562
THALIA SELZ
thoughts of bleeding. Was sap tree-blood? (I knew better.)
Was
fish-blood warm or cold? Did bleeding begin
right
under the
skin, or how far down did you have to go? I would take these
problems to my mother, and when she couldn't answer she
would shoo me on to my father.
I took neither of them the night and the prayers. The long,
unsteady nights without sleep-several times I lay dizzily awake
till breakfast, my ears growing funnels, my heart plopping, my
lips in mounds. What was the matter? At times I couldn't
im–
agine. At others I knew at once, with implacable self-judgment,
absolute horror:
"Oh God, forgive me for doing dirty things at night and
with Mary and Steven and Junior when I was six and eight
years old but that was a long time ago and they taught me.
Oh gran'ma
please
..."
This last was addressed to Grandma Otis whose Christian
Science martyrdom I trusted to get me in right again with God.
(She had died of cancer of the stomach, refusing to see a doctor
-"I'm perfectly well in Science, dear." .... "B'lieve I'll just
stick to my Spirit, thank you! And don't you forget, Daphne,
we wouldn't have a speck of pain if t'weren't for Mortal Mind."
But oh what horror at the end, the mindless maggots of the eyes
crawling in the sockets, the pretty old lady mouth screaming
for
aspirin
to ease the pain.)
There was no help to be had by invoking my immediate
family: they didn't believe in God. Even Jason would declare
self-righteously, if asked by an unwary neighbor: "I'm an
atheist, like my whole family."
Whereas these days I hedged. "Well, I was
baptized
Greek
Orthodox ..." And when hard-pressed: "I don't really think
we ought to discuss religion; it's more private, like politics, don't
you think?"
Then at night, heavily weighted down with my lippy pas–
sion for Joshua X., I would plead God's pardon for evading
Him. But what were these slender filaments of lips that drove
