by Sapphire
“In the morning clumps of my hair fell to the floor as I sat between my mother’s legs on the pink carpet in my bedroom. I could feel hot tears on my back and shoulders. I felt cold toward her.
“A pungent smell told me she had opened a bottle of rubbing alcohol. I flinched.
“‘Come on, be brave.’
“I screamed when the cold alcohol-soaked cotton singed my scalp. I wrenched my body away from her. My scalp burned where she had touched it. She still had a firm grip on my arm.
“‘Mommy’s going to wipe this all away and make it well. Don’t say anything to anybody about Saul. He really loves us, OK? OK? I’m not going to brush your hair, but I have to pull it together to cover these spots, OK? We’re a family, and all families have problems. No need to go blabbing to a bunch of people who can’t help you. Mommy’s gonna help you.’
“So she’s trying to blackmail Saul into playing nice family or she’ll send him to jail. He’s calling her bluff and threatening to kick us out.”
She opens her notebook to a section where a sheaf of pages has been stapled together by maybe a hundred staples.
“I’m not going to read this section, but this is where he finally rapes me, where he ‘kills’ me, where for a second I was like an animal with its nose in the wind, sniffing a good scent as the light from the chandelier seemed to shimmer down from the ceiling, the smell that raises the hairs on my neck, and then I realize it’s blood. I’m smelling my own blood. The smell irons a flat place in my brain, guaranteeing I will be inconsolable. Gutted, he guts me. When I wake up, there’s a different girl in my skin. Because I can’t forget what he did but can’t bear to remember, I make a different girl to hold the memory. I split. I create a girl who forgets; between the two of us, night girl and day girl, me and her, we’re able to move on. Day girl thinks and thinks and thinks, reads and reads and reads, and practices and practices and practices some more. If I dream after that, I don’t know it. Night girl knows the blob of slime he leaves behind, the rude, yellow stink of his piss in her toilet that he leaves like an animal marking his territory. Night girl trembles in the dark. She knows what’s coming. She’s even relieved when he cums, because at least the terror, the dreadful anxiety, is over, and afterward, when he goes, she can go to sleep, black, hard sleep that saves me.
“I don’t think my mother lets herself know, but she must feel something, because after the rape, if she goes to her mother’s or her sister’s house, she takes me with her. She doesn’t leave much, though, but I don’t think that’s about me. I think she’s afraid he’ll forget they’re ‘married’ and move someone else in. He’s out of the house in the day. We’re alone together in the house except for the maid. But it’s as if a sheet of glass is always between us. My side of the glass is clear; I see through to her, but her side is a mirror, all she sees is herself.
“I had to find a way to break through. I was with her when she bought the purse from Bloomingdale’s in ‘the City.’ A big white purse. I decided to write her a letter and put it in a bottle like the shipwrecked cartoon characters did. It was a plastic water bottle. I carefully turned it upside down to let all the drops of water drain out, and when it was dry, I put the letter in (too bad I lost the top). Then I put the bottle in the new white bag with the big gold clasp. Snap! It was done. For some reason I thought then for the first time in a concrete way about my real mother.”
Dear mom.
He is molesting me. Daddy is doing it. You know what that means. Mommy make him stop
Noël (your one and only daughter)
“I’m devastated when she doesn’t respond to my letter until one day it dawns on me, she never got the letter. How do I know that? I realize I’ve never seen Mommy with the white bag! I’ve never seen Mommy with the white bag. I’veneverseenMommywiththewhitebag. The mountain of dark feeling her betrayal had been building inside of me comes tumbling down. Of course! It was so obvious, why didn’t I see the light sooner?
“She’s washing my hair in the kitchen. I’m full of the thought now, that as firmly as my despairing mind had believed she knows and doesn’t care, my total organism now believes she doesn’t know and that she’s a true mother. My nose is full of floral-smelling shampoo. Her body, smelling faintly of sweat and grapefruit, is pressed reassuringly against mine as her strong fingers knead my scalp. She wraps a fluffy pink towel around my head and turns me toward her.
“‘Mom,’ I say, ‘he does things to me at night.’
“‘Who, the boogeyman?’ She laughs.
“‘No, Mommy, what I wrote you in the letter.’
“‘What letter?’ she says, toweling my hair. I WAS RIGHT!
“‘I put it in your purse.’
“‘I have a hundred purses.’
“‘The white purse.’
“‘I have a dozen white purses.’
“‘Mom, he comes in my room at night and sticks his finger. The time you went away, he took me to your room and gave me vitamins and sex with me.’
“‘Sex with you?’
“‘Innercourse innercourse, Mommy, like the dog sticks its thing in, but I was laying down on the bed.’
“‘I . . . I . . . I . . .’ she’s stuttering.
“I’m afraid she doesn’t believe me. I start to cry as if my heart is broken, because it is broken.
“She takes my shoulders and gently shakes me. ‘Do you remember which bag?’
“‘The white bag!’ I sob.
“I try to stretch out my arms to hug her, but she’s still holding my shoulders, her forehead gathered in thinking wrinkles.
“‘The white bag with the big—’
“‘Gold,’ we say together. ‘Clasp,’ she finishes, and lets go of my shoulders.
“‘Keep drying off. I’ll be right back.’
“She darts out of the kitchen and up the stairs. When she comes back, she looks like the witch in my old Disney Hansel and Gretel book—all scrunched up and full of evil.
“‘We can use this! By God, we will use this. That’s as good as a wedding ring. We can get anything out of him now.’
“What’s she talking about? Maybe she sees the confusion on my face.
“‘He’s not going to bother you anymore.’
“‘He already did a lot.’
“‘It’s over. Believe Mommy, OK?’
“‘OK.’ But I’m not sure I believe her a bit.
“‘Say, “OK, Mommy, I believe you.’”
“‘OK, Mommy, I believe you,’ I parroted. And I did. What choice did I have? Believe her and be her child again or be an abandoned nestling and die or go crazy. I chose to believe. There didn’t seem to be a place in between, yet. At least I was something; even a lie is something. I was a kid, her kid, somebody’s daughter. Without her I was just the nighttime girl and what he said I was, taken-in trash, dusted off to be fucked.
“I was her girl now, maybe in the same way he was going to be her husband. She had something on him. I had something on her. I would use it. I figured out what I wanted, just like she did. I had paid for it already. And yeah, she’s paying me and will be for a long time to come. Pampered rich kid? I don’t think so. I think war crime, the second rape of My Lai. American moment. I call myself My Lai, and as soon as I’m old enough, that’s going on all my legal documents, MY LAI.”
My Lai holds the notebook pressed against her breasts as she talks. I see myself tearing another woman’s notebook to bits in Central Park and throwing the bits in the howling subway tunnel.
Finally Scott breaks the silence. “It’s amazing.”
“Off the hook.” Snake. “But way long, My Lai. We have to totally go for the heart.”
“Yeah, I agree, and the essence, the heart, of the story is the voice of this child. I keep hearing the part ‘I love you, Saul, I love you, Saul.’” Scott.
“What got me was the little you writing the letters.” Me.
“The part under the table wore me out!” Snake.
“The part that I
totally ID’d with was how dancing gave you a life in the middle of the abuse.” Me.
“That’s theater, baby!”
“OK, OK, the question is—”
“Why?”
“No, how.”
I can’t keep up with who’s talking. I’m seeing My Lai under her dad being fucked; I’m half repulsed, half aroused, and totally enraged. These fucking perps, it’s like they throw you down a well, that’s how I feel, like that gook, like that little rice farmer, man, that the G.I. knocked down the well. I promise myself then and there if I ever see Brother John again to do that faggot death. I hold My Lai tighter; she’s silent while everyone’s chattering.
Scott looks at his watch. “Let’s call it a day—night, actually.”
FOUR
I’m at Starbucks looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows at a man vomiting on the subway steps and the crazed effort of a college student to turn the huge black cube in the center of Cooper Square on its axis. The alcove I’m sitting in is on a slightly raised platform between the window section and the rest of the café; my back is to those tables below on the cement floor, and I’m facing the windows and the door, so I see the three of them, Snake, Scott, and My Lai, when they walk in. The exact moment they walked in the door, I could have hollered, Yo, guys! But I didn’t. I don’t know why. Tasting My Lai with my eyes, my blood swirls. Her nose is pierced again; she had it done once, and it got infected, and she had to let it close up. This time she went back in with fourteen-karat instead of silver, and it’s doing fine. She has on tight black leather pants, high heels, and, even though it’s no longer summer and starting to cool off, her gold lamé tube top. Snake and Scott are in jeans, Snake with a big silver cowboy belt; Scott even in jeans looks like he has on a suit and tie.
I turn my head and bend further over my book, Nureyev: Aspects of the Dancer by John Percival:
. . . It was not until he was eleven that Nureyev had his first ballet lesson. He was taken by one of the Pioneer mistresses to the Ufa Scientists’ Club to meet an old lady named Udeltsova, then about seventy, who had been a member of Serge Diaghilev’s corps de ballet. She still taught, not professional students but children.
They’ve chosen a table on the floor right in front of my table in the alcove. Now would be a good time to turn around and say hi. But again I don’t.
“What do you want?” Scott.
“I can get it?” My Lai.
“Let’s just leave our stuff here and go up together.” Scott.
“This is still New York. I’ll stay here and watch our shit.” Snake.
“So what do you want?” Scott.
“What are you guys getting?” Snake.
“Black Forest ham and cheddar, and a coffee.” Scott.
“Americano and a chocolate croissant.” My Lai.
“Bet.”
“Bet what?”
“The ham and cheese with an Americano, room for milk.” Snake, but I don’t hear no shuffling of bills from him to My Lai or Scott. Snake has no problem taking.
When My Lai and Scott get back to the table, I turn my head a bit and sneak a glance out the side of my eye. Their three backs form a little semicircle opposite to my back. It’s too late to say hi now; it would be weird. They’re nattering on about My Lai’s performance, whether it should be a solo (what else could it be?), finding a way to make it more central (I agree with that). Scott says transnational adoption is indicative almost always of a past colonial or conqueror relationship of the adopting recipient/buyer country to the child donor/seller countries. (So what? Kids need a home, that’s my two cents!)
“How so?” Snake.
“I mean no people come from China or Africa to adopt kids in the U.S.” Scott.
“I gotcha.” Snake.
“It’s not a judgment, just a fact. It would be hard for an African to come over here and adopt an ‘orphan’ whose father objected to him or her being adopted. I mean, it’s not a probability.” Scott.
“So how are we going to proceed with this?” My Lai.
“Well, we got a million little pieces here. You know we want to feed the story into a central place in the text and choreography. So we’re making no attempt at passing off the finished product as a factual attempt to tell My Lai’s biography. She becomes, as Amy asked if she was that first time before My Lai read the piece, an Asian everywoman-child.”
“Bet, build power into the performance by having something that seems personal, is in fact personal, give flavor—” Snake.
“Added emotional valence—” Scott.
“Flavor, added emotional valence—same difference.” Snake.
Sigh. Scott. (So what are they gonna do, change My Lai’s story to make it like she’s a Vietnamese adoptee or something so it complements the My Lai Massacre choreography? Interesting.)
They’re talking about the opening-night reception. Should they have it before the show or after? After is my thinking. Then out the blue Scott says, “What about Abdul?”
“What about him? His section with Charlie Company at the well is one of the strongest parts of the performance.” My Lai.
“And the video footage is gold.” Snake.
“Well, you know the whole thing. Like, who is this guy? He came in with one name, now he has another one. Amy’s not that into him—”
“She doesn’t have to be into him to work with him.” My Lai.
“Well, I’m not that comfortable with him living at the loft. It’s supposed to be a rotating, caretaking position, and the dude has just moved in totally. I was going through the incoming mail last week, and he’s getting mail!”
“Hey, man, why didn’t you say that from the get-go? The loft is your digs. If you need him out, he’s out.” Snake.
“I didn’t mean that.” Scott.
“Yes you did.” My Lai.
“Well, if you didn’t mean it, you were getting around to meaning it.” Snake.
“You know he’s my man.” My Lai.
“I know that. What’s that got to do with anything?” Scott.
“Shit, would you want someone to bring up some shit like that in front of everybody about your spouse?” My Lai.
“Spouse? My Lai, that’s pretty heavy. I didn’t know you two were that hot an item. And since when did Snake become ‘everybody’?” Scott.
“You just said you knew.” My Lai.
“I mean when you said ‘he’s my man,’ I knew already something had been going on between you two, so I responded, ‘I know that.’ But I didn’t know it was all that, he’s your spouse and shit.” Scott.
“Look, spouse, house, louse, mouse! What the fuck! He’s the strongest dancer we have, he’s good, two steps from one day being great. If we really want Herd to get going, we need to pull in three or four more—”
“More what?” Scott cuts in on Snake. “Black dancers?”
“Scott! Man, are you tripping?” Snake.
“No, no, I didn’t mean it that way, it came out all wrong. But it’s like we . . . we have a concept and I don’t want it to get . . . get taken. . . .”
“Taken over?” My Lai.
“No, no, you got me all wrong. Let’s get off Abdul, we have too much to do together to be getting all convoluted. You’re right, he’s cool, and I am tripping, and I guess a little scared it’s all going to—”
“All what, huh? All your daddy’s and My Lai’s mommy’s financed company might really become a fucking real company you don’t control.” Snake.
“OK, OK, point taken. Now can we kill this and get back to what we were talking about before?”
Discipline, I tell myself, and breathe. Disappear into your breath, defuse your anger. Don’t move except to lean further over and read from John Percival.
She taught, not professional students but children. Nureyev was made to dance for her: a gopak, a lezginka and other folk dances. As he danced, the old lady looked stunned, and at the end she gave him the advice he had already heard from others: “Go to Leningrad, s
tudy there.” But from her lips it meant something at last, and the boy blushed. Besides, she was much more peremptory: “Child, you have a duty to yourself to learn classical dancing.”
When they get up, I feel wiped out, like that guy on that TV special on renal dialysis, as if something had just removed all the blood out of my body. I sit there waiting for whatever it is that’s gone to come back. I mean, I knew he didn’t like me. But why? Because I’m good, because I’m black? His “concept”! What is it with them, if they’re sucking our shit, hip-hop or R&B or something, it’s all good, they love love love us, can’t get enough of that funky stuff, eat it up, cash in. Yet me being with Herd all of a sudden—well, it wasn’t no all of a sudden. He’s been scared from day one I’m going to “take over.” Where’s his fucking stupid head? Spozed to be so intelligent. Well, maybe he’s right; before it’s all done, I will take over. But not from his stupid ass. His “concept,” fuck his concept! I feel tired now, rattled. None of my gigs pays me near enough to afford rent anywhere around here. I feel like I’m hurtling through dark space, like here we fucking go. I thought I was on solid ground, but it’s just smoke, mirrors, and quicksand all over again. Well, suck it in, put on a hard face, don’t let on you know shit. And shit, what do you know, really? Just get on out there and do the show, dance hard, harder than you ever danced. And when it’s over, you figure out your next move.
I close the book, look at his muscular body in white tights and chest bared. He’s on his knees, his arms muscular and sinewy raised above his head elegantly in fifth position. He has the face of a wolf, beautiful high cheekbones, smoky eyes, hungry lips. I look at him and know I have to be great while at the same time feeling I can’t really be. The confusion makes me want to kill something, fuck up everybody, including myself.
I’VE HEARD THE MUSIC a thousand times, but because the wood floor trembles when I step like the walls around it are being consumed by flames and it will collapse at any minute, I mince my movement. I’m disgusted with myself; this is the third time I’ve missed the count where I’m supposed to come in; then after I miss the damn count, I can’t catch up and get on the beat, everybody has to stop. I think it’s me trembling, not the floor.
