"Oh! That's too bad ... Where does he live?"

"Who knows? j.a.pan, India, Australia ... he could be anywhere. He travels around."

"On business?" I asked.

"On a spiritual quest," Patrick said, carefully modulating his tone so it covered all bases-scorn, tolerance, indifference.

"How come you live up here?" I asked.

"I don't know, I just do."

"When did you start?"

"I guess I was eight or nine."

"Eight or nine-what were you, Quasimodo or something?"

"I just wanted to live here. I asked Mr. Davies-he's the cook-to help me carry the bed up. I was already spending a lot of time here, playing..."

"Playing! Human after all-what did you play?"

"Oh, the usual, you know. Let's see, I had a train set." He leaned his head back on the sofa; he was on his third shot of vodka. "And cars, and make-believe."

"Make-believe! That's so adorable, Patrick."

"I used to pretend I was a teacher," Rosie said. "My stuffed animals were the pupils. Then I was a nurse. Not too original!"

"I imagined I was Harry Belafonte's missing daughter," I said. "You know, the one he deserted in Kingston Town. I thought she was his daughter, for some reason, and I imagined I was her, and he was going to come get me. Or else Tintin would, or else Nancy Drew. Your turn, Patrick."

"Me? Oh, I don't know, it's a blur."

"How can your childhood be a blur already? It was only last year practically. Have you been dropping acid every day or what?"

"No, it's just-I don't think about it. I never think about it. But ... I liked to pretend I was Robinson Crusoe or Long John Silver."

"Long John Silver! Wasn't he the evil pirate? Weren't you supposed to identify with the boy?"

"The boy was a wimp."

Rosie and I laughed, and I remembered what she'd told me about Patrick's school. "Do you go to a scary high school?" I asked.

"Scary? I'm at St. George's. We just sit around and moan about our existential crises. I'm not getting an education," he added, switching to the comically aggrieved mode that served as a subst.i.tute for trust.

"I thought you were in one of those fascist boys' schools..."

The hypodermic pulse of Santana's guitar seemed to tilt the prints on the walls-Henri Rousseau's lunar sleeping gypsy, the oddly suspended nude in Gauguin's The Seed of the Areoi The Seed of the Areoi, a stupid Malevich (two squares on white from his why-bother period)-and I felt as if I really had been drinking. I examined Patrick. He hid behind his uncombed hair, his round gla.s.ses, his irritable resignation, but he had a faintly flushed complexion that made him look healthy despite his underground, or rather garret, style. He'd inherited his mother's intelligent, deep-set eyes, her high forehead.

"Did you say you had a cook?" I asked.

"My mother has a cook."

"He lives here?"

"Yeah, in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

"How come? How come you have a cook? Does your mother have parties and things?"

"No, he cooks for her. She's into gourmet food." He didn't want to talk about Mr. Davies.

"Cool."

"What was she like, my mother? When you saw her?" Patrick asked with sudden intensity, as if taking advantage of a rare opportunity, as if he'd been wondering for years.

"She was okay-I liked her. I didn't think she could help me, though, so I didn't mind, really, when my mother said we weren't going back. My mother's a basket case."

"Why did she take you to a psychiatrist in the first place?" Rosie asked.

"Oh, who knows? She's completely crazy herself. 'Mamaleh mamaleh my heart my soul my life-'" I mimicked, my voice tremulous with agitation and despair. my heart my soul my life-'" I mimicked, my voice tremulous with agitation and despair.

Patrick made several attempts to restrain himself, but he lost the battle, and his body shook uncontrollably as he laughed his soundless, breathy laugh. I was all too familiar with the phenomenon of laughter that has a mind of its own. I'd experienced several attacks myself-most recently during an amateur production of Mother Courage Mother Courage. On one memorable occasion a fit came over me in Mr. Lurie's cla.s.s. The fearsome Mr. Lurie was, for the first time ever, at a loss. He stood uncertainly behind the front desk, his stern facade disintegrating into self-consciousness and s.e.xual discomfort. "Perhaps you had better leave the room and take a drink of water, Miss Levitsky," he said, but the words lacked his usual authority.

Despite the one-time bonus of seeing Mr. Lurie transformed into Dr. Jekyll, I dreaded these outbursts, and I hoped Patrick would be able to tell that Rosie and I didn't mind.

"Her mother's a darling, really," said Rosie.

"Darling! I'll do my mother and you judge whether she's a darling."

I had no difficulty reproducing my mother's unique blend of melodrama, railing, and general lunacy. I jumped up and began flying across the room, flailing my arms and commenting haphazardly on the plants, the view from the window, the house, the absent cook, Patrick's mother: "' That Czech woman her her I know the type, with her money, from me everything they took, at the hotel, the hotel with the teapots-'" I was as unstoppable as she was.

I was successful, at least, in driving away Patrick's laughter; he was now staring at me in horror. "My G.o.d, how do you manage?"

"Well, it would be worse for you," I told him. "I say whatever I want."

"What's the hotel thing about?" Rosie asked.

"Who knows? I think she was working at some hotel, and then something went wrong. She had to pretend to be a puppet or something, or someone else did-oh, who cares! Now I'll do Rosie's father." I glanced at Rosie to see whether she had any objections. She extended her hand in a be-my-guest gesture.

She was right, of course, to trust me: I knew that Mr. Michaeli was not as hardy as my mother. Nor did I want to recreate his eclipsed view of the world, his shadow being. I meant to aim my parody-if you could call it that-only at his unnerving gifts.

"Here," I said. "Take this, here." I placed a few books on Patrick's lap. "And this, and this. Take this, here, and take also this." Spurred by the urgings of Santana, I began to accelerate, hunting more and more frenetically for objects to pile onto Patrick's lap, and when there was no longer room on his lap, then next to him on the sofa. I gathered ashtrays, pens, magazines, paper clips, the c.u.mbersome German-English dictionary with Der Spiegel Der Spiegel inserted inside, I emptied my pockets, poured out the contents of my fringed shoulder bag, and threw the shoulder bag itself at him, and Rosie smiled and Patrick said, "Okay, okay, I get the point," but he was enjoying himself, and then there was nothing left to impose on him, so I pulled off my shoes and socks and added them to the heap and removed my wide leather belt and my jeans and blue plaid lumber jacket and finally my underwear until I was standing in the room as naked as a Woodstock bather and I stopped and giggled. Patrick gazed at me complacently, his clever, deep-set eyes absorbing with amus.e.m.e.nt five feet, eleven inches of white freckled skin. inserted inside, I emptied my pockets, poured out the contents of my fringed shoulder bag, and threw the shoulder bag itself at him, and Rosie smiled and Patrick said, "Okay, okay, I get the point," but he was enjoying himself, and then there was nothing left to impose on him, so I pulled off my shoes and socks and added them to the heap and removed my wide leather belt and my jeans and blue plaid lumber jacket and finally my underwear until I was standing in the room as naked as a Woodstock bather and I stopped and giggled. Patrick gazed at me complacently, his clever, deep-set eyes absorbing with amus.e.m.e.nt five feet, eleven inches of white freckled skin.

There was a knock on the door to the apartment, followed by Dr. Moore's brave, hesitant voice. "Patrick?"

Patrick sighed and made his way to the kitchen while I got back into my clothes. Through the closed door he said, "Yes?" The antagonism in his voice startled us.

"Would you like some snacks? I brought up a small tray."

Patrick seemed to sag, somehow, as he opened the door. His mother remained on the stairs, and though I couldn't see her from where I was standing, I could see Patrick. He stared at his mother with what looked like hatred. "We don't need anything," he said, and his hostility was all the more potent for being contained-like bad guys in old movies who spoke between their teeth. Seething anger: you don't know its limits because the limits are kept hidden.

Dr. Moore did her best to sidestep him. "Well, then, if you change your mind, I'll leave the tray here."

"We really don't want anything."

Dr. Moore laughed uneasily and we heard her footsteps fading away on the stairs.

I don't think Rosie had ever witnessed anything quite like this, and she was on the verge of tears. I said, "That was mean."

But now I'd gone too far. Patrick's face darkened and he turned on me. "You don't say," he replied, straight out of the Ice Age, or maybe the Cold War.

"Did something happen between you?" Rosie's voice had turned mournful. She could have been wandering through the stormy heath, she could have been asking, Is man no more than this? Is man no more than this?

"How do you mean?" It was Rosie's turn to be shoved to the corner of the ring.

She nodded sadly. Even she knew that at times there was nothing to be done.

"'Li-la-li,'" I sang. Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" had come out the previous year, and I couldn't get enough of it. "' Li-la-li li li li li, li-la-li.'" Rosie joined in, and we sang the entire song together. If anyone had ever harboured the memory of each blow that had struck him, it was Patrick.

"We can't really stay to eat anyhow," Rosie said. "I have to go home. But please come to my party."

"I don't like parties." The fight was over. Patrick had flopped back on the sofa as listlessly as a dying hero in the last act of a tragedy. He rubbed his eyes beneath his gla.s.ses.

"You'd like my party. I have one every Sat.u.r.day night, you can come any time."

"You wouldn't have to talk to anyone," I a.s.sured him. "I'd guard you."

"I'm really not into parties ... Sorry you didn't like the vodka." He'd noticed my untouched drink. Rosie had politely finished her pear juice, but I'd set my own gla.s.s aside.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm just being neurotic. I wasted your vodka-unless you drink it."

"I've had more than enough," Patrick said, staggering a little as he rose. "I'd offer you a lift-"

"We'll be okay. Will you?"

"Sorry, I shouldn't have had so much to drink. Social situations make me tense."

The tray of delicacies-brie, French bread, chocolate mousse in three fluted dessert gla.s.ses-was sitting on the floor at the top of the stairs. I knelt down and wrapped two slices of bread and a chunk of cheese in a napkin, slid them into my shoulder bag; this way I'd be able to thank Dr. Moore for the food if we saw her on the way out. I handed Rosie one of the dessert gla.s.ses, and the two of us wolfed down the mousse. It was my first chocolate mousse experience, and the start of a lifelong, exacting addiction.

But we didn't run into Dr. Moore on the way to the front door. As we pulled our coats out of the closet, Rosie asked Patrick, "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"I have a brother," he replied. "He doesn't live here any more. He's in California."

"How nice! What's his name?"

"Tony."

"You don't have very Jewish names," I said.

"We're only barely Jewish."

"I wish I had a brother!" Rosie cried out, and she threw her arms around Patrick and held him tightly, as if he were in danger of falling off a cliff and only she could save him.

Patrick didn't know what to do with himself. Then he smiled his sweet, childhood smile. But he didn't come to Rosie's party. He wasn't ready to step out of his Robinson Crusoe seclusion, and two years pa.s.sed before we saw him again.

Ah, it's a stormy day today, a blizzard is raging, and Sailor, who has forgotten that he's a St. Bernard, refuses to go out for his walk. He's afraid of wind in general; wind combined with snow he considers simply an insult. I've trained him to use a grated litter box in the backroom instead.

Trained is not the right word. I simply told him what to do. Sailor understands everything I tell him. I need only say, with explanatory gestures, "Sailor, you can lie on the wool blanket, but not on the linen," and he'll never go near linen again. I can even say, "This blanket is fine, but not that one." He was mistreated by his first owners, and I think he developed this penchant for instant obedience in order to survive, poor thing. At least he's happy now. I admit that I spoil him, and for every blanket I ask him not to lie on, he has several requests of his own. "Your wish is my command," I rumble at him, and he wags his tail. is not the right word. I simply told him what to do. Sailor understands everything I tell him. I need only say, with explanatory gestures, "Sailor, you can lie on the wool blanket, but not on the linen," and he'll never go near linen again. I can even say, "This blanket is fine, but not that one." He was mistreated by his first owners, and I think he developed this penchant for instant obedience in order to survive, poor thing. At least he's happy now. I admit that I spoil him, and for every blanket I ask him not to lie on, he has several requests of his own. "Your wish is my command," I rumble at him, and he wags his tail.

Blizzard or no blizzard, Sororite won't be deserted tonight. I was dragged to Sororite one time in the middle of a snowstorm, and I discovered that we're a hardy species, we bar addicts. The person dragging me was Carmen, a woman from Texas who was staying in the empty flat for a few weeks. She was a chef, and good company-lively, droll, her voice strong and fearless as she commented, amused and amusing, on everything around her. She had a rice pudding recipe that was immeasurably better than the one I'd been content with until then, and I went into a rice pudding craze when she was here. I still use her recipe, though it's not quite the same as when she made it. It was Carmen who persuaded me to brave bad weather one stormy Friday night, and when against all odds and surmounting challenges worthy of Shackleton we made it to Sororite, we found the place packed.

Occasionally I toy with the idea of severing the Sororite umbilical cord. Occasionally I ask myself why I go. For the past eight months-since Tyen left-I haven't met anyone I particularly wanted to invite home. Though, let's face it, it's been years since I met anyone I particularly wanted to invite home. I invited them anyhow; I invited them, then hoped they'd leave. That semicolon after "anyhow" is probably the most conveniently nebulous bit of punctuation I've ever used-a semicolon that serves to sweep over the colossal wreck of my own monument to boundlessness.

I blame my house. It has a life of its own and refuses to accommodate guests. Tyen was a rare exception.

1971.

The army rolled into our city during the October Crisis of 1970; the media managed to frighten outsiders, but we were amused by the sight of goofy-looking soldiers in tanks as we made our way to school. Joshua and Peter, who were in the grade above us at Eden, were arrested at a French bookstore when an altercation broke out between police and two angry customers, and they spent the night in jail. They were released the next day, and an account of their adventure provided a full day's entertainment. Rea.s.sured by her card-playing friends that she had nothing to fear-"What can you do, there are always a few troublemakers"-even Fanya refrained from issuing doomsday forecasts.

Kidnapping was one thing, but when the troublemakers strangled their hostage, they lost whatever public sympathy they'd had. Three months later the sad, brief drama had been replaced by the drama of political debate and brutal weather. We were in the clutches of a deep freeze.

Temperatures fell and remained locked in the penal zone, day after miserable day. Cars turned to metal ice in the middle of the road and had to be abandoned where they stood because there weren't enough tow tucks to rescue them all. h.e.l.l really was freezing over, the dreaded Mr. Lurie joked dryly. Extreme weather seemed to cheer him up.

In January, in the midst of this meteorological a.s.sault, I turned fifteen. I blew out a lone candle on a cinnamon cake, and Bubby handed me the colour-blended wool scarf she'd been knitting all week. To spare my mother a polar expedition, I bought myself the gift I would have asked for: A Treasury of Art Masterpieces A Treasury of Art Masterpieces.

Each morning I defiantly prepared for battle by layering my clothes: undershirt, T-shirt, vest, jeans, school dress, sweater, scarf, winter headband, hat, hooded coat, gloves under mitts. I felt like a mummy in a horror movie as I lumbered to school-three blocks to the bus stop, the long wait for the bus, then another two blocks to the steaming foyer of Eden. The school reeked of something-no one could figure out what it was. Old bananas, milk gone bad, some small, trapped animal decomposing? The vents were being checked out, but so far the vent-men hadn't found anything. I opened my locker, peeled off my clothes, and waited for my extremities to thaw out.

It was on one of these arctic mornings, as I was warming up, that the high school secretary asked me to deliver a file to the elementary side. My height, and possibly the fact that I was an outsider who had made a valiant effort to get into Eden, made me a prime candidate for small errands.

The corridors of the elementary school always resurrected, for an electrifying second or two, my first time there-Mr. Lewis, Rosie's locker, the towers of books in the supply closet. Welcome to the Promised Land.

At first I was drawn merely by curiosity to the noise coming from one of the cla.s.srooms. I peeked in through the little square window at the top of the door and saw Mr. Michaeli. He was standing behind the desk, grinning helplessly and shielding his face with his arm.

But the grin was not a grin; it was a grimace, a mask. And the helplessness was not helplessness but a cadaverous frieze. It was as though he had lost all human traits, even the human trait of surrender, and what remained was someone else's indistinct memory of who he had been.

He was under attack by the children. They threw spitb.a.l.l.s and pieces of chalk and paper airplanes at him, they shouted, they pretended to cry. He'd been teaching a song in a minor key, and as they sang they sobbed, wiped their eyes, lay their heads on each other's shoulders and wailed. By the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept ... By the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept ...

I opened the door. Instant silence-amazing how these children can stop and go, like mechanical toys. Mr. Michaeli came towards me with a smile. He had reinhabited his body, more or less, but I found myself unable to detach his approaching figure from the cowering apparition I'd seen through the window. "Maya, h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo."

"I was on my way to the office," I said, stumbling on the words.

"Yes, yes, down the hall, on the left."

The children stared at me with wide-eyed innocence from their desks. It was impossible to leave, impossible to stay.