You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [60]
The music ended. I heard a faucet come on in the kitchen, the sound of water falling into the sink. Then it stopped. Footsteps. I breathed slow shallow breaths and watched the kitchen door. She walked out into the living room, her right cheek red and swollen, the beginning of a bruise rising below her eye. There was a spot of dried blood on her lip. Her hair was down around her shoulders. She wore jeans and her long gray turtleneck sweater. She crossed the room. I knew she’d replay the album. It was János Starker. She’d play it when I couldn’t sleep or when I woke from nightmares. “Magic music to slay monsters,” she’d say.
When it began again—those slow, deep chords—she turned and saw me.
“Gilad,” she said, raising a hand to her cheek. Her eyes were dull but she was lovely in spite of herself.
“Hi,” I said. She came closer and seeing her like that—so small in her thick wool socks, sleeves pulled over her hands, her lip bloodied, her eyes dead, there was nothing of her left to hate.
“Is he here?”
She shook her head looking at me.
“Where’d he go?” I whispered.
“Left. He was leaving for Berlin tonight anyway. He’s gone.”
I dropped my bag on the floor, stepped forward, and wrapped my arms around her. When she began to cry I held the back of her head with my hand.
“You’re so cold,” she said. “You’re freezing cold.”
I was quiet and she kept her cheek against my chest. I looked out toward Montmartre and Sacré Coeur white on the hill.
After a while she said, “Are you hungry?”
I followed her into the kitchen. There was a roasted chicken on a cutting board and a bowl of sautéed potatoes on the counter. She carried both to the table. I brought plates and silverware. She sat across from me and poured two glasses of red wine from an open bottle.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Gilad, you have nothing to—”
“I do. I’m sorry I left you like that. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything. That I didn’t do anything. That I haven’t ever.”
“Gilad, it isn’t for you. It should be me, I’m the one. You’re just . . . ” She began to cry again.
“I should. It is for me. I’m just like he is.”
Her expression changed quickly. There was, in an instant, a return of color to her face. “You,” she said, her voice shaking, “are nothing like him. Nothing. Listen to me. It isn’t your fight, it isn’t your job to take care of your parents. Anyway, you can’t expect to find this courage you want so badly. It won’t just come all at once. You’ll discover how you’re going to be brave. Your father,” she shook her head, “he’s a bully, Gilad. You’ll never be that. Never. You may be afraid of him but that fear doesn’t make you a coward for Christ’s sake. It’s your father who’s a coward. Not you, do you understand me?”
I looked up at her, her eyes narrowed. She was angry and it was a relief to see that she was still alive. She was trying so hard to pull herself up, doing her best to be my mother.
“I don’t understand how you could have allowed that. Why you followed him, how someone like you, how you could . . . ”
“End up like this?”
I nodded.
“Someone like me? Life sweeps you up, Gilad. Things happen fast, you forget to pay attention. Or you stop paying attention. You lose that thing.”
“What thing?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. People used to tell me when I was young that I didn’t know what I was capable of, that my intelligence was limitless, that I could do anything. Which I’ve come to realize is true in both directions. I never imagined that I was capable of this life. It would have seemed impossible to me when I was younger, but God do we surprise ourselves. They never tell you that what we surprise ourselves with may be disappointment. No one ever told me that perhaps one day I’d find myself capable of disappointing my son. But here I am.” She took a sip of wine, looked up, and touched my cheek. “I know you