The Bigness of the World

by Lori Ostlund

  “No, my dears. I’m simply gathering information.” She clasped her hands in front of her as she did when she sang opera, the right one curled down over the left as though her fingers were engaged in a tug-of-war. “It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information,” she declaimed, affecting even more of a British accent than she normally did. “That is our beloved Oscar, of course,” she added, referring to Oscar Wilde, whom she was fond of quoting.

  When Bruce left, she first washed his glass and then phoned my mother at work to let her know of the package’s arrival, despite the fact that packages were delivered almost daily. My mother, who was fond of prefacing comments with the words, “I’m a busy woman,” rarely took these calls. Instead, Ilsa left messages with my mother’s secretary, Kenneth Bloomquist, their conversation generally evolving as follows: “Hello, Mr. Bloomquist. This is Ilsa Maria Lumpkin. Would you be so kind as to let Mrs. Koeppe know that the United Parcel Service driver has left a package?” She ended each call with neither a goodbye nor a thank you but with a statement of the time. “It is precisely 4:17 post meridiem,” she would say, for even when it came to time, abbreviations were unacceptable.

  Then there were the things of which Ilsa truly was afraid, but they, too, were things that I had never known adults to be afraid of. One night, as Martin and I sat at the dining room table completing our homework while Ilsa prepared grilled cheese sandwiches with pickles, she began to scream from the kitchen, a loud, continuous ejection of sound not unlike the honking of a car horn. Martin and I leapt up as one and rushed to her, both of us, I suspect, secretly wanting to be the one to calm her, though in those days he and I were rarely competitive.

  “What is it?” we cried out in unison, and she pointed mutely to the bread, but when Martin examined the loaf, he found nothing odd save for a bit of green mold that had formed along the top crust. Ilsa would not go near the bread and begged him to take it into the garage and dispose of it immediately. He did not, for we both knew that my parents would not approve of such wastefulness, not when the mold could be scraped off and the bread eaten. I do not mean to suggest that my parents were in any way stingy, for they were not. However, they did not want money to stand between us and common sense, did not want us growing up under what my father was fond of calling “the tutelage of wastefulness.” They were no longer churchgoers, either one of them, but Martin and I were raised according to the tenets of their residual Protestantism.

  Ilsa was also deeply afraid to ride in cars with power windows, which both of ours had and which meant that she would not accept a ride home, even at the end of a very late evening. “What would happen if you were to drive into a lake?” she asked my father each time he suggested it. “However would we escape?” When my father explained to her that there were no lakes, no bodies of water of any sort, along the twelve blocks that lay between our house and her apartment, which was actually a tiny guest cottage behind another house, she laughed at him the way that she had laughed at Martin and me when we tried to explain about the pizza.

  Our neighborhood was quite safe, but my father still felt obligated to walk Ilsa home, and while he complained mightily about having to do so, he always returned disheveled and laughing, and eventually my mother suggested that she walk Ilsa home sometimes instead, not because she distrusted my father, for she did not, but because she too wanted to return humming and laughing, her clothing wrinkled and covered with twigs. Martin and I encouraged this as well because we were worried about our mother, who had become increasingly distracted and often yelled at us for small things, for counting too slowly when she asked us to check how many eggs were left in the carton or forgetting to throw both dirty socks into the hamper. Of course most people will hear “twigs” and “clothing wrinkled” and think sex, and while I cannot absolutely rule this out, I am fairly sure that these outings did not involve anything as mundane as sex in the park. My certainty is based not on the child’s inability to imagine her parents engaged in such things; they were probably not swingers in the classic sense of the word, but they were products of the time and just conservative enough on the surface to suggest the possibility. No, my conviction lies entirely with Ilsa.

  It was my fault that things with Ilsa came to an end. One evening, after my father returned from walking her home, he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and noticed that his toothbrush was wet. “Has one of you been playing with my toothbrush?” he asked from the hallway outside our bedrooms.

  “No, Ilsa used it,” I said at last, but only after he had come into my bedroom and turned on the light. “We had carrots, and she needs to brush her teeth immediately after she eats colorful foods.”

  My father stared at me for a moment. “Does Ilsa always use my toothbrush?”

  “No,” I said patiently. “Only when we have colorful foods.” This was true. She had not used it since we had radishes the week before.

  The next morning behind closed doors, he and my mother discussed Ilsa while Martin and I attempted, unsuccessfully, to eavesdrop. In the end, neither of them wanted to confront Ilsa about the toothbrush because they found it embarrassing. Instead, they decided to tell Ilsa that Martin and I had become old enough to supervise ourselves. We protested, suggesting that we simply buy Ilsa her own toothbrush, but my father and mother said that it was more than the toothbrush and that we really were old enough to stay alone. We insisted that we were not, but the call to Ilsa was made.

  Nonetheless, for the next several weeks, my father was there waiting for us when we returned from school each day. He told us that he had made some scheduling changes at work, called in some favors, but we did not know what this meant because we still did not understand what our father did. He spent most afternoons on the telephone, talking in a jovial voice that became louder when he wanted something and louder again when the other party agreed. He did not make snacks for us, so Martin and I usually peeled carrots and then sat on my bed eating them as we talked about Ilsa, primarily concerning ourselves with two questions: whether she missed us and how we might manage to see her again. The latter was answered soon enough, for during the third week of this new arrangement, my father announced that he and my mother needed to go somewhere the next afternoon and that we would be left alone in order to prove our maturity.

  The next day, we watched our parents drive away. Once they were out of sight, I began counting to two hundred and eighty, for that, Ilsa had once explained, was the amount of time that it took the average person to realize that he or she had left something behind. “Two hundred and eighty,” I announced several minutes later, and since our parents had not reappeared, we went into our bedrooms and put on our dress clothes, Martin a suit and tie, which he loved having the opportunity to wear, and I, a pair of dress slacks and a sweater, which is what I generally wore for holidays and events that my parents deemed worthy of something beyond jeans. Then, because we did not have a key, we locked the door of the house from the inside and climbed out a side window, leaving it slightly ajar behind us. We knew where Ilsa lived, for our parents had pointed it out on numerous occasions, and we set off running toward her in our dress shoes, but when we were halfway there, Martin stopped suddenly.

  “We don’t have anything for her,” he said. “We can’t go without something. It wouldn’t be right.”

  Martin was what some of the boys in his class called a sissy because he did not like games that involved pushing or hitting, preferring to jump rope during recess, and because he always considered the feelings of others. Though I wanted to think that I too considered the feelings of others, I often fell short, particularly when it was not convenient to do so or when my temper dictated otherwise. When it came to pushing and hitting, Martin and I fully parted ways, for I was fond of both activities. Thus, several months earlier, when I heard that three of Martin’s classmates had called him a sissy, I waited for them after school and threatened to punch the next one who used the word. I should mention that while Martin had inherite
d my mother’s slender build, I took after my father, a man who had once picked up our old refrigerator by himself and carried it out to the garage, and so the three boys had looked down at the ground for a moment and then, one by one, slunk away. When we got home, I told Ilsa what had happened, and Martin stood nearby, listening to me relate the story with a thoughtful expression on his face. He had a habit of standing erectly, like a dancer, and when I finished, she turned to him and said, “Why, it is a marvelous thing to be a sissy, Martin. You will enjoy your life much more than those boys. You will be able to cook and enjoy flowers and appreciate all sorts of music. I absolutely adore sissies.”

  Thus, when Martin insisted that we could not visit Ilsa without a gift, I did not argue, for I trusted Martin about such things. We turned and ran back home, re-entering through the window, and Martin went into the kitchen and put together a variety of spices—cloves, a stick of cinnamon, and a large nutmeg pit—which he wrapped in cheesecloth and tied carefully with a piece of ribbon.

  “That’s not a gift,” I said, but Martin explained to me patiently that it was, was, in fact, the sort of gift Ilsa would love.

  Fifteen minutes later, we stood on the porch of Ilsa’s cottage, waiting for her to answer the door. We had already knocked three times, and I knocked twice more before I finally turned to Martin and asked fretfully, “What if she’s not home?” To be honest, it had never occurred to us that Ilsa might not be home, for we could only think of Ilsa in regard to ourselves, which meant that when she was not with us, she was here, at her cottage, because we were incapable of imagining her elsewhere—certainly not with another family, caring for children who were not us.

  “She must be at the pound,” I said suddenly and with great relief.

  But Ilsa was home. As we were about to leave, she opened her door and stared at us for several distressing seconds before pulling us to her tightly. “My bunnies!” she cried out, and we thought that she meant us, but she pulled us inside and shut the door, saying, “Quickly now, before their simple little minds plot an escape,” and we realized then that she truly meant rabbits.

  “Martin,” she said, looking him up and down, her voice low and unsteady, and then she turned and scrutinized me as well. Her hair was pulled back in a very loose French braid, and she was not wearing a hat, the first time that either of us had seen her without one. It felt strange to be standing there in her tiny cottage, stranger yet to be seeing her without a hat, intimate in a way that seemed almost unbearable.

  “You’re not wearing a hat,” Martin said matter-of-factly.

  “I was just taking a wee nap,” she replied. I could see that this was true, for her face was flushed and deeply creased from the pillow, her eyes dull with slumber, as though she had been sleeping for some time.

  “We brought you something,” said Martin, holding up the knotted cheesecloth.

  “How lovely,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together clumsily before taking the ball of spices and holding it to her nose with both hands. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, but the moment went on and on, becoming uncomfortable.

  “Kikes!” screamed a voice from a corner of the room, and Ilsa’s eyes snapped open. “Kikes and dykes!” screamed the voice again.

  “Martin, I will not tolerate such language,” Ilsa said firmly.

  “It wasn’t me,” said Martin, horrified, for we both knew what the words meant.

  “I think it was him,” I said, pointing to the corner where a large cage hung, inside of which perched a shabby-looking green parrot. The bird regarded us for a moment, screeched, “Ass pirates and muff divers!” leaned over, and tossed a beakful of seeds into the air like confetti.

  “Of course it was him,” said Ilsa. “The foul-mouthed rascal. I saved his life, but he hardly seems grateful. His name is Martin.”

  “Martin?” said Martin happily. “Like me?”

  “Yes, I named him after you, my dear, though it was wishful thinking on my part. I dare say you could teach him a thing or two about manners.”

  “Why does he say those things?” asked Martin.

  “Martin ended up at the pound a few months ago after his former owner, a thoroughly odious man, died in a house fire—he fell asleep smoking a cigar. Martin escaped through a window, but it seems there is no undoing the former owner’s work, which made adoption terribly unlikely. They were going to put him down, so I have taken him instead.” She sighed. “The bunnies—poor souls—are absolutely terrified of him.”

  Martin and I looked around Ilsa’s living room, trying to spot the bunnies, but the only indication of them lay in the fact that Ilsa had covered her small sofa and arm chair with plastic wrap as though she were about to paint the walls. “Where are the bunnies?” I asked. I did not say so, but I was afraid of rabbits, for I had been bitten by one at an Easter event at the shopping mall several years earlier. In truth, it had been nothing more than a nibble, but it had startled me enough that I had dropped the rabbit and then been scolded by the teenage attendant for my carelessness.

  “I should imagine that they are in the escritoire,” she said, and Martin nodded as though he knew what the escritoire was.

  “Come,” said Ilsa. “Let us go into the kitchen, away from this bad-mannered fellow. We shall mull some cider using your extraordinarily thoughtful gift.”

  We huddled at a square yellow table inside her small, dreary kitchen, watching her pour cider from a jug into a saucepan, focusing as deeply on this task as someone charged with splitting a neutron. “How are you, Ilsa?” asked Martin, sounding strangely grown up. She dropped the spice ball into the pan, adjusted the flame, and only then turned to answer.

  “I am positively exuberant,” she replied. “Indeed, Martin, things could not be better here at 53 Ridgecrest Drive.” She paused, as though considering what topic we might discuss next, and then she asked how we were and, after we had both answered that we were well, she asked about our parents. We were in the habit of answering Ilsa honestly, and so I told her that our parents seemed strange lately.

  “Strange?” she said, her mouth curling up as though the word had a taste attached to it that she did not care for.

  “Yes,” I said. “For one thing, our father is home every day when we arrive from school”—Martin looked at me, for on the way over we had agreed that we would not tell Ilsa this, lest it hurt her feelings to know that our parents had lied, so I went on quickly—“and our mother is gone until very late most nights, and when she is home, she hardly speaks, even to our father.”

  “I see,” said Ilsa, but not as though she really did, and then she stood and ladled up three cups of cider, which she placed on saucers and carried to the table, one cup at a time. She fished out the soggy bundle of spices and placed that on a fourth saucer, which she set in the middle of the table as though it were a centerpiece, something aesthetically pleasing for us to consider as we sipped our cider.

  “I may presume that your parents are aware of your visit to me?” she said, and we both held our cups to our mouths and blew across the surface of the cider, watching as it rippled slightly, and finally Martin replied that they were not.

  “Children,” Ilsa said, “that will not do.” This was the closest that Ilsa had ever come to actually scolding us, though her tone spoke more of exhaustion than disapproval, and we both looked up at her sadly.

  “I shall ring them immediately,” she said.

  “They aren’t home,” I told her.

  Ilsa consulted her watch, holding it up very close to her eyes in order to make out the numbers because the watch was tiny, the face no larger than a dime. Once I had asked Ilsa why she did not get a bigger watch, one that she could simply glance at the way that other people did, but she said that that was precisely the reason—that one should never get into the habit of glancing at one’s watch. “Please excuse me, my dears. I see that it is time to visit my apothecary,” she said, and she stood and left the room.

  “What is her apothecary?” I asked Mar
tin, whispering, and he whispered back that he did not know but that perhaps she was referring to the bathroom.

  We were quiet then, studying Ilsa’s kitchen in a way that we had not been able to do when she was present. There was only one window, a single pane that faced a cement wall. This accounted for the dreariness, this and the fact that the room was tiny, three or even four times smaller than our kitchen. When I commented on this to Martin, he said, “I think that Ilsa’s kitchen is the perfect size. You know what she always says—that she gets lost in our kitchen.” But his tone was defensive, and I knew that he was disappointed as well.

  “There’s no island,” I said suddenly. Our parents’ kitchen had not one island but two, which Ilsa had given names. The one nearest the stove she called Jamaica and the other, Haiti, and when we helped her cook, she would hand us things, saying, “Ferry this cutting board over to Haiti,” and “Tomatoes at the south end of Jamaica, please.” Once, during a period when she had been enamored of religious dietary restrictions, she had announced, “Dairy on Jamaica, my young sous chefs. Meat on Haiti,” and we had cooked the entire meal according to her notions of kosher, though when it came time to eat, she had forgotten about the rules, stacking cheese and bacon on our hamburgers and pouring us each a large glass of milk.

  From the other room, we heard a sound like maracas being rattled, which made me think of our birthdays because our parents always took us to Mexican Village, where a mariachi band came to our table and sang “Happy Birthday” in Spanish. We heard water running and then the parrot screaming obscenities again as Ilsa passed through the living room and back into the kitchen. She had put on a hat, one that we had not seen before, white with a bit of peacock feather glued to one side.

  “This has been an absolutely splendid visit, but I must be getting the two of you home,” she said. “Gather your things, my goslings.” But we had come with nothing save the spices, which now sat in a pool of brown liquid, and so we had no things to gather.