Room: A Novel

by Emma Donoghue

  That makes her laugh.

  “Look, Ma, a man putting himself on fire!”

  “Just lighting his cigarette,” she says. “I used to smoke.”

  I stare at her. “Why?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Look, look.”

  “Don’t shout.”

  I’m pointing where there’s all littles walking along the street. “Kids tied together.”

  “They’re not tied, I don’t think.” Ma puts her face more against the window. “Nah, they’re just holding on to the string so they don’t get lost. And see, the really small ones are in those wagons, six in each. They must be a day care, like the one Bronwyn goes to.”

  “I want to see Bronwyn. May you go us please to the kid place, where the kids and Bronwyn my cousin are,” I say to the driver.

  He doesn’t hear me.

  “The dentist is expecting us right now,” says Ma.

  The kids are gone, I stare out all the windows.

  The dentist is Dr. Lopez, when she pulls up her mask for a second her lipstick is purple. She’s going to look at me first because I have teeth too. I lie down in a big chair that moves. I stare up with my mouth wide wide open and she asks me to count what I see on her ceiling. There’s three cats and one dog and two parrots and — I spit out the metal thing.

  “It’s just a little mirror, Jack, see? I’m counting your teeth.”

  “Twenty,” I tell her.

  “That’s right.” Dr. Lopez grins. “I’ve never met a five-year-old who could count his own teeth before.” She puts the mirror in again. “Hmm, wide spacing, that’s what I like to see.”

  “Why you like to see that?”

  “It means. . plenty of room for maneuvering.”

  Ma’s going to be a long time in the chair while the drill gets the yuck out of her teeth. I don’t want to wait in the waiting room but Yang the assistant says, “Come check out our cool toys.” He shows me a shark on a stick that goes clattery clattery and there’s a stool to sit on that’s shaped like a tooth too, not a human tooth but a giant one all white with no rot. I look at a book about Transformers and another one with no jacket about mutant turtles that say no to drugs. Then I hear a funny noise.

  Yang blocks the door. “I think maybe your Mom would prefer—”

  I duck in under his arm and there’s Dr. Lopez doing a machine in Ma’s mouth that screeches. “Leave her alone!”

  “Is OK,” Ma says but like her mouth is broken, what the dentist did to her?

  “If he’d feel safer here, that’s fine,” says Dr. Lopez.

  Yang brings the tooth stool in the corner and I watch, it’s awful but it’s better than not watching. One time Ma twitches in the chair and makes a moan and I stand up, but Dr. Lopez says, “A little more numbing?” and does a needle and Ma stays quiet again. It goes on for hundreds of hours. I need to blow my nose but the skin’s coming off so I just press the tissue on my face.

  When Ma and me go back in the parking lot the light’s all banging my head. The driver’s there again reading a paper, he gets out and opens the doors for us. “Hank oo,” says Ma. I wonder if she’ll always talk wrong now. I’d rather sore teeth than talk like that.

  All the way back to the Clinic I watch the street whizzing by, I sing the song about the ribbon of highway and the endless skyway.

  • • •

  Tooth’s still under our pillow, I give him a kiss. I should have brung him and maybe Dr. Lopez could have fixed him too.

  We have our dinner on a tray, it’s called beef Stroganoff with bits that’s meat and bits that look like meat but they’re mushrooms, all lying on fluffy rice. Ma can’t have the meats yet, just little slurps of the rice, but she’s nearly talking properly again. Noreen knocks to say she has a surprise for us, Ma’s Dad from Australia.

  Ma’s crying, she jumps up.

  I ask, “Can I take my Stroganoff?”

  “Why don’t I bring Jack down in a few minutes, when he’s finished?” asks Noreen.

  Ma doesn’t even say anything, she just runs off.

  “He had a funeral for us,” I tell Noreen, “but we weren’t in the coffin.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  I chase the little rices.

  “This must be the most tiring week of your life,” she says, sitting down beside me.

  I blink at her. “Why?”

  “Well, everything’s strange, because you’re like a visitor from another planet, aren’t you?”

  I shake my head. “We’re not visitors, Ma says we have to stay forever till we’re dead.”

  “Ah, I suppose I mean. . a new arrival.”

  When I’m all done, Noreen finds the room where Ma’s sitting holding hands with a person that has a cap on. He jumps up and says to Ma, “I told your mother I didn’t want—”

  Ma butts in. “Dad, this is Jack.”

  He shakes his head.

  But I am Jack, was he expecting a different one?

  He’s looking at the table, he’s all sweaty on his face. “No offense.”

  “What do you mean, ‘no offense’?” Ma’s talking nearly in a shout.

  “I can’t be in the same room. It makes me shudder.”

  “There’s no it. He’s a boy. He’s five years old,” she roars.

  “I’m saying it wrong, I’m — it’s the jet lag. I’ll call you later from the hotel, OK?” The man who’s Grandpa is gone past me without looking, he’s nearly at the door.

  There’s a crash, Ma’s banged the table with her hand. “It’s not OK.”

  “OK, OK.”

  “Sit down, Dad.”

  He doesn’t move.

  “He’s the world to me,” she says.

  Her Dad? No, I think the he is me.

  “Of course, it’s only natural.” The Grandpa man wipes the skin under his eyes. “But all I can think of is that beast and what he —” “Oh, so you’d rather think of me dead and buried?”

  He shakes his head again.

  “Then live with it,” says Ma. “I’m back—”

  “It’s a miracle,” he says.

  “I’m back, with Jack. That’s two miracles.”

  He puts his hand on the door handle. “Right now, I just can’t —”

  “Last chance,” says Ma. “Take a seat.”

  Nobody does anything.

  Then the grandpa comes back to the table and sits down. Ma points to the chair beside him so I go on it even though I don’t want to be here. I’m looking at my shoes, they’re all crinkly at the edges.

  Grandpa takes off his cap, he looks at me. “Pleased to meet you, Jack.”

  I don’t know which manners so I say, “You’re welcome.”

  Later on Ma and me are in Bed, I’m having some in the dark.

  I ask, “Why he didn’t want to see me? Was it another mistake, like the coffin?”

  “Kind of.” Ma puffs her breath. “He thinks — he thought I’d be better off without you.”

  “Somewhere else?”

  “No, if you’d never been born. Imagine.”

  I try but I can’t. “Then would you still be Ma?”

  “Well, no, I wouldn’t. So it’s a really dumb idea.”

  “Is he the real Grandpa?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Why you’re afraid—”

  “I mean, yeah, he’s it.”

  “Your Dad from when you were a little girl in the hammock?”

  “Ever since I was a baby, six weeks old,” she says. “That’s when they brought me home from the hospital.”

  “Why she left you there, the tummy mommy? Was that a mistake?”

  “I think she was tired,” says Ma. “She was young.” She sits up to blow her nose very noisy. “Dad will get his act together in a while,” she says.

  “What’s his act?”

  She sort of laughs. “I mean he’ll behave better. More like a real grandpa.”

  Like Steppa, only he’s not a real one.

 
I go asleep really easy, but I wake up crying.

  “It’s OK, it’s OK.” That’s Ma, kissing my head.

  “Why they don’t cuddle the monkeys?”

  “Who?”

  “The scientists, why don’t they cuddle the baby monkeys?”

  “Oh.” After a second she says, “Maybe they do. Maybe the baby monkeys learn to like the human cuddles.”

  “No, but you said they’re weird and biting themselves.”

  Ma doesn’t say anything.

  “Why don’t the scientists bring the mother monkeys back and say sorry?”

  “I don’t know why I told you that old story, it all happened ages ago, before I was born.”

  I’m coughing and there’s nothing to blow my nose on.

  “Don’t think about the baby monkeys anymore, OK? They’re OK now.”

  “I don’t think they’re OK.”

  Ma holds me so tight my neck hurts.

  “Ow.”

  She moves. “Jack, there’s a lot of things in the world.”

  “Zillions?”

  “Zillions and zillions. If you try to fit them all in your head, it’ll just burst.”

  “But the baby monkeys?”

  I can hear her breathing funny. “Yeah, some of the things are bad things.”

  “Like the monkeys.”

  “And worse than that,” says Ma.

  “What worse?” I try to think of a thing worse.

  “Not tonight.”

  “Maybe when I’m six?”

  “Maybe.”

  She spoons me.

  I listen to her breaths, I count them to ten, then ten of mine. “Ma?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think about the worse things?”

  “Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes I have to.”

  “Me too.”

  “But then I put them out of my head and I go to sleep.”

  I count our breaths again. I try biting myself, my shoulder, it hurts. Instead of thinking about the monkeys I think about all the kids in the world, how they’re not TV they’re real, they eat and sleep nd pee and poo like me. If I had something sharp and pricked them they’d bleed, if I tickled them they’d laugh. I’d like to see them but it makes me dizzy that there’s so many and I’m only one.

  • • •

  “So, you’ve got it?” asks Ma.

  I’m lying in our bed in Room Number Seven but she’s only sitting on the edge. “Me here having my nap, you in TV.”

  “Actually, the real me will be downstairs in Dr. Clay’s office talking to the TV people,” she says. “Just the picture of me will be in the video camera, then later tonight it’ll be on TV.”

  “Why you want to talk to the vultures?”

  “Believe me, I don’t,” she says. “I just need to answer their questions once and for all, so they’ll stop asking. Back before you know it, OK? By the time you wake up, almost definitely.”

  “OK.”

  “And then tomorrow we’re goingonanadventure,doyou remember where Paul and Deana and Bronwyn are going to take us?”

  “Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs.”

  “That’s right.” She stands up.

  “One song.”

  Ma sits down and does “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” but it’s too fast and she’s still hoarse from our cold. She pulls my wrist to look at my watch with the numbers.

  “Another one.”

  “They’ll be waiting. .”

  “I want to come too.” I sit up and wrap around Ma.

  “No, I don’t want them to see you,” she says, putting me back down on the pillow. “Go to sleep now.”

  “I’m not sleepy on my own.”

  “You’ll be exhausted if you don’t have a nap. Let go of me, please.” Ma’s taking my hands off her. I knot them around her tighter so she can’t. “Jack!”

  “Stay.”

  I put my legs around her too.

  “Get off me. I’m late already.” Her hands are pressing my shoulders but I hold on even more. “You’re not a baby. I said get off—” Ma’s shoving so hard, I suddenly come loose, her shove hits my head on little table craaaaaack.

  She has her hand on her mouth.

  I’m screaming.

  “Oh,” she says, “oh, Jack, oh, Jack, I’m so—”

  “How’s it going?” Dr. Clay’s head, in the door. “The crew are all set up and ready for you.”

  I cry louder than I ever, I hold my broken head.

  “I don’t think this is going to work,” says Ma, she’s stroking my wetted face.

  “You can still pull out,” says Dr. Clay, coming near.

  “No I can’t, it’s for Jack’s college fund.”

  He twists his mouth. “We talked about whether that’s a good enough reason—”

  “I don’t want to go to college,” I say, “I want to go in TV with you.”

  Ma puffs a long breath. “Change of plan. You can come down just to watch if you stay absolutely quiet, OK?”

  “OK.”

  “Not a word.”

  Dr. Clay’s saying to Ma, “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

  But I’m getting my stretchy shoes on quick quick, my head’s still wobbly.

  His office is all changed around full of persons and lights and machines. Ma puts me on a chair in the corner, she kisses me the bashed bit of my head and whispers something I can’t hear. She goes to a bigger chair and a man person clips a little black bug on her jacket. A woman comes over with a box of colors and starts painting Ma’s face.

  I recognize Morris our lawyer, he’s reading pages. “We need to see the cutdown as well as the rough cut,” he’s telling someone. He stares at me, then he waves his fingers. “People?” He says it louder. “Excuse me? The boy is in the room, but is not to be shown on camera, no stills, snapshots for personal use, nothing, are we clear?”

  Then everybody looks at me, I shut my eyes.

  When I open them a different person is shaking Ma’s hand, wow, it’s the woman with the puffy hair from the red couch. The couch is not here, though. I never saw an actual person from TV before, I wish it was Dora instead. “The lead’s your AVO over aerial footage of the shed, yeah,” a man is telling her, “then we’ll dissolve to a close-up on her, then the two-shot.” The woman with puffy hair smiles at me extra wide. There’s everybody talking and moving about, I shut my eyes again and press on my ear holes like Dr. Clay said when it gets too much. Someone’s counting, “Five, four, three, two, one—” Is there going to be a rocket?

  The woman with the puffy hair puts on a special voice, she has her hands together for praying. “Let me first express my gratitude, and the gratitude of all our viewers, for talking to us a mere six days after your release. For refusing to be silenced any longer.”

  Ma does a small smile.

  “Could you begin by telling us, what did you miss most in those seven long years of captivity? Apart from your family, of course.” “Dentistry, actually.” Ma’s voice all high and fast. “Which is ironic, because I used to hate having my teeth cleaned even.” “You’ve emerged into a new world. A global economic and environmental crisis, a new President—”

  “We saw the inauguration on TV,” says Ma.

  “Well! But so much must have changed.”

  Ma shrugs. “Nothing seems all that totally different. But I haven’t really gone out yet, except to the dentist.”

  The woman smiles like it’s a joke.

  “No, I mean everything feels different, but it’s because I’m different.”

  “Stronger at the broken places?”

  I rub my head that’s still broken from the table.

  Ma makes a face. “Before — I was so ordinary. I wasn’t even, you know, vegetarian, I never even had a goth phase.”

  “And now you’re an extraordinary young woman with an extraordinary tale to tell, and we’re honored that it’s we, that it’s us—” The woman looks away, to one of the persons with the machine
s. “Let’s try that again.” She looks back at Ma and does the special voice. “And we’re honored that you’ve chosen this show to tell it. Now, without necessarily putting it in terms of, say, Stockholm syndrome, many of our viewers are curious, well, concerned to know if you found yourself in any way. . emotionally dependent on your captor.”

  Ma’s shaking her head. “I hated him.”

  The woman is nodding.

  “I kicked and screamed. One time I hit him over the head with the lid of the toilet. I didn’t wash, for a long time I wouldn’t speak.” “Was that before or after the tragedy of your stillbirth?”

  Ma puts her hand over her mouth.

  Morris butts in, he’s flicking through pages. “Clause. . she doesn’t want to talk about that.”

  “Oh, we’re not going into any detail,” says the woman with the puffy hair, “but it feels crucial to establish the sequence—” “No, actually it’s crucial to stick to the contract,” he says.

  Ma’s hands are all shaking, she puts them under her legs. She’s not looking my way, did she forget I’m here? I’m talking to her in my head but she’s not hearing.

  “Believe me,” the woman is saying to Ma, “we’re just trying to help you tell your story to the world.” She looks down at the paper in her lap. “So. You found yourself pregnant for the second time, in the hellhole where you’d now eked out two years of your precious youth. Were there days when you felt you were being, ah, forced to bear this man’s—”

  Ma butts in. “Actually I felt saved.”

  “Saved. That’s beautiful.”

  Ma twists her mouth. “I can’t speak for anyone else. Like, I had an abortion when I was eighteen, and I’ve never regretted that.” The woman with the puffy hair has her mouth open a bit. Then she glances down at the paper and looks up at Ma again. “On that cold March day five years ago, you gave birth alone under medieval conditions to a healthy baby. Was that the hardest thing you’ve ever done?”

  Ma shakes her head. “The best thing.”

  “Well, that too, of course. Every mother says—”

  “Yeah, but for me, see, Jack was everything. I was alive again, I mattered. So after that I was polite.”

  “Polite? Oh, you mean with—”

  “It was all about keeping Jack safe.”

  “Was it agonizingly hard to be, as you put it, polite?”

  Ma shakes her head. “I did it on autopilot, you know, Stepford Wife.”