she received a nice letter from him. I cling to the poor consolation of recalling how well I adapted my pace to the needs of her poor weak heart. “You’re not like the others, my son – you at least walk at a normal speed. It’s a pleasure to go for a walk with you.” I should just think so. We were doing about three hundred meters an hour.
I also find comfort in remembering that I was good at flattering her. When she wore a new dress, which was never in fact new but invariably made over and which did not suit her very well, I would say, “You’re smart as a young girl.” She would glow with shy happiness, blush, and believe me. At each of my whopping compliments she would make her special dainty gesture of putting her little hand to her lips. She was then absolutely radiant, for her self-esteem was restored. What did it matter that she was alone and disdained? She drank in my praise, she had a son. But my only true comfort is that she cannot see how miserable her death has made me. Rubbing my hands in an effort to raise my spirits, I have just confided that thought to my cat, who purred politely.
I reproach myself too for having found it perfectly natural to have a mother who was alive. I did not fully realize how precious and fleeting were her comings and goings in my flat. I was not sufficiently aware that she was alive. I did not long enough for her visits to Geneva. Is it possible? There was actually a wondrous time when I had only to send a ten-word telegram and two days later she would alight on the station platform with her formal smile of the shy, her bags, which were falling apart, and her hat, which was too small. I had only to write ten words and there she would be, as if by magic. I held the key to that magic and I made so little use of it, for I was idiotically taken up with nymphs. You balked at writing ten words. Write forty thousand now.
I am obsessed by the thought of that telegram form. I write ten words at the post office and there she is at the compartment door, making signals by pointing me out with her index finger. And now she is clumsily hurrying to alight from the train, with a horrible fear of falling, because gymnastics are not in her line. And now she is coming toward me, dignified and bashful, with her curly hair, her rather large nose, her hat, which is too small, her slightly swollen ankles. She looks a bit ridiculous as she lumbers along with one arm outstretched to steady her walk, but I admire that awkward creature with magnificent eyes – living Jerusalem! She is disguised as a respectable lady of the West, but she hails from Canaan of ancient days and she does not know it. And now her little hand is stroking my cheek. She is so excited. How carefully she has combed her hair and brushed her clothes in the carriage toilet half an hour before arrival. I know her well. She has spent a long time smartening up to honor her son and win his approval. Now she places herself under my protection, certain that I will take care of everything – the porter, the taxi. She follows me meekly. I can sense the slight anxiety of the eternal foreigner as she hands her passport to the Genevan policeman. But she is not really afraid, because I am with her. In the taxi, she takes my hand and gives it a clumsy little kiss. She smells of not-very-expensive eau de cologne. And now we are there. She is overawed by my fine flat. She sucks in a bit of saliva – that is a self-conscious mannerism of hers when she is trying to be refined. And now her presents start coming out of the suitcase. There are homemade cakes, like so many love poems. I thank her, and then she gives me another of her own special kisses, a shy poetic kiss: she takes my cheek lightly between two of her fingers and then she kisses the two fingers. You see, darling, I remember everything. I look at her closely. Yes, I know her well. I know her innocent little secrets. I know she has not given me all her presents. There are others hidden
Dorothy Calimeris, Sondi Bruner