Part III: What Happens a Cappella? (Chapter 60)
Veronica is fat.
At least that’s how she appears
in my latest dream. I can’t believe it, but she’s a dark complected woman with
oily skin, rolls of fat, and gray hair poking from...what?
Da-Da-Dah-DAH, Dah, Da, da! You
can’t love me, I’m big and fat!
I can recall her rotund shape,
but not what she wears.
That’s what I hate about dreams
that are not really dreams, the gaps, the mysteries that persist.
Mommy?
Ever since the letter and
clippings all those years ago, Veronica has remained a persistent force in my
dream life, lurking in the dark edges of my psyche.
Nicole?
I can’t tell you how many times
I have been tempted to ask Nana about Veronica, why she has allowed such an
important person to slip so definitively through the family cracks.
Mommy? Please, please, don’t
leave me.
But I just can’t bring myself
to admit to her that I have snooped through her personal papers.
I need you, Mommy...
Still, I can’t help but think
how Veronica seems to be an ever-present ghostly figure, a shadowy presence in
this family, even if I’m the only one born after 1925 who knows of her
existence.
I once told Sheldon about
Veronica’s letter and clippings – I thought he might be able to offer a
plausible explanation – but he just shrugged it off.
“Probably had a falling out – happens
all the time,” he said.
I know it’s more than that;
otherwise, why would Veronica persist in trying to send a message through me, a
person she has never loved or even met?
Sometimes dreams aren’t dreams
at all.
Mommy? I’m so ashamed....
I never know what kind of
atmosphere Veronica will bring to me during my sleep: ecstasy or nightmare.
Always, though, I become Veronica.
In one dream, I, Veronica’s
slender version, soar as I hit the peak of loving with someone whose face I
cannot see. I awaken that morning in a glow, which lasts all day.
But last night’s encounter was
different, steeped in nightmare and fear, and I am still afraid.
Help me...
I awaken, bolting upright in
bed, to the sound of rain pelting the shingles, shadows crouching in the
corners, Sheldon gone. All day, I look over my shoulder, looking for a dagger
poised in the air, trying to remember what has terrified me so much, but I
can’t, not as long as I remain in the world of the awake.
A sudden sleepiness hits me
with a thud; I fall onto the sofa and will sleep to come.
The dream continues:
...I walk through a dark
hallway, past open doors, the quarter moon shining through each window,
following me. I fear how the moon always seems to know where I am.
...Is she your daughter?
I am walking, walking, walking
down a long hallway, a hallway so long that the end disappears into a
perspective point.
Yes, oh, dear God, is
she...?
I must reach the end, something
important awaits me there.
You’d better hurry!
She okay?
You’d better hurry!
I don’t feel like myself – yes,
I’m fat, but it’s a different kind of fat, most of which rests around my
mid-section.
Thin and bony. Fragile.
The rest of me is fat, too – I
can feel the mounds of fat sagging downward from my upper arms and legs – but
it’s the fat of my stomach that demands all my attention. I hold my stomach – it
feels as though my huge burden may drop to the floor and that I must do
everything to protect this precious mound from the concrete.
...deathly pale, almost white, no fat, skin sagging, chin jutting out, coming to a sharp point, cheekbones defined, shadows, black hair stringy. Streaked with gray. Respirator, IV drip, brain, heart monitors.
I am so tired, but the end is
still miles away. I don’t think I can make it to the end of my journey – I just
want to rest – but then I feel a presence behind me, someone who does not want
me to reach my destination.
I must run, run, run.
When will she wake up?
I don’t know
Will she wake up?
I don’t know...
I run for what seems like
infinity – then, suddenly, a mirror appears before me, and I almost crash into
it, but I stop short before impact.
I am afraid.
Light shimmers behind me.
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
...sitting on the horse.
Merry-go-round. Watching as all the colors blur by in a menagerie of spin-art,
and contemplating the folds of fat in my legs...
A dream within a vision: I must
come back and confront the person in the mirror, the ugliest human being I have
ever seen, who stares back at me. This can’t be me, this has to be someone
else, perhaps a devil who has stolen my soul, or maybe a witch?
...stick arms, wrinkled like
an old woman’s, knobby bones, fingers long and skinny. Nosferatu.
She is beyond fat – she’s a
mound of slick brown flesh, her black gown bursting at the seams and stretching
taut over her body – her rolls of fat, piled upon each other like a stack of
doughnuts.
...death camp survivor, a
thin covering of bluish skin stretched taut over ribs and protruding hipbones.
Her belly, its taut roundness
growing larger and larger and moving back and forth in a wave of frenetic
jerks, pushes through a tear in her gown, and, beginning at the belly button,
splits open, the rip moving both upward and downward, like a fissure in an
earthquake.
Crack? Oh, no, not my...
Blood, following the line of
the tear, spurts from the wound.
A crown of black hair pushes
through the widening wound.
...pubic hair nearly gone,
small breasts shriveled and sagging.
Her face, obscured in shadow,
is framed in a nun’s wimple, gray strands of hair poking out.
Oh, God, what has
happened...?
Veronica? Could this grossly obese woman of
my dreams really be her? What is she trying to tell me? That she had a baby out
of wedlock? What kind of birth was that, anyway? Who was the father?
This might explain her
connection with the home for unwed mothers, but whatever happened to the baby?
So many questions...
The physical details of such
visions from the grave are often metaphorical, reflecting more the dreamer’s
state of mind, not necessarily the information being passed on.
True. Life hasn’t been easy,
these past few months; Nicole’s troubles have taken their toll on all of us.
Still, I need answers, so I try
translating my vision to canvas, but all I end up with is globs of blacks,
grays, and yellows, punctuated by thin drips of red, reflecting more, I think,
the nightmare of the past few months as I try to make sense of my dreams and
present family difficulties.
Another failure, but, just the
same, I give it a title:
“Veronica LaRue:
Prelude to a Family Reunion.”
1989, 2’ x 4’, Oil.