Read Online My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me by KATE BERNHEIMER - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: KATE BERNHEIMER
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to a loud and constant wailing. Neither Mother nor Father seemed able to hear it; Father went away to work as usual and Mother spent her day on the patio killing bugs. Marlene desperately searched for the source of the noise, but she couldn’t tell where it stopped or started. Was it Brother’s room? The juniper tree? The basement?
The sound grew so loud that Marlene began to see small gray dots; occasionally it seemed as if birds were flying just beyond the corners of her vision.
For most of the afternoon, she lay in Brother’s room listening to records and getting sick into a bag.
When her parents insisted she come down for dinner that evening, Marlene did not think she’d be able to accept the smell of food. But as she sat down, the deafening static leaped from the inside of her head onto the radio. “My mother forced me quick to die.” Brother’s voice rang out inside the kitchen. “My father ate me in a pie.”
Mother leaped up and started her bony fingers toward the dial. “Some quiet,” she said, but Father interrupted.
“Some music might be nice tonight.”
“Perhaps a different tune, then,” Mother suggested. But as she flipped the knob, she found that the song was on every station. “Only my sister began to cry.”
Father stood up and squinted his eyes toward the window.
“Is someone walking toward the house?” Grabbing his pipe, he excused himself from the table to have a better look.
Mother slowly backed away from the radio, her eyes fixed upon the fireplace, her hands twisting. “When I look at the fire,” she stammered, “I feel as if I’m being burned alive.” Her smile grew lopsided; she began to unbutton her dress.
“But there isn’t any fire, Mother.”
Mother’s gloved hands grabbed the radio and threw it to the floor. It split into as many pieces as Brother, but the song kept playing. Her gloves started ripping at her clothes; she buried her head beneath the faucet of the sink and began to shriek.
Panicked, Marlene ran outside to Father. But when she saw the pale figure coming down the path, her heart leaped. “Is it Brother?” she cried aloud. Hopeful, Father began to wave a hairy hand, and Mother burst from the house topless with soaked hair. Marlene’s eyes flew to the ax Mother clutched in one yellow, gloved hand and the large Bible she held in the other. “I’ll chop them all down,” Mother screamed, her torn dress blowing off her body. “The tree and our visitor as well!”
But as Mother arrived beneath the tree, all its new berries rained down upon her and she halted in shock. The berries shook and spun on the ground, and as they cleared a hole around Mother, she and her ax dropped down right through the earth. Father and Marlene ran over just in time to see the white line of Mother’s scalp disappear into a thick powder of ash, to see the ash harden back to soil, to see Mother’s Bible fall to the ground. Its pages flew open and fluttered, then turned into white birds that sailed away. The berries lifted from the ground like a swarm of bees.
Their mass moved toward Brother as if to attack him; they landed everywhere upon his body and face and guitar until he was fully covered. Then, as if giving him juice to use as blood, the berries deflated and fell from his skin one by one, like dried scabs, flatter than onionskin. Marlene ran to him, breathless. “Look Father,” she cried, “Brother is pink and new!”
But Father loomed quiet beneath the tree. He was bent over, running his fingers along the ground, searching for some trace of either wife below.
As a child, what fascinated me most about Grimms’ tale of “The Juniper Tree” was that the father could not detect that he was eating his son; it seemed that such a bond would somehow be—dare I say—tasteable. Perhaps this is why I was so impressed years later when I discovered Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber,” a story where the young woman’s life is saved through her mother’s
The sound grew so loud that Marlene began to see small gray dots; occasionally it seemed as if birds were flying just beyond the corners of her vision.
For most of the afternoon, she lay in Brother’s room listening to records and getting sick into a bag.
When her parents insisted she come down for dinner that evening, Marlene did not think she’d be able to accept the smell of food. But as she sat down, the deafening static leaped from the inside of her head onto the radio. “My mother forced me quick to die.” Brother’s voice rang out inside the kitchen. “My father ate me in a pie.”
Mother leaped up and started her bony fingers toward the dial. “Some quiet,” she said, but Father interrupted.
“Some music might be nice tonight.”
“Perhaps a different tune, then,” Mother suggested. But as she flipped the knob, she found that the song was on every station. “Only my sister began to cry.”
Father stood up and squinted his eyes toward the window.
“Is someone walking toward the house?” Grabbing his pipe, he excused himself from the table to have a better look.
Mother slowly backed away from the radio, her eyes fixed upon the fireplace, her hands twisting. “When I look at the fire,” she stammered, “I feel as if I’m being burned alive.” Her smile grew lopsided; she began to unbutton her dress.
“But there isn’t any fire, Mother.”
Mother’s gloved hands grabbed the radio and threw it to the floor. It split into as many pieces as Brother, but the song kept playing. Her gloves started ripping at her clothes; she buried her head beneath the faucet of the sink and began to shriek.
Panicked, Marlene ran outside to Father. But when she saw the pale figure coming down the path, her heart leaped. “Is it Brother?” she cried aloud. Hopeful, Father began to wave a hairy hand, and Mother burst from the house topless with soaked hair. Marlene’s eyes flew to the ax Mother clutched in one yellow, gloved hand and the large Bible she held in the other. “I’ll chop them all down,” Mother screamed, her torn dress blowing off her body. “The tree and our visitor as well!”
But as Mother arrived beneath the tree, all its new berries rained down upon her and she halted in shock. The berries shook and spun on the ground, and as they cleared a hole around Mother, she and her ax dropped down right through the earth. Father and Marlene ran over just in time to see the white line of Mother’s scalp disappear into a thick powder of ash, to see the ash harden back to soil, to see Mother’s Bible fall to the ground. Its pages flew open and fluttered, then turned into white birds that sailed away. The berries lifted from the ground like a swarm of bees.
Their mass moved toward Brother as if to attack him; they landed everywhere upon his body and face and guitar until he was fully covered. Then, as if giving him juice to use as blood, the berries deflated and fell from his skin one by one, like dried scabs, flatter than onionskin. Marlene ran to him, breathless. “Look Father,” she cried, “Brother is pink and new!”
But Father loomed quiet beneath the tree. He was bent over, running his fingers along the ground, searching for some trace of either wife below.
As a child, what fascinated me most about Grimms’ tale of “The Juniper Tree” was that the father could not detect that he was eating his son; it seemed that such a bond would somehow be—dare I say—tasteable. Perhaps this is why I was so impressed years later when I discovered Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber,” a story where the young woman’s life is saved through her mother’s
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