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Something Happened :: Хеллер Джозеф
Страница: 363 из 398"I knew you wouldn't understand."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying anything like that," my wife says to her in reproof.
"Leave her alone."
"She ought to be glad she's not that way."
"She is."
"You always take her part," my wife accuses. "The doctors said you shouldn't do that."
"She thinks I take yours."
"Why does she always have to bring him in?" my daughter protests. "Can't she keep him in his own room when my friends are here?"
(We wish she would keep him out of sight also when our friends are here and have told her so. She parades him through anyway, gabbling loudly at him and pointing to our guests to show him off, or to inflict a penance on us.)
"You shouldn't mind it that much," I counsel.
"You do too."
"He isn't that bad."
"He makes us uncomfortable."
(He makes me uncomfortable too.)
"You shouldn't be," I tell her. "It wasn't the fault of any of us. It could have happened in any family."
But it happened in mine.
"We have another child also," I have been forced to reveal time and time again in ordinary social conversation to people I barely knew, "who's somewhat brain damaged. It was congenital," I add. "He's retarded."
"We also have a child who's retarded or very seriously emotionally disturbed," couples who knew about us have sought me out to reveal (as though we had something I wanted to share).
It's a club I don't want to join, and I find those clannish parents repellent. (Their suggestive intimacy makes my flesh creep and I want to shake them away from me as I would flies. I detest clannishness of every kind. It boxes me in claustrophobically. Or shuts me out. I don't like to feel boxed in.)
I saw it happening to Derek long before anyone else did (boxing me in) and said nothing about it to anyone. (Later, when others began to notice things and make hesitant, fearful observations, I denied them with emphasis. I didn't want it to be true. I had nightmarish warnings. I saw the realities assembling themselves ahead of me in mapped-out phases. I still do. I felt if no one talked about it, it would not be true. I was wrong.) He sat late, stood late, walked late, ran late. Even to a father's doting eye, his coordination was poor. We thought him clumsy and cute as a newborn puppy or foal as he staggered, stumbled, and fell. There is not harmony in his movements now. He makes no effort to open his jaws wide when he tries to speak — he does not seem to associate mouth with speech. He looks like lockjaw when he tries to talk.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying anything like that," my wife says to her in reproof.
"Leave her alone."
"She ought to be glad she's not that way."
"She is."
"You always take her part," my wife accuses. "The doctors said you shouldn't do that."
"She thinks I take yours."
"Why does she always have to bring him in?" my daughter protests. "Can't she keep him in his own room when my friends are here?"
(We wish she would keep him out of sight also when our friends are here and have told her so. She parades him through anyway, gabbling loudly at him and pointing to our guests to show him off, or to inflict a penance on us.)
"You shouldn't mind it that much," I counsel.
"You do too."
"He isn't that bad."
"He makes us uncomfortable."
(He makes me uncomfortable too.)
"You shouldn't be," I tell her. "It wasn't the fault of any of us. It could have happened in any family."
But it happened in mine.
"We have another child also," I have been forced to reveal time and time again in ordinary social conversation to people I barely knew, "who's somewhat brain damaged. It was congenital," I add. "He's retarded."
"We also have a child who's retarded or very seriously emotionally disturbed," couples who knew about us have sought me out to reveal (as though we had something I wanted to share).
It's a club I don't want to join, and I find those clannish parents repellent. (Their suggestive intimacy makes my flesh creep and I want to shake them away from me as I would flies. I detest clannishness of every kind. It boxes me in claustrophobically. Or shuts me out. I don't like to feel boxed in.)
I saw it happening to Derek long before anyone else did (boxing me in) and said nothing about it to anyone. (Later, when others began to notice things and make hesitant, fearful observations, I denied them with emphasis. I didn't want it to be true. I had nightmarish warnings. I saw the realities assembling themselves ahead of me in mapped-out phases. I still do. I felt if no one talked about it, it would not be true. I was wrong.) He sat late, stood late, walked late, ran late. Even to a father's doting eye, his coordination was poor. We thought him clumsy and cute as a newborn puppy or foal as he staggered, stumbled, and fell. There is not harmony in his movements now. He makes no effort to open his jaws wide when he tries to speak — he does not seem to associate mouth with speech. He looks like lockjaw when he tries to talk.