Russell Banks - The Reserve

“‘Et cetera.’”

“Yes.”

“Why do I have to give Mother power of attorney, and give her and you and the nice old men at U. S. Trust control of what’s rightfully mine? I’m not a minor. I’m not certifiably crazy. Am I?”

“No, dear. It’s only a temporary safeguard,” her mother said and lightly nudged her on the arm, her writing arm, Vanessa noted.

“Against what?”

“It’s merely a means of safeguarding and managing your holdings while you’re incapacitated,” the lawyer said.

“‘Incapacitated’? I’m not incapacitated.”

“While you’re abroad, I mean.”

“I suppose, Mother, you’ve already booked passage for me.”

“Yes.”

“Of course. On the Isle de France , I hope?”

“Actually, I…,” her mother began. “No. I didn’t.”

“Oh, dear. Ernest has booked passage on the Isle de France for later this month, and it would be nice if we could travel together. At least until we must part in Paris.”

“Ernest?”

“Hemingway, Mother. The writer. He’s going to Spain, you know. To fight the Fascists and write about it for Collier’s , I think he said. He invited me to join him in Madrid. But I guess now I can’t do that, can I?” She sighed again. “He’ll probably end up with that awful Gellhorn woman. He’s left his wife, you know. Or is about to.”

“Actually, I thought you’d like it better if I got you a stateroom on the wonderful new German dirigible, the Hindenburg ! You seemed so excited talking about it the other day! It’s quite luxurious. And expensive, I might add. Four hundred dollars, one way. But less than three days between New York and Frankfurt!” she said brightly. “Isn’t that amazing? And Dr. Theobold has agreed to meet you in Frankfurt and personally accompany you by train to Zurich.”

Dr. Reichold got his pipe ignited and sucked hard on it for a few seconds. “I will travel from America with you, Vanessa,” he said between sucks. “For me it is the first time on the zeppelin, too. There is even a room for smoking. We can sit in it and talk together, and you can tell me all about this writer, Ernest, if you like.”

“If I like.”

“Yes, yes, if you like.”

Her mother continued to pat Vanessa’s hand. “It’s for the best, dear. Don’t you agree?”

Vanessa pulled her hand away, leaving her mother to pat the arm of the chair. She felt like an animal with its leg in a steel trap and no way to free itself without amputating the limb. The mother, the lawyer, and the doctor had feigned calm solicitude and reason, and now, with barely disguised vigilance, they watched Vanessa examine her trap and test its strength. She knew what they wanted and expected from her. They were waiting for Vanessa to erupt in furious opposition, to snap and howl at them and keep them at bay, while she yanked at the caught limb, tore at it, clawed and then chewed on it, so that finally, to save Vanessa from herself, they would be obliged to wrestle her to the floor and stick her with a needle and medicate her. It would make her pliant and predictable. And it would make their case. They could say they had no choice. She was clearly a danger to herself and others. “Yes, Mother, I agree,” she said. “Whatever you want, whatever Daddy would have wanted, it’s for the best. Whatever Dr. Theobold and Dr. Teutonic Pipe here and Whitney Mr. Brodbent Esquire, and all those trustworthy old men at U. S. Trust, whatever they want is for the best. Best for whom , though?”

“Why, for you, darling.”

“All right, Mother.” She stood up and walked to the conference table. “All right. As. You. Wish. Where do I sign?”

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, AT THEIR HOUSE IN TUXEDO PARK, Vanessa and her mother were packing Vanessa’s trunk, when suddenly Vanessa left her mother alone in the bedroom. She went downstairs and into the basement laundry room, where she untied the laundress’s clothesline and cut it into four pieces. When she returned to the bedroom, her mother was bent over the bed carefully folding sweaters. Her back was to Vanessa, and she was humming “A Fine Romance.” Vanessa came up behind her and grabbed her by the wrists and wrenched her arms back and quickly tied them at the wrists and elbows. Too shocked and confused to cry out or even protest, her mother merely stared at her. She opened her mouth and inhaled deeply.

“Don’t say a word. Just listen.”

Her mother said, “Vanessa! What are you doing ?”

Vanessa wrapped a nylon stocking around the older woman’s mouth and knotted it. “I told you not to say a word,” she said. Evelyn Cole shook her head from side to side, like a horse trying to spit the bit. “We’re going for a drive together, Mother. The Hindenburg will have to leave without me. Instead, we’re driving up to the Second Lake and scattering Daddy’s ashes there. It’s what he would have wanted,” she said and slammed the half-filled trunk shut. “Not this.”

Later in the week, when Vanessa did not show up in Parkhurst, New Jersey, for the departure of the Hindenburg , Dr. Reichold was not particularly disappointed. He was not fond of Vanessa personally and had not looked forward to spending thirty hours in close company with her, even on the Hindenburg . Nor, unlike most men, was he sexually attracted to her, as he preferred young blond male athletes and regretted having to miss the Berlin Olympic Games for this. But thanks to Mrs. Cole he had his return ticket to Frankfurt already paid for and in hand. He would simply report that Mrs. Cole had decided at the last minute not to commit her daughter, and Dr. Theobold would, as usual, stroke his beard and shrug and say, “In order to be helped, people must first come to me, Otto. I cannot go to them.”

Vanessa was well aware that she had done a terrible, probably irreversible thing. But she had done terrible, irreversible things in the past, and the consequences had not been fatal or even life-threatening. In time they had merely become part of her biography, episodes in the ongoing story of Vanessa Cole, which she later embroidered and elaborated upon, making of it a shifting, regularly revised tale filled with surprises and contradictions that shocked, amused, and perplexed those who heard it. From Vanessa’s perspective, this was the desired effect. Since hers was a story of ongoing beginnings, it was the best she could hope for. There were no necessary middles or inevitable endings to her life’s story. She wasn’t like other people, and she knew it. She hadn’t chosen this plight, exactly; it seemed to have been thrust upon her. It was as if her personal and public past and future were not real, as if her past could be constantly altered and her future indefinitely postponed. She was free to start her life over, again and again — daily, if she wished — but by the same token she had no alternative.

To avoid keeping her mother bound and gagged during the long journey north to the Reserve, Vanessa convinced her — although it was untrue — that she had a gun in her purse, the same nickel-plated.38 she had been carrying at the Carlyle back when she wanted to shoot Count No-Count. She told her mother that if she tried to escape or called for help, Vanessa would shoot herself in the head immediately. “If you wish to be responsible for my death, Mother, if you wish to see me murdered before your very eyes and in effect by your hand, then all you have to do is give the guy at the toll booth a signal or whisper something to the man pumping gas or say a word to anyone at the Tamarack Club,” she declared. “I won’t hesitate for a second to blow my brains out in front of everybody, believe me,” she said, and her mother did believe her.