“You miss her,” he said as if this were a surprise. Was he surprised that he couldn’t completely replace her for me? Or was he surprised that he didn’t miss her? I think his lack of feeling for her, and the enjoyment of raising her child, was a mystery to his conscious mind. Although only nine years old, thanks to a boy’s understanding of competition, more intimate and honest than any adult’s, I understood there was some pleasure for my uncle in my mother’s psychotic breakdown: the pleasure of winning, a clear confirmation of his superiority. Of all the siblings only Ruth had spurned his help and now she had to accept it, to submit her most precious possession to his control.
“Not too much,” I said and almost believed the lie.
“What about your father? Do you want to see him?”
I was on full alert now. In the primary imagery of the paranoid and apocalyptic sixties, my bombers flew to their fail-safe positions and prepared for nuclear conflict. “No,” I said.
“Why not?”
Why not? My God, I hadn’t thought up a why not. I used the child’s best defense. “I dunno,” I mumbled. “I’m tired,” I said.
“Think about it. You can go to sleep in a minute. Don’t you want to see your father?”
I shrugged again and fell onto my bed. There was an unquiet silence, the false stillness of an ambush. From my sideways view of Uncle he remained in a fixed position on the child’s chair, elbows resting on his legs, his Buddha head in his hands, contemplating me. I wasn’t going to stop his interrogation that easily. “Am I going to visit Grandma and Grandpa this summer?” I asked in an innocent tone.
I was a good tactician. Bernie’s focus was disrupted by my introduction of Jacinta and Pepín. He sat up and released me from his stare. “Your father’s parents,” he said and paused at the fact, as if it had a significance he understood only then.
“I always visit them in the summer.” Whenever I re-read my father’s letter, I wondered if something that he alluded to — a secret method for my mother to get a message to him — might be known to Jacinta and Pepín. But I didn’t have the nerve to ask Bernie to allow me to phone them. Besides, I was discouraged by the fact that they hadn’t called or written me.
“I thought you wanted to go to summer camp,” Uncle said. We both knew that was an evasion. He was embarrassed by it himself. He stood up, went over to the window and pulled the cream-colored drapes closed.
“Does camp go the whole summer?” I prodded.
“Well, well figure this all out. Hey, it’s very late. Hurry up and get into your pajamas.”
I rushed to do so. I picked out light blue cotton Brooks Brothers pajamas. Of course, the store label had resonance for me, sending out a strong vibration of both my parents. Holding the fabric, I could hear the voices in lively argument — funny, passionate, and clearly audible above the hubbub of their communist friends. I remembered the surf of New York City’s traffic and I felt their breath on my cheeks as they dispensed good-night kisses.
While I stepped into the bottoms, Aunt Charlotte walked in. I hurried to cover up. It seemed to me she looked at my penis with an almost scientific dispassion, but I’m confident this is a notion of my premature sexualization. It’s fair to say that I had little more than the status of a servant in her eyes, only I was extra trouble since I took up more time and energy than the lazy cook or incompetent maid. I don’t think she really noticed my nakedness. But she did have a male member in mind.
“It’s late,” she said to her husband in a scolding and suggestive tone. “I’m going to bed now. Aren’t you coming up?”
“Just want to tuck Rafe in,” Uncle answered in a sheepish, unmusical voice. I was surprised by the meek tone with which he answered his wife. I had little experience of their relationship. He rarely talked to Aunt Charlotte when I was around, mostly because they weren’t often together, usually only on state occasions such as that day and thus when they had their guests to entertain. I knew she wanted him to join her upstairs for the pleasure a man could give a woman. I understood in a way that normal children couldn’t have. His abashed response interested me. Was there something frightening about having sex with her? I looked at her, considering this side of their relationship. Charlotte’s hair was in a Jackie Kennedy puff, dyed a severe, almost platinum blonde. Her full bosom was more of a formidable shelf than the warm small pillows of my mother or Eileen’s lively freckled pair. And certainly she had nothing of the mystery and thrill I associated with the birth of Julie’s passionate and idealistic breasts. I wished I could see them all bare to the waist, nipples revealed, instead of mere glimpses of white flesh flowing into intervening bras. I wished they were all on a couch together with their tops off and I could go from one to another, resting my head on each, sailing on Aunt Charlotte’s, asleep on my mother’s, laughing on Eileen’s, and growing up on Julie’s.
“Well, I’m going upstairs,” Aunt Charlotte said. “I don’t know how long I can keep my eyes open so don’t take forever.”
No doubt she believed I had no idea what all that meant. I hurried into bed while Uncle turned out the overhead light and desk lamp. I hugged my knees to my chest. I felt safe, but lonely.
Uncle’s perfumed face closed in on mine. I don’t remember which cologne he used that day. He changed brands often. He had worked in the fish market at age twelve, in the predawn before school, and had been teased about the smell by other boys. (This was another sad story of his childhood that he told proudly as a happy and formative time which had not hurt him, but helped make him great. Underneath the braggadocio, however, it was obvious he felt otherwise. He worked at the Fulton Market for only three months and yet the stink of that humiliation still clung to him in his twenty-four-room Great Neck mansion.) He hovered above me, smelling tart, the starched cuff and gold arrow-shaped link scraping my chin. His hairy fingers rested on the pillow. “You really miss your Mom?” he whispered into my ear.
That sent a jolt through my heart. I shut my eyes at the pain. “Yes,” I whispered and held my breath at the chance I took.
“You really want to see her?”
“Yes,” I leaked the word and shut the valve fast, afraid of the deluge behind it.
“But if you had to choose—” he hummed in my ear, the bow slipping and buzzing its note, “who do you want to live with, me or your parents?”
I hugged my knees, turned my face toward the pillow, away from his arrow cuff link and pungent face. “I want to stay with you, Uncle,” I said and shivered with such violence that my teeth clicked together.
He kissed my temple and left. I waited until I felt sure he wouldn’t return. Then I told myself to let go and cry. But there were no tears. I lay awake until Eileen came in from her night off. She was humming a tune. I knew she had been out on a date with a carpenter from the Old Country who had just emigrated and found a lot of work in the area. They were good times for New York; houses were going up everywhere on Long Island. I got a glimpse of Eileen tiptoeing across the hallway in her bra and panties as she went to fetch a clean nightgown from an ironed pile of laundry left by the maid outside her door. I pushed my hurt aside and instead held the fleeting image of her pink skin, mottled and bright, fixed in its place. I listened to her sing “Danny Boy” while she brushed her hair in the bathroom. She sang low so as not to wake me. Her voice was sweet, free of the darkness and intensity of my kin. I heard no sadness or loss in the lyrics. I fell asleep without tears.