Excerpt from the novel "The Evil Eye and Other Stories My Grandmother Told Me"

Grandma

(1888-1972)

In my dreams, I’m fifty and I’m eighty and I’m five.  When I’m five, the dreams are of my grandmother, Mary.

The smell of tomato sauce is in the air, and grows stronger as I climb the stairs...

I enter the door into the yellow and white kitchen of my grandmother’s apartment to see her sitting at the end of the kitchen table on the metal chair, one of the few that can support her weight.  The air is warm and moist, as much from the cooking on the stove as from her great size and greater love.

My grandmother weighs much more than three hundred pounds.  She is dressed in a smart light blue housedress buttoning all the way up the front with little flowers all over it.  The dress is specially made for her and fits perfectly.  She is wearing structural black shoes; her hair is up in a bun.

 “Grandma,” I run to her excitedly as if for the first time and not the hundredth or thousandth.  Out of the corner of my eye, as I sink into the enormous breasts, I see a dark shadow move in the far corner of the house.

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Meanwhile, Vivian sits in the back room of the apartment under the beehive of an old floor model hair dryer.  The heat and the noise and the metal helmet insulate her from the annoying drone of her mother’s and sisters’ chatter.  The eclipse of walls and doors and windows leaves her a slit-view of the kitchen where they are usually bustling about.  She lolls in the tropical breeze and daydreams of romances now fifty years ancient, watching for any sign that someone has arrived.  In the rare instance that it may be one of her favorite nieces who has come to visit, she must remain ready to spring up and run to her.

She sees a shadow pass in the kitchen; her heart leaps and then falls.  It is the boy, Anna’s son, the enemy.  “Son of a bitch,” she says, her voice barely audible under the dryer’s whir.  “Never any peace here,” she adds, rehearsing what she’ll tell her sisters about the boy’s early visit once he’s gone.

The boy may not know his special status yet, but she senses that he is different from the rest of the grandchildren.  She watches him with loathing, eyes glaring in the shadow of the dryer’s hood, as he stands near the kitchen table.  She can see the unmistakable outstretched arm of her mother billowing with fat as the heat rises under the dryer, becoming unbearable, and her head begins to throb with the beginnings of the familiar headache.  A pulse hits her chest as her heart finds a new rhythm.  She knows without seeing it what is happening in the kitchen:  the boy has fallen into his grandmother’s embrace and she is spinning a web of protection that extends to even this far corner of the house.

Vivian tries to push back the pressure but it is too great.  Her mother is powerful enough to defeat any threat, even while keeping her powers in check.  “Stupido that she is!”  Vivian mutters again, half wishing for a confrontation to prove her own superiority.  Despite her growing powers, Vivian knows that when the boy is near and his grandmother’s protection fully unfurls, there is no competing with it.

Vivian is shrewd.  The years without the distraction of romance have provided her the time and the growing frustration of spinsterhood has focused the attention to her hatred.  She knows that the old woman only senses that something evil is nearby but doesn’t yet believe it is her own daughter.  For her part, Vivian acts the loving daughter to keep her mother unsuspecting.  As for the boy, he is too young to grasp the growing conflict, but he is smart and becoming aware.  In time, he will surpass his grandmother in perception and, if he has inherited the gift, he will be a threat.

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 “Richard, my boy!”  My grandmother’s arms open wide, fat hanging like dormant wings, as I fall into her embrace.  There is the stiffness of the whalebone corset, custom made for her on Orchard Street, the heat of her immense body and, oh, the overwhelming love that encircles me.  It is rapture.

“Mwah, mwah, mwah!”  It’s the sound of my grandmother’s voice-kisses.  Eventually, I’m released and almost fall backward while she holds my hand against her heart for me to feel the beating.

We talk.  In my dreams and in my memories and probably in reality back then, I don’t know what is being said.  It is only the voice that is important.  I concentrate on that voice as I look into my grandmother’s face.  All other details of the surroundings disappear as I try to peer deep into the shadows within her eyes.  She spins a cocoon that is intended to secure me against the evil that forever hovers nearby. 

When our bonding is complete, I wake to the familiar setting of the kitchen, now free to find my spinster aunts.  They have lived here since birth and as a consequence their lives are in large measure determined by my grandmother.  Usually, the first to appear, as if she’d always been standing there, is my Aunt Jenny.

“Richard, bella, Richard,” she is squealing with delight even though she had seen me as recently as yesterday.

She is my godmother and my favorite and I, hers.  She has heard my voice and has rushed to the kitchen.  The hugs are a miniature version of my grandmother’s and although she may be voluptuous, she can’t compete.  Even at this early hour and with nowhere to go, she’s wearing her trademark makeup.  The powder is too thick, the lipstick too wide and the only way to describe the color of her nails is Crayola red.

“Bella”, she coos as she pinches my cheek, as much to show her inexhaustible love as to wipe off the smudge of lipstick.  I am the only love in her life and will be until her death.

Jenny, only recently resolved that she can not longer lift me off my feet and carry me, contents herself with leading me by the hand to prove her ownership of me to her sisters.  We go in search of my aunt Babe (pronounced Baby), who is most likely working somewhere in the house.  Babe will be cleaning the bedrooms or hanging the laundry or, as the roar this morning suggests, vacuuming the living room rug.  She bangs her foot on the on-off-button of the Electrolux bringing a welcome silence as I’m escorted into the living room.  Babe has a straight smile between narrow, pale lips.  Her hair is cropped short to avoid having to fuss with it and is plastered to her forehead with sweat.

“Richard …work, work…”, she bends briefly in mid-sentence to kiss my cheek as if to make as efficient a greeting as possible, “…work,” she concludes, all said with a laugh, making fun of her own bondage.  She glances first with disapproval at her sister, Jenny, who has successfully avoided work all her life and then down at my feet to be sure my shoes are clean.  She is my grandmother’s slave.  She always has been and will be until her death.

Babe stomps the vacuum again, jump-starting it to life and signaling that enough time has been spent on pleasantries.

“Where’s Aunt Bibbee?” I ask above the resumed roar, using all the grandchildren’s nickname for Vivian.  Jenny’s smile narrows, never quite disappearing, as she raises her eyebrows toward the back room.  As much as Jenny would rather I sit with her in the kitchen as she caresses my hand, she reluctantly follows me, resigned to the fact that I was taught to always pay my respects to all three of my aunts. 

Vivian is rarely home since she is the only sister who works full-time (at least for pay, in deference to Babe, who works, of course, for free.)  When Vivian is home, it is usually because she is preparing to be somewhere else:  “up the hill”, we call it.  When I find her today, I know what to expect::  she will turn her face to receive my kiss, but not offer one of her own; she will look disappointed that I am not one of my cousins, Lorraine or Barbara, come to visit her.

I find her under the hair dryer, where she seems to be humming and rocking to an internal rhythm.  I think she is pretending that she hasn’t noticed me all this time in the house and now approaching.

“Hello, Richard,” she says, raising the bonnet, “you’re here early today,” the word early said with a low growl.

My aunt Jenny squeezes my shoulder to reassure me that she is there to protect me --- if she can.  Although I’m still a few feet away from Vivian, I feel a thrust of heat.  The hand on my shoulder turns me away and steers me back toward the kitchen before I have time for the requisite, albeit begrudging, kiss.  I wonder if Aunt Jenny senses the same thing I do, that something is wrong.  Vivian brings the bonnet back down over her head closing her eyes to my existence.  I am not one of her favorites and that fact will become more and more obvious until her death.

My grandmother had nine children (ten if you count a still-born).  There’s a macabre photograph of this infant girl in Babe’s boxes of family history.  The undertaker went to the trouble of pinning the baby’s eyes open and dressing her to look like she had survived the birth.  There were eight surviving daughters and, lastly, a son --- a sort of rudimentary coven, one might think, with the males above and outside it.  My grandmother’s gravitational willpower had kept the children together when they were young and within a few blocks of her now that they were grown and married.

My grandmother felt that she afforded them all protection, and that the closer they remained the stronger the protection, but the threat seemed to be growing as she aged.  Now she was trying to extend that protection to her grandchildren; it was exhausting her.

At age five, I was one of the last of the grandchildren.  Seven had come before me and three would follow.  Funny that all my aunts combined had produced little more than this one woman alone.