Those were strange times, my bunnies, when your father preached dialectical theology and we both lived it. —Someday I’ll tell you...
—I hate parents who say that...and what about all those mysterious trips you took with Daddy, Joshua pounds on, you know what I mean, before I was born...Is this a trial, what’s eating him? Listening, his eyes narrowed as I tell him, no mystery, son, your father taught at different universities and so...
—Why did you like traveling so much? Did you really like being in Jerusalem? It sounds gross. Just when you should be making something of yourself, when you were about to become an actress—how could you go to a gross place like Jerusalem?
—Oh peace, Joshua...You won’t till I explain how I could be so stupid...But everything was so different when I was growing up—no, I don’t mean like old-fashioned. It was the war. We were just stunned. The things that had happened and that after they happened everything could just go on as before...it made one’s personal future somehow irrelevant. I don’t know how to explain.
—I guess I’m different, he says. My personal ambitions are more important to me than anything that happens in the world...If the whole human race is destroyed, then of course...he concedes. But did you want to get married and have children? Oh I’m just curious. I can’t wait till I’m old enough...Can I have a girl when I’m seventeen? Sixteen? Did I tell you, I kissed a girl already. Please don’t go yet. I never have a chance to talk to you, you’re always busy with Toby and Jonathan. Tell me, when you went out with Daddy before you were married...Did you go dancing and to the movies?...You didn’t!...What did you talk about?...Tell him. Nihilism. The sanctification of life. The death of God...
—You liked the way he talked, he says understandingly. That’s one thing about Daddy, he is intelligent. No one can beat him in philosophy.
The gaiety of table setting with Jonathan’s puppets helping, Toby’s prettily folded napkins. —Thanks for remembering the ketchup, Mom. And the gooky juice we like. As Joshua brings it in with some fancy juggling. Nice children. Why suddenly this awful feeling when everyone is seated. Of just this. Just us. Always at family meals. With Ezra too, only then the burden of the awfulness wasn’t all on me.
—How is the roast?
—Very tasty.
—Mom, let’s talk about something. Let’s have a conversation.
—Well?
—I’m thinking.
Jonathan says, Daddy writes he has a room for you. So why can’t you come and stay with us?
—Because she doesn’t want to and little children should mind their own business, Joshua tells him, disgustingly condescending; then crisply, changing his tone for the debating society: Tell me, Mom, what are your opinions on the war in Vietnam; are you for escalation or...
—Let’s not talk about depressing subjects like war, Toby protests.
—Why not? It’s a major national issue.
—Because you’re going to quarrel and I don’t want to get killed in an atomic explosion and words I don’t understand give me a headache.
—Don’t get upset, baby; we’ll talk about...
—That’s right, humor her! Let’s all humor her.
—Leave me alone, she screams.
—Joshua, I said enough! Too late, the ketchup is flying.
—It’s all right, Mom, I have her under control.
—Joshua, you beast!
—That’s right, she spills ketchup all over the place, he says mopping it righteously, she scratches me on the face and I’m a beast. Look!
—I’m glad you’re bleeding, Toby bawls.
—Toby, leave the room.
—Why don’t you tell him to leave the room...
—And Jonathan is the good boy, the good boy, Joshua lays it on, viciously patting him on the head.
—Can’t you make him shut up! Toby cries.
—Yes! Why can’t you? Joshua taunts. C’mon Mom let’s have a showdown. Springing gaily on the table, does his karate chops. An authority crisis! he announces. And look at her: imperturbable; inscrutable.
—Get off the table and you, Jonathan, don’t giggle when your brother behaves like a—
—A clown! Now watch me do...He’s off on another tangent, imitating Chaplin.
—Enough! Next year you go into summer theater and that’s all. That’s all!
—All this screaming has really given me a headache, Toby complains. Just tell me where the aspirin is. Jonathan, his face in the bowl, still in stitches. His turn to go mad.
—You should really meet Elizabeth, Toby chatters on, drying the dishes. You’d like her, Mummy.
—Elizabeth?
—You know, Elizabeth, Daddy’s new wife; I don’t know if she is really his wife but she lives with him and it’s like they’re married, anyway you’d like her because she is very sensible; she is a teacher and drives a Porsche—you should see it. Oh it’s really beautiful, white outside with red leather seats, and she plays tennis and goes horseback riding with us and she tells Daddy what to do. She really makes him behave. Like suppose we’re doing something and Daddy rushes in with a catastrophe, she just raises her index finger like this and says, “Moment!” and that stops him...You know it really stops him. He doesn’t shout and curse when she is there. It’s only when she isn’t there that he starts carrying on, calling us bad names...
—No Toby, he wasn’t like that when I married him...
—Can people change that much? Mummy, when you marry somebody can’t you know what they’re going to be like? Because when I get married I want to be absolutely sure. Did you think when you married Daddy that you might ever get divorced?...So...she ponders, even when you think you’re absolutely sure...But you changed too!...except if you hadn’t married Daddy I wouldn’t have been born and I wouldn’t like that, so I’m glad you did...
Jonathan in the bathtub. —I hate the way the boys at school tease me...the things they tell me...It’s so disgusting I have to whisper it in your ear...
—I thought you knew, Jonathan. Why disgusting? Our bodies are made for it.
—You mean it’s true! Did
