Читать книгу Franky Furbo - William Wharton, Уильям Уортон - Страница 6

‘Aw, come on, Daddy, that’s not the way it ends. You can’t end the story that way.’

‘What do you mean, Billy? Of course that’s the way it ends. That’s the end of the story.’

‘Please, Dad, make up another ending. Make up an interesting ending with more things happening, exciting things.’

Billy has his head on my chest now. With one ear he can listen to the hollow sound of my voice inside me, and with the other ear hear the sounds coming out of my mouth. All our children figured this out at one time or another, or maybe it was only one and they shared. But, in the past, when for a while there were four of them scattered on top and around me, there was hardly room on my chest for all the heads. I’m missing those wonderful mornings, those full days. I dread when Billy will grow up and leave us.

Kathy, our oldest, once told me how hearing a story that way, with her ear on my chest, made it seem to come from inside herself. Matthew, our first boy, always said he liked to watch my eyes and mouth when I told a story, but that it was even better hearing it with his ear against me. Once in a while, in an exciting part, he’d lift his head and look into my eyes. He’d have such a wonderful glow of excitement and interest in his beautiful yellow-brown eyes. Such wonderful days.

But now I must come back to the present; I can’t avoid it any longer. I know I’m only putting this off. It’s something I don’t want to face; I’m not prepared.

‘But, Billy, you know these aren’t stories I make up myself; these are stories Franky Furbo told me many years ago. I can’t change the ending, you know that.’

Billy lifts his head from my chest and looks me in the eyes the way Matthew used to years ago, only Billy’s eyes are more knowing, more challenging. I think, what a beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, kind boy he is, as have been all our children, each different and each such a tremendous joy to us over the many years. Our lives have truly been like a dream; there’s no other word to describe the way we’ve lived all these years.

I never have had to go off to work anywhere. The combination of my military disability pension and the money I earn from the little stories and books I write, along with the money we make selling olive oil from our trees, has more than provided us with any money we’ve needed. When the children were young, none of us wanted to travel. We only sent the children off from home to the university because it was time for them to know something of the everyday world, the world we’ve abandoned.

Caroline has insisted they have this experience with real life, the hostility, competition, violence, greed from which we’ve sheltered them. Caroline has been an excellent teacher, and they were each well prepared to attend any university they wanted, or do any work that interested them.

The most rewarding, incredible thing is how, during their entire lives, they’ve always played with one another. They’ve been such loving friends. They’ve had Italian friends as well, but mostly they’ve made up their own games here at home. There’s been much laughter and joy in this house over these years.

Billy is still staring into my eyes as my mind wanders.

‘I KNOW you make up these stories, Dad. I don’t really believe in Franky Furbo anymore, either. Come on, Dad, tell me, truly. You do make all these stories up, don’t you? There isn’t any real Franky Furbo; he’s just somebody you made up in your head. You can tell me; I’m old enough now.’

It had to come, sooner or later. But he’s the first one to challenge me, to throw it in my face. Probably the others were too timid or too kind, or maybe they only wanted to believe more than Billy does. Also, they had one another to back up the stories. They’d repeat them over and over; they’d even play Franky Furbo games, taking turns being Franky. They’d often ask me questions about Franky Furbo, questions independent of the stories I told. They were curious; Franky was such an important part of their lives. Believing might be harder for Billy because he’s been alone these past years. In some important way he’s different.

The crazy thing is how hard it hits me when he says he doesn’t believe in Franky Furbo. I don’t know how to respond. I want him to believe with me. I want to respect his opinions, his beliefs, but I still have to be true to myself.

‘But, Billy, there is a Franky Furbo. I’ve seen him. I lived with him. I know him very well. I’m not lying to you.’

‘I know you’re not lying, Dad. You’re only telling stories. That’s not the same as lying. You know how you’ve tried to teach me, all of us, to tell stories. Telling stories is fun. I know that. I know you like to tell stories, and I like to listen to them, too. Come on, Dad. Make up another ending for me. I don’t really have to believe in Franky for it to be fun.’

He puts his head back on my chest and gives me a good love hug. I know how soon it will be before he’s too embarrassed to come into bed with me and cuddle like this in the morning. Boys or girls, it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Even though we all sleep together in this gigantic bed, it still happens. I designed this bed because neither of us, Caroline nor I, believe children should be alone in the night.

Still, there comes a time when they pull back and are less willing to be held closely. It’s interesting how the farthest part of the bed from Caroline and me becomes the special prerogative of the oldest child. As they’ve grown older and each one, in turn, has left our nest, our private warren, the next in line would move toward that end. Little Billy has a lot of bed to himself, and he seems to pick a place according to his mood. Last night I noticed he slept on the far end, as the oldest child at home normally would. That should have told me something.

Most likely, the children sense that the bed space where Caroline and I sleep is our private property, and they feel like invaders in our personal life. There’s a little curtain I insisted on putting up, which can be drawn across when we want to make love alone. Caroline says I’m silly, but she lets me draw it anyway sometimes.

However, whatever the reasons for their pulling apart, I do regret it, as does Caroline; although both of us are resigned to this inevitable pulling away, separation, parting. And we know we’re lucky having them as long as we do.

I turn my mind back to the problem of Billy and Franky Furbo. Billy lifts his head up to me one more time.

‘Don’t feel badly, Dad. I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny, or Brufani , or Santa Claus either. It doesn’t mean anything if I don’t believe Franky Furbo really exists.’

How can I ever tell him?

‘OK, then, if that’s what you want. So, instead of the guardians for the ball of fire returning through the crack in time-space and going back to their own world in another galaxy, in another universe, they work their way through again. They force their overwhelming power of blue death through the Climus Channel and with great wickedness and malevolence set fire to everything. They burn down the forest where Franky lives with his friends. All of them are burned, turned to a white ash. Before Franky can even think to make himself big or small, change himself into something else, hide or fly away on Bamba, it’s all over.

‘The denizens of Climus look over their work, their destruction, and even they are sad. This is the end. All their years of trying to stop Franky Furbo’s efforts at doing good, helping people on this planet, have finally been successful. They’ve won! Franky is dead! His tree house and all he’d built, his magic powders – all are gone! These wicked aliens will never have anything to worry about in their conquest of the universe. The end.’

I stop. I know, even as I’m telling this story, that I’m being incredibly cruel. I don’t understand it myself. I’ve been telling this continuous story of Franky Furbo all the years we’ve had children old enough to listen and enjoy. I also know I’ve hurt myself as much as anyone.

In our family, storytelling time is always in the morning. It gives Caroline some free moments to get herself dressed, to clean up and make breakfast. I must’ve told thousands of stories over the years. And all these Franky Furbo stories would just come to me out of nowhere. In a certain way I really didn’t make them up any more than the real things in life are made up.

Another reason I’d always tell these stories in the morning was because the children would go to bed at different times at night, according to their age; also Caroline was concerned they would dream about them. Some of the Franky stories are very scary. But this one I just told, this ending I gave to this story, didn’t come from anywhere but my own wounded vanity. I’d struck back at my much-loved son with an unnecessary, indefensible violence.

I can feel Billy sobbing against my chest. He doesn’t look up at me. I wait. He’s gone limp. When he speaks it’s haltingly, between sobs.

‘Aw, that’s not fair, Dad. You didn’t have to kill off everybody, even Franky. I feel awful. Camilla and Matthew and Kathy will be sad, too, when they find out. Just because I don’t believe in Franky doesn’t mean he isn’t really there. I feel as if I killed him myself.’

I hold on to him tightly. Caroline comes over from the kitchen and looks down at me. Boy, is she ever upset! Usually she doesn’t get angry easily or show much of what she’s feeling unless the feelings are good. And then, somehow, she helps me feel her good feelings. But I know right now she has no good feelings toward me. She doesn’t have to say anything. I don’t think I ever remember her being this deeply disgusted. She’s so angry she doesn’t speak but turns away and goes back to her work in the kitchen.

‘OK, Billy. I was only kidding. That isn’t the way it ends. I was just pretending. The way it ended the first time I told you is the real ending. It’s the way the story ended when Franky told it to me. I can’t change it. If I change that ending, then any ending would be all right, could be true, even the terrible one I just made up. Do you understand? Making up stories is a tricky business. I must be honest with the story even if you don’t like it or don’t believe it, even if I don’t like it, don’t believe it.’

Billy hugs me harder and nods his head that he understands. At least that’s what I think he’s doing. I look over at Caroline. She’s shaking her head, too, but not the same way. She’s shaking her head as if she still doesn’t understand or agree with what I’m up to. It’s a head shake of incomprehension.

The tension is so great I can’t take it anymore, and, besides, it’s time to get up. The eggs and cereal are almost ready, and I need to wash up first. So does Billy. It used to be a madhouse around here when all six of us were trying to wash. Caroline would have hot water in bowls for each and there would be as much splashing around and spluttering as a flock of birds bathing in a birdbath. Caroline would check all of us, even me, to see if we’d washed correctly and were clean. Our toilet is in the back, behind the house, and we’d each take our turns there too. I’m really missing the other children, especially right now, just before Christmas. And Billy will have another birthday, two days before Christmas. It won’t be long before we’re alone. It’s hard to think about.

Kathleen and Matthew are both down in the mountains of Chile now. They seem to be happy together, and each is doing work they think is important. Kathy has become what she calls an anthropologist-archaeologist and is making studies of giant rocks and strange marks on the mountains down there. Matthew works on a computer and makes up programs for solving different problems in ecological procedures, the way I make up children’s stories. He says he can live anywhere he wants, and he likes living near Kathleen. I worry about them living such strange lives, but Caroline doesn’t seem concerned, and, after all, she’s the mother. I’ve been a pretty good father, but there’s no question: the center of our family has always been Caroline. She lives her life around them and they around her. Except for the Franky Furbo part of my life, I’m not very important.

Camilla is living on one of the northern islands of Japan. She’s an oceanographer and is concerned about the whales and dolphins, their survival. She keeps trying to dissuade the Japanese from killing whales and dolphins for food. Boy, our kids sure have taken up crazy things for a living. It’s hard to believe it all started here in this little house.

But then, I should talk; I’m probably the wackiest one around.

Could be I’m actually not all here, a true loon, the way the army psychiatrists insisted. I do know I can’t get myself to stare over that edge to the black hole of existence or nonexistence without help. I really like to pretend, to make believe, to live inside stories, stories I hear or read or make up, even the stories I write for a living. Also, I’m a sucker for all the group fantasies man’s created – Christmas, Easter, Halloween, birthday celebrations. All those things buffer me, give me an illusion of continuity. I need something I can hold on to.

Also, the entire Franky Furbo saga, and what I believe about him, is a part of my life, my reasons for living. I just can’t consider that he doesn’t exist, that I make him up myself. He means too much to me. The deep purples of despair surround me right now, and only because Billy said he didn’t believe in Franky. I don’t know how to handle it. I smell the smells of dirty feet, moldy sheep, feel the slippage of entropy. I’m not ready for this unwanted clarity of perception.

After breakfast, Billy goes upstairs to the schoolroom. One of Caroline’s theories of teaching is that children must learn to teach themselves. She teaches them so they read with personal joy and pleasure, then gives them books that will interest them and at the same time instruct. After they’ve read the books – whether they be novels, biographies, algebra, chemistry, physics, geography, any subject – she’ll sit with them and discuss what they’ve read. When something is particularly difficult, she’ll explain or, better yet, help them explain it to themselves. I’ve sat in when she’s been teaching, and sometimes I just leave the door open from where I’m working, opening onto her classroom, and I always learn something I didn’t know.

When we were at UCLA together, I knew she was an outstanding student, but I didn’t know how much more she was learning than I was. She loves to teach too, and our children love her as teacher almost as much as they love her as Mother.

So, we’re left alone. I’m drying the dishes and stacking them in the closet. I’m waiting for her to say something about the terrible ending to the Franky Furbo story I told, but she’s holding back. It’s almost as if she’s thinking of something else and doesn’t want to be disturbed. I’m feeling terribly depressed and want to talk with her, but I don’t want to interfere with her thoughts. I find I’ve started whistling; it’s that damned six-pence song. That’s always a bad sign for me. Caroline notices and looks over. I stop. I need to talk.

‘All right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve made up that ending. It was a cruel thing to do.’

‘Yes it was. He’s getting too old for you to insist he believe in all those things; he’s growing up. I think he’s going along with Santa this year because he knows how much you enjoy it, but this will be his last year. Billy is a very nice person.’

I know I’m supposed to feel bad here for what I did, and I do. I really do, with one part of me.

‘Caroline, I know I shouldn’t have made up that whole bit about the fire and Franky being killed and all that, but Billy hit me where it really hurts. He said he didn’t believe in Franky Furbo. I guess I was striking back.’

‘He was only being honest, William. You can’t punish him for that. He can’t go on forever believing in a fox who’s more intelligent than human beings, who can fly, who can make himself big or small, turn himself into a man or fox, can transmigrate his body from one place to another, transmute matter – all the rest. You can’t ask him to grow up believing something like that. It isn’t right. You should be proud he could come right out and tell you.’

‘Yes I know. But the trouble is, there really is a Franky Furbo. You know that. It can’t hurt him too much believing in something that really is, even if he can’t see him or know him himself, can it?’

She looks at me, she looks into my eyes in that kind yet veiled way with which she can seem to see into my deepest parts.

‘William, we both know, in one way, there really is a Santa Claus too, but in the real world, there isn’t. You can’t ask Billy to live with you in your fantasies; it isn’t fair. The children need to know there’s a place where they can draw a line between what is and what isn’t, what can be and what can’t. It’s only natural.’

‘You’re not listening, Caroline. There really is a Franky Furbo. Let us not forget that. We’re not talking about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Little People now. We’re talking about Franky Furbo! If he isn’t true, then nothing is true.’

Caroline looks at me again. In over thirty-five years, we haven’t talked much in this area. I think we’ve been afraid of it, what it means, could mean to our relationship, to the way we live.

‘You don’t really believe that, William. I know you like to play with thoughts, the nature of reality and all that kind of thinking, but this is serious. You know, deep down in your heart, there’s no Franky Furbo. There couldn’t be. It’s just too ridiculous.’

I stare back at her. I could leave it here. We mean so much to each other and it all happened so long ago, but I can’t stop myself.

‘Caroline, you do know I had a Section Eight discharge from the army. I never lied to you about that now, did I?’

‘Of course, William dear; I know that. But it never mattered to me. I love you. I loved you then and I love you now.’

‘But when I told you about my Section Eight, I also told you about Franky Furbo. I told you all about it then, when we were at the university, just after we’d met at one of those Friday night dances and knew right away we were in love. I told you about it that night. I felt you were the first person I’d ever met I could tell about Franky who wouldn’t laugh or get scared or run away from me. It was the year I was released from the hospital back in Kentucky. This is true, isn’t it? You did believe me, didn’t you?’

Caroline stares at me. She has the butter in her hand, ready to slide it into the refrigerator.

‘It was such a long time ago, William. Everything was mixed up after the war and you were so sad. And yet you had a fascinating way about your life, driving that impossible black, yellow and red cut-down jeep with the birdcages built into the back, living in a tent up there on a hill in Topanga Canyon. And then building your private nest in the attic of Moore Hall and living there.

‘I would have believed anything you told me; even if I didn’t believe, I’d have pretended I did. I wasn’t about to let you get away. I was so young. You can’t imagine what it is for a young girl when she meets someone like you and knows she’s in love – it’s a special kind of desperation.’

‘Then you didn’t believe me and you don’t now. You’ve only humored me along. Is that it?’

‘It’s not so simple, William. I knew you’d had a terrible time with the war and had been hurt deeply. I guess I felt sorry for you. But more than that, I wanted to be involved in your life, the life you told me you were going to lead. It’s possible I could have believed you with a part of my mind, an important part, the part related to my heart. Don’t you understand – I wanted to believe so much I maybe actually did believe. I never felt I was lying to you.’

She pulls the plug to let the water out of the sink. I dry the frying pan and hang it on the wall. I’m feeling empty inside, cold, lost, the way I used to feel in the hospital when no one would believe me and they’d ask the same questions over and over. Now, my own wife and youngest child don’t believe in me.

‘I’m not trying to blame you, Caroline. I understand. It’s just during all these years, I thought you believed. It helped me hold on to what I thought was the only sanity I had left. Except for the army psychiatrists, I never talked to anyone about it. Then I started telling the children stories, some of them actual stories Franky told me, some I made up over the years to amuse them. But even those made-up stories were somehow true, true in that I believed them myself.

‘You know how the doctors in the hospital put the whole Franky business down to a fantasy I’d constructed as compensation for a complete amnesia due to extreme trauma. They insisted I was only supporting a sustained delusion. That’s why they gave me the Section Eight. That’s why I still receive the fifty-percent disability pension – not for anything physical. I’m considered fifty percent mentally incompetent. I’m a certified half-wit. You know that.

‘But, damn it, I was convinced you believed me. I was sure you understood about Franky and believed with me; it gave our lives some sense. Probably I should never have invented some of those stories for the kids. Maybe it was there when you stopped believing in me. But I wanted to share the magic. I wanted them to know something about why their father is the way he is, lives the way he lives, has tried to design a personal kind of life for all of us.

‘Of course, some of those stories I told weren’t true, didn’t necessarily happen; there weren’t that many stories Franky told me. But I wanted to tell those stories, and I didn’t think it would hurt. Also, in an unbelievable, almost mystical way, I didn’t make them up. It was almost as if Franky were speaking through me. Even some of the children’s stories I’ve published came into my mind that way, like magic writing. I don’t quite understand it myself.

‘But, the important thing is, this doesn’t mean Franky Furbo isn’t real, and many of the stories I told them were true – true stories Franky told me, especially stories about how he discovered he was different from other foxes, that somehow he was a magic fox.’

I dry my hands on the dish towel and go over to the rocker in front of the fire. There are only two chairs in our home, other than those in the schoolroom and my workroom. There’s the rocker I’m sitting in and another rocker on the other side of the fireplace. Mostly we all just stretch out on our gigantic bed. Each of us has a reading light, and it’s there, in the bed, where we spend a good part of our evenings: reading, talking, discussing what we’re reading, playing word games – having wonderful times.

My sitting in the rocker is another bad sign, like the whistling. I hardly ever sit in it.

I see the fire needs more wood. I push myself up and throw two more logs into the hearth. We have all the wood cut for winter. It doesn’t get very cold here, but some evenings can be bitter. We have enough for at least two winters. A good part of our wood is olive, which we get when we trim the trees. It’s hard to start but then burns long and hot.

Caroline comes over behind me. She puts her hands on my neck and shoulders and starts massaging. I don’t respond. In fact, it annoys me. I don’t feel she even knows me, and I’d always thought of her as my closest friend as well as my wife. I’m feeling very alone, and I don’t know what to do. I’m wishing I’d just let it all go and left everything the way it was.

Caroline is very sensitive and I know she feels what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling. This somehow makes it worse. There are double-barreled guilts floating around in all directions. I sense how easy it would be for me to drift off into a deep depression, the way I would in the hospital when I felt so isolated. When I’m like that, it’s almost as if I’m in a nonexistent state; I have a hard time even remembering to eat or sleep.

Caroline stops massaging and comes around in front of me. I look up at her and she doesn’t smile. She just stares at me.

‘Look William, what does it matter if I believe in Franky Furbo or not? It just doesn’t matter. I believe in you; that’s what counts. Why should something that happened more than forty years ago be so important? Don’t make a big thing out of this. Please don’t ask me to lie to you.’

‘Honest, Caroline. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore. If you don’t believe, after all these years living with me, living the way we’ve lived, the way Franky taught me to live, then how can mere talking help?

‘Don’t you realize that if it weren’t for Franky Furbo, I wouldn’t be alive? And even if I were alive, I wouldn’t be anything like the person I am. In a strange way, belief in Franky Furbo has been my religion. The experience I had with him made me an artist, a writer, gave me a feeling of uniqueness, of value, such as I’d never known. He gave meaning to my life. Can’t you understand that?

‘Without Franky I’d definitely be dead, not just physically dead but mentally dead, psychically dead, psychologically dead – a zombie. I’d lost confidence in the importance of living, the value of being alive, and Franky gave it back to me, helped explain some of what life is about. As a child, an orphan in an asylum, there had never been much joy or meaning in my life, and then there was the insanity of war. It all seemed so meaningless, so awful. Franky gave me a reason for living.’

I look up at Caroline; tears are rolling down her face. She just stands there in front of me. What can I do?

‘Caroline, please, will you listen to me one more time? I want to tell you everything I can remember. You don’t have to believe if you can’t, but it could be good for me to go over it all once more, to remind myself of what did happen, what didn’t happen. If I can separate those things, perhaps, now so much time has passed, I can see the whole experience for what the doctors said it was – only some kind of complicated delusion.

‘I think I made up many things to explain aspects of Franky I didn’t understand myself. I wanted the children to believe with me. Even this morning’s story, I know now, although I told it as truth, was not a story Franky told me. In a certain way, Billy was right when he said I made it up, that it wasn’t true. But it seemed true to me, and I wanted him to feel this truth with me. I couldn’t change the ending just because he wanted me to. That would be lying, untruth.

‘I hate to think those army doctors were right and there really is something wrong inside me, that my head doesn’t work right, that I can’t separate reality from fantasy. But I do accept the possibility there is something different in me. I often have the peculiar feeling I’m not even myself. That’s got to be crazy, doesn’t it?

‘If Franky Furbo isn’t real and I can learn to believe it, I can live with it now, I think. I have you, the children, our wonderful life – that should be enough. It’s been a long time, much has happened, we are so close. You’re right, I shouldn’t ask too much of you. It isn’t right.

‘But would you sit down there, dear, in our other rocking chair, and let me go over the entire experience one more time with you, and please, please, try to listen. Listen to me, knowing I’m not purposely trying to make any of this up, that I’m not lying to you. Listen as if it’s all happening to you, and believe what you can believe. I need someone to hear this with me.’