And Now You Can Go (12 page)

"I don't understand," I say.

"The gun protected me," Lou says slowly as he pets Teddy, "in more ways than one."

On the next page is a telegram Lou's first wife received on August 8, 1944, informing her that he was wounded in action:

"I realize your great anxiety but nature of wounds not reported and delay in receipt of details must be expected. You will be promptly furnished any additional information received. To prevent possible aid to our enemies do not divulge the name of his ship or his station."

Lou turns the page to a newspaper article about the Battle of Betio. "We called it Bloody Benito," he says. I look at the clipping and see the island spelled "Betio," not "Benito." I don't know who to believe.

"We were supposed to go in for a practice landing on this island, Benito," Lou says. "But what we didn't know was, the Japanese were hiding in underground bunkers. They were covered by coconut-tree logs. Twelve hundred men died unnecessarily. It was a huge mistake. No one wanted to report it in the news back home."

"Why didn't you go back? To the ship?" I ask.

"You're taught to only go forward. We had flamethrowers. They're remarkable machines." Balancing the open photo album on his lap, he reaches into the plastic bag and tosses Teddy a golf ball.

I ask him questions to try to clarify what happened, but it i doesn't make sense. He's getting frustrated with me, with himself. I feel responsible.

Lou closes the scrapbook. "I'm lucky I have this," he says. "My third wife destroyed most of my photo albums."

He goes into the house to put the medals back in their place on the bookshelf.

My father leans in toward me. I think he's going to explain something about the angry third wife. "For years, he never talked about the war," he says. "Never a mention."

When Lou comes back out, Irene is with him, carrying a plate with fortune cookies. She's willing to join the conversation now that he's put his war memorabilia away.

"Do you ever come to San Francisco?" I ask.

"We haven't been there in years," Irene says. "Not since your grandmother's funeral." "We'd never been to a funeral like that before," Lou says.

"No, that was different from your usual funeral," Irene says. "That was the first one we went to where lots of people spoke."

"Usually it's just one person," Lou adds.

"But since then," she says, "we've been to lots of funerals where everyone speaks!"

No one says anything. As the sun descends, it becomes drastically colder. I pull on a light sweater. Inside a neighbors house, the phone rings.

"This man was my hero," my father says, gesturing toward Lou with his thumb. Lou smiles weakly. Irene cracks open a fortune cookie and, without reading the message inside, crumples it up.

On the ride back to San Francisco, I let my father drive and I try to find a radio station we can agree on. We settle on one that's playing Elvis the whole night, for no apparent reason.

We pass a church with a Nativity scene on its lawn. I squint: the baby Jesus is missing from the cradle. Someone stole Jesus.

"Remember when we were driving down the street," my father says, "and a nun crossed in front of the car?"

"Yeah," I say. "What did I say?" "I can't remember."

"Really?" my father says. "It was great." "What was it again?" I ask.

"Watch it, sister!"

I laugh and roll my eyes, then close them and try to fall asleep. My father turns down the music even though the radio's playing "Blue Suede Shoes," one of his three favorite songs.

I walk into Freddie's room and she's sitting with her back against an enormous stuffed bear my father won for her at Circus Circus in Reno when we were young. She looks up from her book. "I've been reading a lot of Jane Austen, all of it," she says. She sometimes does these things, in bursts.

"I've decided I should have lived back then," she says. "Do you know there's no sex in Jane Austen? Everyone's too busy looking for a man with property. That's what I need to be doing."

"Maybe 'man with property' is a code for something," I say. And then I feel awful for bringing up anything sexual with her.

I am responsible for everything that's happened—I was the one who encouraged her to apply for the scholarship to Oxford. I was the one who told her she should study Freud. I should be protecting her the way I did when we were younger. I used to lie to her about where our father was; I used to save her from | embarrassing sweater vests and the blouses with bow ties my mother wanted her to wear. When she fell from the top of the jungle gym, I held an ice pack to her head while she slept.

When did I stop protecting her, stop padding her world with white lies and wearable clothes? I should build her an arboretum to live in, so she's surrounded by rare trees and flowers from around the world. Plaques would boast of their provenance:
INDIA, COSTA RICA, BOTSWANA
.

My mother comes home one afternoon with seventy-two pairs of sunglasses. "For the mission," she explains. Every year she goes on a mission to the Philippines with doctors and other nurses from her hospital.

I look through the sunglasses. "Ray-Bans?"

"The sun there is so bright and it's so close to the equator and the people are so poor. There are so many eye problems. I'm helping do cataracts."

I put on the sunglasses. "How do I look?" I ask.

She looks up from the cardboard box she's packing. "Not good," she says. She asks if I want to come on the mission.

I remind her that I'have school. Growing up, I was never allowed to miss a day of school— not even when I had the chicken pox. She claimed it would be a waste of money. "But I'm on scholarship," I'd say, to no avail.

Now she shrugs. "School shmool." I have no idea where she's picked this up. "You can help me out," she says.

She pulls the Ray-Bans off my face and packs them in the box. "Live a lot," she says.

"You mean a little," I say.

My mother stares at me, her blue eyes looking dark.

She says something in Italian that I don't understand—she must be swearing. She never taught us how to curse in her native tongue.

She flips down the lips of the box. The roll of packing tape makes a squealing sound as she gives it one long pull. Using her teeth—something she told us to never do—she severs the tape from the roll and seals the box.

III

Blind Mother Fumbling for Child

I have three days to get ready.

Each volunteer on the mission has been asked to gather donations—stuffed animals and more sunglasses—to bring to the kids in the Philippines.

I start with the Millers.

They live two houses down from us, and have three kids. A week ago our doorbell rang. When I opened it the two youngest girls stood on the doormat. One was holding a jump rope, the other a package of origami paper.

"Can your dad come out and play?" the little one asked. "He's not home," I said. "He's at work."

One looked down at the doormat; the other looked up at an airplane. Then they walked away. My father, who missed years of Freddie's youth, is now these girls' favorite neighbor.

I knock on the door and I hear the racing of footsteps down stairs.

"Hi," says Tatiana, the Millers' youngest. Her hair is in three braids, fastened with rubber bands bearing sea creatures: a lobster, a fish, and a whale.

She unchains the door and lets me in.

Her older brother Pete's voice cracks: "Who is it?"

"One of the sisters with the scars," Becca, the middle one, says. She pulls on my hand so I bend over; she examines my forehead. "Where'd it go?" she asks.

"It's faded a bit," I say.

"Does your sister still have hers?" "Yeah," I say. "Hers is a birthmark."

Pete turns his back to me, his face to the video game. I explain to them that I'm going on a mission.

"I did a report on the one in San Wan Capistrani," Tatiana says. "San Juan Capistrano," Peter calls out.

"Shut up," she says.

I explain to her that this is a different mission. I ask if they want to donate any stuffed animals for the lads in the Philippines. I explain that the kids are poor.

"No way," says Becca.

"No way, José," says Tatiana. "They can buy their own stuffed animals." "Why don't you give them yours?" Becca says, pointing to me.

I wait for the piano pounding to stop, and then I knock on Mrs. Aland's door. She had a stroke four years ago; now half her face doesn't move.

She opens the door. "Hello," she says, and the left side of her face smiles. I tell her about the mission to the Philippines.

"Your mother is so wonderful," she says.

I ask if she has any students who might be willing to donate stuffed animals. She says she'll ask around.

"Thank you," I say.

She nods and closes the door. Her door knocker is the shape of a quarter note. The phone rings: Nicholas.

I pretend I'm Freddie. "El's not here," I say.

"Well, please tell her I called. Tell her it's important."

I'm pleased and then horrified that after we spent all but one of our college years together, he doesn't recognize my voice.

On the day before the trip, my mother and I pack. The stuffed animals and sunglasses and surgical supplies will be checked as luggage. Everything I bring for myself has to fit in a small backpack.

I e-mail Sarah and let her know I'll be away. I call my roommate in New York and tell the answering machine I'll be back a week later than I'd planned. "I'm going to the Philippines," I say, and hang up. I feel energy pulsing in my heart, my fingers, my head. I feel like I could build a spaceship in the attic, like I could raise a child in a day. Then I fall asleep.

Freddie and my father take us to the airport. On the way there, my mother asks me four times if I have my passport.

"Stop hassling her," Freddie says. "Are you sure you have yours?" We turn around to get my mother's passport.

At the airport we meet the 152 doctors, RNs, instrument technicians, and hospital attendants going on the mission. I'm the only non-medically trained volunteer. My mother and I are the only non-Filipinos. I check my bag full of stuffed animals, most of which I ended up buying myself, and a suitcase of medicines and syringes I've been given by one of the doctors.

The first leg of the trip is from San Francisco to Honolulu. My mother and I are seated next to each other in the middle aisle, near the back of the plane. My mother has a natural smell in her skin, like cucumbers. She's wearing a shirt with a picture of a cow skiing.

I ask where she got it.

"Your sister gave it to me." She puffs out her chest and looks down at it. When I was too shy to say I needed a bra, I'd sneak hers. I was twelve and chubbier than I am now, with most of the baby fat in my chest. My mother's bras were padded, but I didn't know that. I thought all bras had pillows for your nipples. When I think back on it now, when I picture myself at that age, wearing padded bras, the tops of my ears get hot and I bite the inside of my cheeks.

"It's so silly," I tell her.

"Well, get used to it. It's the only T-shirt I brought."

From her bag she brings out special socks she's packed for the flight—one pair is decorated with planes; the other with bananas. She offers me either one. I pick the pair with planes and put them on inside out.

"Ellis!" she says. It was her idea to call me Ellis. She always thought that when she'came to the States she'd land first on Ellis Island; she wanted to blow the Statue of Liberty a kiss.

But when her parents died, and she came over after nursing school, she landed first in Honolulu, then in San Francisco. The only time she's been to New York was to visit me the second week after I moved there.

She offers me lotion, which she's packed inside a Ziploc bag, in case it leaks. She squeezes too much onto my hand. It feels cool and good.

When she gets up to go to the bathroom I stare at her amazingly small waist. My father once told me he used to be able to fit both hands around it. "When we were dancing," he added.

I flip to the back of the in-flight magazine—there are no movies that I want to see. I put it back. Also in the seat pocket in front of me is a red hairbrush, a paper bag that says "The Louvre," and the boarding pass of Helen C. Morano/Ms., who flew from Paris to Honolulu and Honolulu to San Francisco yesterday. I open the paper bag and enclosed are postcards from the Louvre gift store. One postcard is of Géricault's
Raft of the Medusa;
the other of Delacroix's
Liberty Leading the People
.

I examine the
Liberty Leading the People
card first, the barefoot woman with her dress revealing her breasts and her right arm lifting the tricolor flag. In her left hand she carries a long rifle that's shaped like a lightning bolt, while men around her carry guns. The towers of Notre-Dame rise above the smoke. I try to recall what battle Delacroix was depicting.

But then I remember that what he was painting never actually happened. It's an allegory of revolution. Liberty carries the flag through the streets of Paris, marching over dead and dying people from both sides, over civilians and soldiers alike.

I turn over the card and see Helen C. Morano/Ms. has written a note that she hasn't mailed:

"Remember this painting? This trip, I sat in front of it for hours and thought maybe you'd show up. T. probably told you I ran into her in San Francisco a few weeks ago. I was extremely nice and civil. I hated being nice and civil to her. Hated it. Hated it. Hated you. I did it because I love you."

I study the
Raft of the Medusa
postcard. The painting shows the survivors of the French ship
Medusa
, shipwrecked in a storm off the coast of Africa in the early 1800s. The castaways are piled on top of each other on a raft assembled from timbers from the sinking vessel. At the summit of the pyramid of dead or desperate bodies, an Algerian man frantically waves a cloth. The masts of the rescue ship are barely visible in the distance.

It's strange: I remembered it as a woman flagging for help. I lurch forward. For a moment I feel sick to my stomach, like I'm there on that raft. But then the pilot's voice comes on: "Folks, as you can feel, we're experiencing some turbulence. I'm going to ask you to return to your seats and I'm going to turn on the fasten-seat-belt sign …"