Chapter 2 - The Silver Cord

Chapter 2 begins below. I'm really enjoying this process. Whether or not anyone reads this blog, it's providing a terrific source of motivation to revise and then post the work. I look forward to not only the book I am currently working on, but thinking about the next book.

Chapter 2 - The Silver Cord

Chapter 2

by Suzanne Anderson

After saying goodnight to Mila, I passed the dining room on the way to my study. The door was ajar and I noticed Bela and Ilona whispering to one another. When they saw me, they stopped talking and Ilona turned away.
“Is everything ready for the trip tomorrow?” I asked from the doorway.
Bela’s cheeks burned bright from alcohol and indignation, “You sneak around listening to conversations that are none of your business.”
I didn’t reply. I went to my study to drink coffee and write, in keeping with my nightly ritual. Bela followed.
He was crude and unkempt, his clothes always seemed a size too small, buttons strained against the girth of his stomach, his pants were wrinkled and the cuffs worn from age and neglect. I couldn’t imagine what Ilona saw in him.
“Would you like a cup?” I asked, pouring coffee for myself. I dropped a cube of sugar into my cup.
He shook his head, but made no move to approach me. I shrugged my shoulders and carried the cup across the room.
“You have the tickets?” I placed the cup on the table next to my chair, leaned over and picked up the journal and pen that I’d left open on the seat.
“We get them tomorrow, at the train station.”
“At the last minute, is that wise?”
Looking at Bela’s dull, indignant face, I felt exasperated. Whatever alcohol he’d already consumed this evening magnified his belligerence. The veins in his throat stood out like ropes. “I gave the man a deposit. I need more money, the tickets are expensive.”
“I want to meet this ticket seller.” I took a sip of coffee and watched his reaction.
“You’ll meet him tomorrow.”
“No, tonight.” I put down the cup of coffee and took up my journal. I needed to keep my hands moving.
Bela’s forehead was greasy with sweat. “That’s not possible.”
“If he wants money badly enough he’ll come.” I flattened the pages with my fingers. I looked down at the previous day’s entry not seeing the words. Bela stopped in front of my chair, his hands bunched in fists held at his side. He leaned over me. I recoiled from the stink of liquor and his cheap Turkish cigarettes.
“And if I can’t find him?”
“I won’t give you the money you need.” I watched the look of surprise, and then fury, contort his face. Our eyes locked.
Bela stormed out of the room. He gave directions to Ilona. The slamming of the front door shook the walls.
I let out a long breath, closed my eyes and rested my head against the back of the chair. Bela was right. I was ill prepared to handle these matters. I opened my eyes and looked across the room, at the bookcase where a china box still contained remnants of my husband’s favorite pipe tobacco. In the hours between dinner and bedtime, I would find him dozing in the green velvet chair across from my desk, softly snoring, his book fallen aside, his thin body ravaged by cancer, he seemed imprisoned among the down-filled cushions. I would come to him, sit on the arm of the chair, he would wake, smile put his arm around my waist and pull me forward for a kiss. He was twenty years older than me, shocking to my parents when I’d brought him home to meet them.
You’re destined to be a young widow they warned. They were right. But I wouldn’t have changed a thing. My heart ached with gratitude for those moments, in sorrow for too few years together. I’d become a widow at forty.
Max had tried on so many occasions to tell me of what he’d experienced in during the years he’d lived in Moscow. To teach me, he said, so that I’d be prepared. I’d changed the subject, preferring the security of the ever present moment. In the years since his death, I spent many nights grasping to remember his warnings.
How had we come so far? My childhood held warm memories of baking sweet walnut stuffed pastry with our housekeeper. Of hiding under the heavy wooden kitchen table while Anna, with arms outstretched and eyes closed, counted down from ten to one.
How could I pack a lifetime in a small suitcase? Should I pack the valuable silver, jewelry to sell or barter for housing or food? Do I leave behind the books that I wrote, the journals I’ve kept, the photos, the only real reminders of those I’ve loved, those who are now gone? Do I find room for the tweed jacket that still carries the sweet scent of my husband’s Latakia tobacco? The things that are priceless to my heart carry no currency where we are going.
I walked across the room and turned into the hallway just as Ilona stepped out of Mila’s room and closed the door behind her. She brushed a tear away from her eye and then seeing me, looked stricken. She ran her long thin fingers through her faded red hair and tucked the loose tendrils into her chignon.
“Is Mila asleep?” I asked.
“Almost.”
“She’s worried about tomorrow,” I said turning back toward my study. I paused at the entrance, resting my hand on the doorknob. “I hope you were able to reassure her.”
“How could you do this to Bela?”
I turned to look at my sister. “Do what?”
She clutched her arms against her bony chest, enfolding herself like a small bird. “Max isn’t here anymore,” Ilona whined. “Bela’s the man in this house now, he has to make the decisions.”
“For you, maybe,” I said. “Not for me.”
Ilona grabbed my sleeve. “He’s all I have!”
I placed my hand over hers. “Ilona, sometimes it is better to be alone than to be with someone who...”
Her eyes widened as my fingers closed over hers and then she tore herself away.
“I need him.”
“Your daughter needs you,” I said.
“I can’t do it alone. I need a husband who will care for me.”
“Do you know that your daughter is afraid of Bela?”
Ilona clutched her hands and quickly walked to the other side of the room. “She only complains because you’ve poisoned her against us.”
“Did Bela tell you that?”
“He understands how I’ve been trapped.”
“Trapped?” I asked, startled. “Who has trapped you? Me? Your daughter?”
“Yes,” she screeched. “All of you.”
When Mila was born, Ilona treated her as an inconvenience that threatened to ruin the shape of her breasts from feeding, or the flatness of her stomach. Soon, Ilona and her husband were gone for nights in a row at the clubs and casinos. Ilona rationalized it as the only way she could keep him interested. I believe she enjoyed the escape from their responsibility, as much as he did. When he eventually left her for another woman, Ilona blamed it on the child. And then quickly found and married Bela.
Nevertheless, I acknowledged the truth of her accusations. Ilona had been born ten years after Anna and me. Our natural introspective natures had been rewarded, showered with books, we responded with a keen intelligence that delighted our parents. Ilona’s birth had been difficult, her infancy marked by colic, her childhood by mischief, the books she received were quickly torn to shreds or reduced to ashes in the pot bellied stove of her bedroom.
The front door slammed and Bela’s voice bellowed through the hallway, “I’ve brought the boy.” Behind him stood a young man, perhaps fifteen, cap in hand, nervously twisted like a rag, black hair slicked back, dirty shirt and pants hung loosely from his frame.
“Where are the tickets?”
The boy squared his shoulders and regarded me defiantly. “I can’t get them until he,” the young boy gestured to Bela, “gives me the rest of the money.”
The negotiations had begun. I gestured toward a chair, “Sit down.”
The boy remained standing. “Please.” I added.
He looked around the room and then took a seat closest to the door. I poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him with a small plate of biscuits.
I watched him savoring what I knew was the best coffee he’d had in these days of black market chicory. I needed to establish our roles. Coffee, his hunger, this room, the old oriental rug he scraped his filthy shoes against, were potential barter.
“Where are you getting the tickets from?” I asked taking a sip from my cup. I made a show of enjoying the bitter taste before placing the cup back in its saucer. “It’s been impossible to get a seat on any train to Switzerland.”
“I have a friend at the train station,” the boy said, not meeting my eyes.
He was lying. There were no friends now, only business associates. He took one biscuit from the plate, then stuffed the rest into his coat pocket.
I watched him appraising the value of the paintings on the wall, the china arranged on the shelves between the rows of books. Good, I thought, fighting a sense of violation,. “Why not use the tickets for yourself or your family?”
“I don’t need to escape.” He straightened the lapels of his jacket with an air of nonchalance and leaned back in the chair as if this domain was no longer mine, but his. “I’m not a Jew.”
“Neither am I,” I smiled. The smug look faded from his face.
He looked at me and then at Bela as if expecting an explanation. “You need to leave the country, right?”
“No one wants to remain in the middle of a war,” I replied drawing his attention back to me.
Bela interrupted. “It’s her niece she has to save.”
“Don’t forget that you are also a Jew, Bela.”
Bela’s mouth opened to reply, but Ilona grabbed his arm.
“Bela has given you a deposit,” I said turning to the boy. “How much more do you need for five tickets?”
The ticket seller started to reply but Bela stepped forward and cut him off. “The deposit covers only a quarter of the total price of the tickets.”
I addressed the boy, “You’ll meet us at the station tomorrow to give us the tickets?”
“Yes.”
“Where is your father?” I asked.
“In the army.” He looked at his feet. “My mother and sisters rely on me.”
Another lie. Our eyes met and with a tilt of his head and the faintest smile, he acknowledged my conclusion.
“I will rely on your greed.”
I rose to signal the conversation's end. The boy nodded grimly and stood to leave.
Bela regarded me with contempt. “Are you satisfied?”
“We’ll see if he’s at the station tomorrow.”
Ilona paused at the threshold of the doorway and looked at me with eyes filled with hurt and something else…resentment? Or triumph?

The Silver Cord

Below I have posted the first chapter of one of my novels, entitled: The Silver Cord. This is actually the second novel I wrote, the first being "A Map of Heaven", which is currently being re-written.

I have not done any writing in over three years....maybe longer.

One purpose of this blog is to give me the opportunity to slide quietly back into writing. The first step in that direction is to re-visit work I've already written, revise it, and post it here. Hence, my earlier post of the children's story, and tonight, the first chapter of "The Silver Cord".

Over the coming days/weeks, I will edit my way through the novel, and post it on this blog, chapter by chapter.

Chapter 1 - The Silver Cord

Chapter 1

by Suzanne Anderson

“I can’t sleep Nana.”
Mila’s skin was clear and pale; like the porcelain dolls I’d bought for her years before. Long dark lashes sheltered her bloodshot blue eyes.

I settled into an overstuffed chair with a sigh and a smile that belied my worry. Candlelight silhouetted Mila’s face in a halo of pale yellow. The book she held created a shadow that fell across her chest making the pink roses on her nightgown glow and float among the shadows of her long dark hair. In the five years that had Mila lived here, there were few nights when I did not find a book next to her pillow.

When Mila first arrived, I placed this chair next to her bed to read aloud one of the children’s books that provided me with a comfortable salary. Over the years, the chair remained, I wrote more books, and read each one to Mila until she outgrew them and began to read the novels she found in my study. The ritual of our time together before bed, our discussion of books, remained. Even during these years of war.

She propped the book on her chest and watched me expectantly. “You’re coming with us aren’t you?”
“Of course, dear,” I smoothed the edge of the comforter.
“And Aunt Anna?”
“Yes, she seems to understand.”
“But she forgets things so quickly,” Mila said. “You know what she’s like when she becomes confused.”
“She’ll come with me.”
“Mom’s worried she’ll slow us down.” Mila looked away. “I overheard Mom and Bela in the kitchen before supper.”

I rubbed my hands down the length of my wool skirt to warm them. This room resisted warmth despite the clanking radiators that sat like plump cats against two of the walls. I disdained my sister’s choice in men. Ilona effortlessly used hypochondria as a defense against any form of housework or childrearing labors. She’d picked her husbands accordingly. Men willing to care for her in exchange for total control of her movements. As a result of Ilona’s disposition, and the low wages Bela received as a legal clerk, they’d come to live with me after my husband died. They insisted they were concerned about my safety living alone. I surmised my spacious apartment was a greater priority to them than my welfare.

My husband and I lived in a large three bedroom apartment in the center of Pest. I kept the master bedroom that I’d shared with my husband, which still held his clothes, and his scent. There were two smaller bedrooms. Mila slept in one, my sister Anna in the other. Ilona and Bela felt those bedrooms were too small for them, and when they realized that I was not going to relinquish the room I’d shared with my husband, they claimed the living room as the only room large enough to accommodate them comfortably. As a result, my study became both a library and a living room. The dining room and kitchen remained as they were when my husband and I lived alone here. I maintained the truce with Ilona and endured the angry outbursts of her husband to keep Mila near. She was the daughter I’d always wanted.

“What are you reading?” I leaned forward and gestured toward her book.
“Aunt Anna’s poems,” Mila said, turning the cover toward me.
“Before her illness, Anna was a brilliant poet with an enormous gift for making the mundane sublime. She was a remarkable woman”
“I wish I could talk to her about the poems,” Mila said.
“For her, the poems that were written a decade ago are the freshest in her mind. That’s some of her best work. She can still tell you exactly what she was trying to achieve in each line. Ironically, it’s her inability to process what she did yesterday, or a moment ago, that keeps her from creating.”
Mila leaned back against the pillows and chewed her lip. “Does she realize what’s happening to her?”
I took Mila’s hand in mine and gently squeezed it. “Thankfully it is one of the things she forgets.”

A year ago, Anna had handed me a stack of leather-bound books. These journals contained Anna’s notes on poems that she had struggled through, political skirmishes at the university, and embarrassingly detailed notes on her love life. Anna asked me to edit them and publish them as her posthumous memoirs. It was one of the first things she asked for when the doctor concluded that her delusional bouts would become more frequent over time. She wanted some testimony to survive as her real self slipped away. I’d begun working on them when my own writing stalled. I was piqued, discomfited, and touched by what I read.

“How long will she continue to recognize us, Nana?”
“I hope forever.”

Some things a young girl should not have to learn too quickly. That a brilliant mind could grow dim years before its time. I shook my head. No, that was the least of it. There was so much more I was trying to protect Mila from. The windows rattled and whistled softly as cold air seeped through cracks in the warped wooden frames. The streets were unusually quiet. There were no cars on the street or pedestrians making their way home from the opera house or the cafe. What a sharp contrast to the celebrations held just days before.
On the fifteenth, the National Opera premiered “Petofi”, its opening coinciding with our national holiday. The Regent Horthy and his wife attended the event and there was a collective opinion that this was a good omen. So many happy memories belonged in that hall. Then in the last two days, the lightness and hope vanished. The streets crackled with rumor and fear. Increasingly, it became evident that we would be drawn into the same hellish pit that had swallowed our neighbors. Budapest would be another morsel to feed the monster.

An uneasy calm fell over the city. It was as if we were playing a deadly game of hide and seek. People watched one another, no longer sure who to trust.
Mila brought me back.
“Did you ever write poetry?”
“Many years ago,” I smiled, shaking off a bitter memory.
“You haven’t read anything to me lately, are you working on something new?”
“No.” How to explain that watching children being taken away, separated from their parents, left me with little motivation to create fairy tales. To lull innocents? To suggest that the world we had brought them into was fair and just?
“There’s no market for my books right now,” I said.
“You haven’t stopped writing have you?”
I looked at my empty hands.
“When the war is over? Or when we get to Switzerland. When we are safe, will you write again?”
“Yes, when we are safe.” I leaned over and gently kissed her forehead before blowing out the candle. Mila was my greatest source of inspiration. Mila and I’d spent Sundays’ taking the tram to the zoo, or the City Park to rowboats on the pond.
“Nana, what if the German’s arrive before we get to the train?”
I reached over and brushed the hair from her eyes. “I believe we still have a little time.”
Mila turned and looked out the window, she flinched at the sound of distant gunfire.
“We’ll leave before it gets worse,” I promised.
“Do you really think we can?” Mila turned to look at me. “Everyone will want to get on the train. Is there enough room for us?”
“There will be,” I assured her. “We have tickets.”

A Map of Heaven - the first story

A Map of Heaven

by Suzanne Anderson


My father and I walked along the beach. Our footprints followed the waves that quietly slid over the warm sand. As the sun slid toward the west, the old seaside hotels cast low square shadows that chased us down the beach.

I was born less than three miles from this ocean. My father taught me to swim in its warm water. From this beach, I’d collected shells that filled jars on my bedroom windowsill.

But this summer was different. My father was sick. Most days instead of taking walks on the beach, we stayed inside and read books together. Sometimes the medicine upset Dad’s stomach, and he couldn’t join us for dinner. Somehow it also made him look different. I could tell he was still my dad, though. The important things didn’t change. His smile was the same.

And then today, Dad asked me to join him for a walk on the beach.

We didn't talk much. Finally, I stopped and turned toward the ocean. The shallow milky green water became dark blue far out, where the sky and the sea became one.

“Daddy, where is Heaven?”
My father’s gaze followed mine. “That’s difficult to explain, Pumpkin.”
I squinted and looked up at him. “Do you believe in Heaven?”
Dad ruffled my hair, “Of course, honey.”
“Where is it?”
My father bent down on one knee and with his finger drew a crooked circle in the sand.
“Imagine this circle is the ocean,” he said.
In the middle of the circle, he placed a small brown and white striped shell. “And this shell is the island of Tahiti.”
“From where we are now, we can’t see Tahiti," he waved his arm out toward the ocean. "But it’s out there. So is Heaven.”
I bent down next to him, my knees created shallow bowls in the sand that quickly filled with water. “Then Heaven’s like Tahiti?”
Dad laughed and stood, brushing off his hands. “Better, Pumpkin. Much better.”
I took his hand in mine. “Are you going to Heaven soon, Daddy?”
“I’m afraid so, honey.”

My father died one month after our walk on the beach. Three weeks after that, I started back to school.

Things did not go well.

When I came home that day, my mother was talking to our neighbor in the kitchen. I laid the note from my teacher on the table by the front door and crept upstairs to my bedroom.

I went to my desk and pulled a large blue canvas atlas from the shelf. I flipped through the pages until I found the one I was looking for.
“Tahiti.”
My fingers followed the straight black lines. If Dad was in Tahiti, I could get on a plane and fly there.
But he wasn’t really in Tahiti.
He was in Heaven.
I didn’t have a map of Heaven.
And if I didn’t have a map of Heaven, how could I be sure where Dad was?

My stomach hurt. I moved from one map to another and another. What would a map of Heaven look like? Would it be drawn like an island, surrounded by water like Tahiti?
Would it have exotic animals like Africa?
Would there be mountains?
Or desert?
Sun every day?
Or rain?
Or maybe because it was Heaven, there would be something for everyone.

I slammed the book shut and dropped my head onto the scratchy canvas cover. My head hurt as much as my stomach. “Daddy, where is Heaven?”

I went to my bed. On the nightstand was a picture of Dad, Mom and me, standing on the beach. Daddy had his arms around us and we're laughing. We're a family. The whole world was within Daddy’s arms.
With my thumb, I covered Dad’s face.
Suddenly Mom and I seemed to be leaning into space. We didn’t look happy, we looked scared.
“Daddy, Heaven is much, much further than Tahiti!”
I curled up on the bedspread and held the picture close. “Please God, where is Dad?”

Silence.

There was a knock on the door. Mom asked, “May I come in?”
“I don't care.”
Mom sat down and took my hands in hers. “I came to say our bedtime prayers.”
“I’m not talking to God.”
“Why?”
“I want to know where Heaven is. I want to know where Dad's gone.”

Mom nodded and leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “What does love look like?”
“You can’t see love,” I sighed. “It’s is a feeling, not a thing.”
“But it’s real?”
“Of course, it’s real!” I exclaimed. “I love you, I love Dad.”
“You love us even when you can’t see us?”
“I’ll always love you.”
“I’ll always love you too,” Mom hugged me. “Now, tell me this, what does time look like?”

I thought of the clock in the kitchen and the old diver’s watch Dad used to wear. I looked over at Mom, “Clocks?”
“No, they tell time. What does time itself look like?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Remember the last time we went to the beach with Daddy? We left the house right after lunch. You played in the waves, we took a walk on the pier to watch the fisherman…”
“I fell asleep on the blanket,” I said.
“That’s right. And when you woke up, the sun had begun to set and Daddy said we’d better go home before it got dark.”
“The day went by so quickly,” I sighed.
“That’s right, and…”
“It’s just like love! You can’t see time, but it exists.”
Mom kissed me on the forehead. “Now, come with me.”

She turned out the light next to my bed and took my hand.
We walked to the window. There were so many stars in the sky. Mom put her arms around me and I leaned back, feeling safe and warm.
“Honey,” she whispered, “Heaven is a place of endless love that exists in never-ending time. It’s a beautiful place where we live forever in God’s love.”
I looked at the stars and tried to imagine it. “That’s where Daddy is now?”
“Yes, baby.”
Then I thought of something else. “If Heaven is full of God’s love, then Dad’s probably not sick anymore is he? I mean, he’s all better now. God’s healed him.”
Mom nodded and brushed a tear from her eye.
“Will Dad always remember us?”
“Always.” Mom squeezed me tight and whispered, “Let’s say our prayers.”
I closed my eyes. “Dear God, please take care of Dad. I miss you, Daddy. I hope Heaven’s even better than Tahiti.”

A star shot across the sky as I opened my eyes. That star was for me.
I will see Daddy again some day. Until I do, I know he’s thinking about Mom and me and he loves us as much as he did here on Earth.
The End.

I began with a...

I began with a children's story I wrote after my father passed away. The story sprang from my grief, being so far away, unable to say good-bye. His death also brought to fore how quickly life passed by, how important it is to live purposefully.

I'm going to begin by posting that first story.

We have to start somewhere...

This is John's idea. I wanted to get my books out there. My brother, John, said this is one way to start.

So this is where we will begin. I'm going to post a chapter a week of one of my novels. I'm not sure which one will be first. I'm not sure what this will accomplish, but I have a good feeling. Thanks, John.