As We Are Now

by May Sarton

  I wish they were not coming. I do not know how to summon anyone to meet them. There is no one here.

  Harriet of course came in with them … I heard her whispering in the hall, “Miss Spencer has failed rapidly in the last weeks … be prepared for a change …” (This to Lisa, I presume.)

  Lisa ran in and, much to my surprise, kissed me. “I am so glad to see you, and I’ve brought you Eva.”

  Poor dear Eva was clearly in a state of shock, and I don’t wonder. At first she was so overcome with shyness and not knowing what to say to the wreck before her, that she hardly looked at me. She sat in the chair by the bed, her hands clasped, and a look of fierce determination on her face to see the ordeal through. Lisa tactfully withdrew and closed the door behind her.

  What did I say? Some casual remark about its being good of her to come, and good of Lisa to bring her.

  “Oh, my dear Miss Spencer, you’ve been crying,” she wailed. “It’s a terrible place!” I had tried to imagine what it would be like to see her again, but it had never occurred to me that she would break down herself. She fumbled in her bag and drew out a box of candied ginger. The dear old thing had remembered that I love it.

  “Let’s have a piece right away. It’ll cheer us up,” I said.

  But all I felt was an immense weariness before the effort of making contact across such an abyss of time and pain. We talked for about a half hour and by the end she was able to tell me a little about herself, the arthritis in her hands (they are quite warped and gnarled) and news of various acquaintances … but it is all so far away, I could only pretend interest. Harriet came in twice, officiously, to bring cups of coffee and coffee cake.

  “She seems kind,” Eva murmured, but with a look of bewilderment in her eyes. I suppose she sensed things she could not really get hold of. And there is no point in my even trying to tell anyone about torture. Too easy for that to be laid aside as senility, the paranoia one hears about. I don’t know what I said in answer. The visit was simply a disaster. It is far too great an effort to try to pin down all the reasons. When Lisa came in, poor Eva was crying uncontrollably, and hardly able to say goodbye.

  Dear Lisa looked upset, too—I suppose I have changed since we had that good talk in the garden. She kissed me goodbye and whispered in my ear that she would send her father to see me.

  I did not cry even after they had gone. I have become numb where human beings are concerned. I cannot afford to feel anything at all. I am walled in. I do not want to see anyone and shall have Richard turned away if he does come. The time for hope is past. Shall I ever have the strength for action? I have hidden the lighter fluid in the top drawer of the bureau under my scarves. Must find some way of getting two or three more cans.

  When everything else has died, does violence still remain? I am kept alive only for one purpose, to end things here while I am still sane enough to do it. But I must, to succeed, be clever, appear to be passive and weak. Appear to be tamed, even grateful for small mercies. (The ginger, after so much flat-tasting food, is delicious.)

  Now Eva has come and gone, I remember very distinctly my little house, the porch hidden by vines, so it was very cool and green, the front parlor where I kept a wood fire burning all through the winter, and my books … oh, my books! The trouble is that the relationship Eva and I had was clear and simple, but it had to do with keeping the house shining clean. I guess there was just no substance we could fall back on here, no thread to pick up. At this season I was apt to be outdoors planting bulbs when she came. Then at noon we had a sandwich and tea together. And what on earth did we talk about? I cannot remember—the gossip of the town, I suppose, the cost of living. There is nothing left of all that. It’s all gone.

  Just now I looked out and it was snowing, the sky closed down, hard, relentless. I used to love the snow. Here it feels ominous. Even the weather slowly turns into the enemy—except, if we got snowed in, that would be the time for a cleansing holocaust!

  I am full of panic these days. I wake sometimes with the hair clinging to my scalp, the sweat of panic. What am I so afraid of? I am afraid of Richard because he is so good he might manage to puncture my resolve to put a violent end to this place. I do not want to see anyone at all. Yet at the same time I wonder whether, if he does come, I should not give him the three copybooks I have filled, a kind of testament, should I be committed to the State Hospital, or in case I manage to carry out my plan. Perhaps if this story of despair could be published it would help those who deal with people like me, the sick in health or mind, or the just plain old and abandoned. I could not bear to have him read the last pages since X left but I believe he can be trusted not to, until I die. What will it matter then that I became infatuated with a woman and longed for her touch?

  As I reread those words they make my spirit shrivel into itself. Have I allowed something real, something pure, to be corrupted? Am I so unsure of myself that I have come to believe what “they” say about me?

  No, it is more that there is some truth in what they think, yet, if people know nothing about love they will always make it into a sexual matter. The limit of what I longed for with X was simply to lie down somewhere beside her and to hold her hand—Why that? Because words were not a possible means of deep exchange between us, because I longed so to rest in her, to believe too that she might rest in me.

  Now in late October I am able to listen to music again, but not in the way I did before. It is a drug. I do not listen, just go on long wandering journeys and fantasies—music is a door into escape now. I go over and over every word Anna ever said to me. She said I was beautiful. And that she had never known anyone like me. She used to look at me with such a tender, amused look sometimes—is that what women have most deeply to give to each other? Tenderness? Oh, I should never have started on this taboo subject.

  The trouble is I have little else to feed on. Lately it has been hard to concentrate. I read the paper and that’s about all. Everything I do is done to kill time. When I try to read a book, my mind wanders—I find I have read the same paragraph a dozen times.

  The atmosphere has changed since Harriet came back, changed for the worse. I mean their atmosphere. Rose is in the doghouse, perhaps because she permitted Anna to raise the standards. The old men are restless and peevish. Several have refused to eat. Rain for several days. The mud around the house is a morass. Only the geese are cheerful and I hear they are afraid of foxes and huddle in the doorway at night, poor creatures. Harriet talks about getting rid of them. I am not asked into the kitchen for a cup of tea or coffee anymore—not, perhaps, since the inspectors came. I am not trusted. That is the frightful joke on me. I, who can trust no one and who have been betrayed, am the one who is not trusted. Everything here is twisted around into reverse. I long only to manage to burn the place down. But I am losing my grip, even the grip on anger. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the house were struck by lightning? An act of God!

  Richard Thornhill has been here. He brought me five novels and stayed quite a while. I learned by his visit that I have changed for the worse. I simply did not have the gumption to receive him as he deserves. I didn’t want to talk at all. I must have seemed churlish.

  I could not bring myself to give him the copybooks. I feel they should be in a safe place, my last will and testament. But if I let them go, and can no longer reread to assure myself that I exist and have not dreamed all that has happened here, I shall have lost my last hold on reality. Today I could not remember Standish Flint’s name!

  The trouble was I could not tell Richard about Anna. He asked me how things were going, but did not inquire directly about her. I wanted so much to ask him to remind Lisa that she had—how long ago?—said she would take me there for a visit. I am afraid of everything now. It would be an immense piece of courage to go and see Anna in her own home, for the very idea fills me with a tumult of emotion. So I am glad, in a way, that I was silent on this matter, as on so many others.

  I cannot read the novels.

 
; All I want is to sleep and to be left alone.

  It must be mid-November. The leaves are all gone. Harriet found Pansy on my bed and now locks her out every night. The walls close in on every side. I do not remember things very clearly … is my brother John still alive? Where has Anna gone?

  Soon it will be Thanksgiving. I used to help my mother stuff the turkey and make cranberry sauce her special way, so each cranberry shone like a jewel in a coat of sugar. The aunts came, though rarely Aunt Isabel. My father carved very skillfully and made little jokes, his jokes as much a part of the ritual as creamed onions and squash and mince pies. John and I thought dinner would never end—we had to stay till the nuts were cracked and a glass of port had been consumed by the adults. I can remember very well how hard the back of my chair felt and how we raced out into the chill fresh air, got on our bikes, and once rode way out into the country and got lost. Is John still alive, I wonder? Who but me remembers? It’s all melting away … like snow … a whole lifetime … nothing.

  The fact is that I am dying for lack of love. Exactly as though the oxygen in my lungs were being slowly diminished.

  Mr. Coughlin, the diabetic, died yesterday. His nephew and niece came, of course. They, who had not bothered to see him more than once a month, if that, while he was alive, hurried over at once to arrange for the funeral. This time I notice that the vivid reaction among the old men when Standish died is not there. They seem hardly to have noticed when the body was removed. Strangely enough, Rose mourned him. She was weeping when she brought in my lunch.

  “He is better off, Rose,” I said gently. “He’s hardly known where or who he was for months.”

  “It’s just … just …” but she couldn’t express what she felt and ended by saying quite angrily, “I hate this place!”

  “You’re not alone in that,” I murmured. Probably she didn’t hear me, and that is just as well. But I am interested in the violence of her feeling. I suppose she is caught just as we are. Being with the moribund day after day can’t be easy on the psyche, and her way has been to be on the defensive against compassion. Compassion would cost too much, I suppose.

  When I reread this journal or whatever it is, I am amazed at the vitality I had when I came here—about six months ago. My mind was alive. Now it is only alive in spots and at moments, maybe a half hour a day when something like Rose’s unexpected tears wakes it. I no longer function as a human being. Even weeks ago I had ideas of taking action—violent action—of burning the place down. I still have the lighter fluid. It is like the little baskets of food or ornaments that were laid in the Egyptian tombs beside the mummy of a king or queen—a talisman.

  The day after Thanksgiving—no,

  Saturday, I think.

  Yesterday the walls of Jericho came down to Lisa’s trumpet! She appeared out of the blue, looking full of surprises, bringing me an Advent wreath, so pretty, with candles on it. (My idea is to hide the candles for other purposes. They will be part of my arsenal of matches, lighter fluid and other combustibles.) But she came also to help me dress and to take me down to see Anna. It all happened so quickly I had no time to think or to say no. I put on my pink sweater and tweed skirt and my liberty scarf, and remembered to take the Hermès blouse, still wrapped in tissue paper after she had washed and ironed it for me when she was here.

  Luckily Lisa talked a blue streak the whole way. She is finding the freshman year very exciting, especially a course in cultural anthropology. That and Russian are her great enthusiasms. She poured it all out, and I listened gratefully. It’s been months since I’ve left the home—everything we saw was vividly exciting—a black dog barking as we went by, the lovely withered beech leaves, pale brown against all the blacks and grays, a flock of jays, a woodpecker, and once a startlingly blue pond, reflecting the cloudless sky.

  Anna’s farm is about five miles away, along a winding road that follows a brook. I felt I was inside a painting, a Brueghel perhaps. Children in bright red caps and stockings. A man with a gun, out for deer. Why am I writing all this down? I suppose to keep from remembering what it was like to see Anna again.

  The farm was just as I had imagined it, classic even to geraniums in the windows, a huge red barn, and a big vegetable garden in the field to one side, nothing but pumpkins and withered stalks now. Anna came out before Lisa had even come to a halt. Anna herself. I have dreamed this woman so deeply, then buried the dream so deeply, I felt nothing at all. I felt encased in armor. It was something to go through as well as possible, like death.

  “Dear Miss Spencer,” she said, taking my hand warmly in hers, and thanked Lisa for bringing me. “Come in.” We sat down a little self-consciously in the front parlor, only Lisa at ease.

  “I’ve been waiting for a letter …” Anna said with her sweet, slightly teasing smile. “How come I never got one?” Of course she didn’t know the horrible truth.

  “I wrote, but I guess it never got to the post office.”

  “Oh my,” Anna said miserably. “Do you think she’d do that?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I’ve thought about you every day, wondered. I called once and they said you were sick. But, you know, they don’t welcome a call. I should have tried again. We’ve been that busy, first getting the hay in, then the vegetables. I’ve put up hundreds of jars, it feels like …”

  Anna, usually so silent, was voluble. It came from shyness. I sat there, numb and dumb, wishing Lisa would have the sense to leave us alone. Then hordes of grandchildren came in to be introduced, and the husband, a tall dark man with a scowl who made his escape as fast as he decently could. But—saving grace!—he asked Lisa if she’d like to see the cows, and they all trooped out to the barn.

  Then Anna and I sat, in the parlor, on stiff chairs, not daring to look at each other, while the immense silence flowed in, not the silence of companionship and understanding that we had known in the days at the farm, but the silence of psychic discomfort. A wall of silence between us. I could not speak, lit a cigarette, and Anna went out to fetch an ashtray. When she came back, I gave her the blouse.

  “Oh, but you shouldn’t, Miss Spencer—it’s so becoming!”

  “I want you to have it,” I said firmly.

  “Well,” she had grown quite pink, “I’ll think of you when I wear it. It’s very kind of you.”

  For the first time she really looked at me. And I looked back.

  “You don’t look well, Miss Spencer. You look dragged out.”

  “I’m on the downgrade, Anna. Might as well face it.”

  “I wish I could take care of you!” For the first time she sounded like herself and I had to laugh, for the sheer relief of it.

  “We haven’t got much time.” Suddenly anxious lest someone spoil this moment, I rushed in to try to say something. “I’m so glad I knew you for a little while. I wish I could tell you what it meant, what I tried to say in the letter …” Then I almost broke down and told her how they had killed my love, and I wish I had. But sitting there in the parlor it all seemed a little strange, too strange to utter. Perhaps I kept my self-respect and her respect by not saying it.

  I didn’t see anything all the way back, I was just hoping I could get back to my bed and turn my face to the wall and not weep in front of Lisa. Neither of us said very much. As soon as she had left, I ferreted out the tranquilizers—I suppose that is what they are—that they used to give me, and swallowed three. I slept the whole afternoon. I’m dead now, or might as well be. Something has gone, some spring, some fresh response to life I used to have. Is this old age? Not caring? I would not have believed that until now. I would have said that was a myth created by the young so as not to worry about the old. “They don’t really care any more.”

  The tide goes out, little by little; the tide goes out and whatever is left of us lies like a beached ship, rotting on the shore among all the other detritus—empty crab shells, clam shells, dried seaweed, the indestructible plastic cup, a few old rags, pieces of driftwood.
The tide of love goes out. Anna is now one with Alex and all the others, hardly distinguishable. I can say of them all, “I loved you once, long ago.” And what is left of you? A lapis lazuli pin, a faded rose petal, once pink, slipped into the pages of this copybook.

  But, ironically enough, I, Caro, am still here. I still have to manage to die, and whatever powers I have must be concentrated on doing it soon. I want my death to be something more like me than slow disintegration. “Do not go gentle into that good night”… the words, so hackneyed by now, come back to me like a command from somewhere way down inside, where there is still fire, if only the fire of anger and disgust.

  I feel quite sure that Harriet puts tranquilizers in my coffee and that it is Sanka. Today I threw it down the john and asked for a second cup, “real coffee”—I went out into the kitchen and they couldn’t very well hide anything there. I sat at the table, but they were at their antics again, and told me I had heard from John last week. I have no memory of this.

  “Oh yes, Miss Spencer, I brought you a card from Florida.”

  (Of course they are spies as well. If there was such a card Harriet must have read it and thrown it away.)

  They are very clever about confusing me and it’s quite evident that they do it on purpose.