Plains Song (25 page)

This astonishing statement startled Sharon, like a sign of life in something believed dead. Much that had happened on this endless day relieved her of a burden she had long carried, but had been reluctant to acknowledge. The woman continued to tremble, whimpering softly, pressing her clasped hands to her front.

Sharon moved away, wandering aimlessly, erect and serene as a sleepwalker. Without searching she found room 194, the door slightly ajar. Alexandra, in a white terry robe, stood in the archway at the back, toweling her hair. The light was such that the veins of her arms, drained of blood, were like the grain in wood. A memory Sharon had obliterated flooded her mind. Through the floor ventilator in the upstairs hall she had once spied on Cora bathing herself in a washtub. Her lean body had been folded to fit the space, her arms and shoulders were lathered with soap. One hand, holding a jelly glass, scooped water from the space between her knees to pour it over her head. Sharon was all eyes. Never before had she seen a grown-up person without clothes. Was she a crawling
baby, or a growing child who had left her bed to witness this ceremony? It was a single image out of time, but rooted in place, stored unseen and unacknowledged till the moment the door opened on Alexandra. On the instant, involuntary, Sharon was being fitted for new clothes by Cora, who stood behind her, the silence broken by the crinkle of the pattern paper. She held pins between her lips. She would not speak until she had used them up. Accompanying this sound and image there was also the smell of the hot iron, and the scorched board pad.

Her arms lowered and dangling, her short hair tousled, Alexandra resembled an exotic, stork-legged bird. She said, “Who said let there be light?
He
did. Who saw that all of it was good?
He
did. Who said let us make him in our image?
He
did. Who said let them have dominion over the whole shebang.
He
did. We've been living under him all of these goddamn centuries. When I swear, ‘My God!' what am I doing, Sharon Rose, tell me that?”

In spite of what she heard, of what was said, Sharon was comforted. When she heard the voice of Alexandra she heard
his
voice, and knew she was in good hands. That was her feeling, of course: the uppermost of the feelings she was able to bear.

A rhythmic thumping pounded the floor directly overhead. Alexandra dropped the towel she was holding to reach for a cigarette, light it, inhale it. As she exhaled the smoke, the thumping returned.

“Why don't I call the desk?” Sharon asked, and called it. The buzzer sounded, but no answer. Voices
passed in the hall, singing. Alexandra parted the drapes at the rear and peered into the court. The light that streamed in was like that at an airport. Once more Sharon dialed the desk.

“Yes?”

“There is a loud thumping in the ceiling. We can't sleep. Something must be done about it.”

The voice at the desk was not surprised. “Let me see if I can figure out who's above you. I'll call you back.”

Sharon thanked her, said to Alexandra, “She's going to call us back.”

Alexandra said, “I will never know this person, but I hate him. If I had a gun, I would shoot him. There should be more crimes of this type.”

The phone rang. The voice said, “What you're hearing, ma'am, is someone practicing on a drum.”

“You're asking me to believe someone is beating a drum?”

“Yes, ma'am. It's the Oneida Marching Band in the rooms above you.”

“It's going to stop?”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that. They need the practice. Hold on a minute, will you?” Sharon held on. “I'm back,” she said. “I guess they put you in the wrong wing. Nobody expects to sleep in that wing.”

Sharon said, “This is the room of Alexandra Selkirk, the distinguished speaker at the convention. Can we have another room?”

“There's no more rooms, ma'am.”

“Let me speak to the manager,” said Sharon.

“Oh, he won't be here until eight o'clock.”

Sharon was not equal to this occasion. She looked for help to Alexandra, who stood smoking with her eyes closed. There was someone at the door. The food Alexandra ordered, covered with gleaming hot lids, was pushed in on a cart. The young woman was huge, with a round, childish face, the body of a circus fat lady. She beamed at Sharon with good humor. Packets of sugar, saccharin, and a dairy substitute were in a plastic glass. Alexandra poured coffee from the thermos into a cup, added three packets of sugar, slurped a mouthful.

“My God, it's coffee.”

“Fresh made,” said the young woman. “I just made it.”

Alexandra appeared to see her for the first time. “Are you married?” she asked.

Her head pumped. “We just bought a house in Kearney, near the Greyhound station. He drives a bus. I work nights, he works days for Greyhound. He says what we need a house for since we're seldom in it?”

“What do you need it for?”

“Tax deductions. With two salaries, we pay a lot of taxes.”

Alexandra held the cup of coffee with both hands, as if to warm her fingers, steam her face.

“Is that all, ma'am?”

That was all. As the door closed behind her, Alexandra said, “If I had had a child it would have been like that one.” Sharon wondered in what way she meant it. The gulps of hot coffee seemed to have roused her. “We've got the energy,” she said, her voice rising.
“We've got an atomic bomb right here in this building. Just the energy in this madhouse, you hear me, would put a rocket in space, light up a city!” She raised one hand before her, invoking silence. “And don't tell me it's not
our
energy,” she cried, “more than it is
his!”

Seated on the bed, Sharon watched Alexandra eat a slice of rare prime rib, ignoring the vegetables. Each bite, it seemed to Sharon, was visibly transformed into energy. Her short hair stood on end. “How was your day?” she asked, buttering a roll.

Of the six days of creation, which one had it been? Alexandra waited for Sharon to speak. “In the hall just now”—Alexandra sipped her coffee; was she listening?—“I was asked what we should do to be saved.” Speaking these words brought a smile of recognition to Sharon's lips. Alexandra was silent. There was a pause while she filled Sharon's cup with coffee. “Was it a man or a woman?” she asked.

“Both, I think,” Sharon replied, as feelings with which she did not pretend to cope rose in her like a fever. She sipped the coffee. Through the film on her eyes the objects in the room appeared to melt.

Alexandra said, “Do you suppose it's the sugar? I feel better.” She walked to open the drapes at the patio doors. Someone was swimming laps in the pool. Above the flash of the signs the sky was black. “Did you hear that?” she asked. At some distance a young rooster brazenly crowed. The sound was piercing, but cracked, shrill with young male assurance, transporting Sharon to the hush of a summer dawn, the faint stain of light between the sill and the blind at her
window, the house dark as a cave, in the stairwell the sounds of stove lids being lifted, shifted, the pungent whiff of kerosene spilled on the cobs, the rasp of a match, and in the silence following the whoosh and roar of the flames the first clucking of the hens in the henhouse, all of it gone, vanished from this earth, but restored to the glow of life in a cock's crow.

“You hear that?” said Alexandra. “The same old tyrant!” Was it a smile she turned to share with Sharon or a grimace? This would be a young tyrant, not an old one, but it seemed unimportant in the context. His voice gained in assurance as the thumping in the ceiling subsided.

“It just occurred to me it's Sunday,” Alexandra said, and looked around for her slippers. From a hanger on the door she took her cloak and let it drape loosely about her shoulders. The nightgown beneath it might have been a party frock. Against the light of the bathroom her flat, skeletal figure appeared to be a resurrection of Cora. She faced the mirror to draw a comb through her short coarse hair. As if hallucinating, Sharon seemed to see a wire-handled syrup pail dangling from her hand, weighted with eggs. Glass eggs weighted the pockets of one of Emerson's sweaters.

Still facing the mirror, Alexandra said, “I'm going for a walk. I want to see the sunrise. Do you know the sun is perpetually rising? Every moment somewhere. Isn't that awesome?” What she saw in the mirror led her to smile. She turned to say, “You want to join me?”

What expression did she surprise on Sharon's face?
For a moment it shamed her, it was so open, betraying her customary independence.

Alexandra said, “Do I look a sight? Who is there to see me but God?”

Sharon had already moved to rise from the bed. “I'm coming,” she said. “I've not seen a sunrise since I was a child.”