And Yet They Were Happy

by Helen Phillips

  A young woman sits in a room, thinking of all the women named Helen Phillips who have ever existed. She writes to them: Dear, dear Helen Phillipses, you who were once new to this world, you who once desired only milk and sleep: the world misses you, but only a tiny bit, a very tiny bit.

  helen #2

  You know that song “Lay Lady Lay”? Bob Dylan wrote that song about me.

  There was no brass bed. It was just a mattress on the floor of someone’s uncle’s house. But we were young, and could easily imagine brass beds. I was eighteen. I was twenty-five. I was thirty-three. I was a sympathetic waitress. I was the loneliest girl in the high school. I was a belligerent offshoot of the British Royal family. I was a divorcée. I was a virgin. I was a baker. I was a laundress. I was a beekeeper. There was a place below my belly button and above my cunt where Bobby could rest his head whenever it all got to be too much for him.

  “They boo,” he said once. “They boo,” he said a second time. “Boo,” he said.

  You can’t even believe how skinny he was. It was like fucking a skeleton. Ashes from his infinite cigarette fell on my stomach. He was such a kid. I felt so bad for him.

  He said, “What colors do you have in your mind?” I said, “Wha?” He said, “Do you have any colors in your mind?” I had no colors but I nodded. “Lemme guess,” he said. “Green?” “Sure,” I said. “Gray?” “Sure,” I said. “Ah fuck,” he said.

  I offered him the place below my belly button and above my cunt, but he went to sit in the beat-up armchair. His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean, Bobby sings. I don’t think his clothes were particularly dirty, nor his hands particularly clean.

  Did he ever call me by name? Was the armchair maroon? Was it an armchair or a stool?

  Bob Dylan, if you ever read this, if a published page of writing may serve as my telegram to you, I want you to know: My name is Helen. I grew up in the foothills of Colorado. I believe I loved you as no girl ever loved you. Every girl believes she loved you as no girl ever loved you.

  helen #3

  Jack Kerouac and I are obsessed with making lists. He keeps track of the books he’s read, and the women: name (nickname if he can’t recall), dates, locations, number of copulations. I keep track of how many alcoholic beverages I drink each week, and how I feel each night, a smiley or frowny face beside the date. He and I wish to master the statistics.

  But we’re thwarted by the fact that we didn’t start lists the instants we were born. I want to know how many times I’ve sneezed over the course of my life. I want to know how many scoops of ice cream I’ve consumed. I want to know exactly how many miles I’ve walked. One feels one’s life slipping into obscurity. Jack Kerouac acknowledges that some women and some books have fallen between the cracks—I picture them falling between the cracks, the sidewalk splitting open, beautiful panicked girls clinging to the pavement while books plummet into the widening chasm.

  If only there were someone who kept track of it all! I’m envisioning an infinite register that I could consult to find out how many words I’ve typed and how many I’ve deleted. Our desperate lists are so pitiful in comparison to the image of this splendid register. It’s enough to make you throw up your hands. Jack Kerouac throws up his hands, standing by the window in the grayish light of a Brooklyn afternoon.

  In Jack Kerouac’s notebook of women, each page is divided into six boxes. In box #22, the name Helen P can be found alongside the names of five other women. Helen P? Helen P! Helen P, whoever she may be.

  And now someone is two places at once. Standing here in a museum in the year 2008, staring at her name on a list. Lying there shivering under the sheet in the year 1951 while Jack Kerouac stares out at the naked February trees and the smoky Brooklyn sky, the image of two pale winter thighs and three orgasms already slipping his mind.

  helen #4

  In the factory where the virgins are made, we’re given bread at noon. We eat it in the cement courtyard, sitting around the dry fountain, looking up at the broken windows. We are not ones to talk. We are virgins. This is the law, and a sensible law at that.

  Our virgins are sent all over the world, to Guatemala, to South Africa, to France, to Cuba, to Brazil, to Poland, to Portugal. We mail them out naked. Father blesses the cardboard boxes. When they arrive at their destinations, they’ll be dressed in the velvet robes that have been stripped off the outdated virgins. Our newer, better virgins—high-quality plastic, real human hair from our heads, eyelashes from our lids—will be placed in glass coffins that have been dusted for the occasion. I’ve wondered, but never asked, what becomes of the old virgins.

  Instead, I’ve turned my attention to picturing how our virgins must glow against the great stones of cathedrals, and against the wooden walls in poorer countries. I’ve thought of their sad peaceful faces. I’ve always wondered why I am instructed to paint their lips with slight frowns. I’ve worked here for a decade, and it is an honor to be the woman who paints the lips. Still, certain things have been given up along the way.

  Six months ago, when I first did it, I made it so imperceptible that Father would not notice, nor anyone else, until some girl in some church somewhere would pause before my virgin, would run down the aisle, would leave the building with a whoop, would feel finally, for the first time ever, blessed.

  The complaints have begun to roll in. Father’s displeased. The bishops cannot quite put their finger on what the issue is, but—something’s amiss. Father has told us to work harder, to be more perfect, to not falter in making the virgins we’ve been making for decades. He says the troublemakers will be found, and punished.

  When they come for me, I’ll be ready, smiling an invisible smile.

  helen #5

  There’s a woman in the zoo. We all go to see her. Her cage has brass bars. The back wall is painted amateurishly to resemble a forest. She stays very close to that wall, as though by pressing hard enough into it she may penetrate through to a real forest.

  She shrieks whenever people are nearby, short swift shrieks, and pushes at the air to push us away, as though we’re attacking her. Whenever someone sneaks an arm through the bars and skims a finger across her foot, she moans long and low and clings to the painted trees, shivering, pressing her forehead into the wall. She wears ragged bedroom slippers. The kindly zookeeper tells us that she screams if he tries to replace them with nicer slippers. She wears a white t-shirt and shapeless black sweatpants, worn through to gray in the buttocks. She’s somewhat pretty, except that her eyes are bloodshot and she smells unclean. The zookeeper explains that he’s powerless against her. We’d like to take her home and wash her; we picture ourselves gallantly leading her into a reasonable life. The zookeeper reminds us: You can lead a horse to water. . . .

  It’s said that her husband brought her in. One night when he touched her, she shrieked and hid in the closet. The next night, she hid under the bed. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand the touch of any human. Couldn’t ride the subway, couldn’t go grocery shopping, couldn’t share a bed. The poor young man brought her to the zoo, at a loss for what to do with a wife who had transformed from a human into something else. The plaque beneath the cage bears only her first name: Helen.

  How weird, we say. Poor woman. Meanwhile, she shrieks. Heard from afar, these shrieks sound like the cries of the jungle birds in the zoo’s jungle dome. Bizarre-o, we say. What a freak.

  A confession: I have looked into her eyes while she shrieked, have seen there something not unfamiliar, have become envious.

  helen #6

  I am an extremely normal person. I live on the eighteenth floor of an impersonal apartment building; I work, I sleep. This is why it makes no sense.

  The first morning it was simply an orange, there in the gray hallway outside my door. Such oversights do not typically occur in this carefully managed building; I was surprised, and delighted. What a splendid color it was! It brightened my day, I imagined myself telling someone dear to me. With the slight thrill of theft—dare I c
laim this as mine?—I put it in my bag.

  The second morning: an elephant and two lit candles. Unlike the orange, this could not be misinterpreted; this was intended for me. The red rhinestone elephant looked dazzling as a whore in my beige living room. These were not items I wished to own. But if I left them outside, the conscientious janitors—

  The third morning: four candles. Seventeen strewn marigold blossoms. A painting of a beautiful saint wearing purple. My apartment prickled with color. The fourth: eight candles, five oranges, twenty-nine marigold blossoms, three miniature brass body parts (eye, brain, uterus). ...

  And so it continued. Initially, I brought everything inside, transforming my apartment into a jewel-box. Yet soon I had no alternative but to let the altar—yes, that word came to me on the seventh day—flourish in the hallway. Oddly, the janitors do nothing about it. Soon it will consume this entire floor, and will have to move up to nineteen or down to seventeen. I can picture the day—not so far off—when all thirty-six floors are an altar.

  I have seen them. They’re lean, tired, nervous, and wear mended coats. Yet knowing they’re near me, they stand up straighter. I’m not supposed to see them and vice versa; this is, clearly, the rule, since when they notice me peering out they tremble and flee, leaving marigolds and handwritten notes in their wake. These scraps of paper explain nothing: Sunday the 10th the script on one implores, or simply Helen, or alegría.

  helen #7

  Once a young man was sitting on a porch. Suddenly five girls carrying buckets of flowers appeared on the porch. They talked loudly to one another. Actually they weren’t carrying buckets of flowers, but big old rusty blue coffee cans filled with flowers. The flowers were zinnias. These zinnias had been cut very recently. They still smelled like dirt. They were odd, brilliant colors. One of the girls was skinny with plump lips. Another was plump with radiant skin. Another was tall with small feet. Another had red hair and long fingers. Another had a long neck and gray eyes. Or perhaps one of the girls was skinny and long-fingered, perhaps one was plump and gray-eyed; the girls and the zinnias and the coffee cans merged and mingled and crisscrossed in his mind. The girls perched on the porch railing. Wherever they sat, the wood turned canary yellow. They began to sort the zinnias, tossing weak and wilting ones onto the floorboards, collecting the sturdiest blossoms. They ignored him. He watched them work. Eventually they gathered up their coffee cans and their chosen flowers. He knew they were going to leave. He would miss them desperately. “Where are you going?” he cried out. “Don’t worry,” they said, “we’ll be back.” “What are your names?” he said. “Helen,” they replied. He watched them go; they moved like one enormous, perfect, prehistoric creature. The porch was no longer covered in canary yellow paint. The rejected blossoms had vanished.

  Decades later, the young man was sitting on a porch. He was a very old man now. Five girls carrying coffee cans filled with zinnias appeared and surrounded him. “Hey,” they said. “We’re back.” The porch painted itself canary yellow. They began to sort the flowers. They were subdued. They did not talk so loudly nor laugh so much. The floorboards became covered with shriveled and inadequate blossoms. The old man recognized the sensation of ecstasy. Eventually one of the girls addressed him. Her voice was solemn. “So, are you ready?” she said.

  helen #8

  Two old women walk very slowly down an institutional hallway. They are both named Helen. Helen slides her right foot less than a centimeter. Then Helen slides her right foot less than a centimeter. They move into a rectangle of sunlight. Later, they move out of it.

  I should like to get past them. I have business to attend to. But they’re impenetrable as a glacier. Helen is rather limp in the neck. She seems to be moving even more slowly than Helen.

  “Don’t worry,” says Helen, her vocal chords creaking into motion like a wheelbarrow in March. “You’ll get better.”

  “I will?” Helen croaks, her head sagging even deeper. A minute passes. They move forward fourteen inches. “When?”

  “Hallo, Helen and Helen. Gettin yer exercise?” A pregnant, freckled nurse waddles swiftly down the hallway toward us. Her voice sounds weird and invasive. She spots me and winks. “Watch out, ladies, there’s somebody behind ya.” Helen tries to turn her neck to look at me but gives up, letting it droop downward onto her chest. “Now hang on just a sec, ladies,” the nurse says, gently dragging their walkers to either side. “Thanks,” I whisper, but something happens inside me as I pass through the twin gateposts created by Helen and her walker and Helen and her walker. Moving in slow motion, I turn around to look at them. The nurse has vanished. Glacially, Helen and Helen roll their walkers back into position.

  “Who are you?” Helen says. “I’m Helen,” I say. “Who are you?” Helen says. “I’m Helen,” I say. “Who are you?” Helen says. “I’m Helen,” I say. “Who are you?” Helen says.

  They’re old. They’re hard of hearing. Forgive them. Walk away. Leave them behind.

  Yet I should like to see them in white hats as big as swans. I should like to see them in a rose garden, turning their fragile necks beneath those enormous white hats. I want them to turn and look at me. They are lithe; the roses are heavy; it is noon.

  helen #9

  Glancing outside during the tea party, I notice dragons in the yard. “Excuse me,” I say, “but why are there dragons in the yard?” The old ladies don’t respond. They drink tea and wear enormous white hats. They’re all named Helen. “Excuse me,” I repeat, “but why are there dragons in the yard?” “There are no dragons,” says one of the Helens. All of the Helens eat petit fours and sip from bone china teacups, blind, deaf, oblivious to the two bronze dragons lolling in the yard. The dragons aren’t much bigger than horses, but their tails are long. Wisps of cigarette smoke emerge from their nostrils. They have amber eyes, as I observe when one of them looks directly, scornfully, at me—ashamed, I stop staring. Later, helping the Helens into their carriages—for they insist upon horse-drawn carriages just as they insist upon tea parties just as they insist upon being served by a modern young woman named Helen who cultivates old-fashioned mannerisms—I am surprised to hear a Helen speak: “Our world,” she murmurs, “is a bone china teacup.”

  Later, returning to its high shelf a green glass vase that held now-wilted pink poppies during the tea party, I sense the world suddenly draining of color. Everything goes white, as though the vase placed just so is a key that has opened a door somewhere, a door from behind which colorlessness comes rushing out. I fall off the stepladder.

  Later, searching for color, I discover a bush with tiny yellow flowers. Examined up close, the yellow petals are strange and stringy, hardly petals at all, but pickiness is no longer an option, and I allow myself a flash of happiness.

  Later, a red bird flies past the window and vanishes.

  Later, I look outside to check on the dragons. Instead of dragons, there are two horse-sized oil rigs in the yard. It’s enough to make one doubt one’s eyes. But which is stranger, unexplained dragons or unexplained oil rigs?

  All of this is just to say: no world can last.

  helen #10

  Once there was a woman who lived with a man. She had many stories to tell; many odd and fabulous things happened to her. She was constantly sharing these anecdotes with him.

  She’d begin, “When I was a kid I went to the park where our prehistoric ancestors can be seen” or “The old family farm in North Dakota is now underwater” or “My sister and I once posed for a Maxfield Parish painting” or “My father built a covered wagon” or “I walked to the North Pole” or “Whenever I swim in the ocean I hear whale heartbeats” or “I once served Noah honey mead” or “I know how to ripen a rotten peach” or “I had the Virgin Mary over for tea” or “There’s an albino squirrel in the park” or “There’s a woman named Helen in the zoo” or “I saw a monster in the forest” or “I saw a Neanderthal in the convenience store” or “Anne Frank tried to teach me how to fly.” Surely she’d told
him at least a hundred such anecdotes, if not more.

  But then, at a party, when she’d say to some stranger, “I’ve seen Bob Dylan juggle apples,” he’d link his arm through hers and say, “You never told me that.” She’d stiffen with exasperation. “I’ve told you many times! Why do you never listen to a word I say?” Always, always, he reacted with surprise to selections from her stockpile of stories. It drove her crazy, made her feel incomplete, lonely, limping, robbed of any receptacle other than her own insufficient mind. “I want you to be my receptacle!” she’d exclaim, ignoring his grin. And yet they were happy, cobbling together enough tenderness to overcome the lack of listening. “My dear slug,” she called him, and meant it.

  When she dies somewhat before her time, he’s able to recite every single anecdote she ever told him; all along he could have done it, and should have, but liked too much to hear her begin, again and again and again.

  acknowledgements

  I think of the letters that compose the syllables that compose your names: the A’s! the B’s! the C’s! the D’s! the E’s! the F’s! the G’s! the H’s! the I’s! the J’s! the K’s! the L’s! the M’s! the N’s! the O’s! the P’s! the Q’s! the R’s! the S’s! the T’s! the U’s! the V’s! the W’s! the X’s! the Y’s! the Z’s!

  My agent, the steadfast Faye Bender. My editors, the courageous Lisa Graziano and Michael Graziano. The fairy godmother Rona Jaffe Foundation. L.S. Asekoff, Michael Cunningham, Jenny Offill, Elissa Schappell, Ellen Tremper, Mac Wellman, and the Ucross Foundation, for early encouragement. Julie Agoos, James Davis, Joshua Henkin, Janet Moser, and the phenomenal Sarah Brown, for day-in day-out everything. The brilliant members of the Imitative Fallacies: Adam Brown, David Ellis, Tom Grattan, Anne Ray, and Mohan Sikka, with special thanks to Marie-Helene Bertino, Elizabeth Logan Harris, and Amelia Kahaney. The good people of the Brooklyn College MFA program, especially Jeanie Gosline, Elliott Holt, Andy Hunter, Scott Lindenbaum, Joseph Rogers, and Margaret Zamos-Monteith. The delightful ladies of the Bookettes. All my lively students. Avni Bhatia, Cynthia Convey, Adam Farbiarz, David Gorin, Lucas Hanft, Audrey Manring, Jonas Oransky, Laura Perciasepe, Genevieve Randa, Maisie Tivnan, and Tess Wheelwright, for advice literary and otherwise. Gail and Doug Thompson, in-laws extraordinaire. Mary Jane Zimmermann and Paul Phillips Sr., grandparents. All my siblings: Katherine Phillips, Mark Phillips, Raven Adams, Peter Light, and Nathan Thompson, with infinite thanks to my sister Alice Light, astute reader and swift responder. My mother Susan Zimmermann, who taught me to be brave. My father Paul Phillips, enemy of sentimentality, friend of sentiment. Adam Thompson, two chairs, one bed.