“Well, what was it like talking to him after so many years?” I asked.
Again, Rose was a while in answering. “Fine,” she said, with finality. But then she continued, “I think he was a little shocked to hear from me. And it was pretty late at night when I decided to call. I forgot the time difference, it being an hour later east. I woke him up. And you know how some people are when they get up, confused. Carl didn’t catch right on who it was. Though maybe he was pretending if he and his wife sleep in the same room and she was right next to him, maybe he was pretending so she wouldn’t make a scene. ‘Don’t faint,’ I said. ‘I’m just calling to say hello.’”
“You must have been nervous,” I said. “It took courage to call.”
“Not really. I had you and your father as examples. The point is you do whatever you want to and it’s all right if it’s for …love. I had no idea that life was so simple.” She let out a long sigh.
“Are you going to see him?”
“Carl? What would the point be? I loved him for his beauty and I’m sure that’s gone.” Rose laughed; the car drifted toward the lane to our right and a truck blew a long terrifying note of warning.
“You haven’t mentioned your father and I being back in the same house again,” Rose said, moments later. “I thought you’d have a lot to say about that.”
“To be honest with you, I’m surprised.”
“I knew it! I know what you think of your mother.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re surprised your father would come home?”
“No. I’m surprised you’d have him back.”
“The woman died. Her kids went to her sister and he was all alone. He called me five weeks ago, pretending he wanted to talk about you, we had dinner, he asked to come back, and I said it was all right with me. I didn’t have any reason to play hard to get or any other games. I don’t give a damn what people say. I’ve always been that way. An independent. When the welfare man used to come to my mother’s apartment, I used to spit right on his nice brown shoes. My mother was afraid I’d get us thrown off relief but I didn’t care. No one takes my dignity away, or my self-respect. That’s something no one can do. Not the welfare department, not the cops, or the FBI, or the Board of Education, not your father, and not you. No one!” She paused for a moment. “I like being with Arthur. He’s my best friend. He’s my husband. And I know you know how he used to love me. Worship me! Really, it was like worship. He used to follow me around the apartment with his hands out in front of him, like he was sleepwalking. But things got confused. They bogged down. I wasn’t as nice as I could have been. Resentments build up. It’s not so unusual. He used you against me and that made things worse. But that happens, too. Believe me, the Axelrods aren’t the only little family who’ve had a few failings. I think we’ve done better than most. At least your father and I have upheld our ideals. I’m proud of that, at least.”
“You should be,” I said. “It’s hard to be a socialist in this country.”
“You’re damned right it is!” said my mother, with a surge. “And no one says thank you. That woman’s children? The boy is going into the Army but he wants to go to college for a couple of years so he’ll be made an officer. He wants to go to Asia and burn yellow people to death. And the daughter wants to be a clothes model. This is what you get from the Negro people. I don’t know what their mother believed in, but it certainly wasn’t justice or progress.”
We turned off the expressway and drove through ghetto streets. Some of the buildings were still boarded up or in ruins, as they had been since Martin Luther King’s assassination. It made you think that most would never be rebuilt; trapped between past and future, we lived with our own archaeology.
“Look at this,” Rose said. “In the richest country in the world. Is your door locked? Poverty…” her voice faded; she speeded up to make a green light. “People take their own feelings so seriously,” she said. “I try not to. People exaggerate their feelings, and I try not to do that either. Arthur is a man I’ve known for more than thirty years and when he came to me with tears in his eyes and asked to come home, well, I could have said yes and I could have said no, but I said yes. And it was fine. And getting better. I think we may have even been falling in love. Again, I mean. But then you called…I’m not trying to blame you, David. I’m glad you got in touch with us. I only wish it had been sooner. But then you called, finally, and Arthur had a heart attack. I don’t blame you. I hope you don’t blame yourself, either. Maybe he was just waiting for a time when you’d be able to know before he let himself collapse. Maybe he was holding out until then. Maybe he would have held out forever if you hadn’t called. How could you know that? And I’m glad you called. It should have been earlier, but at least you called. And he’s doing all right, as I told you. There’s been no brain damage. He still has his functions. Only a very minor bit of tissue damage in his heart. He looks fine. Better than he did before the attack. Just one night’s sleep and staying in bed. It’s amazing. I was so frightened last night. It was a relief seeing him this morning—I stopped to visit before coming to get you. But now I’m scared again. That’s why I’ve been driving so slow and going a little out of my way. I know a shortcut that could have knocked fifteen minutes off this trip but I’m a little afraid to bring you to see your father. I have this terrible feeling that seeing you is going to make him worse, maybe even give him another attack. Will you at least promise me one thing? If he seems to be getting weak, or if I give you a signal, because I could see something that you’d miss, then will you just pick yourself up and get the hell out of his room no questions asked? Will you promise me that?”
“Look for yourself, I’m fit and healthy as a horse,” said Arthur, as we took our seats next to his bed. He was propped up, with the Sun Times resting on his lunch tray. His thin gray hair was mussed and his eyes were disconcertingly bright—he looked merry, impish, even slightly drunk. His loose-fitting hospital gown was open to the top of his belly and the hair on his chest glistened: someone hadn’t wiped all the petroleum jelly off after his last EKG. He held my hand, clumsily but with strength. The letters on his plastic identification bracelet were dark violet and smeary. “Dr. Pokorny threatens to kick me the hell out of here unless I agree to look a little sicker. He says it’s bad for the image of the hospital.” Arthur smiled, broadly this time, revealing the soft blackness at the back of his mouth where his dentures had been removed.
“Are you in any pain?” I asked.
“Nah,” he said.
“You don’t have to be brave,” Rose said. “He asked: tell him.”
“It’s nothing. At first it was like getting kicked by a mule, but when I think of what some people have to suffer…this is nothing.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and gestured across the room, where a white curtain had been drawn around the room’s second bed. Then, slowly and sadly, he shook his head.
No mention was made of my absence, no joy was expressed at my return. Reflexively, we spoke as if the room was bugged by enemies, as if the police had learned of Arthur’s attack and now waited for me to be drawn into their net. Once in a while, Arthur would squeeze my hand and say my name under his breath, but he never used my name in a conversational tone and this, too, was deliberate. We didn’t discuss what I’d been doing the past months, nor did he or Rose express any curiosity over what my future might hold. We spoke of Arthur’s health—how good it had always been; we spoke of the weather—the remorseless sunless heat.