The Annunciation, page 25
“I’m going to translate the goddamn crazy poems I’m working on and then I’m going to write a novel about the woman who wrote them. Then I’m going to write a book of essays, then a play, then whatever I think up next. I’m going to do the hardest and most exciting things there are to do in the world. Because I’m not afraid of life anymore. I’m not afraid of my power or intelligence or energy. The only thing left in the world that scares me is being afraid of things. I used to believe the past was the present, that we could never live it down, never leave it behind. Bullshit. The past is the past. You can dwell in it or you can move forward. I’ve thought a lot about all that. I’ve thought a lot about why I used to drink. Trying to learn something from all those years I wasted.
“And I figured out that what I loved about being drunk was that it made the tapes from the past quit playing in my head. I’m going to learn to do that sober. Well, anyway, it is true that I’m pregnant. Maybe the way I feel now is just some sort of euphoria produced by that.”
“Then why are you afraid to see your daughter, if you’re so brave?” He was trying one more time.
“Because if she needs me she’ll come find me. Because I leave her to her own life. I won’t go pour out my needs on her.”
“I’m going to New Orleans and meet her. I’m going to see that boy if it costs me everything I have. I want you with me. But I’ll do it alone if I have to.”
“Then it’s a stalemate. I wish you hadn’t come up here and done this to me right now, but it’s all right. I have forty more years to live. You know, a strange thing went on between me and that kid I lived with. We gave each other joy. I’m going to have some more of that before I die. I’m going to make a life that leaves a place for that to happen.”
“Who was he?”
“Just a kid I idealized. But he had this grace about him. He knew how to love. He knew how to be happy. Not many people can do that anymore. Not many white people anyway.”
“You won’t ever see me again, will you?”
“Of course I will. I’ll always be seeing you. Sooner or later, one way or the other.”
The next morning she drove him to the airport and watched until the plane vanished from sight behind the far mountains. Until it was the size of a bird, then the size of a ball, then gone through a hole in the clouds. Then the sadness was there, the same old sadness, the bad gift she and Guy had given each other for so many years, and Amanda was sick of the sadness and the face of the girl was before her now. No longer a blank accusing face that could be anyone at all but a face with a name, a name she could not stop saying over and over all afternoon. Barrett, Barrett Allain, Barrett Allain Clare. A woman named Barrett who could win. She won? Of course she won.
And now it seemed to Amanda that she had seen her somewhere in New Orleans but she could not remember where. It could have been anytime, anywhere. At Langenstein’s, at The Prytania, at a party or a parade or walking down the avenue or around the park. And the little boy? He could have been in any baby carriage, in any stroller, on any playground, anywhere.
A boy, a child, un enfant, a boy with hair like her own. A child. Another thing to mourn. A grandchild. Un petit fils. She could hardly breathe to think the word and thought to take its power away by rendering it in French.
She put the word away. She drove home from the airport and lay down on her bed and watched the light move and creep across the room like silver, then gold, then red, the soft red light that had fallen across Will’s face so many times when he lay beside her. Where is he? Amanda whispered to the light. Then to the stars outside the window as the sky darkened and the stars appeared. Where is he now? The one that really loved me. Where is my old Guy, the one I knew, the one who did not have a silver plane? Where is my child? Where are all the ones who loved and did not love me? Momma, Grandmomma, Guy, Will, Baby Doll and Lavertis and Barrett, Barrett, Barrett, mon enfant, my child.
All my languages, all my gifts, all my words and still I am alone. Then lost in remorse and loneliness, Amanda fell asleep still wearing all her clothes. Sometime in the night she rose and drank water and took off the hot wet clothes and slept again and all night long she dreamed terrible dreams. She dreamed she was still married to Malcolm and the girl came and gave her a gift to take him. She carried it to him, thinking it was roses, but when she arrived it became a great swarm of bees and hornets and they were all over him, covering him, and she began to pick and tear the bees from his body. All night long she picked the bees from his sweet face and arms, saying, Forgive me, oh, my God, forgive me.
And the girl stood beside her, laughing at her. There is no boy, she said. There are only the bees.
The other thing was that outrageous pregnancy. For weeks Amanda waged a fierce battle with herself. All day long she faced herself in a Socratic dialogue. When she woke in the mornings she would be thinking one thing. By the time she went to bed she would be thinking another.
She wouldn’t ask anyone for help. She refused to see Garth. She made an appointment to see Luke and broke it. She made an appointment with an obstetrician and broke that.
She took walks that lasted one and two and three hours, walking the streets of the little town talking to herself.
This is a problem in logic, she told herself. This is where I decide what my life will be. This is whether I’m free or a pawn of nature.
She would wake from sleep and be filled with a terrible joy, a holy and beautiful wonder.
The next moment it would turn into plain, old terror and she would sit on a chair feeling as though her body no longer belonged to her but was some treacherous thing that wanted to hurt her, wound her, punish her.
A friend from many lives, a son, an ally, a voice sang in her ear. A special child. A very special child.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, Amanda said to herself. It’s just nature trying to rule us forever. It’s a punishment. So I can never be free to do my work, have my own life. It would be an idiot. Something would be terribly wrong with it. I’d have to push a wheelchair all my life. For what? To atone for loving someone for a few weeks one spring. For a few weeks of happiness, if you could call what Will and I did happiness.
Marshall Jordan bore the brunt of Amanda’s indecision and morning queasiness.
“Why are you so down on Helene all of a sudden?” he said, looking across the desk at her irritated face. He had been arguing with her for thirty minutes about the poems.
“It isn’t all of a sudden. When I first heard about the manuscript I thought it was all so romantic and exciting. Then, the more I worked on them the worse I thought the poems were. Now I think it’s her life I object to as much as the poems.”
“Her life.”
“Goddammit, she was twenty-one years old. I don’t know about all this romantic suicide poet stuff. Suicide’s a social disease. I’ve been spending a lot of time this year with someone who got blown off the road by James Alter’s death. Will’s still recovering from it. I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s justified.”
“Well, you can’t judge poetry by the poet’s life.”
“I can if I want to. I mean, what else are you going to judge by that really matters? If someone goes out and gases himself in a garage and lets his kids find the body. Well, that’s bad behavior, Marshall.”
“I thought you were in sympathy with Helene. Because they took her baby away.”
“She should have gone and found the baby instead of killing herself. She was twenty-one years old. I’ll tell you one thing. If I’d been that old no one could have taken my child from me. The United States government couldn’t have taken it from me.”
“You can’t imagine what things were like that long ago. Two hundred years ago.”
“It’s still wrong. It isn’t the side I’m on. What did Millay say? I shall die but that is all I shall do for death.”
“I like your point of view, Amanda. You know that. But none of this has anything to do with Helene. Stop worrying about the moral implications of it and go on and get the work done. The Lost Wedding Songs of Helene Renoir aren’t going to lead anyone to suicide. I promise you that.”
“I have a lot on my mind right now. Maybe I should put it away and come back to it in a few weeks.”
“That might be good. Come back to it with a fresh heart and go on and obey the rules. There are rules, Amanda, whether you like it or not. There are perimeters and prices to pay.”
“Do you really believe that?” she said. She was cheering up at the thought of the most eccentric person she had ever known standing up for authority.
“Some days I believe it,” he said. “Many days I believe it.”
“I’ll get my life straightened out and then I’ll get back to work and finish it. I’ll finish it before too long.”
What am I doing? she thought, walking up the long hill to her house through the June heat. What in the name of God am I doing walking along the sidewalk as pregnant as an alley cat? As if I don’t have a lick of sense. As if I believed that all I have to do is keep on putting one foot in front of the other and everything will turn out right.
She stopped by a bridge and watched a fat little girl in a faded dress fishing a narrow creek as if a fish could actually be in such a place. Amanda wanted to go up to her and ask her what in the name of heaven led her to believe a creek in the middle of town was a good place to go fishing but she thought better of it and walked on up the hill. Arkansas, she thought, as she had been doing a lot lately. What a place to make my stand.
26
All night Amanda had dreamed she was locked in a room with five other Amandas, six identical Amandas lying on six identical twin beds. The beds were arranged in a circle in a plain room with many windows. It was morning in the dream but none of the Amandas could get up. One by one each Amanda tried to rise from her small bed, then gave up and lay back down. Finally, one Amanda, taller and thicker than the rest, managed to stand up and take charge. She made the thin Amandas get up and make their beds. Then she led them out the door to breakfast.
The real room where Amanda woke up was her same old blue bedroom — pale blue Cannon sheets tacked up at the windows for curtains, blue walls, a soft blue and white Pande Cameron on the floor. A Ross vase stood on a high table holding pussywillow and mayapple and celandine. The room had the clear acrid smell of wildflowers and of cinnamon from the plate of toast Amanda had been eating while she read herself to sleep.
She picked up a half-eaten piece and began to nibble on it, thinking about the dream, then got up and walked out into the hall and stood in front of the dressing room mirror with her hands on her stomach.
Well, she thought. Either I’ve got to do it or I’ve got to fix it.
“Fix it!” she said out loud, looking straight into her own eyes in the mirror. “Fix it! No, not fix it. Abort it. Abort it and give it back to the universe. Fix it. Fuck it. Abort it. Whatever. But I’ve got to make up my mind.”
She went upstairs and took off her gown and began to do yoga postures. It was beginning to be difficult to do some of the stretches and her body felt strange and confused and unwell. She stretched out on the floor. Then sat up and pulled her body into a forward bend, sliding her hands down the sides of her legs, laying her head on top of her knees, breathing and breathing, making the blood rush into the hard knot of the solar plexus, where the yogis believe the body stores its problems and its fears.
It’s no good, she thought. It’s all wrong. It’s a parasite. It’s going to suck the life out of me. Why hasn’t he called me? He hasn’t even called me. He could be dead for all I know.
She pulled her body into a headstand, balancing beautifully in the middle of the room, trying to concentrate on her breathing, trying to stop all the thoughts.
It’s not a baby. A fetus is a fetus is a fetus. When the child is born the parents start dying. It’s a hostage. All it will do is kill me. I can’t do this to myself. I can’t allow it. I can’t let it happen. I don’t have a choice. I can’t have a baby. I’ll die. They’ll cut me open and I’ll die. This time it will really kill me.
The phone interrupted her with its ringing. It was Katie, wanting her to go that evening to a lecture.
“You have to help me, Katie. I want you to go with me to have an abortion. I want to go first thing in the morning.”
“Does Will know about this? Have you told him yet?”
“Hell, no, and he isn’t going to know. It isn’t any of his business. It’s my business. It’s my body. It’s my life. And I’m going to Tulsa and get it over with and I want you to go with me. Will you go?”
“Of course I’ll go,” Katie said. “Why do you want to go to Tulsa? You could get it done right here.”
“I won’t do it here. I already called the clinic in Tulsa. I won’t do it in this town.”
“Okay,” Katie said. “If you’re sure you want to do it, let’s get it over with.”
“I’m sure,” Amanda said, her voice rising. “I’m too old to have a baby! Tell me something good, Katie. Tell me something wonderful.”
“The world is light and air and stone and water,” Katie said. “That’s all I know for sure.”
“I want to leave early in the morning,” Amanda said. “As soon as it’s light.”
“Come spend the night with me,” Katie said. “Come sleep in my bed.”
The morning felt like fall. Amanda and Katie Vee rose at dawn and drove out of town into the cool white light of the first nice day in weeks. They turned off Highway 71 onto 62, the winding, curving one-lane road that leads west into Oklahoma, into the Indian Nation.
“Look out there,” Katie said. They were moving into rolling farm country now, the early morning sun lighting up the summer fields. “God, it’s a beautiful day. The whole world washed clean after the rain.” Amanda didn’t answer so she gave up and they drove in silence. Amanda held her wrist in her hand, tracing the long blue lines of the veins, then moving her fingers up, probing deep below the muscles to feel the long bones of the arm, remembering a vision she had when Luke was massaging her, a vision of the bones of her lower arm, as though it were a marvelous secret just revealed to her. She imagined the baby’s tiny half-formed skeleton curled up inside her, deep in the fastness of the soft red world of the womb.
They had come down a long hill to a clear blue lake. It was covered on one end with lily pads like a dark green shadow. Amanda imagined sailing across it in a white sailboat. I should have taken him to the Virgin Islands to go sailing, she thought, imagining Will on a sailboat in the blue Caribbean, smoking and playing his guitar, smiling at her.
They turned a curve and came upon a field of fescue with a great bare tree in the center, a huge white ghost in a field.
“I love to see the bones of trees,” Katie said. “The architecture.” Amanda wasn’t paying any attention to her so she gave up talking and paid attention to her driving, enjoying the sight of the neat farms with their fields divided like pieces of delicate needlepoint. She drove on, imagining what they must look like from the air, moving down the little white strip of highway between the fields as if what they were doing was the most important thing in the world, as if what they were doing made the slightest bit of difference to the stars.
They had crossed the Grand River now. Amanda sighed and looked out the window.
“Go to sleep,” Katie said. Amanda did as she was told and Katie drove on into Tulsa, past the huge billboards advertising the Gilcrease Museum and the Zooarium and the Tulsa Ballet, past the signs to Yale and Harvard Avenues and Utica and Delaware and the Cimarron Turnpike and Broken Arrow.
The receptionist at the clinic was a placid-looking girl with black braids. Amanda filled out the form and handed it over and was led back to a bright office with huge Calder prints on the wall.
“Do you want me with you?” Katie said.
“No,” Amanda said. “Wait for me out there. I’ll do the rest of it alone. I’m not a child. I’m all right. I know what I’m doing.”
“I want to explain the process to you,” the young doctor said, leaning back in his chair. Behind his head three benign Calder elephants in shades of red and pink were lifting their trunks in salute. “You know most of this, I suppose, but I’ll go over it.”
“I hate Calder,” Amanda said. “He’s so lifeless. His stuff always reminds me of Aspen. I was in Aspen one year and every other restaurant in town had Calder prints on the wall. Every time I see Calder I think of matching His-and-Hers ski outfits from Neiman’s.”
“My wife bought them,” the doctor said. “She likes modern stuff.”
“I’m sorry,” Amanda said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Go on. Explain the process. I’m listening.”
“You’re pretty far along for our procedures,” he said. “But there’s nothing to worry about, of course. We like to do what is essentially a D and C at your stage, a paracervical block, an IV of Demoral and Valium. Then we’ll dilate the cervix and put in a suction curette and suck out the contents. There’s no real discomfort.” He was looking at her over his folded hands, a young earnest-looking man with wire glasses on his nose. Amanda looked back at him, then lifted her eyes to the elephants, returning their flat glassy lifeless stares.
“Then I can go right home?” she said. “Today, I mean.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Of course. As soon as you’re rested.” A nurse had entered the room and was standing behind them holding a hospital gown. “It’s two hundred and fifty dollars. If you’d like to go on and pay us. Then you can go with Miss Ingersol. She’ll help you undress.”
Amanda raised her fist to her mouth. She breathed down into her fingers. And leave my baby here with you and these fucking two-dimensional elephants, she thought. And leave his little bones in Tulsa. And be as old and scared as all the other assholes in my so-called culture. No, there’s nothing left in me that would let me do that. Amanda stood up. The nurse held out the gown. The elephants breathed down on the little doctor’s sandy hair. Amanda looked from the nurse to the doctor. She was shaking her head.
