Your Sad Eyes and Unforgettable Mouth Read online

  Today such features have become rare, and we’re drawn to them. I was lucky, finding this seven-room flat thirty-five years ago, when rents were low—I was a tenant back then. It’s classic Plateau: a long, wide corridor with the kitchen at the end and a small storage/laundry room beyond that; bedrooms and double living room on either side of the corridor; bay windows in front.

  At the centre of this domestic scene is its canine protagonist, Sailor, an irresistible St. Bernard. He’s getting on, my Sailor, and these days he mostly sleeps between walks. When I first brought him home, he headed straight for the shelter of my eight-sided oak table, and as this continued to be his favoured resting spot—I understand the attraction—I created a little bed for him there; four-poster, you could say. He likes to settle his warm chin on my bare feet as I eat or grade papers—a perfect example of mutualistic symbiosis.

  And so we return, Sailor and I, to the snack stand at Camp Bakunin, some four decades ago—

  Anthony, first view of.

  Lean and a few inches taller than me, aquiline nose, Kafka ears, though otherwise nothing like Kafka, for he was neither lopsided nor haunted—his face was symmetrical, tanned, composed. Composed but lively: his blue-grey eyes looked at you with curiosity, and you could see that he wasn’t telling you everything, not because he was secretive but out of consideration. His dark hair, damp with sweat, clung to the top of his high forehead, and his navy T-shirt was splotchy in front. That’s all he had on, jeans and a T-shirt; it was a minimalist look, without the hippie trappings. He was as easygoing as the other counsellors, but he had more physical confidence; he seemed ready, even impatient, for new experience.

  “Bonjour, bonjour,” he said, pouring milk into small glasses. “Je suis Antoine from Paris, where we make the big riot.” A moment later he was Antonio, director of 401 Blows, a New Wave movie about a handkerchief, and then Anton, Russian physicist and inventor of the weightless space knish.

  I noticed him staring at me as I munched on a cookie. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m Maya,” I said, crumbs falling from my mouth. “Sorry.”

  “This poor waif hasn’t eaten in weeks. Who’s in charge here? Haven’t they heard this child ask for more?”

  “Actually, I eat a lot,” I said. “My mother cooks a lot of food.”

  “But who are you?” Anthony asked a second time.

  I liked the playful attention, but my inability to come up with an original or interesting response made me self-conscious. “I don’t know. Sorry.”

  “I forbid you to be sorry. Now or ever.”

  I almost apologized for apologizing but caught myself. “All right,” I said, giggling.

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  He turned to Mimi, who was in charge of the cookies. She had steel-wool hair and granny glasses, and she wore a peasant dress, as they were called then—flowery cotton, ankle-length, puffed sleeves. Several long strings of amber beads were trying to decide whether to settle between or around her breasts. I thought she might be my favourite, if I was going to have one.

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed,” Anthony said, leaning towards Mimi as if confiding in her. “Have you ever seen a more striking resemblance to Joan of Arc?”

  Mimi smiled. “Let’s hope not.”

  I wondered whether Anthony was teasing me because I happened to be standing there, or whether he really had a particular view of me. That year I’d been singled out for the first time by someone other than my mother and grandmother, and possibly Esther the librarian: one of my teachers, Miss Lariccia, had taken a liking to me. She lent me The House in Paris, The Sound and the Fury, stories by Flannery O’Connor. In return, I wrote a composition that had the entire staff humming with approval. There was talk of entering it in a competition, but in the end the subject matter was deemed inappropriate. How My Grandfather Was Shot in the Forest. Fiction: I knew only that he was shot, the rest I invented. A secret race of mutants, born without hearts, heartless, dangerous. My mother saves herself by climbing a tree. There she is cared for by an eagle, dines on sunflower seeds. In the end, darkness, the sun shrinking to the size of a dolphin, then an egg, then a grain of sand.

  Anthony shifted his attention back to pouring the milk and seemed to have forgotten all about me. But as I turned away, he called after me: “Joan Malone! Don’t forget to send a postcard!”

  “I’ll write every day!” I called back.

  Looking back at that summer, it still seems to me that a perfect falling into place, a lucky convergence, had brought our counsellors together. Mimi, Anthony, Sheldon, Olga, Bruno, Jean-Marc—they were all good-humoured, affectionate, kind.

  This may have been partly due to drugs. In the privacy of their own cabins, our counsellors swallowed and inhaled a variety of substances. We knew because we peeked in through their windows, because Bruno told us, and because we caught whiffs of the exotic smoke when they opened their cabin doors.

  But they took their role as our protectors seriously. Every evening we gathered around a blazing campfire and listened, wide-eyed, as Sheldon, true to the Camp Bakunin mandate, improved our minds with stories of martyrdom: Sacco and Vanzetti, Ethel and Julius, the Scottsboro Boys. Marshmallows were bourgeois and hot dogs upset Mimi, who was vegetarian, so we passed around bags of chips instead. After the stories Sheldon played guitar and taught us songs. Go down, Moses! Wa-a-y down in Egypt Land. Tell old Pharaoh, to let my people go.

  I, too, had been liberated. Though I hadn’t imagined this setting for my new life, the long-awaited event had taken place: I’d left my mother. At mealtime I would make the rounds, moving from camper to camper and throwing my arms around them. I was half-joking, half-overflowing with love. And that was the motto of the day: all you need is love, love is all you need. The underlying eccentricity of the entire Bakunin project camouflaged my kooky behaviour, and the hugs became routine, solicited as soon as I appeared by the chanting of my name, Ma-ya, Ma-ya, accompanied by a rhythmical drumming of spoons or feet.

  In order to prevent the days from slipping by too quickly, I tried to hold on to every detail. Sheldon played sixteen instruments. Bruno had been born with the vestige of a tail at the small of his back. Mimi took midnight walks. One time I tagged along with her, and we ended up in the deserted infirmary. Mimi stretched out on the bare mattress and told me that she’d given birth to a baby girl who was adopted by an aunt in London. Would she ever see her daughter again? She didn’t know. Maybe, maybe not. I was tongue-tied with Mimi, even though she was the one I most wanted to like me.

  In our eyes they were all beautiful, but I think it was our counsellors’ attentiveness that accounted, more than anything else, for our infatuation. We weren’t accustomed to so much courtesy—not from our parents and teachers, not from one another.

  Should we follow Olga to the art room, Mimi to the beach, or Bruno on the hiking trail? We wanted to be with everyone. Anthony did the hard work: took out the garbage, drove the cook to fetch water, helped her peel potatoes. He would show up at odd times in odd places; as soon as we saw him we stopped what we were doing and waited to be entertained. His jokes were often incomprehensible, at other times inane. He was the one who taught us the Hitler has only got one ball song, to the tune of the “Colonel Bogey March,” and we sang it as we trooped into the dining hall.

  Moral instruction around the campfire was sometimes enhanced by skits. One night, Sheldon read aloud Shirley Jackson’s terrifying story, “The Lottery,” and we had to act out the plot as he read—collect stones, choose slips of paper from a box. All our slips were blank. The counsellors began circling Mimi menacingly and hissing: We know you have it, we saw you hiding something, hand it over, Mimi. Mimi pretended to become more and more frightened. Then, as Olga and Bruno held her arms, Jean-Marc removed her sandal, and the paper with the black dot fluttered out. And Mimi began to wail, “Why me, why me?”

  “Now, would anyone here stone Mimi?” Sheldon asked. Of cou
rse we wouldn’t, even if—the idea made us giggle—we’d found out that Mimi was a serial killer. It was only when an authority, seen or unseen, created fear—it was only then, Sheldon explained, that people behaved badly, instead of following their hearts. Having arrived at that satisfactory conclusion, we proceeded to a few rounds of traditional slave songs. Poor Howard’s dead and gone, left us here to sing this song …

  Later, after we’d all gone to bed, I found myself unable to sleep, not because of the disturbing story but because my stomach was growling. Supper had not been a success—soggy grilled-cheese sandwiches, soggier mashed turnips—and no one had eaten very much. I strolled to the kitchen in search of bread and peanut butter. On the way back to my bunk house, I heard voices coming from behind one of the counsellors’ cabins; there was a wooden bench there that was a favourite hangout. The voices belonged to Anthony and Mimi, and something about their tone made me stop. I don’t recall feeling guilty about eavesdropping; if anything, I think I felt lucky that I’d stumbled on a snippet of grown-up life. Mimi wasn’t exactly crying, but she sounded distraught. I caught only a few words here and there: “He promised … I wish … when I came here…”

  I had no difficulty hearing Anthony’s response. “You’re expecting too much, sweetheart. Think of the story we read tonight. They practically stoned Jackson for writing it.”

  Then: “Yes, Mimi, yes, I know—it’s the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Meanwhile, napalm bombs are falling on children—and for what? Some manufactured fear … Back where we began, or rather back where we’ve always been.”

  And finally: “In six months you’re not even going to remember tonight. Or you’ll remember, vaguely, but you won’t care. In five years you’ll be amazed you ever cared. One has to admit, angel, our humble fare left much to be desired. I’m famished, are you?”

  A silence followed. I assumed they were setting out, like me, for the kitchen, and I hurried off before they caught me spying. But now, when I think back to that moment, it occurs to me that what I heard was the silence of a kiss.

  A week later, I, too, had a late-night, or rather early-morning, encounter with Anthony. I’d been stirred from sleep by the sound of sobbing, and before I was fully awake, I thought my weeping mother had come to take me home. I imagined myself clinging to the bedpost, refusing to budge.

  But it was Sheila, my bunkmate, who was crying quietly into her pillow. I remember being puzzled: why would anyone cry, here in Shangri-La? Lily, who was only ten, had famously wept for an hour when Sheldon described Ethel and Julius Rosenberg saying goodbye to their children before being led to the electric chair, but that was different.

  Sheila had an oval face, nearly translucent skin, and black eyebrows that rose like twin mosques over delicate eyes. Her parents were religious and would never have sent her to Bakunin had they known anything about it. But they were poor, and couldn’t afford an ordinary Jewish camp like B’nai Brith. Sheila refused to apply for a scholarship—“They’d kick me out of there within hours,” she told us. Instead, she’d convinced her parents that Camp Bakunin was both ordinary and Jewish. It wasn’t hard to do; they were afraid of their own shadows, according to Sheila. “I earned this break,” she said with languid defiance. “Talk about exploited workers. I have to do everything at home.”

  I was surprised to see her in tears; she’d seemed far too world-weary and aloof to take anyone’s problems very seriously, including her own. “What is it?” I whispered. “What happened? Are you sick?”

  She shook her head; she didn’t want to tell me. “Did something happen?” I persisted. “You’re sure you’re not sick? I could call someone.”

  Arming herself with self-deprecation, she told me that her period had started and she couldn’t face washing her underwear. At home her mother performed the odious task; if she had to do it herself, she’d faint. But throwing the panties into the garbage was out of the question: she’d bought three pairs, light blue lace with a border of tiny lace flowers, especially for camp. They had cost $2.49 each.

  Her distress interested me. My own periods were unimpressive, and it was only with great effort that I succeeded in preventing my mother from following me into the bathroom in order to applaud my small output.

  “I can wash them for you,” I offered. “I don’t mind.”

  Sheila shook her head again. I couldn’t tell whether she was being considerate or whether the thought of involving me embarrassed her.

  “It’s no big deal for me,” I repeated.

  Reluctantly, she handed me the rolled-up towel in which she’d concealed her panties. I found my flashlight and a bar of laundry soap, patted liquid mosquito repellent on my pyjamas—a trick Mimi had taught us—and headed for the lake.

  Walking outdoors in my flannel pyjamas in the middle of the night made me feel cosy and adventurous at the same time, as if I’d been parachuted into enemy territory with an urgent message, but inside a story I knew would end well. This was the witching hour: around me the disembodied odours of sand and pine seemed to lift me out of my body as well. I could be anybody, anything, in the transient night air.

  The lake under moonlight was alive, friendly, mysterious. Any moment now a mermaid, or Neptune himself, would rise to the surface. I knelt down and washed Sheila’s underwear with the rectangular bar of yellow soap. I wondered why anyone would be squeamish about the body’s foiled quest for reproduction. She didn’t have to touch the stain, or even look at it—but the whole idea made her sick. Why?

  I got soaked, kneeling in the water. When I’d finished, I spread the panties on a large rock and sat on the cool, gravelly sand so I could watch the sun rise. Pale gold light gradually seeped out of its blue prison. It lit up the sky and unfurled on the water its trembling jewels. I thought of my father, who had been buried at sea. Those are pearls that were his eyes.

  I stood up, rolled up the legs of my pyjamas, and stepped into the chilly water. The sand stirred under my weight and the small pebbles pushed against my feet like a greeting. For the first time, I was sorry I didn’t know how to swim. Why had I not inherited my father’s talents? He’d been, according to my mother, a champion athlete once upon a time, as well as a star student and talented comic actor.

  I was so absorbed by these meditations that when a voice broke the silence, I thought that I was imagining things, and that my father’s ghost was calling to me. But the voice was real. I turned around and saw Anthony sitting on the sand.

  “I didn’t know you were here!” I exclaimed. “What did you say?”

  “I was asking whether you were washing away our sins.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “I was making my way back to my humble cell when I saw a tall, shadowy figure in pyjamas heading towards the lake. My curiosity aroused, I stealthily followed.”

  “I smell something,” I said. “Hash?”

  “Possibly.”

  “I’m never going to take drugs. I could end up like my mother.”

  “Ah, the famous mother. I don’t think you’re in any danger. So what exactly are you doing here, Joan Malone?”

  “I was just washing someone’s underwear.”

  Anthony gazed at me impassively—or so it seemed to me—for a few seconds.

  “One of the girls was crying,” I explained. “She got her period, and she’s squeamish.”

  “Ah, I was right about you. Didn’t I say from the start?”

  “But it doesn’t mean anything, because it’s easy for me. So it doesn’t count.”

  “Yes, who would not leave their warm bed in order to solve another person’s delicate predicament?”

  “It’s fun being out at night. I love when it’s dark but also hot. Anyhow, I thought anarchists believed in people. That we’re all good, if we get a chance. That’s what Sheldon taught us.”

  “You have a point,” he said, bored with the subject. “Do you think Olga likes me?”

  “I think she likes Sheldon,” I said. I’d seen Olga and Shel
don kissing in the forest, when I went to pee. It was a short kiss, a kiss in passing, but it hinted at things to come, or at something that had already happened.

  “Yes, you’re right. Mating rituals of the ruling class.”

  “Are you in love with her?” I asked.

  “No, how can I be? I love you. Come here, Rapunzel, I’ll braid your golden hair for you.”

  “It’s not gold,” I said. “It’s sort of orange.” I usually wore my hair loose or tied back with an elastic band; I associated braids not with flower children but with the oppressive sentimentality that accompanied my mother’s depictions of life before the war—such happy girls we were baking bread laughing laughing—it gave me nausea, that sort of oppression, that sort of sentimentality.

  But it was all right: Anthony would ensure that I was shielded, at least for now, from my mother’s past. He divided my hair into strips with difficulty. “My God, don’t you own a hairbrush?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Joan Malone, I thought we had an agreement about that. You promised. And already you’re betraying me.”

  “Why Malone?”

  “‘In Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,’” he sang softly.

  “I don’t know that song.”

  “‘As she wheeled her wheelbarrow, through streets broad and narrow, crying “Cockles and mussels, alive alive-oh.’””

  “What are cockles and mussels?”

  “Non-kosher seafood.”

  “What exactly is that?”

  “What exactly is what?”

  “Kosher. I’m never really sure what it means.”

  “What kind of Jew are you anyhow?” he asked. “Kosher as in religious law permits you to eat it. Non-kosher as in pork, lobster, snails, itsy-bitsy spiders.”

  “I wouldn’t mind having a brother like you,” I said.

  He squinted at me. “A brother, huh?”

  “My father died and my mother didn’t remarry, so I’m stuck being an only child.”