The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (65 page)

Vi appears to be happy, at times exuberant, often vivacious. By contrast, Helen is more subdued. Perhaps because of her infirmities and her permanent residence in the nursing home, she sometimes indicates quite directly, though with a resigned smile, that she will not mind when the time comes for her to die, or even that she will welcome it. If Vi, on the other hand, mentions her own “passing,” it is in a humorous context.

Both rebound from difficulties, Vi often seeing the lighter side of a situation, Helen tending to accept the inevitable—“Well,” she will say with a shrug and a smile, “what can you do?”

Both display enthusiasm, though Vi’s is more vocal and louder than Helen’s. If Helen enjoys competitive sports on the radio, Vi enjoys a good meal, a good story, and even a new broom.

Both abide firmly by their long-established habits and are reluctant or unwilling to try a novel way of doing something, or even to hear about it.

Hope, by contrast, still as mentally sharp as she ever has been, appreciates any form of ingenuity, especially her own. She will report her bold ideas and her clever solutions to practical problems with a relish that she expects to be shared.

Both Helen and Vi will express disapproval of certain things, such as the manners, behavior, or work ethic of young people, but Helen will often, after a brief pause, gently append some remark indicating understanding, such as “They do their best,” or “They try,” whereas Vi will not soften her criticism. Helen does not like most of the changes that have occurred in her hometown over the years, such as the intrusion of a gaudy Chinese restaurant on Main Street or the closing of the old movie theater and the YMCA. Both marvel—disapprovingly—over excessive weight in others. Along with such disapproval comes a certain degree of self-approbation in both. Vi will boast outright, with a chuckle of pleasure, and tell stories to her credit, such as how she outwalked all the other church members on a recent trip to Jerusalem. Helen will not boast, but will occasionally imply, by her mild criticism, that her own way is a better way.

Both Helen and Vi give generously to their friends and family, materially and in time and attention. When Helen still lived at home, she kept boxes of cookies and pastries on a lower shelf of a dish cupboard in the kitchen; when family or friends were leaving, she would take a selection or a whole box out of the cupboard and urge it on the departing travelers. She does the same now in the nursing home. Visitors have brought her so many gift boxes of cookies, candies, and fruit that she has a large store of them in her bedside cabinet. “Would you like these ginger cookies?” she will ask. “Take this banana,” she will say.

Helen calls friends regularly to see how they are. She shows her concern and interest in the questions she asks her visitors. She remembers the names of all their family members and asks after these family members, too. When she still lived at home and had the use of her eyes, she would send a card on each birthday or anniversary. For a child, she would often enclose money. She would always telephone some hours after a visit to make sure her family had gotten home safely.

In those days, Helen’s form of giving was in service as well as in conversation. Besides her church activities, she would visit friends in the hospital and in nursing homes. When she still could, she would walk many blocks from her house to the rather grim nursing home where various women she knew, including her sister-in-law and her old English teacher, were living out their days. When she could no longer walk the distance, she found a ride with a friend. She often came as a visitor to the same nursing home where she is now a resident.

If a friend of Vi’s is in the hospital for an extended time, she will go over to her house and clean it for her. If a friend does not drive, Vi will drive her where she needs to go. When there is a death in the family of one of Vi’s friends, relatives often come from far away, usually the South, but also the Midwest and the West Coast, to attend the funeral; Vi thinks nothing of accommodating these travelers for several days, giving them beds and meals. She will report this activity and how busy she has been, commenting, “I don’t know my head from my heels!” or “I been jumpin’!”

In addition to her work for the church and for friends, Vi used to pay regular visits to inmates of a local prison. There she would, in particular, scold one young man whose family she knew: “Your mother died without ever seeing you any better than you are now,” she would tell him. “How could you do that to your mother? Aren’t you shamed?”

Helen is more of a listener, Vi more of a talker. Vi is quite willing to express strong opinions about how things ought to be and how people ought to behave, whereas Helen is less prescriptive or assertive. Sometimes, only, she will be gently insistent when the subject is one she feels strongly about, such as baptism.

Helen answers questions about herself in just a few words and reluctantly or hesitantly, only occasionally volunteering some memory she likes to recall. She does not talk at length about herself, but she will recall the past in brief increments, as, on an outing in the car: “We used to come down this hill in a wagon with Kate and Fanny pulling it.” Or she will comment wistfully on her present situation: “I haven’t been shopping in so long … I miss some of it.”

Vi and Helen are both likely to ask questions in a conversation, but sparingly, and Helen more than Vi. Helen asks for news and listens attentively. Her questions are general inquiries, such as “How are the cats?” or “Are you going to stay home for a while now?”

Vi tends to do most of the talking, but if the person she is talking to makes a remark, she will respond with “Is that so?” or “Is that right?” with mild surprise and sudden seriousness that is sometimes genuine and sometimes merely polite. Sometimes her questions are more specific, as in “Oh, is he moving?” or “How old is he now?” but her intention is never to draw the other out at any great length. Both Helen and Vi are reserved about probing very deeply into another person’s life or opinions, no doubt restrained by courtesy rather than lack of interest.

Hope, by contrast, has no reserve in this area, and asks detailed questions about even the most personal subjects. She enjoys fostering a degree of dependence in her family and friends and has no doubt about the powerful influence of her opinions and advice.

Vi often enjoys good times with her friends, and she likes to report the funny things that happen to them. She says, over and over: “Oh, I had some fun with them about that,” or “Oh, we laughed a lot.”

She is more interested in her own stories than those of the person she is talking to. Almost everything that has happened to her in her life can be turned into a funny story. The humor in these stories is mild, having to do with the foibles of human and animal behaviors and interactions. For instance, Vi’s best friend hated dogs. This woman told the woman she worked for at her cleaning job that she wouldn’t work there anymore if the employer got a dog. The employer thought Vi’s friend didn’t mean it, because she had worked for her so long, but she did mean it, and when the employer got a dog, Vi’s friend said, “You won’t be seeing any more of
me
!” and never returned. Vi’s facial expressions and intonations enliven the story as she tells it, and she laughs at the end.

However difficult the situation, for Vi there is always a funny side to it. Her husband was ill in the hospital; she had just come from her night job to see him; when she left him she would have to walk two or three miles through the darkened city to get home. But the doctor said something that made her laugh and it is part of a funny story she tells. Another time, her best friend collapsed on the living-room floor at three in the morning and Vi was summoned by the family. Although they were all terrified, Vi laughs as she describes how she was down on the floor trying to help her friend when the firemen came, and what a time they had getting her out of the way so they could do their work. “Oh, it was funny.” A patient in a nursing home where she worked refused to let Vi touch him because of her black skin; her sister, who also worked there, calmly advised her to ignore the insult and leave him alone, because some people were like that; but when the patient, one day, insulted Vi’s sister in the same terms, Vi said, her sister was so mad she was ready to “slug” him! Oh, it was funny.

Helen does not tell stories the way Vi does, but she relays news of family, friends, and the families of friends that make up a longer ongoing story, and this story is deeply absorbing to her. Her group of friends is shrinking year by year, as those her own age die, but a good number still visit her regularly in the nursing home, or send cards on her birthday and at Christmas, and their children, too, remain in touch.

Helen speaks Standard English that includes certain regional or ethnic expressions such as “come to find out,” meaning “then we found out,” and “Lebanon way,” meaning “in the vicinity of Lebanon”; to her, a window shade is a “curtain,” and sometimes, a magazine is a “book”; she will use slang expressions such as “a live wire” and sometimes include a colorful, incongruous metaphor in her conversation, as when she remarks, apropos of how many of her friends are gone, that she is “the last of the Mohicans—as they say.” She will punctuate her conversation with phrases or remarks expressive of resignation, such as “Well, anyway …” and “I’ve lived a pretty long life as it is …” She knows a little Swedish, from having grown up with Swedish-speaking parents and relatives. She says that just recently she suddenly recalled a Swedish prayer she had said as a child; after years in which she had not remembered it, it came back into her mind complete and intact.

Vi speaks a mixture of Standard English and her own variety of Standard Black English (sometimes she will say “he doesn’t” and sometimes “he don’t”) sprinkled with Southern idioms (“white as cotton,” “burying ground” for cemetery), old-time rural locutions (“grease” for hand lotion), and unusual, perhaps unique expressions acquired from her grandparents, particularly her grandmother, who may have made some of them up (“We had a bamboo time!”). In any single conversation, at least one or two rare, vivid phrases will occur. She is aware of how interesting these expressions are and enjoys using them. As a natural storyteller, she relishes the effect not only of the plots of her stories but also of the language she uses in telling them.

Although genetic inheritance surely plays a part in an individual’s health and longevity, it is not unreasonable to conclude that certain shared traits in Vi’s and Helen’s life histories, personalities, and habits have been conducive to their longevity and good health.

Their eating habits have probably been an important factor, although, since Helen’s diet has been fair but not optimal for many years, we may postulate that the fresh and unadulterated produce and animal protein of her early years on the farm established her good health and that the lifelong moderation and regularity of her meals thereafter were more important than what she actually ate. Alternatively, we may conclude that in Helen’s case, eating habits may have been less important than her vigorous and constant exercise and the other factors contributing to her well-being.

Vigorous physical exercise initiated in childhood would establish good development of heart, lungs, and other muscles early in life. Exercise outdoors, earlier in the twentieth century, when air quality was better than it is now, would have provided excellent oxygenation of Vi’s and Helen’s developing bodies.
Hope, too, was physically active as a child, racing her ponies, canoeing with the Girl Scouts, and, as shortstop and captain, leading her softball team to victory in high school.
The fact that their figures were slender reduced stress on their bones and inner organs, and made them more likely to remain active, which in turn kept them slender. There is no doubt that abstinence from smoking and drinking alcohol would be likely to reduce stress on their livers and lungs, and promote good oxygenation of their bodily tissues.

Regular lifelong physical exercise would also act to relieve psychological stress, which would help to explain the lack of tension in both Helen and Vi; and this lack of tension would surely also be conducive to good health and longevity. Physical exercise in general would be helpful, but especially helpful would be the particular exercise provided by dancing, since it is rhythmical, cardiovascular, communal, and emotionally expressive.

Although it is harder to measure the effects of pride in their appearance; enjoyment of life, especially friends, family, food, work, and leisure activities; contentment with, or acceptance of, their situations; curiosity about the news of their friends and family; uncomplaining, cheerful temperaments; optimism; and a capacity for enthusiasm and amazement, a positive outlook may be assumed to promote a sense of well-being, good health, and, in turn, a longer life.

The sense of humor that they share so generously with others, Vi’s ready laughter and Helen’s gentle smile, no doubt provides another form of release, both physical and emotional, along with a strengthening of their supportive community, while their storytelling, however abbreviated in Helen’s case, reinforces their firm sense of identity.

The loving, but strict, upbringing by their families of origin, with its strongly inculcated work ethic, would provide at least three major benefits: a steady emotional support, a reinforcement of identity, and training in the self-discipline that would encourage Vi and Helen to maintain good habits and find satisfaction in industry. Their close involvement with their families of origin would in turn encourage them to form close ties within their own created families and their circles of friends, these in turn providing a steady support for them. It may also be argued that the habit of orderliness that was taught them as children would be conducive to their creating and maintaining a healthy environment and thus to lessening the likelihood of their suffering a disabling or fatal accident.