Read Online The Mysteries of Soldiers Grove by Paul Zimmer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Paul Zimmer
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to come for dinner, Louise. Do you need help?”
“No, I’m fine. I’ll be along,” I say.
I rise and go to the bathroom, splash water on my face, run a comb through my gray hair.
I will not weep beyond this room. My tears are mine, not to be shown to others.
The dining room is large, and there is only hushed conversation, except for one woman standing, leaning on her hands spread before her on her table. Apparently she believes it is her job to sing and entertain the others during meals. Or at least this is what she believes—I’m not sure if she has officially been assigned this duty, but she sings, slightly off key and full-throated, an old song I remember hearing on the radio in the late forties and early fifties, quite popular then when Heath and I first came to live on our farm in Wisconsin. “Together,” it is called:
We strolled the lane together
Laughed at the rain together . . .
No one pays any attention to the woman, but I realize that this is her work and she is going to help us all with her song, providing us with dinner music.
I sit down at an empty table with my eyes lowered, but am soon joined by several others as the food carts are rolled between the tables, and trays distributed. I nod a greeting to my tablemates, but they do not notice. One woman, even older than I, hugs a Raggedy Ann doll, and places it beside her on the chair as she eats, occasionally offering the doll a morsel. “She just doesn’t get enough to eat!” she declares with some concern to others at the table.
Chicken breasts, peas, french fries, a flaccid salad. An ancient man at our table, his head bent inches over his plate, eats the peas with his fingers one at a time. “You’re new,” the woman next to me says. “The chicken’s always just half done,” she warns me. “Salmonella,” she whispers conspiratorially. The singer has her head raised:
You’re gone from me
But in my memory,
We always will be together.
She concludes her song. It is such a silly, sentimental old song, sung so shakily, but I applaud her. The others around the room look at me as if I am insane. The singer is surprised, but smiles graciously in my direction, as an old entertainer might do. I go to my ill-cooked chicken, and she begins another song. There is some talk at our table, but it is lightly passed—weather, the Green Bay Packers, the ghastly food, a recent death amongst the residents. As a newcomer I am not expected to participate. I eat a few spoonfuls of the tapioca dessert, and return to my room.
I miss Heath, I miss our trees, I miss the birds and fields, the comfort of my long shelves of books, the sun and rain through changing seasons; I miss France all those years ago—when peace had come and freedom, the release from threat, the future extending with a fresh glow into my youth.
There is a knock at my door. I rise to turn the key. My medications have arrived from the pharmacy. Would I need assistance in arranging my pillbox?
Not today, thank you.
No. Do I have enough blankets?
Yes, it would seem so.
The door closes. The red dot of the fire alarm blinks exactly every two minutes over the door. I have been able to figure this out. Thirty of these blinks and an hour has passed.
I begin a rereading of Eugénie Grandet , until I feel too sleepy to read and lie down fully clothed, pulling a blanket up over me from the foot of the bed. Perhaps I will change to my pajamas later.
C HAPTER 5
Cyril
I am a different person in my room now that I’ve come back from the hospital. I stumble and thump things; it is an adventure to get up, sit down, go to the can, lie down, sit in a chair, or even scratch what’s left of my nose. That son of a bitch, Balaclava, really set me back. So I try to stay still, hoping that my faithful body cells are laboring in there to pull things back together for me; but I find it difficult to even wrap my mind lightly around a life or two. Things have gotten a little mixed up—and this makes me
“No, I’m fine. I’ll be along,” I say.
I rise and go to the bathroom, splash water on my face, run a comb through my gray hair.
I will not weep beyond this room. My tears are mine, not to be shown to others.
The dining room is large, and there is only hushed conversation, except for one woman standing, leaning on her hands spread before her on her table. Apparently she believes it is her job to sing and entertain the others during meals. Or at least this is what she believes—I’m not sure if she has officially been assigned this duty, but she sings, slightly off key and full-throated, an old song I remember hearing on the radio in the late forties and early fifties, quite popular then when Heath and I first came to live on our farm in Wisconsin. “Together,” it is called:
We strolled the lane together
Laughed at the rain together . . .
No one pays any attention to the woman, but I realize that this is her work and she is going to help us all with her song, providing us with dinner music.
I sit down at an empty table with my eyes lowered, but am soon joined by several others as the food carts are rolled between the tables, and trays distributed. I nod a greeting to my tablemates, but they do not notice. One woman, even older than I, hugs a Raggedy Ann doll, and places it beside her on the chair as she eats, occasionally offering the doll a morsel. “She just doesn’t get enough to eat!” she declares with some concern to others at the table.
Chicken breasts, peas, french fries, a flaccid salad. An ancient man at our table, his head bent inches over his plate, eats the peas with his fingers one at a time. “You’re new,” the woman next to me says. “The chicken’s always just half done,” she warns me. “Salmonella,” she whispers conspiratorially. The singer has her head raised:
You’re gone from me
But in my memory,
We always will be together.
She concludes her song. It is such a silly, sentimental old song, sung so shakily, but I applaud her. The others around the room look at me as if I am insane. The singer is surprised, but smiles graciously in my direction, as an old entertainer might do. I go to my ill-cooked chicken, and she begins another song. There is some talk at our table, but it is lightly passed—weather, the Green Bay Packers, the ghastly food, a recent death amongst the residents. As a newcomer I am not expected to participate. I eat a few spoonfuls of the tapioca dessert, and return to my room.
I miss Heath, I miss our trees, I miss the birds and fields, the comfort of my long shelves of books, the sun and rain through changing seasons; I miss France all those years ago—when peace had come and freedom, the release from threat, the future extending with a fresh glow into my youth.
There is a knock at my door. I rise to turn the key. My medications have arrived from the pharmacy. Would I need assistance in arranging my pillbox?
Not today, thank you.
No. Do I have enough blankets?
Yes, it would seem so.
The door closes. The red dot of the fire alarm blinks exactly every two minutes over the door. I have been able to figure this out. Thirty of these blinks and an hour has passed.
I begin a rereading of Eugénie Grandet , until I feel too sleepy to read and lie down fully clothed, pulling a blanket up over me from the foot of the bed. Perhaps I will change to my pajamas later.
C HAPTER 5
Cyril
I am a different person in my room now that I’ve come back from the hospital. I stumble and thump things; it is an adventure to get up, sit down, go to the can, lie down, sit in a chair, or even scratch what’s left of my nose. That son of a bitch, Balaclava, really set me back. So I try to stay still, hoping that my faithful body cells are laboring in there to pull things back together for me; but I find it difficult to even wrap my mind lightly around a life or two. Things have gotten a little mixed up—and this makes me
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