The Anna Papers

by Ellen Gilchrist

  “No, he’s all right. You can’t get there now. It’s too far away. We are here, Anna. This is where we are.” He smiled at her. He was wearing a brown plaid shirt, old blue work pants, lace-up boots. He held out his hands. They were on an island in the middle of a river. On the shores the life of man went on but on the island it was only Adam and she. “What will he think if I don’t go back?”

  “He will think he got what he deserved.” They went into the tent together and lay down and the darkness descended and the river began to rise.

  When she woke up the married man was sitting on the side of the bed looking at her. “Stop worshipping me,” she said and they giggled and got up and made thick black coffee and cinnamon toast and carried it out to the stone steps and ate breakfast watching the birds and squirrels and chipmunks. Rabbits sat on the lawn as if they owned the place. “This goddamn place is turning into a rabbit farm,” Anna said. “No one lived here for four years before I came back. There must be a warren under here with a hundred rabbit families. How did I end up running a rabbit, squirrel, chipmunk, jaybird refuge?”

  “Why would you leave here and go back to Charlotte? That’s the question. Why move into town? It’s not good to keep moving around.”

  “Because I need to be nearer to them. I have to have someone to love, so I’m going to try my family. Feel out the source. My sister Helen says I look for love in all the wrong places. Maybe she’s right. Besides, I have to make my peace with Daddy.”

  “I could stay in a house like this forever and never want to go anywhere else.” He leaned back on the steps. His arm was resting on a huge piece of limestone that Adam had struggled for days to move into place.

  “My young lover built these steps. When I thought that would get me over you.”

  “You’re outrageous.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m just trying to make you jealous.”

  “It’s working. Let’s see. Who have you told me about since I got here? The college president, the old boyfriend who’s a big game hunter, the dead husband, the young lover.” He drank his coffee. They leaned on the stone. Anna’s new pale peach nightshirt fell across her thighs. Her body was soft and naked and furious and hot.

  “You want to make love,” she said. “Or not?”

  On Monday morning Philip left to go back to New York and Anna was no different than before. No sadder or wiser. She packed a few moving crates, papers and books to take to Charlotte. At noon she called her editor in New York. She had been thinking about the dream.

  “I think I’ll do it,” she told him. “Write that book you thought up. The Tom Jones thing.”

  “Wonderful. What made you decide that?”

  “I don’t know. I had a dream. It seemed maybe I could learn something from it. I’m going home to Charlotte. Did I tell you that?”

  “Good, I’ve been worried about you. All alone in that house up there.”

  “When I get settled I’ll start the book. As soon as my hands are well.”

  “What’s wrong with your hands?”

  “Some allergy. Maybe to paper. It gets worse when I type. I thought I told you that.”

  “You’ve been sick all year.”

  “I have not. Why do you say that?”

  “You should see a doctor, Anna. Go get a checkup. You’ve had a series of things.”

  “There is nothing wrong with me. I think this skin thing is a nervous reaction. I mean, think about it, it gets worse when I type. Well, I could do this Tom Jones thing. It would be fun to try it.”

  “Listen, come up here and see us. We miss you.”

  “I think I’ll fall in love with you.”

  “Please don’t do that.”

  “I was only kidding. Well, I’ll send you some pages when I get something going.”

  “Anna, get a checkup.”

  “I might.” She hung up the phone and walked around the kitchen, dropping things in cartons, wrapping up pieces of pottery in kitchen towels, thinking about the book.

  I could do it. If I just started with the very first one and wrote it all down. If I started when I was eighteen and one night I let Danny Trunbadge stick his penis in the very opening of my vagina and he had an orgasm and then he stopped and we put our pants back on, we were in his car, it was graduation week, and he said, Anna, this could make you pregnant. We must get married. The next day he bought me a ring and I wore it all summer until I was sure I wasn’t going to have a baby. Then I gave it back.

  No, it started before that. It started with that blond boy in the tenth grade and every night for two weeks we went out and parked on a country road and he would rub my vagina through my underpants. Then he would stick his finger around the edge of my underpants and put his finger in my vagina. Oh, God, it felt so good. I never wanted to quit. The hours flew by. My wonderful little Victorian vagina. Oh, spring.

  Finally, one night he said to me, Anna, you touch me too, and I said, Of course not, and he said, Well, listen, if you think I’m going to keep coming out here night after night and rubbing your pussy without getting anything in return, you’re wrong. So that was the end of that until three years later when my brother’s roommate tried to rape me.

  Anna picked up the phone and called her editor back. “I’ll definitely do it,” she said. “I’ll definitely write it. It will be a kick.”

  “Get started then, and, Anna, see a doctor.”

  “I have all the doctors I can stand this year, thank you.”

  “Are you still seeing Philip?”

  “Only when I can’t help it.”

  “Well, I’ve got to go. People are waiting on me.”

  “I’ll send you some work soon. I may start writing about rivers.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. Goodbye. I’ll write all summer, then I’m going home to live.”

  There was one last thing Anna needed to do before she left for Charlotte. She needed to resolve the problem of Daniel’s daughter in Oklahoma, needed to clear it up, like an unpaid debt, she kept saying to herself. Only how could a child ever be a debt, she would reply, a child is the thing itself, the whole entire meaning of the tribe, nation, species, the branching out, the seed. The one thing that was denied to me that I can never forgive or understand. And now this girl appears on the horizon of my life, of the life of this family, and we all just sit here and don’t do a goddamn thing, as if another child is nothing in a family with so many children and generations. But this girl is something brand-new, a whole new set of genetic materials mixed with ours, genes that may have come across the Bering Straits thousands of years ago, genes from Asia. But that is meaningless, all of that is nothing. The real thing is that here is a child for me, this one could be mine and I am doing nothing about it. It’s up. to me to force this issue, or else, why am I thinking about it all the time, and why is that letter she wrote to me still lying on my desk, why don’t I put that letter away? What am I waiting for? Daniel? I am waiting for Daniel to do it and it’s clear he isn’t going to. He won’t even talk about it when I call him. He evades the issue. He pretends it isn’t true.

  Finally, on a day in August, Anna went for a long walk and came to rest beside a stream that ran along the southern boundary of her property. It was a gay little stream called the East Lurie by folks in those parts. The stream was unusually high for this time of year, pouring down a fall of gray rocks beside the place where Anna had stopped to lean against a tree.

  She was talking to herself, arguing her points. I will call him again this afternoon, she decided, and tell him I am going to do it. I’ll say, Daniel, enough is enough. We have to go and see your daughter. If you don’t want her, I do. I want her. I am going to go get her and bring her home. I love her. I love the idea of her. It’s done, Daniel. I’m going to do it and you can’t stop me. Please don’t stop me.

  Anna lifted her head. An oriole was preening itself on a branch above her. It all seemed so simple, so easy to do the simple fearless human thing. Get on a plan
e and go and see the girl. A girl who made straight A’s. A gene carrier par excellence. A face that stared out of the photograph that looked exactly like her own. Olivia. Olivia Hand. Anna watched the oriole and the light on the water. She lay her hands upon her groin and felt the old remorse and then the emptiness was gone and she was filled with elation instead, the absolute clarity of believing she knew what to do.

  When she got home she called her brother Daniel and told him. “I’m coming home to live,” she said. “Did Momma tell you?”

  “We’re glad, Sister. We want to have you here.”

  “Daniel.”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to know Jessie. That’s why I’m coming home. I need her to fill out my life. Helen’s and James’s children, too, of course, but especially Jessie, because she’s yours.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. She loves you. She’s right here, you want to talk to her?”

  “In a moment. Daniel, there is something else I want to do.”

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “I want to go to Oklahoma and meet Olivia. I want to see her, Daniel. I want you to go with me, maybe Jessie too. We have to confront this. We can’t pretend this isn’t true.”

  “I can’t do that right now, Sister.” She felt his voice change. Of all her brothers and sisters Daniel was the one she understood most. Daniel was so spoiled he never bothered to mask an emotion. “Don’t mess into this, Anna,” he said. “That is my problem out there in Oklahoma and if something needs to be done about it, I’ll do it.”

  “It’s our problem, Daniel. It belongs to our family. She’s my niece as much as she is your daughter. She is carrying my genes, the same as Jessie.”

  “What makes you so sure she’s mine? I don’t know where Summer went when she left here without telling anyone where she was going.”

  “I’m going to go find out. Besides, have you looked at that photograph I sent you?”

  “They sent me one.”

  “She wrote to you again? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “She’s written three times. I’m the one she wants to see, Sister, not you.”

  “Then let’s go. It’s time to go. We should have gone the minute she wrote to us. What does she think? What must she think that her own family won’t come to see her and won’t know her? She’s your child. My God, Daniel. I can’t believe you’re acting like this.”

  “I don’t want to go opening up a can of worms. I’m up to my ass in problems this year, Sister. I’m about to lose the business and I’ve got my hands full with Jessie. I don’t need anything else right now.”

  “Then I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you.”

  “Don’t do it, Anna.”

  “Well, I’m going to.” She could hear him breathing, getting mad, the thing that used to bring on the asthma and drive them all insane with fear when he was small, when he was a little towheaded boy they all adored. “Daniel,” she said.

  “I can’t talk about it anymore right now. Jessie just came in. I’ll call you back in a minute. Don’t leave.” He hung up and Anna stalked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door and began to eat things. She ate three celery stalks and then half a carton of cottage cheese. Then she shut the refrigerator door and took a bottle of gin down from a shelf and poured herself a drink. She drank the gin while she thought of arguments to use on Daniel.

  When he called back she was ready. So was he.

  “I’m going out there, Daniel. I’m going to see this child.”

  “If you want a baby, go adopt one, Anna. Don’t go messing around in my life.”

  “It isn’t for me. It’s for her. It’s because she asked for us. She is asking for us, Daniel. She wants to know who else she is.”

  “You don’t know what she wants.”

  “I’m going to find out and I think you should go with me.”

  “Then go ahead, goddammit. Jesus, Anna, I don’t know if I want you moving down here or not”

  “I’m going. It’s our duty to go and meet her.” The line went quiet. There was not a sound. Maybe they dropped the bomb, Anna thought, then she said, “Daniel, are you there? Please don’t hang up on me again.”

  “I’m here.”

  “Well, say something.”

  “You want to talk to Jessie? She wants to talk to you.”

  “Daniel, don’t be mad about this.”

  “Don’t go out there, Anna. Here’s Jessie. She wants to talk to you.” There was the sound of the phone dropping on the counter, then footsteps, then Daniel’s daughter, Jessie, the beautiful outrageous clotheshorse and rotten spoiled only child of the youngest Hand brother, picked up the phone with her carefully manicured fingers and prepared to make sure that yet one more human being worshipped her. She had been the subject of a five-year court battle between her mother and father, with both families joined in the battle including both sets of grandparents and any family friends who could be stampeded into testifying that either or both parents were fit or unfit. In the end Jessie’s mother had gone off to London with her boyfriend and the Hands had retained custody of their youngest and most beautiful child. Jessie was now worth about two hundred thousand dollars in lawyers’ and court fees. When Daniel looked at her he thought she would have been worth ten times that price. Anything that might harm her in any way or alter the life he was attempting to achieve for her was a threat to Daniel, a threat to the years he had fought to keep her. The jewel in my crown, he called her. My only jewel. When he had received the letter from Olivia telling him that she was also in the world he had been terrified. All the letter meant to him was that there was something that might inconvenience or harm Jessie. He had held the letter in his hand, remembering Olivia’s mother, the violence and passion of her nature, remembering the knife she had carried in her backpack. He imagined Summer Deer, showing up suddenly in Charlotte, in her old hippie gear, armed to the teeth and ready to give some drugs to Jessie.

  Daniel picked the phone up from the counter. “Anna, don’t do this to me. Here’s Jessie, she wants to talk to you.”

  “I’m going out there, Daniel. I have to go.”

  “Then to hell with you. You always do anything you like, don’t you, Anna. Because you’re the only person on the planet that matters. Right. Here’s Jessie, she’s waiting.” The phone rattled. Then the voice of Anna’s youngest niece came on the line.

  “Aunt Anna, it’s me.”

  “Angel, I adore you. I’m coming home to hear you play the piano every minute of the night and day.”

  “When can you get here?”

  “Next week or the week after that. I have to drive and bring a bunch of junk in the car. Maybe I’ll throw most of it away.”

  “Are you bringing your piano?”

  “Of course. My little spinet.”

  “I have to go to school now. I’ll see you when you get here. Hurry up!”

  “As fast as I can. I can’t wait to be there. It’s the best idea I’ve had in ages.”

  “Why did you have it?” Jessie asked. The question surprised Anna. “Oh, honey, because I’m lonely,” she answered. “I’m so tired of being alone.”

  “We’ll have a good time,” Jessie said. “There’s lots to do here.”

  Anna hung the phone up, then stood with her hand on it, thinking of them, her wild barbarous family, their passions, rivalries, obsessions. I will never write another word if I am around them, she decided. Well, what the hell, I’ve written all the books I need to write. I can live literature and drama as they do. Who will I be in Charlotte this year? What role will I get to play? The one who found the lost sheep? The one who went to Oklahoma and brought them back a child they don’t have any use for? Little Mother Superior, imposing my will on them as usual. Maybe I should go back to New York instead. Be Philip’s mistress. Get laid on Wednesday afternoons like a good American working girl. To hell with it. This hasn’t got a thing to do with that. This is real life. This is a child who carries my DNA in every cell in her body and I am
going to go and see her tomorrow morning if they have a plane.

  Anna walked across the room. Turned on the stereo. Joshua Rifkin playing Scott Joplin filled the little wooden and glass house. The early morning light was everywhere, reflecting on the panels and windows and the copper pots and ferns. Anna called the airport, then she called a number in Oklahoma and a woman’s voice answered and then a girl’s.

  “I’d like to come and see you tomorrow if I may,” she said. “I think it’s time for us to know each other. I am dying to see you, to tell the truth. Could someone come and get me tomorrow if I flew to Tulsa?”

  “Oh, yes. My aunt and I can come. Oh, Aunt Anna. I will love it so much if you come here. Will my father come with you?”

  “He can’t right now, Olivia. His business is in trouble and he can’t get away. But I’ll be there. You’ll have to start with me.” Anna closed her eyes, called up everything she knew about Daniel, his sweetness, tenderness, honor, dignity. How unlike him to be afraid of life, afraid to know his own child. It was incomprehensible.

  “What time can you come?” Olivia asked.

  “I have a reservation on a plane that gets to Tulsa at two twenty tomorrow afternoon. United Airlines flight four forty-three. Listen, I look like my pictures and I’ll have on a navy blue skirt and a khaki jacket.”

  “I’ll know who you are. I bet I could tell no matter what you’re wearing. How will you know it’s me?”

  “I’ll know,” Anna said. She pictured the child with a whole tribe of Cherokee Indians surrounding her. “Oh, honey, I can’t wait to get there and see you. What an adventure you are for me.”

  “We’ll be waiting,” the girl’s voice said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Anna hung up the phone and began running the peeling ends of her fingers across her blouse, making small tears in the silk, oblivious of the skin on her fingers or the damage she was doing to the blouse. She was thinking of the sequence of events that had led to this moment.

  In the spring of 1968, her brother Daniel was twenty years old and living in San Francisco smoking dope and trying to learn to be a hippie. He was a terrible hippie. He was too neat for the job. No matter how stoned he got he still kept getting up and emptying the ashtrays and washing out the Coca-Cola bottles. He had only been in San Francisco a few weeks when he fell in love with an eighteen-year-old girl with a braid of black hair that reached her waist. Her name was Summer Deer. It was not a hippie name, as Daniel thought at first. She was a Cherokee Indian and her grandfather was an elder of the Cherokee Nation. Like her counterparts all over the United States, like Daniel himself, she had run away to join the flower children, dreaming of a new world and perfect freedom. Six hours after they met Summer Deer and Daniel were in her room smoking Arkansas Razorbud marijuana and making love on a pallet of hand-loomed blankets. A month later they were married, in a wedding ceremony in Golden Gate Park attended by fourteen of their friends and several hundred other people that neither of them knew. For a wedding trip they spent six days taking hits of lysergic acid diethylamide. When they woke up from this weirdness, Daniel was scared. His years as a law-abiding child came back to haunt him and he called home for money to fly to Charlotte with his bride.