Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Mr. Kessler was asking Nadia about her grandmother. And Nadia was telling him what wasn’t exactly true—how much she’d loved her grandmother—but was true about her mother.

  If Nadia shut her eyes tight, she could (almost) see her mother again.

  She could (almost) hear Mommy’s voice again.

  . . . Mommy is feeling so tired, but Mommy loves you. Mommy hopes that . . . you will remember her with love and forgiveness.

  “Excuse me, Nadia? Are you all right?”

  Nadia’s eyes snapped open. She hadn’t slept well the night before—that was the problem.

  “Oh, Mr. Kessler—I’m sorry. I guess I—like—I don’t know—” Nadia laughed, embarrassed. “Something came over me, like a light going dim. Maybe I’m—hungry . . .”

  Breakfast was just too early for Nadia—her stomach felt queasy in the morning. And neither of Nadia’s stepmothers had had anything more for breakfast than black coffee, since they, too, were “dieting.”

  By lunchtime, Nadia was ravenous. But she rarely ate an actual lunch at school with her friends—everyone was dieting, to a degree. Their favorite drink was Diet Coke, and their favorite foods were tiny fruit yogurts, which they ate with excruciating slowness, leaving the fruit-jam untouched at the bottom of the container.

  By dinnertime, Nadia often felt “sickish”—“bloated”—from a succession of Diet Cokes and so didn’t much mind when her father didn’t arrive home for dinner and her stepmother was “out, with friends.”

  Mariana prepared a real dinner for Nadia, which Nadia sometimes ate, or picked at. Mostly she brought delicious snacks upstairs to her room and ate while texting, checking email, doing homework, or watching TV. Weird how you could be kind of hungry yet bloated-feeling, even sickish.

  Nadia didn’t weigh herself every day. Only days—mornings—when she felt that her tummy had gone down a bit in the night.

  Her goal was ninety-eight pounds. How thrilled she would be, how proud, and how beautiful.

  Mr. Kessler was saying thoughtfully that he didn’t really recommend hypnosis as a means of “retrieving” the past.

  “Is this an idea someone has suggested to you? Someone in your family, for instance?”

  Nadia shook her head emphatically no.

  Her father would be furious at the idea. She could not bear thinking how he would respond.

  Of course, Nadia would never dare mention it, but she’d thought—maybe—she might try to save money, and someday, if she could find a hypnotist who didn’t live too far away, she might ask the hypnotist to take her back in time: to when she was six years old.

  “When powerful memories surface, Nadia, as in nightmares, the individual can be unprepared—engulfed. War veterans sometimes suffer from amnesia, for good reasons.”

  Post-traumatic stress disorder. Nadia knew these words but had never supposed that such a condition might apply to her.

  Mr. Kessler asked Nadia when she’d first lost someone or something close to her, and Nadia said, “My mom’s parrot,” in a way that struck them both as funny, and they both laughed.

  This was a relief, though strange: to laugh!

  It was strange, too, that Nadia never called her mother “Mom”—only “Mommy.”

  But the story she would tell Mr. Kessler, as it quickly evolved, was of “Mom’s parrot”—a signal that they could both relax, and smile.

  “My mom had an African gray parrot. Jasper. He was prickly and cranky and wouldn’t let anyone else near him except my mom—and even my mom, he’d peck sometimes if he was in a bad mood. He was very smart, actually—he could say a few words like ‘hello,’ ‘good-bye,’ ‘how–are–ya,’ ‘shh!’ and ‘Jasper hon-gy.’ He was a beautiful bird, and he lived to be pretty old, I guess—my mom had gotten him when she was a girl. ‘Jasper and I grew up together,’ Mom would say.” Nadia paused: This was so amazing! She had not remembered that remark of her mother’s ever in the past.

  “Yes, African gray parrots are extremely intelligent. They may be on a level with primates like chimpanzees. Crows, too, are highly intelligent—more intelligent than dogs, cats, horses, even pigs.”

  Mr. Kessler seemed relieved to discuss a scientific principle.

  His teacherly manner was a warm protective coat he could slip on with ease.

  “Jasper was too smart for his own good, people said. He squawked at people he didn’t want to come near, like—sometimes—my father.” Nadia laughed; this seemed like an amusing fact. Talk of any pet is usually amusing—(isn’t it?)—though Nadia heard herself say, with a grim smile, “Jasper picked at his breast until he was almost bald there. And he’d pick until he began to bleed. And Mom said, ‘Oh, we shouldn’t go away so much and leave Jasper, he’s lonely—he’s so smart, he knows what it is to be lonely.’”

  This, too, Nadia had not remembered until now. It was strange how her mother’s voice was present to her, in the protective solitude of Mr. Kessler’s office.

  The teacher was speaking of ways of human reasoning, which they would be taking up soon in class: innovation, cognition, programmed behavior/instinct. Most animal and bird species were programmed genetically, but there was “quasi-reasoning” in certain primates, like chimps, who could solve simple problems in ways that human beings might solve them, like using instruments—sticks—which could make their arms longer. But a dog, a cat, a horse, a pig—these animals were not so highly evolved in intelligence.

  Nadia protested, “Dogs and cats are sometimes pretty smart. They can communicate with you—what they say has meaning.”

  “Yes, but their sounds are not linguistic. They don’t speak language, and the meaning you infer from their sounds isn’t the sort of meaning that belongs to language.”

  “Sometimes an animal will sense what you think, or what you feel—more than a person. They can communicate better than some people, who don’t feel much of anything and don’t care.”

  Nadia was becoming emotional again, she had no idea why. Her nose was running, her eyes were blurred with tears; she knew that she was making Mr. Kessler uncomfortable but couldn’t bring herself to leave the safety of his little office.

  “My m-mom went away, somewhere. My father won’t say where.”

  Because she left us without saying good-bye. Not to me, and not to you.

  “Did she, Nadia! That’s very unusual.”

  Mr. Kessler spoke cautiously, like a man venturing out onto ice he isn’t certain is frozen solid.

  “In the fall, it was. When I was starting first grade. I had to take first grade over again. I guess I was—kind of—sick.”

  This was true. Nadia’s mother had gone away in September. That was easy to remember, because it was the start of school. And so the excitement about school that everyone felt was painful to Nadia, for it was too intense and too filled with hope—that whatever had gone wrong would be made right again.

  From time to time Nadia’s mother had gone away from their home, and it was never explained. Nor was Nadia told where.

  Nadia would wake up, and someone would tell her—her father, or a housekeeper—Your mother has gone away for just a little while. But she will be back.

  Except finally, the last time. No one had said, She will be back.

  They’d lived in Connecticut then, in a place of rolling hills, large shingled houses on large lots. Sometimes waking in the house on Wheatsheaf Lane, Nadia had to think hard to realize that she wasn’t in another house, at another time.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that, Nadia. I wish that I . . .”

  Nadia was crying. Instinctively Mr. Kessler touched the back of Nadia’s hand, to comfort her. His fingers closed around her hand.

  Nadia dared not move. Thinking, I love you, Mr. Kessler—more than anyone in the world.

  Briskly Mr. Kessler released Nadia’s hand and got to his feet, apologizing to her—he had an appointment at five p.m. in the village. He was asking Nadia if she’d spoken with Mrs. Jameson, and Nadia murmured yes.

&
nbsp; Impossible to concentrate on homework that night.

  Nadia’s brain seethed with replays of her (secret) conversation with Mr. Kessler.

  And his fingers closing on her fingers—not once but twice. Nadia could not recall anyone, since her mother, having held her hand in such a way.

  Though she knew she should resist, Nadia texted to Chloe.

  CAN U KEEP A SECRET

  Chloe texted back—

  YES

  Nadia texted back—

  SOMETHING HAPPENED TODAY

  Chloe texted back—

  TO U TODAY?

  Nadia texted back—

  U WLDNT GUESS WHAT MR. K SD TO ME TODAY

  Chloe texted back—

  WHAT

  Nadia texted back—

  IT’S A SECRET SORRY—CANT SAY

  U CAN GUESS THO

  Chloe texted back—

  CAN’T GUESS!!!

  CAN KEEP A SECRET

  Nadia texted—

  LOVE MR. K—I WOULD DIE FOR MR. K—

  I THINK HE KNOWS

  Chloe texted—

  HOW DOES HE KNOW, DID U TELL HIM???

  Back and forth like Ping-Pong the texts flew, until Nadia felt so light-headed she had to turn her cell phone off for the night.

  Soon then Chloe forwarded the text messages to Hannah, because she knew that Hannah was concerned about Nadia; Hannah forwarded the messages to Merissa, Martine, and Chrissie; Martine and Chrissie forwarded to several other girls, of whom one was Brooke Kramer, who forwarded them to twenty-three individuals, all of them seniors at Quaker Heights, both boys and girls.

  5.

  IMPROVISATION

  “No one will miss it.”

  The little painting hung in a guest-room suite that was rarely used, at the rear of the Stillinger house. Nadia was sure that neither her father nor her stepmother had entered that part of the house for weeks, perhaps months.

  Mr. Stillinger collected artwork: paintings, photographs, lithographs, prints. Nadia had overheard her father say that art was an excellent investment if you chose carefully.

  Never buy second-rate art; it soon becomes third-rate. But first-rate art increases in value—and it’s beautiful to look at.

  In the living room there were several large canvases that looked like angry scrawled graffiti; there was a tall, narrow canvas all vertical, drippy black lines; there was a painting of the back of a person’s head, shiny-haired as if shellacked. In the dining room, its impact doubled by a facing mirror, was a nude by a famous British painter depicting a lumpy, fattish, dough-colored, middle-aged man with a mashed face—Nadia could hardly bring herself to look at this, so ugly! In the front hall there was a Chagall lithograph, depicting what looked like magical scenes—this made Nadia smile.

  Visitors to the Stillinger house, led into the interior by Mr. Stillinger or by the new, young wife Amelie, would stare at the artwork illuminated by recessed lights in the ceiling and say, Oh! This is—beautiful, or Oh! this is—unusual. Always the tone was admiring, respectful. For everywhere in Mr. Stillinger’s house there was much to admire, as well as the large, custom-designed house itself.

  Nadia would have most liked to give Mr. Kessler the Chagall lithograph—its airy, floating figures and swathes of color suggested the biosphere pictures he’d shown the class. But she knew better: The Chagall, prominently displayed, would be missed immediately, even if she substituted another artwork in its place.

  There were less conspicuous works of art in Mr. Stillinger’s home office, as he called the large walnut-paneled room, including stark black-and-white photographs of ancient Greek statuary, which made Nadia feel uneasy, as if even the headless figures were staring at her with Olympian contempt. In the hallways and in the guest suite at the rear of the house, which was rarely used, there were small watercolors and oil paintings, which no one ever saw. Nadia switched on a light in the guest bedroom—“Here it is! Protozoa.”

  Nadia was excited, thrilled—she’d found the perfect gift for a science teacher with a love of biology.

  It was a relatively small painting—framed, under glass—measuring about fifteen inches by twenty inches—not too bulky or heavy, and very beautiful, Nadia thought. Though it was abstract, its floating deep-rose figures and swirly lines reminded her of Mr. Kessler’s PowerPoint slides of microorganisms called protozoa.

  For all Nadia knew, maybe the painting was of protozoa—or some other microorganism.

  Nadia lifted the painting from the wall. What a surprise—it weighed only a few pounds. She could easily bring it to school.

  She would wrap it first, carefully, in bubble wrap.

  The artist’s name was just legible, in black paint at the left-hand bottom of the canvas—Kandinsky. On the back of the painting was more information—Improvisation 1912. Wassily Kandinsky.

  Nadia knew that Kandinsky had to be a real artist—otherwise her father wouldn’t have purchased the painting. But she’d never heard the name before and couldn’t recall her father saying much about this painting in her presence.

  Nadia smiled. Here was the perfect gift to give to Mr. Kessler: a serious work of art by a Russian-sounding artist, of whom maybe he’d heard, and it looked like certain of his PowerPoint slides that he had remarked were beautiful—like art.

  “Single-celled forms of life”—Mr. Kessler had spoken with a kind of reverence of the squiggly little ovoid figures he’d called protozoa. Nadia had stared in wonder at Mr. Kessler’s pointer as he’d explained what was known of the origins of life—the building blocks of life.

  It was important to know, Mr. Kessler told the class, that an individual human being was comprised of an infinite number of microorganisms, including bacteria—friendly bacteria. We could not exist as physical beings without these invisible organisms within us.

  “But sometimes they kill us, don’t they, Mr. Kessler?” Virgil Nagy had to show his superior knowledge.

  Nadia laid the painting carefully on a chair and searched for a replacement, making sure that the substitute artwork was approximately the same size as the Kandinsky painting and not so very different from it—at least to Nadia’s eye.

  This other small artwork wasn’t a painting but a pastel drawing of a green landscape, which Nadia took from the guest bathroom. There were several pastel drawings in the bathroom, and maybe this one wouldn’t be missed, since not even Mariana came into the guest suite on a regular basis.

  Stealthily Nadia carried Improvisation upstairs to her room—though no one was around to observe her.

  From one of Amelie’s closets, Nadia took the shiny gilt tote bag—reasoning also that Amelie wouldn’t notice it was missing. The expensive bag from Neiman Marcus had been fashionable at one time, but Nadia hadn’t seen Amelie using it for at least a year.

  That night, Nadia made the birthday card for Mr. Kessler and worked on the little note to him.

  She’d experimented with several notes but decided that the simplest was best:

  Mr. Kessler—

  Happy Birthday!

  Dani A.

  “He will appreciate it. He will understand.”

  There was no way that Nadia could sign her own name. It just wasn’t possible.

  “It will be our secret. Between us.”

  And so the next day Nadia brought the painting to Quaker Heights Day School in her stepmother’s bag inside a grocery bag.

  “What’s in the bag?” Martine Hesse was curious.

  Nadia murmured something about her stepmother. She had to “deliver something” for her stepmother to a woman friend.

  “I don’t know,” Nadia said stiffly, moving away. “You’d have to ask my stepmother.”

  School passed in a trance of oblivion. Even Mr. Kessler’s class seemed to take place at a little distance from Nadia, like a dream into which she’d wandered. After their intense conversation of the previous afternoon, Mr. Kessler seemed almost to be avoiding Nadia, though when she raised her hand, he called on her to answer a
question about the meaning of cognition.

  After school, Nadia waited until the parking lot was near deserted before bringing the gift to Mr. Kessler’s Subaru and leaving it in the backseat.

  And hurrying away, she was suffused with excitement, and dread—Oh God. Now he will know.

  No turning back.

  “Kitty? Where are you . . .”

  The next morning Nadia returned to High Ridge Park. It seemed urgent to her—a desperate matter—that she find the beautiful lost lynx-cat and feed her. If she could, bring her home.

  It seemed to her that Tink would want this. Maybe, in fact, Tink had directed this.

  Mewing at Nadia, to alert her to danger.

  Mewing at Nadia, to make her realize that she was not alone.

  Nadia had brought a can of tuna fish, all she could find in the house that might be suitable for a cat.

  Nadia’s father had never had pets. On principle, he did not approve of pets—All they do is shed, smell up the house, scratch the furniture, and they can’t be trusted in a household with expensive art.

  Pleadingly Nadia called, “Kitty? Kitty? Oh please—kitty . . .”

  She was shivering with cold, and with excitement—her teeth chattered and her heartbeat was so fast. Never had she come to High Ridge Park—or any park, for that matter—alone; it wasn’t like Nadia to be outdoors, to walk in the woods along dirt trails, to peer into the underbrush searching for a little lost cat. Every school morning, Mariana drove Nadia to school. Most afternoons, she came to pick Nadia up, unless Nadia had a ride home with friends.

  Nadia? You don’t want me to drive you this morning? No?

  You can walk? Can you? So far?

  Nadia had laughed, saying it wasn’t far.

  Nadia hoped the housekeeper didn’t notice how unusually edgy and excited she was. Or, if Mariana happened to go into the guest wing, that Improvisation was missing.

  In the woods Nadia tramped, calling, “Kitty-kitty!” and peering into the underbrush. She’d been unable to sleep the previous night for more than a few minutes at a time. Repeatedly she’d switched on her bedside lamp to check her cell phone to see if—maybe—Mr. Kessler might have texted her by now.