Father's Arcane Daughter Read online

  “I know. I hope you love it as much as I did.” Then a pause, friendly enough, but awkward.

  My turn again? “You can have it back if you want.” “Please don’t bother. As soon as everything is settled, I’ll have an apartment of my own.”

  “It won’t be any bother. Honest. You can have your room back tonight if you. want.”

  She laughed. “I probably wouldn’t be able to get the gymnasium odor out of it in so short a time.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m not especially athletic, and I am very neat.”

  “Neat,” she repeated. Then she looked at me a long time, a very direct, very long look. “Yes, Winston, you are neat. Neat,” she repeated. A pause, not as long as the others, and then she added, “Would you call for me so that we can go down to dinner together?” And then she gave me a smile. The smile registered as something special, some new word in my vocabulary of facial expressions. I would have to decide, what it was. Maybe it was significant. Maybe it was a clue to her identity.

  I nodded. “I’ll call for you.”

  She said, “That, too, will be neat. Very neat.”

  I went to my room and threw myself across my bed. Stupid, stupid, stupid-o! I had practically begged her to throw me out of my room. Dumb, dumb, dummy-me! I loved my room. I sometimes felt that my room was the best friend I had in the house. What had come over me? Where had I lost control? At what point had I decided to do everything that I had said I wouldn’t do?

  I took down the scrapbook and studied it. I reread the interviews with Caroline’s classmates. They had all agreed that Caroline Carmichael had been a nice person. But nice was not what I would have chosen to describe her, not unless I could qualify nice. Warm nice? Maybe. But something else. Something I had never met with in an adult before. I had to think about it.

  THERE WAS A small bouquet of flowers by the place setting across from me, next to Heidi. Caroline picked up the flowers, looked at Father and said, “Thank you. You remembered.”

  “Remembered what?” Mother asked, looking over at Father. Father paid no attention to Mother.

  “Remembered what?” Mother asked again.

  “Anemones,” Caroline answered. She walked over to the head of the table and kissed Father just below the earlobe. I was shocked. Here was this woman—over thirty—and still allowed to moosh over’Father. It was much easier to be a daughter than to be a son.

  “I know they’re anemones,” Mother said. She added a little laugh, it came out as a whimper. “I also know that its not Caroline’s birthday. What is the special occasion?”

  “My mother would have been fifty-seven today,” Caroline said. “She loved anemones.”

  Mother looked at Father. “That was very thoughtful of you, Charles.”

  Heidi reached toward the flowers. Mother, “who was sitting on Heidi’s right, tapped her hand to get her attention and said, “Those are Caroline’s. They are very special.” She looked up and smiled at Caroline.

  “I just want to look at them,” Heidi said.

  “May she hold them?” Mother asked. Her smile changed to the one that people wore for asking unnecessary permissions like, May I help you with your coat?

  Caroline said, Of course, and Heidi began to reach for the flowers, her hand open, her arm moving like a broken clutch across the tablecloth. Caroline watched the hand for a minute, and then lifted the flowers herself and handed them to Heidi. Heidi held the, small vase as if she were going to drink from it, and some of the water spilled on her lap.

  “Give the flowers back to Caroline, darling,” Mother said. “They are very special.” Heidi returned the flowers, and Grace said, “That’s a good girl.”

  “They don’t smell,” Heidi said.

  Mother lifted the dinner bell, rang it, and dinner was served. Grapefruit first; Heidi had none. She sat, her head propped on her arm, watching Caroline eat. When the main course arrived, Father carved and Simmons carried Heidi’s portion into the kitchen, returning with it cut up on Heidi’s special divided platter. Heidi put her elbow on the table and propped her head on her hand and began the left-handed, wooly operation that transported food from her plate to her mouth. She ate everything with a spoon even though a full setting of cutlery was put at her place. I watched her as I had not watched her in a long time. She ate with a weird kind of concentration, not like a puppy—all eagerness and appetite—but like some lower form of life, something cenazoic.

  Caroline smiled at Father. “Did you request the lamb?” she asked. “We had it often over there.”

  “No,” Father replied. “That touch of thoughtfulness was Grace’s. She planned the menu.”

  Caroline looked at Mother. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s delicious.”

  I noticed that Mother looked uneasy. Was it just the strangeness of the situation? No, it was something about Caroline. Was it because she had not shown any enthusiasm about sharing her flowers with Heidi?

  “So many people,” Mother said, “ignore lamb, except for chops …

  At that moment, Heidi’s fork appeared from far horizons and jabbed a piece of lamb from Caroline’s plate. Caroline who had been looking at Mother saw the motion out of the corner of her eye and jumped back in alarm. “Oh! my God!” she exclaimed. “What was that?”

  “Just Heidi,” I answered. “She always does that. But it’s usually Father’s plate.”

  Heidi’s head was still propped on her hand; she was chewing. Mother looked at her and smiled and then looked up at Caroline and gave a gentle, what-can-one-do? shrug.

  “I don’t like that,” Caroline said.

  Mother, embarrassed and surprised, replied, “But she is only a child.”

  “I don’t like it,” Caroline repeated.

  “Surely,” Mother said, “your natives in Ethiopa did not all have dainty table manners.”

  “Hiefr’behavior at table—when, they had a table—was appropriate. One does not expect the manners of a barbarian at a table set with crystal and damask.”

  Father interrupted, “Surely, Grace, there is no reason…

  Mother passed him a glare that withered the rest of his sentence. “Tomorrow,” she said, “Caroline can sit with Winston.”

  “She can sit there now,” I suggested.

  Heidi’s head was still propped on her hand, her elbow still on the table. She was chewing with large semi-voluntary movements like the underside of a slug pressed against the glass wall of a terrarium. She had heard almost nothing. She sat like that until she noticed Caroline getting up.

  Caroline took her place at my side.

  WHEN I WAS DELIVERED from school the following day, Caroline was waiting for me in the breakfast room. She sat across from me at the table; I barely said hello. What right had she to deprive me of the only time each day-each day except Thursday—when I could be totally alone? Those few precious minutes when I was nobody’s brother and nobody’s son and nobody’s pupil. What an awful thing for her to do, to come between the Winston and the Carmichael.

  “What did you learn in school today?” she asked.

  I was still annoyed with myself for weakening yesterday afternoon. I wouldn’t look up; I didn’t want to be disarmed. I could only fire if I didn’t see the whites of her eyes. “In school today,” I answered, “I learned that flatulence is a polite word for fart.”

  She laughed. She laughed out loud. “I hadn’t expected that” she said. Then, she laughed again. “Did you learn anything else?”

  I replied, “I also learned that you can get a monstrous hickey from a Kirby vacuum cleaner. Freddie Hauser has one on his neck; he claims it came from a passionate maid.” She laughed again. I had fired off two very good shots, and now I dared look up. The battle was oyer; I won; I surrendered.

  “Seventh grade?” she asked.

  “Seventh grade,” I answered.

  “Is it still algebra, history, current events, general science and English?”

  “Algebra, history, current events, general science, En
glish and zingers. We try hardest at zingers.”

  “Will you tell me what zingers is?”

  “Are. Zingers are put-downs. We practice being sarcastic.”

  “Can you remember some zingers to tell me?”

  “I can remember them all. But I never repeat, them.”

  “Why?”

  “Two reasons: one, a true wit never repeats himself; he lets others repeat his remarks for him. And two, if the zingers aren’t mine, I’m not going to repeat them and help some other guy’s reputation.”

  She chuckled. Usually only teachers or old aunts chuckle, and usually I hate it. But it was quite a decent sound coming from her. “Yes,” she said, “there’s an other reason, too. Zingers are often untranslatable from their place of origin.”

  “Did you teach in Ethiopia?”

  “I taught for “a while.”

  “Seventh grade?”

  “No, English.”

  “Was that a feeble attempt at a zinger?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Actually, I didn’t teach English very long. After I went out into the primitive areas, I taught hygiene and health care.”

  “Did you find it hard to live in a tent after having lived in a. nice house like this? I am often told how lucky I am to be privileged?”

  “Who tells you?”

  “Teachers, clergy and Mother. I often think that I would be very glad to be underprivileged. Is that what you wanted?”

  “I don’t know if that’s what I wanted. I worried a lot about not knowing what I wanted. This is one of the privileges of being privileged. I just knew that I didn’t want to be Caroline. After I was kidnapped and then saved, I saw my chance to escape being Caroline. I became Martha Sedgewick.”

  “Was it difficult to become someone else, to switch identities?”

  “In many ways it was easier than I thought.”

  “For example?”

  “At first one of things I enjoyed doing was excusing Martha. I couldn’t be blamed for whatever Martha did. I thought, Caroline didn’t do it. Caroline remained cool and perfect. There was, too, the pleasure of allowing my old Caroline self to sit back and watch what my new Martha self was doing. I’d often find myself thinking, ‘Go ahead, Martha, prove to Caroline that you can do it.’ ” She looked at me and said, “There is still a lot of Martha in Caroline. I’m certain that Caroline is a much better person for having been her.”

  She smiled again, and I recognized what it was about her smile that made it unique. It was unguarded, which was certainly not a Carmichael look. But, then, certainly no one who was not the real Caroline could be that, be unguarded.

  I ARRIVED HOME from school on Thursday and found Heidi sitting in the breakfast room just as she always did. But now Caroline sat there, too. Both my sister and my half said, “Hi, Winston,” when I walked in, and then they waited. I felt as if they had both entered a contest, and getting my attention was their goal as well as their prize.

  I sat at the table, and Caroline got up and walked toward the kitchen saying that she would tell Cora that I was home and hungry.

  Heidi watched Caroline leave. “She isn’t very nice,” she said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I answered.

  “She hardly talked to me while we were waiting.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “The grown-up is supposed to talk first.”

  “You can’t make friends if you make those rules.”

  At that moment Caroline returned, carrying a plate and a glass of milk. “Your mother went to the beauty parlor,” she said.

  “We know that,” Heidi answered. “Thursday is her day there. Winston and I always play games on Thursdays, don’t we, Winston?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “Yes,” I repeated, “we do that.”

  “That’s fine,” Caroline said. “III be in my room.” Then she got up and left.

  I followed her with my eyes. I felt bad that she left; I felt bad about the way she left. I looked down at Heidi. “I have a terrific idea for this afternoon,” I said. “Let’s have a scavenger hunt on the grounds.”

  I watched Heidi’s arms waggle with enthusiasm. “Oh, goody!” she said.

  “Well invite Caroline to hide the things.”

  Heidi frowned, her face puckering like a dried apple doll. “Not Caroline,” she said. “Luellen. Luellen will hide the treasures. We don’t need Caroline.”

  I muttered so that Heidi could not hear, “Maybe. Maybe we don’t. Maybe I do.”

  five

  “When did the dinner table first become a proving ground?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” she answered.

  “I thought maybe you’d remember.”

  “Cant you?” she asked.

  “No. I think it began while I was in a crush of feelings. A whole set of old emotions were washing out, and a new set were chugging in, sloshing around, fitting into corners that had been empty.”

  She leaned back and smiled as she thought of something. “I don’t know when the testing began,” she said, “But I certainly remember when it ended”

  “At Thanksgiving.” I laughed as I thought about that. “Do you remember that first Thanksgiving?” I asked.

  “Remember?” she asked. “Could I ever forget?”

  “It stands out in my mind, too.”

  “A Thursday again” she said. “Strange how much of this comic strip takes place on a Thursday”

  IT WAS AFTER I was certain about where I stood with Caroline and, more important, where Caroline stood with me that I began to focus on the tests that Mother administered at the dinner table.

  I noticed that she would start a test from any direction. “I met Sarah’ Lamson today,” she would begin. Then looking at Caroline, “Do you remember her?”

  CAROLINE: NO, I’m afraid I don’t.

  GRACE: Oh, of course. Her name was Sarah Tyrone when you knew her.

  CAROLINE (hesitatingly): Oh, yes, Sarah … Sarah Tyrone, you say?

  GRACE (smiling, an eyebrow raised at Charles): Sarah.

  CAROLINE (nodding her head, smiling as if to herself): Silly Sally Tyrone. I hope that Mr. Lamson is smart enough for two; it will take that, you know, for them to have children of only normal intelligence.

  I WATCHED Mother’s face register a grudging Pass.

  Another time—it was a Thursday—Mother had been to the beauty parlor. She patted her hair upward and said, “I ran into the most unlikely person in the most unlikely place today.”

  * * *

  CHARLES: Who would that be?

  GRACE (looking at Caroline): Agatha Trollope.

  Caroline continued eating and said nothing.

  CHARLES: And how was old Miss Trollope?

  GRACE: Terribly crippled with arthritis.

  Caroline continued eating and said nothing.

  CHARLES: Is she retired yet?

  GRACE: As a matter of fact, she isn’t. She is actively recruiting for Finchley. She asked about Heidi.

  At that moment Heidi came to attention; she lifted her head from her hand and demanded, “Who is Miss Trollope?”

  GRACE: Caroline will tell you, dear. Caroline knows who Miss Trollope is better than anyone at this table.

  CAROLINE (looking at Heidi): Miss Agatha Trollope is the headmistress at Finchley School. You might do well to go to Finchley, Heidi.

  HEIDI (lips pooched out like a kissing gourami): But I want to stay at Holton always and always and always.

  GRACE (reaching over and patting Heidi’s hand): Don ’t worry about it now, dear.

  There were other tests: places and dates, and they were well under way by the time it dawned on me that part of Mother’s reasons for inviting Caroline to stay with us was so that she could chart and grade the conversations at our evening meals.

  I was slow to notice. I had lost all my desire to be Baby Bear and catch Goldilocks eating forbidden porridge. I had been busy being Columbus, discovering a new world.

  BY THE END of Caroline’s secon
d week, I had begun, timidly at first, and then eagerly, to point my day toward coming home, coming home to Caroline. I could hardly wait to see her in the breakfast room, and except for Thursdays, she was always there. We talked about the world, and we discussed life. We exchanged thoughts and borrowed opinions, but only long enough to consider them and decide if they were good enough to belong to us.

  And I had begun a new kind of education. History and geography were no longer subjects; they had become subject matter, subject matter about which I could have conversations with Caroline. I had to know my material to be able to discuss it with her. Being able to talk intelligently about what I had read had become a new kind of accountability, far more difficult than getting A’s.

  Caroline was the first person I had ever known who had read deeply and seriously out of interest and enthusiasm and not simply to pass a test.

  And she was not like certain relatives of mine who gave me books as gifts—books that I knew they had never read themselves, but ones that were GOOD BOOKS, and that they wanted me to associate them with. There were more people who knew what to read than there were people who read. Caroline was not like that. There was a great deal she had not read; she had not read a lot of the GOOD BOOKS. But she had read a lot.

  I, myself, had been reading for a long time. I had learned to read even before I had started school. But aside from test passing and aside from a certain incident in the fifth grade, I had used reading only as a form of entertainment.

  IN THE FIFTH grade I had hated my teacher, Mr. Eppes, and I knew that Mr. Eppes hated me. But we kept it polite; such things were kept polite at Wardhill.

  I had leafed ahead in my history book and had seen that we were going to study early American history, so I began to read everything I could about Benjamin Franklin. I read with a special kind of fervor; I was reading for revenge. Then I sat back and waited for Mr. Eppes to make a mistake.

  He didn’t.

  We were studying a very patriotic kind of American history; more was left out than was said, so it actually was very difficult for Mr. Eppes to make a mistake. I decided that I had to help out. I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Carmichael?”

  I cleared my throat. “It is the considered opinion of most scientists that if Mr. Benjamin Franklin really believed that lightning was electricity, he was a fool to go out in a thunderstorm, grounding himself to a kite. He was lucky he wasn’t electrocuted.”