“Thanks for lunch,” Alice says.
“There’s an apple pie,” Patricia says. “If you’d like to eat some later?”
Alice vanishes into the hallway. She’s in an awful rush. Ernesto turns in the doorway and, smiling, reveals a relatively nice set of teeth. There’s a noticeable gap between the front two. “Thanks for lunch, Mother Jenny.” Then he’s gone. Jenny and Thomas exchange glances. “Mother Jenny?” he says softly. “What the hell does he mean by that?”
“I have no idea,” Jenny says, ladling more soup into her bowl.
“Doesn’t he have a mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“He seems sweet,” Patricia says, raising a yellow-brown drinking glass to her mouth.
“He’s not. He’s a snake.”
Patricia swallows, then puts down her glass. “Why a snake?”
“I can just tell. He’s lazy and slimy. They just lie in bed all day fooling around. Alice is being dragged down to his level. Into the mud. Before him it was another guy. He was actually worse. An arrogant bastard, to put it mildly. She’s got a new boyfriend all the time.”
“I can find out if we have a job for her at the museum.”
“If she’s even able to handle a job,” Jenny says bitterly, putting her spoon down. “I honestly don’t know what I should do with her. She hates me.”
“Oh, stop, Jenny. She doesn’t hate you,” Thomas says. He’s irritated, dark waves in his belly. “She’s only eighteen.”
“But where does he live, this Ernesto? Here?” Patricia asks.
Jenny gets to her feet and rinses the bowls. “It seems that way, doesn’t it?” Patricia wraps a lock of her hair between her fingers; no one says a word. Patricia glances curiously at Thomas, but what does it mean? He needs to smoke, he can’t breathe, he has to leave. “The toaster,” Jenny says coolly, “it’s over there.” She nods in the direction of the big closet at the end of the kitchen table. “Can you please look at it now?”
Thomas fiddles with a little fucking screwdriver. The women are seated in the living room drinking tea and eating apple pie. As far as he can see, Jenny’s drawn the curtains—which is better than nothing. The door’s ajar, but he can’t hear what they’re saying. Are they laughing? Yes, Jenny is, and now Patricia too. The toilet flushes. Heavy steps in the hall, it must be Ernesto. The toaster is unbelievably greasy and revolting and littered with old crumbs. That he’s really sitting here prying it apart in this kitchen fills him with disgust—that he’s agreed to do it. Insanity. That old feeling of deep-seated anger at Jenny and all the guilt that comes with it hits him like a slap. It’s so incompatible. The sobbing. There’s no development in our relationship at all, he thinks. It’s as if her entire personality exists to play the role of victim, huge and hollow, for my benefit only. So I can fill the holes with my shame, my strange, indebted need to protect. The screwdriver slides from his hand, he’s warping the screws. He props the toaster between his knees, braces it tight, and tries again. It’s big and clumsy, probably at least as old as he is. He has no idea how you pry such a thing apart, he just keeps unscrewing the screws and removing all the parts that come loose, when the screws no longer hold them together. Suddenly it breaks in two. The shell of thick plastic falls apart. Thomas gawks at the guts of the toaster. And all at once he jerks his head back.
Fastened between the now detached outer shell and the heating coils, on either side, is a thick packet wrapped in tinfoil and taped carefully together with clear, yellowed tape. At first he simply stares. Then he manages to pry them out. He hears Patricia’s voice approaching. Feverishly he stuffs the two packets under his shirt, then under the waistband of his pants. When she steps into the kitchen, he’s back to sitting over his work, replacing the screws in the tiny holes. And what part belonged where? He hadn’t organized the pieces in any manageable way. He’s beginning to sweat.
“Is it tricky?” she asks, filling the pot with water.
“Nah,” he says. “Not really.”
Patricia sets the pot on the stove and turns on the gas jet. “Tell me when it’s boiling, okay?” Then she leaves again.
He’s warm and cold, his heart races, his hands tremble. What the hell did he find? A mass of disjointed thoughts swirl through his brain, but there’s no up and down to anything. What the fuck is it? Who put the packets there? What the hell’s in them? He screws and screws with the terrible doll’s screwdriver that keeps rotating crookedly on the thread, and now Jenny comes out and stands beside him, her hands at her side.
“Can you figure it out?”
“Well, I’ve taken it apart and put it back together, at least,” he mumbles. “We’ll see if it works.”
“Could you tell what was wrong?”
“Nope,” he says, tightening the last of the screws. “It probably just doesn’t work. Broken.”
He puts the toaster on the table, and Jenny immediately grabs it and plugs it into the outlet above the table.
“Oh, look!” She claps excitedly. “It works! I said it would! Oh, thank you, Thomas. Look, it works!”
And it does. The small coils glow orange. “Patricia, come out here. Your man is a genius with a screwdriver. Come see!”
They all stand admiring the rather smoky toaster. A burnt odor hangs in the kitchen.
“Can you smell it? Oh, I love that scent. Right before the toast pops up.”
She’s crazy, Thomas thinks. The pot whistles. Patricia pours water in the teapot. Excited now, the women return to the sofa.
“Come on, Thomas, have some apple pie!” Jenny’s eyes are lit up like a child’s.
When he clambers to his feet, he can feel the packets against his belly. What the hell’s in them? He yanks the cord of the stinking toaster from the plug and walks stiffly out to the others.
Jenny suddenly looks more like a diva than a washed up, underpaid, slovenly, scarred at-an-early-age, frustrated nurse’s aid. She throws herself upon the leather couch, props a leg on the easy chair, and her dress slides up to reveal a fleshy, milk-white thigh. Her cheeks are flushed and she seems both lazy and shamelessly sensuous. Thomas can tell it makes Patricia uncomfortable. Even Jenny’s voice is sultry. When Alice enters with a mug and plops down beside Patricia, pouring herself some tea, Jenny’s motherly love knows no bounds.
“Did you tell Thomas and Patricia who sent us a letter yesterday, sweetie?”
“Just a letter from my dad.” Alice slurps her tea cautiously.
“Isn’t that incredible? Alice and I couldn’t believe our own eyes, isn’t that right, sweetie?”
“From Ahmed?” Thomas interrupts, nearly choking on a bite of pie. “Why?”
“Yeah, Alice. Why?” Jenny smiles, her eyes half-closed.
Alice puts her mug down. “He wanted to tell me I have a little brother.”
“What?” Thomas straightens up. “Where?”
“The letter was sent from his mother’s address,” Jenny says. “If she’s still alive, or if he’s moved into her house, he didn’t say.”
“He sent a photo. It’s a cute kid,” Alice says, her face breaking into a little smile, a brief flash that vanishes almost instantly.
“He looks like you did when you were a baby, sweetie. A beautiful child. And you look like Ahmed.”
“She also looks like you,” Patricia says, “and your mother.”
“Did he send money?” Thomas asks.
“Nah.”
“You haven’t heard from him in ten years.”
“No, but now we have heard from him.” Jenny smiles. As if it was something to smile about, Thomas thinks. Ahmed let his daughter down. The tinfoil crackles against his belly whenever he moves. Carefully he leans back in the wobbly chair.
Jenny takes a deep breath and slowly exhales. “In our family the men don’t take very good care of their children. It’s a tradition. But you don’t have any children, Thomas, so you don’t count.”
Patricia mumbles: “Not yet, in any case,” and Alice sit
s up, says: “Not all the women take good care of their children, either, as far as I can see.”
“What do you mean, Alice?” Jenny struggles to sit up straight. “Why do you say that?”
“As far as I know, your mother left you two.”
Jenny sinks back again. “Right, well, but we had Aunt Kristin.”
“Oh, did we now?” Thomas looks at Jenny
“She was a consolation of sorts. In any event, we lived with her that summer.”
“That was a week at most.”
“I hate it when you’re so superficial, Mom,” Alice says in a high, clear voice. “It’s unbecoming.”
“Hey, now,” Jenny mutters.
“Aunt Kristin let you live with your father. She couldn’t handle you two. You told me yourself. And your father was a bastard.”
“Exactly,” Thomas says, smiling at Alice. “He was a bastard.”
“Exactly,” Alice says, returning the smile. Suddenly there’s a connection between them.
“Hang on,” Jenny says. “Aunt Kristin wasn’t much older than you are now. Of course she couldn’t keep us . . .” Now it seems as though Jenny’s about to fall asleep. Her eyes fall shut.
“Do you have a smoke, Thomas?” Alice asks. He fishes a crushed pack from his breast pocket, and offers one to Alice. They light their cigarettes. Patricia glares at him disapprovingly, but it’s oh so good to feel the smoke in his lungs. Alice ashes on an empty pie plate.
“Are you sad that you never hear from your father?” Patricia asks.
She shrugs. “I used to be. But not anymore. Since I don’t really know him, I couldn’t care less.”
“Be happy you don’t,” Jenny snuffles. “But he’s got himself a cute kid, just like you were once.” Did she drink port before they arrived?, Thomas wonders. Or popped pills? Does she pop pills?
“She still is!” Patricia squeezes Alice’s shoulder. “Please visit us soon. You can bring your boyfriend, if you’d like.” Alice seems younger and happier for a moment. She leans against Patricia and wraps an arm around her. Then, suddenly, Ernesto is standing in the doorway in his undershirt. “There’s pie?” he asks, showing everyone his toothy smile.
Thomas and Patricia push open the door to the street and are almost blinded by the light. Thomas glances up at Jenny’s windows, and sure enough, he sees a flapping arm; he returns the wave. They take a left toward the station. Patricia draws inward, says nothing. Thomas discreetly shoves his hand under his jacket and shirt and touches the packets. The tinfoil seems to have loosened here and there, no doubt there’s plastic underneath. Their father lay on a plastic sheet. Jenny insisted that the nurses dress him in his own clothes. So they did. Meanwhile they waited outside, and it took a long time. Maneuvering such a rigid cargo of flesh and bones must be strenuous work. The sounds in the hallway were hard and raw. The entire time he felt one little shock after another: a door slammed shut, then voices, then footsteps coming or going. As though all sounds were magnified. Jenny clutched the sleeve of his jacket and wouldn’t let it go. They stared at each other, but said nothing. She hung on his sleeve. Then the nurses returned, each of them flushed and warm. One disappeared, while the other began removing a thin rubber glove from her left hand. Her disposable smock rustled softly. “So he’s all set,” she said. Jenny thanked her, clasping her hands in her own. An ambulance was called. They could see him here or at the hospital chapel. But Jenny wanted to see him in his “usual surroundings.” Their father now wore a torn, dark-blue shirt and gray flannel pants. But the nurse had left the yellow windbreaker hanging on a chair. It was made of nylon. Maybe she’d considered how, when he was shoved into the oven, the flames would shoot through the windbreaker with its raging fire. Thomas tried to imagine it. Raging fire. Within seconds, the material would curl up and melt and the stench would be terrible.
“Would you like to sit with him for a bit?” the nurse asked kindly. “I can bring another chair.”
“No thanks, we’ll stand,” Thomas replied.
“The car will be here shortly.” She smiled, then was gone. The door closed.
“I hope we can find our way out again,” Thomas said. Jenny eyed him reproachfully. Then she tugged at the white sheet covering their father’s shins, and the toe tag appeared, neatly cinched around his right big toe with a little bow. His naked feet looked awful. The nurses hadn’t clipped his nails. Thick, horny yellow nails on crooked toes.
“Gross.”
“Thomas!” Jenny put the sheet back. There was an overly sweet, nauseating odor in the cell, mixed with Jenny’s spicy perfume. They stood there. An odd silence. The very silence, Thomas thought. The innermost essence of silence: the silence of death. Everything ends. Everything has ended. A long time passed and a short time passed. The late afternoon light fell softly through the armor-plated window. A glimpse of greenish sky. The cell was impersonal, lacking any trace of their father, who had lived here for four weeks. Maybe the staff had cleaned it up before they’d arrived. The nurse popped her head in the room. The car was ready. Jenny sniffled and shot a final glance at the body on the cot. When they exited the cell, they saw two porters rolling the folded-up stretcher from one end of the hallway to the other; they also saw the thick plastic body bag their father would be stuffed into, but they didn’t stop to see him being wheeled off. The nurse followed them out and shook their hands. Then they signed a piece of paper, and the package with their father’s possessions was placed into Thomas’s hand. The heavy doors fell shut behind them. Jenny looked about for the ambulance when they were outside in the fresh air, but neither one of them could see it. “Maybe it’s parked on the other side of the prison,” Jenny said. A bird tweeted cheerfully in a tree above them. “Don’t you think? Don’t you think there’s a parking lot on the other side?” She sounded so anxious. “Yes, probably,” he said. She tucked her arm under his. “I’m quite certain there’s a parking lot over there, aren’t you?” Then they walked along the huge, wet lawns observing the green and rose-pink sky, and as though automatically they headed in the direction of the train station cafeteria, where they sat next to the window and ordered the weak coffee they served with a whole lot of sugar. They froze like icicles. “We’re parentless now,” Jenny said, her lips quivering. Then she went silent. It was as if they were children again, slouching wordlessly at a small gray table under a slightly too-bright source of light. Just like they used to in the evenings in the kitchen at home. There’s something childish about us, Thomas thought. That’s what we have in common.
Rock, Paper, Scissors Page 5
