The Falling Woman

3 Elizabeth

On the steps of the Temple of the Seven Dolls, an elderly diviner was casting the mixes, the sacred red beans that told the future. His customer was a merchant, a sharp-faced man whose arms and face were tattooed with patterns of swirling lines. A woven bag filled with cacao beans lay on the steps beside him. The old diviner pointed at the red beans that lay on the cloth before him and spoke softly. I could not make out the words.

I took a long drag on my cigarette and wondered what I could say to this young woman who had dropped into my life so unexpectedly. What did she want of me?

She sat with her back to the open doorway; her knees were bent and her arms were wrapped around them. She was prettier than any child of mine had a right to be: her red hair, fair skin, and slim build marked her as Robert’s daughter. She wore jeans and an open-necked white shirt. Her eyes were hidden by dark glasses and her hair was tied back in a single braid. ‘Is it what you expected?’ I asked her, waving the cigarette at the camp, the jungle, the overgrown mounds, the diviner and his customer.

‘I didn’t really know what to expect,’ she said cautiously.

Robert’s daughter: he had probably trained her to be careful, to admit to little. That had been his style: he was careful; he always had to be the one in the know. He had kept himself in check, always carefully controlled.

‘Do you want to tell me about how Robert died?’ I asked. I tried to speak gently, but the words sounded harsh. I am not good at these things; I deal with dead people better than I do with live ones.

Diane was looking out toward the camp, her chin up, her jaw set. ‘He died of a heart attack… his third one. He was playing tennis at the club.’

It seemed an appropriate way for Robert to die. I hadn’t seen him for at least five years, but I could imagine him at fifty: out on the court in his tennis whites, smiling his pleasant professional smile, his hair touched with gray at the temples, but nowhere else. I wondered who he had been playing: a colleague from the hospital, a pretty young woman. It didn’t matter. I could not manage much sorrow over his death. During divorce proceedings, Robert and I had come to treat each other with a hard-edged polished courtesy. Over the past twenty-five years, that glossy politeness had marked all our infrequent contacts, until at last it seemed like the natural relationship between us. He was a stranger, a vague acquaintance I had once known better. I did not hate him, did not even dislike him particularly, though I did find him dull and opinionated. I could remember the distant times when arguments with him had made me furious, but the fire had burned to ashes and the ashes had blown away on the evening wind. I was indifferent toward him.

‘The funeral was two weeks ago,’ she said. ‘Aunt Alicia set it up. I guess she didn’t let you know.’

I remembered Alicia, Robert’s older sister, a widow with a smooth, uncrackable personality. I tapped the ash off the end of my cigarette and nodded. ‘Alicia and I were never exactly friends.’

‘I know it must be really strange, my turning up out of the blue like this. It’s just that Dad never wanted me to talk to you. He never wanted me to know anything about you.’ She spoke quickly, as if she had to say this quickly or not at all. Her voice had an edge of urgency. ‘I’ve read all your books.’ When she said the last few words, her voice softened and took on a pleading note. She wanted my approval; she wanted me to like her.

I could not look at her. If Diane were crying, I did not want to know. Not now. The jungle was a restful stretch of dirty green. On the steps, the merchant leaned toward the diviner, questioning him closely on a particular point. ‘So what do you think you’ll find here?’ I asked her. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice was hesitant. ‘I guess I just want to dig up the past and figure out what’s under all the rubble. That’s all.’

The diviner waved his hand to the east, the direction governed by Ah Puch, the god of death. Beneath the tattoos, the merchant’s face looked mournful.

‘You may just find broken pots,’ I said to Diane. ‘Nothing interesting at all.’

‘I’ll take my chances on that.’

I glanced at her, but I could not read her expression. Her sunglasses hid her eyes. Her back was straight; her arms were still wrapped around her knees, her right hand gripping her left wrist, perhaps just a little too tightly. But she spoke calmly enough. ‘Right now, all I know is what I remember, and that’s just bits and pieces.’

The sun was low, and the Temple of the Seven Dolls cast a shadow that stretched away from the camp. The lines of tumbled stones that marked the position of ancient walls stood out in sharp relief. I felt comfortable in the ruins, in the company of dead people and broken buildings. The light of the setting sun shone on my face, warm and soothing. I belonged here among the fallen temples and long-abandoned homes. I watched the merchant pay the diviner in cacao beans, hoist his bag to his back, and trudge down the steps. The diviner faded as the merchant strode into the distance.

I heard the rustle of Diane’s clothing when she moved, and I glanced at her again. She was gazing into the distance, looking away from me. I did not know what to say to her. ‘What do you remember?’ I asked at last.

A pause. I took a drag on my cigarette, waiting.

‘I remember waiting and waiting after nursery school. Everyone left and the teacher was all ready to go home, but I was still waiting.’ Her voice was rough, as if she were holding back old tears. Her expression did not change; she did not move. ‘You were supposed to pick me up. The teacher went and called you, but you weren’t home. She called Dad and he came to get me, but he was really mad. We went home and you weren’t there. He asked me where you were, but I didn’t know.’ She stopped for a moment, and when she began again, her voice was smooth, her feelings were back under control. ‘You were gone for a long time. Maybe a month. Then you came back.’

‘I ran away to New Mexico and enrolled in college,’ I said. ‘Supported myself by typing, just as I had supported Robert through medical school by typing. Robert hired a private detective to track me down. When the detective found me, Robert convinced me to come back.’ I stubbed my cigarette against the step, tapped another out of the pack, and lit it. ‘What else do you remember?’

‘You brought me a Navaho blanket when you came back from New Mexico. You were home for a while – I remember that. I had to be really quiet; Dad told me to be really quiet. Then you left again.’ Her voice trailed off, but she did not sound like she had finished.

‘What else?’

She hesitated. ‘One night, when I was in bed, I heard you and Dad talking in the kitchen. It was hot and I couldn’t sleep. You kept talking louder and louder. I got out of bed and I went down the hall, but I didn’t want to go in the kitchen. I stayed just outside the door, where I could see you and Dad. You were holding a breadboard, an old breadboard with a handle on it, and your hand was wrapped around the handle. I couldn’t hear what Dad was saying, but all of a sudden you started saying, “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it.” And you started slamming the breadboard against the counter, harder and harder and harder. And you were yelling, “I can’t stand it.” The breadboard broke on the counter and I ran back to bed, I put a pillow over my head and I stayed there, even when I heard shouting. But in the morning, you were gone, and Aunt Alicia was there, and Dad was really upset.’

In the long pause, I could hear the pigeons on the roof of the temple.

‘You didn’t come home for a long time, and then you came home and you left again. Dad said you had gone away because you were crazy. That’s all he would say about it. Later on, he told me about the divorce and all that, but that was later.’

I remembered the feel of the board in my hand, the thump each time it struck the counter. ‘Robert was saying, “You’re crazy,”’ I told Diane. ‘That’s what you couldn’t hear. Other than that, you’ve got it right.’ I tapped the ash from my cigarette. ‘While you were hiding in bed, I locked myself in the bathroom and slashed my wrists. Robert broke down the door, bandaged me, and took me to a private hospital. I was there for two days before I woke up enough to realize that I couldn’t go home. Robert had committed me for my own protection.’

I remembered being wrapped in cold sheets by white-coated interns. Was that the first night I was there? Hard to say. My memories of the year in the sanatorium were confused. I remembered howling at the ceiling of a cold room, hating Robert and wanting revenge. But I did not know whether that was the first night or many nights later. I suppose it didn’t matter. The nights on the ward blurred together; it was a controlled environment, changing only as people came and went.

The spirits I saw there were mad: a pale fat woman with dark smudges for eyes, like chunks of coal in the face of a snowman; a frail old woman who spoke an unknown language, her voice high and small as the chirping of sparrows on the eve of a winter storm; a gaunt woman, thin and dried as a prophet just back from a desert vigil, whose palms and bare feet were marked with bleeding wounds that never seemed to heal.

‘I was put in a ward for the seriously disturbed,’ I told Diane. ‘I got along all right there. I made friends with a woman who claimed to be Jesus Christ. A powerful old woman with a face like a hatchet.’

I took a drag on my cigarette and exhaled, watching the smoke drift away. Strange memories: I had spent many of my nights screaming at the ceiling that Robert was trying to kill me, that the doctors were trying to kill me. I had been there for a month before I decided to get out. I considered escape, but the bars at the window were quite strong and the interns were muscular. So I decided to behave, to stop screaming all night, to do as I was told, to end my discussions of theology with Mrs. Jesus Christ. I decided to feign sanity, to stop watching the spirits and calling to the moon through the barred windows.

‘I was on the ward for three months before I could convince them to move me to a better ward, one for less violent patients. It took me a year to convince them I was cured.’ I remembered the effort of feigning their kind of sanity. Smiling. Refraining from screaming obscenities even when obscenities were called for. ‘Robert came to visit me in the hospital. Every other week. Without fail. I was polite to him. I couldn’t get out without his help.’ My voice was very dry, very matter-of-fact. ‘I wanted to be free of him. I wanted a divorce.’ I noticed that my hand was shaking as I lifted the cigarette to my mouth; my other hand was clenched in a fist. I forced it to relax. ‘Finally, he said we could divorce, but only if I would grant him custody of you. I had to agree that I would never try to see you without his permission. I wouldn’t try to be your mother. I think that he was seeing someone else at the time and he wanted me out of the way. I had to be free of him, so I promised.’ I hated the apologetic tone that crept into my voice. I shrugged lightly. ‘He kept his part of it. He let me out.’

‘You came back for Christmas sometimes,’ Diane said.

‘I came when Robert wanted me to. On his terms. At one point, I think he was lonely and wanted me back. When I told him that I wasn’t interested, he cut off my visiting privileges.’ I shrugged and smiled a small tight smile. ‘He wasn’t cruel about it. He sent me pictures of you.’

‘What did you do?’ Her voice was controlled and even. Her face was pinched, but she was not crying.

‘I went back to New Mexico. For a while, I worked as a typist, then I enrolled in the state university in archaeology. 1 managed to land a paid position as cook at a field camp that first summer and I was on my way.’

‘You hated Dad for saying you were crazy,’ Diane said.

‘I hated Robert for a number of things back then,’ I said. I crushed the half-burned cigarette against the stone. ‘Locking me up was just one offense among many.’ I reached for my cigarettes and tapped another from the pack. ‘So,’ I said dryly, ‘you’ve found what you came to find. You know why I left. What now?’

I looked at Diane. Her arms were clutching her knees and she was rocking back and forth just a little. I regretted my words, I regretted my tone. ‘Come on,’ I said softly. ‘It’s all ancient history.’ I reached out and touched her shoulder, feeling awkward and foolish. She did not react. I wanted her to give me a sign that things were all right between us, but she kept her hands locked around her knees and she did not look at me. ‘Don’t cry over what’s long past.’

‘Can I stay for a while?’ she asked.

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what’s here for you.’

‘Neither do I.’

I realized I was still holding the unlit cigarette, and I slipped it into my shirt pocket. ‘Fine. Stay if you like.’

In the distance, I heard the sound of the truck horn. ‘That’s the dinner bell,’ I said. ‘Let’s go back.’

We followed the same path the merchant had taken down the steps and into the light of the setting sun.