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I T WAS A lon g t im e ago.
Though i t seems, sometimes, that most things that
matter happened a long time ago, that is not really
t ru e. W h a t is tr ue is t h is: by th e t ime you realize h ow
m u ch somet hing mat tered, tim e has passed; by the
time i t stops h u r t i n g enough that you can tel l about
i t , first to yourself, and finally to someone else, moretime has passed; then, when you sit down to begin
the telling, you have to begin th is way:
I t was a long time ago.
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If, instead of a pe n cil, I h eld a bru sh i n my h an d ,
I would paint the scene: the scene of Au tumn Street.
Perspective wou ld n 't matter; it wou ld be distorted
and askew, as it was t h rou gh m y own eyes when I
was six, and Grandfather's house would loom huge,
out of proport ion, awesome and austere, wi th the
clipped lawn as smooth and green as patchwork pockets on a velvet skirt . The rough pink brick of the side
walk, bordered by elms, would wind the length of
the street, past the Hoffmans' house, past the bright
forsythia bushes tha t grew around the great-aunts'
front porch, past the homes of strangers and friends
and forgotten people, finally disappearing where the
woods began.
Even today, w i t h a brush, I would blur the woods.
I would b lur them with a murky mixture of brown
and green and black, the hueless shade that I know
from m y dreams to be the color of pain.
But the sky above A u t u m n Street would be re
splendent blue. I n th e sky, the pain t ed ghosts would
flutter, hovering like Chagall angels, benevolently
smiling down on the strip of Pennsylvania where they
h ad peopled a year of my life. Grandfather would bethere in the sky, sailing past, holding his cane, wear
in g his most elegant suit, his tie in place and his hair
impeccably brushed. Gran dm oth er wo u ld n 't sail; she
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would hover primly in the most tasteful and protected
corner of the heaven, but ton ed to her ch in and h old
in g her ankles neatly crossed. Th e great-aunts wouldsoar grandly by, holding hands and t i t te r ing , a t r io
of good manners and barely contained laughter , wear
in g gauzy dresses that bi l lowed.
Poor l i t t l e Noahthou gh I wou ld never have called
h im t ha t , thenhe is among t he ghosts, and I would
have to pain t h im lurk ing somewhere, perhaps behind
a cloud, sullen, the only one in my sky who would
not be sm iling.
Charles. How I would love pa in t ing Charles in the
bright blue over A u t u m n Street: feisty and streetwise
s t i l l , Charles would be shoving an d pu shin g his way
across the canvas sky, kicking pebbles, stepping on
ants, th rus t ing the clouds aside and heading for the
farthest corner, to explore.
Above them al l , majestic, would be Tatie. Tatie
would be wearing the reddest, the shiniest of satindresses, the bright red dress t h at I prom ised, wh en I
was six, I would one day give to her . She wo u ld be
bulky and brown and beautiful, and she would be
holding out her arms the way she held them out so
often , to me, whe n I needed a place to hide, a place
to cry, a person to hold .
Tatie wouldn't l ike that . She'd push away m y
brush , even th ough i t held th e red dress she had
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dreamed of. "N o t m e," she'd say, brusquely. " N o t
Tatie. I don 't wan t no place i n no sky. You pain t
i n your grandma bigger, Elizabet h. An d you pain ti n that hat just r ight on her head, the way she likes
i t . Don't you try to be funny w i t h your grandma's
best ha t . "
I wouldn ' t be funny w i t h m y grand moth er's hat .
I ' d paint it in carefully, w i t h the t i n y black elastic
down behind her ears, holding it neatly to her head,
not a hair out of place.
But for once, for the first time, I'd have my way
w i t h Tatie . W i t h m y best brush , w i t h a generous
daub of golden paint, I would paint on Tatie's proud
head a crown that would beat th e h ell out of Gran d
mother's black Sunday Episcopal hat .
An d t h en , finally, no t yet hoverin g, b u t w i t h her
bare feet firmly planted on the lawn of her grand
father's backyard, I would paint a l i t t l e g i r l . She
wou ld be lookin g u p . She s t i l l lives, and her hair iss t i l l often uncombed; and she s t i l l needs, often, a
place to hide, or to cry, or someone to h o ld . She finds
those things, now, in places far from Autumn Street.
But in the painting she would be back there again.
She would stand there, watching, and would find i n
the sky the disparate angels of her childhood. W i t h
one small hand she would wave good-bye.
I t was such a long time ago.
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Chick en pox was un expected , and it itch ed .
So was poison ivy, an d i t it ch ed , too.
Kindergarten was new, too, that year, and scary,
bu t Jess, my sister, sat beside me on the bus. She
retied both m y shoes and my hair ribbons when they
came undone . Jessica was a lot like Mama, even
though she was only seven.
T h e n , a surprise called Pearl H ar bor . I t soundedlike a lady's n ame. At th e grocery store on t he corner
of our New York street, a woman named Pearl sat
beh ind the counter and crocheted.
Daddy had been in the l iving room that day, read
in g th e paper; Mam a was in the kit ch en , an d the ra
dio was on in the kitchen. I watched her face. T h e n ,
f r ightened, I ran to find Daddy.
"Pearl Harbor is on the radio, Daddy," I told h i m ,
"and Mama is crying."
After t h a t , the answer to everything was "Because
of the war."
After t h a t , there were air-raid drills at kin dergarten .
W e had to r u n , h old in g hands, t o th e subway station
and hide there. Because of the war.
" W h a t ' r e those?" I asked, when my mother began
to stitch together huge lengths of th ick black cloth.I wanted her to make a ruffled dress for my doll.
"Blackout curtains."
"Because of the war?"
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"Yes."
" I don ' t like t h em ."
"N o ones does," she said, matter-of-factly, p u t t i n g
blackout curtains in to the same category as cod-liver
o i l : unappeal ing , necessary, for your own good, and
yo u don ' t have to l ike i t , bu t you have to pu t up with
i t , preferably wi thou t making a face.
There were other things then that I didn ' t l ike , an dsome of them were more clearly defined than the dark
enveloping folds that covered our windows because of
t h e war. I didn ' t like soft-boiled eggs. I didn ' t like
the lady who lived in the upstairs apartment. Some
times I didn ' t like Jessica, who said I was too l i t t l e to
play Monopoly with her friends.
W h e n my father explained that maybe he would
have to go away to th e war, it was just one more
t h i n g that I didn ' t like m u ch . Bu t th ere were com
pensations. Th ere was h is un i f o r m : deep khaki and
glam orously fore ign . Sometimes he let me wear the
hat while he took m y pictu re. I wo u ld m arch arou nd
the New York apartment, wearing pink-flowered pa
jamas and his major's cap, and he would laugh and
tell me I was the best floor show in t own . M y sister,
too sophisticated at seven to provide a floor show,glowered.
Uniforms were nice: my father's especially so, be
cause it was t h ere, available to m e, an d I cou ld t ry
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on th e Eisenhower jacket t h at came to my knees, an d
people wo u ld laugh . Bu t there were other u n ifor m s:
t h e Eagle Scout un i fo rm of my cousin, David, inMich igan , whose parents sent snapshots of him gr in
n i n g proudly . Then the snapshots changed, and
David was i n Na vy at t ire, an official ph ot ograph , h is
grin transformed from boyish arrogance to a stranger's
smile; and he was no longer the boy I had known
sum mers, wh o had t ickled me gen tly, bu ckled m y
sandals, and allowed me to fall exuberantly in love,
for the first time, at the age of three.
Then there were no pictures, only whispers, of
David . W h isper s between adults. I crept b eh in d
chairs, listened, and didn ' t unders tand .
"Where's David?" I asked, finally.
Th ey looked at m e, start led. I t was a qu estion I
shouldn' t have asked, a question they couldn't an
swer for someone wh o was on ly five. M y father was
s t i l l there, then. I had always thought tha t Daddy
would tel l me everyth ing. Bu t wh en I asked simply,
"Where's David?", my father looked away and raised
h is glass to his m o u t h , swallowing deeply, holding
t h e ice there against his lips for a long t ime.
" I n San Diego," someone said at last. " I n a hospi ta l in San Diego ."
I couldn ' t und erstand w h y the answer they gave
me seemed to fr ight en th em . I t didn ' t f r ighten me.
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So I had my un i fo rm too. I t was n ot m u ch , a t i n y
gold tag wi th my name and address, b u t i t was wh at
I was given to wear as a way of acknowledging t h e
war. It was better t h an n ot h in g, and i t was someth ing
to suck on unobtrusively while we sat in the subway
station for air-raid drills.
N o t h i n g else th at I wore changed wh en th e war
came: the polished brown shoes, the knee socks, theplaid skir ts th at bu t t on ed onto starched wh it e blouses,
t h e hair ribbons that my mother t ied each m o r n i n g
in to my blonde hair, the dark blue coat wi th brass
but tons , the blue beret that I stuffed in to m y canvas
schoolbag each m or n in g as soon as I was ou t of m y
m oth er's sight. N o oth er chi ld in my kindergarten
wore a Fren ch beret. Th er e were ways in which I
didn ' t wan t to be l ike other ch ildr en , b u t wearing a
beret was not one of them.
"She refuses to dr i nk her milk at snack t im e , " they
wrote hom e to m y parent s.
" W h y won' t you dr i nk your milk at school? You
always dr i nk it at home," my mother said.
"I t tastes different . I don 't l ike i t . "
She sighed and wrote a note back requesting that
I not have to dr i nk school milk . It was true that i ttasted differen t . Th e paper container, the straw that
collapsed and grew soggy, and the wax that peeled in
flakes from the carton all conspired to give a strange
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papery taste to the warmish milk they placed in front
of us at the l i t t l e kindergarten tables. Even l i s tening
to the gurgl ing sounds that the other chi ldren madeth rough the i r straws as they emptied the containers
brought a feelin g of gagging to t h e back o f m y th roat .
I t was the milk at th e very b ot t om th at tasted th e
worst . By t h en it was m ixed wi th spit.
At p ain t in g, too, I was d ifferen t. I loved p ain t in g,loved the sturdy wooden easels, the th ickjars th a t h e ld
the colors, the wide brushes, and the cotton smocks
tha t we wore but to n ed do wn the back. But I could
see that my paintings were not the same as the others'.
M i n e were of landscapes that I had mostly only
dreamed or im agin ed : broad expanses of sky, hills,
and mountains, in shades of blue, green, and purple.
I waited carefully for each color to d ry before I
added the next. Th e other ch ild ren didn ' t wait; they
swished t h eir paint brushes bo ldly, r u n n in g th e paint s
together wi th long drip marks, creating areas t ha t
t u rned brown as the colors flowed in to one another.
I envied them their boldness, but I loved my beauti
fully defined hills, my lone trees in their yellow-green
meadows. I loved, most of all, the place where the
sky and the distant hills met; it was the only part ofthe paintings where I would allow the colors to run
gently together.
I t was true, I knew, that in the faraway part of the
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coun tryside wher e t h e sky an d h ills m et , t he colors
were un clear. I h ad seen i t , sometimes, summers i n
Pennsylvania, h ad seen how th e hor izon blu rr ed . Iblended those colors carefully wi th clear water on
my thick brush.
"Can you tell me why you paint the sky that way?"
a woman asked me in a k in d , qu iet voice. She was
visiting my school.
" W h a t way?" H er question fright en ed m e. I was
afraid that I had done it wrong.
"Look how you've painted the sky all the way down
to th e h ill s, " she p oin t ed ou t , as if I h ad done it by
chance, as if I h ad n ot kn o wn . "N o w look h ow t h e
other chi ldren have painted the sky."
I looked. Th e oth er skies were all blue strips across
the top of their papers. I lifted my gold dog tag to my
m o u t h and sucked.
"Yours isn't wrong," she said, aware of my anguish.
"Bu t it 's so differen t fro m th eirs. Do you k n ow wh yyou do it that way?"
"Because that's the way sky is," I whispered to her.
"Sky is all over, not just at th e t op ." But m y voice
trailed and made it more a question than a Conviction.
"Do you have other paintings that you can showme?" she asked.
I took th e rolled pain t ings fro m m y cubbyhole an d
gave t h em to her. I watch ed, t err ified, embarrassed,
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while she spread them out one by one on a table.
There were all my skies, all my hills and mountains
an d fields. I loved those pa int ings m ore t h an an yth in g
else at school, more than the cherry-and-whipped-
cream dessert that was sometimes served at lu n ch . Bu t
at the same t ime I had two thoughts that didn ' t fit
together very wel l : that they were the most beautiful
paint ings in th e world , and that they were, for reasonstha t I didn ' t un derstan d, not good en ough.
"May I keep some of these? W o u l d yo u m i n d ? "
she asked.
I shook m y head sh yly. "You can have t h e m a l l . "
She took my paintings away, and I went back to
m y easel. But the feelings I had about the sky and
hills were gone, at least for t h at day. I n a corner of
the classroom I cou ld see the visit in g wom an t alk to
the teachers; they were glancing at me as they talked.
She was po in t ing to t h ings i n m y pain t ings. She was
saying som eth ing about "Elizabet h 's per cept ions."
Elizab et h was me; b u t wh at were per cept ions: kind s
of mountains or trees? I didn ' t know, and was hu
miliated.
I wat ch ed as she ro lled m y percept ions n eat ly, se
cured them wi th rubber bands, and placed them in abriefcase. H e r eyes found me, across the room, and
she smiled and waved, as if we had a secret together.
Then she went away.
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