The Book Borrower (22 page)

She pictured flames, and Deborah in the raincoat. Maybe there were no flames. Probably Deborah had been wearing a jacket, not the raincoat. If nothing much was wrong, the hospital would have told Jeremiah what was wrong. She couldn't stop imagining flames, though he had said nothing about fire. A car was in flames and Ruben ran to the car, but the door was locked. She made herself imagine opening the door and pulling Deborah out, wrapping her in a blanket. She pictured a white blanket with a blue border she kept folded oh a chair in her bedroom in case of an unusually cold night. In her mind she held it with her arms stretched wide and then stepped to-ward Deborah, who was clothed in flame, and wrapped first one arm and then the other around her friend in a saving, smothering hug. But in Ruben's mind the flames continued out each end, at Deborah's head and feet, and soon the body she was hugging was diminished, though the flames were gone, and she was afraid to open the blanket.

Peter came into the room. Deborah's in the hospital, Ruben said.

—What happened?

—She was in a car accident.

—Weren't you just with her?

—She went to her mother's after supper.

—How bad is it?

—I don't know.

She had trouble talking loudly enough for Peter to hear her. He walked out of the room and now Ruben began to cry. It was as if Peter had known more than she did and walked out of the room so as not to tell her. She cried only a little. She didn't have the breath to cry. She saw the papers she'd been marking on the table. They looked sweet. Three of them happened to be in the arrangement of a fan, spread out, and others were upside down near them, but they were all spread wide, as if a trusting, innocent person had been reading them and pushing them energetically and happily around. She had not been happy. She'd been tense about Deborah.

Harry came running. What happened?

—Deborah's in the hospital.

—Which hospital?

—I don't know. Where her mother lives.

—Where does her mother live? Maybe we can call and find out.

Ruben couldn't remember the name of the town where Deborah's mother lived. Ten or twelve years ago she had gone there with Deborah and the children to adopt Mac. They'd driven for about an hour, she thought. Harry began naming towns, but they weren't right. Ruben said, No, you're going in the wrong direction.

Harry named towns an hour in the other direction. About some of them, Peter, who had come in behind him, said, That's less than an hour.

—Depending on traffic, said Harry.

—But even if we know the name of the town, said Peter, we won't know the name of the hospital.

—We'll call her mother, said Harry. It's intolerable not to know more.

Ruben was afraid to know more. And surely Deborah's mother had gone to the hospital. She'd have called a neighbor to take her. Still, they could try. Deborah's mother's last name was Walker, a common name.

Harry called directory assistance, asking for Walkers in town after town. Ruben couldn't remember Mrs. Walker's first name. She thought it might be Elizabeth. There were dozens of people named Walker, and many named E. Walker.

—I didn't plan my class, she said. She was so tired.

—Cancel, said Peter.

—I can't, Ruben said. They come from so far. They'd come for nothing and find a note on the door. She sat down and straightened the unruly papers. She lowered her head and cried.

—She may have minor injuries, said Harry

—Jeremiah sounded scared.

So they went, back and forth.

Wearing her nightgown, she was still dialing directory assistance. It was too late to call Deborah's mother, and she had no way of knowing which of these many people—she kept writing down numbers—was Deborah's mother. If any. She called none of them. Late at night, the phone rang. Ruben, awake in bed, seized it, but it was Stevie.

—I wanted to talk about Thanksgiving, he said.

—Stevie.

—What is it, Mom? Is something wrong with Squirrel?

She told him. How bad? said Stevie.

—I don't know. When the phone rang, I thought maybe it was Jeremiah.

—Probably it's not bad. There's no reason for it to be bad. Mom, I don't know what I feel.

—About Deborah?

—No, about Jessica. I called to talk about Jessica. I want her to come home with me for Thanksgiving. But I don't know.

—I forgot about Thanksgiving.

—She doesn't have much money, but that's not it. She has enough for a ticket. Or I can help with the ticket. She loves me, no doubt about it.

—That's good.

—But if I let her come . . . We have fights about it.

—Baby, love. I need to hang up.

—Don't worry. Deborah will be all right. I'm sorry. I've just been thinking all night about Jessica, and I called her, but she was angry.

—Why was she angry?

—Oh, she was writing a paper. She didn't want to talk.

—And now your mother isn't letting you talk, either.

—It's not the same, Stevie said. I won't cry over it.

—No, don't cry over it. Ruben felt as if she had been awakened. It was dark in the room. Maybe she'd been asleep. Harry had turned over and fallen asleep again.

—Don't you cry about Deborah, Stevie said.

—I don't know whether I should or not.

—Jeremiah will call in the morning.

She slept again. At least Stevie wasn't in the hospital. She woke and got out of bed and went to a window. I'm sorry, she told Deborah. I'm sorry I told Janet Grey you are a dull teacher. Oh, you are, you are. Students say it about you. I have seen you teach. But I love everything about you, dull or not. I want to touch your neck and your back.

She didn't know what was hurt. Deborah might look different. She might be paralyzed, and Ruben could heroically push her in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives.

In the morning she thought, But I don't have a key. How could she let Mac out without a key? She was not frightened about Deborah now, but worried about Mac, who would need to go out. Of course Deborah was all right. It was probably just a fracture. Of course the hospital had called Jeremiah, be-cause when you end up in the hospital, they call your husband.

She took a shower. Harry was still asleep. Peter had gone out late and she hadn't heard him come home, but things had been moved in the night. His sweatshirt was on the hamper in the bathroom. On the table in the hall was a small cardboard box that looked as if it had held paper clips a long time ago. The writing was rubbed off. She didn't look inside. She ate breakfast.

Ruben always walked to the college, for the exercise and because driving still made her tense, and she had to drive to the pottery store day after day. Today she'd need extra time, so she could figure out how to let Mac out. She stuffed her papers into her briefcase. She was trying to teach her students that there are words, she thought wearily. Her students used words, sometimes well, but they had never noticed themselves using words. Every week she gave them a poem to read. They complained that poems were hard, and she laughed at them. By now the giving and receiving of a poem was an act of love, though the women (this year, all the students were women) still made a point of pretending to be outraged. Not another one, they'd say. What's
this
one about?
What
are these oranges?

—I give you poems because I love you, she'd said last week. Some of them looked ready to cry, their plump middle-aged made-up faces distorted with affection. She'd glanced at Maddy, who looked disgusted.

Today was colder than the day before, bright and sunny. She walked alone, hearing her own footsteps. Then a runner passed in sweatshirt and shorts, a tall, gray-bearded man she'd seen before who ran with great leaps like a deer, making a scalloped path in air, and like a deer he seemed slow when he was air-borne. She wanted to be that man, or to run with him. She imagined he was a psychoanalyst: at peace with trouble in the soul. I hurt my friend and she is hurt, she would say to him.

At Deborah's house she tried the doors, but of course they were locked. She looked under an overturned flowerpot. She walked slowly around the building. She had allowed extra time, but not much. She was worried about Mac. It was as though Deborah were trapped in the house. Mac watched from inside. Mac, she said tearfully, open the door.

She stood crying and examining doors and windows for a long time. At last she tried the basement windows, which were old. She knew Deborah and Jeremiah didn't have an alarm. She crouched in the alley next to the house and pushed as hard as she could on one of the low, wide basement windows. But it opened out. It had a hinge at the top and a metal toggle that swiveled up and down into a well on the sill. Ruben laid down her briefcase. She searched in the backyard for a rock. I mustn't, I mustn't, she told herself, but she found a broken brick with an edge and saying Life before property, plunged it into the glass.

The glass tinkled and Ruben sat back and looked around, frightened. N o one came. Her hand was cut, and a shard clung to it. She pulled it out. Deliberately she broke off enough glass to put her hand in, and she reached inside and opened the hasp. The window stuck. She banged the brick on the frame. At last it budged, and opened. The opening was small and dirty. Ruben in her teaching clothes considered whether to go in faceup or -down. Down. She held the window open with one arm and put her legs into the opening. Then she twisted until she was facedown. The window fell on her shoulders, and she cried again, but she was able to reach up, from inside now, and hold it. She was just small enough to squeeze in. She had to twist her shoulders. She turned her face to the side. Her legs found something, but it gave way. She scraped her arms getting in, but then she was inside—elated. She had saved Deborah.

She swatted at cobwebs on her arms and face. She had knocked over a small table. She righted it, reached up to lock— pointlessly—the broken window, went upstairs, and opened the door into Deborah's kitchen. She stepped into the yellow room, startled, though she had known where she was going. On the table and in the sink were dirty dishes. Deborah must have left right after supper, and Jeremiah was getting around to cleaning up when the call came. The plates on the table held scraps of lettuce and something dark. Mac came to meet her. He barked once, then wagged his tail and licked her hand. There was blood on it, and now she saw a spot of blood on the floor. She bent to kiss Mac's yellow head and let him out the back door.

There was something Ruben ought to do here, but she couldn't think what it was. She went into the bathroom, washed her hands and face, found a Band-Aid, and tried to brush off her coat. Then she thought of the phone. Maybe Deborah's mother's number would be written on the wall next to it. But no numbers were posted. She picked up the phone and looked at it. It was the kind with a memory, but she couldn't tell whose numbers were in it. Would Deborah's mother be number one? Ruben pushed the button and heard the extended tune of a long distance number. The phone rang three times and then a sleepy young voice said hello.

—Mary Grace? Sweetie?

—This is Jill.

—I'm sorry, said Ruben. It's Toby. I'm at your house. Did your father call you last night?

—It's pretty bad, said Jill, who sounded rational, as always, but scared.

—Your mother.

—They don't know if she's going to make it. I'm coming home today. Jill was in law school in California.

—Jill. I didn't know—

—Then why did you call me? Jill said in a clear, puzzled, but not unfriendly voice, as if she welcomed the distraction of a small social mystery.

—I knew ... I knew something. What happened?

—Someone slammed into her.

—You mean she might die?

—I couldn't get a flight last night. I'm glad you woke me up. I'd better go.

—Jill.

—What? You're sorry about my mom. I know. 'Bye, Toby.

Ruben hung up the phone and walked through Deborah's exuberant yellow kitchen, neater now that the girls had moved out (Rose was a teacher in Boston and Mary Grace was doing badly in her sophomore year at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst), but full of light and funny pottery. Ruben didn't have time to clean the kitchen. Her body felt insubstantial, bruised from breaking in, but light, as if it didn't touch things. She opened the door and Mac came in. She locked it again. She would be late to class. She didn't know if Deborah was conscious. She moved through the sunny, dust-flecked air in Deborah's house. Everything—even the dirty dishes—seemed expectant. What if she didn't go to class? But she let herself out the front door, pulled it shut, and tested it. For a moment she panicked about the briefcase, but then she remembered it in the alley. Now she walked so fast her stomach began to hurt. Then slowly. She often waited for her students. Today they could wait for her.

She had not planned the class. She had not planned it, and now Deborah might die. Maybe Jill had misunderstood, but of course she wouldn't. Once, when Jill was about six, she had run back and forth between Ruben and Deborah, kissing their legs; later she'd turned serious and withheld. She'd spent a year traveling through Asia when she was halfway through college, and her parents hadn't heard from her for weeks. The day she was six and kissed their legs, she had run faster and faster. Ruben remembered the little kisses on her bare knees. They all wore shorts; it must have been summer. One for
you,
Jill had called, and
you.
And
you.
And
you.
At last she had slapped them each lightly instead of kissing them, and run away.