Angelology(12)

old, but everything in Paris seemed ancient compared to America, especially in Montparnasse and the

Latin Quarter. Of one thing, however, she was certain: Angela was searching for someone in the

masses of people. She dragged Evangeline through the crowd, squeezing her hand until it tingled,

signaling that she should hurry to keep up. Finally a middle-aged woman greeted them, stepping close

and kissing her mother on both cheeks. The woman had black hair and her mother’s lovely, chiseled

features, softened only slightly by age. Evangeline recognized her grandmother, Gabriella, but knew

that she was not allowed to speak to her. Angela and Gabriella had quarreled, as they often did, and

Evangeline knew not to put herself between them. Many years later, when both she and her

grandmother lived in the United States, Evangeline began to learn more about Gabriella. It was only

then that she came to understand her grandmother with some clarity.

Although so many years had passed, it still upset Evangeline that the one thing she recalled from the

walk with her mother with extreme precision struck her as bizarrely mundane—the gleaming leather

of her mother’s brown knee-high boots worn over a pair of faded blue jeans. For some reason

Evangeline could recall everything about the boots—the stacked heels, the zippers that tracked from

ankle to calf, the sound the soles made upon brick and stone—but she could not for the life of her

recall the shape of her mother’s hand, the curve of her shoulders. Through the haze of time, she had

lost the essence of her mother.

What tortured Evangeline perhaps most of all was that she had lost the ability to recall her

mother’s face. From photographs she knew that Angela had been tall and thin and fair, her hair often

tucked up in a cap in a way that Evangeline associated with gamine French actresses of the 1960s.

But in each picture, Angela’s face appeared so different that Evangeline had difficulty creating a

composite image. In profile her nose seemed sharp and her lips thin. At three-quarters her cheeks

were full and high, almost Asian. When looking directly at the camera, her big blue eyes

overwhelmed all else. It seemed to Evangeline that the structure of her mother’s face shifted with the

light and position of the camera, leaving nothing solid behind.

Evangeline’s father had not wished to discuss Angela after her death. If Evangeline inquired about

her, he would often simply turn away, as if he had not heard her speak. Other times, if he had opened

a bottle of wine with their dinner, he might relate a tantalizing piece of information about her—the

way Angela would spend all night at her laboratory and return to the apartment at sunrise. How she

would become so engrossed in her work that she would leave books and papers wherever they fell;

how she wished to live near the ocean, away from Paris; the happiness Evangeline had brought her. In

all the years they lived together, he had discouraged any substantial discussion of her. And yet when

Evangeline asked about her mother, something in his demeanor opened, as if welcoming a spirit that

brought pain and comfort in equal measure. Hating and loving the past, her father seemed both to

welcome Angela’s ghost and to persuade himself that it did not exist at all. Evangeline was certain

that he had never stopped loving her. He had never remarried and had few friends in the United

States. For many years he made a weekly call to Paris, talking for hours in a language that Evangeline

found so gorgeous and musical that she would sit in the kitchen and simply listen to his voice.

Her father had brought her to St. Rose when she was twelve, entrusting her to the women who

would become her mentors, encouraging her to believe in their world when, if she were honest with

herself, faith seemed like a precious but unattainable substance, one possessed by many but denied to

her. Over time Evangeline came to understand that her father valued obedience above faith, training

above creativity, and restraint above emotion. Over time she had fallen into routine and duty. Over

time she had lost sight of her mother, her grandmother, herself.

Her father visited her often at St. Rose. He sat with her in the community room, frozen upon the

couch, watching her with great interest, as if she were an experiment whose outcome he wished to

observe. Her father would stare intently into her face as if it were a telescope through which, if he

strained his vision, he might view the features of his beloved wife. But, in truth, Evangeline looked

nothing at all like her mother. Instead her features had captured the likeness of her grandmother,

Gabriella. It was a likeness her father chose to ignore. He had died three years before, but while he

had lived, he held steadfastly to the conviction that his only child resembled a ghost.