In the Language of Love

by Diane Schoemperlen

  The colour of all safety and all sadness. Why should it be surprising that blue is the colour of both? Safety and sadness. Abandonment and letting go. Abandoning yourself to the luxury of safety, letting go of fear. Abandoning yourself to the indulgence of sadness, letting go of happiness or its possibility. Either way you are quiet and full. Full of yourself perhaps, but full nonetheless. Your baby takes a long time being born. You imagine that he is hanging on to your womb with both little hands, pulling you inside out. You wonder why he does not want to let go. Your baby is pink and noisy, perfect and pink.

  67. HUNGRY

  THE BABY IS CRYING. The baby is hungry. The baby is eating. The baby is full. The baby is crying. The baby has gas. The baby is crying. The baby is hungry. The baby is eating. The baby is full. The baby is crying. The baby has a dirty diaper. The baby is crying. The mommy is crying. The baby is hungry again.

  The mommy is losing her mind. The baby is always hungry. The baby is always attached to her breast. The mommy feels sweaty and weak and bored. Her arms go numb. The baby is not getting enoughmilk. The mommy is not getting enough sleep. The daddy is useless because he has no milk in his breasts. The mommy wonders why men have nipples anyway. Men’s nipples are good for nothing.

  The mommy feels guilty for hating the daddy. The mommy feels guilty because she does not love breast-feeding the way the book says she should. She reads this book while she feeds him. The mommy feels guilty because she does not have enough milk. The book says all normal mothers have more than enough milk. The mommy knows she is a failure. The book tells the happy story of a woman who breast-fed her son until he was eleven years old. This baby is only six weeks.

  The mommy and the baby go to the doctor. The baby cries on the cold silver scale. The doctor says, This baby is not gaining enough weight. The mommy cries. The doctor says, Don’t cry, we’ll just switch to bottle-feeding. The mommy says, I’m a failure. The doctor says, Who says? The mommy tells him about the book. The doctor says, Stop reading that damn book. The mommy says she knows a woman who has so much milk she can squirt it clear across the room. This woman says bottle babies are sickly. This woman’s baby is fat. The doctor says, You women do each other no favours with all this advice. We’re not fatting a calf here. The doctor says, Your baby is wonderful and so are you. You are made for each other.

  At home the baby is crying. The baby is hungry. The mommy heats the bottle. The daddy feeds the baby. The mommy has a bubble bath. Then everybody has a nap. The whole family survives.

  68. PRIEST

  THE MOST DISAPPOINTING THING about being a Protestant was that there were no priests. Having never been inside a Catholic church in her life, Joanna wasn’t sure where her picture of priests had come from, but there was in her mind the indelible image of an old tall man with a long white beard in a black flowing robe moving his arms gracefully up and down with a golden bell in one hand and smoking incense in the other, while he chanted solemnly over the heads of the congregation in a foreign language which must be that tonguereligious visionaries were said to sometimes speak in. She had once seen a gospel revival meeting on TV. Although the congregation in her mind was all white people, conservatively dressed with their heads carefully covered in a regular church (as opposed to the TV congregation which was all Negroes, clothed in bright and happy colours with their kinky heads bare in a tent the size of Barnum and Bailey’s Big Top), in her imagination they too are whipped into a frenzy by the power and the glory of this old tall priest. They are leaping and weeping and wailing and swooning, crying out, “Hallelujah, hallelujah! Praise be to the Lord! Lordy, Lordy, Amen!” Their eyes are closed, their heads flung back, their faces lifted to the beautiful heavens.

  It was impossible, Joanna discovered, to fall into a religious trance in the presence of Mrs. Ingram, her Sunday School teacher. Mrs. Ingram looked like any other teacher in her navy blue dress with her short curly hair held captive with a net and many bobby pins while her gold-rimmed spectacles slid perpetually down her shiny nose. In a windowless room in the church basement, Mrs. Ingram showed them how to make paper lilies at Easter, paper stars at Christmas, and many paper haloes all year round. She had them playing seasonally appropriate religious games: How many other words of four letters or more can you find inside the word CHRISTMAS?

  Joanna nearly won this one. She found twelve words in the allotted ten minutes: Christ, cast, mast, mass, match, march, miss, mist, this, thirst, sits, rich. But Debbie Martin, who always said she was smarter than Joanna anyway, won the prize with thirteen words including smart which Joanna had missed. The prize was a shiny coloured picture of the Star of Bethlehem.

  The next Sunday Joanna did win, finding ten words in MESSIAH: mess, mass, miss, hiss, mash, mesh, sash, same, ashes, shame. The prize was a slim illustrated book called Heroes of the Bible. It began naturally enough with a coloured drawing of Adam in the Garden of Eden, a lion fast asleep with its head in his naked lap, a fawn and a duck at his feet, a giraffe, an elephant, a horse, and a flock of bluebirds drawing near to his gently outstretched hand. In the accompanying story, there was no mention of Eve, apples, serpents, or later indiscretions.

  Mrs. Ingram talked a lot about food which, she said, was just oneof the many things they must thank God for in this country. (Joanna already knew that God in other countries was not nearly so generous.) She had them make lists and draw pictures of everything they were going to eat for Christmas dinner. They spent three whole classes working on these pictures and soon the room was ringed with drawings of larger-than-life turkey legs that looked like wooden clubs. Each leg was surrounded by coloured blobs meant to represent mashed potatoes (white blob), turnips (orange blob), dressing (brown blob), and cranberry sauce (red blob). Gravy was a brown puddle on the side.

  Mrs. Ingram praised the Lord for these bountiful feasts as well as for the pictures themselves, and told them that, just as food was necessary nourishment for their growing bodies, so Sunday School was necessary nourishment for their precious innocent souls in bud.

  At Christmastime, Mrs. Ingram began every class with her favourite carol, leading their quivering soprano voices through each verse at least once: Away in a manger,/No crib for a bed,/The little Lord Jesus/Laid down His sweet head…/The cattle are lowing,/The Baby awakes,/But little Lord Jesus/No crying He makes.

  Joanna wondered what exactly lowing involved. She imagined a calm herd of brown-and-white cows with their front knees bent and their big heads lowered, mooing sweetly to Baby Jesus in His manger.

  The rest of the year Mrs. Ingram stuck mostly to her two all-purpose favourites: God sees the little sparrow fall,/It meets His tender view;/If God so loves the little birds,/I know He loves me too. And: Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,/Look upon a little child;/Pity my simplicity,/Suffer me to come to Thee.

  Joanna wondered about all the emphasis on suffering: should she be suffering even more than she already did over toothaches, tummyaches, her ugly hair, and the way Esther made her sit at the kitchen table and eat a whole bowl of vegetable soup which she hated and she thought she’d throw up but she didn’t. What kind of suffering did Jesus have in mind? What more did He want from her?

  Mrs. Ingram was not the kind of person of whom she could ask these questions. She was a kind motherly soul who was always polishing her pitch pipe and pushing her spectacles back up the bridgeof her nose. Joanna could not imagine Mrs. Ingram ever being swept away by religious fervour, flinging herself on the floor, wrapping her freckled arms around the ankles of Jesus, washing away the blood from the nail holes in his feet with her ecstatic copious tears. Joanna could not imagine Mrs. Ingram allowing herself to become over-stimulated by anyone or anything. If The Lord Jesus Himself had appeared before them right now, Mrs. Ingram would probably have set Him to drawing food and cutting out paper haloes.

  Each week Mrs. Ingram herded her Sunday School charges up from the basement to be present for the last part of the regular service. It was also impossible, Joanna discovered, to imagine anyone
being whipped into a divine frenzy in the presence of Reverend Charles Doak. Reverend Doak was a short nervous man with a short nervous wife and a retarded daughter named Doris. Usually Doris did not put in an appearance but sat quietly in the choir loft at the back. Joanna never understood why this small wooden balcony above the main room was called the choir loft anyway. The choir in their slippery-looking blue gowns sang up front behind the altar, carefully arranged in rows with all the short people at the front and the tall ones at the back. They were mostly older women who sang with their eyes closed. Except for Mrs. Bronson who kept her eyes and her mouth open as wide as they would go so that her warbling voice was always louder (and more irritating) than the rest. Joanna was embarrassed for her but Mrs. Ingram said she had been blessed.

  In addition to keeping Doris out of sight, the loft was also used to store the old hymn books. One Sunday morning Doris let out a yodel right in the middle of “Onward Christian Soldiers” and began flinging the hymn-books down upon the worshipful heads of the congregation. Joanna was so embarrassed she thought she would die. Mrs. Ingram said Doris was a special child who would never suffer like the rest of them. Doris was in, but not of, this world. She too was blessed.

  The next Saturday Joanna saw Reverend and Mrs. Doak and Doris at the A&W Drive-In. Joanna and her parents had been shopping all afternoon at Simpsons-Sears. They did this every Saturday afternoon.

  While Esther looked at every single thing in the entire store and finally bought two or three small items (another set of plasticplacemats, a pair of orange rubber gloves, or some clip-on earrings—she didn’t believe in pierced ears), Clarence stood around with his arms folded and his hat on.

  Joanna stuck to the toy department where she looked through all the Barbie outfits and tried to talk her mother into buying her one. She wanted the bride outfit called Wedding Day the most: the white wedding gown had real satin and netting and it came with gloves, a bridal bouquet, white high heels, and a blue garter. It cost twice as much as the others. Joanna was willing to settle for Miss Astronaut with silver spacesuit, white helmet, and tiny American flag on a stick, or Riding in the Park with yellow jodhpurs, brown tweed jacket, black riding boots, hat and crop, or even for Suburban Shopper, a full-skirted blue-and-white dress with a cartwheel straw hat and a fruit-filled tote bag.

  After shopping, they went to the A&W Drive-In for hamburgers and root beer. Clarence had a big two-patty Papa Burger, Esther had a Mama Burger with cheese, and Joanna had a Baby Burger, just plain, nothing on it. They had french fries all around and an appropriately sized mug of root beer each.

  Just as the carhop hooked their tray of food to the rolled-down window, Joanna spotted Reverend and Mrs. Doak and Doris in the car right across from them. Joanna could see Reverend Doak trying to get his mouth around a jumbo three-patty Grandpa Burger. He was talking and laughing and eating like a pig. The ketchup and mustard dribbled down his chin. He washed it all down with a long gulp of root beer which left a foamy moustache on his upper lip. He wiped his face with a crumpled serviette, then blew his nose in it and jammed it into the empty root beer mug. Joanna was so disgusted she gagged. She was sure that no self-respecting God-fearing real priest would ever be caught dead stuffing his face like that at the A&W Drive-In on a Saturday afternoon. A real priest would be in his church where he belonged, making notes for his Sunday sermon, choosing the hymns, polishing the pews, praising the Lord privately and perpetually. A real priest would never be caught dead slurping up sugary root beer and wolfing down three patties of greasy dead meat in public. A real priest, if he ate anything at all, would besatisfied with a Communion wafer and a dainty glass of sweet Communion wine, the Blood and the Body of Christ being all the nourishment his body needed because his soul was so splendidly full.

  Reverend Doak flicked on his headlights to signal the carhop. Joanna sank down in the back seat and tried to eat her Baby Burger without looking at it. As the Doaks drove away in their battered blue station wagon, Esther from the front seat said, “Wasn’t that Reverend Doak across the way?” and Joanna said, “No. No, I don’t think so.”

  69. OCEAN

  “HIS EGO,” Esther often said, “is the size of the Atlantic Ocean.” She was referring to any man who annoyed her, usually some famous personality on TV.

  “His ego,” Joanna said aloud into the empty room, “is the size of the Atlantic Ocean.” She was referring to Lewis who had recently informed Joanna that if he left Wanda she would die. He was convinced that Wanda could not live, quite literally could not live, without him. He was also convinced that staying with her for this reason was the honourable, decent, and kind thing to do. How could she ever admit that she too thought she could not live without Lewis, that she too was afraid she would die, quite literally die, without him?

  She’d had a dream once of swimming alone in the ocean, and though she couldn’t swim at all in her waking life, in the dream she was an aquatic acrobat, all of her muscles gone supple and weightless in the warm salt water. She could hold her breath for hours on end and the mountains of the ocean floor were clear below her feet which the laughing fish were licking lightly. As she made her graceful way through the never-ending waves, a flock of bluebirds flew above her singing raucously and applauding with the tips of their wings.

  She had to admit-that sometimes she thought loving and being loved by an ego the size of an ocean wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would be like lying in a warm bath for the rest of your life. Surrounded and buoyed up by it, enfolded within it, warm and weightless, you would never need to do anything ever again but liestill and be loved, swept along and saved forever by the sheer inexhaustible size of it.

  Lewis’s skin after they made love was salty and she liked to lick the sweat from his chest and his thighs. When he held her face and kissed her with his hands over her ears, the sound was like that magical mysterious ocean trapped inside of all land-locked seashells.

  70. HEAD

  “YOU’RE SOFT IN THE HEAD, woman,” Henry said. “But hard, oh so hard, in the heart.” It was April. They were getting ready for bed.

  They had agreed to break up. Henry had rented a room in a sleazy downtown hotel until he could find a place of his own. In the room, he told her, there was a sink, a dresser with no handles, a single bed with an iron frame and an army blanket. “It’s perfect,” he said and she could not tell whether he was joking or not.

  “You’re soft in the head, woman, but hard, oh so hard, in the heart,” Henry said. “You’re heartless,” he murmured. “Just plain heartless,” he whispered as he slipped his hand between her wet thighs. Heartless, hapless, helpless, hopeless.

  “Did you know that shrimps have their hearts in their heads?” Joanna said, spreading her legs and guiding his fingers inside. A convenient arrangement, she thought, one which human beings might do well to emulate, thereby eliminating those recurring dilemmas as to which you should follow, your heart or your head.

  “We should be so lucky,” Henry said.

  Soft head, hard heart. This was like Clarence always saying, “Cold hands, warm heart.” Maybe they were both right. Could her heart be both warm and hard, like a fist, clenched, sweaty, and strong?

  But maybe they were both wrong. Maybe they were getting the pieces of her all mixed up. Cold hands, warm heart. Warm hands, cold heart. Soft head, hard heart. Hard head, soft heart. No head. No heart. Only hands, holding on to Henry’s back as they came together.

  71. STOVE

  IT IS FOUR DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS. Clarence is in the living room watching the six o’clock news. Gordon and Samuel are outside shovelling the driveway. Joanna is in the kitchen making supper.

  Clarence, in the living room, is supposed to be watching the six o’clock news but he is nodding off intermittently, his head falling slowly backwards until it touches the wall and then he snaps up straight again, awake for two minutes, until his chin drops slowly forward to rest upon his chest. His whole body is sagging into the corner of the couch. His hands are dang
ling like mittens between his legs. Occasionally he gurgles and snorts.

  Gordon and Samuel, outside in the driveway, are supposed to be shovelling but mostly they are playing, throwing snow at each other, laughing, rosy-cheeked. Samuel leaps to the top of the biggest snowbank and proclaims himself king of the castle. Gordon as his loyal subject kneels in the deep snow and salutes him with the Mickey Mouse shovel.

  Joanna, in the kitchen, is supposed to be making supper but she is clutching the warm stove with one hand and her full wineglass with the other while the radio blares Top 40 hits, a little off the station so all the sibilant lyrics are laced with static. Between sips of wine and an occasional peek at the chicken in the oven, she is gritting her teeth and glaring at the table which is covered with books and papers and Samuel’s action figures. She knows that if she asked her father to come and set the table, he would. But she is too angry to ask and he never gets the cutlery right anyway.

  She can hardly bear to look at him slumped there on the couch. The litter of Christmas-just-past is migrating all over the room. The festooned fir tree in the corner already looks junky and dry. In the night she can hear the needles hitting the floor. The TV news announcer has a green tinsel garland behind him which appears to be growing out of his head. She cannot bear to see her father’s eyes rolling back as he nods off again and his mouth goes slack. He is probably drooling. All day long, it seems now, he just sits. Waiting, mostly, it seems, for the next meal. At home she knows that hestretches breakfast preparations, consumption, and clean-up until nearly lunchtime. Then he stretches lunch until late afternoon and then it’s time to start supper. Here, he sits. He sleeps. He sits some more. He doesn’t even do crossword puzzles or cryptograms any more. The puzzle book she put in his Christmas stocking lies unopened on the coffee table beneath a week’s worth of newspapers. As it turns out, he will leave it behind when he goes home in a week.