Amity Gaige - Schroder

“What?” I ask. “What did you say?”

“We were crossed stars.”

“Who are you talking about, Dad?”

“Your Mutter. Your Mutter and I.”

I slap my knee. “You should rest.”

“But it is a simple thing to say. Miscommunication. It was to happen. We had lost the power of speaking. We became as children.” He turns his bandaged face toward mine. “I would like to explain it to you.”

“Dad. You don’t need to explain it to me,” I say. “It’s ancient history.”

“It has long confused me. Love. Opportunity. She said I was unloving. But see where we were . See what we lived with. The society we lived with. A false regime, another country’s puppet. Artificial. Paranoid . Shut. The heart needs inspiration. The heart needs opportunity—”

“Dad, please. Stop.”

“You were too jung to know. So I tell you now.”

“No,” I say. “ Nein .”

“No? Why not?”

“Because. That’s why.”

“I don’t understand.”

I laugh, looking for support from the empty room. “By God, you just had surgery. Where in the hospital paperwork does it say that the patient should recount long and painful stories from the distant past? Stories that nobody — that everybody — Besides, you’re on like twelve different sedatives and I don’t trust you.”

“I want to say what happened.”

“No.”

“You don’t want to know what happened to us?”

“No.”

“I felt, in surgery, what if something happened to me? And I leave you alone? But I have made it and I will tell you now.”

“ Nein! ” I am shaking. “ Ich will es nicht wissen , Daddy. Ich will es nicht hören .”

“Let me tell you. It’s all right.”

“ Du bist krank. Du bist betrunken .” I clasp my hand over my mouth, glad he cannot see me. I stand and move to the window. The street below is empty. The top corner of the white tenement across the street is sheared by the sun like a dog-eared page. Neither of us speaks.

Then my father says, hollowly, “We were given one hour to get to Friedrichstrasse…”

“Enough,” I say. I return to the couch and take away his beer. His hands grope the air for it. “You shouldn’t be drinking this. You’re not making sense.” My voice falls to a whisper. “You’re not making sense.”

He pushes himself upright. “Son. I see you so seldom.”

“I know.”

A long horn sounds from below. We both turn our heads to look.

“The lot,” Dad says. “You must move your auto.”

Hey! Hey up there! a female voice cries from outside. Hey, asshole!

“She must mean me.” I pick up my car keys. “I’ll be back.”

“No,” Dad says wearily. “You go. Go. Live your life. I’m home now. I only want to sleep. Go, go.”

I wipe my eyes. “I said I’ll be back. Where’s parking?”

“Victoria Strasse ,” my father says quietly, pressing the gauze against his eyes. “Monday — Wednesday parking on Victoria Strasse .”

I descend the stairs. Their uneven risers are embedded in my gait. Out the side door. The slap of the storm door. A woman in a dirty minivan eyes me through her side-view mirror, a clove cigarette tilted at an angle between her fingers. I get into Angela’s Firebird and back out.

I am driving fast. Very fast. I’m back on the Expressway, heading north. I did not find parking on Victoria Strasse . That is, I did not look for parking on Victoria Strasse . I allow the gas pedal to sink to the floor, and veer into the passing lane. Until then, I’ve been hewing to the speed limit like I always do, instinctively afraid of police cars, of anything in ambush. Aerosmith sounds all wrong now and instead I just glare at the road, trying to throw myself forward two hours, to those verdant foothills between Stockbridge and Austerlitz, the anticipation of the New York state line, the anticipation of Angela.

Come back soon. Promise you’ll come back soon.

I pretend that I am needed, and that’s why I weave between the lanes of traffic toward the North Shore. I pretend that I’m impervious, that I have no debts, and no future that will ever have a hold on me. I pretend that I’ll never possess anything I can’t afford to lose. I pretend that I’m unstoppable, ignorant of the fact that thirteen years later, I will walk into a sheet of glass that I did not know was there and that glass will be my father. That sheet of glass will be my first life. That sheet of glass will be myself. I am covered in shards.

Das Ende

1. What events in your own life led you to write this book?

My son was about three years old when I started this book. He wasn’t old enough to be as articulate as Meadow, but he said and did a lot of wise things. For some reason, when I realized how much he could actually understand, I started to get nervous. I hoped I was saying or doing the right thing. But no one is entirely “normal,” and occasionally I wondered if what I said and did as a mother wasn’t a little eccentric — nothing as inappropriate as Eric, but you know, on the playground it seems like either you’re doing something questionable as a parent or somebody else is. So I was very interested in exploring what makes a “good parent,” how both parent and child get through the crucible of the early years.

During this same time, my parents separated after forty-four years of marriage. This was a profound disorientation for me. Then, my father — who had been the first and most influential reader of my work, to whom this book is dedicated — fell terminally ill. I moved him up to a hospice home in my town and had to learn how to let him go. Meanwhile, I tried to be cheerful for my son — again, to project a sense of normalcy — but that was getting increasingly harder. Who was I kidding? Anyway, these things end up getting absorbed into the writing of Schroder . The writing heals. Or at least, the writing is a vessel to hold the experience.

2. What event in the news sparked the particular story you tell in Schroder ?

Several years ago, while I was abroad, I read a short AP article about the Clark Rockefeller case, which had just broken. He was the German con man who posed as a Rockefeller. He was also was the father of a young girl, whom he attempted to kidnap. His particular case is quite interesting, but I never followed the case nor have I read anything about it since. There was only one thing from his case that really inspired me. This con man was by many accounts a loving father, and he called the days with his daughter “the best days” of his life. The story echoed what I was already wondering about parenthood: can a deeply flawed person be a good (or good enough) parent? What does it take? How would we define that?

3. In Schroder , the bond between a parent and child dictates a lot of the action. What is it about the nature of this bond that drives Erik? Is there a difference between the bond of a mother and a child versus that of a father and a child?

Yes, I think the parental bond is different between genders because men and woman are different. But I firmly believe that a bond between a father and child can be as strong as that between a mother and child. Maybe not in the infant years, but beyond. Personally, I think it’s really the primary caregiver who knows the child best, whoever feeds and clothes the child and pries sharp objects out of his or her hand (what Eric calls “the relentless being-aware” of the child). For at least a year, Eric is a stay-at-home-dad. He’s not a great one, but for the first time he actually pays attention. Anyone who pays attention to his or her child builds a bond. You can’t help but respect their miniature successes and failures.