It's You

by Jane Porter

  I don’t even mind the intense focus. At least, I used to like the focus. Now I can’t focus on any one thing. I don’t know that I can focus on anything. The future is as impossible as the past. It’s beyond my control.

  I don’t know what I want.

  I don’t know where to go.

  Something has to give.

  I just don’t want it to be me.

  THREE

  I reluctantly park at Napa Estates, and even more reluctantly walk to the entrance, feeling like a horrible human being for dreading spending the day there.

  I don’t want to spend the day here today.

  I want Dad, not the retirement home. It’s depressing being surrounded by so much old age and decay. Not that Napa Estates smells like decay, but you see it in the older seniors’ faces and bodies, the ones whose bodies have shrunk, the frail seniors who are in danger of disappearing.

  Dad’s waiting for me in the main hall. He’s sitting in a winged arm chair, holding court with a half-dozen men and a lone woman.

  I watch him for a moment, astounded. Dad, the introvert, suddenly seems to be an extrovert. I know he’d told me yesterday that he takes all of his meals in the dining room with everyone else, but it’s jarring seeing him surrounded by people. Dad and Mom weren’t social. Dad and Mom pretty much just stuck together.

  I greet Dad and he introduces me to his circle—Harold Zuss and Bill Malone. Walter Jordan and Graham Durkee. There’s a Floyd and maybe a George, and the woman, LuAnne somebody. I thought I was doing all right with the names in the beginning but by the end, I know I won’t keep them straight.

  Then as Dad gets to his feet, he invites everyone to join us for lunch.

  I blink, shocked.

  He’s not the dad I know, which makes me wonder if I ever knew him. Was Mom perhaps the introvert? Would Dad have enjoyed more social activities when they were married?

  I walk next to him into the dining room. It’s open seating. He chooses a round table set for ten and as we take our seats he leans towards me and says under his breath, “A couple of the guys are having a hard time. This is good for them. They need to belong.”

  I nod and sit, thinking, since I obviously don’t know him, perhaps it’s time I did.

  • • •

  I return for dinner and “game night.” Apparently we’re playing bingo later. Dinner is another group date. Harold and Walter join us. So does George. But Graham is having a real “dinner date” with Eleanor Babcock, and Bill Malone was rushed to the hospital earlier in the day. He had a heart attack and is in ICU now. The men are subdued. We have quite a few seats empty but then others slowly fill in, always asking, Can I join you? Is this seat free?

  The meal is relatively quiet. Everyone has Bill on their mind. They’re worried about him, but there is nothing they can do.

  “It’s where we are,” Walter says gruffly. “This is what happens.”

  The others nod, solemn, resigned.

  This is what happens when you age, I think. You accept your mortality. You acknowledge one’s lack of control.

  I’m just not there yet. I’m still fighting for what I want and need.

  To distract myself, I turn to the man on my left. He was one of those who arrived after we were seated. “You said your name is Jerry?” I ask, wanting to draw him out as he’s been mostly silent throughout the meal, listening to the others.

  “Yes. Gerald or Jerry. It’s all the same to me.”

  I hear an accent. He’s not a native Californian but I can’t place where he’s from. “Where were you raised?”

  He smiles. “Philadelphia. But after the war, I worked in Detroit, and then ended up here in California twenty years ago with my Betty.”

  There was something in the way he said my Betty that made my chest tighten. “Is she here?”

  “She died six months ago. First Christmas and Easter without her.” He looked me in the eye. “Had fifty-eight years together. I consider myself a lucky man.”

  “Sounds like you were happy.”

  “She was a catch.”

  Again, that tug of emotion. I like him, this Jerry. “Where was she from?”

  “Met her in Michigan. She had dark red hair, and legs. Amazing legs. And she could dance. Boy, could she dance.” His smile faded. “I miss her.”

  Dad leans in. “But the girls here won’t leave Jerry alone. They’re shameless. They chase him like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “What?” I glance from Dad to Jerry and back again. “The ladies chase you?”

  “He’s fresh meat. He’s only been here a few months—how long, Gerald? Two months? Three?”

  “Almost four. Moved in January.” He nodded and folded his napkin neatly, setting it by his plate. “Sometimes seems longer than that. Time is different without her. Can’t keep track of it the way I used to.”

  After dinner, as I walk with Dad back to his apartment, I mention Jerry and what Dad had said during the meal, about Jerry being fresh meat.

  “Do women chase you, Dad?”

  “Yes. All the time.”

  “But the ladies here seem so old . . .”

  “Not all of them. There are quite a few young ones here, women my age. Phyllis. Linda. Sheila. Dinah. Just to name a few. But they’re not hanging around the dining room at lunch. They’re out playing golf or tennis or off shopping. We have a courtesy van that takes the ladies downtown.” He reaches into his pocket for his room key. “But I’m not interested and they know it.”

  I wait for him to unlock the door and push it open. “But you might be. One day.”

  “I might be,” he agrees calmly. “Or I might not. I’m not there yet, and even if I was, I’d never marry again, and most of the ladies would like a proposal, and a ring.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You wanted a proposal and a ring.”

  “Because I’d never been married or had kids—”

  “The proposal and ring isn’t about kids. It’s about the commitment.” He closes the door behind us and it shuts with a bang.

  FOUR

  Edie

  That girl is back. Bill’s daughter. I can’t remember her first name, but she’s sitting with him at the table for Friday Night Bingo. I rarely come play. Bingo is a mindless form of entertainment but I don’t want to sit alone in my room tonight.

  I make my way across the dining room ignoring the table of silly women on my left who’ve come out tonight wearing too much perfume and red lipstick. You’d think that once a woman is a certain age, she wouldn’t need to try so hard, but no. Here the ladies are, talking loudly and laughing, trying to catch the old men’s attention.

  There is room at Dorothy’s table but I couldn’t handle listening to her grating voice all night. The only ones who can tolerate her are the seniors who are hard of hearing and don’t have on their hearing aids.

  Nancy and Louisa have space at their table but Nancy constantly passes gas. I know she can’t help it, and she tries to ignore it, but it is so uncomfortable to pretend you don’t hear.

  Across the room is Grace. She’s sitting with four men and she’s just fast. She is constantly chasing men, as she’s always looking for another husband. I can’t even tell you how many times she’s been married. Four? Five? More?

  I sit down at an empty table on the edge of the room and line up five cards in front of me. We’re allowed to play up to ten at a time, but I’m not in the mood tonight. I’m not even sure why I’m here.

  I straighten my cards, spacing them half an inch apart, lining up the edges and corners.

  There isn’t a very big crowd tonight, but I am sure more will come in right when the game begins and then we will have to stop and wait while the latecomers get seated and arrange their cards and get ready to play.

  Back when I taught, you knew to be in class on time. I don’t have patience with those who dally and expect others to wait.

  I drum my fingers on the table, and look out across the room. I’m less interested in the ol
d people. It’s Bill’s daughter that interests me.

  In the last few years I’ve found myself paying extra attention to the young adults, especially the girls. I’m fascinated by the way they dress and talk and walk.

  Was I ever like that, so lithe, so free?

  I don’t remember being young, not like that. I don’t remember . . .

  I turn away from the girl, and no, she’s not really a girl, she’s a young woman in her late twenties with straight blonde hair and what should be a pretty face, but her expression is tight. Flat.

  I know that expression. It’s the face of disappointment. Pain.

  I tip my dauber, mixing the ink, and tip it again.

  And for some reason I don’t understand, I push up to my feet, gather my five bingo cards, and make my way to Bill and his daughter.

  • • •

  In between games, and when the caller checks someone’s card—inevitably in this group there are those who like to shout bingo long before they have anything because they’ve misheard or they simply can’t follow the calls anymore—Bill’s daughter asks me questions.

  “I like your name,” she says as we wait for confirmation on the latest bingo. “Is Edie short for Edna or Edith?”

  Does she really care? Or is this her attempt at making small talk with an old person?

  If so, I’ve no desire to encourage her. I’m not one for chatter and I have no need to hear my own voice.

  “I like both names,” she adds. “They’re quite literary, aren’t they?”

  I look at her, and lift my brows. My grandnephews would call it my “quelling look” but the girl isn’t paying any attention, she’s just rambling on about Edith Wharton and how she’d read her in high school, but didn’t love her, too depressing, women trapped by society into suffocating, rigid roles.

  “Only if you happen to be born in the upper class,” I answer tartly, because women in the middle class and the poorer classes can’t afford to be trapped by anything. “Wharton was wealthy. She could afford to complain.”

  “She must have done something right. She won a Pulitzer Prize.”

  I bite down, vexed. I wish she’d stop talking.

  Bill turns to us, and he smiles at me. “Edie’s a linguist,” he says to his daughter. “She speaks five languages.”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m a linguist,” I demur. “I was a language teacher, but yes, I do speak five languages. Or at least, I used to. I’m sure my Russian is quite rusty now.”

  “Which languages did you teach?” Alison asks.

  “French, Spanish, and German at the high school. And then German and Italian for the Monterey Institute in summers. The Russian was for government work. There was a need during the Cold War, but later there were others who were younger and better educated who were used.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “Many Europeans speak four or more languages.”

  “You’re European?”

  “No. But I grew up overseas. My father worked in the Foreign Service.”

  The girl’s eyes are wide. “That really is impressive.”

  I don’t know why but her admiration unsettles me. I don’t want it. It’s unnecessary. “Languages are easy if you learn them young.”

  “I’ve heard that,” she agrees. “But who taught them to you? Did your parents hire language teachers?”

  “The nannies always spoke a foreign language to us. Spanish in Mexico City and Chile, German in Austria, French in Morocco, and then I picked up Italian easily after learning Latin in school. And Russian . . . that just happened.”

  Not true. It didn’t just happen. I intensively studied Russian to aid the US embassy in Berlin during the eighteen months I worked there.

  Just as I learned bits of Dutch and Hebrew.

  I learned everything I could to help our government. And Franz.

  “I wouldn’t call myself fluent in Spanish,” Alison confesses, “and yet I studied it for years.”

  “You’ll never become fluent if you don’t immerse yourself in the language. You must live somewhere and read it and speak it. It’s the only way the ear will pick up the proper cadence and accent.”

  “You must be good at music, too. Apparently the same part of the brain processes music and language.”

  “I’d heard it was music and math.”

  She flushes but doesn’t reply. Another game is about to begin. We line up new cards in front of us. We’re all now playing ten cards at a time and there’s no time for conversation, but at the end of this round, won by Eunice, Alison again turns to me.

  “So, Edie, your father was an ambassador?”

  “No,” I answer, always amazed by how little Americans actually know of the Foreign Service and diplomatic core. “Nothing so high ranking. He was a consular, and every four or five years we’d be in a new place.”

  “With your language ability and your background, I’m surprised you didn’t work for the government.”

  Others have said the same thing. But that’s because they don’t know that in 1942 I gave up my citizenship to become a German, and was immediately classified a traitor, and quite possibly, a spy.

  I reach for fresh bingo cards, my hand shaking. I don’t like to remember. The memories have never gotten easier; the anguish is buried so deep that when it resurfaces it poisons all over again. The knowledge that what we did—all our efforts—mattered naught.

  That the struggle has been largely ignored.

  That people prefer not to remember the good Germans, because it’s not politically correct. I’m not sure if it’s just an American phenomenon or something global, but most of those in the American middle classes prefer things black and white. Good and bad. Germans bad, the Allies and Jews, good. But it wasn’t like that, not living through it, not in Germany, for those who were German.

  It’s easy for historians and critics to dissect those who were part of the Resistance. I don’t even like to refer to my friends—and my love—as the Resistance. They weren’t a group. Barely organized. No, they were teachers, lawyers, artists, aristocrats, intellectuals, pastors, ministers, Jews, soldiers, party members . . . people. They were all real people with lives and dreams and consciences.

  But the years since the war have silenced virtually all. Those who survived the war will soon all be gone.

  There are books about the German Resistance, but they are far and few and rarely discussed. The German Resistance is mostly forgotten.

  My friends are forgotten.

  How does the death of 5,000 or 6,000 Germans resisting the Nazis compare to the deaths of millions?

  How can the deaths of 6,000 teachers and lawyers and students compare to the murder of six million Jews?

  So I’ve been quiet. I’ve remained silent. I look away and close my eyes and pretend I can’t hear when the news or radio discusses the war.

  I don’t want to remember the war.

  I don’t want to remember how I lost virtually everyone. I’m not sure how I survived. Not sure why I wasn’t one of those hanged at Plötzensee. Three thousand were executed there during those years. And that was just the one prison.

  Good people, my friends.

  Eyes closed, I can see them.

  Peter.

  Klaus.

  Adam.

  Hugo.

  Hans.

  Robert.

  Helmut.

  Marion. Marion survived. Thank God. But the others didn’t. Most of those who demonstrated resistance didn’t. Most of those close to those rumored to be part of the Resistance didn’t.

  Good people, all of them, and there are more, so many more I haven’t named but virtually all believed something had to be done.

  I think it was Helmut, Freya’s husband, who said that “only by believing in God could one be a total opponent of the Nazis.”

  But faith is hard tested when evil seizes power.

  • • •

  Late the next morning, after a fitful night’s sleep and an uneaten bre
akfast of coffee and toast, I discover that Bill’s dentist daughter, Alison, is back. Apparently she has nowhere else to go.

  I’m beginning to feel a little sorry for him. How can he relax with that inquisitive girl tagging after him everywhere?

  “Edie.”

  I turn from Alison and focus on Ruthie on my right. Ruth is fidgeting with the buttons on her blouse. She’s trying to unfasten them. I’m glad it’s a blouse that doesn’t open in the front. The pearlized buttons are decorative. She doesn’t know. That’s fine. They keep her busy and soon she’ll forget why she wanted to undo them.

  See? She’s already forgotten. “Yes, Ruth?”

  “Edie,” Ruth repeats, reaching for my hand.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “What are we doing today?”

  “Having a nice lunch.” Saturday and Sundays are my days with Ruth. She joins me for lunch in the dining room and then we spend the afternoon together. Some person somewhere made a fuss about me breaking the rules, having Ruth come to me. The rules say that the dementia patients stay in their wing where they can have proper supervision, but it’s too disturbing for me, being locked inside Memory Care. I can’t be locked in anywhere.

  “But after lunch? What are we doing?”

  “Just relaxing today, dear.”

  “We’re not seeing a show? We haven’t seen a show in a long time.”

  “We could see a show. It’s Saturday, movie day.”

  “I mean to the theater.” Ruth draws her hand back, her fingers returning to the button, twisting one again, worrying it needlessly. “We don’t go to the theater enough.”

  No, not often at all, I think. “Maybe we can see if they have a guest speaker today—”

  “I want to see a show.” She looks at me, brow creasing. “Why, why don’t we see plays?”

  Because you can’t follow them anymore, I want to tell her. And you’d talk the entire time. But I don’t. She’d be hurt. And she wouldn’t understand. “That’s a good question.”

  Ruth beams, pleased. “You know my mother was a dancer, in Warsaw.”

  “Yes.”

  “A ballerina.” Her smile fades, her expression growing pensive. “I’m sure she was a dancer.”