Sylvia: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

literature. She had to learn the complex grammars of two languages, read long poems and fat novels, and write papers, all while living in squalor and fighting with me every day. It seemed to me a maniacal program. I expected confusion and disaster, but she was abnormally bright and did well enough.
    There was no desk in the apartment, but Sylvia didn’t need such conveniences, didn’t even seem to notice their absence. I don’t think she ever complained about anything in the miserable apartment, not even about the roaches, only about me. She studied sitting on the edge of the bed in a mess of papers. Her expression would go flat, her body limp. She would be utterly still except for her eyes. She didn’t scratch, didn’t stretch. She was doing the job, getting it over with. I’d sit with her sometimes for hours, reading a novel or a magazine. We ate together in bed, usually noodles, frozen vegetables, and orange juice, or else we went out for pizza or Chinese food. Neither of us cooked. My mother often gave us food. I’d carry it back to MacDougal Street after our visits downtown, two or three times a month.

    One night, after dinner at my parents’ apartment, my mother slipped away to the bedroom with Sylvia’s coat and sewed up a tear in the sleeve. As we were about to leave, she surprised Sylvia with the mended coat. Sylvia seemed grateful and affectionate. In the street, however, she became hysterical with indignation, saying she’d been humiliated. I tried to make her understand that my mother was being sweet, doing something good for Sylvia. My mother intended kindness, not a comment on Sylvia’s coat. I didn’t say that Sylvia made a pitiable, waiflike impression in the torn coat. I said my mother wanted Sylvia to like her. Saying such things, I embarrassed myself. Then I became angry. What difference did motives make? Sylvia wanted to be pitied; my mother wanted to be liked. Who could care? What mattered was that my mother’s gesture had been affectionate. To defend her against Sylvia brought up questions of loyalty. Maybe that was the point. But, to my mind, my mother needed no defense. I was wrong to defend her. I shut up. Sylvia could interpret things however she liked. I couldn’t instruct her in feeling, and I refused to sink into a poisonous and boring morass of motives.
    Thereafter, I visited my parents alone.
    Sometimes, as if I were visiting out of bitter determination rather than a simple desire to be with them, I sat at the table and ate like a solemn pig. You like to feed me? Good, that’s why I’m here, I’m eating. In my own eyes, I seemed irrational, ill-tempered, spiteful, and unhappily confused about everything in my life. My mother haddone too much for me, beginning when I was a little kid who never went two weeks without an ear infection or lung disease. She carried me through the streets to the doctor because I couldn’t walk, always too sick, too weak. She sat beside my bed all night lest I were kidnapped by death. It’s hard to forgive self-sacrifice. As for Sylvia’s sensitivity to imagined insult, that was pathological, not on the side of life. My mother’s cooking was life.
    “Who needs restaurants?” said my father, slurping his soup. “You can’t find better food no place.”
    My mother sewed up the tear in the sleeve of Sylvia’s coat. She didn’t ask first. Big deal. She’d never do that again. I told her it was a mistake. I knew she would be shocked and her feelings would be hurt, but I had to tell her. I wanted to tell her. She didn’t in the least understand. I tried to explain how a person might be annoyed if you make a fuss over her torn clothing. It is important not to notice such things. Her personal business, not yours. The more I talked, the more exasperated I felt. I raised my voice, as if I were criticizing her for doing what she believed was nice. What did I believe? I also believed it was nice. I was criticizing her for doing what I believed was