Girl Unwrapped

by Gabriella Goliger

  Now, with a flick of her toe, Robin flips open the lab notebook Toni left on the floor and grimaces. The page shows diagrams of dissections including one of the urogenital system, with vaginal flaps pinned back to expose the cervix.

  “Poor kitty!” Robin’s voice throbs with tragedy.

  “It was a mouse, not a cat. Anyway, it was long dead. We didn’t hurt it.”

  Robin doesn’t look convinced.

  “One day I might discover the gene for gayness,” Toni jokes.

  She’s thinking about the astounding breakthroughs of recent years, electron microscopes, the structure of the DNA molecule. Because of such leaps in technology and knowledge, Toni Goldblatt, a mere first-year biology student, might be better equipped to someday unravel the mysteries of the organic world than Einstein could in his era.

  “Then what? Aborted fetuses? Exterminations of defective carriers?” Robin’s tone is combative. She pulls a sweater over her head in frowning silence. With a stab of panic, Toni realizes that Robin is about to depart.

  “Can I come watch your rehearsal?” Toni pleads. She ought to study, but she’s not ready to let Robin out of her sight just yet. And she knows Robin always likes an audience.

  “Sure.” Robin offers a faint but forgiving smile.

  Toni wishes she had words to convey her love of biology. The bigness of the field drives her, the depths, and the mysterious intimacy too. She once read a heart surgeon’s memoir. The surgeon described an outdated technique for saving patients in cardiac arrest by cutting open the patient’s chest cavity and manually massaging the failing organ to restore its rhythm. An incredible sensation, the memoirist wrote, to hold a quivering heart in one’s bare hands. Yet all of biology is like that, Toni thinks; it’s a breathtaking closeness to the essence of life. True, most of her course work is drudgery. The number of interlocking mechanisms in a single cell alone staggers the mind. She reviews and memorizes and digests, but every so often is struck by pure astonishment. You go down, down, down to the basics—atoms jostle against each other, electrons skip out of their orbits, new bonds are formed, complexity grows. Out of unfathomably tiny bits of matter and energy comes a whole universe. And life? Surely it’s more than the sum of inanimate parts. Will that mystery someday be unravelled? The quivering truth within?

  Although enrolled in English literature at McGill, Robin’s real passion is an experimental troupe called the Oh Theatre. Several evenings a week, the eleven members of the troupe meet in an empty loft near the harbour in Old Montreal. They rehearse a piece, written by the director, about a family hiding out in a bomb shelter in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Robin plays an angry daughter who argues for going up to check on what’s left of the outside world. Her lines are impassioned pleas for freedom. A theme song plays between acts: Dylan’s “Let Me Die in My Footsteps.”

  The lone spectator, Toni sits in the shadows on a heap of old rolled-up carpets as she watches, entranced. How can Robin give so much of herself in public? How can she make herself transparent to people she hardly knows and eventually to an audience of strangers? Robin rages, falls on her knees, digs her nails into her scalp, and sobs in a heart-wrenching manner. Toni wants to leap up and put her arms around her darling. Before she can do so, Robin lifts her head and she asks in a weary voice, “Overdone?” Toni is indignant when the director nods in the affirmative.

  After rehearsal, she and Robin stroll through the narrow streets of Old Montreal, past all-night jazz joints, head shops, art galleries, basement cafés. Robin has introduced Toni to this chic part of town that not so long ago was just a drab business area by day and a den of crime by night. The district, with its old stone buildings, has a European feel. Toni confesses her dream of taking Robin to Vienna someday. She can speak some German, and remembers her father’s stories; she could act as a guide, showing her sweetheart the Imperial Palace, the boulevards, parks, the street where the Jews had to scrub the sidewalks, the bookshop where her father once worked. She imagines how Robin would ache with sympathy.

  “Let’s go next summer,” Toni enthuses. She takes Robin’s hand and slips it into her jacket pocket so that their two hands can nestle together.

  Robin laughs lightly and pulls away.

  “Next summer is a long way off.”

  “So tell me about him,” her mother says casually.

  The command fails to register at first. The words are as meaningless as the dripping of the tap at the kitchen sink, the muttering of the 7 a.m. news. In a fog of weariness, Toni nurses her second cup of coffee. Her mother sits opposite in the breakfast nook, dressed for work in a smart wool dress adorned with a bright silk scarf. Lisa more or less manages Shmelzer’s Ladies’ Fashions these days. She supervises the sales staff and the seamstress, handles transactions with suppliers. Months ago, she changed her hairstyle yet again, dying it black with one dramatic wave of white in the front to remind the world of her losses, yet still appearing chic. The elegant hairdo frames a face with eager eyes and a bright, coaxing smile.

  “Nu?”

  Him? Uh-oh.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You think I’m blind? You think I don’t see what’s obvious, not just to me who reads you like a book, but to the whole world? My little girl is in love.”

  For a second, Toni swells with the pleasure of her joy acknowledged. Then she remembers what’s at stake. Cruelly awake now, palms sweating, she whisks the hands that had caressed Robin’s body mere hours ago under the table. As if her mother might guess what those hands have been up to.

  “You have blossomed like a rose. You smell of love. See? I say the word and you blush.”

  “Bullshit. I’m not blushing,” Toni counters. Her cheeks are on fire.

  Her mother barely raises an eyebrow at the strong language. Her face maintains an expression of pleasurable expectation.

  “I’m not in love. I don’t believe in love. It’s romantic garbage that turns women into slaves.”

  “Oh dear.” Her mother shakes her head knowingly. “All right, not love. But you like someone. And you’re spending a lot of time with him. And he makes you happy. That’s no crime, my darling. You mustn’t be so afraid of your heart.”

  “I go out with a bunch of friends, that’s all. Just friends. I wish you wouldn’t try to poke into my head.”

  “Finish your breakfast. Don’t run away. I’ll leave you alone if you don’t want to talk. I only wanted you to know I am happy to see you happy.”

  She gives Toni a two-eyed wink, squeezing both eyes shut and opening them rapidly again, a special signal of approval and delight dating back to Toni’s childhood. Then, seeing her daughter has clammed up but good, Lisa makes a great show of burying herself in the newspaper. She turns pages, scans articles, hums along with the Mozart concerto on the radio. She smiles as if she were the one glowing with the deep-down beautiful secret. They sink back into companionable silence, but presently a voice across the table asks Toni, “What’s his name? Surely you can tell me that.”

  For some reason—perhaps because she’s still addled from last night’s pleasures—Toni drops her guard.

  “Robin.”

  There. It’s out. The name she chants to herself day and night. Two syllables that can demolish her mother, wreck their home. Toni’s tripping tongue has gone heavy and dry, and her heart hammers without mercy as she waits for the explosion.

  “Robin,” her mother muses, still smiling. “That sounds British. Is he British?”

  “No,” Toni mumbles. “Not exactly.”

  Lightning bolt averted. Of course. Robin Hood, Christopher Robin. It doesn’t occur to Toni’s mother that Robin could be a girl.

  “Robin,” Lisa repeats with a nod of approval. “Very sweet.”

  Toni grins despite herself. She could hug her mother for saying Robin’s name is sweet. Immediately afterward she frowns and jumps up from the table. Behind her mother’s falsely casual air, she can see all the other questions lined up and jostl
ing forward: Where does he live? What does he do? What does he look like? Who’s the family? Is he Jewish? When’s the wedding?

  “I’m late,” Toni blurts. “I’ve got to get to class. I’ve got a mid-term. Where’s my book bag? I can’t find my book bag.”

  Just as Toni’s hurrying out the door, her mother warbles in her most engaging manner, “Bring him home for Shabbas dinner sometime.”

  Later that day, at Robin’s place, Toni admits her regrets. She’ll have to pay dearly for that liberating moment of truthfulness. Her mother will be like a bloodhound on the scent. She’ll lay traps and ambushes, won’t be put off. Not without a mighty effort, anyway.

  “But I wouldn’t mind coming to dinner,” Robin teases. “I like Jewish food. And I bet I’d like your mum too.”

  “Yeah, I bet you would,” Toni says mournfully. “She might have liked you too.”

  Toni hunches on Robin’s bed with her chin in her hands thinking of all that’s been lost. It would indeed have been nice to bring home her “best friend” from McGill for a Friday night meal, for candle-lighting and blessings over wine and bread, her mother whispering the prayers, then rushing out to the kitchen to fetch a feast of savoury dishes. It would have been delightful to see her mother and Robin on their best behaviour, charming one another, to bask in the glow of a budding relationship between the two people she cares about most. She can imagine her mother telling stories of her past, her escapes and survival and Robin’s wide-eyed interest and respectful murmurs. Robin would recite Shakespeare while playing footsies with Toni under the table. Alas, now none of this can come to pass.

  “Why not?” Robin asks, without cracking a smile. “She’s invited me. Remember?”

  “The Robin she invited is a boy. Remember?”

  “So tell her the truth. You have to sometime. Get it over with. I did.”

  Robin shrugs, as if nothing could be simpler. Tell the truth. Face the consequences. No big deal. Toni stares at her beloved in dismay.

  “But you and your family are estranged.”

  “That was their choice, not mine. A major shitload, but I got over it. At least I’m free to be myself. Don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not.”

  Toni knows the story of how Robin came out a year ago at Christmas dinner. Her father had just finished sharpening the carving knife and was ready to slice into the golden-brown bird. After Robin’s pronouncement, the knife remained raised in the air. A horrified silence fell upon the room. Her mother folded her napkin and in a quavering voice announced she would just check on the mincemeat tarts in the oven. When the kitchen door closed, Robin’s three brothers and two sisters erupted in jeers. Their father thundered for quiet. He didn’t want to hear another word and insisted they have a normal, proper, family Christmas dinner. The subject was soundly dropped as they passed dishes, piled their plates. During the flaming of the Christmas pudding, one of the brothers made a reference to fruitcakes and her mother had to take a pill and one of the sisters burst into tears. On Boxing Day, after the last visits of the relatives and exchanges of gifts, Robin’s father offered her a deal. She could discreetly seek psychiatric help for her “identity crisis” at the Allen Memorial Hospital, but, if she refused treatment, she would no longer be welcome under his roof. He would set her up in an apartment and pay for her college tuition—provided, of course, she didn’t disgrace the family with a public scandal. In other words, he offered her hush money. She accepted the offer and never looked back. “They can all go to hell,” Robin says.

  Toni admires Robin’s courage, her kiss-my-ass attitude. Amazing, to walk away not just from parents, but from a pack of siblings and relatives too. Robin implies that Toni should be able to act with similar boldness. But their situations are so different. Different how? Toni can’t explain. So now she just lets her chest fill with misery and apology as she says to Robin, “I don’t want to come out to my mother. Not yet.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Robin puts on her Janis Joplin record, cranks up the volume so that the bass guitar buzzes the window pane. She rocks her shoulders and smiles to herself as Janis howls out a number about a ball and chain.

  chapter 28

  Lisa plays solitaire at the dining room table while Toni studies for a mid-term exam. Slap, slap go the cards, a soothing sound along with the creak of wood as their bodies shift on the old pine chairs. Her parents bought the dining set at Morgan’s department store bargain basement soon after they came to Canada; it has been part of Toni’s home for as long as she can remember. The room smells of freshly brewed mocha, of strudel, and the last of the Sabbath candles that just burnt themselves out. Her mother remains pleasantly in the background until she declares, “I have discovered why you won’t tell me about your boyfriend.”

  A snort of hot coffee flies up Toni’s nose. She coughs and sputters. What now?

  Her mother doesn’t look up, continues to arrange cards, though she’s no longer engaged in the game of solitaire. Face-down rows of three lie before her—the old fortune-telling pattern—and as she turns them over one by one, she focuses intently on each revelation, her lips moving as if in silent conversation with herself.

  “He isn’t Jewish,” her mother says, while she taps a jack of spades with her forefinger and nods her head. “I was starting to worry he’s a criminal, a hoodlum. Or he’s deformed with one eye that stares and another that wanders. But my daughter wouldn’t fall in love with a thug or a freak. I realize now it’s much simpler.”

  “Mama, lay off. You begged me to stay home more, so I’m home. I have an exam. I have to study. I told you I broke up with him. It’s finished. Okay? I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “No, it is not finished.”

  Her mother shakes and shakes her head with small emphatic movements so that for a moment Toni thinks she’s developed a tremor. “You are so infatuated, yet full of secrets. You make up stories, hide, try to distract me, look as if you’ll faint when the phone rings.” Her mother sighs and lifts her head. She looks at Toni with deeply wounded eyes. “Don’t tell me I’m wrong. There should be no lies between us. You are my daughter. All I have left in the world.”

  Her mother’s chin quivers. Toni sits speechless.

  “You think I won’t understand, but I do. Love makes people foolish. It’s natural and beautiful, all the same. I am not prejudiced, but naturally, I want you to marry a Jew. For one thing, it would make your life easier. When two people share the same culture, when both face the same challenges from the outside world, when they can take certain points of view for granted in the other, there is a basis for trust. It’s not the same between people of a different background. One day out of nowhere can come an ugly surprise, an innocent-sounding question— ‘Why do you Jews do this or that?’ A casual remark, but it cuts to the bone. The chazer-fus, the little pig’s foot pokes out, we used to say. The worst is when the children are born. It becomes so complicated.”

  “Mama, stop!”

  Her mother closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

  “A mother can only wish for the best and advise, but not force her will. Since I’m on the topic of advice, let me say one other thing. Nowadays, girls do everything with boys. Free love. The Age of Aquarius. Ha! You think I don’t have eyes and ears? Young people think they have changed the world. Every generation thinks so. Believe me, believe your old mother. A girl needs to hold back to maintain the boy’s respect. All right now. Don’t look so offended. I’ve said my piece. Follow your heart. But stop this skulking around in the shadows.”

  Toni stares down miserably into her lap. She hears the soft slap of cards against the table.

  “I see something else,” her mother says after a long silence. “He is shorter than you. Well, that’s not so terrible either.”

  A strangled laugh bursts from Toni’s lips. The room seems wobbly and her head feels as if the coffee she’s drunk has gathered at the back of her skull, defying the laws of physics and digestion, and is about to explo
de. Tell the truth. Easy for Robin to say. Robin’s parents have a slew of other children. They can afford to let one go. And Robin can afford to let them go because someone’s sure to break rank and take her side. Already this has started to happen. A brother called to invite her to a pub crawl. An aunt hinted she’s trying to get the father to relent. For all their uptightness, Robin’s folks lead normal lives. When they see smoke rise from a chimney, they don’t think, Hitler’s ovens, lost relations. Robin doesn’t have to answer to slaughtered millions. Or to a mother who reminds her several times a day, “You are all I have left.”

  Now Toni’s mother sweeps up the cards and places them back in their lacquered wooden box. After another long look into Toni’s face, she sighs.

  “Just remember I can’t help but see what I see. Even though this fellow isn’t what I had in mind, I’m aware of your happiness, and my heart is glad. Bring him home for dinner. I don’t care if he’s a Mongolian pygmy, I’d like to meet him.”

  Toni bends her head to her notes. Her hand moves across the pages to highlight key words and phrases with a yellow felt-tip pen. Her lips recite, “Mitosis: the process by which a cell duplicates its genetic information …” You would wish for a Mongolian pygmy, if you knew. You would hold out your wrists and say, “Slash them, go ahead.”

  “… pairs of chromosomes condense and attach to fibres that …” No, worse. You’d stand there with a face of devastation. “… pull the sister chromatids to the opposite sides of the cell.” And you, Mama, are all I have left.

  What? What was that?

  Toni’s hand with the felt-tip pen freezes in mid-air as this last startling thought drifts through her mind.

  But that’s not true. I have Robin.

  Sunday morning. Late. Toni can tell by the stale taste of the air in the room and the throbbing redness beyond her closed lids. Reluctantly, she opens her eyes onto a sun-drenched room. Light glints off the ice-glazed roofs and snow-heaped balconies of the Ghetto. Although it’s March, the city still lies in the grip of winter. Within a few hours, perhaps even before she’s managed to pour enough coffee into her gut to become fully conscious, the sun will have sunk again toward a blood-red horizon. Spring break is over. Final exams approach. She should rise. She should force herself to creep away from Robin’s sleeping body and get over to the library. When she tries to move, a stab of pain travels down her occipital nerve. She imagines this nerve as a tightly wound vibrating guitar string. She imagines all the cones and rods of her retina clacking together like castanets and the vitreous jelly quivering.