My Sister's Hand in Mine (8 page)

“She wasn't lost; she was just depressed,” Mr. Copperfield explained.

“Would you think I was fresh if I asked you to come to a nice restaurant where we can all eat dinner?” asked the girl. She was really quite pretty.

“Let's go,” said Mrs. Copperfield vehemently. “By all means.” She was now excited; she had a feeling that this girl would be all right. Like most people, she never really believed that one terrible thing would happen after another.

The restaurant wasn't really nice. It was very dark and very long and there was no one in it at all.

“Wouldn't you rather eat somewhere else?” Mrs. Copperfield asked the girl.

“Oh no! I would never go anywhere else. I'll tell you if you are not angry. I can get a little bit of money here when I come and bring some people.”

“Well, let me give you the money and we'll go somewhere else. “I'll give you whatever he gives you,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“That's silly,” said the girl. “That's very silly.”

“I have heard there is a place in this city where we can order wonderful lobster. Couldn't we go there?” Mrs. Copperfield was pleading with the girl now.

“No—that's silly.” She called a waiter who had just arrived with some newspapers under his arm.

“Adalberto, bring us some meat and some wine. Meat first.” This she said in Spanish.

“How well you speak English!” said Mr. Copperfield.

“I always love to be with Americans when I can,” said the girl.

“Do you think they're generous?” asked Mr. Copperfield.

“Oh, sure,” said the girl. “Sure they're generous. They're generous when they have the money. They're even more generous when they've got their family with them. I once knew a man. He was an American man. A real one, and he was staying at the Hotel Washington. You know that's the most beautiful hotel in the world. In the afternoon every day his wife would take a siesta. He would come quickly in a taxicab to Colon and he was so excited and frightened that he would not get back to his wife on time that he would never take me into a room and so he would go with me instead to a store and he would say to me: ‘Quick, quick—pick something—anything that you want, but be in a hurry about it.”

“How terrifying!” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“It was terrible,” said the Spanish girl. “I always went so crazy that once I was really crazy and I said to him: ‘All right, I will buy this pipe for my uncle.' I don't like my uncle, but I had to give it to him.”

Mr. Copperfield roared with laughter.

“Funny, isn't it?” said the girl. “I tell you if he ever comes back I will never buy another pipe for my uncle when he takes me to the store. She's not a bad-looker.”

“Who?” asked Mr. Copperfield.

“Your wife.”

“I look terrible tonight,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“Anyway it does not matter because you are married. You have nothing to worry about.”

“She'll be furious with you if you tell her that,” said Mr. Copperfield.

“Why will she be furious? That is the most beautiful thing in the whole world, not to have something to worry about.”

“That is not what beauty is made of,” interposed Mrs. Copperfield. “What has the absence of worry to do with beauty?”

“That has everything to do with what is beautiful in the world. When you wake up in the morning and the first minute you open your eyes and you don't know who you are or what your life has been—that is beautiful. Then when you know who you are and what day in your life it is and you still think you are sailing in the air like a happy bird—that is beautiful. That is, when you don't have any worries. You can't tell me you like to worry.”

Mr. Copperfield simpered. After dinner he suddenly felt very tired and he suggested that they go home, but Mrs. Copperfield was much too nervous, so she asked the Spanish girl if she would not consent to spend a little more time in her company. The girl said that she would if Mrs. Copperfield did not mind returning with her to the hotel where she lived.

They said good-by to Mr. Copperfield and started on their way.

The walls of the Hotel de las Palmas were wooden and painted a bright green. There were a good many bird-cages standing in the halls and hanging from the ceilings. Some of them were empty. The girl's room was on the second floor and had brightly painted wooden walls the same as the corridors.

“Those birds sing all day long,” said the girl, motioning to Mrs. Copperfield to sit down on the bed beside her. “Sometimes I say to myself: ‘Little fools, what are you singing about in your cages?' And then I think: ‘Pacifica, you are just as much a fool as those birds. You are also in a cage because you don't have any money. Last night you were laughing for three hours with a German man because he had given you some drinks. And you thought he was stupid.' I laugh in my cage and they sing in their cage.”

“Oh well,” said Mrs. Copperfield, “there really is no rapport between ourselves and birds.”

“You don't think it is true?” asked Pacifica with feeling. “I tell you it is true.”

She pulled her dress over her head and stood before Mrs. Copperfield in her underslip.

“Tell me,” she said, “What do you think of those beautiful silk kimonos that the Hindu men sell in their shops? If I were with such a rich husband I would tell him to buy me one of those kimonos. You don't know how lucky you are. I would go with him every day to the stores and make him buy me pretty things instead of standing around and crying like a little baby. Men don't like to see women cry. You think they like to see women cry?”

Mrs. Copperfield shrugged her shoulders. “I can't think,” she said.

“You're right. They like to see women laugh. Women have got to laugh all night. You watch some pretty girl one time. When she laughs she is ten years older. That is because she does it so much. You are ten years older when you laugh.”

“True,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“Don't feel bad,” said Pacifica. “I like women very much. I like women sometimes better than men. I like my grandmother and my mother and my sisters. We always had a good time together, the women in my house. I was always the best one. I was the smartest one and the one who did the most work. Now I wish I was back there in my nice house, contented. But I still want too many things, you know. I am lazy but I have a terrible temper too. I like these men that I meet very much. Sometimes they tell me what they will do in their future life when they get off the boat. I always wish for them that it will happen very soon. The damn boats. When they tell me they just want to go around the world all their life on a boat I tell them: ‘You don't know what you're missing. I'm through with you, boy.' I don't like them when they are like that. But now I am in love with this nice man who is here in business. Most of the time he can pay my rent for me. Not always every week. He is very happy to have me. Most of the men are very happy to have me. I don't hold my head too high for that. It's from God that it comes.” Pacifica crossed herself.

“I once was in love with an older woman,” said Mrs. Copperfield eagerly. “She was no longer beautiful, but in her face I found fragments of beauty which were much more exciting to me than any beauty that I have known at its height. But who hasn't loved an older person? Good Lord!”

“You like things which are not what other people like, don't you? I would like to have this experience of loving an older woman. I think that is sweet, but I really am always in love with some nice man. It is lucky for me, I think. Some of the girls, they can't fall in love any more. They only think of money, money, money. You don't think so much about money, do you?” She asked Mrs. Copperfield.

“No, I don't.”

“Now we rest a little while, yes?” The girl lay down on the bed and motioned to Mrs. Copperfield to lie down beside her. She yawned, folded Mrs. Copperfield's hand in her own, and fell asleep almost instantly. Mrs. Copperfield thought that she might as well get some sleep too. At that moment she felt very peaceful.

They were awakened by a terrific knocking at the door. Mrs. Copperfield opened her eyes and in a second she was a prey to the most overwhelming terror. She looked at Pacifica, and her friend's face was not very much more reassuring than her own.

“Callate!” she whispered to Mrs. Copperfield reverting to her native tongue.

“What is it? What is it?” asked Mrs. Copperfield in a harsh voice. “I don't understand Spanish.”

“Don't say a word,” repeated Pacifica in English.

“I can't lie here without saying a word. I know I can't. What is it?”

“Drunken man. In love with me. I know him well. He hurt me very bad when I sleep with him. His boat has come in again.”

The knocking grew more insistent and they heard a man's voice saying:

“I know you are there, Pacifica, so open the bloody door.”

“Oh, open it, Pacifica!” pleaded Mrs. Copperfield, jumping up from the bed. “Nothing could be worse than this suspense.”

“Don't be crazy. Maybe he is drunk enough and he will go away.”

Mrs. Copperfield's eyes were glazed. She was becoming hysterical.

“No, no—I have always promised myself that I would open the door if someone was trying to break in. He will be less of an enemy then. The longer he stays out there, the angrier he will get. The first thing I will say to him when I open the door is: ‘We are your friends,' and then perhaps he will be less angry.”

“If you make me even more crazy than I am I don't know what to do,” said Pacifica. “Now we just wait here and see if he goes away. We might move this bureau against the door. Will you help me move it against the door?”

“I can't push anything!” Mrs. Copperfield was so weak that she slid along the wall onto the floor.

“Have I got to break the God-damned door in?” the man was saying.

Mrs. Copperfield rose to her feet, staggered over to the door, and opened it.

The man who came in was hatchet-faced and very tall. He had obviously had a great deal to drink.

“Hello, Meyer,” said Pacifica. “Can't you let me get some sleep?” She hesitated a minute, and as he did not answer her she said again: “I was trying to get some sleep.”

“I was tight asleep,” said Mrs. Copperfield. Her voice was higher than usual and her face was very bright. “I am sorry we did not hear you right away. We must have kept you waiting a long time.”

“Nobody ever kept me waiting a long time,” said Meyer, getting redder in the face. Pacifica's eyes were narrowing. She was beginning to lose her temper.

“Get out of my room,” she said to Meyer.

In answer to this, Meyer fell diagonally across the bed, and the impact of his body was so great that it almost broke the slats.

“Let's get out of here quickly,” said Mrs. Copperfield to Pacifica. She was no longer able to show any composure. For one moment she had hoped that the enemy would suddenly burst into tears as they do sometimes in dreams, but now she was convinced that this would not happen. Pacifica was growing more and more furious.

“Listen to me, Meyer,” she was saying. “You go back into the street right away. Because I'm not going to do anything with you except hit you in the nose if you don't go away. If you were not such hot stuff we could sit downstairs together and drink a glass of rum. I have hundreds of boy friends who just like to talk to me and drink with me until they are stiffs under the table. But you always try to bother me. You are like an apeman. I want to be quiet.”

“Who the hell cares about your house!” Meyer bellowed at her. “I could put all your houses together in a row and shoot at them like they were ducks. A boat's better than a house any day! Any time! Come rain, come shine! Come the end of the world!”

“No one is talking about houses except you,” said Pacifica, stamping her foot, “and I don't want to listen to your foolish talk.”

“Why did you lock the door, then, if you weren't living in this house like you were duchesses having tea together, and praying that none of us were ever going to come on shore again. You were afraid I'd spoil the furniture and spill something on the floor. My mother had a house, but I always slept in the house next door to her house. That's how much I care about houses!”

“You misunderstand,” said Mrs. Copperfield in a trembling voice. She wanted very much to remind him gently that this was not a house but a room in a hotel. However, she felt not only afraid but ashamed to make this remark.

“Jesus Christ, I'm disgusted,” Pacifica said to Mrs. Copperfield without even bothering to lower her voice.

Meyer did not seem to hear this, but instead he leaned over the edge of the bed with a smile on his face and stretched one arm towards Pacifica. He managed to get hold of the hem of her slip and pull her towards him.

“Not as long as I live!” Pacifica screamed at him, but he had already wrapped his arms around her waist and he was kneeling on the bed, pulling her towards him.

“Housekeeper,” he said, laughing, “I'll bet if I took you out to sea you'd vomit. You'd mess up the boat. Now lie down here and stop talking.”

Pacifica looked darkly at Mrs. Copperfield for a moment. “Well then,” she said, “give me first the money, because I don't trust you. I will sleep with you only for my rent.”

He dealt her a terrific blow on the mouth and split her lip. The blood started to run down her chin.

Mrs. Copperfield rushed out of the room. “I'll get help, Pacifica,” she yelled over her shoulder. She ran down the hall and down the stairs, hoping to find someone to whom she could report Pacifica's plight, but she knew she would not have the courage to approach any men. On the ground floor she caught sight of a middle-aged woman who was knitting in her room with the door ajar, Mrs. Copperfield rushed in to her.