E. Doctorow - Andrew's Brain

Briony was calling to him from the house, waving, smiling. He turned and noticed the parents’ car that he had parked behind, a red Morris Minor. You didn’t see many of those anymore. At the door, Briony took his hand. They’re out back, she said. And in the short walk through the house to the garden Andrew had the impression of — what to call it — a prosthetic house? The stairway to the second floor was made of shallow half steps, the upholstered chairs and sofa in the living room had attached footstools. The center island in the kitchen was stepped. Whatever needed to be used came with graduated access, handrails. And the place smelled very clean, antiseptic almost. All of this Andrew perceived peripherally as he passed through the house and to the garden where there, smiling and rising to greet him, and not crippled or maimed at all, were Briony’s parents. I’m Bill, he said. I’m Betty, she said.

The fact that I was a college teacher was in my favor. These were retired show-business people with great respect for the education they never had. And so loving of their daughter that they trusted her judgment. Never even a raised eyebrow for this man twice their daughter’s age. Gave me a hearty welcome. So I had worried for no reason. There were bottles and an ice bucket on a tea caddy. You name it we got it, Bill said. We had drinks, Briony sitting close to me on the settee, glancing at me for my reaction. But Bill and Betty were classy, they had the social ease of longtime performers. They were young-looking given that they were retirees. It’s hard to tell with Diminutives.

Diminutives?

You don’t want to patronize them. “Midgets” is beyond the pale. Derives from the insect the midge. And “Little People” is not much better.

You’re saying Briony’s parents were midgets?

Only out of their hearing.

My goodness. And “Diminutives” was their term of choice?

That’s my term. They didn’t speak of themselves descriptively. You just look at them and you go into the politically correct mode. To my credit I didn’t even blink the moment I saw them. Just an example of the brain’s synaptic speed. It had probably told me what I’d find as I’d walked through the house.

Why hadn’t Briony warned you?

I don’t know. Could she have been testing me? My reaction a measure of my character? But it couldn’t have been that. Briony was incapable of any kind of subterfuge. And she was too self-aware to act unconsciously. And why should she warn me? We were seriously together — why would something like that matter? They were her folks, who were in her sight lines from the day she was born. She loved them. And given their sociability with others of their like she was raised in an aura of normality, not being the only child in that situation. You don’t go around apologizing for your mom and dad.

But what young girl of even normally proportioned parents will not say something in advance by way of softening their effect? A parent is a person who embarrasses you.

Well, this was Briony. This was the girl who led me up the mountain. She was in all ways enigmatic. I was deeply in the world of her affections — why wouldn’t I know already, without being told, that her parents were tiny? What can I say that will satisfy you? En route to CA, she gave her dog away to some kid who worked at the motel where we stayed one night. At the time, I didn’t know why she would do that — after impulsively bringing it along, naming it Pete, and then giving him away to someone, and with a dollar or two to buy some kibble. She knelt and hugged the dog and looked on sadly as the kid walked him away on a leash. Perhaps that was the acknowledgment you’re looking for. When I saw Briony take her mother in her arms and hold her as you would a child, when I watched her kneeling to hug her father, I could see why she might have had second thoughts about Pete the dog. He was big. Had a tail on him that could crack your fibula.

I just remembered — she did tell me one thing, Briony. She asked me not to talk politics with her father. My last-minute instructions. We were just approaching the family manse. She kissed my cheek. Oh, and, Andrew, please, please, no politics, OK?

What was that about?

We were in Orange County, CA, the land of love it or leave it.

How did Briony know what your politics were? I can’t imagine new lovers talking politics.

Lovers live in each other’s minds. Briony found in mine a degree of civic intensity that she recognized from her father’s conversation. Except I was of a different era.

I see.

You don’t know everything about me, Doc, you’re only hearing what I choose to tell you. I’ve always responded to the history of my times. I’ve always attended to the context of my life.

The context.

Yes, as it ripples in concentric circles all the way out to the stars. Bill was a bright little man and I did honor Briony’s request, though it wouldn’t have occurred to me in any case as a guest in this house to tease out our political differences. But between Bill and me, I would say I was the truer patriot. If you keep the larger picture in mind you can’t be convinced of the permanence of this country. Not when you know who’s running it.

As you do?

Oh, yes! As I know myself.

Bill and Betty were not disproportioned dwarves, with large heads or torsos, and short legs, they were perfectly proportioned, everything in harmony with everything else. They lived on what I assumed was a fixed income and took pains to live meticulously and with dignity. Bill was show-business handsome, his small fine features and pale blue eyes obviously the source of Briony’s good looks. He was somewhat florid, with a head of white hair neatly pompadoured. Betty had the flat doll-like face more often seen in Diminutives. They dressed as Southern Californians, in light colors, crisp slacks, shirts and blouses, penny loafers for him, open flats for her. Betty was a bit stout of figure, but with her dyed brown hair done up in a short bob, and a lovely smile and a face whose default expression was sympathetic understanding. With their outgoing personalities they did emanate the show-business life they had lived. They had toured with various troupes of performing midgets, singing, dancing, or serving in World’s Fair tableaus in the native costumes appropriate to various foreign pavilions. They told me all about it. They had played Las Vegas. An entire wall in Bill’s study was covered with photographs — inscribed headshots of entertainers I’d never heard of. They’d done some television, toured with Ringling Bros., there were pictures of Betty standing on a cantering horse, of Bill dressed as a drum major and leading a band of clowns. But never sideshows, Bill said, it never came to that and if it did we still wouldn’t.

Tell me, Doc, why do things in miniature bring out our affection? Like those little metal cars we all played with as kids that were models of real cars. How important to us that they were accurate to scale. And what about cats, I never liked cats but I could play happily with a kitten, testing its reflexes with a piece of string. And here were Bill and Betty. Toy people, kitten people, accurate to scale. The idea of them was alluring, each moment in their presence was as original as the moment before. It was as if you had traveled to another land, some exotic place on earth that you could write home about, if you had a home and someone there to write to. Not everyone can hope for the experience of being made welcome by these people and treated as an equal, as it were, as if that weren’t in itself funny.

So your affection was that of a superior, a taller, grander version of humanity.

Not necessarily. After a few days they were the norm. With the four of us at the dinner table, Briony seemed huge in my eyes, she wore a dress for dinner and had her hair combed back and reaching almost to her shoulders. She was this lovely but ungainly Alice in Wonderland. Me, I was under the illusion that if I stood up too suddenly I’d bang my head on the ceiling. And their voices, Bill’s and Betty’s, lacking timbre, something like trumpets played with mutes, were sometimes difficult to hear, as if they were communicating from a great distance.