Beautiful Soul: An American Elegy Read Online Free

Her
mother driving away. The sun begins its long trek down the wall as she
lies there staring at the ceiling. Closes her eyes for just a
moment. She must have slept, her eyes open to
the sun striking full on a poster of Morrissey inscrutable and dead-sexy in his
chaste removal, his aerie. After a while she gets bored listening to the
neighborhood, the radio still mumbling downstairs (she never turns it off), her
bedroom stereo singing tinnily to itself at low volume every
body wants to rule the world . I do so have a fever, she
insists weakly. She reads the paper again with its dates and numbers, its
signatures, its blank spaces for missing names. Feels the
raised indentations of the notary’s seal. It’s thin paper, waxy,
inflammable. Why did you keep it? she asks her
silently. Keep me. Keep me twice. She considered the possibility that somewhere
sometime there had been another daughter with the same name, a secret sister
who’d died, and she, Ruth, is the hasty replacement, a bridge over the river of
grief. My sister Elsa, beyond the sea. She can see
her, just fifteen months older but infinite in her experience, wearing the
short tulle skirt that her mother had scorned to buy her, made-up, sitting at
the end of Ruth’s bed. More developed than Ruth, heavier breasts, hips wider,
lighting a joint with practiced aplomb, offering it to Ruth after taking her
own deep appreciative drag. Slightly hunched, sitting up in bed, searching the
shadows of her eyes. Where is my father? Give me my father. What is he like?
    Kind. Steady. Honest. The other says these words with her mouth twisted, as if she
intends the opposite. Mocking the question.
    This paper says you were never born.
    Elsa shrugs, blows smoke. Here I am.
    My papa is kind too. But sad.
    Our father isn’t sad, beyond the sea.
    He’s European?
    Of course.
    Is he French? English? He’s not German, is he?
Where does he live?
    Very far from here.
    Can I go to him?
    He’s in the dark, Elsa says mysteriously. She’s up now, walking around
Ruth’s room, looking at her things.
    You mean he’s dead?
    Elsa picks up a record album. No deader than I am.
    Is he good-looking?
    He’s not handsome if that’s what you mean.
    What I mean is…
    His face?
    Yes. What’s his face like?
    He eats too much. Sometimes he wears a beard.
    Does he know about us?
    If he did, he’d come looking for us.
    But you live with him, I thought.
    In the dark.
    She puts the record on, turns the volume up. Immediate
voices, harmonizing lonelily.
    So he is dead. Or he never existed, like you.
    I was never born, Elsa says. It’s not the same thing. Anyway, of course
Father exists. You’re here, aren’t you?
    I’m here.
    Well, that’s your problem.
    Singing along with the record, eyes shut. Hey
now, hey now, don’t dream it’s over. Hey now, hey now, when the world comes in.
    She didn’t hear him come in. A knock on the door. Elsa?
    Open the window, turn on the fan, get the smoke
out. One minute!
    Your mother says you’re sick, says Papa through the door.
    I’m much better now.
    Can I come in?
    Spritzing the room, spray droplets hanging in the sun. Yes.
    There is Papa, his face like a moon swelling over his gray turtleneck,
wincing slightly at the loudness of the music. He turns down the knob.
    I just wanted to ask if you were coming to dinner. It’s getting late.
    Yes of course I’m coming. I just need to get dressed.
    Awkward, hands in pockets, smiling. If you’re sick of course you should stay
in bed. I’ll bring you something. A doggie bag.
    Woof. No it’s all right, I’m coming. Do I have time for a shower?
    You must hurry.
    Papa, wait. Can you do me a favor?
    Of course.
    He is not a big man and she has shot up in the last year. It’s possible
by now that’s she’s more than an inch taller.
    Can you call me Ruth from now on? I don’t like Elsa.
    But that’s your name.
    It’s not. It’s really not.
    Wary, shrugging, unsurprised. What does he know?
    All right. Ruth.
    Thanks,