Filaree P

Filaree P

 

“[One’s] life as commentary to abstruse unfinished poem.”

-         Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

Untitled

-                   An Autobiographical Poem, by Mara Vandermeer

I am the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the windowpane.

Like a caged sparrow I dreamed of flying oft,

Away from the ground with my wings aloft.

 5         Twice was I born to this harlequin land,

A vast stage lives march but ne’er understand.

First by her, my mother, who gave me life

And thought she can reclaim it with a knife.

She made an attempt when the spring was nigh,

10        Yet fate ordained, she left alone at nine.

            Ne’er was she seen again, ne’er roamed the earth,

            Ergo I was brought to her mother’s hearth.

            She knew not of the horrifying sooth,

            So I settled to sustain the untruth.

15        Twelve years came to pass when my poor granny

            Learned about my “wicked anomaly.”         

            I left; for a return she might have prayed.

            Her God was mighty, though ne’er to my aid.  

 

Then by you, dear C, of whom the mere sight

20        Can rekindle that flame and bring back light.

            I would not let it quench with tears I cried,

            My love, my fear has taught me well to hide.

            When my lips curved, I learned to leave my grief,

            As I saw, so did yours with great relief.

25        Your love is a tenderly woven net,

            Wrapped me tightly since the moment we met.

            But I left that day with the thunder crack,

            Telling you never to seek me aback.

            Life was hard and even more so was love,

30        Like how I failed that origami dove.

            I am the reason I cannot be near,

            For I know not how to be saved, my dear.

 

In no time I will be four and twenty,

Twelve years younger than Naomi who left me.

35        Life ever progresses but how strangely,

            There’s no way out of circularity.

            Under my mask I cannot breathe freely,

            But no one shall learn the reality.

            Perhaps I should have died that winter’s day,

40        Or fallen deep asleep, hitting the hay,

            So that I needed not at all to know,

            The trembling shadow or the knife dropped low.

 

I am the last breath of the waxwing slain

Lost eternally on December Lane.

45        To never be disturbed by this life’s pain,

I must seek beyond—the Asphodel plain

Commentaries

-                   auxiliary information for understanding Mara’s life, written by Cecilia von Gutenwillen

Line 1: “am”

An obvious reference to Nabokov’s Pale Fire. I’ve alluded to this reference with the epigraph I added. In Nabokov’s—or John Shade’s—original poem, “was” is used instead of “am.” From Mara’s manuscript, which I found in the drawer attached to her writing desk a few days after her unfortunate death (see later commentaries, please), one could tell that the alteration was made sometime after the line was written. The dash was extremely heavy, and the “am” was written in a slightly different font, as if it was written in hast. It looks like the way the tail of the last letter “n” was elongated, with its end pointing towards the bottom right corner of the page (no, the last line did not have a period, as you might have noticed). Presumably, Mara finished the draft and went back to change the “was.”

While I don’t understand her full intention in making this alteration, this reminds me of something. In our senior year in college, there was a corpse discovered near the abandoned railway station in the suburbs of our city. The station had been used by some teenagers as a hideout for a while, but it turned out later that the body of a long-missing girl was buried there. This was a bomb dropped on our peaceful city. Even though it happened far away from where we lived, we came to know much about it, thanks to the countless newspaper reports and television news.

One afternoon, I found Mara reading about this case. The front page of the newspaper in her hands had a giant photo of the crime scene, and in the corner of the picture lay the abandoned control room. Something caught Mara’s eyes, and she spent a good few minutes examining it. “What about it?” I sat down next to her on the couch, giving her a peeled apple—she couldn’t deal with knives; couldn’t even see them. She took a bite, but her eyes were still fixated on the newspaper. She pointed at the graffiti on the outside of the control room: “Look at this.”

I followed the movement of her finger. The graffiti was not very artistic and consisted of two simple lines written in black spray paint, with one of the words written over:

Chole was here.

Rachel was IS here.

I would’ve added a clipping, but I couldn’t find that article anywhere, not even online. My readers have to settle with my best effort to reproduce the graffiti with the fonts Microsoft Word can offer. Anyways, “Rachel” was the missing girl’s name. The “was” before her name was written over by the word “is” in blood red.

“The article said that it must have been the murderer who did this. The reporter interviewed the other kid, Chloe—[sigh] how cruel of him! —and that girl said they made the original graffiti but not the alteration.” I understood her point, “the murderer did this to mock the girls or the police. She’s here forever—is that what he wanted to convey?” Mara nodded. I felt coldness penetrating me all the way from my feet to my head. An unidentified murderer on the run—I hugged Mara tightly, my head on her shoulder. I could see that she was bothered—afraid. “I am with you,” I said to her and to myself, “don’t worry. We are safe.”

Alas, this is giving me so many flashbacks. That very quarter was when we took a course on Pale Fire together; it was also halfway through the second year we were together. By then, she had already finished her novella The Barbaric, which was her BA major project and helped with her admission to a well-renowned creative writing master program. It was the best of times; realistic considerations were far from our minds, and Mara and I—we were was always so cheerful. Gone were the golden old days! I cannot help but fall into the bottomless abyss of sorrow…

 

Line 1-2: “the waxwing slain”

            While they are still Nabokov’s words, I believe that the phrase also had particular significance for Mara. It is very likely that she was alluding to her mother’s death (see commentary on line 11).

 

Line 9: “She made an attempt”

            See lines 39-42. Mara had clearly waited until later to reveal what happened that night—the truth that has been haunting her, the truth that she had kept to herself for so long. I will comply with her will, despite my boiling rage towards the woman who gave birth to her. I’d better leave this line.

 

Line 11: “Ne’er was she seen again”

            Naomi Vandermeer (née Naomi Evans), Mara’s mother, died when Mara was ten because of an accident that took place when she was busying running away from her sin. We never really talked about this; Mara had always avoided touching upon it. I did, however, look into this a bit behind her back, mostly by searching for the Vandermeers and the Evans on the internet. In the digital archive of Fingerbone Tribune (the spooky name being the name of Mara’s hometown in Idaho), I found an article titled “Car Lost Control and Plunged into the Lake: Who’s Fault?” According to a Mr. Jimmy Boswell, the author of this article that passionately condemned the local government, the “horrifying accident” was caused directly by the Lake Lane being “ill-lit” and the remaining ice “not cleared away timely.” Mara clearly knew about this article or such arguments—see the next commentary.

 

Line 12-13: “Ergo I was brought to her mother’s hearth. / She knew not of the horrifying sooth”

Three lines were crossed out from the original draft in between these two:

            They said all kinds of things: the light, the ice,

Thinking the word “accident” could suffice.

I don’t need to hear it; I know the truth.

The first two lines are likely deleted as they interrupt the flow of the poem or the sequence of time. As to why the third line is taken out, it might be that Mara failed to find anything to rhyme with “truth” that does not either mean truth or have truth as a part of it. It’s a hard one indeed.

            My migraine returned. It first occurred when I came across this poem in Mara’s notebook in her grandmother’s house. My head hurt so much that I had to kneel on the floor, but her hostile grandmother kept urging that I should leave. I vaguely remember that some strange ideas were trying to take form out of the chaos in my mind… And there’s ringing in my ears now. I need to lie down and take a rest. I can’t continue thinking about Naomi today; the readers will learn more about her in the following commentaries.

 

Line 14: “sustain the untruth”

Never did Mara tell anyone about what had happened that night. Not her grandmother, clearly, and not even me. I was utterly shocked when I first came across these lines, not by the fact itself but that Mara had been holding such a horrifying secret to herself all the time. I can’t help but feel suffocated when it occurred to me that Mara even had to tell lies to cover up the fact.

The Naomi I learned from Mara’s fragmented accounts of childhood was loving and bright. Of course, whenever the topic of “parents” was brought up, Mara would simply say she didn’t remember anything. “I was too young to remember anything when she died. And he died even before I was born. She loved him deeply—which, I guess, explains my name.” Mara said, looking down at the floor—she had always held a particular aversion for anything Christian, mostly because of her stubbornly religious grandmother. Those words were what she told my mother at the dinner table, when I brought her back to my parents’ house the summer after our third year in college. My mother was so touched and saddened that she left her seat to give my girlfriend a long hug.

However, occasionally, when Mara was in high spirits and no one was around except me, she would reveal something from her early ages. “We had a few picnics in Robinson Park,” one time she said, leaning against the kitchen table and using spoons to put peanut butter onto her toast, “we would bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, together with home-made applesauce cakes and fruit punch.” And here she lowered her voice and stopped the spoon, “she could be really good at making them if she was in the mood… We would sing with the birds in the park, and she would kiss me and say she loved me.” The last words were barely audible.

Only in retrospect did I realize that she was constructing a past never existed to console herself. What pains my soul is my belated realization, in that I never really understood Mara despite our four years together. I failed her hard, and now I never have the chance to atone for my mistakes.

But I did find a number of poems she wrote! Her notebook lies in front of me on my desk right now. I shall compile them, make fair copies out of them. This one, the only autobiographical work she had ever written, will go to the front, with these commentaries so that the readers can know as much as possible about Mara.

Her life was unfortunately cut short, but she will live on.

 

Line 15: “poor granny”

I’ve had the honor to meet this lady twice (see commentaries on lines 16 and 17), and she could, in no way, qualify as a “poor granny.” She is a control freak, a domestic tyrant. Mara could be very sarcastic at times—how much do I love that side of her!

 

Line 16: “‘wicked anomaly’”

            Mara’s homosexuality. I am this certain because the phrase is a direct quote from her grandmother, who, upon learning that Mara was dating me, became infuriated and almost disowned Mara. I was there to witness the whole event.

It was a day before Christmas Eve after our senior autumn. Mara’s grandmother stepped in as Mara’s legal guardian after Naomi’s death, but Mara was never actually close with her. She sent Mara, that free-spirited Mara, to a suffocating Christian all-girls boarding school for the whole of her life before college. Nonetheless, Mara always had the hope that her deeply religious and conservative grandmother could give us her blessing. The hope was either sparkled or enhanced by the recently mentioned visit she paid to my family. So, that Christmas, she decided to take me back to her grandmother’s house.

During our flight there, Mara was anxious but hopeful. “She could appear scary,” Mara said, to me and to herself, “but she is nice. I mean, she’s always serious, that’s true, but I guess that’s because… Well, she cares about me, that I could tell. Don’t worry too much! She’d, well, maybe, not be fond of you, but at least she would… allow you to have Christmas dinner with us.” She forced herself to put up a smile. If only I could foresee the outcome!

 The old lady received us without any specific attitude or facial expression; she was cold as the frozen stillicides. But after five minutes, when she learned that we were not just friends, she transformed into a devouring flame of hell, a devil, a nightmare. We didn’t even have enough time to take our coats off before she started roaring at Mara—in her graceful way, of course.

“You! If you have any sense of dignity and decency, leave this young woman. She has a bright life ahead of her, and so do you! Your wicked, wicked anomaly—how, in God’s name! I didn’t send you to college to degenerate and rot like this!”

Mara stood there, frozen, utterly shaken, one hand still holding mine. Her eyes, which were filled with sparks of hope just a few seconds ago, widened in shock.

“Don’t you try to fool me with the waterworks, missy. I raised you—I know you inside out. You are far too weak for defiance, so save it!”

Mara’s tears accumulated in the corners of her eyes, and finally the surface tension broke, and the teardrops shattered when they hit the floor. They were like knives stabbing into my heart. If that woman had not been Mara’s grandmother, I would’ve hit her in the face. I exploded. “How can you treat her like that! She only needs to listen to herself! She is an adult now—there’s no need of a legal guardian anymore!” I didn’t let her say another word; I dragged Mara outside. The lady was still shouting behind us; her voice was shaky but penetrated through the window screen. “You—! If you leave like this today, don’t you ever want to come back, unless you have married a decent man!”

            Mara didn’t say a word on our way to a nearby hotel. I could hear her repressed sobbing. When we got into the hotel room, she finally cried out loud. I held her tightly in my arms and cried with her: “I’m here, Mar. I’m here.” I was deeply pained. I never, never wanted to see Mara like this again. I swore that I would do everything in my power to put smiles back onto her face.

            And yet she returned to that jail…

 

Line 18: “Her God was mighty”

            A week after Mara’s death, I paid a visit to the despicable old lady again. She aged a lot since our last encounter, and that was merely—almost exactly—two years ago. I guess Mara’s death finally evoked some remorse in her. I knocked on her door. When she recognized me—that took no more than a split second—she shut the door in my face. I knocked and knocked, and I came back for another two days. Finally, she decided that she’d be kind enough to lend her ears to me for a few seconds.

“They must have contacted you to retrieve her stuff. I could not find her apartment and would also need your permission,” I paused for a moment, “to enter. I just want a memento.” She looked at me with impatience, condescension, and a tint of detest. “What makes you think that she would leave me if she’s on her own? She was here for the past six months.”

When I understood the meaning of those words, I, in shock, stared at her with anger and in disbelief. How on earth— “Save your words, young lady. I am too tired to argue with you this time. I could’ve called the police; after all, you are the source of her corruption—” she raised a hand to cut my protest and pursed her lips, and then she continued, clearly having to force herself to speak these words, “—but I have also never seen her so happy and excited as she was that time, when I opened the door, and she standing there on the porch.” She stared at me as if she wanted to kill me with her glare. Eventually, she stepped aside, unwillingly letting me enter the house. “Her room is upstairs. I have not touched anything.”

I thanked her coldly and walked past her, trying my best not to roll my eyes when she could still see my face. “You only have ten minutes. And don’t let me know what you take.” From the stairs, I heard her close the door, walk slowly back to the couches, and sit down.

           

Line 19: “dear C”

This is, obviously, me. I cannot believe that there is a need for clarification; but alas, someone challenged my love for Mara and hers for me the other day, so I might as well make it crystal clear. Indeed, we have had some quarrels, but neither she nor I ever stopped loving each other. I’ve always known it, and now I got the written proof.

Mara had only called me by Cecilia for a handful of moments, mostly to tease my night-blindness with her loving, mischievous tone: “Your name—how fitting!” As everyone else calls me Cecilia, she wanted something that only she would and could use. She picked “C.” “A single ‘C’ is special enough. This way, whenever I see the letter, I would think of you.” I am weeping again, thinking of Mara’s expression when she said this.

Back to the topic that someone dared to challenge our love; I must include this, so that the readers can understand why I did not end up compiling a poetry collection for Mara as I said previously. I will kindly dub the offender Irene; the codename is not chosen for any specific reason, other than that I do not know any Irene in my life, and the name was the first to pop up.

Irene is a friend of Mara’s, so an acquaintance of mine. She was a year above us in college – a creative writing major like Mara – and she works at a publishing house after graduating. She helped Mara publish her revised The Barbaric a year ago. So, when I came across Mara’s notebook among her belongings, I had the idea of contacting Irene to help me publish Mara’s poems as a poetry collection. I emailed Irene about my plan and attached the photocopies of those pretty rough drafts. I told her I could do all the editing works. Several days after, Irene called back.

“I think… I should tell you this. Almost all those poems—she had sent me, well, beforehand. Said they were at my disposal, and I could take out the ones I don’t think fit. Thirty-six of them, included some of her earlier works I guess. So, yeah, everything is there…” She sounded stressed and spoke more slowly than usual, as if she had to think hard before saying every word, “… except for one. The waxwing one, written in old-fashioned couplets.”

I was surprised and perplexed. Indeed, I was a bit envious and angry; I thought I could be the one publishing them for her. But, well, my original plan was to have Irene do the publishing anyway, so happy coincidence. “She might have made a mistake or forgotten about this one. Or maybe she didn’t have enough time to refine or finish it—it’s fine. I can edit it, and you can add it to the collection.”

Irene paused for a while. “You don’t understand,” she sighed and said, “I… don’t think Mara wanted this to be published. All the other poems, they were well corrected, unlike the drafts you sent me. There’s no way she didn’t have enough time. She… I think she had exactly the amounted of time she needed.”

I don’t understand? “What do you mean I don’t understand? This poem was addressed to me—me particularly! That’s why she left it to the last to polish, because she needed extra time! Perhaps she wanted this to be an explanation or apology to me—that’s why! This is her only autobiographical work, and she might have wanted to expand it, making it a work on its own; all these are possible. It’s pretty much done, judging by the standard of a short poem—there’d be no problem to put it in there. Why not?” I shouted so loud that my throat hurt, but it did divert my attention away from my headache.

An even longer silence. “I won’t do it,” she finally said, just when I was about to ask if she was still there, “If she wanted this to be known, I mean seen, she would’ve given it to me. Cecilia, listen. She’s gone already. Just leave her in peace. Can’t you see that’s what she wanted—”

I hang up on her and threw the phone away. Irene—what did she know! Mara, my Mara! I should’ve been there by your side, so that you would not be on your own that snowy night, on that bridge, so that you would not… I blame myself for everything, truly. I should have come for you; I should have put in more effort to seek you out! To think that you could still be alive…

But you still are, and still can be! This poem, your final work, is you. That must have been your intention: to write an autobiographical epic, like Shade—you were so fascinated by the first three cantos of Pale Fire. Luckily, you have me, not Kinbote, and I’ll publish it for you. You will continue living in it and my commentaries—you’ll be the sparrow flying under this world’s bright sky, my love, not a nameless, empty shadow…

Later, after I dried my tears, I found that Irene sent me a text message. “It’s not that because you love her, everything you do is right and will only do her good. Sometimes it’s the exact opposite, Cecilia. Loving someone and harming someone are not mutually exclusive. Read the poem again, please. You’ll see what I mean.” My head hurt too much for me to think, but it’s not like I actually cared to decipher her words. I blocked her number.

 

Line 27-28: “But I left…”

            We’ve finally come to this. Unwilling as I am to face it, I have the obligation to recount the truth. Alas, I must finish the quest I myself embarked! Mara and I, we never actually “broke up.” She simply left and disappeared from my life.

After we graduated from college, Mara’s creativity seemed to be going downhill. She was constantly stressed out by her Master’s Program, and finally it came to the point that not even her love for writing could make her stay. I was, at the time, enrolled in a graduate program in the same city and, honestly, faced more stress than she did. The publication of The Barbaric eased our life a bit, and she got a full scholarship to cover her tuition and life expenses, but mostly we relied on my stipend. It was a hard time—but I always thought we could make it through.

Anyways. Mara first took a leave of absence from her program; she did not talk about it with me beforehand, not at all. I brought it up a few times afterward, but she always said she just needed some time. I respected her decision and thought that she’d be her old self soon. However, after a few months, she still showed no intention to go back to the program. Later, I found out that she had dropped out of it already.

That day in April, while it was raining heavily outside, we broke into arguments—oh, who am I trying to deceive with this word! She didn’t argue back; I went off at her. Forgive me for the lack of details, but recalling it is too painful. To think that I failed her like that…

I didn’t say anything terrible; I just tried to convince her to make plans for her life.  I didn’t even bring up the money issue because, if worse came to worse, my parents would certainly help us out. But I genuinely thought that she should not let time waste away like that; where did her optimism go?  “At least give me a good reason,” I begged her, “we have never really talked about this seriously—why did you have to give up? Why have you become so gloomy? Every time I ask, you say that you need more time—but how long exactly? You need to think about the future, and us, Mar. There’s nothing you can’t overcome, nothing we can’t overcome together! You’ve spent so long just sitting there; you are not even trying!” I went on and on, trying all I could to make her talk. I did not mean to give her pressure, but I got carried away, and my words hurt her. “What are you thinking, Mar? I can’t read minds!” And all I had was silence.  

At last, I stopped talking. “I don’t have forever to wait for your response, Mara.” I sighed, feeling deeply frustrated, “You were not like this before. But I know that you can get back to your old self in no time if you give it a chance.” I didn’t know what to do; I needed fresh air.

My hand was almost on the doorknob when I finally heard some sounds coming from Mara. I could see tears in her eyes, but she was not sobbing; no, she was laughing. With the thunders outside, that soft, shaky laughter somehow sounded like sheer madness. “I’ve always known,” she stood up, walked slowly but steadily towards me, and looked straight into my eyes, “I’m a burden.”

That look on her face—that expression was so familiar. It reminded me of something, something unsettling. I got absorbed into my memory, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen it. My mind was empty. I didn’t know what to say; I felt scared, but not because of Mara—never. It was because of something vague; something deeper and darker. She looked into my eyes, with despair and… detest. “Don’t bother to come after,” she whispered. It seemed that she wanted to say something else; but she looked away instead, turned the doorknob, and walked past me. The door was slammed behind her.

That was the last time I saw Mara. I spent weeks looking for her, but she vanished into thin air. I had to wait until eight months later, until I saw the news on television, to know what had become of her. But where was she before she went back to her grandmother, that remained forever a mystery. Where were you, Mar? Was there anyone by your side to console you when I, the greatest bastard, hurt you so deeply?

            My shirt is soaked in my tears now. Even if the Pacific Ocean were a sea of ink, it would still not be enough for writing out all my remorse. I will spare you, my readers, from it; the pains I shall keep to myself.

 

Line 30: “origami dove”

            Mara tried to make me an origami dove for the anniversary of our first date. She worked on it for at least three days, but not a single one, out of all her fifteen attempts, could meet her standards (all of them were fabulous, if you ask me). She threw them away and bought me a cake that day instead. The cake has been long gone, but one of those doves made a nest on my shelf and stayed to this day.

 

Line 39-42: “Perhaps I should have died…”

            What kind of mother would try to kill their own daughters, while they are—appear to be—asleep? Why, Naomi, why? Why did you want to get rid of Mara? Why would you try to inflict pains and sufferings onto her? She was only ten! You might think that you have atoned for your sin with your death—no! It only caused Mara more misery. But I admit, I am glad that you died. Your “love,” lady—even if it prevented you from committing horrendous deed—does not deserve this sacred name!

 

Line 43: “December Lane”

It is now clear that what these lines, though taken from Nabokov, mean for Mara personally. The waxwing, either “lost eternally” or “slain by the false azure,” are both alluding to Naomi, who died on a cold December night while running away from her crime scene, while her car fell from the highway lane into the lake beneath. My poor Mara—she alone had seen hell, but everyone believed that Naomi was innocent, and her death was just another unfortunate accident… My head hurts. Perhaps it’s too hard for me to control my rage or sorrow at this point.

The punishment for murder is death, Naomi. You really thought you could escape it by leaving Mara and everything behind?

 

Line 45: “Asphodel plain”

In Greek mythology, the asphodel plain is the eternal place of dwelling for us “ordinary” folks, and it’s a gloomy, depressing place. Mara had a particular fascination for Greek mythology since she was in high school—for all I know, Greek mythology was established as an opposition to the Christian belief by some philosophers, and that appealed to her greatly.

Here we are. The time has come to talk about the elephant in the room. My dear Mara, she is on her way to the asphodel plain now. The man on the television said that it was a freezing evening, almost the coldest day of the year; all I could think of was that the canal must have been even colder. I could now relate to Mr. Jimmy Boswell a bit, the man who viewed it as his sole mission to give “justice” back to Mara’s family. I, too, condemn the wind, the snow, the ice, the bridge that had to be there on your way home… I even condemn the sun, the moon, and the shortened days! The driver called the police, but I would never forgive him either, because it was his car lights that shocked you. I heard that if the water is cold enough, it freezes the body instantly. Does that mean it was easier for you? You were afraid of death; you said it, and I remember. Don’t worry, my dear; I will not forget you, and they will not, either, even those who want to shun away from their guilt and erase you from their memory. This work, and the endless sufferings of their conscience, will be the reminder of your existence. “As long as one is not forgotten”; do you remember?

I have already taken three painkillers, but the migraine won’t go away. It seems that, dear readers, it’s high time I stopped. I will wake up tomorrow to edit my commentaries. I have much more to write about, and I will keep writing about Mara, but this work yells for an end. However, promise me, dear readers, do not abandon this work! Come back to it, revisit it, or go back to reread Mara’s poem right now. It’s fine to leave me, leave my commentaries—but don’t leave Mara. Hope you can see, in your minds and in front of your eyes, the bright, lovable, and angelic being. Go read The Barbaric, go read her poetry collection—Irene had better have it published soon enough, otherwise I will have to pay her a visit in person.

Remember Mara, promise me. Don’t let her die again. You can count on these words for my credibility: I would never forgive myself if my commentaries have killed her again. I am no Kinbote, as you should have been able to tell.