There was this needlepoint: A medieval scene of two horsemen dressed in silver mail, two horses rearing, mouths opened, teeth bared, spittle flying. The knights were bathed in a fiery glow of orange and red, tinged with blue heat and tips of hellish glory.
It was a violent tapestry and my sister and I loved it, were fascinated by our mother’s miraculous progress of creating this six-foot canvas night after night. Black, gray, silver threads made this garish nightmarish scene come alive. In days, in weeks, in six months that giant needlework was done.
“Frame it!” my sister and I clamored. My mother became ill at ease every time we asked to see the picture.
“Why do you like it? It’s a nightmare,” she said.
Finally, she framed it, in dark burled wood. Then we found it hidden under her bed. We begged her to hang it, in the hallway, the main line into our house. When we moved to Arizona she left it behind, claimed it was too big, too expensive, too gaudy to move.
Years later she told me that she started the needlepoint to calm her relentless anxieties, to still the panic that invaded her nights, to quell the nightmares that plagued her still from the Nazi camp, across the ocean and into her new world. This needlework was meant to expunge the fears, slay the bad dreams. It was not meant to be seen by us, framed, or hung.
Too see it in the light of day was to remember and realize the cost her freedom.
by Susan Rich, (c)2014 All Rights Reserved
