The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [77]
Marshall and Caroline sat at a sidewalk table in a splotch of neon light. They ordered two coffees. Her face seemed brittle in the glare. He thought he could see a trace of Robert in her features.
She smiled up at him. “It is very nice here, no?”
“Yes.”
“Marshall, I realize I have been very mysterious on the subject of my father. I don’t think about him. He is not important.” She sighed. “But I will tell you what you want to know.”
The coffee arrived. Marshall tested his, but he didn’t want it. He would never get to sleep. Caroline’s hands covered her face. The dog, in her lap, moaned and tried to wriggle between her hands, to lick her face.
“There is such bitterness, monsieur,” she said to Marshall.
“Not so formal,” he said. “I’m not an old man.”
“You just said you were?”
“I didn’t really mean it. I am an innocent in a foreign land.”
“And you want to dig up the past.” Her eyes avoided his.
“I apologize. I’ve been much too forward.” He tried to soothe her. He reached across the table, at the risk of being snapped at by Bobby. The light on Caroline’s face was harsh.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve troubled you. Drink your coffee, and we’ll talk another time.”
Caroline sipped her café noir. She said, “No. Let me tell you about my father right now. Let us conclude this matter.”
33.
“IT WAS SO LAMENTABLE,” SHE SAID. WHEN SHE WAS YOUNG, HE was kind. He came every Wednesday evening, like a Father Christmas, bringing oranges or peaches or asparagus, something in season. He presented them as gifts, twisted in newspaper inside an old basket. He came in singing, and he petted each of the children, in turn, according to size. She was the middle child of the five, and as the family grew, his basket became larger. He drew amusing pictures for them. He taught them songs, for he was always singing, and he knew the children’s songs, the folk songs, the chansons, the religious songs. When they grew older he recited poetry—Verlaine, she remembered.
When he sang “Dans le silence de la nuit,” he might have been a choir angel, the melody in his voice was so sweet. But he drank too much, and his behavior was unpredictable. Gradually, his visits became erratic and unpleasant. She couldn’t say when the change began. He gushed over the children and sloshed his wine on everything, including their heads. Late one evening when she was about ten, he arrived very drunk. The younger children were in bed, and she was reading. He entered her mother’s bedroom. She heard shouting and crying. She was used to their loud noises, but this was different. Her mother was crying, and Caroline could make out some of the words. Her mother was insisting that he couldn’t do something or other, pleading. “No, no, no,” she said. Caroline’s young mind trembled in fear of her father, who had sung the chansons so sweetly.
She heard her mother say, “I beg you, tell me how I can live with this.”
“You have nothing to do with it!” he cried in a high voice.
“You cannot go on like this.”
“This is the way I am.”
“No, it does not have to be.”
Caroline went to comfort her two little brothers, who had awakened. The cuckoo clock on the wall had not worked in years, but suddenly, as the voices in the bedroom grew louder, the cuckoo strutted out of its hole and gave two loud cuckoos, as if to say “Chut!” Shut up.
Caroline believed the cuckoo was an omen. As her parents continued to argue, she could bear no more, and she burst into her mother’s bedroom. Her father stood there, on one side of the bed, with her mother on the other, against the wall. They were fully dressed, and when she entered, their faces dropped, their voices lowered, and her father said, “Hello, my little artichoke.”
“Yes, did you say your prayers?” her mother said.
Her father patted her on the head, waved goodbye to her mother, and left the apartment.
After that night, he came less often. Then his visits stopped altogether. On Wednesdays the boys asked where the basket of surprises was. It was a long time before they discovered