Vida

by Marge Piercy

  “If she does, you belt her and I’ll run” She grinned at him. “I know you’ll watch out for me, Daddy dear. Ten minutes.”

  She did not want to hang around the lobby, so she simply hid in the women’s room. When her watch read ten minutes, she gave Paul an extra five and then returned. If M & M was there—Natalie and her old name for Michael Morris Asch—what would she do? She would go on instinct. A man was sitting in the area near the nurse’s desk leafing through sports magazines. As she got off the elevator he scanned her carefully and then lost interest. It felt as if a naked electric wire had touched her, but she strolled toward the nurse, chewing her gum as if bored. “Did my uncle leave yet? You know, he’s my uncle even though he’s younger than me. Mike.”

  “Yeah, you got a big family” the nurse said. “He left just now. He’s in his second year of medical school, huh?”

  “Yeah, doing real good.” She panicked as she realized she had no memory of where he was going to school. “Well, I’m going to see Grandma. I take a plane home tomorrow, so this is it.”

  “First left around the corner. Then it’s the third door on your right. Put on this gown. Your father will show you what to do.”

  Ruby lay cranked up in the bed, but she was staring at the door, waiting, her cat eyes bright in the haggard face. “Vida, is that you?”

  Vida winced, glancing at the woman who lay on the other bed watching a television set overhead. It was loud enough, she hoped, to screen their talk if she spoke softly.

  “Yes, Mama, but you have to just call me Dear or Honey, please. Okay? Anything you want to. Even You little stinker. But not my name, “ she whispered as she came to kiss Ruby, who looked years older than she had the year before. The skin hung. She was still fleshy, but her flesh seemed to be withering; her skin was pale and her veins distended. She gasped for breath and her breathing rasped in a way that scared Vida further. Vida drew the curtain between her mother and the next bed.

  “I knew you were coming. I told Natalie so. She said you couldn’t. She’s a worrywart. But Sandy said you would. He’s right, the way he always is. When I listen to him, it turns out … He’s eating his supper now. He eats real late so he can see me when nobody else is here. Then at seven—”

  “Mama, you’re not supposed to talk too much,” Paul warned.

  “I’ll keep her quiet,” Vida said. “Paul, watch for me. Go gossip with the nurse and keep an eye. Okay? I promise I won’t stay long.” She pulled the cotton batting from her cheeks, letting her face back into its normal shape behind the curtain.

  “Are you having a baby? I know Leigh’s new wife is. You didn’t go and get pregnant too?”

  “No, I’m supposed to be Marsha,” she said softly, sitting on the edge of her mother’s bed. Ruby looked a little like Grandma, and that was frightening. She had never seen a resemblance before. Grandma had been a stout dumpy woman who wore shapeless clothes. After Grandma was left a widow, she had never wanted to remarry. “Once is enough,” she had said. “Too much sometimes.” Ruby was the same age Grandma had been when she had her fatal heart attack. Vida’s stomach bunched tight in her, painfully.

  “You don’t look anything like her in that awful wig. Get a better wig. It breaks my heart. Your hair is such a wonderful color. Only thing we ever got from you-know-who that did us any good.”

  “How are you, Mama? Are you in pain?”

  “I’m fine. They’re keeping me here to get me fat on their tasteless food. Upstairs, downstairs, upstairs again. They move me around but they won’t let me go home. It’s all a racket.”

  “Get better, then. Do what they tell you.”

  “Ha. Oh, the nurses are nice, mostly, especially the night nurse. But my doctor lies in his teeth. And they won’t let me smoke.”

  “But Mama that’s bad for your heart.”

  “So the damage is done. Now it’s hard on my heart to want a smoke, right?”

  “You have to get well!” Vida insisted. She felt a pang of anger toward Sandy that surprised her. Then, she realized that somehow she blamed him. She felt as if she had handed her mother over to him and then she didn’t have to worry about Ruby any longer and was free to grow up into her own life. Now if Ruby was sick, she wanted to blame someone.

  “Sure,” Ruby said without interest. “He’s younger than you, this man you got now?”

  “Natalie has been blabbing?”

  “She shouldn’t tell me? How come?”

  “Well, he’s not as young as Leigh’s new wife.”

  Ruby laughed—that deep gravelly cackle which ended up as a cough. “That’s telling them. Why not? You marry an older man and you’re a good wife and mother for fifteen years like your sister and what does it get her? Child support, if she’s real lucky”“ With the animation of gossip Ruby looked beautiful again. She was only sixty-three; she had twenty years to live. Her hair hadn’t started to gray until she was in her fifties, when she had immediately reddened it. Her eyes gleaned, sea green with their long fluttering lashes. Ruby could not help flirting with her. Ruby could no more keep from flirting than she could levitate. “Isn’t it nice that Natalie sent the kids to be with me? I know she shouldn’t keep them out of school, but I love having them. Isn’t Sam a darling? He’s going to break hearts. He yatters Spanish with all the Puerto Ricans in the hospital. And Peezie’s going to be a knockout. She’s going to shoot up way taller than Natalie, taller than you and me.”

  On the night table, photos were standing up jammed together like rush hour: Natalie’s three children, Paul’s five, Sharon’s two. Vida felt a burst of relief that she had not had any. Enough! All those childish faces. She saw a picture of herself, but it was not dangerous. Vida at age ten stood outside a brick apartment house on Montrose. One hand was missing: it had clutched Tom, who had been sliced off.

  Ruby gripped her arm. “Does he love you?”

  “Yes, Mama. A lot. In fact, a lot more than Leigh did.”

  “Why don’t you marry him?”

  “Mama! That won’t make me legal”

  “Well, one thing at a time. You got to start somewhere.”

  They hadn’t told Ruby about Natalie’s being in jail, obviously. So much went wrong in their family all at once, she thought, it was practically normal. Her childhood had been a series of accidents and bumps in the night. How did they, her responsible relatives, Sandy and Sharon and Paul in committee, decide that Ruby could be told about Natalie’s impending divorce and Leigh’s marriage and Vida’s new lover, but not about Natalie’s bust? Maybe they had a proper sense of what was a disaster, and what wasn’t, for losing Daniel was no disaster in her book. More likely, however, Natalie had told the truth until she was off the scene and then the others lied steadfastly.

  “Are you worried about Natalie for breaking up with Daniel?” she asked cautiously.

  “That shlemiel chasing after young chickens? He can’t keep his hands off his students … Listen to me, precious, don’t ever marry a college professor. They stand up there showing off year after year to a new crop and always some young girls are going to be bowled over. Daniel could always argue circles around her … You think I didn’t tell Natalie all this twenty years ago?”

  “Twenty years ago Natalie was in high school, Mama.”

  “I told her after that, too. I never liked Daniel. He looks down his nose at us. So did your husband. New Yorkers all think they know everything. They think us Jews in the provinces lack culture and eat with our toes.”

  “Now you’re saying you didn’t like Leigh?”

  “Well, he was better than the mad Greek … Better than Daniel, too,” Ruby said, relenting. “You got a picture of the new one?”

  “Now, Mrs. Asch, are we getting too tired? We aren’t supposed to be sitting up in bed, now, are we?” the nurse settled Ruby back down. Ruby looked indignant and gasped for breath again. “Time for our meds now.”

  When the nurse finally left, Vida said, “Mama, I ought to go now.”

  “But y
ou’ll come back tomorrow.” Ruby seized her hand.

  “Mama, I have to get out of Chicago. Don’t tell anybody I was here”

  “I have to tell Sandy, precious. I don’t like to keep secrets from him. That was one of the troubles with you-know-who—having to hide the food money, not telling him when Paul was in trouble … Do you think God’s punishing me?”

  “Ruby, don’t be ridiculous. You love Sandy.”

  “I thought it was the best thing for you.”

  “Okay, tell Sandy, but nobody else.”

  Ruby pouted. “Paul knows. I bet you’ll tell Natalie.”

  Who hadn’t called this morning at the Art Institute. “Okay, Mama, but not Sharon and not Mike.”

  “You’ve always been jealous of your younger brother”

  “You think he’s real proud of me and eager to have a chat?”

  “Vida! How could he be proud?”

  “Shhh. Why not? A lot of people think I’m exemplary” She pulled herself together and kissed her mother. “Bye-bye, Mama. I’ll be back soon.” She doubted it, but she had to say so as she stuffed the cotton batting back into her cheeks.

  “Stay. Just a few minutes.” Ruby clutched at her.

  She kissed her mother. “Okay. A few minutes. That’s a pretty bed jacket” she said to make the mood light again. “I never saw one outside the movies”

  “Ritzy, huh? Sandy got it for me. He shouldn’t have … I mean that. Things aren’t so good for us. You know we wanted to retire and move to Arizona? Ever since that time, remember when we met you there? At that cute adobe restaurant, sweetheart? But Sandy can’t retire at sixty-five. Were feeling the pinch. And now look what I’ve gone and done. Every day I’m here, you could fly to Japan and back for that price … Is he Jewish? What does he look like?”

  Paul came bursting in. She quieted him until she had dragged him into the hall. “Softly, bro”

  “Sharon’s there by the desk!”

  “Okay. One moment while I say goodbye.” She dashed back into the room, holding her pillow in place. “Mama-love, I got to move it. Don’t tell Sharon I was here. She’s on her way.”

  “Take some fruit.” Ruby sat up, waving at the centerpiece of fruit between the photos, the pitcher of water, the yellow roses.

  She marched out, taking her gown off and dropping it on the counter. ”Bye-bye” she called to the nurse. “I’m leaving” After all, Sharon had no reason to assume she was coming from Ruby’s room, around the corner. Sharon had lighter curly hair than Natalie’s, processed to be less kinky. She wore a short brown fur coat. Even though she was not Ruby’s blood daughter, she had picked up chain smoking from her. Sharon smoked exactly as Ruby did, the same jaunty twitch, and now she was stubbing out her cigarette in annoyance as the nurse insisted, a scene that probably happened every time she came onto the ward. Was it Sharon who was sneaking in cigarettes to Mama? Vida wanted to corner her and ask, but she had to march on, quickly.

  “Hey, Sharon,” Paul bellowed. “How are you doing? Where’s Si? Hey, you look like you gained a little weight, huh?”

  “You should talk! How dare you talk to me about fat? I have not gained weight!”

  She could hear Sharon’s high indignant voice yapping behind her like a furious small dog as she dived into the elevator and rode down. She would wait in the garage near Paul’s car for him to appear, distant enough to flee if any trouble arose. As she crossed the lobby, Joel rose from a chair. “Hi!”

  “You!” She was startled and relieved at once. “Fast, out of here”

  Outside the doors she said, “How did you get here? Why?”

  “I took the car and followed you.”

  “You’re an idiot!”

  “You’re not so good at watching for tails as you think.”

  She flinched as if he had struck her. Then she thought, But he knew which hospital Ruby was in. She did not believe she had missed a car on her. “Is the Mariah here?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s get out of town. I just had a close call and I think we’d better hop it. I’m not sure I made it out without tipping them. Sharon arrived just as I was leaving, and I wouldn’t put it past her to say it wasn’t Marsha who just visited Mama.”

  “She hasn’t seen you since you went under, right?”

  “I don’t trust her. She’s told things to the FBI. I hope Paul doesn’t get in trouble … Sometimes I feel all we do is cause trouble. To Natalie. To Paul.”

  “I brought all our stuff”‘

  “Excellent. Did you wipe the place clean?” She meant fingerprints, paper handkerchiefs, everything.

  “No. I didn’t realize we were going to take off”

  “Let’s hope they can’t trace us there.”

  ”What about telling Madame we’re leaving?” He put his arm around her as he unlocked the car.

  “When we’re gone tomorrow she’ll know. And be relieved” She fell into the front seat, leaving him to drive.

  “Well, where to? Back East?”

  “Yeah, but we need money”“ She felt feverish, drooping against the bench seat. “Joel, did you really follow me?”

  He stopped to pay the attendant, then pulled out into the street. “You think I’m no good at these games.”

  “But you knew what hospital she was in … “ She’d find out later. The idea that anyone could tail her unobserved terrified her. It was suicidal not to pay attention.

  “Where to?”

  “Where indeed?” She sank back again. “I’m exhausted. We need money. Cleveland, maybe. How about Cleveland?”

  “More relatives? I know you were born there.”

  “No relatives. Shelter. A friend. Maybe a money connection. Time to reach Natalie at eleven tomorrow. Oh, god, she’s supposed to call me. Okay, I’ll have to use the mail drop. What a mess.”

  “Why don’t you get that pillow out and the wig off?”

  “Jesus! I should have done it when we got in the car. I hope the parking-lot attendant didn’t look at me. I’m not functioning, I’m not functioning at all.” She discarded her props into a bag.

  He said, “Why not lie down in the back seat?”

  “I’ll sit up to keep you company … Okay, maybe I will lie down. I can’t believe I forgot to change before we left the parking lot. I’ll put on my own clothes in the back seat. I’m not functioning.”

  He pulled to the side and quickly she ducked into the back. After she had changed and lay down curled awkwardly on the seat, she heard him singing to himself in his deep resonant voice:

  Well, I been long gone!

  Well, I been long gone!

  Like a turkey through the corn

  With my long clothes on.

  Long gone John …

  PART VI

  February 1974

  17

  Both mice and salamanders had crawled into the well housing and chewed the cabbages, she discovered. She carried armfuls of the injured and partially decomposed cabbages up to the house, sliding on the ice that had formed when the temperature had gone above freezing the day before just long enough to melt an inch of snow and then to freeze it at sunset. On the way to the well she had slipped and fallen on her side and she still ached as she picked her way stiffly, an armload of heavy stinking cabbages and two more loads to go.

  She put the vegetables on a table in the unheated shed outside the kitchen door and went downhill for another load. As she toted the final load to the table where she would have to separate the edible from the spoiled, she thought that the month of February, like Dante’s hell, should have written over the entrance, Abandon Hope All You Who Enter Here. Or was it Abandon All Hope, You Who Enter Here?

  She had never studied Italian: rooms not entered, lovers not taken, a pleasure on the tongue never tasted. In another life, born in less interesting times, she would have been a scholar. Instead, here she was acting as nemesis to dormant spotted salamanders; nevertheless, she felt glad to be out of the fetid overcrowded house. The men grabb
ed most of the outdoor jobs, and only a recent revolt of Eva’s and hers had won the women the right to cut wood. The men still monopolized work on the cars. She, who was proficient at building three types of time-delay bombs, lifted the hood of their old blue Saab and saw a mass of Medusa snakes that turned her brain to stone. Whenever Kevin said he would teach her, he meant he would browbeat her, rattling off terms so fast she had no idea what he was referring to, turn from her sullenly and at last lose his temper, stalking off. Starting one of the two cars or the truck the folks on Hardscrabble Hill shared was an hour’s occupation on a frosty morning. Life revolved around the preparing of food, the serving of food, the washing of dishes and interminable laundry, the care and feeding and washing of babies, the heating of the house with its variously cranky and voracious wood stoves, the starting of the cars, the fixing of the cars, the going out with the cars over the icy ruts to the town road, sometimes plowed, and into town and back. When they had a political discussion in the house, it was only a means of displaying and acting out their mutual hostilities.

  Whack, whack, the heavy iron knife chopped deep into the rot entering the pale savoyed hearts. Her hands were red and chapped, scarred, discolored, a map of farm labor learned as it was awkwardly done. Plowing, sowing: once those had borne romantic connotations to her; once they had been political metaphors. Separate the wheat from the chaff, the little left ideamongers quoted who had never seen a sheaf of wheat in their lives, let alone been presented, as the woman had, with a fifty-pound sack of hard red winter wheat berries Bill had won in a poker game and the injunction to make bread of them. Whack. The savoy cabbages were pale green brains, huge with the ideas of ideas.

  She did not want to return to the house looming over her. Two and a half stories tall, it wobbled down the hill—dairy barn, storage barn, chicken house, toolshed, woodshed, garage, tractor shed, all connected by walkways of rotting wood or joined end to end against the six-foot drifts of snow that had lain against them up to a week before. Now only four feet of snow humped against the old wood; but there would be more, and more, and more. Beyond stood the maze of house, the oldest part with low ceilings and wide floorboards, the Victorian rooms with high ceilings, the part from the twenties with more low ceilings—hard times had come again.