《玫瑰花园》Longley

5、5

　　5.
　　Dr.Fried saw Esther Blau in the doctor's bright,clutteredoffice.It was important to Dr.Fried to know whetherDeborah's mother would be an ally in this treatment or anadversary.Many parents said—even thought—that theywanted help for their children,only to show,subtly ordirectly,that their children were part of a secret scheme fortheir own ruin.A child's independence is too big a risk forthe shaky balance of some parents.On Esther's impeccablesurface Dr.Fried saw intelligence,sophistication,andstraightforwardness.There was also an intensity that madeher smile a little hard.How those two blunt wills must havestruggled over the years!
　　They sat down in the comfortable chairs,the doctorbreathing a little heavily and feeling somewhat dowdy as shefaced Esther's formidable jewelry.She examined her again.The woman was sane:she accepted the heavy penalties olreality and enioved its gifts also.Her daughter did notWhere was the difference to be found?
　　The mother was looking about the room."Is this—isthis where Deborah comes?"
　　“Yes.”
　　Relief showed on the carefully composed surface."It'spleasant.No—bars."She got the word out,straining sohard for relaxed matter-of-factness that the doctor almostwinced.
　　“Right now it hardly matters.I don't know if she trustsme enough to see the room as it really is."
　　“Can she get well?I love her so very much!”
　　If it is so,Dr.Fried thought,the love will meet a strongtest in what they are all about to undergo.She said,"If sheis going to get well,we are all going to have to be patientand to work like anything."The colloquialism soundedstrange in her accent."She will need a tremendous amountof energy to give to this,to fight her own impulses for safety...and so you may find her tired and not keeping herselfgroomed as she should.Is there something that worries youparticularly about her now?”
　　Esther tried to frame her thoughts.It was too soon tothink about Deborah's progress really;the worry was some-thing else."You see—all these days ...all these dayswe've been thinking and thinking how and why this couldhave happened.She was so much loved!They tell me thatthese illnesses are caused by a person's past and childhood.So all these days we've been thinking about the past.I'velooked,and Jacob has looked,and the whole family hasthought and wondered,and after all of it we just can't seeany reason for it.It's without a cause,you see,and that'swhat is so frightening."
　　She had spoken louder than she wished,trying to con-vince the chairs and the tables and the doctor and the wholeinstitution with its bars and screaming people whose rea-sons for being there must be different :..must be.
　　“Causes are too big to see all at once,or even as theyreally are,but we can tell our own truths and have our owncauses.Tell me what you know.about Deborah andyourself in your own way and as you knew it."
　　“I suppose I should start with my own father.”
　　Pop had come from Latvia.He had a clubfoot.Some-how these two things represented him more fully than hisname or occupation.He had come to America a young
　　man,poor and foreign and lame,and he had borne downon his new life as if it were an enemy.In anger he hadeducated himself;in anger he had gone into business,failed, succeeded,and made a fortune.With his fortune and hisanger he had bought a great home in an old neighborhoodof the inbred and anciently rich.His neighbors had everymanner he admired,and in turn they despised his religion,his accent,and his style.They made the lives of his wifeand children miserable,but he cursed them all,the neigh-bors and wife and children,in the crude,blunt words of hisabhorrent past.The true conquest,he saw,would not befor him,but for his seed,educated and accentless andgently conditioned.The Latvian and Yiddish curses thatthey had learned at his knee he tried to temper withtutoring in genteel French.
　　“In 1878,"Esther said,"the daughters of noblemen tookharp lessons.I know because I had to take harp lessons,even though playing the instrument had gone out of fashion,even though I hated it and had no talent for it.It was oneof the flags to capture,you see,and he had to try to win it,even through me.Sometimes when I played,Pop wouldpace the floor and mutter to his nobleman,“Look,damnyou—it's me,the little cripple!"
　　Pop's"American"children had grown up knowing thatall their worth and gentility and culture and success wasonly a surface.For a glimpse of their true value they hadonly to look into their neighbors'eyes or to hear Pop'sremarks if the soup was cold or the suitor came late.Asfor the suitors,they were to be flags also;the proud bannersof great families;the emblems of conquests in alliance,asit had been among the great in the old country.But willfulEsther had chosen beneath her family's hopes.The boy wassmart enough,well-spoken,and presentable;still he hadput himself through accountancy school and his family was"a bunch of poor greenhorns,"beneath Esther,beneath thedream in every way.They had argued and fought and at last,on the strength of Jacob's prospects for the future,Pop hadgiven in.Natalie had married well enough for the familyto afford a gamble.Soon both of the young wives werepregnant.Pop began to think of himself as the founder ofa dynasty.
　　And Esther's daughter was blonde!a singular,thrilling,impossible fair-skinned blonde.She was Esther's redemp-tion from secret isolation,and for Pop she was the finalretort to a long-dead village nobleman and his fair-skinneddaughters.This one would go in gold.
　　Esther recalled then the time of the depression and thecast of fear that had surrounded everything.It was fearand—Esther groped for the word that would evoke thoseyears—unreality.Jacob had entered his working life at thevery nadir of opportunity.The accounts that he had swornto take in order to deserve Esther as a wife—the boring androutine,the scraps that others threw away—were simplynot there.For every column of figures there were a hundredminds waiting,as hungry and well-educated as his.Yetthey lived in one of the best new sections of town.Thedaughters of the dynasty had to live well and Pop paid alltheir bills.When Deborah was born it was into the hand-made lace—the heirloom of some great European housefelled by the revolution.Capturing an old flag was betterthan weaving a new one,and the princely carriage caps thatDeborah wore for her outings had once been fitted to thehead of a prince.Though the peasant's mud-village pastwas already a generation removed,there was still in thatpeasant a peasant's dream:not simply to be free,but tobe free to be titled.The New World was required to domore than obliterate the bitterness of the Old.Like theatheist saying to God,"You don't exist and I hate You!"Pop kept sounding his loud shouts of denial into the deafear of the past.When Jacob was earning fifteen and thentwenty dollars a week,Deborah had twelve hand-em-broidered silk dresses and a German nurse.
　　Jacob could not pay for her food.After a while theymoved back into the family home,surrounded by a newgeneration of neighborhood scorn.Even as a prisoner ofher own past,Esther saw that Jacob was unhappy,that hewas taking charity from a man who despised him,but herown fear made her subtly and consistently side with herfather against her husband.It seemed then as if havingDeborah had made her allegiance right.Jacob was consortof the dynasty,but Deborah—golden,gift-showered Deb-orah—always smiling and contented,was a central pin onwhich the dream could turn.
　　And then they found that their golden toy was flawed.In the perfumed and carefully tended little girl a tumor wasgrowing.The first symptom was an embarrassing inconti-nence,and how righteously wrathful the rigid governesswas!But the“laziness”could not be cured by shaming orwhipping or threats.
　　"We didn't know!"Esther burst out,and the doctorlooked at her and saw how passionate and intense she wasunder the careful,smooth facade.“In those days the sched-ules and the governesses and the rules were god!It was the'scientific'approach then,with everything sterile and sucha horror of germs and variation.”
　　"And the nursery like a hospital!I remember,"said thedoctor laughing,and trying to comfort Esther with herlaughter because it was too late for anything but remorsefor the mistaken slaps and the overzealous reading ofmisguided experts.
　　At last there were examinations and a diagnosis and tripsfrom doctor to doctor in search of proof.Deborah wouldhave nothing but the best of course.The specialist whofinally did the operation was the top man in the Midwest,and far too busy to explain anything to the little girl or staywith her after the miracles of modern surgery were overand the ancient and barbaric pain took their place.Twooperations,and after the first,a merciless pain.
　　Esther had forced herself to stay cheerful and strong,togo to Debby's room always with a smile.She was pregnantagain and worried because of the earlier stillbirth of twinsons,but to the hospital staff,the family,and Deborah,her surface never varied,and she took pride in the strengthshe showed.At last they learned that the operations hadbeen successful.They were jubilant and grateful,and atDeborah's homecoming the whole house was festive anddecorated,and all the relatives were present for a party.Two days later Jacob got the Sulzburger account.Estherfound old names coming to mind from nowhere.
　　At the time the Sulzburger account had seemed to be themost important thing in their lives.It was a series of verylucrative smaller accounts and they had gone a little crazywith it.At last Jacob could be free,more than a consort inhis own house.He bought a new one in a quiet and modestneighborhood not too far from the city.It was small,witha little garden and trees and lots of children close by withlots of different last names.Deborah was cautious at first,but before long she began to open,to go out and makefriends.Esther had friends,too,and flowers that she couldtake care of herself,and sunlight,and open windows,andno need for servants,and the beginnings of her own de-cisions.One vear—one beautiful year.Then one evening Jacob came home and told her that the Sulzburger accountwas a vast chain of fraud.He had been three full monthsdiscovering how and where the money was going.He saidto Esther on the evening before he went to resign it,"Afraud that's as diverse and clever as this one is has a kindof beauty in it.It's going to cost us—everything.Youknow that,don't you?..But I can't help admiring thatmind....
　　They had to give up the house and a month later theywere back in the family home once again.There was verylittle money,but Esther's parents decided to give the houseto them;there was too much room without the whole familyand the parents had rented an apartment in Chicago.Butthe big house had to stay in the family,of course.And sothe hated place became the Blau house.
　　Deborah went to the best schools in the winter and thebest camps in the summer.Friendships came hard to her,but they do to many people,Esther thought.The familyhad not known until years later that the first summer camp(three silent years of it),was cruelly anti-Semitic.Deborahhad never told them.What Esther and Jacob saw were thelaughing teams of girls at play and singing over toastedmarshmallows the old camp songs about Marching on toVictory.
　　“Was there nothing to show you that she was ill orsuffering—just reticence?"Dr.Fried asked.
　　“Well,yes....I mentioned school—it was small andfriendly and they all thought well of her.She was alwaysvery bright,but one day the psychologist called us andshowed us a test that all the children had been given.Deb-orah's answers seemed to show him that she was'disturbed.'”
　　"How old was she then?"
　　“Ten,”Esther said slowly."I looked at my miracle,trying to see her mind,if it were true.I saw that she didn'tplay with other children.She was always at home,hidingherself away.She ate a lot and got fat.It had all been sogradual that I had never really seen it until then.And—and she never slept.”
　　“A person must sleep.You mean she slept little?”
　　“I knew that she must sleep,but I never saw her asleep.Whenever we came into her room at night,she would bewide awake,saying that she heard us coming up the stairs.
　　The steps were heavily carpeted.We used to joke about ourlight sleeper,but it was no joke.The school recommendedthat we take her to a child psychiatrist,and we did,but sheonly seemed to get more and more disturbed and angry,and after the third session she said,'Am I not what youwanted?Do you have to correct my brain,too?"She hadthat way of speaking even at ten,a kind of bitterness thatwas too old for her.We stopped the visits because we neverwanted her to feel that way.Somehow,even without realiz-ing it,we got into the habit of listening,even in our sleep,for——"
　　“For what?”
　　“I don't know...”And she shook her head to ward ofa forbidden word.
　　When the Second World War began it was no longerpossible to maintain a ffteen-room house.Esther struggledon while they tried to get rid of it,feeling overwhelmed byits huge,musty rooms and the awful compulsion to"keepthings up"in the critical eyes of Mom and Pop and the restof the family.At last they found a buyer,dropped theweight of the past gratefully,and moved into an apartmentin the city.It seemed a good thing,especially for Deborah;her little oddities,her fears,and her loneliness would seemless strange in the anonymity of a large city.She was stillnot really happy,but her teachers thought highly of her inthe new school and the studies went well without any greateffort on her part.She took music lessons and did all theordinary things that young girls do.
　　Esther tried to think of something that would make Deb-orah's present condition believable.Well ...she was in-tense.Esther remembered speaking to her about it now andthen,telling her not to take things so very very seriously,but it was part of both of them,and not something to bestopped just by a decision or request.In the city Deborahdiscovered art.The opening of her interest was like a tor-rent;she spent every spare moment drawing and sketching.In those first years,when she was eleven and twelve,shemust have done thousands of pictures,not to mention thelittle sketches and bits of drawing on scrap paper at school
　　They had taken some of the drawings to art teachers andcritics and were told that the girl was,indeed,talented andshould be encouraged.It was a bright and easy answer toEsther's gray,vague suspicions,and she tried to pull it up over her eyes.To the whole family it suddenly seemed toexplain all the sickness and sensitivity,the sleeplessness,the intensity,and the sudden looks of misery,coveredquickly by a blank hardness of the face or the bitter wit'sbackthrust.Of course...she was special,a rare and giftedspirit.Allowances were made for her complaints of illness,for her vagueness.It was adolescence;the adolescence of anexceptional girl.Esther kept saying it and saying it,butshe never could quite believe it.There was always this orthat nagging sign that seemed to taunt her perceptions.One evening Deborah had gone to the doctor for anotherone of her mysterious pains.She had come home strangelyblank and fearful.The next day Deborah had left early onsome errand and not come home until late.At about fourin the morning,Esther had awakened for some unknownand instinctive reason and she had gone to Deborah's roomwith a certainty that now,in the telling,brought her astrange feeling of guilt.The room was empty.When shelooked in the bathroom,she had found Deborah sittingquietly on the floor,watching the blood from her wrist flowinto a basin.
　　"I asked her why she didn't just let it go into the sink,"the doctor said,"and she answered interestingly,I thought.She said that she had not wanted to let it get too far away.You see,she knew,in her own way,that she was not at-tempting suicide,but making the call for help,the call of amute and confused person.You live in an apartment house;you have from your windows a death much quicker andsurer at every hand and yet this—and she knew you to belight sleepers because she was."
　　“But did she decide to do this?Could she have plannedit?"
　　“Not consciously,of course,but her mind chose the bestway.She is,after all,here.Her call for help was success-
　　ful.Let us go back a way now,to the camps and the school.Was there always trouble between Deborah and the cam-pers and schoolmates?Did she work her own troubles outor did she call on you for help?"
　　"I tried to help,certainly.I remember quite a few timeswhen she needed me and I was there.There was the timewhen she had just started school and was having troublewith a little clique there.I took them all out for a big dayat the zoo and that broke the ice.In the summer camp sometimes people didn't understand her.I was alwaysfriendly with the counselors and that would ease the way alittle.She had great trouble with one of the teachers at thepublic school in the city.I had the teacher in to tea andjust talking a bit,explaining Deborah's fears of people andhow sometimes they were misinterpreted,I helped her tounderstand Deborah.They were friends through the restof school,and at the end the teacher told me that havingknown Deborah had been a real privilege,that she wassuch a fine girl.”
　　"How did Deborah take this help?"
　　“Well,she was relieved,of course.These troubles loomso large at that age and I was glad to be a real mother toher,helping in things like that.My own mother nevercould.”
　　“Looking back at those times—what was the feeling ofthem?How did you feel during them?”
　　“Happy,as I said.The people Deborah had trouble withwere relieved and I was happy to be helping her.I workedhard to overcome my own shyness,to make it fun always tobe where I was.We sang and told jokes.I had to learn howto bring people out of themselves.I was proud of her andoften told her so.I told her often how much I loved her.Shenever felt unprotected or alone."
　　"I see,"the doctor said.
　　It seemed to Esther that the doctor did not see.Somehowthe wrong picture was there before them,and Esther said,"I fought for Deborah all her life.Maybe it was the tumorthat started it all.It was not us—not the love that Jacob andI had for each other or for our children.It was in spite of allour love and care,this awful thing."
　　“You knew for a long time,didn't you,that things werenot right with your daughter?It was not only the psycholo-gist at the school.When did it seem to you that the troublestarted?”
　　"Well,there was the summer at camp—no—it was be-fore that.How does one sense just when the atmospherechanges?Suddenly it just seems to be,that's all.”
　　“What about the camp?”
　　"Oh.it was the third vear she had been going.She wasnine then.We had come up to see her toward the end of theseason and she seemed unhappy.I told her how I had gottenover bad spots of growing up by going in for sports.It's a good way to get recognition and friends when you are young.When we left,she seemed all right,but somehow,after thatyear...something...went out of her....It was as if shehad her head down from then on,waiting for the blows."
　　“Waiting for the blows ...”the doctor said musingly.“And then there came a time,later—a time when she beganto arrange for blows to fall."
　　Esther turned toward the doctor,her eyes full ofrecognition."Is that what the sickness is?"
　　“Maybe it is a symptom.I once had a patient who usedto practice the most horrible tortures on himself,and when Iasked him why he did such things,he said,'Why,before theworld does them.'I asked him then,'Why not wait and seewhat the world will do,'and he said,'Don't you see?It al-ways comes at last,but this way at least I am master of myown destruction.’”
　　“That patient...did he get well?”
　　“Yes,he got well.Then the Nazis came and they put himinto Dachau and he died there.I tell you this because I amtrying to tell you,Mrs.Blau,that you can never make theworld over to protect the ones you love so much.But you donot have to defend your having tried.”
　　"I had to try to make things better,"Esther said,and thenshe sat back,thinking."Somehow,as I see it now,there weremistakes—great mistakes—but they are more toward Jacobthan Deborah.”She paused,looking at the doctor incredu-lously."How could I have done such things to him?Allthese long years...since that overpriced apartment,theyears of Pop's charity,the years and years I let him comesecond,even today—if Pop thinks so.'or Pop wants it.?Why—when he was my husband and his wishes were sosimple and modest?”She looked again."It's not enough,then,just to love.My love for Jacob didn't stop me fromhurting him and lowering him in his own eyes as well as myfather's.And our love for Deborah didn't stop us from...well,from causing...this...sickness.”
　　Dr.Fried looked at Esther and listened to the words oflove and pain coming from the carefully composed motherof a girl sick to death with deception.The love was realenough and the pain also,so that she said very gently,"Letus,Deborah and I,study for the causes.Do not agonize andblame yourself or your husband or anyone else.She willneed your support,not your self-recrimination.”
　　Brought back to the present,Esther realized that shewould now have to face the Deborah of the present.“How—how can I know the right thing to say while I am talkingto her?You know,don't you that she won't let Jacob seeher,and she had such a strange,sleepwalker's look when Ilast saw her?”
　　“There is only one thing that is really dangerous,especially now because she is so sensitive to it."
　　“And what is that,Doctor?”“Why,lying,of course.”
　　They rose because the time was over.Too short,Estherthought,to say a fraction of what needed to be said.Dr.Fried saw her to the door with a last small gesture of com-fort.She was thinking that the patient's versions would beradically different from the ones her mother ascribed to bothof them.The helpful parent,the grateful child.But if it werenot so,the child would not be a patient.The quality of andthe difference between these versions of reality would helpto give depth to each of their interpretations of it.
　　Leaving the doctor's office,it seemed to Esther that shehad not put her case correctly.Perhaps her attempt to helphad been,after all,interference.The hospital had given herpermission to take Deborah out by herself.The two of themwould go to a movie and dinner in town,and they wouldtalk.“I swear to you,”Esther said to the Deborah in hermind,“I swear to you that I will not use you.I will not askyou what we did or didn't do."
　　She went to the small hotel room to tell Jacob that Deb-orah still refused to see him.The doctor had said that theymust not force her,that perhaps what she had done was notso much a slighting of Jacob as an attempt,poor and mis-directed,to make her own decisions.Esther had thoughtthat this was only placating,but she had said nothing.PoorJacob—and I am in the middle again—the deliverer of theblow.
　　And after a while Jacob stopped insisting,but Esther sawhim in the back of the theater,watching Deborah instead ofthe film.And as they came out she saw him standing in theshadows alone,watching her,and on the corner as theywent into the restaurant,he was standing in the cold pathof early winter.