Читать книгу The Sharp End of Life - Dierdre Wolownick - Страница 14

PEOPLE ARE REALLY PACKED together in Japan. Dense doesn’t begin to describe it. Charlie grew up in California accustomed to wide-open spaces, empty sidewalks, sprawling highways, and vast, empty stretches of nothingness. So during our first summer vacation from teaching in Japan, we went to Australia for two months. He needed it, he said. I understood.

On our camping tours through the outback, the thousands of miles of desert in Australia’s center, we were known as “the newlyweds.” When the others all went to visit the pub, usually the only sign of life in the tiny crossroads where we stopped, Charlie and I chose instead to savor the landscape around us. Amazing bird life. Silence. Stars. The Southern Cross. The “real” Australia, he called it. Together we feasted on the natural beauty of the country. Only that.

The unending, stark beauty of Australia’s outback distracted me so that I didn’t notice until years later how much I had missed. The people. The culture. The unique lifestyle of the outback. The cuisine, the drinks, stories, camaraderie. The human Australia. I believed Charlie when he explained how depressing pubs were, smoke-filled and uninviting, how much more serene and lovely it was where we strolled, or hiked, or sat and watched the sunset or the thousands of birds nesting for the night. I had no other point of reference. This new world of mine was so different, so strange, so full of new wonders. Charlie was my guide, and I followed, unquestioning.

Living in Japan was a bit easier for him after Australia initially. The cherry blossom festivals captivated both of us, from a distance—we never joined in, just observed and took pictures. But little by little, he slipped back into bouts of long, disgruntled complaining. Traffic was ridiculous. Streets were too narrow. The buildings were shoddy. Our apartment was too small and designed all wrong. The country needed less of this, more of that. Eventually, I just had to accept that everything outside of the natural world frustrated him.

So we went exploring every chance we had—castles, cherry blossoms, beaches, mountains, whatever the season offered. And some of the magic worked, for him and for us: soon, I was pregnant.

At the beginning of our relationship, Charlie didn’t want kids. “They’re too much work,” he had insisted. But I wanted four. So we compromised on two.

Growing up, I was the baby in my family. I had never held a baby before, never even seen one close up. Stasia, born at the end of our first two-year contract at the Japanese university, taught me everything I knew. The learning curve was intense.

The loneliness was equally intense. I was fired from my job when I had my baby—apparently common practice in Japan at the time—so I was often alone with Stasia. I learned from her constantly. While she clung to my leg, I sat at my typewriter and sold my first article—about having a baby in Japan. Then a second. And on and on, to magazines, newspapers, and journals in several countries. I made friends with other mothers. Almost every day, Stasia and I walked across our small street, carefully navigating the deep, open storm drain culverts, to the house of one of these friends, Mochizuki-san.

One of the few pieces of furniture in Mochizuki-san’s tatami room was a kotatsu, a low table where three of us mom-friends knelt or sat during our visit. Stay-chan, as they called Stasia (“-san” for adults, “-chan” for children), sat with us moms at the kotatsu, while the four little boys did what little boys do with cushions, toys, games, and each other. Stasia had her little juice cup on the table in front of her, and a few tiny dolls or toys, which she lined up and played with calmly. Occasionally a little body would come hurtling by and she would grab the cup to keep it safe. My friends, amazed, called her reetoru redi, my “little lady.” Even during our twelve-hour flights between Japan and California, her sweet smile never flagged, and she charmed passengers all around us.

A crying child would instantly get her attention. Any time there was a child in distress, she would toddle up, pat or stroke the other toddler’s arm—big, dark eyes fixed on the tear-filled ones—and say softly, “Daijobu.” (It’s okay.) Or she’d hand them a toy, something that would comfort.

My little lady also loved adventure. Charlie and I would take her on long walks in a baby backpack or for rides on the back of my bike. She loved riding in her fast-moving seat behind me. The joy she brought to the world filled some of the void that was forming in my own.

During my pregnancy and the first two years of Stasia’s life, Charlie traveled. It was the only thing that lifted his spirits. The only thing he talked about. Sex was fun, but to him, travel was life. He hiked up Mount Fuji when I was too pregnant to go with him. He flew to Taiwan when he had several days off for a holiday. As I settled into my new role as a mother, he explored South Korea. And when he was home, his constant negative comments colored my perception of life in Japan. He wore me down into believing some of his scathing assessments. He was, after all, my husband; I wanted to be like him, to share his life, his thoughts. So I listened, and commiserated, and if I didn’t share his opinions, I kept that to myself.

But even as the rift between Charlie and me continued to grow, I was having the time of my life. My freelance writing was published with some regularity. I was learning more about my new daughter and language acquisition every day.

Three years before Stasia, Charlie and I had agreed that if we ever had children, I should give them the gift of being bilingual. He left it up to me to choose which language I would use. So Stasia heard only French from me, only English from Charlie, and Japanese from the rest of the world around her. Seeing her put all that together made each day, each moment, fascinating.

When I learned I was pregnant again, I looked around our tiny apartment and tried to imagine where the second baby would sleep. I walked the whole apartment several times but couldn’t escape my first, obvious conclusion: in order to find room for another baby futon, we were going to have to get rid of one of our few pieces of furniture. There just wasn’t any space.

When Charlie came home that evening, he was grumbling about a new regulation that had been handed down at work. He was miserable, and our new baby would be squished into a tiny spot on the living room floor. That night, we decided it was time to go home.

“HOME” TURNED OUT TO be his parents’ house in Sacramento again, at least until we could find jobs and a place of our own to live. So the neighbors who came to see our baby the day he was born were Charlie’s neighbors, but not mine. I didn’t know any of them.

Without insurance, eleven hours at the hospital was all we could afford. People started coming to visit only a couple of hours after we were back at the house, when Alex was about twelve hours old. I was in a postpartum fog and too exhausted to care what they said. One comment, though, got through the fog, because I heard it over and over: “What big hands he has!”

Not how beautiful he was, not which parent he resembled. Big hands.

When they saw the twelve-hour-old baby on my lap grab my pinkies and stand up, excited comments flew.

“That’s impossible!”

“Are you helping him?”

“Babies can’t do that!”

I had only had one baby before, and that one had been so roly-poly that my Japanese friends had all called her “little Buddha.” This one was scrawny, tiny, and seemed to weigh practically nothing. With big hands.

And, apparently, powerful thighs.

Everyone wanted to try it. Each time, the little comma curled up on their lap would reach up, grab their pinkies, launch himself upward, and stand up. Only for a few seconds, and it was a very wobbly stance. But my newborn was definitely getting vertical.

His big sister, at almost two, was unimpressed. Stasia had taken to heart everything I’d told her about the baby joining our family and her new duties as a big sister: to help me and her brother. She was eager to start her new job.

Stasia assumed those duties from that very first day Alex appeared, rushing to bring me a diaper, gently patting his tiny head or arm if he cried, and dutifully relaying messages to Grammie or Grampie. Big sister was a job she took seriously.

Over and over that first week, as people came by to meet our new son, she heard us all say, “His name is Alexander, but we’ll call him Alex for short.” We didn’t realize how many times we’d said it, until one day she proudly informed a visitor, “His name is Alexander, but we call him Alex because he’s short.”

She delighted our visitors as much as her new baby brother did.

I HOPED THAT THE house I finally found for us, with its huge backyard, would relieve some of Charlie’s dark angst. It hadn’t lessened since we left Japan, but he was also commuting every day to several different community colleges to teach. As much as he loved to travel, such a regimen had to be stressful.

I could only guess about that, though; at home, he rarely spoke. He read.

He often spent the entire day absorbed in a book, sometimes several books in one day, stretched out across the living room carpet in our new house. The entire day we all stepped over him, doing chores and housework and yard work and homework and just living around him. He seldom spoke. He read.

When my new friend, Maureen, came over for tea one afternoon, Charlie was on the floor, reading. He did manage to get up to shake her hand, but went right back to his book, several feet away from us on the floor. Now and then, as we chatted over tea, Maureen glanced in his direction, clearly uneasy. Our visit was brief, and she rarely came back.

Eventually, I caught on: even though the two children and I had grown accustomed to Charlie’s odd behavior, others didn’t know how to react to being snubbed so completely. Even when lots of people came to our house for a party, it wasn’t unusual for Charlie to sit in his recliner alone, reading, while everyone partied around him. Despite my efforts, friends coming over to our house never became part of my life in Sacramento.

If I mentioned it later, he would usually shrug and leave it at that. I never did figure out the best answer to a wordless shrug.

If I needed information—like who was driving which child where or when—I often had to physically push whatever he was reading aside and insist on a reply. Which made him even angrier. He was always angry. I didn’t know why.

But he was my husband. My partner. Partners were supposed to talk to each other, share things. Even in my bizarre home life in Jackson Heights, that function of marriage had always shone through. My parents talked to each other all the time. They discussed everything. There were arguments, bouts of yelling, but they talked. That was what partners did.

So each time Charlie snapped at me over a magazine or book, I didn’t know how to react. He would just go back to reading, as if nothing had happened. The silence that followed these outbursts echoed heavily with unanswered questions. I was left standing in front of him, wounded, reeling, with no clue why he’d flared up like that.

And no one to talk to about it.

As I coped with my non-marriage, my little lady from Japan became the person I often turned to for inspiration. She was a touch of sanity in an insane situation. With her happy, little face and her radiant, infectious smile, Stasia became a symbol of how beautiful life could be as I wallowed in an abyss of frustration and silent shrugs.

She also helped her brother survive his childhood, acting as a buffer between him and me. As a toddler, Alex would push all of my buttons; in those moments, I understood viscerally how some parents can be driven to violence. Inconsolable as an infant, incredibly stubborn as a toddler, obstinate without limit, he put all of my parenting skills, patience, and self-control to the test. Daily. Stasia the Diplomat was always able to tell when he’d pushed me too far. Right before I would start to consider tossing him through a window, she would come take his hand and gently lead him away from the scene. Somehow, she always knew.

After I’d calmed down, or cleaned up his mess, or both, reminding myself that I really did love him and he would grow up someday, they would come back from their little walk. And each time they came strolling back into range, hand in hand, his dimples and her sweet, knowing smile would remind me again of the big picture. I have no idea what she told him on those walks, and she doesn’t remember, but all would be well again.

I rarely saw other adults in our new neighborhood in West Sacramento. The parents worked and left their children in daycare or school. Even on weekends I saw only garage doors going up and down as they rushed in and out doing all their errands. My experience of suburbia was desolation. Emptiness. It was just me and the kids. And a surly, uncommunicative spouse.

It made no sense to me. Nothing had happened between us, that I was aware of, that could have made him dislike me so much. But I’d seen him treat his family the same way, and it didn’t seem to bother them. Was I just too sensitive? Was this what marriage was really like?

I was sure it wasn’t . . . but that left me with only questions.

When Charlie was a child, no one had heard of some of the disorders or syndromes we now know people can suffer from, like autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). I wouldn’t learn about them myself until years later, when some of my friends had little boys whose behavior seemed to mirror my husband’s. But back then, as we whirled through each day, my main job, besides caring for my children and our home, was to do whatever was necessary to avoid an outburst. To appease.

Old habits die distressingly hard.