Very Cold People: A Novel by Sarah Manguso (2022)
Very Cold People: A Novel by Sarah Manguso (2022)
Chapter 7
We all liked him, my friends and I, all the tough girls from our side of the school zone, and one day someone said that Will liked me. A dream come true, a girl meanly added. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t look at Will anymore, so I didn’t, not even one day in the hallway, in the same crowd, when he looked at me and seemed to want to speak. I stared straight ahead. I couldn’t admit to the power of my desire. I had to figure it out in private first, before I could uncover it in public, but I never figured it out. I had no character to speak of, no loyalty to anything. I made fun of anyone, given the chance, just as my parents did at home, talking about me, talking about their closest friends (78).
One day my mother asked me what color my eyes were. The bank teller had just said something about a cat’s green eyes, and my mother had immediately said that her eyes were green, too. A cat’s eyes were green; her eyes were green; what color were my eyes? If they were green, too, then the teller might congratulate my mother on having guessed right. She had no idea that a normal person would find it insane for a mother to ask her only child what color her eyes were.
But I sensed that she was also trying to see what it would be like to be that unattached to me. She was practicing, to see what it would be like to hurt me, a lot, to show how much she loved me. She had to be careful. If anyone found out that she loved me, we’d both be in trouble.
For a while I’d have to suffer, out in the open, the only girl without extra sneakers for gym class, but it was only because my mother’s love was so much greater than all the other loves. It was that much more dangerous, so she had to love me in secret, absolutely unobserved by anyone, especially me (81).
Chapter 9
Especially in the morning, I couldn’t swallow food. If I were eating lunch or supper with my parents, especially at one of the bar-and-grills they liked, I could manage to eat a bite if I lifted a piece of fried potato off one of their plates. I couldn’t eat from my own plate; a choking sensation would prevent it. As soon as my mother saw that I was eating, she moved some of her food to my plate, but as soon as it landed there it became inedible.
I think my bully chose me because he knew I wouldn’t resist. Ryan O’Reilly spoke over the French teacher and said, She sent Nick a holly-gram but he didn’t send her one! and the French teacher just ignored it. I pretended to ignore it, too, but Ryan knew that I was being corroded by shame, that I was becoming even more vulnerable, skinless.
I don’t remember what else he said, but I remember it lasting minutes every class period, and that no one helped me. No one told him to shut up. His mouth hung open like a hot, stupid dog’s. By then I was a nervous wreck, poorly nourished because I had such a hard time with food. It’s just nerves, my mother said, meaning that it wasn’t a medical problem, wasn’t a real problem, was just something I’d have to endure, just as it was, just as I was.
I thought I’d die of it, but I didn’t die. You can learn to eat violence. There is pleasure in not resisting. I dedicated myself to teaching my bully just how much a person can consume (94).
Chapter 10
My life felt unreal and I felt half-invested. I felt indistinct, like someone else’s dream (119).
Chapter 11
Weak men who fall into positions of power are dying to give it up to anyone who will take it. The poor player would throw the ball to someone on the other team just to be rid of the worry of what to do with it, of the dread that he would have to be a man of action for a moment (128).
Chapter 17
We drove home and I changed back into regular clothes and sat down on the sofa to read. As soon as I opened my book, the phone rang and I picked it up on the second ring and said hello. This is Vera Goldberg. It was my mother’s aunt Vera, Uncle Irving’s widow.
My mother’s paternal uncle Irving was the first person I ever knew who died. He had lived in an apartment with his wife, Vera, and had a whole room for his model trains. Vera collected dolls and displayed them in the living room on shelves. One shelf held framed black-and-white photographs of children sitting in rows and wearing old-fashioned home-sewn clothes, for Aunt Vera and Uncle Irving had grown up in Boston together. They had no children and lived together for decades before getting married. Uncle Irving’s vice was cherry soda, and Aunt Vera’s was cigarettes. She had a movie star’s sultry voice.
The last time I’d seen Vera, Uncle Irving had just died of diabetes, and my mother and I had made our first and only condolence call. Vera had sat in a chair, perpendicular to us, looking straight ahead, while my mother told Vera all the things that she and I had done that week. Vera seemed to vibrate with a pain that my mother didn’t acknowledge. Occasionally Vera said something about Irving to which my mother made no response. Vera was so angry, she seemed to shrivel. My mother and I sat there, in that apartment of grief, held and protected by our separate reality.
On the phone Vera sounded both shrill and hoarse, as if she’d just been shouting or crying. She spoke fast, as if she’d practiced. I am sorry for your loss but I wanted you to know that I think that you are very cold, cold people!
I said I know, but she had already hung up (174).
Chapter 18
These men thought we were stupid. They couldn’t imagine what to say to us unless they were teaching us something. We were inert targets at which to aim their certainty, and even if we knew they were wrong, the men couldn’t even imagine not being right. So many of them would never know what was actually true. And that’s the secret, useless power we had over them (186).
My life didn’t feel as if it had a wound, or a missing piece, or any of the metaphors we used in group therapy with Dr. Specter. None of those metaphors matched my feeling. It wasn’t even a feeling. It just felt like waiting.
Decades passed, and then one day, some years into raising a child of my own-who has grown up knowing ordinary love and whose life is unremarkable-without even trying, without any expectation, without even really noticing what had happened, I saw that I’d stopped waiting (191).
Chapter 7
We all liked him, my friends and I, all the tough girls from our side of the school zone, and one day someone said that Will liked me. A dream come true, a girl meanly added. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t look at Will anymore, so I didn’t, not even one day in the hallway, in the same crowd, when he looked at me and seemed to want to speak. I stared straight ahead. I couldn’t admit to the power of my desire. I had to figure it out in private first, before I could uncover it in public, but I never figured it out. I had no character to speak of, no loyalty to anything. I made fun of anyone, given the chance, just as my parents did at home, talking about me, talking about their closest friends (78).
One day my mother asked me what color my eyes were. The bank teller had just said something about a cat’s green eyes, and my mother had immediately said that her eyes were green, too. A cat’s eyes were green; her eyes were green; what color were my eyes? If they were green, too, then the teller might congratulate my mother on having guessed right. She had no idea that a normal person would find it insane for a mother to ask her only child what color her eyes were.
But I sensed that she was also trying to see what it would be like to be that unattached to me. She was practicing, to see what it would be like to hurt me, a lot, to show how much she loved me. She had to be careful. If anyone found out that she loved me, we’d both be in trouble.
For a while I’d have to suffer, out in the open, the only girl without extra sneakers for gym class, but it was only because my mother’s love was so much greater than all the other loves. It was that much more dangerous, so she had to love me in secret, absolutely unobserved by anyone, especially me (81).
Chapter 9
Especially in the morning, I couldn’t swallow food. If I were eating lunch or supper with my parents, especially at one of the bar-and-grills they liked, I could manage to eat a bite if I lifted a piece of fried potato off one of their plates. I couldn’t eat from my own plate; a choking sensation would prevent it. As soon as my mother saw that I was eating, she moved some of her food to my plate, but as soon as it landed there it became inedible.
I think my bully chose me because he knew I wouldn’t resist. Ryan O’Reilly spoke over the French teacher and said, She sent Nick a holly-gram but he didn’t send her one! and the French teacher just ignored it. I pretended to ignore it, too, but Ryan knew that I was being corroded by shame, that I was becoming even more vulnerable, skinless.
I don’t remember what else he said, but I remember it lasting minutes every class period, and that no one helped me. No one told him to shut up. His mouth hung open like a hot, stupid dog’s. By then I was a nervous wreck, poorly nourished because I had such a hard time with food. It’s just nerves, my mother said, meaning that it wasn’t a medical problem, wasn’t a real problem, was just something I’d have to endure, just as it was, just as I was.
I thought I’d die of it, but I didn’t die. You can learn to eat violence. There is pleasure in not resisting. I dedicated myself to teaching my bully just how much a person can consume (94).
Chapter 10
My life felt unreal and I felt half-invested. I felt indistinct, like someone else’s dream (119).
Chapter 11
Weak men who fall into positions of power are dying to give it up to anyone who will take it. The poor player would throw the ball to someone on the other team just to be rid of the worry of what to do with it, of the dread that he would have to be a man of action for a moment (128).
Chapter 17
We drove home and I changed back into regular clothes and sat down on the sofa to read. As soon as I opened my book, the phone rang and I picked it up on the second ring and said hello. This is Vera Goldberg. It was my mother’s aunt Vera, Uncle Irving’s widow.
My mother’s paternal uncle Irving was the first person I ever knew who died. He had lived in an apartment with his wife, Vera, and had a whole room for his model trains. Vera collected dolls and displayed them in the living room on shelves. One shelf held framed black-and-white photographs of children sitting in rows and wearing old-fashioned home-sewn clothes, for Aunt Vera and Uncle Irving had grown up in Boston together. They had no children and lived together for decades before getting married. Uncle Irving’s vice was cherry soda, and Aunt Vera’s was cigarettes. She had a movie star’s sultry voice.
The last time I’d seen Vera, Uncle Irving had just died of diabetes, and my mother and I had made our first and only condolence call. Vera had sat in a chair, perpendicular to us, looking straight ahead, while my mother told Vera all the things that she and I had done that week. Vera seemed to vibrate with a pain that my mother didn’t acknowledge. Occasionally Vera said something about Irving to which my mother made no response. Vera was so angry, she seemed to shrivel. My mother and I sat there, in that apartment of grief, held and protected by our separate reality.
On the phone Vera sounded both shrill and hoarse, as if she’d just been shouting or crying. She spoke fast, as if she’d practiced. I am sorry for your loss but I wanted you to know that I think that you are very cold, cold people!
I said I know, but she had already hung up (174).
Chapter 18
These men thought we were stupid. They couldn’t imagine what to say to us unless they were teaching us something. We were inert targets at which to aim their certainty, and even if we knew they were wrong, the men couldn’t even imagine not being right. So many of them would never know what was actually true. And that’s the secret, useless power we had over them (186).
My life didn’t feel as if it had a wound, or a missing piece, or any of the metaphors we used in group therapy with Dr. Specter. None of those metaphors matched my feeling. It wasn’t even a feeling. It just felt like waiting.
Decades passed, and then one day, some years into raising a child of my own-who has grown up knowing ordinary love and whose life is unremarkable-without even trying, without any expectation, without even really noticing what had happened, I saw that I’d stopped waiting (191).