On Keeping Women (13 page)

“What do you go for?”

“Old or Middle English ones. Grit. Moil. Bast. All the four-letter monosyllables aren’t obscene. Cull. Airt.”

“Nice. What’s it mean—airt?”

“As a noun—a height or a direction. One-quarter of the compass. As a verb—‘to guide.’”

“How come you know so much about them?”

“Did my thesis on them.”

“I did a paper once. On Roger Bacon.”

“Oh yes, the alchemist … You seem to go for whatever begins with A, Lexie. Anthropologist.”

“My brother, he wanted to be an astronomer.” She bent to scan the column she’d been dummying, trying to peer at her watch. From the sky, the hour must be after eight. Every night a little later. This conversation’s like lovemaking. That last exhausted rollover when one’s not making it.

“Belding’s Corticelli.” He’s followed her gaze. “That’s it of course. From astronomy, isn’t it.”

She felt heavy, ashamed, knowing why she chose this out of all her treasury of detail. For that sewing wife of his, coolly never mentioned. For the
other
wife. What strange unities are forced upon us. For his face is brighter, relieved to think that this secret word which she sets such store by, comes to her after all via a brother. From them.

“That’s it, Lex, isn’t it. It’s the name of a star.”

And in the end they’re always more romantic than us.

“No. Not a star.” From her tone, she might be speaking to Charlie. Or little Royal.

“What, then?”

She saw into her sewing-box, inherited like his newspapers, like his dried fruit. Stared into absently by one, two, three successive women, each in her turn on her spindle like the spools down there in the box, each spool identified by its circle of faded black print. Maybe they don’t even make that brand anymore. From how far back do the spools, the spindled women come?

“Thread,” she says. “Thread.”

“Thread? Ordinary sewing-thread?” He’s aghast. And yes, he knows what the county knows about him. He sees her trust.

“Maybe not ordinary, J. J. Silk.”

How smart he is. And yes, he’s the enemy.

“Not J. J.,” he says, with a smile so deep that chin-wen and forehead-wen move toward each other. Cracking her life like a nut. “Jean-Jacques. Jean-Jacques.”

Driving home, the faintly lit river-road hangs like a bridge through the black. Always like this before the full moon, during which cycle the trees will be drugged with mauve light—halcyon. Yes, he’s the enemy, all the more because one can talk to him. And yes, we were making love.

A patch of fog hides the curve of her driveway. The tall house above glows through shakily, like a chandelier, seen by a glaucoma’ed eye. As pictured in the ophthalmologist’s office of her first job. The old river below creaks like the joists of a floor. Old veteran, old floor—we still have our pact. But Christ, what jobs I get.

Out there, far beyond this water, is there still an incoming ripple—Ray?

The three older children are in the kitchen, at the long table centered under the hanging lamp. “Must do something about that oldfashioned globe,” she says walking in on them. Really must. When it can make the youngest face look drear. “Hi.”

“We didn’t save supper.” Charles. “It’s after nine.”

The table’s oddly bare. Of the usual ransackings. They can’t have had much.

“That’s all right; I’ll get myself something … Not a neon light though, that would be worse. And not with that ceiling.”

Of cherished patterned tin, from one corner of which the paint keeps flaking. She smiles, for the year Charles was tall enough to help Ray repaint. For the year he said, in a newly deep voice:
I’m afraid we have rust.
“When we have to repaint, we’ll shop for a light.” Lightly running off at the mouth, she has taken up her pattern with them.

“We were selfish.” Maureen, quivering. Under that straining middy there are breasts.

“No, I should’ve called. We were dummying Saturday’s paper. That place is run like nineteen-forty, not a thing is mechanized.”

Chess’ long fingers move as if she’s tatting. But she’s not. Or not anything except silence. When she speaks it’ll be from silence, and silence will follow after. That’s her difference, which we’ve learned to accept. And that’s what frightens me—not Chess.
Our
difference. That we accept.

“That Hoppe—he has a face like a witch.” Chess tucks her head in quickly, in her usual shame over being herself, with her kind of images. “We thought maybe you were having dinner with him.” Her face is mild. She’ll say the sharpest, most inconvenient thing, always: you can depend on her. The other kind of silence, the willed one, she doesn’t have. There are people who don’t understand the ordinary. It’s as if Chess had never heard of it.

“No… Where’s Roy?”

“Upstairs. Asleep.” Charles won’t add that it’s time enough for the youngest to be asleep. He’s imperially gaunt, even aging, with the strain of stretching into a man. Behind him are the back stairs, up which, from the age of seven, he used to trot if scolded, so as not to be seen to cry.

“Yes, we are, we are.” Maureen, screaming it. Under the blouse, the body strains with revolution. “Selfish!” She bursts into tears. “But why’d you have to take a job?”

“Maureen, Maureen.” Lexie cradles her. Yes, yes, people don’t enough. “You’re selfish, I’m selfish.” She makes a rocking song of it. “Everybody, sometimes.” And people don’t cradle you enough.

The two others look on, peculiarly satisfied.

“No, you fool. She
has
to. I want to, too. Lexie—if you go to the city for a job, will you take me for one too?”

No, Chess never addresses her as Ma anymore; she’s always called her father “Ray.” The psychiatrist to whom Chess went all last year—and quite suddenly wouldn’t go to—had asked her whether she was afraid of her father. At just about that time.

She’s never liked Ray to touch her—that’s true. Nor anyone, possibly. How I would love to have her in my lap.

“Yah, what kind of job could
you
do.” Royal’s coming down the back stairs at his hopalong jog, while they all hold their breath; the steps are narrow triangles thinning to nothing, and have no banister. Usually he only goes up them.

But not to cry. When has anyone last seen Royal cry?

“I wasn’t neither asleep. I heard everything you said.”

“I could be a model,” Chess says. “I could show them those pics Charles took.” And so she could be, with those glassy bones striking the lens in all their fine catalepsy, that swoon-of-mind which is so bizarrely chic in the right clothing. When Chess dares, she can do anything, and in the craziest hat. When she droops, the pimples come, the down in her nostrils obtrudes its black fur; she swells hand-in-hand with her own ugliness—its twin. While the outer world shivers her. “I’m seventeen!”

What, what has given her this confidence?

“Well looka you!” Royal elbows Maureen, there on his mother’s lap. His lap. “Off!”

Obediently Maureen slides down. Lexie stays her with a hand, wards Royal from her lap, eyes the two older ones. “What’s happened here? Somebody been?”

Or not been? Ray’s letter’s late.

Charles speaks for them. “Uncle James is back. He stopped by.”

“Oh? Wouldn’t he wait?”

The other three speak as one.

“He says—call him.”

“He says the black community where he’s been is a totally—” Maureen.

“Matri… matri—” Royal.

“—archal, dope.” Chess.

“Ci-vi-
za
tion.”

They crowd her, a bevy, the last being Royal. Usually she adores this choral style of theirs, moving her arms to conduct, applauding the end result like a song. And if Chess joins in, all’s right with the world.

Charles hasn’t. Joined in. “James says—”

“Yes, Charles? What did James say?” Once, not two years ago, she’d smacked in the face this faithful father-defending boy of hers, this hoarder of itineraries, for flinging an obscenity after his uncle. Her fist, shooting out in allegiance to a pre-family long gone, had hit her own boy in the face; she hasn’t forgiven it yet.

“He says—” A grimace seizes him, like a claw from behind. “He says—Dad isn’t coming back.”

“He said we must prepare ourselves.” Maureen middy swelling, is ready to.

And Chess? Is smiling inward. Tatting strength. “We can get along without him. Can’t we, Lexie.”

Chess said her father tried to molest her sexually once, Mrs.—
the psychiatrist said.
Could that be true?
The man could never remember the family name. A natural alienation.
No, doctor, impossible. But her father’s clumsy at showing affection. I’ve seen him make an awkward try…
Afterwards, scrutinizing Ray, mild Ray; they say, the mild ones. No. Impossible.

Royal, subdued, has managed to slide into her lap.

Three pairs of eyes approve of him there. He speaks for them.

“Come here. All of you.” She gathers them in. “Chessie, come. Charlie, you too.” He comes, reluctantly. He has to kneel, his head close to Royal’s. Chess, even in the circle is fastidious, only coolly there.

“
Listen
to me.” How collective eyes can be. When they’re yearning to be. “Your father’s coming back.”

And it’s true, she can feel he is. Though not how he’ll come. In what—shape.

“Just before one comes back, the last days, one doesn’t bother to write, that’s all. Because one is coming back. Remember when we went to Uruguay?” She falters. They telephoned, though, just before leaving. “Hepatitis is a depressing disease.” And marriage can be—should she tell them that? “Don’t blame him.” Ray loves you his way; I love you mine. Though my arms too are slipping from your circle; they aren’t really long enough. She tightens them. “Marriages change, sometimes. But families remain. They only grow.”

Now she should tell them. That they won’t be deserted. Her lips stick to her teeth. “Look. Look—” Her voice comes out a rough grumble. Her real voice. Even though she’s never heard it before. “Birth. Giving birth, or getting born from somebody. You have to learn about it yourself.” How sacred are the eyes of young persons—is that from a psalm? “Keep asking me things. Just keep asking me. I need you to. But I’m not going to tell you any more trash fact.”

Exhausted, she thinks to herself—But are these eyes young? Chess’ mocking ones, Maureen’s obedient. Royal’s head is under her neck; she can’t see his eyes. But Charles’ are so needy—why he might be the youngest, not the oldest. She puts her clenched fist on his cheek. Then on his Adam’s apple, that he’s always swallowing. “But I can tell you one thing, Charlie-boy. That teaser uncle of yours; you were right about him.” She swallows hard. “Your Uncle James sucks.”

Under her chin, Royal’s soft crown turns. His eyes are veiled. What a pang, that she can’t quite believe in him.

“Are we still a
healthy
family, Ma?”

She glooms down at that fist of hers. “Families never die.” And tumbles him from her lap. “An orgy, an orgy!” she cries. “Everything out of the cupboards. Aren’t you starved?
R-rout
!”

And that was ritual, she thinks now. We were always a healthy family about food. Charles made a smashing Parmesan omelet. Everybody did something. And the precious tortoni kept for stray guests—and for James because he always brought the Bajan rum for it—came out of the deep-freeze. It wasn’t orgy I was teaching them, but change—of mood, of pace. Of heart. That it is a way. That it can be light.

Maureen played the piano—Gilbert and Sullivan. Evree boy and girl a-live, is either a little rad-i-cal, or
else
a little conser-va-
tive
. Everybodee is selfish—we sang to each other silently—some of the-ee time. And Royal danced.

Next day—Saturday—she went into the city, taking them all. To avoid James. And her own anger at him, a dark weight. Or a fist she can’t yet heft.

The children are to distribute themselves around the city: Charles to a rock concert at Carnegie, the girls to walk Fifth Avenue and windowshop the stores.

“Nothing much there in summer,” she mutters, ashamed of wanting to be alone, but needy.

They don’t mind, they say; they’ll have tea in the Village afterwards, but won’t call James.

They are
sisters,
she thinks; I never really saw it before.

Royal has cribbed an invitation sent to his father—to the Academy of Medicine, where there’ll be a lecture on autopsies, with a speaker from Scotland Yard. James took him to the Academy once; he knows his way round. He organizes them—yes, he’s that one. “You can all meet me there,” he says, princely. “At six o’clock.”

They understand my flight, she thought tenderly, sitting at the Fifty-Ninth Street pond, reading the weekend
Post
which it will please her to leave on the bench for the next incoming settler. From anonym to anonym, lazily—a city gift. How they acquiesced, in a unity of four, understanding too how I want to give the city to them. Suddenly her nail gored the drift of papers on her lap… Or else, they are terrified.

When she got up to leave, she took the paper with her. Glad that she had someone real to take it to. Maybe James won’t call until late, won’t come ’til after supper—which he’ll of course expect anyway. Their family-style larder—the questionable luxe of those who buy in case-lots, and some of it peanut-butter—gives him a dowdy sense of clan, easily expendable. On these weekends when James spirals in from the health patroons and their world councils—not all of these spiritually guided, not all of it for the populace—he’ll sleep loggily the livelong day in his monotone household, unruffled by other egos, or crumbs not his own. Rising only after all the stalls are closed.

Paper under arm, she’s even hurrying to get the car. Maybe it’s not possible to lead the logical life.

At the Academy of Medicine, smiling at her children so ably met, she draws them into a cluster round a telephone booth, and nodding at them with motherhood’s pearly conviction, dials their uncle, intending to give him for an evening the gift of them. At the last minute, shy of all her brother and she still to settle between them, she hands the receiver to Royal. “Here,
you
take it. You’ve been listening to autopsies.”