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PARTISAN REVIEW
they get older, the task gets harder and they get worse. You can barely
register compassion for her. She won't have it. Grotesque. Hideous.
She sends me birthday cards and gives me Christmas presents and,
innocent of all malice, wants me dead. Her rival, her enemy-her
sitting daughter duck. This isn't paranoia, it's the truth. Although
it's entirely possible to become paranoid because you know the truth.
She flies at me. For reasons unrelated to anything even remotely
real. And when I come to her house to see what all the cursing and
screaming is about, she asks me to go home. I have prepared my
speech too. "I know I was born when you were a baby yourself.
What could you know? And the responsibility was so immense. But
all you have to be is kind to children and eventually they will make
out fine. At worst they will be angry, which is fair enough - who
isn't? Who ever got enough? But eventually they're thirty and get the
idea and come back. Don't make children hate you forever. You can
do the exact same thing with kindness and with judgment as you can
with harshness and shouting. Harshness may serve us all in a pinch,
but it is not to be confused with wisdom, Mother. As Sophie Tucker
says on that record you love, "It ain't watcha do, it's the way hatcha
do it." But she tells me go home. "Three hour lunches," she screams,
"three hour dinners, hairdresser, pedicure-the way I used to whip
around!" She's off her rocker again. Last night she called to tell me
that for one week not one person told her that she was pretty. No dig–
nity. No dignity, which is everything. When there isn't dignity, there's
stupidity, and stupidity is very harmful. A staid, matriarchal, proper
rich lady, white hair, the essence of elegance and country club el–
bowing, is not what I'm asking her to become; just someone, who
when I listen to her, doesn't make me constantly incensed. I cannot
listen to what she is saying. I cannot listen to such narcissistic things!
The lack of maternity positively radiates - it's brilliant. She hasn't
got any even for men. Still, after a long silence, I will always call. To
make sure there is no growth to the malignant feeling. There is some–
times a message from her on my machine. Her voice is gurgling up
in black bubbles like those pictures you see of oil wells right before
the old timer shouts "Eureka!" and waves his hat. "My hair! You
should see my hair! Eight hour cream from Elizabeth Arden! It's a
miracle!" But the message isn't that reasonable usually because usu–
ally the creams don't work. "You are a very brave girl with a very
heavy burden," I tell her machine, "a person of enormous fairness
and integrity," and hang up. My whole life I was always careful,
clammed it with her because it was always safer than getting caught
