The Ghost of Hannah Mendes (12 page)

“It’s for you, Missus.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone, Imelda.”

“But…you said…when it ring, pick up…”

Gauging the height of the linguistic and cultural barriers she would need to vault to explain herself, Janice reluctantly took the phone, smiling with guilty haste as a flash of the previous housekeeper’s unhappy face flitted across her memory. “Thank you, dear. You did that very well.”

Ignoring the smile, the maid left.

To her surprise, it was Suzanne.

“Is everything all right?” she asked a bit apprehensively. Since the Renaldo fiasco, Suzanne had called her only twice: once to demand a list of her friends to solicit for a rape-crisis center fund-raiser, and another time to borrow rent money. “Lunch, today? Of course, darling. I’d be…it’s been so…I’ve just got a nail appointment. I’m actually on my way now. Meet me there and I’ll take you to lunch after? Suzy, I’m so happy you finally—” She didn’t finish the thought, realizing Suzanne had already hung up.

Even from two flights away, it smelled like a toxic-waste dump, Suzanne thought, cringing as she climbed the steps toward the Art Deco doors of Nail Art Inc.

Her mother was already seated, her hands languidly poised above a basin of something looking vaguely like poisonous nuclear glop.

Suzanne watched her mother’s dark head nod in deep concentration to whatever the woman next to her was saying. “She’s such a good daughter,” Suzanne heard. “…not only helped her mother find the apartment in Palm Beach, but hired a decorator to do it for her. All the rug and wallpaper samples were Fed-Exed straight to Scarsdale. Gloria didn’t have to lift a finger. Could you imagine!” the woman extolled, lifting all of her fingers out of the glop and into the hands of an Asian beauty, who patiently wiped them dry.

“That’s thoughtful,” Suzanne heard her mother’s peeved voice reply, in a way that clearly said that she—Janice Barren—would never experience such maternal joy.

“Mother.”

“Oh, Suzanne!” Janice turned, half rising from her seat. Her eyes did a quick, critical loop. Moderately satisfied, she smiled. “Girls, my daughter.”

Suzanne nodded at the sea of unfamiliar faces. They looked like those images in little girls’ books of paper dolls, Suzanne thought: pages and pages of faceless, bodiless getups and
accessories
you wrapped around the cardboard princess, or the cardboard bride. What book would they be in? The
I Have Too Much Time and Too Much Money
book of cutouts?

“Sorry I can’t hug you,” Janice apologized, lifting her fingers in a gesture of contrition. The goop dripped a little down the sides of the bowl. “We’ll be done any minute, won’t we, Pearl? Pearl is the best nail technician. A wonderful stylist.” Janice gave the nail technician a dazzling, gracious smile, which Suzanne couldn’t help comparing to the dim one she’d received. Then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, Janice turned to her with a look of almost heartbreaking tenderness.

“
My little girl
,” Janice said, her heart suddenly lonely. “
My sweet little Suzy…
”

“Mother, please.” Suzanne glanced around the room, as embarrassed as a high-school student saddled with a parent at the prom.

“Why don’t you let me treat you to a set of nails, Suzy? It would look fabulous on you. Wouldn’t it, girls? She’s very busy and doesn’t take care of herself, my beautiful daughter,” she announced.

Suzanne felt her face grow hot.

“Come on. It’ll be my treat.”

Suzanne’s eyes rolled ever so slightly heavenward.

Janice felt the warm milk of her maternal kindness turn to sorbet.
Little ingrate!

“Don’t take it personally, Mother.”

“I’m just trying to help you, Suzanne.”

“No, Mother. You’re trying to give me what you would want if you were me. That’s not the same thing.”

“But just look at your nails, and look at mine!” Janice whispered fiercely.

Suzanne compared her own unpolished, perfectly clean (if slightly bitten down during rape-crisis phone-line sessions) nails to her mother’s hard, glossy, Joan Collins ovals—perfect for ripping out the eyes of bitchy rivals.

“I think I’ll keep my own, thank you,” she murmured.

“Well, suit yourself. You always do,” Janice said peevishly as she paid and walked out the door.

“Mom, do you actually like these claws?”

Janice peered down at her fingers, startled by the question. She shrugged. “I do it for your stepfather, really. He likes long nails.”

Kenny and her mother. Her mother and Kenny.

Suzanne still found it…well…not exactly hard to believe, but predictably bad, like the plot of an amateurish movie. Just recently she’d seen a couple about the same age in the supermarket. Like Kenny, the man had had this dangerous kind of energy—sexual? emotional? He’d gone charging down the aisles with the cart, grabbing things nastily off the shelves—expensive things like Dutch butter cookies and gourmet coffee—while the woman hung back with helpless apprehension, staring at the ceiling. “If it was up to you, you’d never buy anything,” the man kept saying.

Suzanne looked into her mother’s face. You couldn’t say she didn’t try. Makeup, tons, and every little tube and wand costing twenty, thirty bucks, not to mention the creams, the little bottles and jars of oils, essences, hydrating, purifying, cleansing, anti-aging, vitamin, hormone-enriched…Hundreds of dollars, maybe even thousands, if you added it up over time.

She wasn’t a woman about whom a man would say, “She’s lost her looks,” but more: “When she was young, she must have been a beauty.” And it wasn’t really anything as boring and predictable as wrinkles that had done her mother in. It was more the pinched, insistent look in her eyes, and the way her defeated mouth seemed to plead.

Suzanne glanced at herself in the mirror and saw the careless confidence, the sparkle, and, most of all, the energy. There was nothing you could smear over that to preserve it, she thought, tossing her head. Nor could wrinkles destroy it. She’d seen women of all ages—volunteers at the center—women in African gowns and turbans, or in old Bloomingdale’s sweater sets, their faces creased with laugh lines, their gray hair hanging loose down their backs, retain some of that same feminine swagger. One woman weighed about two hundred pounds. A whole lotta woman. “My husband loves it,” she told everyone. “He says I’m juicy.” And you just knew it was true. All that beautiful, firm black flesh. She looked like a queen.

That was the secret: to have someone who loved you keep telling you how beautiful you were until you believed it. Someone who made you feel: G-d, am I ever worth it!

She looked at her mother, feeling a sudden pity. That was something you just couldn’t buy, could you?

“Where would you like to eat? You’re not still into that strange food, are you?”

“Why can’t you just say ‘vegetarian’? Lots of people are these days. Perfectly respectable
rich
people.”

“I know, I know. But I find it all so boring when it’s taken too far. I mean, fresh vegetables are fine, but on the side, you know, with lean roast beef, or turkey.”

“Oh, Mom!” Suzanne said, leaning down impulsively and putting her arms around her mother.

Janice stepped back, startled, then gave in, collapsing against her. Tears stung her eyes as she tried to remember the last time someone had hugged her with affection. She composed herself, ashamed, aware of onlookers. “So, you’ve finally forgiven me?”

Suzanne stepped back, her body stiffening. No. She had not forgiven anything. Then how could she explain what had come over her? The sudden idea of Gran and Mommy, one of them dying and the other growing old and sad…

“Mom, let’s just have a lovely lunch, shall we?”

“What about Pineapples? They have lots of salads, and it’s green and pretty there….”

“Fine. But is the service fast, or is it one of those places you sit all afternoon…”

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Janice protested. “We really
do
need to talk. I have no idea what’s going on in your life anymore. And there are some things I’d like to discuss with you. Your stepfather, for example. I’ve got to tell you what happened this morning….”

Suzanne held her hands over her ears and ground her teeth. Oh, yes, indeed-dy. This
was
going to be just as much fun as she’d expected. “Please don’t!”

Janice stared daggers at her.

Suzanne looked straight ahead, humming until the waiter came. She ordered a huge salad, and Janice ordered lobster. Suzanne picked at her bean sprouts, watching her mother pick apart the red, horrible creature, fishing out the bits of white meat and dipping them into some oil-drenched sauce.

“Try some, dear? It’s delicious. Just like chicken.”

“As wonderful as that, huh?” She shrugged.

“You needn’t look so disapproving.”

“Sorry. My mind is…I was just thinking about Gran.”

“What about her?” Janice said, concentrating on extracting yet another delicate morsel out of the hard shell.

“Has she spoken to you at all lately?”

“Well, of course. I speak to your grandmother almost every day.”

“So, what do you think?”

“Think?” Janice looked up, confused. “About what?”

“Her condition, of course.”

“What condition?”

Suzanne leaned forward. “You know…don’t you?”

“Suzanne, can we stop playing games? Just say it.”

“Mom, you don’t have to hide it from me. She’s already told me she’s dying.”

Janice’s mouth fell open. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Suzanne gazed at her, appalled. “Oh, my G-d! You mean to say she hasn’t even…I’m sorry. I thought for sure you knew. Otherwise, I would never have…” She took both her mother’s hands in her own. “She came over last week. We had lunch. She told me her doctor has given her a few more months at the most.”

Janice pulled her hands away and pushed back her chair abruptly, almost overturning it. “I’m going to the ladies’ room.”

Suzanne watched her weave unsteadily through the crowded tables. Fifteen minutes later, she returned. Her eyes were red and dull, but there was new makeup on her cheeks and fresh color on her quivering lips.

“She told you and not me.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why. I’m not very close to her. You see her all the time.”

“She doesn’t like me.” Janice shook her head emphatically. “Never has. And she’ll never forgive me for divorcing your father and marrying Kenny. She hates Kenny.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”

“The worst part is that she’s right. She’s always been right about him. He’s having an affair.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Suzanne winced.

“Why did you call me? Why are we having lunch?” Janice asked suddenly, her tone belligerent and betrayed.

Suzanne sighed. At least she’d be able to skip the bull and get to the point. “Gran is sending me and probably Francesca on a trip to Europe to research the lost memoir of some medieval relative of ours. She says she wants to read it before she dies.”

“To Europe? And you’re going?”

“Yes. I’m going. She says it would make her feel better. And frankly, I think it would be fun.”

“And Francesca’s going, too? What about her job?”

“She just got laid off.”

Janice leaned back. “Nobody tells me anything.”

“Look, Mom, this isn’t about us. It’s about Gran.”

“It’s all nonsense,” Janice said dully. “Old people always think they’re dying.” Her vermilion fingertips touched the corners of her eyes, wiping away the moisture. “I’ll call Dr. Weinsweig as soon as I get home.”

“I suppose that’s a good idea. But anyhow…well, I guess the reason I’m here is simply to tell you to watch over her. She’s talking about not taking any treatment if it’s unpleasant or painful! You know how stubborn she can be. Also, she’s acting very strangely, talking about feeling guilty, and not having done her duty to her ancestors in passing things on. She’s talking about her will.”

Janice looked up sharply.

“Look, it’s really none of my business, but I would hate to see those vultures on the ballet and museum boards get hold of her now. She’s so vulnerable. Some of the places I work for, on the other hand, are really worthy causes that are struggling so hard right now. A bit in the right direction could do so much incredible good.”

“You want her to leave her money to abused women and rainforests, instead of to her own flesh and blood!” Janice’s voice rose.

Suzanne got up. “I’ve got to go. Listen, maybe none of this is true, and she’s going to be fine and outlive us all. Please don’t tell Gran I said anything, will you? If it is true, she has the right to break this kind of news in her own way. You will take care of her, Mom, won’t you?”

The eyes of mother and daughter suddenly locked as they explored each other.

“As much as she’ll let me,” Janice promised, her eyes moistening once again.

9

Manuscript pages, handwritten, 23 × 33, unnumbered. Origin unknown. 1570-1630 (?). Bodleian Library Collection. Oxford, Great Britain. Attached to copy of Luis de Camoes’s
The Lusiads
(1572).

At the threshold of my memories there is a dark, taper-lit staircase. I skip down it quickly, unafraid, as I hold my mother’s hand. She is not smiling but I see an indefinable pleasure in the lift of her head, a gesture distinct and positive beneath the heavy, festive headdressings
.

I am four years old, perhaps even younger. Strangers call me by my Christian name, Beatrice de Luna. But amongst my family, I am called Gracia, the equivalent of the Hebrew name
Hannah,
meaning charm. It is the name that my parents chose; the name with which I was sanctified at birth: Hannah Nasi. It was my great-grandmother’s name
.

How I long to tell everyone that this is who I am! Yet I know I mustn’t. I know that no one must call me by my real name
.

The stairs seem to shimmer in the shadows, the way magical roads do in the enchanted forests of old wives’ tales. I touch the dark walls to ascertain their damp, rough substance, proof I am still in a real place, the moist, lower chambers of our own home
.