(Author: Charlotte Cohen, Vol. 74 * No. 3 * Chanukah 2019)
I loved visiting my grandmother when I was a child. The reason was simple. She spoiled me rotten: She took me to matinees. She played rummy with me. She made me French- toast and soles fried in butter. She sewed dolls-clothes for me on her treadle Singer sewing machine. And she let me dress up in her evening clothes and wear her jewellery.
And I would sing and play-act in front of her and she would tell everyone she met how absolutely wonderful I was – in front of me!
And I would bask in her adoration of me.
As fate would have it, I came to live next door to my grandmother when I was 18 years old. She still continued to speak about me in front of me, but now, her comments were always directed to someone who appeared to be somewhere on the ceiling.
When I walked in, she would turn her eyes upwards to the ceiling and sigh: “Another new dress! She’s got a wardrobe full of clothes! Does she need another new dress?!”
Once when I said to my mother that I didn’t know what to wear, my grandmother looked up to the ceiling, and remarked very dryly: “If she only had a black dress and a white dress, she’d know exactly what to wear.”
The news of my impending marriage was met with great misgiving: “She can’t cook! She can’t sew! She can’t clean! All she can do is dress up!” she informed the person on the ceiling.
“Well,” she said, shaking her head dubiously, “I wish them both luck! She’s in for a big surprise! And he’s in for a very big surprise!” she ended ominously.
Actually my grandmother was right. Except that it turned out to be more of a shock than a big surprise.
All attempts at maintaining any sort of ladylike demeanour vanished when she saw the first batch of biscuits I baked.
She stared expressionlessly up at the ceiling. “They look like burned pieces of rubber sprinkled with, I don’t know, what on earth could it be…?”
“Who are you talking to about my biscuits?” I demanded. “I absolutely hate it when you do that! When you talk about me, in front of me – to someone who isn’t even there!” … and with that, I flounced out of the room, taking my – well, I called them biscuits anyway – with me.
Once my children were born, my grandmother’s sense of right and wrong knew no bounds. Everything she did was right; everything I did was wrong. She complained bitterly about the plastic pants (‘pilchers’) which was put over the nappy for extra protection. ‘Those pants are making marks on his legs!” she admonished as she pulled the nappy out of the pilchers – thereby ensuring that the mattress would also become sopping wet.
There was no end to it: A steady barrage of comments, criticism and complaints directed to the ceiling about my mothering skills preceded my children wherever they went. …..
“The child is skin and bone! He’s half naked! He’s got no colour! She hasn’t even put a jersey on him! The child’s turning blue!”
“You just said he had no colour.” I said. “Now you say he’s turning blue. Well, blue’s a colour, isn’t it?”
My grandmother looked straight up at the ceiling. “She thinks she’s so smart! She thinks she’s so funny! If she would rather put a jersey on the child instead of always trying to be clever, then everybody would be happy! …. That big mouth of hers is going to get her into trouble one day!” she predicted ominously, “And then we’ll see how pert she is!”
We never know when it is the last time we will experience something … There seems to be no transitional period in our lives. It is usually one event which suddenly catapults us from one stage to another; one event which changes our lives forever.
Life irrevocably shifted gear for me with the death of my mother.
I was thirty-something. My grandmother was eighty-something. I had lost a mother. She had lost a daughter.
There was no one else to break the news to her.
I did something I had seen an old family doctor do many years before. I went to my grandmother and told her that my mother had taken a turn for the worse, following it with: “I am going to phone the hospital now to find out how she is.”
I went to the phone, which was in another room, and pretended to dial a number …
It allowed my grandmother a few minutes to prepare herself for the news that was to follow.
I returned to her room, put my arms around her and started crying.
“Granny” I said. “She’s gone.”
In that imperceptible moment before I felt her small body sobbing in my arms, whilst I, in turn, wept on her shoulders, she seemed to sense that what I had done, had been done in order to protect her. …. In that same moment, just as a baton is passed from one relay runner to another, we both knew that the reins of responsibility would be handed to me.
Very often, the thing that irritates us the most is the thing we miss the most: My grandmother never spoke to anyone on the ceiling about me again ….
You know, I really missed her conversations with the ceiling about me – and still do.
You see, my grandmother’s remonstrations had kept me securely in the role of a ‘child-woman’. Suddenly I had been catapulted into a pit-stop between a husband and children on one side and a frail, elderly grandmother on the other – all of whom needed care and attention. I had been hurled forward to occupy my mother’s place as the intermediary between four generations. It wasn’t easy…
They say that children never listen to their elders, yet never fail to imitate them.
When I was a young mother, The Beatles had a profound effect on male-gendered children, no matter how young. As soon as they could talk, it was an echo of Samson: “Don’t cut my hair!” Straggly shoulder-length hair had replaced the traditional short-back-and-sides.
I was incredulous when my son returned from school. “You didn’t have a haircut!” I exclaimed. “I can’t believe it! You’ve been warned that if your hair is more than three centimetres over your collar, you’re going to get into trouble!”“
No, I’m not!” he said. “You see, if I tuck the back of my hair into my collar, and push my fringe into my cap, no one can even notice it. And anyway, I think it looks sexy.”
“Sexy!” I exploded. “What are you talking about?! You look absolutely disreputable!”
I rolled my eyes heavenwards in total exasperation. “Can you believe it?” I asked. “I gave him the money to have a haircut. He had it in his pocket! And I wonder if it’s still there now?! But did he go?! No!! Of course he didn’t!! He actually wants to look his worst! And he’s been warned! He’s going to get into trouble! But will he listen? No!! Because he is so stubborn! You might as well be talking to the wall!!”
My son stopped in his tracks.
“What do you mean, ‘You might as well be talking to the wall?’ You are talking to the wall! And I absolutely hate it when you do that! When you talk about me, in front of me, to someone who isn’t even there!” And with that, he turned on his heel and marched out of the room.
In the silence that followed him, a person with an incredibly nice face, who seemed to be looking down at me from the ceiling, gave me a long, slow wink.
My grandmother’s face was implacable. Not a muscle moved.
It was an expression that reflected her satisfaction that I had finally become acquainted with her old friend up there on the ceiling … someone in whom I could confide … someone who was always there to listen with a sympathetic eye and an understanding ear.
Charlotte Cohen is an award-winning short’ story writer and poetess, whose work has appeared in a wide variety of South African publications since 1973.
