Dying Unfinished

By Maria Espinosa

Extending the story of the troubled life of Rosa, a character first developed by the author in Longing, this novel describes her difficult relationship with her mother, Eleanor. Rosa's story unfolds as though in a parallel world: dogged by the same obsessions as her mother and resorting to sex and madness as elements of destruction. At the core of their tension is the illicit affair Eleanor has had with her daughter’s husband, Antonio. Both Rosa and Eleanor find the defining focal point in the same man, whose gift for interpreting the longing of others means his own bitter destruction. Narrated in two voices from perspectives of both women, this novel describes both their lives in depth, covering a span of nearly 70 years during which the world around them undergoes enormous change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781609400392

Maria Espinosa

MARIA ESPINOSA is the author of five novels, including Longing, which won the 1996 American Book Award; two collections of poetry, one of which was praised by Anaïs Nin as being "very sincere and direct and rich in feeling"; and a translation of George Sand's Lélia. The 2010 winner of the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, she has taught creative writing and contemporary literature at New College of California and English as a Second Language at City College of San Francisco. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has one daughter.

Book preview

Cronbach

Dying Unfinished

The schizophrenic ceases to be so when he meets someone by whom he feels understood.

Being crazy is like a nightmare where you call for help and no sound comes out, or no one hears or understands. You can’t wake up unless someone hears you and helps you wake up.

– D. H. Laing, The Divided Self

CHAPTER 1

MANHATTAN, 1955

A gust of wind nearly knocked Eleanor Bernstein down as she crossed Lexington Avenue at 49th Street. At that instant, she understood in a flash of illumination that Rosa had not wanted to be born. A car honked as it swerved to avoid her, and she bumped into a woman in the crowd. Excuse me! Oh, I’m so sorry! cried Eleanor. The woman scowled, without a hint of graciousness. She wore a bright red coat, brassy earrings, and her hair was tinted an unnatural black. What a vulgar woman!

Rosa also wore heavy metal earrings that dangled and jangled as she walked. But Rosa’s mind was in the clouds. Rosa at sixteen, pale and beautiful, wandered about with an abstracted look. At birth, she had tried to climb the walls of Eleanor’s uterus. Had it not been for the obstetrician’s expert maneuvering with forceps, Rosa would have killed her mother. For days afterwards Rosa’s head was pin-shaped, and Eleanor was sure the infant had suffered brain damage.

Even in her absence, her daughter’s coldness hurt as Eleanor hurried to meet Heinrich. She was going to be late! A quiver ran through her body, a mixture of excitement at the prospect of being with him and fear of his anger. Even now, after years of meeting secretly, she felt a sexual thrill at the thought of him.

She glanced at her watch. One o’clock. Damn! How could she have let this happen? Somehow time always flowed too fast, and the lines at department stores, which gave her an alibi for coming to the City, had been interminable. Taxi! Taxi! Her shopping bags banged against her legs as she ran to catch a Yellow Cab. The hem of her cloth coat stuck in the cab door when it closed.

He was at the bar of the hotel where they always met. A large man in his forties, he was impeccably dressed, in keeping with his position as director of the New York Historical Museum. His small blue eyes were set deep in his heavy, florid face. Now he was scrutinizing her with an impassive look, and she knew he was furious.

Why are you late when we have so little time? He grabbed her wrist.

Ouch! You’re hurting me!

He loosened his grip. El, why are you angry?

Just because I’m late doesn’t mean I’m angry.

It’s a way of expressing anger.

Oh Heinrich, she said in disgust, You and your psychological theories! Damn! I was just late! Tears welled up in her eyes. It isn’t fair! I had so many errands to run and so little time … sheets and towels to buy because Aaron’s parents will be coming to visit … children’s underwear.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks. All the emotions which she never permitted herself to express or even feel when she was home with Aaron and the children flowed out when she was with Heinrich. She was crying for so much more than lay underneath this minor lovers’ quarrel.

He handed her his drink of scotch on the rocks, which she sipped, and he kissed her tears. I’m sorry, Eleanor. It’s just that we have so little time together. Tears were glistening in his eyes, too, his small pig’s eyes, she thought irreverently.

Yet as she gazed at him through her tears, underneath his form she seemed to see as if with x-ray vision the tormented, half-starved skeletal figure of a man. Heinrich in his unwieldy envelope of flesh wore a dark, pin-striped suit. A white handkerchief folded into a perfect triangle graced his vest pocket, and his gold cufflinks glistened. He stroked her cheek, then kissed her tenderly.

You are like your rats, she murmured. Underneath your large body, you are like the starved rats you draw.

Yes, he said. Of course. Why else would I draw them?

Later in their hotel room she whispered, Heinrich, when I was a child I was forbidden to touch myself. At night our governess used to make sure that my hands were outside the covers, and she forbade me to move. He gave her a wet kiss and held her more tightly. She felt as if they were clinging to each other like rafts in a dark ocean. His bulk was comforting against her body.

The first time I made love … he said—his voice still held the trace of a Dutch accent, although he had emigrated to the United States as a young man—I seduced the maid when I was thirteen. In my family, we didn’t touch.

They laughed softly over their shared childhood miseries. She talked to him about things she never realized were in her mind. When she was with him, she seemed to expand like one of those miniature Japanese blossoms in water that used to delight her as a child. Their secret relationship kept some part of her alive.

Your skin is so soft and white, he said. As he was nuzzling her breasts, his words got muffled. He sucked gently on her left nipple.

Filled with electricity and joy, she felt close to tears. It was so beautiful with him. Their senses were sharpened. There was nothing more precious, she thought, than being loved for whom one actually is. And Heinrich loved her.

She dreaded going home.

I want to live with you. I wish we could always be together, she said, the words coming unbidden.

We could.

No, my darling. That’s only a dream.

He gripped her buttocks and breathed his words into her ear. It would be better for everyone if we were honest and out in the open.

Living together is only a dream. We’d get tired of each other. After a while you’d miss Erica. She’s so loyal, and she loves you so much. She’s a much better wife to you than I could ever be.

What binds us is far more than physical attraction. You know that, El.

She trembled at his intensity. If she were living with him, perhaps something in her would unfreeze, and she would complete those scraps of stories she envisioned. And her presence might release his creative inhibitions. Almost unbearable sadness swept through her. She nestled closer.

I could never leave my family. Her mother’s voice with its calm, strong inflections seemed to be speaking through her. I’ve committed myself.

You’re a coward, El.

She was silent. Her tears wet his cheeks.

The tangled web of family created a stranglehold. What would happen to the financial backing of Aaron’s parents and her own which made their lives possible? What would happen to the children if she left?

How harshly the world would judge her.

I’ve made my life what it is. Now I have to live with it.

But his continued silence made her question her own words. What was the ethical choice?

She bit his lips with a fierceness unusual for her, swiveling her groin against his until he thrust into her.

Outside it had begun to rain. Drops splashed against the windows. They rocked back and forth, silent now, in a dance of fusion. Afterwards, Eleanor drifted off. When she awakened, she felt Heinrich’s arms around her, his thighs pressing hers. He was still sleeping. Outside on the street, horns honked. The sound of rain had stopped. She worried about the time. If she missed the five forty-nine commuter train she’d get home to cook dinner terribly late. Her thighs were sticky with his semen. How good it felt, because it was part of him. She wished she didn’t have to wash his fluid off her before she left.

In Penn Station she glanced at the windows that sold tickets to places like Chicago, Baltimore, and Raleigh. How tempting to buy a ticket at one of these windows, obtain a small tube of toothpaste and other toiletries from one of the drugstores here in this underground station, and disappear.

Where is she? Aaron would ask when he came home. Where is she? the children would ask. They were birds with hungry beaks who pecked away at her soul and body.

She would disappear. She might surface in New Orleans or Tucson or perhaps Vancouver as a waitress or librarian, a slender, middle-aged woman with graying hair and no past.

But as always, she went to the Long Island Railroad section and boarded her train. They rolled past miles of Queens suburbs, identical houses with television antennas. She scribbled bits of poems in a small green spiral notebook:

Am I me? Are you really you?

Or do we only see shadowsWe mistake for the other?

She paused. This was only a fragment. The root of what she wanted to say eluded her, in the way that the sky is obscured by clouds. Those clouds covered her thoughts, her memories, and only a few clear bits of blue sky remained.

What if she did follow her longings? Eleanor imagined the two of them together in a cozy Village loft. She began to sob.

Lady, are you all right? asked the conductor.

She nodded, put her pen and notebook back in her purse, and held out her ticket to be punched. Held out her neck to be beheaded.

Ah, shades of Madame Bovary. She and Heinrich were hopelessly romantic. Let her thoughts stream out into the atmosphere, for to formulate them in words was dangerous. So let them dissolve into mist.

CHAPTER 2

NIGHT, 1955

Their old house loomed above the others on the block. It was three stories high, with creaking stairs. When they moved in ten years ago, the yard had been a wilderness, totally neglected by its former owners who died of alcoholism. Eleanor thought perhaps their ghosts remained, for upon occasion she seemed to feel their presences.

Howard, Jesse, and Rosa awaited her. They were like wild roses in the garden which she had somehow failed to prune in time. Aaron was off at a Sculptors’ Guild meeting and would not be home until late. After the children had gone to sleep, she soaked in her lavender scented bath, donned a long white nightgown that made her feel medieval, and settled herself in bed with a book of poems by Saint John of the Cross. Secretly she had always been drawn to Catholicism. It was a romantic religion with its cathedrals, incense, long-robed priests, rituals, sorrowful virgins, and robust, holy infants.

Perhaps Aaron was with one of his students from the local college. Certainly a Sculptors’ Guild meeting would not last this long—and lately they’d been frequent. But she told herself this did not disturb her. After all, she had exercised her freedom, too.

She read drowsily, enjoying the solitude and her cozy bed with the plum-colored quilt her mother had given them long ago as a wedding gift.

Around one o’clock she heard the front door open, heard it slam, heard Aaron’s footsteps on the stairs. He entered their room a little out of breath. For the merest fraction of a second his face had a brutal look that startled her. But instantly his face adjusted, and he became familiar.

He leaned down to kiss her, and his breath smelled of liquor. Later on when he began to make to love to her, he caressed her more lightly than usual.

Did she do it this way? Eleanor murmured.

What? He was startled.

The woman you were with?

I was at the meeting.

Yes, I know. Is she the one having problems with her fiancé?

Don’t be absurd.

He said nothing, silently admitting guilt. She did not protest as his hands moved over her, but her consciousness drifted. Barely awake, she thought of Heinrich, her secret nourishment. If she and Aaron were to deprive each other of their lovers, she feared they would consume each other, and all passion between them would die. Yet why did tears so often flood her eyes? Why did she rage over trifles?

In the morning the alarm rang as usual at six forty-five. Aaron quickly got up, dressed, and went downstairs to make breakfast. But Eleanor lingered another half-hour, hating to leave the soft, warm confines of their bed.

CHAPTER 3

THE PAST

Her sense of alienation had begun many years ago when they moved to Westbury. They bought the house in 1945, immediately after the War ended, with help from Aaron’s parents. It was a large old structure with creaking stairs, a huge yard, and a ramshackle building in back which had once been a stable.

Aaron chose it within two weeks of his release from the Merchant Marines, while she and the children stayed on in his parents’ house in Saint Louis where they had been living while he was off at sea. Housing in Westbury was less expensive than in more fashionable suburbs.

The former owners had been eccentric, English, and given to drink. Most of the walls were a hideous beefy red, shades of a country manor in the Midlands. Aaron painted them over with paler colors before they moved in.

Just before they were to sign the final papers, Eleanor flew out from Saint Louis to inspect the house. That morning she took a walk by herself through the small town, and she felt disturbed by people’s faces in shops and along the sidewalks. They had pinched faces and pinched sensibilities, she thought, as well as dreadful Long Island accents. With his Communist leanings, perhaps it pleased Aaron to think he was a simple artisan like these Italian and Irish working people. But how would she and the children fare?

In the realtor’s office she wanted to cry out, Wait! when they handed her a pen. But it seemed so stupid to object at this late moment. Words stuck in her throat. Half-paralyzed, she signed. Her objections seemed nebulous and without tangible foundation. After all, the house—a white elephant among its more modern neighbors—was a bargain at $9,000. And it was within reasonable commuting distance of Manhattan where Aaron planned to set up his studio.

Aaron always did things too hastily, including the act of love, or more accurately sexual release, she thought. His touch was brusque, impatient. And yet at times he would kiss her with a terrible intensity in which tenderness was buried. He came too quickly, before she was fully aroused. Later she might dream of flying, of orgasm. Then the sound of the toilet flushing or a creaking floorboard might awaken her and she would lie quietly, hands at her sides as she had been told long ago to hold them. While he sprang out of bed in the morning, refreshed by the sound sleep that follows orgasm, she would awaken with a deep fatigue that stemmed from years of insufficient sleep.

After the move, she felt as if her soul had been wrenched like a bone from its socket. How isolated she felt in this small town. Before the War they had lived in Manhattan, and she missed the city. She became very ill. If her mother had not provided funds for a housekeeper that first year, Eleanor could not have managed at all. She was bedridden, racked with pain in her lower back and pelvic area. Her body had not recovered from giving birth to Jesse, the youngest, six months earlier. It seemed ironic to have a servant when their finances were so precarious that she and Aaron barely had enough for food.

When the pain grew unbearable, the doctor made an emergency visit, saying that she needed surgery right away. After he left, the old Irish housekeeper had peeked through the bedroom door and said in a quavering voice, You will die for your sins! Although delirious with pain, Eleanor could not help smiling at this malicious old woman with her bosomy, gnarled flesh, clothed in starched gray cotton.

Eleanor’s tubes were tied. She would not be able to have any more children. That plunged her into depression, although the truth was they could not afford another child.

Before her marriage, she had never given much thought to money. It was simply there. As a young girl, she assumed there would always be funds from a vague source such as a trust. When Aaron proposed, she imagined that being married to an artist would be romantic. She pictured herself lying on a red velvet sofa, a shawl gracefully draped over her naked body while he sculpted or painted her. Then he would remove the drape, offer her a bowl filled with grapes, and they would make love. She had not imagined crying babies, a suburban house with its isolation, and masses of bills.

But during those first years after the War there was never enough money, despite help from their parents. Aaron occasionally won commissions for architectural sculpture, but his earnings were not nearly enough to cover their expenses. The children were too little for her to work outside the home, and she needed to help at the Cooperative Nursery School. Even after Aaron began teaching part-time at a local college, she felt a continual sense of poverty.

During that time, she thought with some regret of whom she might have married. Among several other suitors, there had been Fritz, whom she met when she was living with her family in Switzerland. He would have been a gentlemanly husband who knew how to handle dogs and horses. On long winter evenings, after they returned from skiing, they would have read by the fire. Their children, rosy-cheeked and smiling, would be brought in by their governess to say goodnight.

Before marriage, she had fantasized what it would be like to be Aaron’s wife. She had imagined an existence filled with wildness, laughter, and love. She would meet fascinating people and go to artists’ parties where the rooms hummed with intoxication and good music. Her world would glitter. She would vibrate on a higher frequency. Perhaps in the late afternoon before cocktails she would write poems or short stories, carried along by the creative current of the milieu.

There had, indeed, been parties. But these were remote from her daily life in Westbury. As for the writing, only a few jottings had materialized, distracted as she was by the multitude of daily tasks.

What were Aaron’s dreams? Perhaps he wished he had married one of the young women artists in blue jeans who used to flock around him. Together they might have studied Marx, lived in a Lower East Side loft, raised children among a mess of paints, clay, and dust. Perhaps he would have preferred a more forthright, earthy woman. Perhaps he dreamed of someone with a luscious body and breasts that overflowed, or perhaps one of those cool women with perfect features and straight blonde hair who attended Vassar, whose camel coats were never out of style, and who—like Eleanor’s dream mate—had unlimited trust funds.

Aaron and she first met at a country club to which friends brought them one Sunday. He had recently completed his studies at the Art Students’