Silent Bird

by Reina Lisa Menasche

  Even geographically?

  I had used France as a hiding place. I had kept my vision so very close to the ground. Meanwhile, nearby in Italy, the most beautiful, inspiring art in the world waited to be explored.

  Michelangelo’s David.

  The Sistine Chapel.

  What might I learn from seeing those classic works in real life? Would there be something else I could draw for myself? Some other past that was starting today?

  Because no matter what happened in the long run between Jeannot and me, I had to leave him for a while. I had to visit those other places, those special places, whether it meant I left my footprints all over the world or not.

  I had to go home, too. If I wanted peace, I needed to return to New York and see Mom and Grandma.

  But first I had to get back to Montpellier in one piece.

  In Monique’s car.

  III

  “A relationship is not a game, Pilar!” Monique said in English, sweetly lecturing me, as usual.

  We were at the farmer’s market on her street, after I’d handed back her sweaty car keys and told her about my intention to leave France. In other words Monique took my news in her usual fashion: by giving me a loving and uninvited lecture.

  “You know why I am saying this, yes?” she said.

  “No,” I said.

  I watched her select cantaloupe the size of bowling balls, tomatoes as shapely as pumpkins. She switched to French while squeezing avocadoes.

  “I believe that love is a kind of fishing game. You have this game for children in America? ‘To Fish’?”

  “I remember a game with a small fishing rod where you have to catch these little plastic fish on a rotating thing.”

  “Yes! In my opinion, you and Jeannot must catch this little fish.”

  Who wants their relationship to be compared to a toy? “Please, Monique, skip the metaphors. Why don’t you just say what you mean?”

  She wrinkled her brow. Then she shrugged. “I mean this. I am happy that you explained to Jeannot the problem with his family and your family. But a little truth may not be enough.”

  Annoyed, I gazed into Monique’s eyes. Her kind, patient eyes. How did she know me so well, dammit? “You’re a good friend,” I said.

  “I know.” She smiled. “And our love is simple, yes? Too bad romantic love is not. Do you want to hear my theory about romantic love?”

  “Only if it doesn’t involve fishing.”

  “Stage Two of Love is a troubling time,” she continued firmly, as if pronouncing gospel.

  “Stage Two?”

  “Yes. That is when we can call it intimacy. Before that it is only hope.”

  Hope for what?

  “You see, the ostrich pulls its head out of the sand, and you have a human being in front of you. Like when you first met Jeannot. You said he was perfect, yes?”

  I made a face. That, of course, did not stop her.

  “Love must not be a story of fear. This is true for me too. Love is never perfect. It is not an Ingres in a museum. It is a finger-painting, precious because it belongs to your child and is on your refrigerator. It is all yours, tout simplement.”

  Did people really talk like this? With examples from the art museum?

  “What are you going to do? About Louis?” I asked.

  “I have a plan to make my marriage work. First I will get to the bottom of what happened to us. What happened to him, and what happened to me, because it takes two to make this love work. Once I know why he did what he did, what my part is and especially what we have learned from it, I will decide.”

  “That sounds so…rational.”

  “Yes, perhaps. In times of trouble we must think with the head, not the heart.”

  She hadn’t mentioned thinking with one’s genitals, which I suspected Louis had been doing all along.

  “And,” she went on, “while my husband and I solve our problem, he will sleep on the couch. This way we will not confuse sex with trust.”

  “Have you told him that?”

  “Yes, of course. I do not play games. I wish to face life and live it to its fullest, with or without Louis.” Her voice suddenly cracked and she released the avocado she was crushing. Just one moment of despair before she straightened her shoulders and composed her face, and flashed me a brave, if weary, smile.

  She was amazing. I wanted to learn from her, though of course she had never walked in my shoes.

  “What would you do,” I asked suddenly, “if you had to tell your mother something that would crush her more than anything else ever has? Would you play just a little bit of a game then or would you take the risk of destroying all the family you’ve got left?”

  IV

  To my surprise my mother answered the phone immediately, sleep stuck like a chicken bone in her voice. “Hello? Who’s this?”

  “Mom. It’s me.”

  “Pilar! Thank goodness. Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Sorry I’ve been out of touch.”

  “My God, I’ve been worried sick.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. How’s Grandma?”

  “Not good,” she said in a hushed voice, as if Grandma were in the house and not deaf. “Not good at all. You know.”

  Yes, I knew. Damn it, I did know. Which was another reason I had to go home. I needed to say goodbye. To let go…

  “Has she been able to read my letters? Does she ask for me?”

  “She doesn’t ask for anyone, honey. She barely recognizes me most of the time. Her memory goes in and out, but mostly out. And she’s always sleeping.”

  “But she got my letters?”

  “Yes, I made sure to read them to her. Whether she could hear me or not.”

  “Thank you. Thank you for doing that.”

  “Are you crying?” she asked.

  How could just talking to her for two minutes do this to me? Grief washed over me like a tsunami. “I miss you, and I miss her.”

  “I miss you too, honey. But Grandma…she’s not really there anymore. She’s healthy otherwise, for her age. That just makes it…harder.”

  Mom paused. I didn’t say anything.

  “Honey, are you okay?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. I mean, I will be fine.”

  “What in the world is going on over there? You haven’t told me anything. And you don’t sound a bit all right. Are you sick?”

  “No.”

  “You’re eating?”

  “I’m eating!” It’s France, right? How can I not eat? “It’s just that…you were right, what you said before I left. That I was looking for my own shadow. You knew. And I didn’t listen—”

  “Tell me the story from the beginning. We haven’t talked in so long.”

  I took a deep breath. “You know about Jeannot.”

  “Yes. It’s serious?”

  “Very. He’s wonderful, but…we have problems. I…don’t like his family. His father or his uncle or his cousin. Though he’s the only one I’d be marrying.”

  “Did you say marrying?”

  Oops, neglected to mention that! “Yes. He asked me to marry him on our three month anniversary.”

  “Your three month…?”

  “That doesn’t matter. I want to be his wife, Mom. I feel like his wife already. I love him and always will. But there are so many problems—”

  “Marriage means you would have to stay there. In France. Unless he comes here. Is that what you’re thinking? To bring this man home?”

  I sat down at the kitchen table. Hard.

  “I don’t know. Things are very confused right now. I guess I have been sick, just not how you think.”

  “You probably aren’t eating. You taking vitamins?”

  My mother—God bless her—had trouble thinking beyond colds and flus, fiber, orange juice, vitamins. She could warn me against running away to this country but couldn’t accept the fact that I might be having a nervous breakdown.

  If nerves even break down. Wasn’t that an old-fashioned id
ea, like having the vapors or melancholia? I still functioned well enough when necessary. I always had.

  “I’m homesick,” I said. “And you were right, I miss bagels.”

  My mother snorted. She sounded like Grandma.

  “I guess I just don’t know whether all of this—my life in France—is an ending or a beginning.”

  I wished I could describe for my mother everything else I felt about this country. How I loved the open spaces between cities, suburbs dropping away like petticoats to reveal the fields and canals and vineyards and swamps. How the very air was different, and deeply entwined with my relationship with Jeannot and Monique. How I still felt awed by Montpellier’s scent of sunbaked stone, the city’s impossible mixture of twelfth-century architecture with people on roller blades, the daring Italian heels and French hairstyles blending with shirts sporting the American flag and baseball caps worn backwards.

  And the French language too, just as improbable but gloriously attainable if you submitted to its calisthenics of the mouth. How had I come to love French when it still drove me crazy?

  “Oh, Honey. Can’t you please come home for a while?” my mother pleaded, her voice suddenly raw and emotional. “We can figure this out so much better in person.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to say. I do want to come home. For a while. I’d like us to spend more time together…and talk.”

  “Okay, great.” Her voice changed again, took heart and control. “When?”

  “Soon. I have to make arrangements, buy my ticket. Get organized.”

  “You have enough money? Should I send some?”

  “No. I…haven’t spent much. I’ll call you with specifics. Soon.”

  “Good. I’m so glad, sweetie. I’ve missed you terribly. You can’t imagine—”

  “There is one other thing,” I said, interrupting her. “I’m thinking of traveling around Europe a little more before I leave. I’d like to see Italy at least, maybe even Rhodes, like I told you and Grandma.”

  “Good God, Pilar. Really? At this point? Grandma doesn’t care about that. Isn’t France enough?”

  I rolled my eyes—not that she could see. “It’s the art, Mom. Art and history. I came to France because of our past, but art is my future.”

  “What? You went to France because of what past?”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. But not on the phone. Okay?”

  “New York has plenty of art. What’s wrong with New York?”

  “I’ll finish doing a few things here, then I’ll travel a little, and come home.”

  “I don’t like the idea of your running anywhere else in this—this state you’re in.”

  “I’m not in a state.” I paused. “I know something wonderful will come from all this. I’ll make it wonderful.”

  “Shhh, don’t say that. Don’t tempt the fates.” She fell silent. Then: “You’ll look for a job when you get back? On Long Island, I mean?”

  “I guess. After a town like Montpellier, I’m not ready to live in the Manhattan.”

  “Good, because you'd probably get mugged there,” my mother said.

  Since she was sounding like her old self again, I figured it was safe to end the phone call. She wasn’t finished, though.

  “In the meantime, until you’re home again, get some rest and make sure you eat right, okay Pilar? I read an article that says that changes in diet—fewer fruits and vegetables over the last fifty years—may be responsible for the rise in mental illness…”

  What a conundrum it would be, getting closer to her and keeping my distance at the same time. Because the moment we finally hung up, I was already worn out from talking to my mother. I grabbed a bag of carrots out of the refrigerator, carted it into the bedroom, and ate every single one. When the bag was empty, I sat on the edge of the bed. Strange how words cross decades! The same prayer crooned at me in Grandma’s native tongue from that same hidden place that had now met open air:

  If he is a man, he should not lose his name.

  If she is a woman, she should not lose her knowledge.

  If it is a silent bird, God will help him.

  All the evil eye, all the stares, the pain, and the evil eye

  All will go to the bottom of the sea...

  V

  Time, then, to begin to pack.

  Hopefully Jeannot would come home very soon so I could explain all this. I wanted to break the news of my departure as gently as possible, if that was possible. In the meantime I had to at least try to pack; to take action and make my intention real.

  Hard to believe, but my suitcase still dangled destination labels, like evidence that I’d never really settled in, never admitted to residing here. I began throwing in clothes, both sexy and shabby, without a backwards glance. That was the easy part.

  Next I gathered my books and unframed artwork—I’d leave the framed ones for Jeannot, if he still wanted them—and finally my mementos from New York.

  Ironically, this part hurt so badly I had to stop, take a breath and drink some water. Settling myself on the floor in the bedroom, I opened the blue photo album that would go inside my carry-on bag where it had been since the day I’d left the hotel. Oh yes. Immediately the memories came flooding back. Here was TAG doing an imitation of his grandfather’s Irish jig. And an adolescent Jane, holding up a Budweiser can. Plus another kid from the Piddles: a wiry string bean of a boy who had once terrified me because he had seen me with the biology teacher.

  Piddles...yesh! What a silly name. And how long ago it seemed! Our clothes looked rumpled, careless, our faces bright and eager. Even mine as I sat there on TAG’s lap, grinning as if I’d won a million bucks.

  If I tried, I could still feel the delicious, heady sensation of walking down Main Street and turning into the narrow driveway that led to the dentist’s—Dr. Piddle’s—littered stoop. The place where TAG, the well-liked Asshole-in-Chief, cradled his queen.

  So what if he’d beheaded me later on? At least for a while I had experienced being a queen: with TAG, and with Tommy, and later on with Jeannot too.

  Now I needed to feel good by myself.

  “He was just using you, that boy,” my mother had lamented after TAG and I broke up. “A king with poisoned treasure, like Grandma says!”

  You should know about poisoned treasure, I wanted to tell her. Instead I defended TAG by explaining how, for a short time, he’d helped me feel clean.

  “Clean?” She seized my words but not my meaning—never my meaning. “You need sex with a boy to help you feel clean?”

  I got to my feet and went to the balcony cradling the little blue photo album like a baby. I pulled the photo of TAG and me out of the album and held it over the empty space of sweet air above the garden.

  “Goodbye,” I said, wagging the picture.

  It drifted out of my fingers, floating down gracefully: a dying leaf.

  I felt good watching it go.

  “Goodbye,” I said a second time, blowing airy kisses and tossing down the grimmest photo of the bunch: the one of me taken shortly after my abortion, when I was so depressed and angry and swallowed too much Tylenol.

  “Goodbye,” I said a third time, tossing away the photo of Tommy in my dorm room, his hair tousled as if he’d just gotten out of bed. Our bed.

  Then I peered down at the small squares of white raining onto the plants like child-sized drawings.

  Okay, so this was a dramatic gesture. No doubt it meant something profound—but mostly it seemed like littering. So I went down to the garden, picked up those old photos, shoved them carelessly back inside the album, and zipped up my bags.

  It was late, after ten o’clock.

  Please come home, I whispered to the chilling Mediterranean air. Please understand, Jeannot. Believe me.

  VI

  Sitting on the other side of the building, on the curb outside, I marveled again at how the daylight lingered so late….

  That was something else I would miss about France. Days he
re were stretched out of shape. In summer dusk came slowly, holding out, leaking through a deep golden light that couldn’t tell time. Wind gathered instead of heat, and things flapped: the umbrellas closed like fearful flowers above the cafe tables, loose ice cream wrappers, people's hair as they walked along with their arms hooked.

  In Montpellier, everyone seemed to be living outside. This would tug at me when I returned home. Would something, someone, from far away always tug at me? Maybe that was what Grandma meant by footprints all over the world.

  Sometimes during my time here, while wandering through the old city, I would turn a corner and stumble upon an age-stained street that glittered more than any neon light—because it was thronged with people. People lounging about, sculpted into doorframes or sitting on those bullet-shaped protuberances that line every street of the city in order to prevent cars from parking on the sidewalk.

  When I’d told Jeannot that the protuberances looked like street acne, he had laughed and said they were called piles, which was slang for “penises.” That was a long time ago when we had first become sexually intimate. He had delighted in talking about sex then, or joking about it—and I, who had no reason to be embarrassed, had felt embarrassed.

  This whole sex business still baffled me. Would it have been so wrong to laugh at cement penises lining the road? Would I ever feel free enough to play with sex yet respect, even revere, it?

  I hoped so.

  Maybe one day I would relish innocently sexy jokes and say whatever came into my mind: that some of the piles were big and some small, miniature even; and that la rue de la Loge, which was open only to pedestrians, the free downtown mini-bus, and le petit train for tourists had piles that lowered into the ground when a vehicle needed to pass.

  That would be funny. I could say that to Jeannot, my lover.

  I stayed on the curb, still waiting, watching the world go by. And Jeannot drove up at exactly eleven o’clock, when the sky was finally fully dark and the moon a fragment of sharp glass.

  He veered into the street, rammed his car over the speed bumps that the French called “les gendarmesaccouché ”—”the sleeping policemen”—and stopped. He yanked the parking brake and got out. Saw me and halted, leaving his door open.