“The Wasteland” by Iris Milton

The Wasteland

“Did I tell you about the boy?" my mother asks.
I have just arrived. My luggage stands unopened at the entrance, my passport is still in the back pocket of my jeans. I reach for it, brush my fingers against its edges. Like an amulet. Granted by Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance . . .
I shake my head.
"No."
No, I don't know.
No, I don't want to know.
But my mother is going to tell me anyway. Every time I come back home — only once a year, for Christmas — my mother tells me about someone falling sick.
"He has grown into such a beautiful boy," she says. "Tall and beautiful. Not like his father and brother — they look like goblins. They have ruined him. Two years he’s been holed up in his room, blinds closed, refusing to see anyone. He even eats alone in the dark up there."
My mother shudders. She has strict rules regarding family meals — everyone has to be around the table before anyone can start to eat — and an aversion to darkness in the house. For her, the thought of a meal in the dark is particularly horrifying.
"How to blame him?" she scoffs. Her tale of woe has been released, and no expression on my face will stop it.
"His father vexed him, always pushing him in a corner . . . ”
I start to tune out.
" . . . always telling him he was a good-for-nothing."
I consider in which order to unpack my luggage.
" . . . since he was a little boy."
I look up at that remark; it is tinged with anger. About my attention? About the boy?
"But after all, his father is sick, too." Her voice lowers again, not angry with me then. She continues.
"Just the other day, he took one too many pills and . . . "
"Mum," I attempt to break into the conversational train. "How do you know — all this?" I gesture in the air.
"His wife told me. You know how people are with me. "
I know. Everyone talks to my mother. It's uncanny. Those whose habit is to suffer in silence flock to tell her their stories. Maybe it's something about her face. The clear, open smile or the gentle but defined curve of her eyebrows, framed by the great cloud of curls, never tamed.
"Your grandmother was just the same," she adds.
I stop thinking about my luggage. Could this, this trait, run in families? Could some of it, for whatever the reason, have rubbed off on me?
After all, people tend to ask me for directions when they can't find their way. Strangers break out in smiles if my gaze floats near them on the Tube, always by mistake on my part. Would they tell me of their pain, if I gave them enough time? If I wasn't so quick on my feet, always on the move? If, like my mother, I was stuck between these four walls when a neighbour decides to “drop in,” without a way to escape their confidences?
"Talking about him made me think of another," my mother continues, settling down on the hallway steps. I’m still standing, but she’s caught me. The story has to end before we can move past the threshold. "I used to take English classes from this lady living a few blocks down, remember?"
"Yes. Did you make any progress?" I hope the question will change the direction of the conversation, move us beyond the landing, but she continues undeterred. "I went to her house for the lessons. She has two kids. One loves Caribbean dances, I don't know if he is any good, but he puts such a life into it. ‘Sei fantastico,’ I told him. Yes, fantastico . . ." She glances up at me. I lean against the wall near my suitcase.
She knows she has me. I wait for my mother to continue.
"Then there is the other one. I said 'Piacere,' and, instead of shaking my hand, he hugged me."
"And?" I at least try to hurry it along.
"Do you remember Kate?" Curveball.
"Kate?"
"Yes, Kate, the daughter of Maria . . . "
"Oh yes, of course." I catch up.
Kate was another sick one pulled into my mother's orbit. Straw hair, grey skin, deep dark bags under her eyes, slowly starving herself. On a sunny, summer day, my mother managed to feed her some apricots. No one knew how she did it. My mother protests that she did nothing at all, that she just sat at the table and started eating apricots until Kate asked for one.
"Kate, in comparison, had meat on her. I could feel every bone in his body. Pelle e ossa." She shakes her head. "I felt such pity." But of course, she does not say "pity", she says "pietà" and all I can think about are the hundreds of Mother Marys in our country, holding the corpses of their holy children above kitchen shelves and living room mantle pieces.
Canvas skin, lapis lazuli mantle.
Golden crowns, marble skin.
Shaking their heads, whispering: "Mi ha fatto così pietà."
"The next time I went to my lesson," my mother continues, "I brought him a small plant, told him to take care of it. It was meant to be a — meta messaggio. Next time, he wasn't there anymore. He had been hospitalized. Did you know that when the body is in that state, even reading could kill you? Apparently the brain uses too much energy . . ." She pauses then adds: "His mother told me everything. Instead of teaching me English."
I take the chance of her pausing to try another direction. "How are you, mum?"
She shrugs her shoulders, eyes fixed on the shimmering lights of the Christmas tree. "Tutto bene, come al solito."
All good, as usual. In the language of my mother, that means that she is in pain, but she believes that there are people who are worse off, so she will not complain about it. After all, only her body is sick, so all is well. Here, in the great wasteland of this country, it's the mind that kills you.
For a long time, I did not push against the lie. But I have learned.
"Are you?"
My mother gives a small, embarrassed smile. She is good at lying, but not good at being caught.
"You know, va ad alti e bassi, some days are better and some are worse. But today I am happy, because you came for Christmas.”
"Of course, Mum." I come every Christmas. During university, I stayed the whole winter break. Then a month became three weeks, then two . . . Now, after seven days, I itch to board my plane home.
"But how are you?" my mother shoots back.
"I am well," I say, and it's the truth.
My mother smiles — an almost too happy smile, with a smudge of pride at the corners of her mouth.
"You finally got it," she says, eyes glittering.
"I did."
"Can I see it?"
I stand upright again and put my hand in my pocket, hesitating, just for a split second. Then I fish my passport out and hand it to her.
She picks it up with reverence and stares at the dark blue cover for a long moment.
"When are you coming back?" my mother asks quietly, without raising her eyes. Her fingertips trace the gold coat of arms and lettering, wistfully, achingly. I know she is not talking about Easter or about her birthday in late summer or about next Christmas.
"Never, Mum," I reply. "I am never coming back."
My mother holds my passport in her two hands. Like an amulet. Granted by Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer . . . immunity from the sickness of the great wasteland of this country.
"Good. Very well!" she exclaims. Then she stands up, with her slow, pained movements and hands me back my passport. "But you will enjoy lasagne all the same, won’t you?" She turns and heads for the kitchen. I follow her. A few steps ahead, she announces to the tiny weeping Madonna above the stove as much as to me, "Help me prepare the béchamel sauce? . . . And did I tell you about the girl down the road?"

Iris milton

Iris Milton is the pen-name of a writer born in Italy, who has been living in London for the last decade. She has a background in Classics and holds degrees from the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies.

Photo Credit: Staff