Читать книгу The Fall of Alice K. - Jim Heynen - Страница 11

4

As her father drove slowly through the intersection, the dam broke with her mother’s sharp-edged voice from the front seat: “Do those people speak English?”

“Of course,” said Alice quickly. “Nickson will be at Midwest and Mai will be at Redemption. You know that. She has a scholarship.”

“The mother speaks English?”

“Not much,” said Alice. “Not yet.”

“What kind of name is Nickson?” asked her mother, and for the first time since they had started driving, she turned toward the backseat. Alice couldn’t tell if her expression was genuinely curious or if she was mocking the name.

“Not sure,” said Alice.

“Nick-son, Nick-son,” repeated Aldah.

“Could they have named their son after President Nixon?” That was her father’s voice.

“I could ask him,” said Alice. “It didn’t seem strange to me.”

“They sure are small, aren’t they?” said her mother.

“Compared to us, most people are small,” said Alice.

That made her father chuckle, but Alice figured he was probably chuckling to keep the conversation from getting into awkward territory where their daughter would turn on them and accuse them of who-knows-what. Alice was in no mood to accuse them of anything. So far the conversation had kept them away from the truly awkward matter of her mother storming out of church. Let me dwell in calm waters for the rest of the ride home, Alice thought.

Beside her, Aldah clenched her pink-stained handkerchief. Pink peppermint stains marked the corners of her lips. Alice unwrapped the wadded-up bumper sticker, took Aldah’s stained handkerchief, and rewrapped the bumper sticker around it.

“Stop,” said Aldah when they came to a corner that did have a stop sign.

“Very good,” said Alice “Now watch for the ‘Slow’ sign on the next hill.”

“McDonald’s.”

“No, that’s not McDonald’s. That mailbox says ‘Duh-Duh-Dykstra.’”

“Cheerios.”

“You’re being silly.”

Aldah giggled, then laid her head against Alice. “Nap,” she said.

Aldah laid her head onto Alice’s lap, but before she could sleep they were home to the Krayenbraak farm. Her mother had the oven set so that her one-dish meal was ready. Her father opened with prayer, and then the language of grim silence began. The stale kitchen air was filled with the gibberish of hogyard smells assailing the odors of a hotdish embellished with Hamburger Helper. The dry joints of the old oak table asked incoherent but shrill questions when Alice’s father put his hand down firmly next to his plate. Her mother throttled the slim saltshaker when she picked it up, and then, in movements that were uncharacteristically quick for her, she shook the life out of it in a seeming effort to resuscitate the comatose hotdish.

Alice took small bites, wanting her mouth to be free to utter real words in case she would suddenly have to come to the defense of the Vangs, but it was Aldah’s presence that spoke most clearly. She was the canary that went down into the dark well of their family’s misery, into the mysteries of the turmoil they tried to deny with silence but which came out sideways, in murky or twisted distortions of what they really meant to say. Alice’s parents probably knew their own feelings, but they had never practiced a language that would express them. Aldah didn’t have the language either, but when she pulled her head down into her shoulders, her message of distress should have been clear to everyone. The corners of her mouth sagged, and her eyes grew dim. The voice of her whole body said, “Stop. Just stop.”

Alice’s mother finally did break into actual speech with her usual sense of bad timing: “We are worried about Aldah. She’s shutting down more and more.”

The trouble with her mother and with the dreadful words that often did bubble out of her mouth was that she was often close to the truth. This may have been one of those moments. If Aldah was a canary measuring the toxins in the atmosphere around the table, she was, as her mother cruelly pointed out, shutting down. She could sit like a frozen icon of something no one could explain.

But after her mother’s comment, Alice had to wonder: was Aldah absorbing their moods and showing them what they looked like, or was she developing a new problem? Alice was only two and a half when Aldah was born so she had missed Aldah’s early health problems. Alice remembered that Aldah was taking digitalis as a child, and she had terrible ear infections. Alice remembered the screaming and how Aldah held her little hands over her ears. She was a wobbly kid and could hardly walk when Alice started school. By the time Alice was a teenager, her mother had given up on Aldah. Alice hadn’t. She did some reading and knew that their family wasn’t alone in this journey. Alice would crunch up zinc and selenium and pretend to put some in a glass for herself and some in a glass for Aldah. When Aldah saw her older sister drinking hers, she’d drink too. She’d do anything that she saw Alice doing, so long as Alice smiled at her first. She would have walked over a cliff behind Alice if Alice smiled at her first.

Her parents went on talking about Aldah as if she weren’t there. Aldah gave no hints that she was listening or that she understood. Alice knew better: Aldah heard and understood every word. Even her father spoke as if Aldah weren’t there.

“Maybe it’s time,” he said.

“I think so,” said her mother.

“We’re not specialists,” said her father.

“There’s state money,” said her mother.

“I know,” said her father. “I checked that out.”

Aldah picked at her food, then reached for the sugar bowl and sprinkled two teaspoons of sugar over the Hamburger Helper. No one stopped her.

The discussion, such as it was, dropped off a cliff. Her father said a quick closing prayer that asked for strength and for the forgiveness of their sins. It was one of his autopilot prayers, predictable and brief. He stood up. Her mother stood up too while Aldah went on eating. They evidently weren’t going to talk about Aldah any more—they weren’t going to talk about anything. Alice could hear the unspoken message that trickled down through the generations: Zeg maar niks. Don’t say anything. It was away of dealing with problems by keeping your mouth shut.

When her mother walked outside to the screen porch after closing devotions, Alice followed her, leaving Aldah alone to digest the sugary hotdish and what had been said about her.

Alice stepped into the porch to find her mother sitting in a metal lawn chair. Alice stood off to the side, not close—but she was there. No matter how much her mother repulsed her much of the time, Alice took the first step in making amends. She had come to smooth things over, to find that little window of hope to connect with her mother, but she kept a good four feet distance.

“Are you still worried about Aldah?”

“Aldah is beyond worry.”

“Mother.”

“The farm is beyond worry. The world is beyond worry.”

Her mother looked relaxed and tense at the same time—like a petrified rag doll.

“Not everything is lost,” said Alice. “Dad said cattle and hog prices could go up. You have to believe that something good could happen.”

“For somebody who thinks she’s so smart, you can’t even see the elephant that’s stepping on your toes.”

“Please stop. I came out here because I was worried about you.”

“The only person you worry about is yourself.”

“You just walked out of the kitchen. That’s not like you.”

“How would you know?” said her mother. “Just how would you know what is like me?”

“Why can’t you ever believe me?”

“Okay, you were worried about me.”

“I was. So what’s going on?”

“I was just thinking.”

“Okay. About?”

“About you. About your father, about Aldah, about us, about the world. About the grand arcs of history, about the miniature dramas of family, about the futility of our will.”

Alice moved a little closer. “Good God, Mother.”

Now her mother looked at her. Alice noticed that she had jutted her own left hip out and had her right hand on her right hip. Her mother might see this as an arrogant stance and think that Alice was mocking her. Alice let her arms fall to her sides and leaned humbly forward. Her mother noticed, but her expression was puzzling. She wore an unfamiliar expression, almost an aggressive look, as if she was ready to take on something bigger than Alice or Aldah or anything Alice could understand.

“You okay?”

Her mother turned her eyes from Alice and leaned forward. She tried to turn the metal lawn chair into a rocker, which only made a rhythmic grating sound on the porch floor. “As okay as okay can be.” She lifted her head and stared out through the screens, not at Alice. “It’s just life,” she said. “I don’t think my faith can sustain me.”

Alice didn’t know if her mother was pushing her away with that comment or inviting her in. Alice stepped in: “Sustain you through what? What are you going through?”

“You don’t know? Intelligent as you think you are, are you really telling me that you don’t know?” There was an edge to her mother’s voice, almost disgust—as if she thought the answer was so obvious that only a fool would ask.

Alice paused and took a deep breath. “No, I don’t know. What are you going through?”

A steer moaned mournfully from the feedlot, and Alice worried for a second that she might have missed some ailment when she fed them. Then another steer moaned in response. They were just talking to each other in a sweet eunuchs’ conversation.

“What does any person go through when they realize there’s no hope,” said her mother. “And that there should be no hope. Hope is not a way of honoring the Lord, it’s a way of insulting Him. Selfish wishes. Hope is greed disguised.”

Never before had Alice imagined that her mother’s scattered and so often scathing thoughts could come together in such chilling generalizations. “Mother,” she said, and she paused and thought before going on. “How much time do you spend thinking like this? And how do I fit into your thinking?”

“You?” she said. “You. You’ll find your way.” She paused even longer than Alice had paused. “If you can ever find it in your heart to learn humility,” she said in a voice of bitter finality.

“All right,” Alice said quickly. “Anything else?”

“If you ever stop thinking that the world revolves around you. Stop acting as if you can go your own way without thinking about other people. You think you’re so clever. I can read that look on your face. I know you. I know you better than anyone knows you. I know you think everybody else is stupid.”

“Mother.” Alice’s throat was tightening. “I know you’re not stupid. Just confusing. But don’t attack me. I don’t deserve that.”

Alice was not going to show her mother any tears. In Alice’s mind, her mother had lured her into a serious talk only to turn on her when her guard was down. Is this what they meant by sucker punch? How could she say Alice went her own way when most of her life was spent trying to help others? Aldah. Her father. The farm work. At school, she helped stupid, untalented singers who couldn’t tell an E-flat from a pig’s grunt. And, Lord knows, she had done more than her fair share of trying to help her mother by helping Aldah. Even helping her father was helping her mother. If Alice didn’t do the chores, would her mother be doing them? Alice didn’t think so. She pitied her pathetic mother at that moment, but she hated her mother for making her feel the way she was feeling. Whatever she was going through, it was not Alice’s fault. Her mother put Alice in debate mode.

“I thought you said you were bothered by everything in the world, not just me. I’m not measuring up to your standards, is that it?”

A taunting blank stare and silence.

“I thought we were having a conversation.”

“I’ve said what needs saying,” said her mother.

“What are you saying? Are you saying that I’m not doing my fair share around here? Is that what you’re saying? Just tell me. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I told you,” she said coolly. “I’m not sure my faith can sustain me.”

“And I asked you, ‘Sustain you through what ?’” The cold stare turned into a cutting glance that told Alice to speak more quietly.

“Through Y2K,” she said. “One grand cycle has completed its arc, and the world as we know it is going to end.”

“Oh Mother, don’t be one of those people, please.”

“I don’t think we can be saved.”

“Saved from what? Saved from destruction? Saved from a blackout? Saved from hell, fire, and brimstone? Saved from what, I ask!”

“Shush up,” her mother said. “I think you know. You seem to think you know everything else. Aldah is the one to watch.”

“What on earth does that mean?”

“She is the one who is leading the way down. She is the messenger of what is in store for all of us.”

Alice wished there could have been witnesses who could see that her mother was the one who was pulling everything and everybody down, not Aldah. Her mother was a whirlpool of darkness. Even when Aldah reflected their bad feelings back at them, she was still their messenger of hope. She was the one who could teach them how to trust the moment without fear. Alice was convinced that Aldah was a threat to her mother’s gloomy view, so her mother had to shoot her down. It was that simple.

“Why do you always have to look at the dark side? Why do you always have to make all of us feel bad?”

Alice waited for her mother to respond, but she just sat there. Alice didn’t wait for the ice cube to melt: she walked back into the house. Her father sat in his swivel chair reading the newspaper and seemed unaware of the conversation that had just transpired on the porch. Aldah was still sitting at the table, with that calm expression that suggested she was daydreaming contentedly. Alice went over and combed Aldah’s hair, then led her into the living room and told her that she could watch television for an hour. Alice pushed her sister’s hair back over her tiny ear, and as the colorful pictures came onto the screen, the calm spread over her cheeks to produce a face of total contentment. If Aldah was a messenger of anything, her message was to live every moment for what it was worth. Looking at Aldah made Alice think of the line from the hymn that went, “It is well, it is well with my soul.”

While Aldah watched TV, Alice started a bath.

“There isn’t any hot water!” she yelled.

“Come out here,” said her father.

“What’s going on?”

“I turned off the hot-water heater.”

“Say again?”

“Keeping fifty gallons of water hot all day makes as much sense as letting your car run when you’re not using it.”

“I need a bath.”

“It can wait.”

“Wait? This dirt can wait?”

“Heat a little water on the stove and wash your face and hands.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’ll turn the hot water heater on for an hour at night. And that’s it.”

“What’s going on?”

“We have to conserve.”

“I do conserve.”

“You’re going to have to conserve a lot more.”

“We have plenty of water.”

“Water’s not the problem. Heating it is. At least a hundred a month.”

“This is nuts.”

“It’s common sense.”

“You look like you got cleaned up.”

“Not with hot water.”

“I’ll just wash with cold water then.”

“Good idea.”

Instead of going to the bathroom, Alice glanced into the living room to see her sister watching cartoons. She walked outside past her mother without speaking. She strolled toward the double garage and backed out the red Ford 150 pickup. Alice started with a bucket of soapy water and a big bristle brush and went to work on the bed of the carriage box. She got on her knees and scrubbed down every groove of the pickup bed. She went after every spec of dirt and manure, every caked-on spilled whatever. Then she hosed it down and went back with a sponge and dry cloth. She got a fresh bucket of water and soaped the entire cab and body. She was an hour into it before she brought out the wax. And then the chamois skin. She scrubbed the tires, and then went back and polished the chrome. She vacuumed the inside. She Windexed the windows—inside and out. People who worked at car washes could have learned something from her. She made that pickup shine. She made it glow like red fingernail polish. She made it so shiny it screamed to the fresh blue sky. Then she parked it out front where anybody driving by would see it. She made the 150 the shining star of their farm. The 150 sat there like a bright plaything of the world, singing, “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!”

Her father, who stood beside the house looking in her direction, interrupted the glorious moment.

“Any reason you’re doing that on The Lord’s Day?” he shouted.