by Lydia Davis
Although Helen’s eyesight and hearing are poor, she takes no prescription medications, her only pills being vitamins and an occasional aspirin. She had no medical problems until the age of eighty, when she began to develop macular degeneration, which has grown progressively worse. Sometime after she turned ninety, a friend of hers noticed, on their weekly grocery shopping trip, that her ankles were badly swollen. Helen went to the doctor and it was discovered that her heart had begun to beat more slowly and erratically. She was fitted with a pacemaker. Following insertion of the pacemaker, medical problems began that appeared to have been caused by the medical interventions themselves. For instance, a heart medication upset her stomach. This in turn caused her to lose weight and weaken, making her more prone to falling. One fall resulted in a broken hip. She entered her present nursing home on a temporary basis for treatment and then arranged to stay there permanently. In the nursing home, a treatment with a medicated shampoo led to a chronic and persistent skin irritation that she will apparently never be free of. Two of her medical problems, then—her macular degeneration and her erratic heartbeat—occurred naturally and spontaneously, whereas the others—the weight loss with resultant weakness, the fall and fracture, and the skin condition—resulted from medical intervention.
Helen’s well-being is dependent, now, on the environment of the nursing home and the treatment she receives there.
Physical Appearance
Both Helen and Vi take pride in their appearance. Both, like Hope, were attractive and popular with boys and men when they were younger. Their figures are strong, slender, and youthful. They have smooth, clear skin, Helen’s pale but with a diffused rosy color and Vi’s a rich, even brown.
Vi’s face is round, her eyes are dark brown and sparkling and slant upward a little at the outer edges. Her eyebrows are straight and thick. Her lips are often parted, as though she is about to speak or smile, and then her lower lip curves downward. Helen’s blue eyes are dim now, the whites yellowish. Both Helen and Vi wear large glasses, though Vi often removes hers for a photograph. Vi’s hands are shapely and dark brown. Her fingers are slim and fairly straight; only the last joint of the index finger is a little bent and swollen. Helen’s fingers are quite crooked.
A photograph of Helen taken when she was about twenty years old shows her leaning against the front porch of the large white house, her hands behind her back. Her head is tilted to one side, and she is smiling. Her black dress is low-waisted, with a V-neck, a loosely knotted black tie at the V, and a flared, pleated, knee-length skirt. She wears clear stockings and black heeled pumps with ankle straps. She has a string of pearls around her neck. Her long, dark hair is parted and tied back.
Both Vi and Helen pay attention to their clothes and enjoy dressing nicely. As a teenager, Vi wore a variety of handsome, but conservative, tailored clothes—blouses, suits, coats—of interesting fabrics, with detailed buttons and belts. She is pictured in one photograph wearing a wide-lapeled camel coat, a black beret, and a black scarf. In another, she is shown with a much older boyfriend who appears to be in his thirties and is dressed in a double-breasted suit, bicolored handkerchief folded into a triangle in his breast pocket, a tie with tiepin, and a hat, a cigar clamped in his mouth—but, as Vi points out, his pants have no crease. Here, she is wearing a pale blue dress with white buttons and a round white collar under a dark coat with a small white fur collar, and lavender heeled pumps with straps. In another photograph, with another boyfriend, this one her own age, she is wearing a dress with full cream-colored blouse and sleeves and broad swathes of lace down the front and around the neck. Her hair is simply arranged with a part down the middle, she is wearing her glasses, and, as in all her photographs, she has a relaxed, happy smile.
For a housecleaning job, Vi often goes out dressed in clean and pressed blue jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt or a sweater or, in warm weather, a T-shirt. Dressed in this way, she appears as athletic as a young girl. Very rarely, her head is wrapped in a kerchief tied in back; more usually, she is bareheaded, her hair braided in one of a variety of different styles. Her hair is still mostly dark, with only a little gray in it. When she dresses up for a party or church function, however, she wears a wig of smooth, waved, and styled black hair streaked with silver and a fancy dress of shiny material, sometimes with bouffant sleeves and a wide skirt, sometimes more streamlined. The change in her appearance is startling: she looks younger than her age, but also more formal, losing her youthful or tomboyish vivaciousness. In this guise she is known to most of the other church members not as Vi or Viola but as Mother Harriman.
When Helen still lived at home, she would have breakfast—often just a piece of toast and a cup of instant coffee—in her nightgown, housecoat, and slippers. Then, after washing the breakfast dishes, she would wash herself and dress in stockings, low-heeled pumps, a skirt, a blouse with a pin, or a dress, and sometimes a cardigan. She was always well groomed and her colors were pleasing in combination, if muted. Her gray hair was styled in a permanent wave. When she moved into the nursing home she immediately abandoned the permanent wave, and now her hair is straight and cut fairly short, a shiny silver, usually pinned to the side with a bobby pin. She now wears kneesocks instead of stockings, and athletic shoes because they have good support and traction.
Both Vi and Helen are graceful. They stand and move in an economical, balanced way, Helen more slowly and deliberately now than Vi. Neither one has ever been awkward, clumsy, or hasty. They know the importance of not rushing. If an employer or a friend has to go out on an errand, Vi will say, with a pleasant lilt to her words, “Take your time!”
Helen has always thought and planned ahead, and has been prepared for what she will do next. This is one of the reasons she is not clumsy and does not hurry. Only once did her younger son ever see her moving fast, and that was during an emergency: a little girl had fallen into a neighbor’s well and was drowning.
Vi’s posture is fully upright; she stands poised and balanced on her feet with her shoulders back and her head up, facing the person she is talking to and looking him or her directly in the eye. Helen has a slight stoop in her back and shoulders, and when she is seated, she tends to be rather graciously inclined toward the person she is talking to, this tendency no doubt exacerbated by her weak hearing. While she still lived in her own house, this forward inclination, as she peeled a potato or climbed the stairs with something in her arms, was expressive of her general state of readiness and activity, and even of her generosity, as she reached out a crooked hand to touch a grandchild or show a photograph.
Personality and Temperament
Both Vi and Helen are polite and gracious in their actions and responses, and appreciative and thoughtful of others. But beyond these good manners, both have a good deal of personal charm. This expresses itself in their voices, facial expressions, bearing, wit, and alertness of response. They maintain steady eye contact; their expressions are relaxed and smiling, their voices are well inflected, rising and falling pleasantly; they are closely attentive to the conversation in progress and quick to respond with a thoughtful remark.
Both Vi and Helen are so friendly and charming that they consistently elicit positive reactions from others—their friends, employers, doctors, nurses, church congregation members, children and grandchildren—and therefore in turn receive, from these others, the sustenance of friendliness, consideration, and wit.
At present, although, inevitably, certain of the staff at the nursing home are by nature unresponsive, cold in manner, or bad-tempered, most have become very fond of Helen and describe her modest and generous personality either directly—“She’ll never tell you if she needs something”—or with gentle irony: “Oh, Helen—she’s such a complainer!”
Vi appears to be happy, at times exuberant, often vivacious. By contrast, Helen is more subdued. Perhaps because of her infirmities and her permanent residence in the nursing home, she sometimes indicates quite directly, though with a resigned smile, that she wil
l not mind when the time comes for her to die, or even that she will welcome it. If Vi, on the other hand, mentions her own “passing,” it is in a humorous context.
Both rebound from difficulties, Vi often seeing the lighter side of a situation, Helen tending to accept the inevitable—“Well,” she will say with a shrug and a smile, “what can you do?”
Both display enthusiasm, though Vi’s is more vocal and louder than Helen’s. If Helen enjoys competitive sports on the radio, Vi enjoys a good meal, a good story, and even a new broom.
Both abide firmly by their long-established habits and are reluctant or unwilling to try a novel way of doing something, or even to hear about it.
Hope, by contrast, still as mentally sharp as she ever has been, appreciates any form of ingenuity, especially her own. She will report her bold ideas and her clever solutions to practical problems with a relish that she expects to be shared.
Both Helen and Vi will express disapproval of certain things, such as the manners, behavior, or work ethic of young people, but Helen will often, after a brief pause, gently append some remark indicating understanding, such as “They do their best,” or “They try,” whereas Vi will not soften her criticism. Helen does not like most of the changes that have occurred in her hometown over the years, such as the intrusion of a gaudy Chinese restaurant on Main Street or the closing of the old movie theater and the YMCA. Both marvel—disapprovingly—over excessive weight in others. Along with such disapproval comes a certain degree of self-approbation in both. Vi will boast outright, with a chuckle of pleasure, and tell stories to her credit, such as how she outwalked all the other church members on a recent trip to Jerusalem. Helen will not boast, but will occasionally imply, by her mild criticism, that her own way is a better way.
Both Helen and Vi give generously to their friends and family, materially and in time and attention. When Helen still lived at home, she kept boxes of cookies and pastries on a lower shelf of a dish cupboard in the kitchen; when family or friends were leaving, she would take a selection or a whole box out of the cupboard and urge it on the departing travelers. She does the same now in the nursing home. Visitors have brought her so many gift boxes of cookies, candies, and fruit that she has a large store of them in her bedside cabinet. “Would you like these ginger cookies?” she will ask. “Take this banana,” she will say.
Helen calls friends regularly to see how they are. She shows her concern and interest in the questions she asks her visitors. She remembers the names of all their family members and asks after these family members, too. When she still lived at home and had the use of her eyes, she would send a card on each birthday or anniversary. For a child, she would often enclose money. She would always telephone some hours after a visit to make sure her family had gotten home safely.
In those days, Helen’s form of giving was in service as well as in conversation. Besides her church activities, she would visit friends in the hospital and in nursing homes. When she still could, she would walk many blocks from her house to the rather grim nursing home where various women she knew, including her sister-in-law and her old English teacher, were living out their days. When she could no longer walk the distance, she found a ride with a friend. She often came as a visitor to the same nursing home where she is now a resident.
If a friend of Vi’s is in the hospital for an extended time, she will go over to her house and clean it for her. If a friend does not drive, Vi will drive her where she needs to go. When there is a death in the family of one of Vi’s friends, relatives often come from far away, usually the South, but also the Midwest and the West Coast, to attend the funeral; Vi thinks nothing of accommodating these travelers for several days, giving them beds and meals. She will report this activity and how busy she has been, commenting, “I don’t know my head from my heels!” or “I been jumpin’!”
In addition to her work for the church and for friends, Vi used to pay regular visits to inmates of a local prison. There she would, in particular, scold one young man whose family she knew: “Your mother died without ever seeing you any better than you are now,” she would tell him. “How could you do that to your mother? Aren’t you shamed?”
Conversational Manner
Helen is more of a listener, Vi more of a talker. Vi is quite willing to express strong opinions about how things ought to be and how people ought to behave, whereas Helen is less prescriptive or assertive. Sometimes, only, she will be gently insistent when the subject is one she feels strongly about, such as baptism.
Helen answers questions about herself in just a few words and reluctantly or hesitantly, only occasionally volunteering some memory she likes to recall. She does not talk at length about herself, but she will recall the past in brief increments, as, on an outing in the car: “We used to come down this hill in a wagon with Kate and Fanny pulling it.” Or she will comment wistfully on her present situation: “I haven’t been shopping in so long … I miss some of it.”
Vi and Helen are both likely to ask questions in a conversation, but sparingly, and Helen more than Vi. Helen asks for news and listens attentively. Her questions are general inquiries, such as “How are the cats?” or “Are you going to stay home for a while now?”
Vi tends to do most of the talking, but if the person she is talking to makes a remark, she will respond with “Is that so?” or “Is that right?” with mild surprise and sudden seriousness that is sometimes genuine and sometimes merely polite. Sometimes her questions are more specific, as in “Oh, is he moving?” or “How old is he now?” but her intention is never to draw the other out at any great length. Both Helen and Vi are reserved about probing very deeply into another person’s life or opinions, no doubt restrained by courtesy rather than lack of interest.
Hope, by contrast, has no reserve in this area, and asks detailed questions about even the most personal subjects. She enjoys fostering a degree of dependence in her family and friends and has no doubt about the powerful influence of her opinions and advice.
Vi often enjoys good times with her friends, and she likes to report the funny things that happen to them. She says, over and over: “Oh, I had some fun with them about that,” or “Oh, we laughed a lot.”
She is more interested in her own stories than those of the person she is talking to. Almost everything that has happened to her in her life can be turned into a funny story. The humor in these stories is mild, having to do with the foibles of human and animal behaviors and interactions. For instance, Vi’s best friend hated dogs. This woman told the woman she worked for at her cleaning job that she wouldn’t work there anymore if the employer got a dog. The employer thought Vi’s friend didn’t mean it, because she had worked for her so long, but she did mean it, and when the employer got a dog, Vi’s friend said, “You won’t be seeing any more of me!” and never returned. Vi’s facial expressions and intonations enliven the story as she tells it, and she laughs at the end.
However difficult the situation, for Vi there is always a funny side to it. Her husband was ill in the hospital; she had just come from her night job to see him; when she left him she would have to walk two or three miles through the darkened city to get home. But the doctor said something that made her laugh and it is part of a funny story she tells. Another time, her best friend collapsed on the living-room floor at three in the morning and Vi was summoned by the family. Although they were all terrified, Vi laughs as she describes how she was down on the floor trying to help her friend when the firemen came, and what a time they had getting her out of the way so they could do their work. “Oh, it was funny.” A patient in a nursing home where she worked refused to let Vi touch him because of her black skin; her sister, who also worked there, calmly advised her to ignore the insult and leave him alone, because some people were like that; but when the patient, one day, insulted Vi’s sister in the same terms, Vi said, her sister was so mad she was ready to “slug” him! Oh, it was funny.
Helen does not tell stories the way Vi does, but she relays news of fami
ly, friends, and the families of friends that make up a longer ongoing story, and this story is deeply absorbing to her. Her group of friends is shrinking year by year, as those her own age die, but a good number still visit her regularly in the nursing home, or send cards on her birthday and at Christmas, and their children, too, remain in touch.
Helen speaks Standard English that includes certain regional or ethnic expressions such as “come to find out,” meaning “then we found out,” and “Lebanon way,” meaning “in the vicinity of Lebanon”; to her, a window shade is a “curtain,” and sometimes, a magazine is a “book”; she will use slang expressions such as “a live wire” and sometimes include a colorful, incongruous metaphor in her conversation, as when she remarks, apropos of how many of her friends are gone, that she is “the last of the Mohicans—as they say.” She will punctuate her conversation with phrases or remarks expressive of resignation, such as “Well, anyway …” and “I’ve lived a pretty long life as it is …” She knows a little Swedish, from having grown up with Swedish-speaking parents and relatives. She says that just recently she suddenly recalled a Swedish prayer she had said as a child; after years in which she had not remembered it, it came back into her mind complete and intact.
Vi speaks a mixture of Standard English and her own variety of Standard Black English (sometimes she will say “he doesn’t” and sometimes “he don’t”) sprinkled with Southern idioms (“white as cotton,” “burying ground” for cemetery), old-time rural locutions (“grease” for hand lotion), and unusual, perhaps unique expressions acquired from her grandparents, particularly her grandmother, who may have made some of them up (“We had a bamboo time!”). In any single conversation, at least one or two rare, vivid phrases will occur. She is aware of how interesting these expressions are and enjoys using them. As a natural storyteller, she relishes the effect not only of the plots of her stories but also of the language she uses in telling them.