Another Country (54 page)

“Nothing very pleasant. But it’s not important now.” She put the pan on the stove and opened the icebox door. “I think you and Cass were his whole world. And now both of you have treated him so badly that he doesn’t know where he is.” She took tomatoes and lettuce and a package of pork chops out of the icebox and put them on the table. “He tried to make me angry— but I just felt terribly sad. He’d been so hurt.” She paused. “Men are so helpless when they’re hurt.”

He came up behind her and kissed her. “Are they?”

She returned his kiss, and said gravely, “Yes. You don’t believe it’s happening. You think that there must have been some mistake.”

“How wise you are!” he said.

“I’m not wise. I’m just a poor, ignorant, black girl, trying to get along.”

He laughed. “If you’re just a poor, ignorant, black girl, trying to get along, I’d sure hate like hell to tangle with one who’d made it.”

“But you wouldn’t know. You think women tell the truth. They don’t. They can’t.” She stepped away from him, busy with another saucepan and water and flame. And she gave him a mocking look. “Men wouldn’t
love
them if they did.”

“You just don’t like
men
.”

She said, “I can’t say that I’ve met very many. Not what I call men.”

“I hope I’m one of them.”

“Oh, there’s hope for you,” she said, humorously, “you might make it yet.”

“That’s probably,” he said, “the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She laughed, but there was something sad and lonely in the sound. There was something sad and lonely in her whole aspect, which obscurely troubled him. And he began to watch her closely, without quite knowing that he was doing so.

She said, “Poor Vivaldo. I’ve given you a hard time, haven’t I, baby?”

“I’m not complaining,” he said, carefully.

“No,” she said, half to herself, running her fingers thoughtfully through a bowl of dry rice, “I’ll say that much for you. I dish it out, but you sure as hell can take it.”

“You think maybe,” he said, “that I take too much?”

She frowned. She dumped the rice into the boiling water. “Maybe. Hell, I don’t think women know what they want, not a damn one of them. Look at Cass— do you want a drink,” she asked, suddenly, “before dinner?”

“Sure.” He took down the bottle and the glasses and took out the ice. “What do you mean— women don’t know what they want? Don’t
you
know what you want?”

She had taken down the great salad bowl and was slicing tomatoes into it; it seemed that she did not dare be still. “Sure. I thought I did. I was sure once. Now I’m not so sure.” She paused. “And I only found that out— last night.” She looked up at him humorously, gave a little shrug, and sliced savagely into another tomato.

He set her drink beside her. “What’s happened to confuse you?”

She laughed— again he heard that striking melancholy. “Living with you! Would you believe it? I fell for that jive.”

He dragged his work stool in from the other room and teetered on it, watching her, a little above her.

“
What
jive, sweetheart, are you talking about?”

She sipped her drink. “That love jive, sweetheart. Love, love, love!”

His heart jumped up; they watched each other; she smiled a rueful smile. “Are you trying to tell me— without my having to ask you or anything— that you love me?”

“Am I? I guess I am.” Then she dropped the knife and sat perfectly still, looking down, the fingers of one hand drumming on the table. Then she clasped her hands, the fingers of one hand playing with the ruby-eyed snake ring, slipping it half-off, slipping it on.

“But— that’s wonderful.” He took her hand. It lay cold and damp and lifeless in his. A kind of wind of terror shook him for an instant. “Isn’t it? It makes me very happy—
you
make me very happy.”

She took his hand and rested her cheek against it. “Do I, Vivaldo?” Then she rose and walked to the sink to wash the lettuce.

He followed her, standing beside her, and looking into her closed, averted face. “What’s the matter, Ida?” He put one hand on her waist; she shivered, as if in revulsion, and he let his hand fall. “Tell me, please.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, trying to sound light about it, “I told you, I’m in a bad mood. It’s probably the time of the month.”

“Now, come on, baby, don’t try to cop out that way.”

She was tearing the lettuce and washing it, and placing it in a towel. She continued with this in silence until she had torn off the last leaf. She was trying to avoid his eyes; he had never seen her at such a loss before. Again, he was frightened. “What
is
it?”

“Leave me alone, Vivaldo. We’ll talk about it later.”

“We will
not
talk about it later. We’ll talk about it now.”

The rice came to a boil and she moved hastily away from him to turn down the flame.

“My Mama always told me, honey, you can’t cook and talk.”

“Well, stop
cooking!
”

She gave him that look, coquettish, wide-eyed, and amused, which he had known so long. But now there was something desperate in it; had there always been something desperate in this look? “But you
said
you were hungry!”

“Stop that. It’s not funny, okay?” He led her to the table. “I want to know what’s happening. Is it something Richard said?”

“I am not trying to be funny. I
would
like to feed you.” Then, with a sudden burst of anger, “It’s got nothing to do with Richard. What, after all, can Richard say?”

He had had some wild idea that Richard had made up a story about himself and Eric, and he had been on the point of denying it. He recovered, hoping that she had not been aware of his panic; but his panic increased.

He said, very gently, “Well, then, what
is
it, Ida?”

She said, wearily, “Oh, it’s too many things, it goes too far back, I can never make you understand it, never.”

“Try me. You say you love me. Why can’t you trust me?”

She laughed. “Oh. You think life is so simple.” She looked up at him and laughed again And this laughter was unbearable. He wanted to strike her, not in anger, only to make the laughter stop; but he forced himself to stand still, and did nothing. “Because— I know you’re older than I am— I always think of you as being much younger. I always think of you as being a very nice boy who doesn’t know what the score is, who’ll maybe never find out. And I don’t want to be the one to teach you.”

She said the last in a venomous undertone, looking down again at her hands.

“Okay. Go on.”

“Go
on?
” She looked up at him in a strange, wild way. “You want me to go
on?
”

He said, “Please stop tormenting me, Ida. Please go on.”

“
Am
I tormenting you?”

“You want it in writing?”

Her face changed, she rose from the table and walked back to the stove. “I’m sure it must seem like that to you,” she said— very humbly. She moved to the sink and leaned against it, watching him. “But I wasn’t trying to torment you— whenever I did. I don’t think that I thought about that at all. In fact, I know I didn’t, I’ve never had the time.” She watched his face. “I’ve just realized lately that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, certainly more than I can swallow.” He winced. She broke off suddenly: “Are you sure you’re a man, Vivaldo?”

He said, “I’ve got to be sure.”

“Fair enough,” she said. She walked to the stove and put a light under the frying pan, walked to the table and opened the meat. She began to dust it with salt and pepper and paprika, and chopped garlic into it, near the bone. He took a swallow of his drink, which had no taste whatever; he splashed more whiskey into his glass. “When Rufus died, something happened to me,” she said. She sounded now very quiet and weary, as though she were telling someone else’s story; also, as though she herself, with a faint astonishment, were hearing it for the first time. But it was yet more astonishing that he now began to listen to a story he had always known, but never dared believe. “I can’t explain it. Rufus had always been the world to me. I loved him.”

“So did I,” he said— too quickly, irrelevantly; and for the first time it occurred to him that, possibly, he was a liar; had never loved Rufus at all, but had only feared and envied him.

“I don’t need your credentials, Vivaldo,” she said.

She watched the frying pan critically, waiting for it to become hot enough, then dropped in a little oil. “The point, anyway, at the moment, is that
I
loved him. He was my big brother, but as soon as I knew anything, I knew that I was stronger than he was. He was nice, he was really very nice, no matter what any of you might have thought of him later. None of you, anyway, knew anything about him, you didn’t know how.”

“You often say that,” he said, wearily. “Why?”

“How could you— how
can
you?— dreaming the way you dream? You people think you’re free. That means you think you’ve got something other people want— or need. Shit.” She grinned wryly and looked at him. And you
do,
in a way. But it isn’t what you think it is. And you’re going to find out, too, just as soon as some of those other people start getting what you’ve got now.” She shook her head. “I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for you. I even feel kind of sorry for myself, because God knows I’ve often wished you’d left me where I was—”

“Down there in the jungle?” he taunted.

“Yes. Down there in the jungle, black and funky— and myself.”

His small anger died down as quickly as it had flared up. “Well,” he said, quietly, “sometimes I’m nostalgic, too, Ida.” He watched her dark, lonely face. For the first time, he had an intimation of how she would look when she grew old. “What I’ve never understood,” he said, finally, “is that you always accuse me of making a thing about your color, of penalizing you. But you do the same thing. You always make me feel white. Don’t you think that hurts me? You lock me out. And all I want is for you to be a part of me, for me to be a part of you. I wouldn’t give a damn if you were striped like a zebra.”

She laughed. “Yes, you would, really. But you say the cutest things.” Then, “If I lock you out, as you put it, it’s mainly to protect you—”

“Protect me from what? and I don’t
want
to be protected. Besides—”

“Besides?”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that’s why. You want to protect yourself. You want to hate me because I’m white, because it’s easier for you that way.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Then why do you always bring it up? What
is
it?”

She stirred the rice, which was almost ready, found a colander, and placed it in the sink. Then she turned to face him.

“This all began because I said that you people—”

“Listen to yourself.
You people!”

“—didn’t know anything about Rufus—”

“Because we’re white.”

“No. Because he was black.”

“Oh. I give
up
. And, anyway, why must we always end up talking about Rufus?”

“I had started to tell you something,” she said, quietly; and watched him.

He swallowed some more of his whiskey, and lit a cigarette. “True. Please go on.”

“
Because
I’m black,” she said, after a moment, and sat at the table near him, “I know more about what happened to my brother than you can ever know. I watched it happen— from the beginning. I was there. He shouldn’t have ended up the way he did. That’s what’s been so hard for me to accept. He was a very beautiful boy. Most people aren’t beautiful, I knew that right away. I watched them, and I knew. But he didn’t because he was so much nicer than I.” She paused, and the silence grumbled with the sound of the frying pan and the steady sound of the rain. “He loved our father, for example. He really loved him. I didn’t. He was just a loudmouthed, broken-down man, who liked to get drunk and hang out in barber shops— well, maybe he didn’t like it but that was all he could find to do, except work like a dog, for nothing— and play the guitar on the week ends for his only son.” She paused again, smiling. “There was something very nice about those week ends, just the same. I can still see Daddy, his belly hanging out, strumming on that guitar and trying to teach Rufus some down-home song and Rufus grinning at him and making fun of him a little, really, but very nicely, and singing with him. I bet my father was never happier, all the days of his life, than when he was singing for Rufus. He’s got no one to sing to now. He was so proud of him. He bought Rufus his first set of drums.”

She was not locking him out now; he felt, rather, that he was being locked in. He listened, seeing, or trying to see, what she saw, and feeling something of what she felt. But he wondered, just the same, how much her memory had filtered out. And he wondered what Rufus must have looked like in those days, with all his bright, untried brashness, and all his hopes intact.

She was silent for a moment, leaning forward, looking down, her elbows on her knees and the fingers of one hand restlessly playing with her ring.

“When Rufus died, all the light went out of that house, all of it. That was why I couldn’t stay there, I knew I couldn’t stay there, I’d grow old like they were, suddenly, and I’d end up like all the other abandoned girls who can’t find anyone to protect them. I’d always known I couldn’t end up like that, I’d always known it. I’d counted on Rufus to get me out of there— I knew he’d do anything in the world for me, just like I would for him. It hadn’t occurred to me that it wouldn’t happen. I
knew
it would happen.”

She rose and returned to the stove and took the rice off the fire and poured it into the colander and ran water over it; put water in the saucepan and put it back on the fire, placing the colander on top of it and covering the rice with a towel. She turned the chops over. Then she sat down.

“When we saw Rufus’s body, I can’t tell you. My father stared at it, he stared at it, and stared at it. It didn’t look like Rufus, it was— terrible— from the water, and he must have
struck
something going down, or in the water, because he was so broken and lumpy— and ugly.
My
brother. And my father stared at it— at it— and he said, They don’t leave a man much, do they? His own father was beaten to death with a hammer by a railroad guard. And they brought his father home like that. My mother got frightened, she wanted my father to pray. And he said, he shouted it at the top of his lungs, Pray?
Who,
pray? I bet you, if I ever get anywhere near that white devil you call God, I’ll tear my son and my father out of his white hide! Don’t you never say the word Pray to me again, woman, not if you want to
live
. Then he started to cry. I’ll never forget it. Maybe I hadn’t loved him before, but I loved him then. That was the last time he ever shouted, he hasn’t raised his voice since. He just sits there, he doesn’t even drink any more. Sometimes he goes out and listens to those fellows who make speeches on 125th Street and Seventh Avenue. He says he just wants to live long enough— long enough—.”