Lynne Tillman - Cast in Doubt

Instead I tangle with a jumble of family material, letters, diaries, ledgers, all culled from brief homeside visits, all found in attics or seduced out of the houses of relatives whose guilt I fingered like the best pianist. It is my jungle, my undergrowth and overgrowth, and it cannot be clipped like a suburban lawn. It is uncontrollable, in a way. One’s ancestors oughtn’t to take one over, and yet they have me. I sit in my room, at my desk, in front of my typewriter, and see them. They are stern, foreboding figures. I don’t visualize them, precisely, but will them, will them into being, into a great chain of being, the way I once willed, when I was a small boy, American Indians — Apaches — to stand in my doorway.

I have always been fascinated by my family’s history. As a boy I learned that one of my ancestors had ridden with John Brown, and that another, from the Dutch side, traded in slaves. Since that time I have discovered that the Brown story was apocryphal, but on my father’s side there were slave traders. Martha was definitely at Seneca Falls; her name is on a list. Martha noted in her journal that Seneca Falls was home to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who, I think, was too radical for Martha. My father’s family is nowhere as worthy as my mother’s; Father’s was loathsome and evil, I believe. Evil is always fascinating, to me at least, and that side did make the family’s money.

I am considered the weak link, but I am a moral man. Many would say I am not because of my love of men, but just as they who would condemn me could not choose anything but heterosexuality — and is that truly a choice? — I could not choose anything but homosexuality.

I linger over lunch, a parsimonious affair. Closing my eyes I drift away for a bit, then focus on a few of the mementos from home that are displayed in my room. The letters and diaries I pirated away are enough; they do count as evidence. This is what I reiterate to myself sub rosa — or is it sotto voce? But I ought to have more material. Still, evidence of what? Lived lives. On bits of paper. Will I ever learn what Martha truly thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and why?

Forget rigorous research, Horace. This is how I often remonstrate with myself — just do what you do, what you can, and make it new. Besides, I am outside the academy, and I am engaged in writing fiction. Fiction is true, of course, its own truth, not Truth; yet I believe one must always seek Truth, that is the ultimate quest. Were I to do a conventional history, traveling to Athens for books, perusing its English-language shops, or mailing away for material from the States, as I have on occasion, all this would be insufficient. Asking Gwen to find books for me in New York, that too is inadequate. She is bemused by my interest in slavery, I think, and has refused, in her elusive but deliberate way, to talk earnestly to me about it.

I ought to be at Smith College, researching in its library among stacks of musty tomes and aging letters, sifting through diaries written by people like my ancestors. How far away a place like Smith seems. I knew an English professor there once, he was my lover. Then, after long service to the college, his homosexuality was discovered. He had lived quietly in Northampton for twenty-five years, teaching Milton, I believe, yet he was dishonorably dismissed. It was, it is a terrible thing, a hideous nightmare to live through, and for that I am glad to be here, in Greece, where I won’t be bothered. Where do morals lie? That man hurt no one.

Whenever I begin to work and think that all this is inadequate and insufficient, and that I am not Gertrude Stein, or Virginia Woolf, or James Joyce, necessarily it makes it impossible for me to think, no less to write. I cycle like a rat in a maze. My mother thought me perfect and a perfectionist, but then I was her favorite child, for which my brother has never forgiven me. All seems futile — this frail, faded handwriting on a bit of yellow paper which may crumble at any moment and disappear. It might turn to dust, this fragment, this evidence of human life. It might disintegrate in my hot, puffy hands. My father thought me a dilettante, and perhaps I am, as I am one who’s not quite sure what he is looking for, or why he looks, unlike Stan Green, who knows exactly what he needs to find. But I think I would know the right thing, were I to come upon it.

Stan Green wouldn’t for a second hesitate if he wanted to visit Helen’s John, which makes him, John, sound tawdry, like a bad pun, and this observation rouses me to action, the pun and Stan Green, along with my need for escape. I put on my sandals and find my blue cotton cap that I used to wear when sailing in Boston Harbor. The cotton is very soft now and the blue has faded to a powdery hue from repeated washings. Helen has returned to her chair on the terrace. I wave to her but she doesn’t see me, so engrossed is she in whatever she’s doing or thinking.

Alas, alack, I am not Stan Green. When I think about that poor dear man, that lovely professor in Northampton, my will simply withers. I do intend to go to the hospital but not today. In a few days perhaps. I am tired just now. I sit down again and take out a novel, Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask . Now, there is daring! I pour myself some Scotch even though it’s early in the day. Yes, I’ll go soon, in a few days. There is no rush. Tomorrow or the next day. Gwen may have already received my letter, and I’m sure she’ll agree to come and will arrive here soon, bright and quirky. I will telephone her tonight. Who knows what the future has in store? Helen said the Gypsy woman was her age, just a girl, too. She read Helen’s hand but Helen will not reveal her fortune. I wouldn’t, either.

The hospital is a small building, surrounded by flowering shrubs, in a quiet corner of town, a dusty corner, I might add, where the sun’s insistent rays parch everything in sight, except for these colorful plants that bloom against all odds, I should think. I suppose they might grow in the desert. How anything grows here is astonishing. I don’t want thoughts of Wallace and his idiotic irrigation idea to seep through just now, but they do, that nutty black rubber tube stretched across a vast expanse of desert, one end plugged into the sand, the other stuck in a huge pool. I can’t keep from chortling as I walk into the nearly empty clinic. Yá sou, I exude, smiling broadly at the receptionist. I tell her whom I want to see and she leads me down the hall to a room that is much too bright for suffering and disease, though it may cheer up the sick. It wouldn’t me were I sick.

The young man I take to be John is asleep, his head turned toward the window, and there is a gash, still prominent and red, on his neck. But it’s not a very wide or long cut, so he must have given up rather quickly. Or perhaps he too becomes weak at the sight of blood and fainted straight away. Even thinking this produces dizziness; I feel as if I might throw up. I sit down and place my head between my knees to recover. I breathe deeply. It would be awful if I fainted. And just now, at this awkward moment, Alicia walks in with flowers in her arms, ruining everything and incriminating me in some way.

You? she inquires. Yes, I say, as if it were really necessary to affirm that it is I. I want to say, Who else do you think it is? Santa Claus? As usual I play for time and dissemble. What are you doing here, Horace? Alicia asks with some annoyance. She tucks John in. He stirs a bit. I am about to come face-to-face with Helen’s lover, or whoever he is. Helen asked me to come, I answer. I promptly make the corners of my mouth turn down when they really want to sit up, clownishly like Emmett Kelly’s. She did? Alicia asks. Usually, Alicia is not monosyllabic; and her cryptic questions give me hardly any time to concoct necessary lies, my cover story. Yes, Alicia, she did, I respond, giving as little as I am getting. Why do I have to explain myself anyway, I think, knowing full well I ought to. Yet I usually believe in my own fictions.