In the Language of Love

by Diane Schoemperlen

  When Esther died five years later, it was a heart attack, not cancer, that killed her. Clarence told Joanna that even Dr. Pesetsky was surprised. The doctor said he thought Esther was healthy as a horse, especially her heart which had never shown any signs of weakness. But then again, Dr. Pesetsky said, she hadn’t been in for a checkup in God knows how long.

  Joanna thought about horses and hearts. She pictured a horse’s heart jammed into her mother’s small chest, a huge horse’s heart leaping and throbbing, heaving and pounding, finally bursting and breaking out free. She pictured her mother dead on the kitchen floor with a horse’s heart twitching on the tile beside her. In fact, Esther had not died on the kitchen floor. She had died in the hospital later, hours later, after Clarence, just coming home from the corner store with a loaf of bread and a litre of milk, had found her on the floor and called the ambulance. She had died in the hospital hours later with Clarence beside her and neither horses nor hearts anywhere in sight.

  83. LOUD

  ESTHER HAD RULES ABOUT makeup: no nail polish (especially not red which was for tramps), no mascara (especially not blue which was ridiculous because who in their right mind would want blue eyelashes), no lipstick (especially not that ghastly white which made perfectly normal young girls look like bloodless drug-addicted ghouls). She finally relented a little during Joanna’s later years of high school and allowed her to wear clear nail polish, a little brown mascara, and pale pink lip gloss which you could hardly even see anyway, so what was the point? She still would not allow Joanna to get her ears pierced. Instead she had to wear those stupid clip-ons which were either so loose that they fell off and were lost forever in snowbanks, storm sewers, or the long summer grass—or so tight that her earlobes felt like they were being pinched in a vise and ached for hours afterwards.

  What all these things, nail polish, pierced earrings, mascara, and lipstick, had in common, in Esther’s estimation, was that they were loud.

  loud adj. 1. garish, gaudy, flashy, tasteless, lurid, glaring, flaring, flashy, blinding; conspicuous, striking, flagrant, outstanding, outlandish, pronounced, obtrusive, extravagant, spectacular; ostentatious, showy, flaunting, snazzy, splashy, jazzy; tawdry, meretricious.

  For a young girl (indeed for all females in general), the only thing worse than being dirty, in Esther’s estimation, was being loud.

  loud adj. 2. bold, brassy, brazen, vulgar, gross, crass, rough, earthy, ribald; uncouth, uncivilized, unrefined, ill-bred; wild-and-woolly, rough-and-ready, hooliganish; coarse, rude, gruff, crude, raw, boorish, loutish, rowdy.

  By the time Joanna was old enough to do more or less whatever she liked (as long as she could override the sound of her mother’s admonishing voice in her head), makeup had generally fallen into disfavour. She did get her ears pierced and began to accumulate acollection of colourful dangling earrings which she kept on a screen hung on her bedroom wall. Earrings were still all right but makeup had come to be regarded as a vain and shallow adornment practised only by silly, superficial, or insecure women who thought that plastering themselves with cosmetics made them more attractive to men. The use of makeup constituted an unenlightened form of participation in patriarchal society’s conspiracy to keep women subordinate and powerless. Makeup was one of the prime forces in aiding and abetting women’s conditioned inability to accept their own bodies as naturally beautiful and desirable. Such an obsession with one’s physical appearance was generally considered to be clear-cut evidence of brainlessness, vacuity, and/or inauthenticity. It was a form of facial fraud which benefited no one except the makeup manufacturers, men who had become multi-millionaires in the process of promoting and exploiting women’s insecurities. Women who wore makeup were foolish. Men who liked women who wore makeup were male chauvinists not worth having anyway. Women must strive to believe, as men always had, that they were perfect just the way they were.

  Joanna was prepared to go along with these ideas but not to the extreme of forsaking her deodorant or her little pink razor for armpits and legs. She never did get over the sheer sensual pleasure of lathering her legs in the bathtub with musky-scented soap, drawing the razor carefully up from the ankle, gently around the knee, stroking her smooth skin with the fluffy towel afterwards, admiring the way they glowed brown in the summer, the way they slipped between clean sheets or under the very hairy legs of a very eager man. She never did get over how happy it made her to be told (by some such eager hairy man) that she had the smoothest skin in the world. She also never gave up mascara altogether either, because she knew it accentuated the impact of her pretty brown eyes. She was sometimes a little ashamed of these concessions to fashion and flattery, but never ashamed enough to give them up.

  She occasionally wondered about the fate of a girl named Cecilia Wright she’d known in high school who proudly and frequently proclaimed that she got up an hour early every morning to put her makeup on. This information was usually dispensed in the girls’ bathroombetween classes. There was cigarette smoke rising like a blue veil from the toilet cubicles and a dozen girls ranged in front of the mirrors, leaning over the sinks to apply more mascara, more blusher, more lipstick, squinting and contorting their faces until they looked like a row of animated gargoyles, bemoaning pimples, freckles, and laugh lines, sucking in their cheeks to look like Twiggy, whose emaciated face was on the front of every fashion magazine. Cecilia Wright had a whole bag full of makeup which she generously shared around with those less fortunate. At home she had a makeup mirror, the professional kind with little round bulbs around the edges. She absolutely hated these fluorescent lights which made even her perfect complexion look pale and blotchy. She said that even after she got married she would still get up early to put on her makeup because no man in the world wants to wake up to the sight of a woman without her face on.

  It is Saturday and Joanna is downtown doing errands, trudging up and down the slushy sidewalks with Samuel yanking on her arm. More wet snow is just starting to fall. They are slopping in and out of the bank which is jammed with end-of-the-month cheque-cashers, in and out of Zellers to buy him more socks, Batman underwear even though they cost twice as much as the plain white, another pair of mitts because he’s lost the other ones again, in and out of the hardware store looking for a new kettle that doesn’t whistle and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, in and out of the health food store for vitamins, sunflower seeds, seven-grain bread, and organic peanut butter. Samuel is still yanking and yacking on about all the things he wants for Christmas because there are decorations everywhere already even though it’s only the middle of November and he hasn’t even finished his Hallowe’en candy yet. Her other arm is aching with the weight of her purchases and her feet are wet and she almost has a headache which somehow feels worse than really having one and why should Gordon have the luxury of spending Saturday afternoon at home alone with classical music on the stereo, a fresh pot of coffee, and a fat hardcover novel, while she is doing all this errand shit, even though she offered to do it. She was just being polite and he wassupposed to be polite too and say, “Oh no, dear, that’s all right, you deserve a break, I’ll do it.” But he didn’t. He said, “Okay, great,” and headed for the couch, and now here she is, every few steps passing another mother whose arm is also being yanked off by another small chattering child and she would like to smile exasperated sympathy at one of these women but they’re all looking down, at the slushy sidewalk, at their wet feet, at their tired trudging legs which would be better off dancing in silk pantihose and red high heels. She passes a very handsome dark-haired young man in tight jeans and a black leather jacket and she would have spotted him a mile away because he is her type, just the type of man who can always make her heart twitch even though she is a perfectly happy wife and mother, she’s not dead yet, she can still look, can’t she? This young man walks right past as if she is invisible. There was a time, she’s sure there was a time, when this handsome dark-haired young man would have looked straight into her eyes, his heart twitching too, othe
r parts of his anatomy also shook up, and they would have gazed at each other with electrifying lust and walked away fantasizing about all the things they could have done to each other given half a chance, given half an hour, given another lifetime. She catches sight of herself in the plate-glass window of Shoppers Drug Mart and she looks like all those other mothers she’s been trying to smile at all afternoon, dowdy, harried, and defeated, her posture is bad, and if she’s not really invisible, she might as well be. There have been times, many other times, when she hoped she did look like all those other mothers, times when she just wanted to be normal so that Samuel would not grow up scarred for life having had a mother who was an eccentric artist-type and not at all like June Cleaver with her pearls and perfect hairdo first thing in the morning, not to mention her melodious voice and her infinite patience. Yes, there have been times when she wanted to look like all those other mothers but this is not one of them.

  She marches straight into Shoppers Drug Mart and walks right over to the lipstick counter and picks out three tubes from the hundreds on display. She wants the loudest brightest colours she can find: Cherries in the Snow, Wine with Everything, and Really Really Really Red.

  She also buys a chocolate bar for Samuel, a newspaper, and the current issue of Vogue which is as thick as the phone book. She does not buy shampoo, mouthwash, or Gordon’s favourite foot powder which are the things they really need.

  When they get home Gordon has nodded off over his novel. The house is quiet and warm. Samuel, still chewing on his chocolate bar, goes into the living room to pester his father awake. Now that he no longer naps himself, he doesn’t think anybody else should either.

  Joanna puts away her purchases and then tries on one of the lipsticks, Cherries in the Snow, which is a rich deep pink. She goes into the bedroom and picks a fancy pair of earrings off the screen, a four-inch-long dangling pair which she bought on a day not unlike this one, a day when she wanted to be (or at least look like) somebody else, a day when she wanted to be brazen and loud, but she hasn’t had the nerve to wear them yet. They are made of wooden beads in different colours and sizes strung in three strands, hot pink, blue, green, fluorescent yellow and orange, also a few pearly seashells. They brush her neck gently whenever she moves and the beads rattle softly like a new voice inside her head, like music, the blues, temptation, seduction, a saxophone. She puts on her pretty pink blouse.

  She should be vacuuming, she should be starting supper, she should be washing the bathroom floor. She is sitting at the kitchen table with her lipstick on, fancy earrings, hot pink blouse, sipping a glass of white wine, and reading the new issue of Vogue. She is skimming the ads for makeup which will do magic, shoes that will change your life, and underwear that would turn on the dead. She is studying the beautiful models displaying their wares in front of motorcycles, fast cars, helicopters, and the French Riviera. These women look lovely in $350 T-shirts, $800 orange satin slingbacks, $1,600 silk jackets with matching $500 pants by Ralph Lauren, and $1,700 pink purses by Chanel.

  Eventually Samuel and Gordon, who have been horsing around in the living room, peek their heads into the kitchen, intrigued no doubt by her silence.

  Samuel says, “Oh, Mommy, you look beautiful! Kiss me!” He is not always this good at saying exactly the right thing. She kisses himon the cheek and he runs off to the bathroom to examine her lip prints on his skin.

  Gordon says, “Well. Who are you supposed to be?” He is not always this good at saying exactly the wrong thing.

  Joanna says, “I can’t remember.” She throws an old Steppenwolf tape into the cassette player, turns it up loud loud loud, and starts slamming around in the cupboards, starting the spaghetti sauce for supper, singing “Born To Be Wild” through gritted teeth.

  Gordon, who is not so stupid after all, says, “Never mind that. We’ll go out to eat.”

  Joanna says, “We’ll never find a babysitter now.”

  “Yes we will.” He phones a dozen people in fifteen minutes and finally Jennie Holmes from down the street says she’ll be over at 7:15.

  They go to their favourite place downtown, the Long Street Diner, which is not on Long Street and not a diner either. It is a small trendy upscale place, lushly decorated with hanging plants, potted trees, wicker furniture painted in glossy primary colours. The dishes are chunky authentic Mexican pieces, hand-painted. The cutlery has matching ceramic handles. The napkins are one hundred per cent cotton printed in various colourful native North American motifs, folded accordion style and placed in the crystal wineglasses with an aesthetic flourish. On the plain white walls there are paintings by local artists offered for sale and changed every two months. The regular clientele is composed largely of young downtown professionals and artistic types. In the summer, add to these a number of wealthy American tourists whose yachts are parked in the marina at the foot of the street. The Diner is consistently crowded, and at the height of the season people will wait for an hour or more to get a table. Visiting celebrities always eat at The Diner, so there is the added allure of spotting someone famous over your Salad Niçoise. Once Joanna saw Henry Winkler having a snack of jumbo shrimp and champagne while his chauffeur leaned against the idling white limo out front. There was an unconfirmed rumour that Joanne Woodward had eaten there last summer. The rumour was occasionally expanded to include Paul Newman.

  Although Joanna has been here a hundred times or more, tonightshe feels festive and celebratory because of the lipstick and the flashy earrings. She feels like a tourist on vacation from her real life. She feels that anything could happen and she feels ready. Three different people (other regulars, they all know each other) tell her she looks fabulous. They say, “Did you get your hair cut?” “Did you get new glasses?” “Have you lost weight?” Only one person asks where Samuel is and she has to stop a minute and think. Is this all it takes then to feel free again? A six-dollar tube of lipstick? She should have tried it years ago. How simple. How pathetic.

  The taste of the lipstick makes her think of Esther who always wore an orange-red shade and when she kissed Joanna good night the taste lingered as she drifted off to sleep. Esther was always complaining that she couldn’t keep her lipstick on, that she chewed it all off in half an hour and then had to reapply. She was always looking for a mirror until finally she bought a compact to keep in her purse.

  Joanna discovers that she has the same problem. During the course of their meal, she has to go to the washroom four times to put on more lipstick. Gordon smiles patiently and orders more wine. He refrains from saying any more stupid things.

  At the table, Joanna spends most of her time staring at a young woman at the next table whose dramatic red lipstick remains intact through three glasses of white wine, a bowl of creole peanut soup, a garden-fresh green salad, a huge plate of Fettuccine Alfredo, a slab of chocolate cheesecake, two cups of coffee, and six cigarettes. While consuming this feast, the young woman is also smiling uncontrollably at her date and talking the whole time. Once she even leans across the table and kisses him. Joanna is mesmerized. The woman’s lips have never once stopped moving and yet, after such a spree of prolonged and varied oral gratification, her lipstick is still perfect. Not only that, but she’s thin. Joanna also notices that while her own white coffee cup has lipstick and dribbles all over one side, the other woman’s cup is still clean. There must be a trick to this stuff that she is not privy to. How do you find out these things, where do you learn them? Joanna wants to go over and ask the woman how she does this but Gordon sensibly talks her out of it.

  On the way home they stop at the all-night drugstore so she can buya compact. In the car she tells Gordon about the tube of lipstick Clarence brought home from the war. A plain black tube, a dull orange colour which tasted like pencil lead and cardboard, not at all like North American lipstick. Her father kept the lipstick in a wooden box with his dog tags and a pile of tattered French francs. Gordon says maybe it belonged to that buxom dark-haired woman in the old photograph.


  No, Joanna says, she has always understood that he got it from the body of a dead woman, a dead Czechoslovakian woman. Gordon says this does not sound likely. No, Joanna says, it doesn’t but that’s what she remembers being told. Gordon says that even if it was true, it’s not the sort of thing you would tell a little girl, that in the war her father took a tube of orange lipstick from the body of a dead woman. No, Joanna says, but that’s what she remembers. Gordon asks what became of the lipstick. Joanna says she can’t remember.

  Gordon takes the babysitter home. Joanna checks on Samuel who is sound asleep. She puts the Steppenwolf tape back on. She takes off her earrings and all of her clothes. She redoes her lipstick and waits naked in the bed for Gordon to return.

  He is pleasantly surprised but keeps fussing about the music as he undresses. He wants to turn it down, he’s afraid it’s going to wake Samuel. No, Joanna says, she wants it on, she wants it loud, he won’t wake up, he can sleep through anything these days, he won’t wake up, he won’t, he won’t.

  Already her nipples are tingling, her hips are rising, the insides of her thighs are wet. She wants to moan when he enters her. She wants to howl when she comes. She wants to come six times in a row, howling louder every time. She wants to forget herself and everyone else she’s ever been. She wants to lose track of reality and make sounds she’s never heard before.

  Take it easy, Gordon says, he’ll hear you, he’ll hear you, shit, the neighbours will hear you! He won’t, he won’t, she cries, they won’t, they won’t, I don’t care! Take it easy, Gordon says and tries to kiss her to shut her up and for a good five minutes she hates him with all her heart, grinding harder against him because she hates him, moaning louder because she hates him and they will probably never make love in Patterson Park again.