Vida (67 page)

“All mothers do.” Natalie stroked her hair. “I forgot to say I like your hair that way.”

“I thought you hadn’t noticed. I’d forgotten it myself.”

“I noticed, but I was focused on how to tell you about Ruby.”

“It’s a funny place, this conservatory.” She looked around. “A little seedy … Randy was ambivalent about us. He wanted so bad to succeed he’d have killed for it. Maybe he did kill for it. But he loved the action, it let his fury out. He went to a second-rate Jesuit college ‘cause he couldn’t get into Fordham Law School. How he hated us!”

Natalie grimaced. “In the courthouse he came up to me. ‘We’re going to burn your buns this time,’ he said in that self-consciously vulgar way of his as if words turned to shit in his mouth. ‘We’ll send you up until the rest of your hair turns gray and your teeth fall out. The whole time you can know that that busy professor husband of yours is balling all the freshman girls. You’re never going to see your kids again,’ says Randy to me.”

“I hate him. Finally I do.”

“I said, ‘It’s nice to see a familiar face, Randy. Blown up anything lately? How you must miss the old days! Cheer up. It won’t stay this quiet long and you can start some action again. Some plastic surgery and a new identity and you can trap some more kids and ruin their lives, right?’” Natalie made a sour face.

A man came through shaking a finger at them. “Time, ladies. Closing time. Got to move on out.”

They rose and followed him reluctantly. Vida said, “I hate to think of Lohania as lost to us. That Randy got her after all”

“She was lost to us a long time ago” Natalie tightened her arm affectionately. “Oh, another lost country.” She screwed up her forehead. “Tomorrow. The Rex Arms on West 55th near Eighth. Room 314 at 12:30 P
.M.
There! That’s your message.”

“Oh. Did Leigh go to the funeral?”

“No.” Natalie looked surprised. “I told him, but I never expected him to go. You know Leigh—he doesn’t like to put himself through that sort of thing. Besides, he feels guilty about divorcing you. Doesn’t want to face us in a clump.”

“So what does he want? What’s this Rex Arms business?”

”To see you. He’ll be waiting in that room tomorrow, says he.”

“Let him wait.” She smiled as they buttoned up, leaving the building. “It’s getting dark … Let him sit in room 314 in the Rex Arms till 12:30 A
.M.
In fact, I would enjoy immensely that he wait and wait and wait. It’d give me great pleasure.”

“You don’t want me to tell him you won’t come? Or might you?”

“Don’t tell him a thing. You shouldn’t be having phone conversations about me.”

“Oh, Vinnie, don’t harrumph at me. We use a code.”

“Well, use the code for maybe. Let him sweat it. Frankly, I’m not tempted … How come he wants to see me?”

“The station just got bought by a conglomerate. He’s afraid for his job. Making it as a free-lance journalist is a lot of sweat and he doesn’t relish the idea.”

“Does he still relish being a daddy?”

“In principle. That you can’t cancel the baby if he gets fired is beginning to annoy him. You’re his political insurance policy, you know. If he feels he’s not doing anything with his life, if he gets worried about compromising his politics, if he misplaces his sense of direction, if he feels guilty, you’re his ace in the hole: No matter what people think he’s doing with his life, he has his connection with you. A link to the underground. He is helping fugitives. He’s having clandestine meetings with a member of the notorious Network. Even though he looks like Clark Kent, he can duck into a phone booth and become Super-Leftie”

“Could I have another handkerchief? All I do is run off at the eyes, Natty. I thought it was love.”

“Oh, shvesterlein, he does love you—or anyhow, he did for a time. I just don’t know what he meant by that.”

“Something more than someone you say hello to on the street. Somewhat less than I mean” She shook her head. “It’s late!” The gardens were dark, and nervously they hurried to Natalie’s van. Natalie unlocked the door and stood by, reluctant to get in. Vida said passionately, clutching her by the shoulders, “I don’t want to leave you today, I don’t!”

“You’re scared something will happen? I’m all right. I’m doing fine. Just take care of yourself.”

“How are the kids?”

“Sam and Peezie are back with me. I’m in trouble for yanking them out and sending them off to Chicago. Their schoolwork is all confused. But it was good for Sandy and not so bad in the end for them. Fanon’s with his father, and we’re getting ready to take to the courts about him. I’m told I haven’t a chance, but that’s his lawyer tells me that. My lawyer says Phooey, we’ll skin him alive. It’s blood-and-guts infighting” she said cheerfully. “Let me give you a ride. It’s dark and cold and windy.”

“Just to the train.” She climbed in.

“Joel’s waiting for you. He’ll help. Won’t he?”

She nodded.

Natalie turned the key, pumped the gas, got the engine to turn over, wheezing. “This is so trivial on top of it all. But. I’m having a romance.”

“A romance! From prison?”

“Sort of. She was on our defense committee.”

“What’s she like?”

“Actually, she’s kind of like me. She’s Jewish, she’s thirty-seven, she’s got two kids she’s raising. She’s been around the left for years and just started becoming a feminist in the past four or five”

“That isn’t like you. That’s more like me. What’s her name?”

“Zelda. Everybody calls her Zee. When she was younger, everybody used to tease her that it was Z for Zaftig … Sweetie, we only slept together once, in a great hurry. We have to be careful because of my lawsuit. My lawyer told me if I start having an obvious affair, especially with a woman, I’ll blow it. So we hold hands and play with the kids together and take them to the circus and watch Peezie run and meet in strange restaurants. So sue me,” she said glumly. “A romance at my age.”

“But you’re lovable, Natty, why shouldn’t you be loved? Is she really like you?”

“Zee’s wittier, a harder surface. She’s been alone longer. She knows how to change a washer in the faucet and a tire on the car. More of a New Yorker than I am. She dresses better.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a legal secretary. You sound like Ruby! Next you’re going to ask me, ‘Is your new friend, you know,
affectionate?’’
Oh, Vida, don’t cry”

“I’m not, I’m not. Drop me right there. Oh, good luck, Natty! Please have some good luck and some good loving for a change. She’d better be good to you or I’ll blow her up.”

“Sure” Natalie shook her head. “Big talker. You never even blew up Daniel.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Sometimes!” Natalie laughed. “I’m not the grudge-holding type. I just want some money for the kids.”

Vida walked off rapidly, and then Natalie passed her in the van and turned left out of sight. A romance! And she thought of Natalie as the practical one; except that Natalie would be practical. Natalie would manage her romance without endangering her court case or frightening the children. She would sacrifice her heart’s desire to the children if she had to, but she would try to have a taste or two, a big bite.

The tears started as she strode along the platform. She bit her lip, bit her cheek hard until the tears seemed to withdraw back into her sinuses and her face cooled. No Ruby, no mama, no more. Was she an orphan? Or was Tom alive? She imagined him huddled drinking from a bag on Skid Row in Cheyenne, Wyoming. As she pushed into the crowded train, she rejected the image. Surely he had moved in with another woman; a string of women. Her daddy would not rest alone. They were all that way—Tom, Paul too, Ruby and she herself; they did not often sleep alone. They were a family of sexual grabbers who hooked into people. They connected. Paul couldn’t let go of Joy even after divorcing her. She wished she could see her big brother, just for one hour. Brief meetings were best; they could express their caring but not run out of things to say.

We made each other be sisters, Natalie and I, she thought, riding through the darkness. Yet the myth became flesh. We are sisters; one blood, one life, one work. No matter what’s going on in my life, Natalie will be with me till death, and then there will be a hole in her or in me that nothing will soften—a black hole of pain, of absolute loss and entropy. It’s by that possible loss I measure all others.

She could not think about Ruby—not yet. She could only watch the stations flash by and wait till she could be with Joel, who had gone into Manhattan and danger, who had been with the lawyer, who had been making the pickup of the advance money and learning the details of the Michigan job. She did not look forward to that, not at all. It would be risky. Oh, well, no one paid well for what wasn’t. When there were no questions asked, it was because people who could afford to ask questions back wouldn’t touch the job. She huddled, a motherless homeless child of—what? Was she thirty-six? Thirty-seven? She couldn’t remember. So many false identities confused her. She had not celebrated a birthday in years. Would she, for once, with Joel? She felt paralyzed and cold.

25

When she got back to the motel, Joel was not there. True, he had farther to go, into Manhattan and back; but she had been with Natalie until four thirty. And the black Mariah was gone. Had he returned from the meeting with the lawyer and driven off someplace? But why? And where was the money? It was well after five, and full night outside.

Her impulse was to bolt the motel room. She felt impaled, fluttering there. She wanted to clear out and watch from someplace else—but where? It was cold outside, dark and windy. What was keeping him? She paced from bed to window. He must have driven to the train and left the car there. Flat tire? Battery low? Engine wouldn’t start? He must be fixing it even now. Accident?

Turning out the room lamp, she stood at the crack in the draperies. Endless headlights and taillights slurred by on the road beyond the V-shaped court. In Yonkers it was rush hour. Cars, cars, cars, none of them Joel. Her stomach was hard and heavy as lead. She clutched herself with one hand lightly kneading as she grasped the draperies with the other. Although the room was stifling, she had her boots and coat on. If they had him, they would not know where to find her: he would never tell them. They could not call every motel in the surrounding area with the license number; or could they? But why would they think she was staying in a motel? Still, they would get to that. How long should she wait?

If they had him. No, she couldn’t think. She willed him to appear. Please. Right now, Or the twenty-first car after that station wagon will be him. Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen. Where in hell? What had happened? What kind of disaster, what flavor, what magnitude? She hallucinated his face. She kept seeing the black Mariah lumber in among the granite banks of hardened sludge. Please, please, please. Eleven, ten, nine, eight. Let me die instead. Him and Natalie, they’re all I really have. Five, four. I’d be willing to catch the flu again. Let me get kicked off the Board. Kiley can win the next move. Three, two. Please, make it be him. I’ll love him so well—better than I ever have. I’ll give up the antinuke project. One, zero. No black Mariah.

It was time to try Dr. Manolli again. Slowly she zipped her jacket, checking that she had the room key. Past the line of rooms to the arcade she strolled, to the broken ice machine, the empty soda machine and the functioning pay phone. She was supposed to call between five and five thirty, and she was right on target. This time she got him.

“How about in the morning?” she suggested.

“Too risky. No, you come in at twelve fifteen. My receptionist’s out to lunch and so is my nurse. If somebody’s in the waiting room, you just walk right by as if you’re delivering something. Go through the waiting room and take the door to the left. I’ll be at my desk, eating a sandwich and doing paperwork. Twelve fifteen on the button”

Back she walked to the room, as slowly as she could. She didn’t want to arrive. If he was safe, they wouldn’t be able to clear out of town until tomorrow afternoon. They had to check out of the motel by eleven. She’d meet Joel at a Bronx subway station. Meet him—where was he? She was no longer conscious of her stomach hurting. Her chest ached. Fear soured her mouth. She wished she were lying unconscious at the bottom of a pit and felt nothing. One hand in the pocket of her jacket clutched the motel key. She was staring at the muddy ice so that she did not hear the car pass. When she lifted her head she saw it: the black Mariah nudging into their parking place. She stopped to make sure. Joel got out and banged on the door of their room. Stomped his feet and banged again. She hurried the last few feet.

“Where have you been?” she yelled. “Where were you?”

He pushed past her into the hot room. “Where were
you?
I finally get back and you can’t even wait for me in the room.”

“I waited for hours. I was making a phone call!”

“Who were you calling?”

“Never mind. Where the hell were you?”

“Never mind” he imitated. “I can guess”

“Joel, stop throwing up a smoke screen. What happened? Do you have the money?”

“Sure I got it” He held up a paper bag. “Shit, I thought we’d get an attaché case of money, like in the movies. But $750 in twenties isn’t a big pile—just thirty-five twenties and five tens. You could stuff it in your pocket” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, if you count it, you’ll find eighty bucks missing.”