The Mother/Child Papers: With a new preface by the author

Macbeth and the Kids in the Cabin at Chester

‹35› Macbeth and the Kids in the Cabin at Chester Storm and the night outside. But we in our cozy cabin have the Coleman lanterns, have wine, have a smoke, turn on the radio, and good, here is Macbeth. We have already lain Gabe in his crib. J. sits Rebecca on his lap. Evie snuggles on mine, too young to understand but she doesn’t want to miss anything so will risk being scared. Act One. This is Rebecca’s meat. She has not read the Blue Fairy Book, the Green Fairy Book, the Red Fairy Book for nothing. “They’re telling the truth, right?” Witches are easy for this crystalline audience, and “He’ll murder the king, right?” Asking questions all the time, cold July rain, wild flashes lighting the woods, the frothing stream, bright instantaneous blue. Come the murders, she is looking bad, sad, troubled. Comes Act Four, “Macbeth is going to be punished, right?” Now the light thickens, and as that cunning showman, that woolmerchant, hauls forth his lightningclap, dusty torment, she thinks and finally says, “I don’t want Macbeth to die.” My darling, my true chime, Shakespeare wrote it for you, and Aristotle had you in mind! Now in a little while the play is over. Meanwhile Evie’s been doing her best half catching the plot and half pretending sleep, petting my breast, only now she’s imagining black bugs on the cabin wall, we have to keep chasing them, killing— though the wine is gone, the sleeping bags laid out— Oh stern deep child. You are right, art is art, but demons are demons. You grapple, you claw, it is another country. Meanwhile the rain keeps pouring. Talk does not help, so we run a tickling contest, which works, and we go to sleep. ...