So Long

by Lucia Berlin

  Am I really just mad because Sally’s dying, so get mad at a whole country? The toilet is broken now. They need to take out the entire floor.

  I miss the moon. I miss solitude.

  In Mexico there is never not anyone else there. If you go in your room to read somebody will notice you’re by yourself and go keep you company. Sally is never alone. At night I stay until I am sure she is asleep.

  There is no guide to death. No one to tell you what to do, how it’s going to be.

  When we were little our grandmother, Mamie, took over Sally’s care. At night Mama ate and drank and read mysteries in her room. Grandpa ate and drank and listened to the radio in his room. Actually Mama was gone most nights, with Alice Pomeroy and the Parker girls, playing bridge or in Juarez. During the day she went to Beaumont hospital to be a Gray Lady, where she read to blind soldiers and played bridge with maimed ones.

  She was fascinated by anything grotesque, just like Grandpa was, and when she got back from the hospital she would call Alice and tell her about all the soldiers’ wounds, their war stories, how their wives left when they found out they had no hands or feet.

  Sometimes she and Alice went to a U.S.O. dance, looking for a husband for Alice. Alice never found a husband, worked at the Popular Dry Goods as a seam ripper until she died.

  Byron Merkel worked at the Popular too, in lamps. He was supervisor of lamps. He was still madly in love with Mama after all these years. They had been in the Thespian Club in high school and starred in all the plays. Mama was very small, but still in all the love scenes they had to sit down because he was only five feet two. Otherwise he would have gone on to be a famous actor.

  He took her to plays. Cradle Song. The Glass Menagerie. Sometimes he’d come over in the evenings and they’d sit on the porch swing. They’d read plays they performed in when they were young. I was always under the porch then in a little nest I had made with an old blanket and a cookie tin with saltines in it. The Importance of Being Earnest. The Barretts of Wimpole Street.

  He was a teetotaller. I thought that meant he only drank tea, which was all he drank, while she drank Manhattans. That’s what they were doing when I heard him tell her he was still madly in love with her after all these years. He said he knew he couldn’t hold a candle to Ted (Daddy), another strange expression. He was always saying, “Well, it’s a long road to Ho,” which I couldn’t make out either. Once, when Mama was complaining about Mexicans he said, “Well, give them an inch and they’ll take an inch.” The trouble with the things he said was he had a deep projecting tenor voice, so every word seemed weighted with significance, echoed in my mind. Teetotaller, teetotaller…

  One night after he had gone home she came in, to the bedroom where I slept with her. She kept on drinking and crying and scribbling, literally scribbling, in her diary.

  “Are you okay?” I finally asked her, and she slapped me.

  “I told you to stop saying ‘okay’!” Then she said she was sorry she got mad at me.

  “It’s that I hate living on Upson Street. All your Daddy ever writes me about is his ship, and not to call it a boat. And the only romance in my life is a midget lamp salesman!”

  This sounds funny now, but it wasn’t then when she was sobbing, sobbing, as if her heart would break. I patted her and she flinched. She hated to be touched. So I just watched her by the light of the street lamp through the window screen. Just watched her weep. She was totally alone, like my sister Sally is when she weeps that way.

  Dust to Dust

  Michael Templeton was a hero, an Adonis, a star. Truly a hero, a much decorated bombardier in the RAF. When he returned to Chile after the war he had been a star rugby and cricket player for the Prince of Wales team. He raced his BSA for the British motorcycle team and had been the champion for three years. Never lost a race. He even won the last one before he spun out and hit the wall.

  He had arranged for Johnny and me to have seats in the press box. Johnny was Michael’s little brother and my best friend. He idolized Michael as much as I did. Johnny and I felt disdain for everything then and a contempt for most people, especially our teachers and parents. We even conceded, with some scorn, that Michael was a cad. But he had style, cachet. All the girls and women, even old women, were in love with him. A slow, slow low voice. He gave Johnny and me rides on the beach in Algarrobo. Flying over hard wet sand, scattering flocks of gulls, their wing beats louder than the motor, than the ocean. Johnny never made fun of me for being in love with Michael, gave me snapshots and clippings in addition to the ones we helped his Mum paste in scrapbooks.

  His parents didn’t go to the race. They were at the dining room table having tea and bikkies. Mr. Templeton’s tea was rum, really, in the blue cup. Michael’s mum was crying, sick with worry about the race. He’ll be the death of me, she said. Mr. Templeton said he hoped Mike would break his bloody fool neck. It wasn’t just the race … this was pretty much their daily conversation. Even though he was a hero, Michael still had no job after three years back from the war. He drank and gambled and got into serious troubles with women. Whispered phone calls and late night visits from fathers or husbands, slamming doors. But women just became even more fascinated with him and people actually insisted upon loaning him money.

  The stadium was crowded and festive. The racers and pit crews were glamorous, dashing Italians, Germans, Australians. The main contenders were the British team and the Argentines. The English rode BSAs and Nortons; the Argentines Motoguzzis. None of the racers had Michael’s panache, his nonchalance or white scarf. What I am saying is that even with the shock of his death, even with the bike in flames, with Michael’s blood on the concrete wall, his body, the shrieking and the sirens, it all had his particular throwaway insouciance. That it was the last race, and he had won it. Johnny and I didn’t speak, not about the terror, nor about the drama of it.

  The dining room at home was buzzing and crowded. Mrs. Templeton had frizzed her hair and powdered her face. She was saying that it would be the death of her but in fact she was very lively, making tea and passing scones and answering the telephone. Mr. Templeton kept on saying “I told him he would break his bloody neck! I told him!” Johnny reminded him that he had said he wished Michael would.

  It was exciting. Nobody but me had visited the Templetons for years, and now the house was full. There were reporters from the Mercurio and the Pacific Mail. Our “Michael album” was open on the table. People were saying hero and prince and tragic waste all over the house. Groups of beautiful girls were upstairs and downstairs. One of the girls would be sobbing while two or three others patted her and brought her tissues.

  Johnny and I kept up our usual stance of mirthful scorn. We had not actually realized that Michael was dead, didn’t until the Saturday night after the funeral. That was when we used to sit on the rim of the tub while he shaved, humming “Saturday night is the loneliest night in the week.” He’d tell us all about his “birds,” listing their attributes and inevitable, very funny, flaws. The Saturday after he died we just sat in the tub. We didn’t cry, just sat in the tub, talking about him.

  We had fun, though, watching the flurry before the funeral, the rivalries between the mourning girlfriends. Most amazing of all was the way the entire British colony of Santiago decided that Michael had died for the King. Glory to the Empire, the Pacific Mail said. Mrs. Templeton was peppy, had us and the maids beating rugs and oiling bannisters and baking more scones. Mr. Templeton just sat with his blue cup muttering how Mike never could take direction, had been hell-bent.

  I was allowed to leave school for the burial. I wouldn’t have gone at all but there was a chemistry test second period. After that I took off my school apron and went to my locker. I was very solemn and brave.

  There are things people just don’t talk about. I don’t mean the hard things, like love, but the awkward ones, like how funerals are fun sometimes or how it’s exciting to watch buildings burning. Michael’s funeral was wonderful.

  In
those days there were still horse-drawn hearses. Massive creaking wagons drawn by four or six black horses. The horses wore blinders and were covered in thick black net, with tassles that dragged dusty in the streets. The drivers wore tails and top hats and carried whips. Because of Michael’s hero status many organizations had contributed to the funeral, so that there were six hearses. One was for his body, the others for flowers. Mourners followed the hearses to the cemetery in black cars.

  During the service at Saint Andrew’s (high) Anglican church many of the sad girls fainted or had to be led away because they were so overcome. Outside the gaunt and jaunty drivers smoked on the curb in their top hats. Some people always associate the heady smell of flowers with funerals. For me it needs to be mixed with the scent of horse manure. Parked outside too were over a hundred motorcycles which would follow the cortege to the cemetery. Gunnings of engines, splutters, smoke, backfires. The drivers in black leather, with black helmets, their team colors on their sleeves. It would have been in poor taste for me to tell the girls at school just how many unbelievably handsome men had been at that funeral. I did anyway.

  I rode in the car with the Templetons. All the way to the cemetery Mr. Templeton fought with Johnny about Michael’s helmet. Johnny held it on his lap, planned to place it in the grave with Michael. Mr. Templeton argued, reasonably, that helmets were hard to come by and very dear. You had to get someone to bring them from England or America, and pay a stiff duty for them too. “Sell it to some other sod to race in,” he insisted. Johnny and I exchanged glances. Wouldn’t you know he’d only care about the cost?

  More glances and grins between us in the cemetery itself with all the tombs and crypts and angels. We decided to be buried at sea and promised to attend to that, for each other.

  The Canon, in white lace over a purple cassock, stood at the head of the grave, surrounded by the British racing team, their helmets crooked in their arms. Noble and solemn, like knights. As Michael’s body was lowered into the ground the Canon said, “Man, that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower.” While he was saying that Odette tossed in a red rose and then so did Conchi and then Raquel. Defiantly, Millie stalked up and threw in a whole bouquet.

  It was lovely then what the Canon said over the grave. He said, “Thou shalt show me the path of life. In Thy presence is the fullness of joy, and at Thy right hand there is pleasure for ever more.” Johnny smiled. I could tell he thought that was just what to say for Michael. Johnny looked around, to be sure it was the end of the roses, stepped to the rim of the grave and tossed in Michael’s helmet. Ian Frazier, closest to the grave, cried out with grief and impulsively threw his own helmet on top of Michael’s. Pop pop pop then, as if mesmerized, each member of the British racing team tossed his helmet upon the casket. Not just filling the grave but mounding it up with black domes like a pile of olives. Most merciful Father, the Canon was saying as the two grave diggers piled earth upon the mound and covered it with wreaths of flowers. The mourners sang God Save the King. Upon the faces of the race drivers were expressions of sorrow and loss. Everyone filed sadly away and then there was a clatter and roar of motorcycles and an echoing and clatter of hooves as the hearses galloped off, careening dangerously, whips cracking, the tails of the drivers’ black coats flapping in the wind.

  So Long

  I love to hear Max say hello.

  I called him when we were new lovers, adulterers. The phone rang, his secretary answered and I asked for him. Oh, hello, he said. Max? I was faint, dizzy, in the phone booth.

  We’ve been divorced for many years. He is an invalid now, on oxygen, in a wheelchair. When I was living in Oakland he used to call me five or six times a day. He has insomnia: once he called at three a.m. and asked if it was morning yet. Sometimes I’d get annoyed and hang up right away or else I wouldn’t answer the phone.

  Most of the time we talked about our children, our grandson or Max’s cat. I’d file my nails, sew, watch the A’s game while we talked. He’s funny, and a good gossip.

  I have lived in Mexico City for almost a year now. My sister Sally is very ill. I take care of her house and children, bring her food, give her injections, baths. I read to her, wonderful books. We talk for hours, cry and laugh, get mad at the news, worry about her son out late.

  It is uncanny, how close we have become. We have been together all day for so long. We see and hear things the same way, know what the other is going to say…

  I rarely leave the apartment. None of the windows look out onto the sky, just onto airshafts or the apartments next door. You can see the sky from Sally’s bed, but I only see it when I open and close her curtains. I speak Spanish with her and her children, everybody.

  Actually Sally and I don’t talk that much anymore. It hurts her lung to talk. I read, or sing, or we just lie together in the dark, breathing in unison.

  I feel I have vanished. Last week in the Sonora market I was so tall, surrounded by dark Indians, many of them speaking in Nahuatl. Not only was I vanished I was invisible. I mean for a long time I believed I wasn’t there at all.

  Of course I have a self here, and a new family, new cats, new jokes. But I keep trying to remember who I was in English.

  That’s why I’m so glad to hear from Max. He calls a lot, from California. Hello, he says. He tells me about hearing Percy Heath, about protesting the death penalty at San Quentin. Our son Keith made him eggs benedict on Easter Sunday. Nathan’s wife, Linda, told Max not to phone her so much. Our grandson Nikko said he was falling asleep in spite of himself.

  Max tells me the traffic and weather reports, describes the clothes on the Elsa Clench show. He asks me about Sally.

  In Albuquerque, when we were young, before I met him, I had listened to him play saxophone, watched him race Porsches at Fort Sumpter. Everybody knew who he was. He was handsome, rich, exotic. Once I saw him at the airport, saying goodbye to his father. He kissed his father goodbye, with tears in his eyes. I want a man who kisses his father goodbye I thought.

  When you are dying it is natural to look back on your life, to weigh things, to have regrets. I have done this, too, along with my sister these last months. It took a long time for us both to let go of anger and blame. Even our regret and self-recrimination lists get shorter. The lists now are of what we’re left with. Friends. Places. She wishes she were dancing danzón with her lover. She wants to see the parroquia in Veracruz, palm trees, lanterns in the moonlight, dogs and cats among the dancers’ polished shoes. We remember one-room school houses in Arizona, the sky when we skied in the Andes.

  She has stopped worrying about her children, what will become of them when she dies. I will probably resume worrying about mine after I leave here, but now we simply drift slowly through the patterns and rhythms of each new day. Some days are full of pain and vomit, others are calm, with a marimba playing far away, the whistle of the camote man at night…

  I don’t regret my alcoholism any more. Before I left California my youngest son, Joel, came to breakfast. The same son I used to steal from, who had told me I wasn’t his mother. I cooked cheese blintzes; we drank coffee and read the paper, muttering to each other about Rickie Henderson, George Bush. Then he went to work. He kissed me and said So long, Ma. So long, I said.

  All over the world mothers are having breakfast with their sons, seeing them off at the door. Can they know the gratitude I felt, standing there, waving? The reprieve.

  I was nineteen when my first husband left me. I married Jude then, a thoughtful man with a dry sense of humor. He was a good person. He wanted to help me bring up my two baby sons.

  Max was our best man. After the wedding, in the back yard, Jude went off to work, where he played piano at Al Monte’s bar. My best friend Shirley, the other witness, left almost without speaking. She was very upset about me marrying Jude, thinking I had done it out of desperation.

  Max stayed. After the children went to bed we sat around eating wedd
ing cake and drinking champagne. He talked about Spain; I talked about Chile. He told me about the years in Harvard with Jude and Creeley. About playing saxophone when bebop began. Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie. Max had been a heroin addict during those bebop days. I didn’t know what that meant then, actually. Heroin to me had a nice connotation…Jane Eyre, Becky Sharp, Tess.

  Jude played at night. He woke late in the afternoon, then he would practice or he and Max would play duets for hours and then we’d have supper. He went off to work. Max would help me do the dishes and put the children to bed.

  I couldn’t bother Jude at work. When there was a prowler, when the kids got sick, when I got a flat tire it was Max I called. Hello, he said.

  Well, anyway, after a year we had an affair. It was intense and passionate, a big mess. Jude wouldn’t talk about it. I left him to live by myself with the children. Jude showed up and told me to get into the car. We were going to New York, where Jude would play jazz and we would save our marriage.