Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn

by Alice Mattison

  “She didn’t look different? You didn’t know until you touched her?”

  “She looked the same. The doctor said she had a heart attack in her sleep. You know her blood pressure wasn’t good. A stroke would have been worse. Sometimes people can’t talk. Or they’re paralyzed. Or the confusion—it would have gotten worse and worse. But it’s awful.” Marlene paused. “I loved her.”

  That was when she began talking about the funeral home and the burial. Then she said, “I can’t believe it’s all over. Just last night—she was maybe a little better. We watched television. She wanted to watch Dynasty and All in the Family. Before that, after dinner, there was an interview with Yasir Arafat. I was surprised she remembered who he was.” Soon after that, they’d hung up. Now Con listened to the recorded conversation once more, and didn’t erase it. She took a shower. In the shower she decided that maybe Marlene was right. Her mother was old. She was losing her mind. It was better to have it over with all at once. When she got out of the shower, she leaned naked on a towel—her mother’s towel—and wept with her face to the towel. How could this pink towel, frayed on both sides, have survived, while Gert—who no doubt had dragged it to the Laundromat in her shopping cart only a week ago—was dead? Con stood clutching the towel. Then she understood that the towel would have to be laundered again, and she was the one who would have to launder it, that the towel now belonged to her, or to her and Barbara—that she was responsible for everything in the apartment. For a second she felt a certain elation, as if there might be treasure. Then came dread of the work, the time it would take. Then she found herself planning to explain to her mother that there was no way she could do it quickly, that she’d have to keep the apartment for a few months and come for weekends when she could, to sort and clean, that her mother would just have to understand that. But her mother was dead. Con had to tell Barbara that their mother was dead. She called, but got no answer and didn’t leave a message. She didn’t want to deal with any more answering machines. It was intolerable not even to know until after the sixth ring whether she would have to deliver this news immediately or not. Again she was trapped in her mother’s house, but in a different way.

  She should call Jerry and Joanna. She postponed that.

  By now it was noon on the first day Con had no mother. She had had nothing to eat. Deliberately, with an emphasis she recognized as Gert’s—an effort to stay clear—she made herself a cup of coffee and some toast. She ate a little, and then called the motel. Joanna answered. She’d have to do to Joanna what Marlene had done to her. “Joanna, honey, I have to tell you bad news,” she said.

  “Something happened to Grandma?” said Joanna.

  “How did you know?”

  “I figured,” said Joanna. “Is she dead?”

  “Yes. She had a heart attack at Marlene’s house.” There was a long silence.

  “Are you all right?” said Con.

  “Did Marlene call you?”

  Con told her the story. “Where’s Dad?”

  “He’s coming,” said Joanna. “We went out for breakfast. I went ahead to the room. I hate it here. What he’s doing has nothing to do with history, it’s just being in a motel. Do we have to go to Rochester for the funeral?”

  Con didn’t know what to do about a funeral. Her mother had not been religious. “No. We’ll do something in Brooklyn,” she said, improvising. Barbara would come. She would know what to do.

  “I’ll tell Dad,” Joanna said. “That way you don’t have to tell him.”

  It was the first moment of kindness since Marlene’s announcement, and it made Con cry. She cried for a while and thought she heard Joanna crying too. Then she said good-bye and hung up and tried Barbara again. “I was going to call you,” said her sister.

  “I have to tell you something,” said Con. After this call she could go to bed again.

  After Barbara cried, the sisters told each other a few of the familiar truths about the deaths of mothers. Barbara said she’d come, and they’d figure out something to do. A Jewish funeral would be nice. “Or maybe a Jewish memorial service?” she said. “Have her cremated.”

  “I should have her cremated?”

  “Yes, if she’s cremated we can’t have a real Jewish funeral, so that will take care of that. We’ll make up something sort of Jewish, instead of having to do the real thing.”

  “I should call the funeral home and tell them to cremate her?”

  “Can’t you do that?” said Barbara.

  “I don’t know the name of it.”

  “Marlene knows.”

  “I don’t want to call her,” said Con, and she thought about the money Marlene had taken from her mother during the war.

  Barbara said, “Should I call her?”

  “From London? I’ll call her.”

  Which meant there was more to do. She called Marlene, said she was having her mother cremated, and called the funeral home. Marlene approved of cremation, but the man at the funeral home was difficult, first about cremation and then about money. It was awkward, he said, because there was no contract. Mrs. Tepper had not made her wishes known. If she had come in and talked to them, they could have worked it all out. It would not have been necessary to pay all at once.

  “She didn’t plan to die in Rochester,” said Con. She was sure her mother had not made an arrangement with a funeral home in Brooklyn either. “Do you have an arrangement with a funeral home? I don’t.”

  “As a matter of fact I do, with this one, but it’s simpler because I work here,” said the man. “I do understand. Now—” Con would have to get a death certificate. She would have to…Suddenly she was responsible for money again, and still didn’t have a credit card, and still wasn’t home. At that point she began to sob and apparently that was what was required. The man said he’d get the death certificate himself and cremate Mrs. Tepper and wait for his money.

  At last Con went to bed in her clothes, and lay under the covers, looking up at different light—afternoon light—as it came through the window, partly obstructed by a building. After a while, she might get up and have soup. Her mother had laid in so much canned soup that Con suddenly realized soup was her legacy. She could stay here, rising only to eat canned soup, for weeks and months. Or maybe she shouldn’t touch it until her mother’s will was probated, and this idea struck her as so funny she laughed, which enabled her to cry a little more.

  It was Friday, but her mother was not coming on Saturday. What would she do with the chicken? And what would she do with the cat? Did she have to live here?

  The phone rang again and it didn’t occur to Con to let it ring. She picked up the receiver. “This is Mabel,” said the voice on the line. “Is this Constance or her mother?”

  “This is Constance. My mother—well, this is Constance.”

  There was a pause. “What is it?” said Con.

  “You told me to call you today.”

  Con tried to remember and then she did. To keep the house from being closed down, she’d have to file an appeal by Monday.

  “Is there something I should do with that paper?” said Mabel. “Should I call somebody?”

  “I should do it,” Con said. She was interested to see that the part of herself that could have this conversation was still present. If Joanna had died, she found herself thinking, she couldn’t have spoken like this.

  Again Mabel was silent. Con didn’t know how she could file this appeal from Brooklyn. She didn’t want to involve Sarah, who already thought she was incompetent. Then she found herself explaining to Mabel how very small the chance was that an appeal could work, and she understood that she didn’t want to involve Sarah because she didn’t agree with Sarah. Mabel was all right, but she wouldn’t know how to make this house and these women seem more presentable.

  “But we’re doing so well,” Mabel said. Her voice was hushed, and Con could tell that this was the first moment that she believed the house might actually be shut down.

  “Even now, it’s
hard,” Con said. “It will get harder.”

  “You mean I should give up?” said Mabel. “I thought you’d talk me out of giving up.”

  “Do you want to give up?” Con said, conscious that she was doing something wrong, but unable to stop.

  “Sort of,” said Mabel. “My boyfriend thinks I should give up. He always thought this was a little crazy. He wants us to move to California and do something different.”

  “Do you want to think about it?” Con said. She knew she’d persuaded Mabel—or she’d let Mabel see what was realistic. Maybe it wasn’t so wrong. “We can negotiate and get you a few weeks, I’m sure,” Con said, and she thought to herself that a few weeks would not help the women who lived in the house. They would not make it. Some of them wouldn’t make it even with the house, but without it, they’d all be back on the streets, or back in jail, quite soon. She knew this. But maybe there was nothing she could do about it. She’d ask Sarah to take over and negotiate a little time for the house to be closed and the women to look for other places to live. Maybe Sarah could get a few months, not just a few weeks. That would keep Sarah busy and it might even make her happy. Con considered how easy it would be to let that deadline go. In a week or so, she’d tell Sarah about her mother, and could imply that she didn’t know about the deadline until it was too late. That was almost true. She and Mabel talked for a while longer, but Con sensed that a decision had been made. After a while she realized she had not heard anything Mabel had said for a while. But she felt better. Maybe she’d quit this job and never try anything hard again. When she was tired of lying in her mother’s bed, she’d get a stupid and simple job, working with objects that would stay where she put them. They hung up and Con slept.

  When she awoke it was dark. She couldn’t remember what day or time it was, but she was hungry. Should she finally cook the meat sauce? She didn’t want canned soup after all. As she lay where she was, she saw her life stretched before her. You eat a specific number of meals, and then you eat your last meal, and then you die. After supper, she’d be that much closer to death; you always moved closer, never further away. She didn’t want to think that this darkness would give way to light, because another piece of her life would be gone—this life that didn’t feel particularly terrific right now but was better than death. At times all her life, Con had known how it felt to be her mother, known from inside, because their bones had the same shape. Now she almost knew what it was to die.

  Con wished she knew what Gert had eaten for supper the night before, but didn’t think she’d ask Marlene. Had there been dessert? Probably not; Marlene was thin, weight-conscious. If Gert had a visitor for a week, she’d put in a supply of desserts, but Marlene didn’t think that way. They’d watched, of all things, an interview with Yasir Arafat, and Con tried to decide what her mother might have thought about that. She pictured her looking at the TV, silent, trying to remember who he was.

  Con’s mother had brushed her teeth, put on her nightgown. Gert’s innocence, as she did these things, assuming she’d do them again, was heartbreaking. Often, Gert had thought others were foolish, and Con hated to think of her mother made a fool by death, going about her business as if it weren’t waiting for her, just as Con had foolishly gone abut her business, that first night, as if the back door weren’t unlocked.

  If Gert had lived, she might have become too confused to derive satisfaction from life, but that time had not come, and Marlene was wrong if she thought it had. Of course, Marlene had not claimed that Gert had died at the best possible moment, only that this was better than years of suffering. And maybe that was so.

  Again, Con couldn’t seem to get herself out of bed. It got later and later and she grew more and more hungry. Finally, she got as far as the table and sat there for a while, but it was stupidly dark. She stood and put on lights. Then she went into the kitchen and cooked meat sauce. She filled a pot with water and cooked spaghetti. While it cooked she poured some sherry. All week, she’d been careful not to drink too much of it. Her mother, who hardly drank at all, wouldn’t have begrudged Con the sherry, but she might have thought Con was an alcoholic if the level of the bottle had gone down noticeably. Con was pretty sure her mother would never drink alone, and had kept the sherry for company. Now there was no reason not to drink it up. Con drank and ate.

  There was also no reason to be here. Or she now owned Sandy the cat and must stay forever. Again, she had forgotten to feed him. He emerged from hiding when she opened a can of food. After he ate, she held him for a while.

  She hadn’t been outside all day and now it was evening. She didn’t know what had happened in the world. She turned on the news. There were photographs of demonstrations in China. Thousands of people marched, and thousands more filled the main square in Beijing. The next story, once again, was about the oil spill in Alaska. Investigators were still trying to figure out why the Exxon Valdez ran aground. Con imagined discussing this news with her mother. How frustrated Con would have been, explaining over and over what the Exxon Valdez was and why it mattered, what was happening in China. Her mother, she decided, would have understood the news from China. She’d have liked this news—the faraway place, the excited, hopeful crowds.

  Chapter 4

  Waiting for the check and fortune cookies with her daughter and former husband, Con studied Jerry. His light brown skin looked young, and his eyes had the same ironic alertness that had attracted her the first time she saw him, the same delight in the great adventure of being Jerry Elias that had charmed and infuriated her, by turns, when they were married. Jerry thought almost everything was just slightly funny, and rejoiced in doing so. The check arrived and he reached for it. Jerry liked nice things, and she saw that he had a new leather wallet.

  “Did someone buy you that?” she said. She hadn’t heard about a girlfriend for years.

  “The last time I went to see him,” Joanna said, “his wallet was worn out. I saw this in a store and I sent it.”

  Con was jealous when Jerry and Joanna spent time together. The wallet was sleek and smooth, minimal. Con would have chosen something chunky and folksy, and Jerry wouldn’t have liked it as much.

  Orange sections had come with the cookies and Joanna ate them. Only Con took her cookie. She read the fortune aloud—“You will receive a surprise”—and looked at her ex-husband and daughter. “Sorry,” said Joanna. “I bought only one wallet.”

  The walk home was quiet. Jerry carried the bag of leftovers. Fed, they were warmer and Joanna was kinder. After a block or two she dropped behind and soon they heard the rise and fall of her voice—intimate and exasperated—on her cell phone.

  “How does she afford that thing?” Con said.

  “I help,” Jerry said. “I’m doing all right. People expect to pay a consultant pretty well.”

  Their daughter caught up. “Could I have the leftovers?” she said.

  “You’re hungry?” said Jerry.

  “No—Barney hasn’t eaten.” She took the bag from her father and waved down a taxi a few minutes later. “I’ll stay over,” she said, and raised a friendly hand to her parents as she got in.

  “At least she’s not in jail,” Con said after a silence, as they walked.

  “And they dropped the charges,” Jerry said. “Still…” It was late; the streets had a late feel, with a few dogs out for a bedtime walk. Their owners waited impatiently, then stooped with a plastic bag or glanced around and kept walking. Jerry seemed to study a big shapeless black-and-white dog as it loped behind its owner, stopping to sniff. “Who do you think we should talk to?” he said.

  “I wish she hadn’t been drunk,” Con said again.

  “Con, I don’t think she was drunk. You can relax on that topic.”

  “She was in a bar. She was drinking. She has a history of drinking.”

  “She says she wasn’t drunk.”

  Con sighed. The dog and owner had gone around a corner. “Why am I the one who has to deal with this? Joanna’s an adult.”

/>   “Aren’t you pleased that she’s turned to you?” Jerry said. “And you’re a lawyer. But it’s a damn good case, and it would bring attention to the problem. Maybe wake up a few people who can’t seem to realize how different things are.”

  “Are things that different?” said Con.

  “Since Bush came in?”

  “There have always been bad guys. During the Vietnam War I couldn’t stand to read the paper.”

  They were silent for the last half block, their footsteps sounding on the sidewalk. Footsteps sounded different in winter. Then Jerry said, “It’s different. Blacks have an early-warning system.”

  “And you think Jews don’t?” said Con. Whenever they remembered they were a black and a Jew (sometimes they remembered they were two Jews) they’d either quarrel amiably or become silent together; one way or another, they were getting along. At such moments it seemed they had not been changed by divorce. Con’s two-year marriage to Fred seemed dreamlike. She remembered only details: they’d had an apartment with red linoleum on the kitchen counters. Fred, a bald man, had sung as he walked about the house. He sang well, but his songs were unconvincingly cheerful. He’d left her, but he’d said, “I’m doing this so you don’t have to work up to it,” and she had known—after a few days—that she’d been working up to it. Con had been his first wife. “What did he know?” she and Peggy had said.

  In Con’s apartment, they crowded into her little living room because Jerry wanted to look at the news. The Pentagon had announced that a covert force was hunting Saddam Hussein. Bush had requested that Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia make an effort to establish democratic institutions. “Do you mind if I turn this off?” Con said. She was half-sitting on the arm of the big gray chair. “I can’t stand it.”

  “I’m tired,” Jerry said, and his left arm stretched in her direction even as his right was fumbling for the remote. “Con,” he said. She moved close to him and tucked her head against his chest, so she felt his body’s sounds through her scalp. Then she put her arms around him for a moment because that still felt natural. She stepped back and pointed out the sofa where he’d sleep. When he’d visited before, he’d stayed in the room Joanna was using. Planning where she’d put Marlene—in that same room; Joanna would sleep on an inflatable mattress in Con’s study—she went to the linen closet in the hall and returned with sheets and towels, which she handed to Jerry. Then she said good night, stopped in her study to check her e-mail, and went into her bedroom.