< Apart From Love: Chapter 8 >

A Woman, Forgotten

From here I see the wheelchair, deserted.

My father has managed to rise from it and now I can hear him down the hall, cackling in victory over this thing, this contraption, this symbol of his handicap, which is despicable to him. He is trying to walk, which is one step up from staying put. More precisely, he is swinging his crutches, a bit precariously I think; and in return, he is being swung by them, back and forth and over and again, making a small advance, a minute one really, with each attempted step. For him, this must be a dance of triumph.

He seems to pay no attention to me; instead, he is focused on holding the handset to his ear. It is connected to the phone, which is nearly buried by various papers, and hidden behind an old fashioned alarm clock, which stands on the console table. From there a long, spiral cord is stretching tensely in midair, trying at times to pull him in; other times it is slithering, snaking behind his back as he hobbles to and fro across the floor. I watch him with a mixture of worry and amusement:

There he goes, reaching the wall, banging it accidentally with the bottom of the crutch and then, somehow, turning around, aiming himself at the opposite wall and bang, turning around again. With each footfall, my father attempts to cut through some stutter coming through the earphone; he tries, it seems, to restart a conversation.

His voice is deliberately lowered, which tells me this is private. I should turn away, really, and keep myself far out of earshot—but for some reason I make no move, and no sound either. Why is the connection so bad, I wonder, and who is it, who could it be at the other end of the line?

My father swallows his breath several times, his face turning pale, his eyes—miserable, until finally, he bursts out shouting into the microphone, “Listen, it's Lenny, can you hear me, dear? In God's name, Natasha, it's me—”

A sudden recognition dawns upon me, and I take a step forward, fumbling to find the right tone, the right words but at the same time, crying, “What? You're talking to mom? Where—where is she? Give me, let me talk to her—”

For a moment, his eyes seem to pop right out of their sockets, and his face reddens in embarrassment, as if he has just been caught in a covert little hideaway, committing some shocking, scandalous sin.

He freezes, suspending the handset in midair. Then slowly, and with full intention, he sets it down in its cradle, and stays there guarding the thing, which is still clasped firmly in his hand.

“What's that? What are you doing?” I plead. “Mom's back! It's been a long time, five years I think, since I heard her voice—”

“Yes,” he says. “It's been that: five years. First, we need to talk—"

"We,” I insist, “have nothing to talk about. All I know is, mom's back from her tour.”

And with that I leap forward and try to snatch the thing, I yank it right out of his hold; which is when he pounces on me, and his knuckles turn bone white around my arm, and I feel him gripping me till it hurts. I have forgotten how strong he is.

"Listen,” says my father, between clenched teeth. “It's about her.”

By now I am yowling in distress, “What? What the hell do you mean? What is it, about mom?”

And so he releases me. “You better sit down,” he says. “It is something you need to hear.”

For a moment I consider the pleasure I could get out of arguing with him over whether or not I should sit, and what does he know about me, what I need, or about anything else, for that matter; but then I control myself and, noting that there is no chair here, in the hall, I just clear some papers off the console table, and stand there with my back to it, leaning against its edge. All the while I consider what to say, and how to stay on the attack, before he can come out—as I know he will—and give me some bad news.

And so, I charge him, “It is always secrets with you. I hate you for that." Which, to my surprise, he accepts. "I hate it too,” he admits. “Having to have secrets."

“With mom,” I say, “things are simpler. You know, from time to time she would tell me about herself. She would write to me, even.”

“Oh yeah?” he says. “And how long ago was that?”

I figure that the last note I received from mom was, let's see, at least two years ago, maybe three. It amazes me now that I have given little thought, if any, all these months, to this strange silence between us. I suppose I did not feel like telling her about myself, because around that time I quit everything.

I left my studies at the Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia in the Università degli Studi di Firenze, after only a couple of years; and so, I figured, the less letters from her—the better. I isolated myself, and attributed the sporadic nature of our correspondence to the frequent changes of my address, as I moved often, from one place to another across Italy.

“And her handwriting,” says my father, pressing steadily ahead. “To you, was it clear?”

Her beautiful handwriting. It is engraved in my memory. As a child, I used to study it and copy it repeatedly, beginning at age five, when she wrapped the palm of her hand over my little fist, and taught me how to hold a pen: Between the first and middle fingers, she said, and hold it in place like this, by the thumb.

Mom used to draw text with the nib of a calligraphy pen. She would produce a smooth, fluent line, changing it—as if by a magic wand—from thick to thin; and then she would continue from the end of one glyph to the beginning of the next one, with a stroke that was so fine, truly, fine to the point of becoming invisible, almost. It had such a consistent slant, just like that N over L in the monogram, embroidered on her silk sheets.

But this note, the last note she sent me, which I can see before my eyes as if it were right here, rustling in my hands, this one, I must admit, was different.

It had none of these delicate pen strokes. On the contrary, here was an ugly mess. The words were scattered; some of them were scratched over, as if some frenzied chickens got loose on the page. What happened? What could possibly explain this unusual sloppiness? Back then I decided to gloss over it, thinking that on her tour, mom must have scribbled this note hastily, while rocking, perhaps, in a car of some clunky old train, or taking off in a small airplane, fighting stormy weather on the way to her next performance.

“Well?” he says. “Have you ever wondered about that note?”

I glare at him without saying a word, so he takes a step closer, which makes me lean back. "You know,” he says, "she wasted ten sheets of paper, maybe more, to write this thing to you; and she labored so hard and so long over it, until finally it was written, and she threw the pen away, to the other side of the room, saying she was too tired to try this again."

“Now how do you know all that?” I challenge him.

"Because,” he says, "I was there.”

Which catches me off-balance, and I cry, “No! You are lying to me! You and mom, you had already separated by then; and she, she was traveling! It was you who told me so! And you knew, didn't you, that I would believe you, because... Because for her sake, I wanted it to be true! You said she was touring, taking her programme all over the world, and appearing in glitz and glory, in the best concert halls, and to rave reviews, too! New York, Moscow, Tokyo... How, then, could you possibly be in the same place with her—”

“No,” he says darkly. “You are not listening to me. Now it is hard enough to tell the truth; and even harder to tell it when you have already decided to block it out.”

“Here I am, listening,” I say, waving both hands in the air, and bowing to him. “See, here? I am listening now.”

“I was there, Ben, sitting by her bedside, even as she was writing to you. That's how I know. And,” he adds, “I came prepared; I brought a stack of papers with me, and an envelope, you see, with your address already typed in, so I would not have to bring a stack of envelopes as well; which saved her the trouble, so she would not have to copy that, too.”

He tries to read gratitude in my eyes—but I know he cannot find it, because there is nothing there but a burning accusation. “Then you lied to me, both of you!” I cry. “You made an idiot, a complete fool out of me! There was no tour? No travel around the world, no concerts, even?”

My father bites his lip, and with each one of the questions I shoot at him, his teeth leave deeper marks; which brings out the rage in me, and I point a finger at him, and pass my judgement. “You!” I bellow. “You always hide things from me.”

“No, not always,” he corrects me. “Didn't I tell you, just last night in fact, that she was brought to the hospital, to visit me? That she sat there, beside me? That she touched my arm—”

“Aw, I thought you were just seeing things.”

“No, Ben. Now, we are talking reality.”

“Reality?” I laugh, with an acid tone. “What is that, really?”

“Your mom,” says my father, “never left town. That’s reality. And,” he adds, “she never took her white, grand piano out of here. Have you never asked youself, Why is it still here?”

After a moment of confusion, I demand, “So where is she?”

And glancing at me cautiously, without committing to specifics, he offers, “It is a nice place, Ben, a pleasant one.”

“What is the name of it?”

“Sunrise Assisted Living.”

“What? Assisted Living?” I scream. “You fucking bastard! How dare you put mom in a place like that?”

All of a sudden, even as I curse him, a memory flashes across my mind. It is a childhood memory of mom and dad contemplating such a place for grandma's uncle Shmeel, who had never married and who, at the age of ninty, was still living by himself.

Sifting through the White Pages, which listed the names of these so-called homes, dad said they were designed for people in last stretch of their lives; which is why the name Infinity, he said, was so insidious, and the name Our Sweet Home was, at best, misleading, as was the name Sunrise.

Mom laughed then, because she felt a bit uneasy about the whole thing; I mean, having to decide the fate of the old man, who had no inclination to leave his little apartment, and who in the end would blame her, with great bitterness, for the loss of his independence. So she told dad, jokingly, that she could easily come up with better names for these homes, names that at least had an honest ring to them. How about The Last Dance, or One Foot in the Grave?

“Sunrise?” I say deridingly. “That place is for old people. Not for Mom!”

“She was only thirty eight,” says my father, “when I noticed it for the first time. I remember: She gave me a look as though she didn't understand what I had just said. Then I noticed that from time to time, she had trouble saying the names of her students. She seemed unsure about names. I doubt you noticed it at the time, but a year later, she could not remember the word Piano. Can you imagine that, Ben?”

I shrug, “Anyone can forget a word here and there.”

But he would not let me deny it. “Not a woman with her musical gifts! The way she used to play, Natasha could have become world famous, one of the greatest concert pianists! How, how could that happen? Ben, how could your mom forget Piano?”

I look searchingly around me in an effort to come up with an answer, and finally I suggest, “Maybe she was under stress?”

And he agrees, “She was terrified, Ben. At first, they prescribed antidepressants. Then she took antibiotics for six months, to treat what doctors thought might be Lyme disease. The neurologist suggested an MRI scan, I mean, a scan of the brain. But then, when the results came in, they could not tell us whether there was anything wrong, or whether Natasha's brain had always looked that way.”

At this point, I feel I am reaching my limit; I cannot take much more of this, but there is no stopping him. The years I lost here come pouring out, as if a dam has broken in him. “The most difficult aspect,” says my father, “was that we used to be a team; but now I had to make the decisions on my own. All except one: she was determined to divorce me, which was my fault—but her mistake, because she deteriorated so much faster after that.”

“Stop right there,” I tell him. “It makes no sense to me: Why would she want to leave you right then, at the turning point of her life, when you could be there, by her side, fighting to hold her back from the brink?”

“This,” says my father, “is something I, too, do not understand. Up to that point Natasha has changed, quietly, and grown so much stronger than me, to the point that, no matter how hard I tried, there was no pleasing her. Then she got word about my little fling, this single, one-night fling—that was all it was, back then—with Anita. So,” he says, “your mom erupted. It was painful, more painful than I had expected. She let me feel that I was done, I was no longer needed; not in health, not even in sickness. Did she feel she could face it alone, whatever it was? Was she too proud to forgive me, forgive a moment of weakness? Did she expect me to fight harder, so she may take me back, accept me? Was she willing to risk everything, and for what? For no better reason than pride? I wish I knew.”

“Enough,” I say. “I don’t want to hear it.”  

“That’s just the thing, Ben. Natasha kept quiet, all these years, and so did I. Gradually, her memory problems got worse and yet, no one knew: Not our friends, not even her students, because she was so afraid to lose them. Teaching, at this point, became more than a livelihood: For her it became a token, the last token of her independence. So I kept quiet, for her sake, and because there was no one here to whom I could talk.”

“From what I hear so far, there was nothing definite, nothing you could say, right?”

“It took a long time,” he says, in a tired tone of voice, “Four years after she had left me, that was when they found out, at long last. And you, Ben, you were in Europe by then, off to your medical studies, or something, with a light suitcase, and a heart heavy with anger, who knows why.”

I want to say, Because I had to go, to be some place else. Because I no longer had a family, with you cheating and she throwing her wedding ring away. That’s why. But without waiting for an explanation, my father moves on to say, “I just could not do it, could not bring myself to talk to you, to tell you about it.”

Suddenly his voice trembles, and I do not know why; but he wraps his arms around me, which makes me unsure if this is to lean on me or perhaps, to protect me. “Ben,” he says, “this disease, unfortunately, it can strike in the prime of life. Natasha was forty-six when, after years of knowing that something was going terribly wrong, and not being able to put a finger on it, they finally diagnosed her.”

“And,” I hesitate to ask, “does it have a name?”

There is a sound by the entrance door, then a knock, once, twice, three times—but neither one of us moves. There is a somber expression on his face. His gaze is locked into mine, and something passes between us which I cannot express in words. Meanwhile, between one knock and another there is the click of the clock, measuring time, fear, loss, until at long last, my father allows himself to say, “I talked to the doctors. They call it Early onset Familial Alzheimer’s disease.”

Then, as he passes by me on his way to open the door, I think of mom. I picture her staring at the black and white image of her brain, not quite understanding what they are telling her. The doctors point out the overall loss of brain tissue, the enlargement of the ventricles, the abnormal clusters between nerve cells, some of which are already dying, shrouded eerily by a net of frayed, twisted strands.

They tell her about the shriveling of the cortex, which controls remembering and planning. And that is the moment when in a flash, mom can see clearly, in all shades of gray blooming there, on that image; she can tell how her past and her future are slowly, irreversibly being wiped away, until she is a woman, forgotten.

So when aunt Hadassa pops her head through the open door, and marches in, followed by her sisters, I push by them with barely a nod, and before my father can say a word I bolt out, and hurl myself down the stairs. I can hear him behind me, calling, “Ben! Ben!” And I know he is doing his best to limp, somehow, down the stairs, to try to catch up to me; because in his mind, this is an unfinished conversation. But by then, I am already running at full speed down the street, running away, far away from it all.