For the last nine days Harriet had driven an extra eight miles on her way to work so she could admire her new billboard with its prominent pictures of Hannah beside herself as Maxine Biedelman. Since the billboard had gone up, zoo attendance had increased twenty percent—and in mid-November, to boot. Her one-woman performances were attracting larger audiences each day, and the question-and-answer periods sometimes lasted nearly as long as the talk itself. She was considering converting the house’s capacious ballroom into an auditorium so her performances could continue in comfort through the winter.
Harriet loved her new persona. As Maxine, she was courageous and accomplished, a woman of sophistication equally at home in Cannes or on the Indian subcontinent. As Maxine she didn’t walk, she strode; she did not merely see, but beheld. The very air she breathed was bracing. Here was a conqueror of worlds. There had been some awkward moments, of course, with disrespectful employees and forgetful managers who continued to address her as Harriet, but as Maxine she had discovered magnanimity: she merely smiled and reminded them of her policy. Sooner or later they would find that calling her Maxine had become second nature, just as they became accustomed to the new names of recent brides.
From the scribbled captions on the backs of Maxine’s childhood photographs, she had sometimes been called Brave Boy, which Harriet thought was a wonderful name. Harriet’s own childhood nickname had been Bucket, a reference to her appetite for fried chicken when she was small. Bestowed so many years ago by her father, the name had been only one among many unkindnesses. She had learned early that she was unlikable, but she didn’t know why. Certainly it wasn’t any child’s intention to be disliked. Harriet understood very well that it was the least attractive children—the Dumbo-eared, the whiny-voiced, the clumsy, the loutish, the unpretty—who craved affection most of all.
When Harriet was seven, her father had died of pancreatic cancer. Five and a half months later, the school principal had come to Harriet’s classroom and motioned to her that she should join him in the hall. She hadn’t wanted to, but her teacher had nodded curtly in her direction: Go. In the hall, the principal had informed Harriet that her mother had been in a car accident and was being treated for serious head injuries in a regional hospital seventy-five miles away. Since Harriet had no other family nearby, someone from Social Services would come to pick her up and take care of her until other arrangements could be made.
Over the following six months she had stayed with a succession of foster families that had failed to like her. Sometimes she wet the bed; sometimes she woke the household with nightmares. At some homes, hands were too busy and hearts too closed; in others, hearts were open but already overcrowded. And at each home she left something behind: outgrown clothes, a stuffed dog, the memory of her mother’s perfume, a pillow; her sense of belonging, of entitlement, of certainty. Already fat, she got fatter. Already homely, she slipped into shabbiness with bangs that went untrimmed and clothes that weren’t always clean. She went to church or didn’t, depending on the household, and if God was ever listening, He wasn’t letting on.
During her mother’s recovery, Harriet was brought to the hospital and then the rehabilitation center twice a month. But Thelma Saul no longer knew her. It became evident that in addition to impairments of memory and intellect, she had sustained a permanent blindness of the heart. I’m sorry, she would tell Harriet with increasing agitation, but if you were my daughter, I would know you; I would love you.
Month after month, Harriet would stand before her, imploring with every desperate beat of her heart, See me. See me. See me.
After five months, Thelma began to scream whenever Harriet was brought in, so the visits were stopped. Her mother was released from the rehabilitation center, and Harriet saw her from time to time on the street, but Thelma always fled from her. And then Harriet was taken to another town to live with Maude. Several years later, word reached her that her mother had remarried and had a little girl who was rumored to look very much like Harriet.
But all of that was in the past, and now she could hardly contain her exhilaration. It was a glorious thing, to be reborn. Harriet Saul—that clumsy, gauche, unliked, unlikable, unattractive woman—had dropped away, leaving her soul sleek and nimble. As Maxine she was the cherished daughter of a loving father; strong, successful, capable, and adored.
Bladenham News-Gazette Bladenham News-Gazette reporter Martin Choi arrived ten minutes late for his appointment, perspiring heavily and clanking with gear. Harriet had been listening for him, and glided from her office with her hand extended to clasp his.
“Good to see you, Martin. You did a nice job on your article about the zoo. Is there something else you’d like to work on?”
Martin fussed with his little pad, dropped and recovered his pen. “I’m thinking I might be able to put something together about”—he gestured at her safari gear—“you know. This. You.”
“Do you mean Maxine Biedelman?”
“Yeah. The one who’s dead and you pretend you’re her.”
Harriet’s smile became somewhat fixed. “I take on her persona, yes. Living history is a very popular, proven educational technique. She was a remarkable woman. I give a lecture twice a day.”
“Yeah, well, how about we do an interview with you and then I’ll take some pictures of you dressed, you know, in your safari outfit, and then after the lecture I can interview some zoo visitors.”
“That would be fine.”
She motioned him into her office and for the next half-hour laid out the marvel that was Maxine—her travels, her family, her experiences in Thailand and Burma, in Borneo and Sumatra. She offered photographs that illustrated her points, and waited patiently while Martin looked them over. She talked for exactly half an hour and then, at ten o’clock sharp, brought him outside with her. Several groups of schoolchildren and their adult chaperones waited at the foot of the porch, fidgeting in the late autumn chill. Harriet doffed her pith helmet and gave them all a hearty greeting. Martin Choi parked his camera bag at the foot of the stairs and began shooting pictures.
“Good morning to you all,” Harriet called. The gathering got quiet. “I am Maxine Biedelmen. Welcome to my zoo!”
Her performance lasted forty-five minutes, followed by what was, today, a brief question-and-answer period, after which she bade her visitors farewell with a lifted hand. She was greatly moved by the end, the way she was every time. Martin Choi took picture after picture.
“Hey, what you just did, now that was really something,” he said admiringly when it was over. “You were great—no kidding. You had those kids believing every word you said.”
She smiled broadly. “Yes, I did. I always do.”
“So are there any other zoos in the country that do this kind of thing?”
“No. It takes a certain—calling. And of course, the institution has to have a colorful history to begin with.”
“Yeah? Well, you’ve got that. I have to admit I was pretty skeptical to begin with.”
“And now?”
“Yeah, well, it’s like theater, isn’t it, only at a zoo. Who’s going to expect that?”
They had reached the door to the administrative suite. Harriet studied him closely for a minute or two and then said, “I like you, Martin. You’re a promising young journalist. Let me offer you something.”
“Yeah?”
“Depending on your article and how you portray me—me, Maxine Biedelman—I’ll contact you first when things of interest happen here at the zoo.”
“Hey, sure, that’d be great. But I need to be up front here—I’m not promising to spin a story your way. I mean, I’ve got to report the truth, black and white, as I see it.”
“Of course,” Harriet said. “You’re obviously a man of principle who’s dedicated to your profession. I understood that about you the first time we met.”
Martin Choi puffed up. “So, good.”
Harriet held out her hand. “It’s been a pleasure.”
“Sure. Okay.”
“We’ll talk soon,” Harriet said, and saw him to the front door.
They would talk soon and frequently. It wasn’t every day that you were handed a gift like Martin Choi. Finding him was a little bit like falling in love, and Harriet was shrewd enough to know it.
chapter 12
Max Biedelman and Sam had fallen into a routine after their first excursion into the woods. The old woman would send word down to the elephant barn two or three times a week that she would enjoy their company, and Sam would bring Hannah right up to her porch so she wouldn’t have to walk alone over uneven ground. Her hips were so bad some days that they only got as far as the edge of the woods, but on good days they’d go as far as a little clearing half a mile away, where there were logs to sit on and sunlight to enjoy. Miss Effie, more and more frail and flighty, rarely joined them.
“Is Miss Effie all right?” Sam ventured one early November afternoon when Max Biedelman was perched on her little stool in a puddle of sunshine, nose to the sky, eyes squeezed shut against the light, smiling the faintest smile. Hannah shuffled nearby, rummaging for windfall apples under the leaves.
“For the moment, but she’s had a difficult autumn. We’re both failing, Mr. Brown; our mortality is closer than we’d like. When I die, it will be with teeth and claws bared. Effie will go quietly, though, I think, like a mouse acquiescing to the cat. But then, Effie has never been strong. She was somewhat delicate even in her prime.”
“I sure would’ve liked to see her young.”
“And why is that, Mr. Brown?”
“I bet she looked just like an angel, with that light curly hair of hers, and her being so fair to begin with.”
Max Biedelman smiled a faraway smile. “She was visiting Crete with her parents when I first saw her. She had made her mother very angry by going out without a parasol, something a lady didn’t do in 1897. Women wore white then, especially young women, and because of her lack of a parasol Effie’s face was rosy and framed by lace and the fine summer straw of her hat. My father and I were in a café in a town square, lunching on goat cheese and olives and fresh bread and wine. All the time her mother was scolding her she was looking at me, and her eyes were simply brimming with mischief. Of course, I was in trousers and boots, brown as the devil and barely tame from spending six months in Africa. Effie’s mother hurried her away from my father and me, sensing, no doubt, that she was about to lose control over her daughter altogether—which, in fact, she did.
“As it happened, Effie’s family was booked on the same ship home as my father and I, and she wheedled the captain into including her family at our regular table in the dining room. She was a beautiful creature, twenty-one and all spun sugar and devilry.”
Sam watched Hannah stripping leaves from a small aspen tree. “First time I ever saw Corinna was in the grocery store on a plain old Saturday, nothing special about it except her and her sister Lula were in there buying a sack of yams. She was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. Big girl, round and brown with skin like milk chocolate or silk, maybe, with a smile that could light up the whole sky. I was lucky she didn’t turn around and punch me right then for staring at her like that.
“Turned out she was visiting her aunt and uncle for the weekend. Her aunt and uncle were the only other black family for fifty miles. I figured God must have meant for me to meet her, to bring her to a place that was so far out of the way. There she was, right in my backyard almost, holding a sack of yams my daddy had grown on our farm and joking with Lula like they owned the place.” Sam shook his head, remembering. “I knew right then that if I could marry that gal I wouldn’t ask anything else from God or anyone.”
Hannah plodded out of the woods and approached them, coming to stand beside Sam. She wrapped her trunk around his head, even that long ago her special greeting for him. He patted her leg. “It’s okay, sugar, me and Miss Biedelman are talking. You can play a little bit longer.”
He looked at the old woman to confirm this. “Yes, I believe a few more minutes would do us all good, Mr. Brown. She may stay.”
“Go ahead, shug. We’ll call when it’s time to go.” The elephant padded off, swishing her tail. “What did Miss Effie do when you were traveling, then?”
“Oh, it depended on where I was going,” Max Biedelman said, frowning. “She was never one for safari or for camping in the bush in Burma. She was afraid of the animals—afraid of the mahouts, too, for that matter. She was very much like my mother in that respect. No, Effie was made for fine hotels and continental cuisine, and on those trips she would happily accompany me. The rest of the time she lived with her parents in Seattle. Her father made her a generous allowance and eventually her mother resigned herself to the fact that Effie would never marry. As of course she did not, although there was a time when she longed for children.”
“How about you, sir? You ever want children of your own?”
“No. Oh, if I could have been the father of someone’s children, I would have done that happily, but of course that wasn’t the point. No, Mr. Brown, I did not yearn for children.”
“Course, now you’ve got all these animals,” Sam said.
Max Biedelman cut her shrewd old eyes at him. “Yes, I have my animals. And Effie, I suppose, has me.” She rose stiffly and folded up her little seat. “I believe it’s time to go home, Mr. Brown. I would hate for Hannah to have to carry me back.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said. Hearing them stir, Hannah was already hurrying back, clutching a small branch of alder. “Time to go, sugar,” Sam said, patting her trunk. “You got a souvenir? Why, you just take it along with you, then. It’ll remind you of our travels until the next time.”
Max Biedelman chuckled and started the slow walk back. “Our Hannah is also a traveler. One wonders, sometimes, what she saw in Burma. It’s a beautiful country, you know. There are parts of it that are as close to Paradise as anywhere on earth.”
She fell into a ruminative silence for the rest of the walk, and Sam let her be. She had a lot to say goodbye to, before she died; a lot to dust off and look over one last time. Could take her years, like his grandmother, who was dying from the time she was seventy-two until she turned eighty; it took her that long to get the work done. He sensed that Miss Biedelman was doing the same thing, running her mind’s hand one more time over what was beautiful and what had brought her peace. He had seen it come on, over the last few months. Seemed to him that sorting memories was just like carding wool: you combed and combed until you had all the fibers going in the same direction, the whole thing gleaming like a river.
“How’re you doing, girl?” Corinna cried, holding open the door to the Beauty Spot for Neva Wilson. “Come on in. Is it raining? When did that start?” She folded Neva into a quick one-armed hug against her substantial bosom.
“A couple of hours ago.”
“Really? My head must be in the clouds today.” Corinna hung Neva’s jacket on a peg. It was a cheap, ugly thing. A pretty girl like her should have something better. Corinna settled her in her chair and gently fastened one of her salon drapes around the girl’s shoulders. “I hope you know you can come chew the fat over here anytime, without having to go and get your hair involved,” she said.
Neva shook her head, pulling her hair out from under the smock and letting it spill down her back. “Come on. Who else am I going to trust with my finest asset?”
She was being flippant, but Corinna couldn’t help thinking she was also right; the girl had thick, glossy, dark red hair most African American girls would cut off their right arm for. Corinna was all for black people feeling good about what they had, but the truth was, the Lord shortchanged them in the hair department, and that was all there was to it. Corinna could relax, moisturize, condition, weave, braid, and style until the cows came home, but neither she nor any other beautician on earth, no matter how gifted, could come close to giving a black girl what Neva Wilson got for free, and that was all there was to it.
“So what
are we doing, sugar?” she asked Neva.
“Just trim it, please—I’ve been doing it myself, and you can see what a bad idea that is.”
Corinna clucked and brushed. “You sure you don’t want a nice bob, maybe something a little different?”
“Cornrows would be nice,” Neva said. “With lots of beads.”
“You got four hours? Because that’s what it’s going to take with all this hair you’ve got.”
Neva sighed. “I guess I’ll have to do that on a day off—I told Sam I’d be back in an hour.”
“Let’s just clean you up for now. We can save the fancy stuff for next time.” Corinna got to work. “So how’s my Hannah today? Baby in a good mood?”
“She’s in a great mood. We cut twenty-four honeydew melons in half, filled them with frozen raspberries, put them back together and hid them in the branches of trees all over the zoo. Sam took her for a walk an hour ago, and they still hadn’t gotten back when I left to come here. I could see them way over by the house. Hannah had her trunk in the hedge.” Neva laughed. “It was just like an Easter egg hunt, only in November.”
Corinna smiled broadly. “Shug does like to get playful. You’ve done wonderful things for her, girl. She’s got that old sparkle back in her eye, like we haven’t seen for a long time. A mighty long time.” Corinna snipped, thoughtful. “You think she ever waits for Miss Biedelman to come down those steps? Hannah and Sam, they used to go up to the house for Miss Biedelman when the weather was fine so she could come along on their walks. Course, it was her idea to take Hannah walking in the first place, but by then her poor hips were so bad—it was a damned shame.” She clucked gently. “Sam used to worry about Miss Biedelman all the time. Said he’d had an old blue dog once that had hips like hers and they kept dislocating until they finally stiffened up and froze and they had to put that poor dog down. Man said he cried for a week.”
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