In the Language of Love Page 5

  Lewis calling from a dark room to apologize, his hand cupping the receiver like a flame in the wind.

  Lewis calling to whisper, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He might be crying. He might say, “I’m sorry, I‘m crying, I’m sorry.” He often said on the phone that he was crying but she could never hear it in his voice. He said that was how he cried, without sound, without tears. She thought he knew nothing about crying and how it should be done, with anguish and snot, with heat and a headache afterwards.

  It would be Lewis calling at three in the morning to say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt you.” As if that made everything all right. As if not meaning to hurt someone must lessen the depth of the pain you had so unwittingly inflicted upon them. As if hurting someone when you hadn’t meant to was not a criminal act after all. As if the aftermath of pain was merely an incidental byproduct, like the unidentifiable remains they stuff wieners with.

  7. SOFT

  “YOU’RE SOFT IN THE HEAD, woman,” Henry said. “But hard, oh so hard in the heart.” It was raining. They were getting ready for bed.

  They had agreed to break up. Henry would move out, Joanna would keep the basement apartment, which had, after all, been hers in the first place. Henry was packed and ready to go, his clothes stuffed into three green garbage bags which sat now on top of his stereo on the front porch. He’d rented a room in a sleazy downtown hotel until he could find a place of his own.

  They had been living together for nearly two years. They had been deciding to break up for the past two months. For the first month, the discussion had gone like this:

  Joanna said, “I want to get married and have babies.”

  Henry said, “I’ll never get married and I don’t like kids.”

  Then they both said these things several more times, usually at two in the morning over a bottle of scotch or a case of cold beer. They repeated themselves until they were exhausted from anger or hysteria and then they went to bed.

  For the second month, the discussion had gone like this:

  Henry said, “Maybe we should get married and have babies.”

  Joanna said, “No, I don’t think so.”

  Henry said, “But I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  Joanna said, “I did.”

  Henry said, “I’ve changed.”

  Joanna said, “Yes.”

  Now the decision was made, Henry was leaving, and they were making love for the last time.

  “Nobody will ever love you as much as I do,” Henry said, not unkindly, as he slipped his hand between her wet thighs.

  “You’re probably right,” Joanna said, spreading her legs and guiding his fingers inside.

  “You’re soft in the head, woman,” Henry said. “But hard, oh so hard in the heart.”

  Joanna imagined she would have occasion in the future to recall these words. They had a nice prophetic ring to them. Joanna suspected that Henry imagined that she would never let herself be completely happy. He often told her that she expected too much of people, especially of the people she loved. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she expected too much of life in general. She was unwilling to either admit or alter this possibly fatal flaw in her outlook. They both imagined they would be friends forever.

  8. EATING

  JOANNA ALWAYS WAS a picky eater. Raw tomatoes were all right, for instance, in sandwiches on white buttered toast with salt and pepper, but not on plain white bread because the juice made the bread go soggy and pink. Ketchup, which Esther called “catsup” and which Clarence slopped all over everything, was utterly revolting. Tomato juice and Campbell’s tomato soup were also all right. She liked a little glass of tomato juice at breakfast, not to drink but to dip her buttered toast in, two slices cut precisely in half and then into eight equal fingers, dipping-size. She liked tomato soup for lunch, especially in the wintertime, with soda crackers, not mushed up in it but on a plate beside. When they had spaghetti for supper, Joanna had her noodles plain with butter and some salt.

  Esther said, “How can you turn your nose up at something you’ve never even tasted?”

  Joanna said, “I can tell by the smell that I don’t like it.”

  “But it smells good,” Esther insisted.

  “Not to me.”

  She did not like pineapple, bananas, coconut, blueberries, grapes, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, spinach, mayonnaise, vinegar, mushrooms, egg salad sandwiches, fruitcake, peanuts, cabbage, mashed potatoes, vegetable soup, peaches, pork chops, peas, boiled eggs, beets, potato salad, dill pickles, liver, prunes, turnips, green beans, sweet-and-sour spareribs, porridge, maraschino cherries, marmalade, tapioca, sardines, horseradish, black licorice, creamed corn, or yams.

  She liked grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken drumsticks, corn onthe cob, barbecued steak, lemon meringue pie, hot dogs, pretzels, raw carrots, cream puffs, rice, pears, Delicious apples, pomegranates, turkey, red licorice, macaroni, bacon, potato puffs, peanut butter and Cheez Whiz on white toast, watermelon, butter tarts, grape jelly, mandarin oranges, rhubarb with sugar, waffles with butter and real maple syrup, chocolate milk shakes and hot fudge sundaes from the Dairy Queen. She also liked fish which they had every Friday although they were not Catholic.

  She had never tasted asparagus, sour cream, sauerkraut, lamb chops, clams, zucchini, lobster, shrimp, blue cheese, buttermilk, oysters, black olives, pickled eggs, ravioli, tartar sauce, or snails. And she did not intend to.

  She did not like strawberries because those little picky things on the outside stuck in her teeth. She did not like raspberries any more since she bit into one with a white worm curled up in the hole. She did not like orange juice with pulp. She did not like marshmallows unless they were roasted or floating in a mug of hot chocolate. She especially did not like those miniature marshmallows featured in the Kraft commercials during “The Ed Sullivan Show.” They were shown in various bizarre dessert concoctions which Esther unfortunately occasionally felt compelled to try.

  She also didn’t like things that were all mixed up together. Lasagna, chili, beef stew, chicken pot pie, tuna casserole—simply the sight of these made her gag. She especially hated Esther’s jellied salad which they had every Thursday: a mould of green Jell-O with shredded carrots, chopped celery, and sliced green olives suspended in it.

  Esther tried to explain to her that all the food ends up mixed together in your stomach anyway. Joanna said she did not want to think about this. Esther got out her cookbook and read aloud the recipe for the Thursday night casserole they had with the hateful jellied salad. The casserole was called American Chop Suey. It contained hamburger, onion, white rice, elbow macaroni, and Campbell’s tomato soup.

  “See!” Esther said triumphantly. “There’s not a thing in there that you don’t like. Rice, you love rice! Macaroni, your favourite!”

  “But not together. I don’t like them together,” Joanna moaned.

  It was Wednesday. They would have the casserole and the jellied salad tomorrow night. There was always an argument before, during, and/or after the Thursday evening meal. It was starting already, it was starting early, it was only Wednesday. Sometimes there were tears on Thursday, hers, her mother’s, or both.

  The tension began like prickly heat, a vague burning, a little itch. Clarence slopped ketchup all over his plate. Esther informed them that she had put green pepper in the jellied salad just to be different. Joanna moved the pile of casserole from the left side of her plate to the right. Esther helped herself to more salad, declaring it delicious. Joanna moved the mound of lumpy green Jell-O from the right side of her plate to the left. Clarence’s mouth got closer and closer to his plate as he shovelled in the food. By now they could not even look at each other. There seemed to be another presence in the kitchen, a mealtime miasma which was making them all mean and miserable.

  Clarence and Esther were finished. Clarence stood up and burped enthusiastically. Esther put their plates in the sink and did not even offer to make tea. Joanna was left sitting alon
e at the table with her brown plaid plate still in front of her, still full of food, cold now and played with, so it was even more disgusting. She was usually sitting there for another two hours, promising herself that when she had children of her own she would never ever force them to eat.

  Esther was hissing, “You will sit there until you eat it! You will sit there until bedtime for all I care!” Then she shut herself in the bedroom where, Joanna supposed with some grim satisfaction, she would lie facedown on the shiny orange bedspread, gritting her false teeth and weeping, dabbing her wet cheeks with the several Kleenexes she kept tucked in her bra because in those days women’s slacks and blouses did not have pockets.

  Clarence was in the living room, oblivious, immune, or exempt, lying on the chesterfield watching television and dozing and snoring, or having another whisky and Coke, working on the cryptogram, deciphering a ribbon of gibberish—QXKXC ZMEKN OVTOCONEV NCOHXF WONKAYAHXKQ YOWABZ WXOBV—to reveal some obscure and useless sentence—TENDER YOUNG ASPARAGUS GRACED MAGNIFICENT FAMILY MEALS.

  Sometimes Joanna managed to choke down most of her meal and then her mother was temporarily mollified. Other times, when the food and Joanna were still sitting there at nine o’clock, Esther would stomp out of the bedroom and noisily scrape the remains of Joanna’s meal into the garbage can, muttering about starving children across the ocean. To which Joanna once cried, more in despair than anger, “Well then, mail it to them!”

  In bed afterwards she was hungry. She supposed she had won something. But what? She did not feel victorious. She could hear her parents in the kitchen doing the dishes and then in the living room, watching TV, reading the newspaper, Clarence still working on the cryptogram or his paint-by-numbers, Esther sewing or working on her stamp collection, both of them going about the rest of their evening as if nothing had happened. Joanna did not feel triumphant. She felt hungry, lonely, and frightened.

  One Friday, after another miserable Thursday evening, Clarence surprised them at breakfast by suggesting they go out for dinner that night. Maybe he was not oblivious after all. He put his arm around Esther and said, “Maybe you could use a break.” Maybe they all could. Esther in the curve of his embrace looked up at him with shiny grateful eyes and kissed his cheek. Joanna looked away. She could not have said what was more disturbing: when they got all sappy like this or when they were arguing. Which in their case meant Esther giving Clarence the silent treatment for a day or two, sometimes longer, once for a whole week when Clarence went for drinks after work on a Friday with the men from the mill and he didn’t come home until after midnight, drunk as a skunk, and threw up in the kitchen sink. Esther cleaned it up and said nothing. Esther said nothing for a whole week. Until the next Saturday when they all went grocery shopping as usual and everything slid back to normal again. Joanna had never heard them actually arguing out loud. The silent treatment made her so nervous that she often wished they would just yell at each other and throw things and get it over with.

  When Clarence got home from work that Friday, they all got dressed up and went to the Winston Hotel, which was only a few blocks away, in the business district of the neighbourhood. Theywere seated at a table for four in the dingy dining room. The waitress, her face like a Hush Puppy shoe, whisked away the extra place setting without looking at them. Heavy plates and chunky silverware were set on paper placemats with coloured pictures of fancy drinks on them, drinks with names like Singapore Sling, Stinger, Sidecar, Bloody Mary, Tom Collins, Harvey Wallbanger. These were called “cocktails,” Joanna knew, a smutty-sounding word with suggestions she did not dare examine for fear of bursting into a fit of red-faced giggling right at the table and falling off her chair. Esther and Clarence studied their menus which were large pink plasticized cards with a typewritten list of today’s specials paper-clipped inside. They ordered drinks. There was bland cheerful music seeping from somewhere near the kitchen into the half-full room. They were happy. They were very hungry. Clarence wanted the salmon steak. Esther wanted the roast pork. Joanna wanted a hot dog.

  Esther whispered, “It’s not that kind of place. Order something serious.”

  Joanna whined, “But I want a hot dog, with french fries and gravy.”

  Esther hissed, “Roast beef, roast beef, order the roast beef!”

  Joanna moaned, “But I want—”

  Esther snarled, “You will never be happy, will you? I can never please you, can I?” Which Joanna could not understand because it had been her father’s idea to come here in the first place and what was or wasn’t on the menu had nothing whatsoever to do with Esther anyway. She could not understand why her mother thought she was in charge of (or to blame for) absolutely everything.

  When the roast beef arrived, it wasn’t even as good as what Esther made at home on Sundays. Joanna thought about mentioning this but the mealtime silence which so often engulfed them at home had them in its grip here now too and so she said nothing. They could not speak. They could not look at each other. Clarence slopped ketchup all over his plate. Esther slopped sour cream all over her baked potato. Joanna moved the dry meat from the left side of her plate to the right. Clarence’s mouth got closer and closer to his plate as he shovelled in the food. Joanna moved the stringy meat back again. Esther lookedout the window. Joanna’s throat was closing. She looked with furtive longing at the other families at the other tables. They were talking, they were even laughing, they were tasting tidbits of each other’s entrées. When the little girl in the high chair two tables over spilled her milk, the mother just smiled and the father gaily waved for the waitress. Two tables over in the other direction, another family of three, the boy about ten, Joanna’s age, was loudly and joyfully reliving the movie they’d seen the night before. These were happy families. These were families in love. Joanna wished she could die and be reborn into one of them.

  Her parents ordered coffee. The waitress took their plates away, hers too, not seeming to notice or mind that her meal had been mostly rearranged rather than eaten. At least here, Joanna thought, her mother would not rush off to the bedroom crying and her father would not fall asleep and snore. At least here she would not have to sit at the table until bedtime, watching the world gently darken outside the window, watching the streetlights come on, watching her whole life, as yet unlived, pass before her bleary unloved eyes. At least here she could still have dessert before she had to go home and face the music.

  Whenever Joanna and Lewis had the chance to spend the whole evening together, they ordered Chinese food from the Bamboo Gardens downtown, free delivery. The Chinese writing on the menu was like hieroglyphics, mysterious and promising. Half an hour later, two big brown paper bags arrived, steaming and heavy with Styrofoam containers and plastic packets of plum and soya sauce.

  They spread the food all over the coffee table and curled up on the couch to eat. They ate like two pigs, filling up their plates again before they were even half-empty, being greedy and messy, as if there weren’t enough food arrayed around them for six people.

  What Joanna really wanted was to get to the fortune cookies at the end, to those single sentences of reflective wisdom or prophetic guidance, Oriental oracles encapsulated in a bow of sugar, almonds, and flour. She observed the superstition that the fortune would be rendered invalid if you simply pulled it out, in the way that if you said your birthday cake wish out loud, it would never come true. You hadto eat away the cookie to free the fortune inside.

  They were like newspaper horoscopes. The positive relevant ones gave her a shiver of optimistic excitement: There are big changes for you but you will be happy. This person loves you sincerely. Happy event will take place shortly in your home.Of course there were no truly dire fortunes, the creators of these morsels either being chronically optimistic by nature or having been warned sternly at the outset that nobody wants a cookie that says: Your lover will leave you next month. You will spend the rest of your life alone and miserable. You will die a tragic and painful death by the end of the week. As with th
e newspaper horoscopes, Joanna could easily disregard the more irrelevant messages: You will make a profitable investment. You are next in line for promotion. Simplicity and clarity should be your theme in dress.

  Lewis too thought the fortunes were like newspaper horoscopes: just plain silly. He yanked his out unceremoniously and read them aloud, laughing and rolling his eyes. He crumpled them into little balls and dropped them into one of the empty Styrofoam containers. From which Joanna rescued them when she cleared the table, smoothed them out and saved them all, noting the date on the back. She kept them in an envelope behind the spices. She thought she would do something with them some day, although she could not have said what and in fact she never did.

  Gordon takes great pleasure in food, both its preparation and its consumption. He is a good cook, his specialty being a sumptuous Spanish paella, rich with chicken, shrimp, clams, and artichoke hearts. He carves a mean turkey. He likes almost everything, anchovies, oysters, and oatmeal being the quite reasonable exceptions. He does not expect a hot meal waiting on the table every night when he gets home from work. If Joanna is still in her studio when he arrives, he either starts supper himself (without feeling compelled to point out what a hero he is for doing so) or orders a pizza. Joanna’s friends envy her. Sometimes she thinks she even envies herself. In the early days of their marriage, when Joanna occasionally felt obligated to apologize for these lapses indomestic responsibility, Gordon would just roll his eyes and peel another potato.

  He even professes to enjoy grocery shopping and doing the dishes, although sometimes Joanna suspects this is something he knows modern men are supposed to say. He is always humming when he rolls up his shirtsleeves and plunges into the dishwater up to the elbows. He even has his own favourite brand of dish soap, which is blue and costs twice as much as the generic yellow lemon-scented stuff which Joanna occasionally buys by mistake. His disappointment when this happens is palpable although he says nothing, afraid, Joanna supposes, of sounding like a demented housewife in a TV commercial, swooning over the new improved brand of laundry soap, denouncing the old inadequate kind and her own stupidity for having used it for fifteen years, her husband and six children having spent the best years of their lives trotting around in sweat-stained T-shirts and greying underwear.