other at the shoulderblades. She put her fingertips
against my eyelids. She said, “Feel?” She asked me, “Can you tell the difference?”
And then my mother let me go it on my own awhile; and then she picked me up again, and we rehearsed the whole routine, from
the proper introductions and the proper dance, to the proper curtsies, bows, and proper
partings. My mother said, “That’s it,” and, “Yes, you’re doing fine,” but I knew I
was not. My mother tapped me on the forehead, told me I should think, and don’t forget,
but it was more to me like giving up then than succeeding, it felt to me as if remembering
would be unthinkable, a willful reproduction of a tender failure—masochistic, in the
long run, awfully Catholic, maybe, not too shrewd.
She walked away from me. And then my mother asked me, as if she had forgotten she
had asked me once already, “Does it smell much like a barn in here?” She said, “Are
you sure you know what we are doing?”
My mother turned to me, just enough to show me what I thought of as her good side,
where her hair came down across the eyebrow, just above the cheekbone, exposing just
the very bottom of her earlobe, where she wore an earring, a tremendous, mateless,silver hoop, which put me at the time in mind of someone not a mother, a woman more
alone than mothers were, and prettier, I might say now, predatory, I suppose, wan
and catlike; she must have seemed to me a great, hunted cat, wounded, abandoned in
the dusk to pant and bleed and wanly ponder what had struck her.
I think I knew that it was Papa.
I think my mother knew I knew that it was Papa.
My mother pinched this earring, she rubbed it; she was thinking, I thought, looking
forward to the end of something she was trying to remember.
My mother said, “I wasn’t going to have you with your daddy. I wanted you to see the
world, all the oceans and museums. When I was just a little girl,” she said, “I used
to play-pretend that you were walking with me through a slew of foreign airports.
You were just as pretty as you are. We were both so pretty. I was younger. People
looked at us. We wore the smartest clothes. We were mostly on our way to see St. Peter’s.
Or we were coming back from there. My friend, Amelia, Mrs. Dangberg—Owen’s mommy?—she
went over there and brought back home a T-shirt and a metal pigeon. She said that
giant negroes sold them. Skinny ones. She says if I could see how beautiful—and also
scary—a giant, skinny negro was, then I wouldn’t be so quick to call her metal pigeon
ticky-tack. But in my heart, I wasn’t having any piece of Rome Amelia Dangberg was
describing. I went right on having us be over there. For us, whenever we would go,
we had a favorite secret color. It was blue. That way, every day the sun was shining,
we could always see a little bit of home, when we were at St. Peter’s, and we could
always see a little of St.
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