Authors Interviewing Characters: Marina Cramer

By Marina Cramer

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Lily knows what she wants.

She wants to know the meaning of the postcards her absent father sends her – cryptic words and images that reveal nothing of his life or feelings. Once she makes up her fourteen-year-old mind, she doesn’t hesitate to leave her grandmother and travel cross-country to intrude on Herman, the reclusive great-uncle she barely knows, who might hold some clues.

Isn’t that what family is for?

In Winners and Losers, a teenage runaway and a gruff old man come to realize, each in their way, that knowledge need not mean having all the answers, while they attempt to fathom the connection between obligation and love.

Uncle Herman and Lily interview each other on the bus.

H: Why do you do that?

L: Do what?

H: Hold your hands between your knees, like you’re, I don’t know, nervous or afraid.

[Lily looks down at her hands tucked palms together between her thighs. Shrugs.]

L: Never noticed it. 

[She lifts her hands to her knees.]

H: You did it the first day you showed up. After you hiked to my place from the terminal. 

L: I was nervous, that day. Afraid you might throw me out.

H: So what are you nervous about now?

L: About. About why nobody tells me anything. I mean, I love Grams, she’s sweet and kind, but she won’t tell me anything I really want to know.

H: Like what?

L: Like who my mother is, or why my father sends me those goofy postcards all the time. 

[She looks out the window. Warehouses give way to grazing cattle, a lone horse now and then, farms.]

L: I’ve got a boxful, and not one of them makes any sense. 

H: Who says things have to make sense? People come and go, or they die. No sense, they just do.

L: I don’t buy that. I don’t. There has to be a reason. Why is it so hard to figure out? I mean, take your family—all dead except for your sister. And Nora, whoever she is. Was. [Sighs. Turns to him.] Maybe I sit like that because I’m trying to hold it together. Whatever it is.  [Pause.] And you—so grumpy all the time, like somebody put a spell on you. I’m just trying to understand, you know?

H: Well, stop trying. My life is not your business. 

L: But it is, Uncle Herman. I mean, who am I? My father is a question mark, my mother a big zero. If you don’t give me a clue, who will? I’ll just be some orphan child, drifting around looking for love. [Giggles.] That sounds really pathetic, like a bad movie. 

[The driver tunes his radio to a classic rock station, sings along softly, taps his fingers on the steering wheel. Lily nods to the beat until the song ends. She shifts sideways in her seat.]

L: Look. We’re family, you and me. So at least some of it is my business. Are you afraid?

H: Me? Of what? Of you?

L: Yeah. Maybe of me. That I remind you of things—people—you’d rather forget.

H: The only thing I’m afraid of is that you won’t stop with the questions. That you’ll pull stuff out of me and make it into some story you want to believe.

L: But—

H: Sometimes you just gotta leave people alone, if that’s what they want.

L: Okay. But you came. I ran away and you followed me. You got on the bus. You brought your bag. You could have stayed home, by yourself, alone—the way you like it. Glad to have me gone.

H: Like you said, Stella’s my last sister. She’s not only your grandmother.

[They approach a stubbled corn field dotted with black birds. Herman cranes his neck to watch when the birds, hundreds of them, rise as one and soar, only to descend on a similar field across the road.]

H: Starlings.

L: You’re always at those feeders of yours, or watching out the bathroom window. Sometimes I think you like birds better than people.

H: I do.

[Lily leans back against the headrest, closes her eyes. The bus jolts and wheezes. She turns her head, eyes still closed, to Herman.]

L: Okay, why? Why birds?

H: Give them trees, feed them, and they stay. Day after day, they stay. Even the migrating ones—you know they’ll come back. They don’t abandon or betray, or ask for anything you haven’t got to give.

[Lily sits up straight, looks him in the face.]

L: Huh. So why do you care why I sit like this, what I do with my hands. If I’m nervous or whatever, what’s it to you? I’m not a bird.

H: You’re a kid. Family, as you pointed out. I’m supposed to care.

L: Uncle Herman, you’re weird.

BUY HERE

Marina Antropow Cramer was born in Germany, the child of Russian refugees from the Soviet Union, and emigrated with her family to the United States in 1956. She holds a BA in English from Upsala College, which no longer exists. She has been a waitress, fabric store manager, traveling saleswoman, telephone fundraiser, used book dealer, business owner, and bookseller. Her work has appeared in Blackbird, Istanbul Literary Review, and Wilderness House Literary Review.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing