It was like her—why I couldn't say—to come straight to the point. Was she the real mother or the step- mother? (That was the deep grievance.) Going to the sideboard, she produced a few documents. One was her marriage certificate. Another was Mona's birth certificate. Then photos—of the whole family.
I took a seat at the table and studied them intently. Not that I thought they were fakes. I was shaken. For the first time I was coming to grips with facts.
I wrote down the name of the village in the Carpathians where her mother and father were born. I studied the photo of the house they had lived in in Vienna. I gazed long and lovingly at all the photos of Mona, beginning with the infant in swaddling clothes, then to the strange foreign child with long black ringlets, and finally to the fifteen year old Rejane or Modjeska whose clothes seemed grotesque yet succeeded somehow in setting off her personality. And there was her father—who loved her so! A handsome, distinguished looking man. Might have been a physician, a chancellor of the exchequer, a composer or a wandering scholar. As for that sister of hers, yes, she was even more beautiful than Mona, no gainsaying it. But it was a beauty lost in placidity. They were of the same family, but the one belonged to her race while the other was a wild fruit sired by the wind.
When at last I raised my eyes I found the mother weeping.
So she told you I was her step-mother? What ever made her say such a thing? And that I was cruel to her ... that I refused to understand her. I don't understand ... I don't.
She wept bitterly. The brother came over and put his arms around her.
Don't take it so hard, mother. She was always strange.
Strange, yes, but this ... this is like treason. Is she ashamed of me? What did I do, tell me, to cause such behavior?
I wanted to say something comforting but I couldn't find words.
I feel sorry for you, said her mother. You must have a hard time of it indeed. If I hadn't given birth to her I might believe that she was some one else's child, not mine. Believe me, she wasn't like this as a girl. No, she was a good child, respectful, obedient, eager to please. The change came suddenly, as if the Devil had taken possession of her. Nothing we said or did suited her any more. She became like a stranger in our midst. We tried everything, but it was no use.
She broke down again, cupped her head in her hands and wept. Her whole body shook with uncontrollable spasms.
I was for getting away as fast as possible. I had heard enough. But they insisted on serving tea. So I sat there and listened. Listened to the story of Mona's life, from the time she was a child. There was nothing unusual or remarkable about any of it, curiously enough. (Only one little detail struck home. She always held her head high.) In a way, it was rather soothing to know these homely facts. Now I could put the two faces of the coin together ... As for the sudden change, that didn't strike me as so baffling. It had happened to me too, after all. What do mothers know about their offspring? Do they invite the wayward one to share his or her secret longings? Do they probe the heart of a child? Do they ever confess that they are monsters too? And if a child is ashamed of her blood, how is she to make that known to her own mother?
Looking at this woman, this mother, listening to her, I could find nothing in her which, had I been her offspring, would have attracted me to her. Her mournful air alone would have turped me from her. To say nothing of her sense of pride. It was obvious that her sons had been good to her; Jewish sons usually are. And the one daughter, Jehovah be praised, she had married off successfully. But then there was the black sheep, that thorn in her side. The thought of it filled her with guilt. She had failed. She had brought forth bad fruit. And this wild one had disowned her. What greater humiliation could a mother suffer than to be called step-mother?
No, the more I listened to her, the more she wept and sobbed, the more I felt that she had no real love for her daughter. If she had ever loved her it was as a child. She never did make an effort to understand her daughter. There was something false about her protestations. What she wanted was for her daughter to return and on bended knee beg her forgiveness.
Do bring her here, she entreated as I was bidding them good-night. Let her stand here in your presence and repeat these evil things, if she dares. As your wife, she ought to grant you that favor at least.
I suspected from the way she spoke that she was not at all convinced that we were man and wife. I was tempted to say, Yes, when we come I will bring the marriage certificate along too. But I held my tongue.
Then, pressing my hand, she amended her speech. Tell her that everything is forgotten, she murmured.
Spoken like a mother, I thought. But hollow just the same.
I circumnavigated the neighborhood on my way to the L station. Things had changed since we last made the rounds here, Mona and I. I had difficulty locating the house where I once stood her up against the wall. The vacant lot, where we had fucked our heads off in the mud, was no longer a vacant lot. New buildings, new streets, everywhere. Still I kept milling around. This time it was with another Mona—the fifteen year old tragedienne whose photo I had seen for the first time a few minutes ago. How striking she was, even at that awkward age! What purity in her gaze! So frank, so searching, so commanding!
I thought of the Mona I had waited for outside the dance hall. I tried to put the two together. I couldn't. I wandered through the dismal streets with one on either arm. Neither of them existed any longer. Nor did I perhaps.
10
It was obvious, even to a deluded fool like myself, that the three of us would never arrive in Paris together. When, therefore, I received a letter from Tony Marella saying that I should report for work in a few days I took the opportunity to set them straight about my end of it. In a heart to heart talk such as we hadn't enjoyed for some time I suggested that it might be wiser for them to make the jump as soon as funds permitted and let me follow later. Now that the job had materialized I could go and live with the folks and thereby put aside money for my own passage. Or, if the necessity arose, I could send them a little dough. In my own mind I didn't visualize any of us leaving for Europe within the next few months. Maybe never.
It didn't take a mind reader to see how relieved they were that I wasn't to accompany them. Mona of course tried to urge me not to go live with my parents. If I had to go anywhere she thought I ought to camp out on Ulric. I pretended that I would think about it.
