The Meeting Point (19 page)

“I’m sorry,” he said at last.

“Oh, it’s all right,” she said, still unsettled. (She knew who he was.) “I thought it was Bernice out here. But Bernice won’t knock. She has a key.” He remained standing, not knowing what to do next. She felt she had to say something to take his mind off what his mind might have been on. “Well, look at me, eh! Still in bed this time o’ day!”

“You must be Bernice’s sister.”

“Yes, Estelle.”

“Well, how’s it going?” He turned to go. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll tell Bernice you were looking for her.”

“Fine.”

“Well, you come back when Bernice comes back, eh?”

“Fine.” He had not actually moved yet.

“Well, I’d better go and take off these …”

“Fine.” He was looking at her legs, in the passage of his glance downwards to her ankles. He did not know why he had looked at her ankles, instead of at her breasts. He did not know why he didn’t move away as soon as he saw her. Perhaps it was the way she looked; the way she looked at him … she looked
at him just as Jeffrey’s mother had looked at him when he went to her home to say he was sorry for what happened to Jeffrey, and Jeffrey’s mother looked at him that way, because she hated him; and because he was a coward, because he went to her after Jeffrey had spent two months of his sentence in the Don Jail. Estelle was looking at him as if he was a small child sent on an errand too large for his retention; just so did Mrs. Carson, Jeffrey’s mother look at him. And Jeffrey’s mother had shouted at him, and called him “a crooked blasted Jew,” loud loud loud, so loud that the neighbours heard, and that was what caused him to do the thing that weakened him, and made him always uncomfortable in front of women.
He had shit his pants, in front of Mrs. Carson, Jeffrey’s mother…
and running without opening his legs too much, across the dilapidated street of old garbage, open and fly-infested, and in the eyes of noisy black people, right across Spadina and up College, until he reached Palmerston Boulevard, with the brown grease slipping down his legs, and the smell; and there and then, he bathed four times that night; and since then bathing had become a necessity. When he was at university, living by himself, he would bathe three times a day (he never took a shower in his life) and when, later in life, that was made impossible and inconvenient, he would spend as much time as possible in the bath tub (to compensate for the infrequency). Now he stood waiting upon Estelle, as if he wanted to be scolded again. “I am sorry.” But she had already closed the door, because he had frightened her. She was not frightened of him; no, it wasn’t his appearance, or the appearance of his motives which she felt she detected; but the way he stood there, like a fool, like someone without the reality of hinging the past to the present.

Inside the door, she could hear him going back down. She
had latched the door while he was outside; but she unlatched it, later. She went back to the chesterfield, and began to count the snowflakes. She could not think of the snow now: she was thinking of the man; and she was drawing pictures of the man, in the snow, without permitting her mind to linger on the motives of the pictures; yet she was shaking with a nervousness which imprisoned the man in a corner of her mind. The motives were at work; for something had happened; and she knew it.
It is up to me to do something about the something that has happened; because something else is going to happen and it can be up to me to make that something else happen. But I am not sure what
. But before she could decide what to do, Bernice was back, with the vaseline; thinking:
I gotta get a room and get rid of this bitch, I gotta get a room
. Unable to think of this scheme against her sister, and be in the same room with her, Bernice slipped downstairs to find some solace in work. She prepared lunch for Mr. Burrmann and the children. Mrs. Burrmann had gone to do her volunteer work in the Women’s Auxiliary, at the Doctors’ Hospital, where she sold cigarettes and chewing gum to chronic patients, with a smile.

Bernice was sitting on a straightbacked chair. She had been sitting like this for thirty minutes. Her dress was tucked saucily in the crux of her large wallaba-like legs. One eye was closed (it was on that side of the head which was being
processed
) as Estelle ripped the comb through her tough hair. Suddenly, she laughed out. The comb hesitated. Estelle moved round in front; looked down inquisitively to see what Bernice was laughing at; and said, “This is the first time, in almost six weeks that I see you even smile. Well, God bless my eyesight!” Bernice continued laughing loudly. “Do you know what just enter my mind?”
she asked. “I was laughing ’bout them two fellars who stealed the mangoes, and then couldn’t divide them in two, because neither one could count. God! that must have been something. One threaten to kill the other one, if he didn’t get his due, although he himself couldn’t know what his due was. A simple thing like division by two’s. But them two fellars sat down under the street light; one fellar empty all the mangoes on the road, and he started counting:
one for me, and one for you; one for me, and one for you, and …
”

“But that was funny.”

“You mean the way they solve the counting?”

“No, Bernice. It’s funny because the day Agatha took me driving, those are the exact words she used.
There’s enough for me and there’s enough for you!
Her exact words. And I don’t really know if she wanted those words to reach my ears, because the way she was talking, she was talking as if she was saying it to herself. But now that you mentioned the story, I remember what she said:
enough for me and enough for you
, which, as you would agree, is the same thing as saying
one for me and one for you
.” She went back to “processing” Bernice’s hair. “Bernice?” she said, later, “what exactly could Agatha mean by a statement like that?”

“Agaffa isn’t worth worrying about; and she isn’t worrying with you. Agaffa accustom to black people, and especially men.”

“Yes, she told me about Henry. The parents ripped hell, in truth.”

“It serve all them Negro men right, though!” There was bitterness in her voice. Her body stiffened, so that you couldn’t help thinking her statement was based on personal involvement. “That girl’s father threatened to shoot Henry, you didn’t know? Henry won’t stop troubling the man’s daughter. The
man send Agaffa to Europe to forget Henry, and be-Christ, after eighteen months, that Agaffa still come back like a loopy dog, dying o’ thirst, and caused the father to ask her to leave home.…” Estelle said she had heard about it, from Agatha herself. “And look, I have to confess that that poor child suffered so much for that blasted brute, Henry. And he treats her like dirt. And still she coming back for more?”

“A woman is a woman, Bernice. It doesn’t matter what colour she is. And if Henry had fallen in love with …” Bernice rushed up out of the chair. The cloth tied round her head and shoulders, dropped off. “How the hell would you know?” she asked Estelle. “You just come? You is one o’ the
broadminded
ones, already?” But she sat back down, quieted; and in a changed manner, she admitted, “You know something? I don’t know, I do not know, at all. I really do not know, Estelle.”

“But do you think you’ve changed much? Living here?”

“Child, I really do not know.”

“To me, you changed; and changed a damn lot, too.”

Bernice took a deep breath, it seemed to put her thoughts in order. “Look, child, this idea o’ leaving your home and coming into somebody-else country is a damn brave thing, eh. Every day, there’s something to remind you that you wasn’t born here, that you don’t belong here. Christ, sometimes, I shudder in my room, thinking what would happen to me, to Dots, to Boysie, to all the black people in this place, if some o’ them blasted African people in Africa decided to kill-off all the white people living in their midst. Child, don’t you think that would be a day o’ blood and sorrow and sufferation? Just to think of it makes me tremble.” Estelle had stopped fixing the hair, to listen; and to ponder the possibility of that happening. “Perhaps, you are more happier, more freer where the
hell you come from, I don’t know. I have a good few cents stashed away in a bank, somewhere in this place. There’s dresses in that clothes closet, as you see for yourself; and be-Christ, I could never hope to get half o’ them if I was still in Barbados. Look round this apartment. Telephone, radiogram, electric iron, and I just had a chat with that man, Mr. Burrmann, and he tell me he puttin’ in television in here, next week. Well, what the hell more do I want? Tell me, Estelle. The only thing I don’t have, nor don’t particular want to have, is a man, goddammit, because man is trouble. And when I balance my life here against my life there, I think I come out on top.”

“Still, I think you changed.”

“
Change?
Is change, you say? That ain’t the word. The word is mashed-up —
destroy
!” She moved her arms round the apartment, taking in all its contents. “All this! all this. And not a ounce o’ happiness.” She remembered what Dots had said on her return from Barbados recently; and this made her say, “But a man could live anywhere, any place, as long as there is
people
on the earth.” The ironing comb was ripping through Bernice’s hair; and Estelle herself winced when the comb got stuck, and when Bernice stiffened, anticipating the pain that would crawl up from the roots of her hair. Many mangled pieces of hair were caught in the comb; Estelle would take them out, and drop them; and they would fall like snow-balls into Bernice’s lap. Bernice played with them, and balled them into small balls; then joined all the small ones into a large ball. She studied the large ball, looking at it, and wondering, “Estelle, you think snow would ever be black?”

“I suppose it’s possible! Anything is possible.” But she didn’t really think so.

Bernice was happier now; and more comfortable; and
she allowed her mind to wonder and to wander. Estelle too, wandered in her thoughts:
if a man could press a button in a car, as Agatha did, and roll up car windows, I don’t see why it’s so strange with snow falling outta the skies the colour of black. Man made the car windows and the garage door. But God made the snow; so anything is possible.…

I would like to bring Mammy up for a month, for a rest, at least. Wonder what Estelle would think o’ that
. “Estelle, what about bringing up Mammy?”
I better think ’bout that, yes! ’cause I don’t know if young people should live with old people; old people and Canadians always talking ’bout death. Old people are real Canadians! … or even bring up Lonnie
.

“Mammy too old to travel.”

“It might make her happy, though.”
But I wonder why Estelle don’t like Mammy? She hasn’t said more than two words concerning poor Mammy, since she come up here? I had better leave my money on the bank. Mammy all right. Mammy could walk across the road, and call-out for two three four people by their first names, even before she make another step; Mammy could even enjoy a joke with them; Mammy could walk through Bridgetown, barefooted or in shoes, or with a loaf o’ bread in her mouth, eating, but be-Christ, Mammy, you can’t do none o’ them things in this place. So perhaps, you are better off down there.…
“But Estelle, you see any wisdom in a woman like me trying to make her home in this country?”

“I don’t know, Bernice, I really don’t know. But what really is worrying me, is how you become so important and independent a woman, that you don’t have time for one little man round this apartment?”

“Come, finish the hair, child, ’cause I have a hundred and one things to do before nightfall.”

“But Bernice, have you ever thought serious ’bout marriage or
anything?”

“No.”
And after that, Bernice was silent for a long time, while Estelle worked on the hair. She began to talk to herself, under her breath, mostly; but at times, her thoughts got the better of her, and she would express them, so that Estelle could hear. “You know something? That white woman down there, she could work like a blasted horse, herself, yuh know. Man, Mrs. Burrmann can do as much work, as much housework as me or you. Sometimes I wonder
why
, with me here, she still killing herself over the house, making a home for Mr. Burrmann, God-love-him, sometimes: looking after them two kids, and still she employing me, and paying me! You think it is because she
must
have somebody beneath her? … I making sense to you, or I imagining something that ain’t there?”

“God, Bernice … and I talking in your language now! … this is the kind o’ horse-sense I was waiting to hear from you since I arrive.”

“Christ, yes, man! and though I don’t always have the mind or the inclination to talk what is on my mind, it don’t mean that I don’t have serious things on my mind … Listen, Estelle! listen, listen, listen!” She was whispering now. “You hear footsteps coming up here?” Out of the hissing of the hair being fried, came footsteps up the stairs. Quickly, all life stopped. Action halted; and the women waited, staring, to recognize the footsteps. You could see their minds working. “Thank God,” Bernice said, “the door lock. Quick! turn off that damn hot-plate!” Estelle couldn’t find the switch: she had never before used a hot-plate in her life. “Come, take this!” Bernice gave her the towel which was wrapped round her
shoulders to keep the hair from falling into her bosom. Then Bernice pulled out the cord of the hot-plate, and threw it under the chesterfield. The vaseline jar had lost its cover, but she couldn’t wait to find it. She threw that, the ironing comb and the rag, used to wipe the comb, into the bathroom. And then they waited for the person to knock. Bernice stopped breathing, it seemed; and Estelle, too.

The footsteps come right up to the door; they wait, and then they turn and go back downstairs.

“But who you think it is, Bernice?”

“Mrs. Burrmann, probably.”

“It could be Dots, couldn’t it?”

“Dots would call out. Besides, Dots working.”

“Yes. And they were heavier footsteps than a woman.”

“I wonder …”