David Vann - Aquarium

I listened every time my mother accelerated, the smooth blow of it, different from the diesel, but I couldn’t say anything. Slow swing of the shocks as we floated on.

I could smell oil frying when we opened the door. Buongiorno, Steve called. He was wearing a white chef’s hat and a red-checkered apron, grinning at us.

Holy moly, my mother said.

Benvenuti, he said. Welcome to Italia and eggplant parmigiana, for the little vegetarian.

My mother laughed and squeezed up against him for a kiss. She stole his hat and wore it herself.

Are you even Italian? I asked.

No, he said with an Italian accent. But in Italy, they know good food. He had his thumb and two fingers pressed together, swinging his hand in the air.

What are you? I asked. Where do you come from?

Origins, Steve said. They don’t explain us, you know. They never do. Each of us is our own piece of work. I come from Nintendo. That was one of my parents, my mother. I suckled at the controller. And AC/DC, a late but good set of fathers, Back in Black and shaking me all night long, a good precursor to Nirvana.

But where do you come from?

You’re a tough nut. The old country, you want, Steve said in an Italian accent again. Well, it’s Albania, right across the water from Italy, but I was never there. I’ve heard about beautiful mountains on the coast, olive orchards to make your heart ache, calls to prayer in the minarets, the best food this world has ever tasted, but I’ve tasted it only a bit from my grandparents. My parents served Oscar Mayer. So there you go. We don’t come from anywhere.

I didn’t know any of that, my mother said. She punched Steve in the shoulder. You don’t tell me anything, and then you tell my daughter?

She’s tough, your daughter. I’m afraid of her.

My mother laughed. That’s true. She is tough. I’m scared of her too.

Steve was turning the slices of eggplant, breaded and browned and crackling in the oil. He had a pot of water boiling for the pasta, and a big bowl of tomato sauce. I was so happy I felt like I would pop.

Where is Albania exactly? my mother asked.

Ah, poor Albania. No one knows where it is.

Sorry.

You know how Italy is a boot?

Yeah.

Albania could get kicked by the heel of that boot. There’s a bit of Greece there, too, the Ionian Islands. I want to go someday. We come from a village near the Roman ruins of Butrint, which are supposed to be really amazing. Huge stone walls and an ancient theater and the largest, best mosaic in the world, a large circular floor all done in small colored tiles, with pillars all around.

It sounds beautiful.

Yeah, I have to admit, I do sometimes wish I had grown up there.

Why? I asked.

Steve was pulling all the eggplant from the pan now and putting it in a large casserole dish with tomato sauce. History, he said. To stand in a place and know that this is where you come from for a dozen generations, or maybe a hundred generations, or maybe more. To know there was a great city two thousand years ago in this place, and that your ancestors helped build it and lived there and worked there. When you walk down a small road, all the others who are walking there with you from before.

Steve put a final layer of sauce over the top and then picked up a hunk of hard parmesan and a grater. My mother hugged him from behind. I better enjoy you now, she said. Sounds like someone is leaving for Albania.

Sadly that never happens. We never go back.

You should, I said. At least to visit. You have to.

Steve laughed. Okay, then. Commanded. Now it will happen.

He grated the cheese over the top and then put the casserole dish in the oven. Twenty minutes, he said.

Why don’t you go lie down, my mother said to me. You look tired.

So I went to my room to leave them alone. I lay on my bed with the lights out and looked for shapes on the ceiling. Curtain light, bent into waves by the folds. Passing cars like shortened days, rising and falling. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and had no thoughts.

I woke disoriented. Hungry. I struggled to rise and cross the floor and found them at the table, the dinner dishes stacked on the counter. You didn’t wake me, I said.

No, sweet pea, you looked so tired.

But I missed dinner.

It’s still here, Steve said. I’ll serve you right up. He put his hat back on, stood and waved me over to a seat, said, Bella, prego, and served me a plate of eggplant parmesan on pasta, with a bit of salad on the side. Buon appetito, he said.

I felt half asleep still, groggy and lost. I took a bite with my fork and it was only warm, not hot, but it was good. I have a grandfather, I said.

What’s that? Steve asked.

Stop, Caitlin, my mother said.

She said she has a grandfather?

Yes, my mother said. My father decided to reappear after nineteen years to play grandpa.

Wow.

I met him at the aquarium.

You didn’t meet him. He tracked us down. He’s old and lonely now, probably dying and needs a nurse, and since I have such great practice at being a nurse, why not me? Or he feels like a miserable fuck for what he’s done and now he wants to be forgiven.

Nineteen years, Steve said. That’s a long time.

Since Caitlin wants to bring you into this, you might as well know he left me to take care of my dying mother. Left us alone with nothing. When I was fourteen.

I couldn’t eat the eggplant. I was just staring down, pulling it apart with my fork. The dark ribbon around each piece hidden under bread crumbs, soft yellow meat with darker swirls, camouflage, swimming in a thick red sea. Lying flat on the bottom, hidden away.

Why did you want me to know? Steve asked quietly.

So you can help, I said.

Oh, this is beautiful. My mother threw her arms in the air. Thank you both. This is great. Because I’ve been such a bad person, and my father is such an angel.

No, Steve said. No. I wasn’t trying to say anything.

Well Caitlin is. Caitlin told me she hates me. I want Grandpa.

My mother said it in a whining, baby voice, making fun of me. Then she reached over and knocked on my forehead. Knock, knock, she said. You don’t have a fucking grandpa.

Sheri, Steve said.

Get out. Get the fuck out.

Steve looked down, slumped, and we all just waited, silent. I could hear our clock and my mother’s breathing. I could feel my forehead where her knuckles had been. Then Steve rose and grabbed his jacket and walked out. No good-bye, and he didn’t even turn around to look at us.

My mother pounded the table with her fist, my plate jumping. Is this what you want? she asked, her mouth all twisted up. To take everything away from me? You want me to just work and that’s it? No life?

No.

Well then. Wake the fuck up. You get me or him. Not both.

I burrowed under my blankets and curled into a ball, like a lungfish waiting for rain. Hibernation, but called estivation, since it’s for the hot summer instead of cold winter. When everything is unbearable and exposure too much, the air too hot to breathe. My mother the best person in this world, the most generous, the strongest, but this was her dry season, when she was more like a storm than a person, wind-blown dust, accelerating from somewhere sourceless and vast, and I knew to hide.

Lungfish can slow to one-sixtieth their normal metabolic rate, but this slows time, also. One night becomes sixty nights. This is the price for hiding. Just hold your breath for one minute and find out what a minute becomes.

In the morning, I tried to remain invisible. I looked down at my cereal and never looked up. My chewing took forever. We ate again with only the small light from over the sink, which made night shadows of everything, large and distorted.