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Authors: Olive Senior
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to love? The foremost mystery in my mind had always been that of my mother. Now I filed away Zenaâs story as the second. What wouldnât I give to know things?
17
OF COURSE NOW I think about it, I treated my own children the same way, for I never told them anything at all. Not a word did I say to them about their sister going to live with someone else. âSoon come backâ was all I ever said. Not a word did I say about my black eyes and split lip and noises in the night. Not a word when their father left. Didnât I of all people know the awfully destructive power of silence? Yet I silenced my own children with a look, forced their own words back inside them with a hand raised to strike. For I hit them, O yes, and donât tell me anything now about child abuse and cruelty. What did people like us know? Though I canât say I myself was physically beaten as a child, that didnât stop the anger from pooling inside me, ready to burst on my children. Not all bruises show.
I couldnât take it out on him, could I? Women just didnât do that. In his presence I was always too frightened to speak or make a move and once the moment of high anxiety passed, the pressure dropped and I could not build the anger up to boiling point again.
I suppose I felt I had to protect them, shield them from the worst of it, as if I could stop his straying. Every time he found a new girl he would go and get drunk and come home and take it out on me. It took me a long time to figure out the pattern. My first thoughts were always for the children and as soon as I heard him coming down the road, singing drunkenly, sometimes alone, sometimes with others, I would rush to shut the door to their room. When it first began, after Juniorâs birth, we had only two bedrooms, and the children were all piled up together on the bed in theirs.
It didnât happen that often I suppose. After my initial shock and outrage, I learned to deal with it. For he never beat me when he was sober, nor did he ever touch the children. He was sometimes too drunk to stand up straight, most of the punches missed, and we usually ended up going round and round with him holding on to me for support while trying to hit me, banging into things, knocking over furniture, like we were in this crazy drunken dance, and I would finally waltz him off to bed. He never raised his voice to me at those times, it was all silently done, just him grunting as he aimed a punch or a kick. At first I cried out for him to stop, but that woke up the children. To this day I can still see Her stricken moonface at the bedroom door, so I bore it in silence.
The next day he would wake up and behave as if nothing had happened, and I did the same, hiding the bruises on my body, preparing explanations for my black eye, my swollen lip in case anyone asked. But no one did. I hardly went anywhere outside the house and field anyway. When I did, people averted their eyes from me as they laughed with him. He was the one everyone knew and loved, for many miles aroundâafter he got the car, for hundreds of miles no doubt. I hardly saw him: our roving ambassador. And there came a time when I was thankful that he roved.
Well, he did take care of us, Iâll give him that, as far as he was able, though it got to be less and less as he needed more and more for his drink and his women. He put a roof over our heads and food on the table, when he could, and sometimes money for clothes and the childrenâs schoolbooks. When Lise, the last child, was eight or nine he left home as usual one day, and he never came back. Sent me nothing but a note asking me to deliver his clothes to the messenger, and Iâm proud to say I didnât rip them to shreds as I wanted to. I behaved in a civilized way. I packed them neatly in his bags and I handed them over, even offered the man something to eat while he waited. And I just carried on. For I was the one who had kept the little farm
17
OF COURSE NOW I think about it, I treated my own children the same way, for I never told them anything at all. Not a word did I say to them about their sister going to live with someone else. âSoon come backâ was all I ever said. Not a word did I say about my black eyes and split lip and noises in the night. Not a word when their father left. Didnât I of all people know the awfully destructive power of silence? Yet I silenced my own children with a look, forced their own words back inside them with a hand raised to strike. For I hit them, O yes, and donât tell me anything now about child abuse and cruelty. What did people like us know? Though I canât say I myself was physically beaten as a child, that didnât stop the anger from pooling inside me, ready to burst on my children. Not all bruises show.
I couldnât take it out on him, could I? Women just didnât do that. In his presence I was always too frightened to speak or make a move and once the moment of high anxiety passed, the pressure dropped and I could not build the anger up to boiling point again.
I suppose I felt I had to protect them, shield them from the worst of it, as if I could stop his straying. Every time he found a new girl he would go and get drunk and come home and take it out on me. It took me a long time to figure out the pattern. My first thoughts were always for the children and as soon as I heard him coming down the road, singing drunkenly, sometimes alone, sometimes with others, I would rush to shut the door to their room. When it first began, after Juniorâs birth, we had only two bedrooms, and the children were all piled up together on the bed in theirs.
It didnât happen that often I suppose. After my initial shock and outrage, I learned to deal with it. For he never beat me when he was sober, nor did he ever touch the children. He was sometimes too drunk to stand up straight, most of the punches missed, and we usually ended up going round and round with him holding on to me for support while trying to hit me, banging into things, knocking over furniture, like we were in this crazy drunken dance, and I would finally waltz him off to bed. He never raised his voice to me at those times, it was all silently done, just him grunting as he aimed a punch or a kick. At first I cried out for him to stop, but that woke up the children. To this day I can still see Her stricken moonface at the bedroom door, so I bore it in silence.
The next day he would wake up and behave as if nothing had happened, and I did the same, hiding the bruises on my body, preparing explanations for my black eye, my swollen lip in case anyone asked. But no one did. I hardly went anywhere outside the house and field anyway. When I did, people averted their eyes from me as they laughed with him. He was the one everyone knew and loved, for many miles aroundâafter he got the car, for hundreds of miles no doubt. I hardly saw him: our roving ambassador. And there came a time when I was thankful that he roved.
Well, he did take care of us, Iâll give him that, as far as he was able, though it got to be less and less as he needed more and more for his drink and his women. He put a roof over our heads and food on the table, when he could, and sometimes money for clothes and the childrenâs schoolbooks. When Lise, the last child, was eight or nine he left home as usual one day, and he never came back. Sent me nothing but a note asking me to deliver his clothes to the messenger, and Iâm proud to say I didnât rip them to shreds as I wanted to. I behaved in a civilized way. I packed them neatly in his bags and I handed them over, even offered the man something to eat while he waited. And I just carried on. For I was the one who had kept the little farm
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