by Colum McCann
I had asked her once if she thought Joshua and my boys were friends, and she said yes, but I knew nothing was probably further from the truth.
No shame in saying that I felt a loneliness drifting through me. Funny how it was, everyone perched in their own little world with the deep need to talk, each person with their own tale, beginning in some strange middle point, then trying so hard to tell it all, to have it all make sense, logical and final.
No shame in saying either that I let her rattle on, even encouraged her to get it all out. Years ago, when I was at university in Syracuse, I developed a manner of saying things that made people happy, kept them talking so I didn’t have to say much myself, I guess now I’d say that I was building a wall to keep myself safe. In the rooms of wealthy folk, I had perfected my hard southern habit of Mercy and Lord and Landsakes. They were the words I fell back on for another form of silence, the words I’ve always fallen back on, my reliables, they’ve been my last resort for I don’t know how long. And sure enough, I fell into the same ditch in Claire’s house. She spun off into her own little world of wires and computers and electric gadgets, and I spun right back.
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at me from under her gray streak, and smiled, like she was surprised to be talking and nothing could stop her now. She was a picture of pure happiness, collecting one thought after the other, circling around, going back, explaining another thing about the electronics, detailing another about Joshua’s time in school, rattling on about a piano in Florida, doing her own peculiar hopscotch through that boy’s life.
It grew hot in the room, all five of us stuffed together. The hand of the clock by the bedside table didn’t move anymore, maybe the batteries were expired, but it got to ticking in my mind. I could feel myself drifting. I didn’t want to fall asleep. I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep myself from nodding off. Sure enough, it wasn’t just me, we were all getting a little itchy, I could feel it, the shifting of bodies, and the way Jacqueline was breathing and the little cough that came every now and then from Janet, and Marcia wiping her brow with her little handkerchief.
I could feel a case of pins and needles coming on. I kept trying to move my toes and tighten my calf muscles—I guess I was grimacing a little, moving my body, making too much noise.
Claire smiled at me but it was one of those smiles that has a little zipper in it, a little too tight at the edges. I gave her a smile back, and tried hard not to make it seem like I was fidgety and awkward both. It wasn’t as if she was boring me, it had nothing at all to do with what she was telling me, just my body giving me a hard time. I tightened my toes again, but that didn’t work, and as quiet as possible I started knocking my knee off the edge of the bed, trying to get that half- gone feeling out of my leg. Claire gave me a look like she was disappointed, but it wasn’t me who stood up at all; it was Marcia who finally stretched herself up in the air and flat- out yawned—yawned, like a child pulling a piece of chewing gum from her mouth, a thing that said, Look at me, I’m bored, I’m going to yawn and nobody’s going to stop me.
“Excuse me,” she said with a half- apology.
There was a lockdown for a moment. It was like seeing the air fall apart so that you could recognize all the separate things that go together to make it.
Janet leaned across and tapped Claire on the knee and said: “Go on with your story.”
“I forget what I was saying,” she said. “What was I saying?”
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Nobody stirred.
“I know I was saying something important,” she said.
“It was about Joshua,” said Jacqueline.
Marcia glared across the room.
“I can’t for the life of me recall what it was,” said Claire.
She smiled another one of her quick zipper smiles, like her brain was refusing to accept the bold- faced evidence, and took a deep breath and jumped right in. Soon she was traveling on that highballing Joshua train again—he was at the cusp of something so entirely new, she said, that the world would never quite know what it missed, he was bringing machines to a place where they would do good things for man and mankind, and someday these machines would talk to each other just like people, even our wars would be fought through machines, it might be impossible to understand, but believe me, she said, it was the direction the world was going.
Marcia stood up again and stretched near the doorway. Her second yawn was not as bad as the first, but then she said: “Has anyone got the timetable for the ferry?”
Claire stopped cold.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Sorry. I just don’t want to get caught up in any rush hour,” said Marcia.
“It’s lunchtime.”
“I know, but it gets very busy sometimes.”
“Oh, it does, yes,” piped Janet.
“Sometimes you have to wait in line for hours.”
“Hours.”
“Even on Wednesdays.”
“We could order something in,” said Claire. “There’s a new Chinese place on Lexington.”
“Really, no. Thank you.”
I could see the red rising to Claire’s cheeks. She tried to smile again, a neutral smile, and I thought of that old yea- saying line A little bit of poison helped her along, from an old song my mother had taught me as a child.
Claire was pulling at her dress, straightening it, making sure it wasn’t puckered. Then she picked the photo of her Joshua off the window ledge, and got to her feet.
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“Well, I can’t thank you enough for coming,” she said. “It’s been I don’t know how long since someone has been in this room.”
Her smile could’ve broken glass.
Marcia smiled a hammer blow right back. Jacqueline wiped her brow like she’d just been through the longest ordeal. The room filled with hems and haws and pauses and coughs, but Claire still clutched the photo frame right into her dress. Everyone began saying what a wonderful morning it was, and thank you so much for the hospitality, and wasn’t Joshua such a brave guy, and yes we’ll meet as soon as we can, and wasn’t it a wonder that he was so smart, and Lord give me the address of the bakery that made the doughnuts, and whatever other specimen of word- fill we could find to plug the silence around us.
“Don’t forget your umbrella, Janet.”
“I was born with my umbrella in hand.”
“It won’t rain, will it?”
“Impossible to get a cab when it rains.”
In the corridor Marcia adjusted her lipstick in the mirror and hung her handbag on her wrist.
“Next time I’m here, remind me to bring a tent.”
“A what?”
“I’ll camp right here.”
“Me too,” said Janet. “It’s really a glorious apartment, Claire.”
“A penthouse,” said Marcia.
All sorts of lies were flying through the air, going back and forth, colliding with each other, and even Marcia was afraid to be the first to turn the handle of the door. She stood by the hat stand with the ball- and- claw feet. Her shoulder touched against it. The feet tottered and the handles swayed.
“I’ll call you first thing next week.”
“That would be wonderful,” said Claire.
“We’ll begin again in my house.”
“Great idea—I can’t wait.”
“We’ll put out yellow balloons,” said Janet. “Remember those?”
“Did we have yellow balloons?”
“In the trees.”
“I can’t recall,” said Marcia. “My mind’s shot.” Then she leaned across and whispered something in J
anet’s ear and they both giggled.
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We could hear the clack outside from the elevator going up and down.
“Delicate question?” said Marcia. She had a guilty look on her face.
She touched Claire’s forearm.
“Please, please.”
“Should we tip the elevator boy?”
“Oh, no, of course not.”
I took a quick last look in the hallway mirror, and checked the clasp of my handbag, when all of a sudden Claire tugged my elbow and brought me down the corridor a little ways.
“Would you like some extra bagels, Gloria?” she said for all to hear.
“Oh, I’ve got enough bagels,” I said.
“Just stay here a little while,” she said under her breath.
There was a little rim of moist at her eye.
“Really, Claire, I got enough bagels.”
“Stay awhile,” she whispered.
“Claire,” I said, trying to move away, but she had a hold of my elbow like she was clutching a last piece of twine.
“After everyone leaves?”
I could see the little tremble going in her nostrils. She had the type of face when you look closely at it, you think it’s gone all a sudden old. There was a pleading in her voice. Janet and Jacqueline and Marcia were down the far end of the corridor, tickling their ribs now at one of the paintings on the wall.
Sure, I didn’t want to leave Claire there with all those leftover crumbs on the carpet, and the crushed- out cigarettes in the ashtrays and I suppose I could’ve easily stayed, rolled up my sleeves, and started washing the dishes and cleaning the floor and tucking the lemons away in the Tupper-ware, but the thing is, I had the thought that we didn’t go freedom- riding years ago to clean apartments on Park Avenue, no matter how nice she was, no matter how much she smiled. I had nothing against her. Her eyes were big and wide and generous. I was pretty sure I could’ve just sat down on the sofa and she would’ve served me hand and foot, but we didn’t go marching for that either.
“Mercy,” I said.
I couldn’t help it.
“ Ah- hem,” went Jacqueline from the front door, like she was clearing her throat for speech.
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“ Coca- Cola one two three,” said Marcia.
I could hear the tip- tap of Janet’s shoes against the wooden floors.
Jacqueline gave another little cough. Marcia was adjusting her hair in the mirror and muttering something under her breath.
There it was, I might never have believed it at any other time in my life—three white women wanting me to leave with them, and one of them trying to get me to hold back with her. I was flat- out dilemma’d, tied to a galloping horse. My heart began going hammer and tongs. There was moistness gathering in Claire’s eyes and she was looking at me like I had to decide quickly. One choice was, I went with the others, down the elevator and out into the street, where we could stand and say our good-byes. The next choice was I stayed with Claire. I didn’t want to lose our run of mornings by playing favorites, no matter how good- hearted she was, or how fancy her apartment, and so I stepped back and flat- out lied to her.
“Well, I got to make my way home to the Bronx, Claire, I got a church appointment in the afternoon, the choir.”
I felt plain- out awkward for the way I was lying. She said of course, yes, she understood, how silly of her, and then she kissed me gentle on the cheek. Her lips brushed against the side of my hair clip and she said:
“Don’t worry.”
I don’t know the words for how she looked at me—there are few words—it was a welling up, a rising, a lifting up on the surface from the water, it was the sort of thing that could not be told. It felt for a moment that something had unthreaded down my spine, and my skin got tight, but what could I say? She grabbed hold of my wrist and tweaked it, saying a second time that she understood and she didn’t mean to take me away from the choir. I stood away from her. It was over then, I was sure, happily solved, and the corridor brightened up for me and a few more smiles went around among us, and we declared we’d see each other at Marcia’s next time—though it felt to me that there’d probably never be another time, that was the heartbreaker, I had a good idea that we’d let it slip away now, we had all had our chance, we’d brought our boys back to life for a little while—and we stepped out into the hallway, where Claire pressed the button for the elevator.
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Claire pulled me back by the elbow and brought me close again, a sadness settling over her face.
She whispered: “You know, I’d be happy to pay you, Gloria.”
—
m y g r a nd m ot h er wa s a slave. Her mother too. My great- grandfather was a slave who ended up buying himself out from under Missouri. He carried a mind- whip with him just in case he forgot. I know a thing or two about what people want to buy, and how they think they can buy it. I know the marks that got left on women’s ankles. I know the kneeling-down scars you get in the field. I heard the stories about the gavel coming down on children. I read the books where the coffin ships groaned. I heard about the shackles they put on your wrists. I was told about what happened the first night a girl came to bloom. I heard the way they like their sheets tight on the bed so you can bounce a coin off them. I’ve listened to the southern men in their crisp white shirts and ties. I’ve seen the fists pumping in the air. I joined in the songs. I was on the buses where they lifted their little children to snarl in the window. I know the smell of CS gas and it’s not as sweet as some folks say.
If you start forgetting you’re already lost.
Claire panicked the moment she said it. It was like all of her face whirlpooled down to her eyes. She got sucked up into her own unex-pected words. The bottom of her eyelids trembled a second. She opened a limp, resigned palm, and stared at it as if to say that she had disappeared from herself and all she had left was this strange hand she was holding out in the air.
I stepped quickly into the elevator.
The elevator boy said: “Have a nice afternoon, Mrs. Soderberg.”
I could see her eyes as the door was pulled across: the tender resigna-tion.
The door slid shut. Marcia sighed with relief. A giggle came from Jacqueline. Janet made a shushing sound and stared ahead at the elevator boy’s neck, but I could tell she was holding back a grin. I just thought to myself that I wasn’t going to fall into their game. They wanted to go off and whisper about it. You know, I’d be happy to pay you, Gloria. I was sure they had heard it, that they’d dissect it to death, maybe in some coffee McCa_9781400063734_4p_04_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:39 PM Page 300
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shop, or some luncheonette, but I couldn’t stand the thought of any more talking, any more doors closing, any more rattle of cups. I would just leave them behind, go for a walk, a little way uptown, clear my head, glide a little, put one foot in front of the other, and just mash this over in my mind.
Downstairs, the light was pouring clear across the tiles. The doorman stopped us and said: “Excuse me, ladies, but Mrs. Soderberg called down on the intercom and she’d like to see you again a moment.”
Marcia gave one of her long sighs, and Jacqueline said how maybe she was bringing us some leftover bagels, like it was the funniest thing in the world, and I felt the heat pulse up in my cheeks.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Ooh, somebody’s hot under the collar,” said Marcia. She had sidled up beside me and laid her hand on my forearm.
“I’ve got choir practice to go to.”
>
“Lordy,” she said, her eyes reduced to a slit.
I stared right back at her, then stepped out the door, up the avenue, the burn of their eyes on my back.
“Gloria,” they called. “ Glor- ia.”
All around me, people were walking surefooted and shiny down the street. Businessmen and doctors and well- dressed ladies on the way to lunch. The taxis were driving by with their lights off all of a sudden for a colored woman, since they didn’t want to pick me up, even in my best dress, in the bright afternoon, in the summer heat. Maybe I’d take them the wrong way, out of the city, where the money and the paintings were, to the Bronx, where the money and the paintings weren’t. Everyone knows the taxi drivers hate a colored woman anyway—she won’t tip him, or at the very best she’ll nickel- and- dime him, that’s the thinking, and there’s no way to change it, no amount of freedom- riding is ever going to shift that. So I just kept placing one foot in front of the other. They were my best shoes, my going- to- opera leathers, and they were comfortable at first, they weren’t too bad, and I thought the walking would shuck the loneliness.
“Gloria,” I heard again, as if my own name were drifting away from me.
I didn’t look back. I was sure that Claire would run after me, and I kept wondering if I’d done the right thing, leaving her behind, with the radio parts spread around her son’s room, the books, the pencils, the McCa_9781400063734_4p_04_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:39 PM Page 301
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baseball cards, the snow globes, the sharpeners, all neatly arranged on the shelves. Her face came back to me, the slide of sadness along her eyes.
