The Intentions Book

by Gigi Fenster

  Guilt—you’re supposed to feel guilty. For being such a bad son that you can’t even look after your own mother. After all she did for you.

  Grief, that’s it. This is a sad day for you. The day you have to admit that your mother can’t look after herself.

  No, not grief. If you feel grief then they’re going to want to comfort you. Joan is going to want to hug you. Not grief.

  Any minute Norman will come in. Joan will have sent him. What will you tell him? That you feel nothing at all? Except maybe a little bit relieved? You can’t tell him that.

  The food was on the table, but they hadn’t started eating. They looked up when Morris came in. Norman clapped him on his back when he sat down.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ he said and, as if this was the blessing they’d been waiting for, they picked up their cutlery.

  So who packed up the house?

  The house?

  Your mother’s house. Your house. The one you were brought up in. The one your father bought when they got married. She’d been there for more than twenty years. She must have accumulated a lot of stuff in all that time. Who packed it up?

  Was there a lot of stuff? Could some of it have ended up in David’s spare bedroom? Maybe later, when Morris goes to bed, he’ll look around the spare room and see if any of the things he recognises could have been his mother’s. For now he’ll sit in David’s lounge and try to picture her house. He’ll start at the entrance hall with its umbrella stand. Coat hooks behind the door. The bathroom off to one side. Not much stuff in there. Or in the tiny lounge. Or the kitchen.

  After so many years it’s still easy to run through the house in his mind. Morris knew where he was in that house.

  Things stayed where they stood. Things did not jump from room to room or out of the house completely, only to be missed, only to be told that a friend of Sadie’s had left her husband (finally, he was such a pig) and really needed a chair.

  Things did not suddenly appear, picked up at a junk shop or found in someone’s basement (they were going to throw it away, can you believe it?).

  Morris knew where he belonged in that house. Things stayed where they stood.

  There was only one real change in the furniture in that house, and that marked a life-changing event—Morris’s bar mitzvah.

  For a bar mitzvah furniture can arrive.

  Well, not every bar mitzvah, but if your bar mitzvah happens to coincide with the introduction of television into Wellington and your uncle and aunt happen to love you very, very much and be so very proud of how well you did, so proud that they buy you an Admiral Television with a wooden finish and special table for it to stand on. If that happens, furniture arrives.

  ‘Your surprise present is arriving on Friday,’ said Norman on the telephone.

  ‘Tell him he can invite some friends over to watch with him,’ called Joan into the silence.

  Morris’s mother knew the television was coming. Norman and Joan would not have bought such a huge, imposing thing into the house without consulting her. That would have been like arriving with a kitten in a box and saying it was a gift. They wouldn’t do that. They’d discuss and warn and remind her that it was arriving on Friday, and had she thought about where she’d like to put it? The corner furthest from the door might be nice.

  She knew it was coming but she hadn’t thought about where it would go. Or she’d thought too much and got confused. She looked at the delivery men blankly and didn’t answer when they asked where she wanted it. Morris stood in the passage, waiting for her to direct them, but she seemed puzzled and reluctant to let them in. They made a great show of labouring under a heavy load. The younger man looked at his watch and muttered about the number of televisions they still had to deliver. Finally the men left the television on its trolley at the front door, and Pearl stood to one side so they could come in and survey the lounge.

  The older man decided that the middle of the living room would be best. ‘It doesn’t have to stay there for ever. You two can easily slide it to the correct position when you’ve decided where you want it.’

  ‘If you ever decide,’ muttered the younger one. Morris glanced at his mother. She must not have heard the man, because she just ran her hands over the box and said something about possibly covering it with a nice piece of lace.

  She never put lace on the television and they never decided on a better place for it. It stayed where the movers had put it. Morris liked it there. He thought it was good for the reception if the television had free space around it.

  A neighbourhood child from Morris’s class came over, all sudden friendship and trailing younger sister and let’s see that new television you got.

  Morris, puffed with the pride of possession, the power of owning something first, waved his neighbours into the living room. ‘It’s best to put televisions in the middle of the room so they have air to breathe.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said the neighbour, still smiling, still friendly. ‘Tell me about it.’

  He wanted to come back that evening to watch, but Morris told him they were going out. ‘I mean, getting visitors. And tomorrow night as well.’

  Maybe that was why the boy turned on him, told others that Morris Goldberg thought a television’s reception was improved by standing it in the middle of the room. Ha, ha, in the middle of the room, because televisions, get this, need air around them so they can … wait for it … breathe!

  Another child in Morris’s position would have scoffed at the boy. Another child would have smirked and asked how he got to be so knowledgeable about televisions. Had he seen the packaging they came in? Did he have one in his living room? Morris did. He owned one. He would invite others to come and watch it but not you, you … teaser. Not you. Another child would have said that.

  Morris said nothing.

  That afternoon he got a book from the library about how televisions work. The librarian encouraged him to take other books as well. ‘If you’re interested in how things work you might like this one about wirelesses, and this one has toasters and ovens. Cameras. It shows you how to make your own.’

  Morris took the offered books, though he had no interest in wirelesses, toasters or cameras. The boy hadn’t mocked his knowledge of those.

  He spent a week studying the book and poring over the manual which came with the television. He wrote up tests for himself, and spent the weekend checking and rechecking his understanding. Just let that boy say something on Monday. Let him say something about Morris and televisions. Morris was prepared. He’d explain to him, slowly and methodically, like he was talking to a stupid child, like some teachers spoke to him, about the waves and the particles and, actually, you need to own a television to really understand what I’m telling you. You don’t actually own a television, do you?

  On Monday the boy had a new catapult. It was all he was interested in, all he spoke about. He wasn’t interested in Morris.

  When Morris returned the book, the librarian asked if he’d liked it. He thought about it and realised that he had found it interesting. He’d actually enjoyed spending a weekend reading.

  ‘Isn’t it amazing,’ she’d said, ‘to think that we are surrounded by particles and waves, electrons and things? All moving. We don’t even know they’re there, but some clever men have managed to … to harness them. All we have to do is turn a switch on a big box. Isn’t it amazing?’

  It works because the particles and waves move in patterns, Morris wanted to say. They follow their route like they’re supposed to. There are rules for their behaviour. That’s why it works.

  The television stayed in the middle of the carpet and it reminded Morris that he had done something important. Norman said the important thing was becoming bar mitzvah, becoming a man. Morris didn’t feel like a man, but still he’d done something significant: he’d learned that he was surrounded by pre-determined patterns and waves. Morris found this knowledge both comforting and empowering. It raised the possibility that the world was not always errat
ic and random. For some things there were rules. Nature had laws. These laws could be studied. Maybe he could do that. Once he’d learned the rules he could—what was the word the librarian had used?—harness. He could harness the energy. All he had to do was learn the rules.

  It was like that teacher with the black beard had said. Things don’t go bumping into each other, colliding at random, wasting energy. There is order, even if we can’t see it. That’s why things work. Because they are predictable.

  They know their place.

  The television’s place was in the middle of the room. Things stayed in their place in that house.

  Except for your mother’s room.

  My mother’s room? What about my mother’s room?

  It moved.

  Moved?

  When you were six. Your mother moved out of the bedroom and into the lounge. She swapped the two rooms.

  She didn’t. The lounge was always the lounge. With the television in it.

  You knew where you stood in that house.

  Until they kicked you out of it.

  Kicked me out? I left to go to university.

  Kicked out to go to university.

  Morris was eighteen when he left home to go to university. He went to Canterbury and stayed in a hall of residence.

  Morris knew that he wouldn’t be sleeping in a hall, that he’d be sharing with only one person, but he couldn’t help thinking of it as being like a school hall, only packed with beds. Row upon row of them and, in the one closest to the middle, pinned in on all sides, Morris Goldberg and his locker which didn’t close properly.

  Hall of residence—it made Morris think of that school trip when they’d slept in a school hall. Sixty boys in sixty sleeping bags in one room.

  In the bus on the way to the host school, Morris had felt sick, not from the windy roads which caused some boys to make a great fuss of falling over, banging bags and Miss, Miss, I think I’m going to throw up. Windy roads didn’t bother Morris. He knew that if you kept your eyes focused on a point in the vehicle you’d be fine. He chose the back of the driver’s chair. The driver kept his head quite still. Boys rattled around him and he kept on driving, his hands firmly planted on the steering wheel. As long as Morris kept staring at the back of his chair he’d be fine.

  One of the boys said that the driver had learned to drive in the war, driving tanks.

  That’s why he’s so steady, thought Morris.

  ‘That’s why he doesn’t look back,’ said another boy. ‘Soldiers never look back.’

  Morris had picked a good point to focus on. The driver was steady. He wouldn’t move. He’d never look back. Soldiers don’t.

  But still he felt sick.

  It was the thought of sleeping in the hall. One room. Sixty boys. Sixty sleeping bags.

  The boys scrambled to lay their sleeping bags in the best positions. Morris found a space next to the wall, close to the door. You can handle this, he told himself. Face towards the wall. Don’t even think about the others. Block your ears. Read your comic. You’ll be fine.

  He was fine—until the teachers left and the lights went off and the torches went on and his classmates turned into warriors, stamping their feet and banging on their thighs and pulling savage faces. Morris sat up wide eyed in his sleeping bag, pressed his back against the wall. You will not cry. You will not cry. You are fourteen years old and you will not cry.

  He pulled his comic close to his face. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and a voice said, ‘What a bunch of morons, hey?’

  It was James, the boy who was good at English. He was inviting Morris to join him and some other boys who were above this sort of bullshit in a cigarette outside.

  Outside. Morris hadn’t thought of going outside. He nodded and followed James.

  There were four others outside, sitting on their haunches close to the wall.

  One of them said, ‘You look pale. Have a cigarette.’

  Another said, ‘Of course he’s pale. It’s a stomach-turning scene in there. What would those idiots do if a real Maori soldier came along? They’d shit their pants, that’s what.’

  ‘There was an old Maori guy sitting round the back,’ said the boy with the cigarettes. ‘I bet he was a soldier. He asked for a fag and I gave him one.’ He paused, fiddled with his lighter. ‘I wonder how he knew I smoke.’

  ‘They can tell these things,’ said James, ‘’cause they’re more spiritual.’

  The boys considered this in silence, then the one with the cigarettes said, ‘So did you want a fag, Goldberg?’ And before Morris could answer said, ‘I’m not surprised you were put off by it, Goldberg, you being Jewish and all.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said James, ‘Jews are really sensitive about racism and stuff.’

  ‘They make damn good soldiers. It’s in their blood,’ said another. ‘The Maoris, I mean.’

  ‘Um yes please,’ said Morris, ‘I would like a cigarette. Please.’

  He didn’t cough. No one laughed at him.

  Later, when boys were being disciplined, ‘Not only for the mess, not only for the noise, the nuisance, the wild behaviour. What are you? Savages? But for the dis-re-spect,’ Morris felt himself blushing with pride. He had not taken part in what he now knew to be racist mocking. He was Jewish, sensitive about such things. He had stayed outside, mature and superior. He had smoked a cigarette.

  James started greeting Morris after that, and the boy with the cigarettes asked him a few times if he’d be joining them for a fag at lunch, behind the changing sheds. Morris never went. They were clever boys. It wouldn’t take them long to see through him, to realise that he wasn’t being sensitive at all. He was scared.

  The hall of residence would be nothing like that. He’d pretty much have his own room. Morris knew that. But there would be the communal bathroom and communal dining room and, God help him, dances. Morris had heard stories of new boys being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night, being made to dress up in girls’ clothes, made to drink huge amounts of beer, being soaked in water, in flour, in feathers. The boys may be older but they would, underneath their beards and their pipes, still be waiting for the lights to go out and the torches to come on.

  It made much more sense for Morris to live at home. The local university offered all the courses he wanted.

  ‘It’s not the money, I hope,’ said Norman when Morris told him that he intended applying to the university in Wellington. ‘Canterbury offers engineering. There’s enough money for you to go there, or anywhere else.’

  Joan said, ‘I understand you don’t want to leave your mother. It’s good of you to think of her, but she understands, honestly she does.’

  Joan came forward as if to grab his cheeks. Don’t pull back, Morris, don’t pull back. But he did and she saw it and her hands looked like she was squeezing an invisible balloon, like she wanted it to pop.

  ‘We’re all so proud of you,’ she said, dropping the balloon. ‘Your mother is so proud of you. Going to university and all.’

  Norman phoned two days later. ‘Your mother and I have discussed it, and she’s decided … we’ve decided. She thinks you should go to Canterbury.’

  Norman didn’t ramble like Joan did when faced with Morris’s silence. He waited, quiet himself. Sometimes, behind the silence of the telephone, Morris could hear Joan instructing Norman in urgent tones. Tell him we’ll bring him a present next time we come. Ask him if he wants to bring a friend to Levin for the day on Saturday. Tell him we only want what’s best for him.

  Norman waited, and when Morris finally said, ‘I don’t want to. I want to stay here,’ Norman’s voice was sad. ‘I know you do.’

  Just that week, on television, Morris had seen a boy of about his age slam the phone down on his sister. A vase had fallen off the table, such was the violence of the boy’s anger. The phone was left dangling and Morris imagined that he could hear the sister calling through it to her brother.

  He could do that. He could walk away. He could leave N
orman gulping into the silence, Joan’s ‘Tell him the Smith boy, Brian, is going to Christchurch’ trapped in the cords that wound between their house and his own.

  But his mother was standing at the door looking at him, listening in. Later she said to him, ‘You’re going to Canterbury. I’m putting my foot down.’

  The next day at the bus stop Morris met an old man from the synagogue. The man said, ‘I hear you’re going to study at Canterbury. Mazel Tov.’

  His accent was so heavy that Morris had to lean forwards to hear what he said.

  ‘Mazel Tov,’ the man said again, louder this time.

  Morris gripped the slats on the bus-stop bench, and didn’t let go when the bus came.

  The old man looked back at him from the step and Morris shook his head. He’d sit there and shake his head at anyone who came near. He wouldn’t fight with them or slam telephones. He’d shake his head until they went away. They couldn’t make him go anywhere.

  He boarded the next bus. His mother would worry and phone Joan if he wasn’t home in time for dinner. He’d go home to save her embarrassment, but he wouldn’t be gracious about it.

  At dinner he told Pearl she shouldn’t go around telling everyone their business.

  She smoothed the serviette in her lap. ‘There’s no point in hiding from it. You are going. Don’t be petulant.’

  Morris slammed his bedroom door and turned the volume on his wireless way up loud. He didn’t come out of his room to say goodnight to his mother. In the morning he lay in his bed and listened to her getting ready for work. His blankets flattened him into the bed.

  Joan phoned. ‘I know you’re worrying about leaving your mother but you shouldn’t. She’ll be just fine. She’s an independent woman, Pearl. Independent and strong. She doesn’t want you worrying about her. She wants what’s best for you. We all do.’

  Norman phoned with the suggestion that they go out for lunch. ‘A celebration that my brilliant nephew has chosen to study engineering at Canterbury. A new French place has opened in Wellington. We’ll have something exotic and European.’