Book of My Mother

XI

ONE DAY in Geneva when I had arranged to meet her at five in the university square, I was detained by a girl with fair hair and did not arrive until eight. She did not see me coming. My heart filled with shame, I watched her sitting there patiently waiting, all alone on a bench in the waning light and the now chilly air, in her poor coat which was too tight and with her hat askew. She had been waiting there for hours — meekly, peacefully, slightly drowsy, older because she was alone, resigned, used to solitude, used to my lateness, uncomplaining in her humble wait, a servant, a poor, put-upon saint. What could be more natural than to wait three hours for her son, and was he not entitled? I hate that son! She saw me at last and came back to life, entirely dependent on me. I can see the little start she gave as her vitality came flooding back, I can see her passing in a flash from lethargy to life, suddenly younger, the quietude of a slave or a faithful dog yielding all at once to an intense interest in living. She adjusted her hat and her features, for she wanted to do me credit. And then my aging Maman made her own two special gestures. Whence had they come, and in what childhood lay their source? I see them so well, those two awkward poetic gestures which she made when from a distance she saw me coming. The terrible thing about the dead is their gestures, which live on in our memory. For then they are dreadfully alive and we are at a loss to understand.

You made those two gestures whenever you saw me coming to meet you. First, your eyes lighting up shyly for joy, you would point me out needlessly with your finger, with a delight full of dignity, to let me know you had seen me, but in reality to give yourself confidence. I sometimes suppressed a kind of irritated giggle of shame when I saw that absurd gesture, which I expected and knew so well, your gesture of pointing me out to no one. And then, my darling, you would get up and come toward me, blushing, abashed, exposed, smiling with embarrassment at being seen from a distance and observed for too long. Like a clumsy debutante, you would advance with the delighted, sheepish smile of a not very clever little girl, while your eyes would scrutinize my face to see whether I was criticizing you inwardly. Poor Maman, you were so afraid of not pleasing me, of not being Western enough for my taste. And then you would make your second shy gesture. How well I know that gesture and how it lives on in my eyes, which see all too clearly everything from the past. You would put your little hand to the corner of one lip as you came toward me, your other hand outstretched to steady you and keeping time with your labored step. It was a gesture which hailed from our Orient — the gesture of the chaste virgin seeking to conceal part of her face. Or perhaps you wanted to hide that little scar, Maman, for despite your age you were still just a girl at heart. How ridiculous I am to try to explain the humble treasure of your two gestures, O my living mother, my regal dead mother. I know very well that what I say about your gestures does not interest a soul and that no one indeed cares a rap for anyone.

Nevermore will you wait for me on a bench in a square. You forsook me, you did not wait for me, you left your bench, you did not have the heart to wait for your son to come. That time, he made you wait too long. He arrived far too late at the meeting place and you got up and went. That was the first unkind thing you had ever done to me. I am alone now, and it is my turn to wait on the autumnal bench of life in the chill wind which moans in the twilight and stirs the dead leaves into baleful eddies clothed in the musty-scented rooms of the past; it is my turn to wait for my mother, who does not come, who will nevermore, nevermore come to the meeting place. Those passersby are useless and alive, repulsively alive. I cast a sick glance at them, and when I see an old woman, I think of my mother, who was beautiful, and inwardly I say, “How delightful, so sweet,” to the awful old woman. Pitiful vengeance. I am unhappy, Maman, and you do not come. I call you, Maman, and you do not answer. That is horrible, for she always answered and came running so quickly when I called her. Now it is all over: she is silent forever. The stubborn silence, the obdurate deafness, the terrible indifference of the dead. Are you happy at least, beloved dead — happy to be rid at last of the wicked living?