by Pat Conroy
“She remembers far more about your early childhood than you do, Tom. She remembers your mother’s brutality when you were very small.”
“Bullshit. Mom wasn’t perfect, but she wasn’t brutal either. She’s mixing up Mom with Dad,” I said, chewing slowly.
“How do you know?”
“Because I was there, Lowenstein,” I snapped back. “An eyewitness, you might say.”
“But did you notice when you began to tell me this chronicle that you started with your birth during the storm, an event you could not have remembered. You simply recited a family myth that had been recounted to you, which is perfectly natural, Tom. Then you skipped six years to your first year of school in Atlanta. What happened in those first six years?”
“We were babies. We puked, we shat, we drank mother’s milk, we grew up. How am I supposed to remember all that?”
“Savannah remembers it. She remembers too much of it.”
“All bullshit, Doc. Total bullshit,” I said, but I could only come up with a single image for that time in my life, the moon rising in the east, called forth by my mother.
“It could be, but it certainly has the ring of truth to this old shrink.”
“Don’t talk shrink talk to me. Please, Lowenstein. You’ve got to let me out of this city with my utter loathing of your profession intact.”
“Tom, your hatred of therapy is perfectly all right with me,” she said coolly. “You’ve made that absolutely clear. This doesn’t bother me at all anymore. In fact, I’m beginning to find you rather charming and stupid on the subject.”
“Look, let’s discuss this later,” I said, gesturing around the room. “This is Lutèce, Susan. I’ve always wanted to eat in Lutèce. I’ve read about it. It’s described as a gastronomic paradise in The New York Times. I like to sit in gastronomic paradises and moan over the food. This wine is the best-tasting liquid that has ever rolled around my mouth. The ambiance is wonderful. Understated elegance. Of course, I would prefer overstated elegance because my background is redneck and has not evolved enough socially to prefer the understated variety. But it’s nice. It’s real nice. Now when you eat at Lutèce for the first and last time in your life you want to talk about art, poetry, cuisine, maybe a little philosophy. It breaks the spell a bit when you start talking about Savannah seeing angels with pus dripping out or their eye sockets. Do you see what I mean? This is a gastronomic paradise and my nose hurts and I need time to absorb all this. See, until three hours ago I thought Savannah was just plain wacko Savannah. This is very, very hard to take in, Lowenstein. Look at it from my point of view. This morning you introduced me to my twin sister, whom I have known rather well for thirty-six years. Only we have a surprise for Tommy. This isn’t really your sister, Tom, this is Renata Halpern. But wait, Tom, you southern dope, that’s not all. She plans to move away and never see you for the rest of your life. So when I get a little miffed that I was kept in the dark for so long, her highly trained, consummately professional therapist bounces a dictionary off my sniffer and I lose a pint of blood. This meal is your act of contrition for shedding my precious blood and I now want to shift the conversation to reviewing the latest film or Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection.”
“Let’s talk about her children’s story,” she suggested.
“Ah! The Rosetta stone. Savannah tried to write about evil, but she couldn’t do it. She made it beautiful. She betrayed herself and her gift by making it lovely.”
“It’s fiction, Tom. It’s a story.”
“It shouldn’t be fiction. It should have been written as cold fact. Savannah is good enough to write that story so it could shake up the whole world. It didn’t deserve to be prettied up and read to kids at bedtime. It should have brought grown men and women to their knees, trembling with pity and rage. Savannah was not true to the integrity of the story. It’s a crime to present that story as artful and ending happily. One should weep after reading that story. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you that story. There won’t be any chatty spiders or cute dogs or inarticulate calves stuttering out messages to the King of the Bulls or any of that horseshit.”
“An artist isn’t required to tell the truth, Tom.”
“The hell she’s not.”
“You know what I mean. Artists tell the truth in their own way.”
“Or they lie in their own way. And I promise you that Savannah is lying in that story.”
“Maybe she told all the truth she could tell.”
“Bullshit, good Doctor. I always knew she was going to write about it someday. My mother, I know, has lived in constant fear that Savannah was going to put it down on paper. But none of us has ever mentioned out loud what happened that day on the island. When I started reading her book, I thought she was going to get it out in the open at last. Then I saw the moment she lost her courage. It was when those children had a magic gift. We didn’t have magic to protect us.”
“Tom,” Dr. Lowenstein said, “she told enough truth in her writing that it took her to the point of trying to kill herself.”
“You’re right,” I said. “But will you tell her something for me? Tell her that if she decides to become Renata Hal-pern, I’ll visit her in San Francisco, or Hong Kong, or anywhere she decides to live and never give anyone a clue that I’m her brother. I’ll just be some friend from the South she met at a poetry reading or an art opening. The worst thing for me would be if she just disappeared. I couldn’t stand that. I simply could not bear it, and no one understands why any better than Savannah. I want her to live. I want her to be happy. I can love her if I don’t see her. I can love her no matter what she does.”
“I’ll tell her, Tom. And, Tom, I promise you this. If you keep helping me, I’m going to give you your sister back. She’s working to save herself. She’s working so hard.”
Susan Lowenstein reached across the table and took my hand in hers. She put my hand to her lips and bit the flesh on the top of my hand and that is what I remember most from my meal at Lutèce.
21
The same night as the lunch at Lutèce I telephoned my mother’s house in Charleston. It took only two shots of bourbon before I could dial the grisly combination of numbers that would call forth her voice from the present and send me spinning out of control into the past. On the phone it took my mother only a minute or two before she rallied her wits and got down to the serious business of ruining my life.
I had spent the rest of the afternoon reading case histories of various psychotics that Dr. Lowenstein had lent me. All were hurt, grieving souls, damaged hideously in their childhoods, who had created elaborate palisades to defend themselves against the unbearable infringements of their lives. Here was a marketplace of hallucinations and pain. All of them had been lucky enough to be born into the warm embrace of monstrous families. A spirit of wearying self-congratulation ennobled the text and commentaries of the reporting psychiatrists. The doctors all seemed to be wonderful, miracle-working shrinks who took those subdivided souls and made them all fit to plant Bermuda grass in the suburbs again. This was a literature of triumph and affirmation, an orgy of yea-saying that left me bilious. But I got the point Lowenstein was trying to make. No matter how shocking Savannah’s condition appeared to me, there was reason to hope. If Savannah was lucky and Lowenstein was good and all the cards were placed on the table at last, my sister might walk away from this one and leave all the grim demonology of her life on the road behind her.
I took another shot of the bourbon as I heard the phone ring in Charleston.
“Hello,” my mother said.
“Hi, Mom,” I answered. “This is Tom.”
“Oh, Tom, darling. How is Savannah?”
“Savannah’s just fine, Mom. I think everything is going to be all right.”
“I’ve just been reading that there have been some amazing breakthroughs in the treatment of mental illness. I’ve cut out some articles that I want you to be sure to give to Savannah’s psychiatrist.”
“I will,
Mom.”
“And I want you to stand over her and make sure she reads them thoroughly. Can I call Savannah yet?”
“I think maybe soon, Mom. I’m not sure.”
“Well, what have you been doing up there all summer? I frankly think you’re neglecting your wife and children.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Mom. But I’ll be coming home soon . . . Mom, the reason that I’m calling is to tell you that I’m going to tell the shrink about what happened on the island that day.”
“Nothing happened on that day,” my mother said clearly, calmly. “We made a promise, Tom. And I expect you to live by that promise.”
“It was a stupid promise, Mom. I know it’s one of the things that’s bothering Savannah and I think that it might help her and help her doctor if I tell everything. It will all be confidential. It’s all past history.”
“I don’t want to hear you even mention it.”
“Mom, I knew you’d try to make me feel bad about this. I didn’t have to call and tell you this. I could have just told Dr. Lowenstein. But I think it might help all of us, you included, if we aired this.”
“No,” she screamed. “You cannot talk about it. It almost ruined our lives.”
“It did ruin a part of our lives, Mom. I haven’t even been able to say out loud what happened that day. Sallie doesn’t know about it. Luke never spoke of it. Savannah doesn’t even remember it. It’s just sitting inside all of us, ugly and hideous, and it’s about time to spit it out.”
“I forbid you to do it.”
“Mom, I am going to do it.”
There was silence and I knew she was gathering her forces. “Tom,” she said, and I heard the old, fretted menace creep into her voice and braced myself for the assault. “I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, son, but Sallie is having a rather indiscreet affair with another doctor at the hospital. It’s the talk of Charleston.”
“Mom, I know you loved being the one to tell me that, and I thank you for that delectable tidbit, but Sallie already told me about the affair. What can I tell you? We’re a modern couple. We like hot tubs, Chinese food, foreign movies, and screwing strangers. That’s Sallie’s business, Mom. Not yours.”
“And what you’re about to reveal is my business,” my mother said. “If you tell Savannah about it, Tom, then sooner or later she’ll write about it.”
“So that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No,” she said. “I’m worried that it will open horrible new wounds, Tom. I’ve forgotten all about it. I don’t think about it at all. And you promised never to speak of that day again.”
“It can’t do any harm.”
“It would do me a great deal of harm. I could lose everything I have. I could lose my husband if he found out. And if I were you, Tom, I’d have more pride. You’ll have to tell what happened to you that day.”
“I’ll tell it, Mom. Well, I’ve enjoyed our little chat. How are the kids? Have you seen them recently?”
“They seem to be doing fine, as well as can be expected for three adorable children who’ve been abandoned by both their parents. Do you want me to talk to Sallie and tell her how repulsed I am by her behavior?”
“God, no, please don’t, Mother. That would be the worst possible thing you could do. Just let the affair run its course. I haven’t been a fabulous husband in the past couple of years.”
“You’re the spitting image of your father.”
“I know, Mom, and the translation of that is I’m a worthless shit, but I would appreciate it greatly if you would say nothing to Sallie.”
“Well, now,” my mother said. “Maybe we can make a deal. I’ll keep quiet down on this end if you’ll keep quiet up on that end.”
“Mom, I’m doing this to help Savannah. I know you don’t believe that. I know you think I’m only doing it to hurt you, but it’s not true.”
“I don’t know what to believe when it comes from my children. I’ve been hurt by my children so many times that I don’t ever trust it when they’re nice to me. I keep wondering what they’re after and how they’re going to betray me. If I had known how all of you were going to turn out, I would have murdered you in your sleep when you were babies.”
“Considering our childhood, that sounds like an act of mercy,” I said, feeling the blood rushing to my temples, trying to hold my tongue, failing … “Mom, this is getting out of hand. So let’s stop it before we start really drawing blood. I only called because I felt I owed you a kind of explanation. It happened almost twenty years ago. It does not reflect on any of us. It was an act of God.”
“The Devil, I would say, dear,” she said. “Only I would advise you to go along as though it never happened. It would be much better for Savannah. You know how morbid she is. And I know it would be better for you and me.”
“Where did you get that theory of yours, Mom?” I asked. “Where did you come up with the idea that if you simply pretended something didn’t happen, then it lost its power over you.”
“It’s just common sense. If I were you, Tom, I wouldn’t dwell so much on the past. I would look to the future. That’s what I’d do. I never look back. Do you know I’ve not thought of your father a single time in the last two years?”
“You were married to him for over thirty years, Mom,” I said. “Surely he appears as Count Dracula in nightmares or something.”
“Not a single time,” she assured me. “When I say goodbye to something in my past, then I just shut the door and never think of it again.”
“How about Luke, Mom?”
“What?” she said.
“Do you ever think about Luke?” I said again, regretting my words, and their unadorned cruelty, as soon as they left my mouth and made their way through the humming wires to Charleston.
“You’re a mean man, Tom,” my mother said, her voice breaking as she gently placed the receiver down.
I considered calling her back but there was too much undigested history scintillating between us. My recovery of my mother’s good will would be an arduous process and would require a delicacy and tact I could not muster over the phone. It had been a long time since my mother and I had faced each other as friends; it had been years since she could utter a single word without my interpreting it as a cunning strategy to leave me helpless before one other soft and perfumed assaults on the soul. There was an uneasy honor, even adoration, in my hatred of her. Because I failed to understand her, I would face all the women of the world as strangers and adversaries. Because I did not understand her fierce treacherous love for me, I would never be able to accept a woman’s love without a sense of profound dread. Love would always come to me disguised in beauty, disfigured by softness. The world can do worse than make an enemy of your mother, but not much.
I dialed the telephone again. It rang four times and I heard Sallie answer at the other end.
“Hi, Sallie,” I said. “It’s Tom.”
“Hello, Tom,” she said in a sisterly tone. “We got your letter today and all the girls sat down at the kitchen table to write you.”
“Wonderful. Sallie, my mother just threatened to call you to express her high moral outrage. She found out about you and your doctor somehow.”
“You didn’t tell her, did you, Tom? Oh, Jesus Christ. That’s all I need.”
“No, of course not.”
“Did you tell her it was just a vicious rumor and you were positive that my virtue was impeccable?”
“No,” I said, “I wish I’d thought of that. I just acted like we were two aging swingers screwing like minks in the suburbs. I told her I knew all about it.”
“How did she react?”
“She was in a kind of mild ecstasy that her son had been reduced to the status of a grinning cuckold. Then she threatened to call you and make moral judgments. I thought I’d better warn you. She claims everybody in Charleston knows about the affair.”
Sallie said nothing.
“Have you come to any decisions, yet?”
I asked, leaning my head back on my sister’s favorite chair. “I mean, about us. About you. About him. About the end of the fucking world as I know it.”
“Tom, quit it.”
“Has he told his wife yet, Sallie?” I said. “That’s the big moment—when he tells his wife.”
“He’s thinking of telling her next week.”
“Then I should come home.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be convenient, Tom.”
“Then you can move out of the house and into the Francis Marion Hotel. Look, Sallie, I want you to be there. I want you to be my wife. I want to woo you, fuck on the beach, on the kitchen table, on the tops of automobiles, hanging from the Cooper River Bridge. I’ll tap dance, cover your whole body with whipped cream and lick it off slowly. I’ll do anything you want. I promise. I’ve figured a lot of things out up here and one of them is that I love you and I’m going to fight to keep you.”
“I don’t know, Tom,” she said.
“You don’t know,” I shouted.
“Tom, that sounds wonderful. But it would be nice if you could say it without all the cleverness and all the jokes. You know, I don’t believe you’ve ever told me you loved me without making a joke out of it.”
“That’s not true, Sallie, and you know it. I have told you I loved you at night with great sheepishness and embarrassment. I’ve done it any number of times.”
“Jack tells me that all the time, Tom. He’s never sheepish and he’s never embarrassed. He says it simply and sweetly and sincerely.”
“It’s so difficult to talk over the phone. Give all the girls a hug for me.”
“Call early tomorrow so they can speak to you.”
“I will. Take care of yourself, Sallie. Please take your time about this. Think about it hard.”
“I rarely think of anything else, Tom.”
“Goodbye, Sallie.”
When I hung up the phone I said, “I love you, Sallie.” I said it simply and sweetly and sincerely into the darkness of that empty room, without all the cleverness, without the jokes.