“I’m funny?” I said and everyone laughed.
Isis read the first stage directions: “The windows of the room are shut, but through them the trees can be seen in blossom.” More laughter over Timo’s Yepihodov proposing to Carla’s Dooni-asha, as well as Yepihodov dropping or bumping into things, which Timo didn’t just read but stood to clown out. Then I had my first line as Charlotta, the German governess. “My dog actually eats nuts.”
They laughed again.
I had read the play once before, almost a year earlier, but remembered only the basic outline of the story—the orchard is going to auction in order to pay Liuba Ranyevskaia’s debts. I remembered Gayev’s speech to the bookshelf and when Pishchik swallows all of Liuba’s pills, and that everyone was in love, Trofimov and Ania, too, though Trofimov pretends to be above love. But I had forgotten about the dead child at the heart of the play, Liuba’s drowned son, the reason she fled Russia for Paris five years before.
By Act Two, we recognized the genius in the roles Isis had assigned us. Dieter, who was at first thrilled to play Lopakhin and be yearned for by Sonia’s Varia, began complaining. “He’s the biggest capitalist in the play!”
“But he’s also the only one talking sanely.”
“Look at me,” Timo said to console him. “I’m a couple of tools.”
“Still,” Dieter sniffed. “Why couldn’t I be Trofimov?”
It was true that Pascal didn’t do the character justice. When he stammered through his monologues, we imagined Pete. When he said, “One day all the things that are beyond our grasp at present are going to fall within our reach, only to achieve this we’ve got to work with all our might, to help the people who are seeking after truth,” when he said, “Don’t you see human beings gazing at you from every cherry tree in your orchard, from every leaf and every tree trunk, don’t you hear voices?” we heard Pete’s.
Isis read Liuba and Ania in two different voices, sometimes as a dialogue with herself. “I keep expecting,” she said in a strained voice, “something dreadful to happen . . .”
As Charlotta I had to perform conjuring tricks. I had to say out loud the words I often thought to myself, though less poetically. “I am so lonely, always so lonely, no one belongs to me, and . . . and who I am, what I exist for, nobody knows . . .” I had to take the cucumber out of my pocket and bite into it while everybody whooped.
We passed around the jug of wine and it had the intended effect. Pascal, as Trofimov, rose to his feet near the end of the play and, swaying like a tree (he had been glugging the stuff), declared he was a free man. “Humanity is advancing toward the highest truth—”
Sonia tried to shush him. “You don’t have to shout.”
“—the greatest happiness that is possible to achieve on earth—”
Dieter kicked off a Birkenstock and came at Pascal as though to shove it in his mouth.
Pascal: “—and I am in the van!”
At the mention of the vanguard, Pete, seemingly on cue, darted out from the side of the house and ran across the neighbour’s lawn straight for the red-hatted gnome. “No, Pete!” Sonia cried, which made us all turn and most of us laugh harder. Because when he seized it and pulled, it wouldn’t release. It was cemented in this time. “Go, go, go!” Pascal chanted. Pete pulled and pulled and his hair, lank from lack of washing, began to flap around his head with the fury of each tug. Unshaven, clothes filthy, he looked completely crazy. Finally the gnome capitulated, breaking off at the ankles, and Pete stumbled backward and almost fell. “Look,” Sonia groaned when he had absconded with it. Two pointed shoes, left behind in the flower bed, yellow and hollow, as though the gnome’s feet had merely slipped out of them.
Isis clapped her hands and demanded we finish the play. Lopakhin buys the orchard, engages Yepihodov to run it, then fails once more to propose to Varia. She leaves to take up a position as housekeeper on a nearby estate. Gayev gets a job in a bank, Liuba and Ania go back to Paris, taking Yasha. Pishchik’s financial problems are solved by the discovery of clay on his estate. And the old servant Freers, whose deafness adds so much comedy to the play, is left behind in the confusion. But was it a comedy or a tragedy? Though many of the lines were funny, the situation was sad, unbearably sad. “They were so deluded,” said Carla. “Over and over again Lop—what’s his name? Old Loppy tried to help them, but they wouldn’t listen. They just sank deeper.”
Dieter: “That’s how it is with the bourgeoisie.”
“It’s more than a critique of the bourgeoisie,” I said. “The whole world is our orchard. How are we going to save it?”
“We’re going to Seattle tomorrow,” Isis said.
And then we all went for a walk. Timo whispered to me going down the steps, “My dog actually eats nuts!” and I replied, “Fancy that!”
We reached one of the flowery streets where the wind had filled the gutters with drifts of petals. Cars, the tops of newspaper boxes—everything coated in pink snow. Pascal scooped up a handful and threw it in Sonia’s face. She retaliated, then all of us joined in, chasing each other between parked cars, hurling fistfuls. The wind gusted and the petals swirled and lifted like so many pink, materializing spirits.
“Did you know—” Carla said as we ducked together behind a car to avoid the next flowery assault, “—my dog actually eats nuts?”
A car forced us back onto the sidewalk and we abandoned the game. Sonia came up to me then. She was embarrassed too, I realized. “The ending gave me the willies, Jane.”
She meant the play, that sound coming as if out of the sky, like the sound of a string snapping, slowly and sadly dying away. Because we, too, were always waiting for a sound, which one it would be, we didn’t know—air raid siren, a lone plane, the imagined whine of an ICBM.
“Ah!”
“What?”
“You woke me up!”
This was when I woke up.
“Where were you?”
“In the garage. What?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m here now.”
“Your feet are cold.”
“Warm them.”
They fell silent, or at least too quiet for me to hear. I moved to the edge of the futon and peered down on Sonia’s dresser, where I could just make out the white teapot in the dark. Crawling partially off the mattress, I laid my head on the metal grate. Now I could hear a fainter sound. A moist one.
Then: “What?”
“You weren’t very nice to your mother.”
A sigh.
“In the play,” she said.
Pascal laughed and the kissing resumed, louder and wetter, before breaking off. He breathed his words, “I-think-you’re-so-pretty.”
I pictured her in all her prettiness, lying with me instead, me kissing her cherry mouth, the little pillows of her lips, so sweet. She parted them slightly and I felt her tongue brush against mine. It was so unexpected, I drew back in surprise.
Other sounds. Rustling. I kissed her sweet foot a thousand times.
“Did you like that?”
She told me: “Yes.”
He took back his inhalation. More kissing; small grunts now and sighs. I couldn’t picture it. They were shadows in the dark. Thank you, whispered. “Thank you for picking me.”
“Are you serious?” he said.
Her nightie was already around her neck. Now she tossed it on the floor and lay back, opening herself. “You remember what you promised?”
“Yeah.” He was fumbling with it, that much I could hear. Fumbling with the condom I’d helped her buy.
“What?”
“I’m taking the bus tomorrow.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. What?”
“You’re just a kid.”
“I’m almost seventeen. I know tons of guys who’ve already done it. Well, two.”
“I mean you shouldn’t be sick.”
“I’ll be dead here in a minute.” He eased himself on top of her.
“Ouch!”
“I haven’t even touched you yet.”
And then the sounds came faster, confusing, overlapping. A sharp intake of breath, a gasp of surprise or pain. I writhed with them, half in agony, but it was over in a minute. Breathless apologies gushed: “I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry. Too fast. What a tool.” “No, no. Never say that.” “You do like me, right?”
“I love you,” Sonia told him.
The pain in my ear. The whole side of my face incised with their words.
2004
Just after midnight I heard the back door open, then boots, possibly more than one pair. A minute later two voices confirmed this, their tone still angry, which struck me as troubling and odd. Something was going on, but if I went out there in my housecoat Joe Jr. would die on the spot. No matter what I wore, if I tried to pry it out of them they would only clamp tighter. At least they were home, I told myself.
They set upon the fridge and, afterward, stamped down to The Lair, where the volume came on low. Joe could sleep through the end of the world, and probably will, but after half an hour I couldn’t take the vibrations any longer. I got out of bed and went to call down to Joe Jr. from the top of the basement stairs. Sibilants were exchanged, the volume lowered, then he appeared at the bottom of the stairs looking contrite. “Sorry. We’ll keep it down.”
“It’s 12:30,” I said. “Where were you?”
“Just hanging.”
“You’ve got school tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“When’s Simon leaving?”
“He’s going to sleep here. Is that all right?”
“You’ve got school tomorrow.”
Joe Jr.: “We just went over that.”
“Okay,” I said. “But when are you planning on going to bed?”
“Now. We’ll go now. All right?” I could hear a pull in his voice, like he wanted to be sarcastic but also wanted to stay on my good side.
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“In my room.”
“What about Simon?”
“On a foamie.”
Under the painted bulb his hair and face looked pink. I hoped it was the light, not that he was poised to explode because, normally, he’s sweet-tempered, like his dad. “Okay,” I said. “Fine. But does his mother know?”
His mother, it turned out, did not.
“The cretins! That’s all we care about! We don’t give a fuck about his parents!”
“What cretins do you mean?” I asked Joe Jr.
“The Cretins! Our band!”
“Okay, okay,” said Joe, coming in from the kitchen, where he’d made hot chocolate, a clutch of steaming mugs in each hand. His bathrobe hung open showing, above the waistband of his boxers, most of his pale, doctorly stomach and chest. Poor Joe. He finally gets to sleep in and what happens? He’s up half the night in the ER of our house. I woke him as soon as I found out that the girl, the love interest, had never existed except in my mind. It was that other girl. The Big One. It was Mother Trouble.
“Dad’s almost got a gig set up,” Joe Jr. said. “A real one, not in some fucking garage. This is important. It’s so important.”
Simon, meanwhile, was practically fetal on his end of the couch, weeping silently.
Joe: “Don’t swear at your mother.”
“I didn’t swear at her.”
“Whatever. It isn’t nice.” He held out a mug to Joe Jr.
“No.”
“Take one.”
He did, with a huff, then Joe persuaded Simon to sit up and take his mug as well. I was so grateful for Joe’s presence, for the calm he exuded, his reasonableness, when it was all I could do not to knock the boys’ spikes together. Joe settled on the footstool on my side of the room and passed me my chocolate. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s start at the beginning.”
“Simon’s parents won’t let him be in the band!”
“Since when?”
“Since yesterday when he told them about Mom.”
I burned my tongue. Chocolate slopped onto my housecoat and I set the mug down. “What about Jane?” Joe asked, very, very carefully.
“That she was in that group when she was young.”
“Let Simon answer.”
Simon looked so miserable and pimply wiping his nose on his bare arm. “Joey showed me the article in the paper. I Googled her. Then I told my mom about it. I can’t believe I did that. It was so stupid!”
“They’re so straight!” Joe Jr. spat.
“I’m still not understanding,” Joe said. “The article didn’t even mention Jane.”
“She got 326 hits!”
Joe looked at me, eyebrows raised, holding in the smile. “A celebrity in our midst.”
“And she thinks! She said! ‘Joe’s mom’s a terrorist and you’re not going over there any more!’” This came out like bullets.
I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe anyone could be so dumb. I strained to picture this woman, this idiot, but couldn’t. She probably had no head. I thought: she lets him mutilate himself, but she won’t let him play guitar with my son? Which was, of course, unhelpful. No doubt there was a long, complicated story behind Simon’s grommetted earlobes.
“Jane wasn’t a terrorist,” Joe said. “She just fell in with the wrong people.”
“I didn’t!” I said. “It was all a mistake. And anyway, what were you back then?”
Joe laughed. “I was definitely the wrong person.”
“Would it help if I talked to her?” I offered Simon.
“No!”
Sighing, Joe turned to me. “What now?”
“We call them,” I said.
“No!” the boys screamed.
“We?” Joe said, appalled.
“Don’t call them. Mom. Let him stay here tonight.”
“Of course he can stay.” I rose from the chair. “But I’m going to call his parents and let them know he’s here.”
“No,” Simon moaned, curling over his mug.
Joe Jr.: “Fuck.”
Joe Sr.: “What did I say about that?”
From across the room, my son looked at me in a way that made me stop in my tracks. It was the kind of look you dread your whole life and, at that moment, I almost gave in. I almost did the wrong thing again. “Simon,” I asked. “What will happen to you if I phone your parents?”
“They won’t let him be in—”
I shushed Joe Jr. “Simon?”
“They’ll come and get me,” he muttered.
“And then what?”
“I’ll get grounded.”
“Just grounded? Are you sure?” I turned to Joe Jr. for confirmation but he refused to meet my eye. Satisfied that this was the truth, that a beating or reform school were unlikely consequences, I went back to the kitchen to get the phone. “Fuck!” said Joe Jr., coming after me, begging now. “Please, Mom. Don’t call them. We have it figured out.”
“What have you figured out?”
“He stays here tonight. Then he’ll go to the hostel tomorrow after we get his stuff. He can’t live there any more. He can’t stand them. He wants to be in the band.”
“I am not letting those people wonder all night where their child is! Do you understand me?”
I guess I screamed this because Joe Jr. blanched and returned to the living room. Then I had to go and ask for the phone number. Both boys were staring at the rug in seething silence, which Simon broke only to rattle off the numbers. I punched them in and went back to the kitchen so I wouldn’t have to talk to his parents in front of him. On the way out, Joe offered me an encouraging look and a shrug of utter helplessness to choose between.
A woman answered, cutting short the first ring, so I knew she’d been camped by the phone. “I’m sorry to be calling so late,” I told her. “This is Joey Norman’s mother, Jane Z—”
Before I’d even finished introducing myself, a man replaced her on the line. I told him what I’d been about to say to her: “I just found out you didn’t know S
imon’s here. He’s welcome to stay the night, but I wanted you to know he’s safe.”
“We’ll come and get him,” the man said.
“You can come in the morning if you prefer. It’s late.”
“We’ll come right now. What’s the address?”
When I got back to the living room, the boys were gone. Joe said, “They’re in Joey’s room.” I sat down and Joe handed me my mug of lukewarm chocolate again.
“What if he bolts?” I asked.
“We’ll send out a posse.”
“What a mess.”
“Don’t worry,” Joe said, squeezing my foot through the slipper. “It’ll get sorted out.”
“That woman? She didn’t even say anything and she sounded hostile.”
“Bitch,” he said, trying to be funny.
Or maybe I had only been hearing that other mother’s anger. Either way, I didn’t care because now I was thinking about that look Joe Jr. had given me, so calculatedly disaffected. I hoped it was temporary.
Twenty minutes after I made the call, the doorbell rang. I sent Joe to the door. He answered, then, passing by the living room to get the boys, mouthed to me that it was the dad. I felt less afraid then and got up to take a look at him hanging in the open door, bulky and balding and seemingly as appalled as I was. He shook my hand when I offered it, but refused eye contact with the terrorist.
“Sorry about all this,” I said.
“She’s pretty frantic,” he said.
“Of course. I would be too.”
Simon appeared with his backpack and guitar and sank down on the stairs to put his boots on. His father picked up the instrument. “Carry them.”
Simon stood.
“Say thank you.”
Simon: “Thank you.”
“I hope to see you again soon, Simon,” I warbled, managing to pat him on the back as he ducked out.
Pleased to Meet You / The Sky is Falling Page 42