To Know which Way

The following story was first published in Bluestem (Karamu, spring 2006, Vol. XX, No. 1). It received a literary award from the Illinois Arts Council. Later it was published in my collection The Story Ends — The Story Never Ends (ELJ Publications Copyright 2015). It is an elegy to my mother.

To Know Which Way the Cat Jumps, the Cookie Crumbles,  the Wind Blows

by Joyce Goldenstern

I.

The white cat jumps from the table and spills a pint of milk. My mother dies, and before that my grandmother. I lift the cat from a childhood basil reader and put her into that scene, that scene from an untold story and now a memory: On the table a note: “Boy, your breakfast is on the table, your lunch is in the ice box.” Who has written this note? The beautiful woman with a white cat and a goiter on her neck . The unknown grandmother (Augusta) whose grave I visit (1878 – 1929). The woman who washed the kitchen linoleum with a wet rag, who set the glass bottle of milk on the table, who made the egg sandwich, for my father (Gustav), wrapped it in wax paper, put it in a sack, placed it in the ice-box, wrote the note, and walked up the stairs to cut her wrists early one morning.

I study hard and attend lectures, hoping to know which way the cat jumps, the cookie crumbles, the wind blows, hoping, perhaps (for years without knowing it), to apprehend that grandmother’s death: The speaker said, “Consider time, chronology. The momentous dates, for example, of a parent’s birth and death.” The speaker said, “Last night, my mother came to me in a dream. And therefore I know that life does not end. You may or may not believe this theologically, but psychologically, you know this to be true. So that we could not imagine (if that word – imagine — does not offend you, given your particular belief system, your particular religious orientation) we could not imagine such a theological truth as death and resurrection, if we had not experienced its psychological reality first and foremost.” The sisters too had goiters on their necks. One of the sisters, perhaps Louise, played the piano. One of the sisters, perhaps Cora, wrote poems. One of the sisters, perhaps Hilda, also attempted suicide, but did not die. The subsequent stroke of Hilda’s husband cured her of her despair, snapped her right out of it. She began to organize cupboards, wipe the runny noses of her children clean, tie their shoes in double knots.

A childhood memory: my small bare feet — my mother’s closet full of shoes, high-heeled shoes, pocketbooks to match, my mother painting swans on the bathroom wall, walking across the grass in her pink culottes, all the neighbor children hanging on her waist. Katie, they called her. Katie Did. Katie Died.

Another speaker said, “The Board of Trade was completed in 1929 when the aluminum sculpture of Demeter was placed upon the top, Demeter or Ceres, maternal goddess, goddess of cereal and patron to those who work within the building, trading her stock: corn and soybeans, wheat and pork bellies (Demeter was known to herd swine, an animal with many uteruses, symbolizing not only fertility but civilization — husbandry and cultivation in opposition to the nomadic way of life). More correctly stated, those, within, trade in the idea of her stock, in its possible possibilities, in its abstract sense, in its future worth in dollars and cents, and are respected for their guesses – often astute and consequential – and for their daring to predict which way the cat will jump, the cookie will crumble, the wind will blow.”

II.

If Death stands at the head of the bed, the patient may live. If Death stands at the foot of the bed, the patient must die. I stand at the foot of my mother’s bed. I touch my mother’s feet. The feet die first. Mottled and swollen. I touch my mother’s legs. I cannot touch my mother enough. I watch my mother breathe. I lie next to her and watch her sleep. I watch her chest rise and fall. Before she fell into this coma, her pancreatic juices caused dramatic weight loss and strange longings: for the very heart cut from the center of a watermelon, for peanut butter spread on crisp toast, for oatmeal cookies crumbled in milk, for pomegranate seeds. I carefully prepared her meals. I cut the toast in quarters and arranged the hearts of melon with great care. I crumbled cookies. I placed the seeds of pomegranate on her tongue. I did this for my mother. Upon her swollen feet, I slipped unlaced tennis shoes (no pocketbook to match). The year of my mother’s birth: 1921. The year of my mother’s death. This shall be that year.

Of the goddesses, we shall count six: three of fertility and three of virginity. Of the fertility goddesses, we shall count Hera, the wife; Aphrodite, the lover; and Demeter, the mother. Her daughter Kore plays in the meadows, braiding daisies into bracelets and crowns. Her daughter Persephone skips barefoot in fields of grass. Hades abducts her, makes her his child-bride to reign in the underground on a throne next to his own. Oh, Daughter come home. Demeter calls: the crops do not grow, the rain does not fall, the rivers dry up. The curvaceous Earth Mother turns herself into a bony old hag. Meanwhile, Princess Charybdis, plump and lovely, plucks a single fig from a tree and incurs the wrath of goddess Demeter whose servant Famine must punish the princess, must turn her into a monstrous bladder who drinks the tides and swallows sailors up.

My mother’s body bloats and shrivels now. My mother’s body drinks the tides. I remember her putting lipstick on, changing the curtains to drapes in the fall and back to curtains again in the spring on all the windows of the house, showing me how to make the perfect corner on a perfect sheet, touching my fever with her hands, giving me a story-book doll, giving me a pink comb for my hair, giving me a Golden Book to read, a golden ring with a heart to wear on my right hand, not my left, because I wasn’t married yet.

The boy awakens to an awful sound. He finds her in a pool of fresh blood and then runs to find help. He returns with a neighbor but the front door is locked shut. Forgotten keys, lost keys, dropped keys. He is to blame. It is all his fault. The rest is a blur. Fists pounding a pane of glass. Cuts on hands and arms. His blood dripping down as he stands over her who lies in her own blood and now his. Too late. “Too late,” the warbler whispers. The neighbor scurries. The boy’s breakfast on the table; his lunch in the ice-box; the note (damp with spilt milk) on the table.

“These are insignificant details,” the speaker says, “that obscure the elegant principle, the perfection and defiance of her act. She had dared to trespass into another realm and could not be buried in a Christian cemetery. So she stands there at the top, majestic, yes, not tentative, not about to jump like those who jumped or fell or were pushed from great heights. 1929. 1930. The bloody body, cleaned now; the lifeless body, resurrected and erected, shining aluminum, hovering above the many busy mortals bustling and hustling at her feet: soybeans, pork bellies, corn, and wheat.”

III.

The cat jumps. The bird sings. (The frog croaks.) My mother shines. You can see the golden halo above her head, you can hear the voice soften, you can feel the peace of her body. If Death stands at the Foot – let go, let go, Dear Ladies (Lady Katie), time to come home.

Yes, I shall say, last moments hover and count. A moment can undo. A kind word can undo a careless one. Behold! A peaceful death can undo a violent one. The boy carries his mother’s lunch silently, a heavy sack over his shoulder, as he marches to world war and down the marriage aisle through a maze of jobs, transfers, the death of a father and a brother, the birth of children, a grandchild. As he changes storm-windows to screens in the spring and back again in the fall, he does not speak. He does not cry over spilt milk (“No use,” the warbler whispers). The story remains untold, disparate words overheard behind closed doors. The wind blows over the grass. Gentle wind. Gentle grass. My mortal mother: her gentle death. At the end, we can be soothed.

Before she leaves, she eats a pomegranate. Seedy sack. Juice, blood red. The seasons are born: spring, summer, fall, winter. The season of life. The season of death. Come home. Come home. How unwell we remember. I remember my mother’s feet, and a little more. I know of my grandmother’s goiter and the stitched-together story of her death. (Her cat and sisters, I have invented these or partially so.). Of my great grandmother, I can say almost nothing:. I have heard of her bald head and a wig of human hair. Poor lady (Madelena), that is all. The rest are ghosts with no names. Dates carved in stone in a weedy yard. Roberta, the nurse, whispers in my mother’s ear. “Do not be afraid. When death comes, relax your body. Let it sink into the mattress, into the earth, into the universe.” Let it return to the mothers.

Oblivious to his pain, Demeter, after the loss of her daughter, holds the child Demophoon into a roaring fire with grim determination to make him immortal. Undo this, gentle wind. No one can comfort her save Iambe, the pornographer. Iambe lifts her skirt and shows her private parts. Her breasts, two eyes; her naval, one nose; her vagina, a hungry mouth. Demeter laughs and laughs. Then she cries. A childhood memory: my mother, angry at some forgotten offense, empties the closets and drawers: high-heeled shoes and story-book dolls, pocket books and Modess napkins. She treks in and out of the house, carrying all of our worldly possessions, throwing them down on the grass. She laughs and laughs. Then she cries.

Of the virgin goddesses, we shall count Artemis, the hunter; Athena, the artisan; and Hestia, keeper of the hearth. As my mother dies, Artemis watches birds along deserted railroad tracks. As my mother dies, Athena admires a skyscraper. As my mother dies, Hestia cleans house, puts all of our scattered belongings back on their proper shelves. As they perform their quiet acts, the virgins hear the final gurgle in my mother’s throat.

Before she dies, my mother awakens one last time and hugs everyone who enters her room: nurses and doctors; strangers and friends; husband and children. Extreme unction: forehead, eyes, ears, nose, lips, hands, and feet. How sweet the wind: it blows away angry words. How sweet the wind: it blows away mad acts. It blows away friend and foe; laughter and sobs. Alas, memories too: blown away – the lovely reduction of death. We carry flowers. The wind braids the flowers, blows the grass. What does it mean? Perhaps I once knew, but now have forgotten Someone speaks of resolution. Someone speaks of dissolution. Our differences in the end: not resolved but dissolved.. Someone speaks of the grass, “The beautiful uncut hair of graves”; “The Lord’s handkerchief.” What might it signify? I do not know. I cannot say. Someone speaks of rising; someone speaks of falling: Ashes, ashes, all fall down. The children play a game. Katie Did. Katie Died. Who knows which way the cat jumps? Who knows wherefore the cookie crumbles? They stand on the grass, rotate their arms to see which way the wind is blowing.