My Nine Lives Read online

  But next morning she was transformed, and so was the house. She rallied our staff—a local widow and her teenage daughter—and hired extra help to scour and polish everything in sight. She herself whirled around the kitchen, where all the pots and pans had been taken out, and she stirred in one after another and added and tasted and added some more. When everything was ready—the house gleamed and the staff were exhausted—she went up to change and did not come down until Lisa and her board members drove up. It was only when they were already in the entrance hall that she began to descend the stairs, and before she had quite reached the end of them, she stood still and called down, “Welcome!” Everyone looked up to where she stood—in a brand-new lilac gown, hung about with jeweled chains and an aigrette in her gilded hair. “George,” she murmured, so that he stepped forward and held out his hand to help her down the remaining steps: “The Princess,” he introduced her. Smiling, she stretched out her hand to the guests—four burly American stockbrokers, who might have kissed it, had they known how.

  She had laid the table in the dining room for what she called luncheon, with every refinement that Father had purchased and that we ourselves had never put to use. She had also selected the wine from Father’s cellar and knew how to discuss its merits with Lisa’s guests, who had all made enough money to be connoisseurs (one of them had a little diary in which to check up on the vintage). It was only after serving coffee and liqueurs that she started her tour of the house, flinging open doors and explaining all its beauties. We followed in her wake, astonished by her expertise. During her stay here, she must have studied every ornament on every mantelpiece and estimated the worth of all the pictures and lamps and carpets and hangings that Father had bought. And after the house, she led them around the grounds—the apple orchard and the fishpond and the stone fountain with benches around it; and if there had been time, she would have taken them for a row on the lake where two majestic swans were floating as if specially placed there. The guests—and they seemed to be hers now—had to get back to the city, though she made them promise to return the following weekend and bring their wives; and before they left, she insisted on giving them tea, which she served the way she had drunk it in her days as a Russian, with lemon and a spoonful of raspberry jam.

  Later, when they had gone, Lisa thanked her. “My pleasure,” Maggie said—and she kissed Lisa, again in the Russian way and this time Lisa did not wipe her mouth. For the rest of the weekend, they spent most of their time with each other. It appeared they had a great deal to talk about, and when Lisa left on Sunday evening, she hardly nodded to us but told Maggie that she would be back with all the details. What details? We could only ask this question of each other, for the moment Lisa left, Maggie again became engrossed in her reading.

  Teddy was hopeful: “Don’t you see? They’re planning for our Center.”

  “Then why don’t they tell us?” George said. “Why don’t they talk to us? Why doesn’t she?” His large face sagged, the way it did when he was disappointed in love. I saw him wandering by the lake where he had walked arm and arm and deep in conversation with Maggie. He was always alone now—at night too, for she no longer came to his bedroom, he admitted, and when he tried to go to hers, he found the door locked.

  Teddy attempted to keep up our spirits; he was absolutely sure that all Maggie’s plans were for us. She was bringing Lisa around too, he promised, that was why she had been so nice to Lisa’s colleagues; and maybe even—maybe, he smiled at this possibility on his rosy horizon—she was working to collect funds from Lisa’s firm to make the structural additions and alterations that would be necessary to turn the house into our Center. “It’s going to cost,” he warned us. He led us from room to room, pointing out their potential, and in the process made us as excited as himself. We longed for Maggie to join in our tour and unfold her plans, which were sure to be even grander than ours. But she continued to lie on the sofa, rapidly turning the pages of some great work of literature.

  Lisa didn’t wait till the weekend—she came in the middle of the week, and now it was she and Maggie who walked around the house discussing alterations. At the weekend more board members arrived, and some of them brought their wives; they swarmed all over the place, each one with a different suggestion for changing it. No one seemed to know who we were, and Lisa and Maggie were too busy to introduce us. It was late at night when the visitors left, and by then the two of them were exhausted and went straight to bed. George said we must wake them at once and demand an explanation. There was this about George—his usual self was mild and amenable, but when roused he took on some of Father’s imperious personality. Teddy and I had to pull him away from Maggie’s locked door and persuade him to postpone his confrontation till next morning. At last he went off to his room, stamping his feet the way he had done as a small boy to show displeasure.

  Teddy and I sat up in bed discussing the situation. It was nice to have him with me, comforting me, but I was sorry to think of George brooding alone, so we went in to him. We found him sitting up in bed, with the tufts of hair that still ringed his head standing up on end in anger. “It’s outrageous,” he said the moment we entered. But he seemed glad to have us there to share our troubles. He was cynical, bitter. “Are you still trying to tell us that she’s arranging for the Center? For us?” he asked Teddy.

  “Well,” said Teddy cautiously, “she’s arranging for something.”

  “Yes, for herself. No doubt she’s had a lot of practice at that.”

  Teddy had to agree but couldn’t suppress a smile, probably thinking of all Maggie’s shifts and arrangements, or at least those he himself had witnessed when they had traveled together.

  “Tomorrow she packs her bags,” George said.

  Teddy and I cried out in protest—as we had done when Father had issued the same order, more or less in the same words. “But Lisa is so fond of her!” we had protested to Father, reminding him how Maggie let little Lisa play with her lipstick and try on her high-heeled shoes. Now too Teddy and I said, “What about Lisa?”

  “I don’t know why we have to be so scared of Lisa,” George grumbled.

  But he knew as well as we did that it was for her that we were scared. He had lived through her teen years with us and had tried to help her. We had all had psychological problems ourselves, but Lisa’s took a different turn from any of ours. I always thought of mine as part of the creative life: for how can one hope to recreate emotional and psychological turmoil unless one has lived through it, every bit of the way? So I regarded my sessions with my various analysts—I changed them in the course of my various phases—as not so very different from the theater workshops I attended. But Lisa’s relationships with her analysts were more clinical, requiring medication and a spell in a sanatorium. Teddy had assured us that it was nothing terribly serious—“Not, oh my Lord no, like my poor Mama who was completely—oh my Lord yes,” he concluded in sad remembrance of his mother. And it was true—when Lisa grew older and gained confidence through her competence in business, and with the help of her anti-depressants, she became calmer, steadier. But we remained nervous about her condition, handling her with care and avoiding any kind of confrontation that might upset her.

  We didn’t hesitate to confront Maggie, though we waited until Lisa had gone back to New York. Maggie took us on with a sort of sweet candor, denying nothing. She confirmed that she had undertaken to help Lisa convert the house into a retreat for businessmen, for their conferences, their stag parties, and for family holidays taken in rotation. She explained to us the structural changes that would have to be made—she had it all at her fingertips. Of course it would take a lot of organization; and Lisa had asked her to stay on and oversee that stage as well as afterward to be a resident manager, a permanent hostess responsible for the smooth running of the retreat and the entertainment of the guests.

  “And you’ve agreed?” George said. He had listened to her in deadly calm, rocking backward slightly on his heels and with his arms f
olded.

  “I could hardly refuse dear Lisa,” Maggie smiled.

  “No. But what a pity that you won’t be here. What a pity that you’re going up this minute to pack your bags and get out of here. This minute! Pronto!” he cried—up to then he sounded as calm as Father had done but on this last he became more the George we knew.

  “Goodness. How excitable you are,” Maggie said with a kindly smile. “But that’s you—the three of you. It’s your artistic temperaments, of course; your charm . . . Don’t be silly, George. I can’t go.”

  “Oh you can’t?” George said. “Then let me show you how you can.”

  “Yes—and what about Lisa when she comes back on Saturday? With her Big Boss—the one who has to take the final decision. Lisa is trembling in her shoes. She tells me he’s a hard nut to crack and will need some very delicate handling.”

  “Oh yes: handling. That’s your specialty,” George said, bitter now more than angry.

  “So you think that’s what I’ve done? Handled you?” And she looked around the three of us before continuing: “Don’t forget I’ve been turned out of this house and yet I came back. Why, why do you think I did that, swallowed my pride—oh yes, I have some, but I swallowed it and came back. Why? Why did I do that? For whose sake, George?”

  My poor sweet brother: he was shuffling his feet, he was embarrassed, he was shy. Yet he wanted to speak, to answer her, have a scene with her the way he used to with our mother. Teddy and I wandered away to leave them alone, and when we all met up again, a reconciliation had taken place. It was how his scenes with our mother had also regularly ended.

  That night George came into our bedroom and said, “She’s right, you know.”

  He began to explain to us whatever it was she had explained to him. He appeared so convinced that we pretended to be so, too. Yet I was sad and wanted to ask, “What about everything she promised us?” Although I didn’t say it out loud, George answered as if I had. He assured us—as she had assured him, and she had had all day to do it—that what was being planned was more important than our ambitions. It was—“Real, Helen. Real life . . . Life is long and Art is short.”

  “No, George. It’s the other way around: Ars longa, vita brevis est.”

  “Thank you, Helen. I was made to learn Latin too, and much good it did either one of us . . . Don’t you see that what she’s made of herself is much greater than anything we could do? Art is imitation but she’s real. The real thing. Everything she’s done.”

  “Everything?”

  “If Father were alive today, he would be grateful for what she’s doing—for Lisa, for the house, and for us.”

  I said, “All right, George.” I didn’t want him to say any more, and I think he was glad not to have to.

  Next day he and Maggie were both on the phone a lot with Lisa, discussing the work to be done for the weekend. Some tasks were allotted to Teddy and me: George had unlocked the silver, which hadn’t been used for a long time, and Teddy took pride and pleasure in making it shine. He tried to dispel my misgivings for the coming weekend—“You’ll see: it’ll all work out fine. They’ll come, they’ll have a good time, Lisa will be happy, and then we can start in on our plans.” I believed him, I too wanted to work for the success of the occasion and make Lisa happy.

  But the day before her arrival George came to us and told us that we were not to put ourselves out in any way. When we protested that we were ready to work as hard as everyone else, he became uncomfortable, apologetic: “Everyone knows how you detest these kind of social things; and why wouldn’t you—you’re artists, after all.”

  “What about you, George?” I asked.

  “Oh I,” he said. “I. Everyone’s given up on me long ago.”

  “I haven’t,” I said. “Teddy and I believe in you.”

  He kissed us both, thanked us. Then he added, “But you know, she’s right.”

  “She? You mean Maggie who’s always right?”

  “She wants to help me. She already has—opening my eyes to a lot of things. To myself, principally.”

  Teddy and I both wanted to contradict whatever it was he had been told about himself, but he repeated, louder, “No she’s right! All my life I’ve been self-indulgent and fooled myself. Just because I have money doesn’t mean I can write or paint or whatever.” He went on quickly, “I’m talking about myself, Helen, not you. Of course you’re an actress and you have to continue to work at it and not let anything take you out of your way. That’s why it’s better for you not to be here tomorrow; so you won’t be taken out of your way.”

  “Maggie says it’s better?”

  “And Lisa. They both believe in you, that you’ll do something. They don’t think I will, so they say I should stay here and be—sort of—you know, the master of the house, if that doesn’t sound too ridiculous. But they think I have something of Father, some of his personality. Maybe because I’m kind of fat,” he said humbly.

  “You’re not fat, George. You’re big, like Father was.” “Maggie wants me to start smoking cigars. She’s ordered Father’s brand, Cuban or whatever. I told her I can’t stand the smell let alone smoke them, but try telling Maggie anything she doesn’t want to hear.” He chuckled, but then went on very seriously: “And just think—Helen! Teddy! Think how happy it would have made Father to see his house and everything in it used the way he wanted it: guests having a good time, eating and so on—that’s what he bought it for; that was his dream.” George’s eyes shone, so it appeared to be his dream now too.

  At the edge of the property there was a little clapboard house—not much more than a hut—where the gardener used to stay when we had one. It had been empty for years and was full of spider webs, and raccoon and other droppings. Teddy tried to clean it up for the two of us to stay in that weekend; he succeeded to some extent—anyway, we had no choice, since all the rooms in the house were taken. Lisa and her party arrived early in the morning, and then throughout the day more and more cars drew up and businessmen and their wives and children came tumbling out in holiday mood. It was a glorious day, drenched in sunshine and blue sky, and a garden party had been arranged with a buffet table in a tent as yellow as the sun. Guests strolled around the lawns or sat on the white Victorian benches and were sprinkled by cool drops from the fountain. Some of the wives had brought parasols, and from a distance these looked like flowers bobbing around. Swings and other amusements had been hired and the voices of chirping children carried all the way to the gardener’s hut where we sat. We could also hear the string band that Maggie had engaged to play summer tunes.

  It was too far for us to make out any faces, but Teddy had his binoculars, which I had given him on his last birthday to help him identify birds. He adjusted the view, and we focused on Lisa. She was wearing a new dress, a floral silk that Maggie had helped her choose; she looked prettier than we had ever seen her—she had had her hair done, and her skin toned, and her face glowed with inner satisfaction. When we had gazed our fill at her, we focused on Maggie, trailing over the lawn in her gown. She darted from person to person, smiling here and smiling there, with some curt commands to waiters and other hired help. She moved so swiftly that George, whose arm she was holding, had difficulty keeping up with her. He appeared as contented as Lisa, and looked very impressive in his naval blazer and panama hat. He was trying to smoke a cigar, which was making him cough.

  The party went on for a long time, till the shadows lengthened and the sunlight dimmed. The voices of the children became plaintive, and while the band went on playing, their tunes were slower now and somewhat melancholy. Teddy and I continued to sit on the wooden bench outside our hut. Some melancholy had crept into our mood as well—at least into mine, and Teddy set out to dispel it. He had plans for us, which would take us away from the house to wander he wasn’t quite sure where and to do he wasn’t quite sure what; but it would all be new, a fresh start for the two of us. Teddy was even thinner now than when I had first seen him chopping wood, and his fac
e was very pale and lined. I was glad to think that he would never have to shift and starve again. There would be my money now for us both, including my share of the lease of Springlake (which George would scrupulously pay). I don’t know if this occurred to Teddy—no, I’m sure it did not. He was only thinking of everything we were going to do, he and I, and he talked as he used to, breathless with enthusiasm; and at that moment I loved him as I used to, and when I kissed him, I found his lips as fresh and sweet as I remembered them.

  5

  A Choice of Heritage

  DURING THE latter half of the last century—maybe since the end of the 1939 war—nothing became more common than what are called mixed marriages. I suppose they are caused by everyone moving more freely around the world, as refugees or emigrants or just out of restless curiosity. Anyway, the result has been at least two generations of people in whom several kinds of heritage are combined: prompting the questions “Who am I? Where do I belong?” that have been the basis of so much self-analysis, almost self-laceration. But I must admit that, although my ancestry is not only mixed but also uncertain, I have never been troubled by such doubts. Many members of my father’s totally English family have served in what used to be called the colonies—Africa or India—where they had to be very careful to keep within their national and racial boundaries. This was not the case with my father: at the time of his marriage, he had been neither to India nor to Africa. He met my mother in England, where she was a student at the London School of Economics and he was at the beginning of his career in the civil service. She was an Indian Muslim, lively, eager, intelligent and very attractive. She died when I was two, so what I know of her was largely through what my aunts, my father’s sisters, told me. My father rarely spoke of her.

  It is through my Indian grandmother, with whom I spent my school holidays, that I have the most vivid impression of my mother. This may be because my grandmother still lived in the house where my mother had grown up so that I’m familiar with the ambience of her early years. It was situated in the Civil Lines of Old Delhi, where in pre-Independence days British bureaucrats and rich Hindu and Muslim families had built their large villas set in large gardens. This house—with its Persian carpets spread on marble floors, pierced screens, scrolled Victorian sofas alternating with comfortable modern divans upholstered in raw silk—seemed to me a more suitable background to my mother’s personality, or what I knew of it, than the comfortable middle-class English household where I lived with my father.