Love In The Time of Intrusion

Mona

A crippled man sold papers on the corner of Annalissa's shop. He was maybe forty-five, three times the age of the next oldest paperboy. His mouth was covered in sores, and when he opened it to yell about the news, one could see his bleeding gums and a single large upper canine in his left corner. His right leg was bummed, causing years of limping and a grotesque gait that  evoked fear instead of  sympathy. Annalissa didn't know if it was a war injury or some other cruel way life had sculpted his body. He held out the papers far from an arm's distance. People couldn't smell the booze or the piles of garbage he called his bed that way. Papers were selling out of his hands as news spread that the Germans had made it to Arras. He sang "Roses of Picardy" with tears in his eyes as people grabbed the papers from his hands, ripping the pages open, their eyes searching for hope between the lines when there was none. Tears streamed down women's faces as if they had been given a stinging slap. Men put their hands on their chins as if they had a say in what their government did, believing it would be different, better.

"Maman's heart will be broken," Annalisa thought as she spent the walk home outlining the argument to leave the city. Her mother would fight her, but she would have good reasons to leave. Aunt Rose would be happy to have them in [location]. The mountain air would be good for her. They would be useful on Aunt Rose's farm.

The apartment building was full of people deciding to stay or go, pushing ripped suitcases down the stairs. Children cried from being scolded, women sobbed about their mother's silver, and men yelled in front of their apartment doors about time or money, or both.

She called for her mother when she opened the door. The kitchen was empty. There was no brown bread on the table, no aroma from the big red pot, no cigarettes on the table. She yelled again and looked for her on the patio, then knocked on her mother's door. Silence. She could feel her heart as she turned her mother's bedroom knob. She yelled "Maman" at the tiny figure covered in the wool blanket in the May weather. The figure did not stir.

"Maman?" She tried to swallow the spit that pooled in the back of her throat, but her throat was too swollen. She smoothed her mother's hair that was flung in front of her face. Her mother's forehead was cool to the touch. She pushed on her shoulder, pulling the frail bones back and forth before realizing she was lifeless. A strangled, curdling moan became an animalistic scream.

"No, Maman, no!" Annalisa cried as she worked to free her mother from her bedsheets to cradle her in her arms. As she unwrapped her, she realized her mother was not only dressed, but she wore her best outfit, a green satin Christmas dress. Her mother hadn't gotten dressed in weeks; last Christmas, she had only worn her robe. Annalissa choked back tears, imagining her brittle-boned mother dressing herself just hours ago. The possibility that Mona did this on purpose struck Annalissa's conscience like lightning striking a dead tree, setting ablaze a massive wildfire in her brain. She went about searching the sheets on the bed, then her mother's nightstand and dresser, and finally went through the house in search of a note. All she found was an empty bottle of barbiturates prescribed for Mrs. Cloutierre on the kitchen sink.

Annalissa's brain was a sloop in a treacherous storm. Her emotions hurled at her in violent waves. "How dare she not leave a note," she thought. "How hypocritical that her mother, that critical, that judgmental, cynical, fault-finder would just...kill herself," she thought. "It would be like her to abandon me with Nazis invading. And to top it off," she thought, "to top off her punishment of me, she trapped me here with her body, to bury before I could leave."

All these years she was mad at her father, but her mother was no better. She needed to be away from her mother's body. She closed her mother's door and went to the kitchen and sat. The walls were loud and sometimes shook from the chaos outside, but inside her apartment was still with death and bitter with resentment. Part of her wished she could pack up and go, but the thought was light and didn't last long; she knew she would have to stay and handle her mother's affairs.