Melanie Benjamin - Alice I Have Been

But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful? It is. Only I do get tired.

O NLY I DO GET TIRED .

I pause, place the pen down next to the page, and massage my aching hand; the joints of my fingers, in particular, are stiff and cold and ugly, like knots on a tree. One does get tired of so many things, of course, when one is eighty, not the least of which is answering endless letters.

However, I cannot say that, not to my own son. Although Im not entirely sure what I am trying to say in this letter to Caryl, so kindly inquiring as to my health after our hectic journey. He accompanied me to America, naturally; if Im being completely truthful, I would have to admit my son was much more excited about the prospect of escorting Alice in Wonderland across the ocean than Alice herself was in going.

But Mamma, he said in that coy wayentirely ridiculous for a man of his age, and I told him so. Weyouowe it to the public. All this interest in Lewis Carroll, simply because its the centennial of his birth, and everyone wants to meet the real Alice. An honorary doctorate from Columbia University. He consulted the telegram in his hand. Interviews on the radio. You simply must go. Youll have a marvelous time.

You mean youll have a marvelous time. I knew my son too well, knew his strengths and his flaws, and unfortunately the latter outnumbered the former, and they always had. When I thought of his brothers

No, I will not. That is uncharitable to Caryl and painful to myself.

Surprisingly, when the time came I did have a marvelous time. So much fuss made over me! Bands playing when the ship docked, banners everywhere, even confetti; endless photographs of me drinking teaso tedious, but the Americans simply could not get enough of that. Alice in Wonderland at a tea party! Imagine! It was a miracle they didnt ask Caryl to dress up as the Mad Hatter.

However, to be feted by scholarsit took me back, in such an unexpected way, to my childhood, to Oxford. I hadnt realized how much Id missed the stimulating atmosphere of academia, the pomp and circumstance, the endless arguments that no one could win, which was never the point; the point was purely the love of discourse, the heat of the battle.

Shockinglyand despite what I had been warnedI found everyone in America to be perfectly charming, with the exception of one unfortunate youth who offered me a stick of something called chewing gum just prior to the ceremony at Columbia. What does one do with it? I inquired, only to be told, simply, to chew. Chew? Without swallowing?

A nod.

To what end? What possibly could be the point?

The young man could not answer that, and withdrew his invitation with a sheepish smile.

Still, what was truly tiresomewhat is always truly tiresomewas the disappointment, brief and politely suppressed, evident in all the faces. The disappointment of looking for a little girl, a bright little girl in a starched white pinafore, and finding an old lady instead.

I understand. I myself suffer it each time I consult a looking glass, only to wonder how the glass can be so cracked and muddledand then realize, with a pang of despair, that it is not the glass that is deficient, after all.

It is not merely vanity, although I admit I have more than my fair share of this conceit. Other elderly dowagers, however, were not immortalized in print as a little girl, and not merely as a little girl but rather as the embodiment of Childhood itself. So they are not confronted by people who ask, always so very eagerly, to see the real Aliceand who cannot hide the shock, the disbelief, that the real Alice has not been able to stop time.

So, yes, I do get tired. Of pretending, of remembering who I am, and who I am not, and if I sometimes get the two confusedmuch like the Alice in the storyI may be excused. For I am eighty.

I am also tired of being asked Why?

Why did I sell the manuscript, the original version of Alices Adventures Under Ground, printed by Mr. Dodgson just for me? (Lewis Carroll I did not know; they are merely words on a pagewritten by Lewis Carroll. They have nothing to do with the man I remember.)

Why would the muse part with the evidence of the artists devotion? Even Americans, with their eagerness to put a price on everything, could not understand.

I look out the windowsthe heavy leaded-glass windows, not as sparkling as I would wish; Ill have to speak to Mary Ann about thatof my sitting room, which overlooks the lush, heavily forested grounds of Cuffnells. Today the clouds are low, so the tempting glitter of the Solent is hidden from view. I can see the lawn where the boys played, Alan and Rex (and yes, Caryl); the pitch where they played cricket; the paths where they first learned to ride and where they strode home with their first stag, accompanied by their father, so very proudand I know I made the only decision possible. This place, this is my sons childhood, their heritage, and its all I have left.