The Forgetting Tree

by Tatjana Soli

  “Does this sound as bad to anyone else as it does to me?” Gwen asked, already turning away.

  Mrs. Girbaldi sighed, tearing lettuce leaves, so much they had enough to feed twenty. “Let the girl talk.”

  “And she’d want the job why?”

  “Oh, I forgot the whole point of the story—she got fired while I was there. She was crying, and I offered to take her for a sandwich to calm down. She hadn’t eaten the whole day and was starving. She was hysterical—said she couldn’t pay the rent that was due. She owed money to some boyfriend, something like that.”

  “I don’t think so.” Gwen continued peeling potatoes.

  “Why did she get fired?” Claire asked.

  “That was what was so strange. There was some old guy who came in every morning whose eyesight was failing, and she always brought him his coffee. That morning she took off with his briefcase—just left the store. The manager accused her of stealing until the old man came back and explained that she had returned it to him. She told the manager to f— off anyway.”

  Claire felt determined about something for the first time that day. “I don’t want you giving up your job.”

  “I should to be here with you,” Lucy said without conviction.

  “This coffee girl isn’t the kind of person we are looking for,” Gwen said finally, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

  “Why not?” Lucy said.

  “Remember when Mom was out of bay leaves? And you went outside and picked leaves off the tree, insisting they were bay leaves?”

  Lucy’s face turned blotchy. “What are you talking about?”

  “And Mom thanked you and pretended to put them in the soup?”

  “Oh, my God. I was six years old!”

  “For all you knew, they could have been oleander. You could have killed us all,” Gwen said.

  “Can you get hold of her?” Claire asked.

  “Who?”

  “The coffee girl!”

  “I know the apartment I dropped her off at. But she was moving out,” Lucy said. “Maybe I should drive over now? Get her name and cell number.”

  “You don’t even know her name?” Gwen said.

  “Minna. I think her name’s Minna, okay? It’s not like she wants the job. Bay leaves!”

  The whole plan unraveling, the girls arguing, Claire’s chance to stay at the farm taken and replaced by an unwanted, cobbled second childhood in a condo in Sacramento. “Go talk to her. I have a feeling about this one.”

  Lucy got her keys.

  “What about dinner?” Gwen said.

  “I lost my appetite.” Lucy slammed the back door.

  * * *

  Mrs. Girbaldi hummed as she cut cucumbers. One of the traits Claire loved in her was her cool unflappability. Nothing, including their family squabble, affected her.

  “Take it easy on Lucy,” Claire said to Gwen. “She’s still fragile.”

  “How long does she get away with that excuse?” Gwen banged the oven door shut on the potatoes and left the room. Despite her maternal solicitude, her taking charge, her furious cleaning and cooking in the house, she chafed against her self-appointed role.

  “She’s mad about me hiring a girl. Thinks it will interfere with me selling the ranch.”

  “Will it?” Mrs. Girbaldi was never sly about getting to the point.

  “As if that’s the only way she can be happy.”

  Claire turned away to set the table. Knife, fork, spoon. Knife, fork, spoon. Raisi’s love of routine now her own. The farm would go on for a while longer, and she would go on for a while longer with it. She banged the glassware down on the table so hard it was in danger of shattering. Gwen and Lucy weren’t the only ones with a temper. Sometimes people simply didn’t understand what it was that created and sustained them. Regardless, this girl Minna would have to do.

  Chapter 3

  After an uneasy dinner spent listening for Lucy’s return, the dishes had been cleared away, and Gwen, still angry, watched a movie while Claire played gin with Mrs. Girbaldi, pretending not to notice when she cheated by fudging on their long-running scorecard. Mrs. Girbaldi was on her third cocktail by the time Lucy returned with the girl from the coffeehouse. Driven by different motivations each, they rushed from different rooms of the house to gather in the entry hall to satisfy their curiosity.

  The afternoon had blued to evening, and the only thing that illuminated was the small, overhead light from the open passenger door, as a tall, lanky form stretched out her legs. The girl stood in the driveway, turning once, and then again in a full circle, appearing satisfied as she surveyed the grounds around her as if she owned the place and had merely come to check on things, perhaps take a retreat, rather than to be in service there. They stood in line for inspection and greeting.

  Claire admired this sense of confidence. What struck her first as the girl walked toward them was that, despite the dusk, she wore dark, oversize sunglasses, and this gave her both a glamorous and a pitiful air, making it unclear whether they were being visited by someone famous, determined to hide her identity, or, conversely, a blind person hopelessly dependent on the whims of strangers. Transformed, ebullient, Lucy bent her head near the girl’s, whispering something low enough for only her to hear, and both of them giggled with the air of conspirators, reinforcing the feeling of her being just another in a long line of the girls’ many friends who had come visiting over the years. Claire had to remind herself that the two had only just met, their intimacy seemed so natural, and this was yet another thing in the girl’s favor.

  When she entered the hallway and stood under the light, at last taking off the sunglasses, a moment’s hush enveloped them. A perverse sense of pride went through Claire at Lucy’s having felt no need to inform them that the girl was black, or at least biracial. She held out her hand. “Hello, I’m Minna.”

  The first to break the spell, Claire moved closer to shake her hand, first lightly, then more forcefully, cupping her frozen, thin fingers in her own. “You’re ice-cold! Poor thing. Where have you been?” Claire felt an immediate desire to protect and moved closer still, wrapping an arm around Minna’s shoulders as if offering refuge to one distressed—the girl had a vulnerability that evoked maternal instincts. Taller than Lucy, her body, although slender, gave an impression of muscularity. She had powerful, wide shoulders, and long, tapered fingers that looked as if they held musical promise. Her skin glowed the shade of coffee with milk stirred in, and her brown hair had the sleekness of being straightened and held to a shape not of its own volition.

  “Come in, come in,” Claire said, trying to erase the impression of their inspecting her by further and further kindnesses, ushering the girl into the family room, corralling her into the most comfortable chair, fluffing a pillow behind her back, offering a footstool, a bowl of long-preserved, dusty mints. In the girl’s presence, the mints appeared hopelessly provincial. Behind her, she could hear Mrs. Girbaldi’s throat clearing as if to say, Who is interviewing whom?

  When Claire first looked at Minna, the green of her eyes startled her, unexpected and lovely, the soft hue of moss. As the girl took in the room—the floor-to-ceiling bookcases around three walls, stacks of books on every surface, including one tented open along the sofa’s arm—she picked the splayed book up, twisting a delicate wrist, to read the spine. “Tales of the Arabian Nights? Are you a classicist, or are you drawn to the fairy-tale elements?”

  Claire smiled. “I’m making up for a stunted education,” she said, diffident as if she were being courted. “I love stories.”

  “Do you love stories or love love stories?”

  Minna chuckled and stretched her long legs out in front of her, crossing them at the ankle. She wore a loose summer dress, but what drew Claire’s attention were her expensive-looking gold sandals, the heels high, calling for a more glamorous occasion than the one she was there for. Her toenails were painted an iridescent red, her toes hanging over the front as if the shoes were a size too small. Her f
eet were long, narrow, aristocratic.

  “You found me out. I love both.”

  “I already feel at home here,” Minna said, granting them for the first time her wide, brilliant smile. “My great-grandmother was a novelist. We always had books around. At one point I wanted to be a librarian just to be able to read all day.”

  “Really?” Gwen said, as if this were an outlandish statement.

  “What was her name?” Claire asked. Triumphant, she would not look at Gwen or Mrs. Girbaldi. Now, besides Claire’s being transported by her exotic looks, Claire’s heart quickened because Minna had entered her territory. At no time did she not prefer the imaginary to the real.

  “Jean Rhys.”

  “Oh,” Claire said. “Oh.”

  She swooned. It was as if the last thirty years were swept away and she was back in her college English lit class, reading Rhys for the first time. Her masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea, had turned all the Jane Austen and Brontë sisters books on their head. A prequel to Jane Eyre, it was the madwoman-in-the-attic’s side of the story, the one that Jane so easily dismissed. After reading it, Claire felt that if one knew any person thoroughly enough, almost all could be explained and forgiven. What had happened to the girl who read that book?

  “She was one of my heroes in college. I loved her books,” Claire said.

  “I never heard of her,” Gwen said.

  Minna looked at Claire for confirmation, and said, “She was well-known in the thirties and forties. Interest revived in her in the seventies with all the postcolonial Caribbean and feminist studies. Although she hated that label; hated the island and being lumped together with other women writers.

  “She told my mother she was absolutely disappointed to have a daughter and no sons. More disappointed to have only granddaughters and great-granddaughters. Ironic, that we are a whole clan of women.”

  “Is she still…?”

  Minna closed her eyes for a moment. “She passed in ’79. I hardly knew her. I have one memory as a baby, being dandled on her lap. I was fascinated by her false teeth, how she moved them around in her mouth.” Minna laughed.

  “Jean Rhys,” Claire said. “Beautiful Antoinette, on that lush, sensual island. And Rochester, who comes to marry her.”

  They all sat in silence, mesmerized for different reasons.

  Minna leaned forward, suddenly serious. “She had a large impact on me as a girl. She was a great heroine in Dominica, where we’re from.”

  “Do you go home often?”

  “When interest in her work revived, the royalties grew. The family bought land around the original farm until we were one of the largest landowners. Then came the anglicizing. My mother decided to send me to England.”

  “How about some wine?” Lucy blurted out, and Gwen glared at her as if confirmed that her sister had lost her mind.

  “I’d love some,” Minna said, so quickly it was obvious that she was nervous. “Red if you have it.” She sighed, glancing at Gwen. “Maybe not appropriate for a job interview?”

  “No, no. It’s fine. We’re liberal here. Go ahead, open a bottle,” Gwen said to Lucy’s disappearing back.

  “We grew up on our grandfather’s coffee plantation. Took shopping trips to Martinique. A charmed life.”

  “So how did you end up working at a coffee shop?” Gwen asked.

  “How rude!” Claire said. “Excuse my daughter.”

  “Are you aware,” Mrs. Girbaldi jumped in, “that this is a job of great responsibility?”

  Minna looked off into the corner of the ceiling for a long moment, as if making a particularly difficult calculation, and, once decided, looked at Claire.

  “Lucy filled me in a bit. My mother had breast cancer.”

  Claire hated everyone in the room for their roughness, how they had forced this out of Minna. “Did she survive it?” Claire asked softly, as if she didn’t want to wake something sleeping in the room.

  “She died of something else.”

  The blood stopped and started inside Claire. She understood now the pull toward the girl, could see in her eyes that they were fellow sufferers.

  “So I’ve been through cancer treatment before. I’ve learned to be careful in approaching the subject. Some people want to be direct and head-on about the whole thing. Others prefer a more indirect approach.”

  “My daughters think I’m being stubborn, wanting to stay on here alone.”

  “You talk about us like we weren’t even here,” Gwen said.

  “You are stubborn, Claire. That’s your strength.”

  Her using Claire’s name should have alarmed, a premature intimacy, and yet it thrilled Claire and made her feel they shared an understanding already.

  Gwen coughed. “Lucy told us you were taking classes.…”

  Minna turned toward her, her profile sharp, suddenly businesslike. “I did my undergraduate work at Cambridge. I started my PhD in political science at Berkeley, but decided to take some time off. Too much stress.”

  “What are your future plans?” Mrs. Girbaldi asked.

  Minna sat back and smiled, showing that she was answering these intrusive questions only for politeness. “I think I’d do well in diplomacy. My father served as a diplomat. There’s always the librarian dream to fall back on.”

  “Wow, Cambridge,” Lucy said, coming in from the kitchen, balancing wineglasses, not missing a beat as she shot a look to Gwen.

  “England’s a tradition in our family. Three generations. I want the advanced degree, but now I need some time off. The coffee-shop gig was just for some cash.”

  Later, Claire remembered being so dazzled that first meeting with Minna that the information offered up came to her piecemeal. So distracted was she by the timbre, the wave and lilt, of Minna’s voice, like especially ravishing music that reached unexpected places. Definitely English, but something of hot sun and tropical waters, too. A slowness born out of heat and languor.

  “I don’t know why this would appeal to you,” Claire said. “Taking care of a sick lady. But you won’t have to clean.”

  Minna laughed, a deep belly laugh, head thrown back, perfect white teeth exposed. “I’m well acquainted with a mop. My maman made sure all of her girls kept a spotless house.”

  “You have sisters!” Lucy said as if that provided a final confirmation of her worthiness.

  “Two sisters. Another house of women only, like yours.”

  A silence hung in the room. The family had long ago decided on omission rather than Once we had a son, a brother.…

  Minna continued without seeming to note the pause. “I was the ugly runt of the litter. My oldest sister was a model in Paris. Now she’s married. She lives in the south of France. In Cannes.” Minna smiled and nodded, sipped her wine.

  The conversation made Claire feel countrified, rough, and without style. She imagined the girls, if they had any sense, felt the same. A new silence stretched until it reached discomfort.

  Minna sighed and continued as if the situation required it. “My middle sister lives in Florida. She invests in the real estate market. She has the most beautiful, modern house.”

  “You must miss them,” Lucy said.

  “I do. But when the three of us were children in Dominica, all we could talk of was getting away. It was so isolated and backward on the plantation. Can I tell you the funniest story?”

  “Please do,” Mrs. Girbaldi said.

  “My oldest sister was an art student in London when she was discovered by a photographer for Vogue. All fine and well. But they wanted her to be more of a story. A sensation. So they invented this story that he had found her in Haiti, living in the slums and starving, breaking coconuts with her bare hands or something equally absurd. Very much like the stories of Iman being a goat herder.”

  “Why would they lie?” Gwen asked.

  “I guess to make themselves feel progressive and liberal, feel proud of plucking one of a million from a fate of misery. The wild savage redeemed.”

 
“But you aren’t even from Haiti,” Lucy said, outraged.

  “People always mix up Dominica with the Dominican Republic. It’s all the same to them. Close enough.”

  “I am so proud of my girls,” Claire said, resolute, ready to close the deal. “They wanted to take care of me, but I don’t want them upsetting their lives.”

  “Lucy told me that you are a very special family,” Minna said.

  “You’re hired if you want the job,” Claire said.

  Minna opened her eyes wide, grinning, while Lucy jumped up and clapped, rushing to kiss Claire. “Good for you, Mom.”

  Gwen and Mrs. Girbaldi remained seated and silent.

  “That’s very kind of you. But perhaps you should speak with your family in private. It’s a big decision, bringing someone new into your home.”

  “Wise girl,” Mrs. Girbaldi said, before Claire could get in a word of protest.

  “The job will probably last only six months. After Mom is well, she’s selling the ranch,” Gwen said.

  “Sad to leave such a wonderful place,” Minna said.

  “Yes.” Claire looked at this girl, her dark Cordelia.

  Another too long pause in the room.

  “Can you direct me to the loo?”

  “Down the hall,” Gwen answered.

  Minna left the room, and they sat in a divided silence.

  “I guess I’ll start on the dishes,” Lucy said.

  “Not just yet,” Gwen snapped.

  No one moved, and they listened in silence to the sound of high heels going back and forth on the wood floor in the hallway, doors opening and shutting. Minna popped her head back in the room.

  “Sorry, but I can’t find it.”

  “I’ll show you,” Lucy said. “How about I make you a snack in the kitchen.”

  “Lovely, I’m starving.”

  “I can’t believe how you are acting,” Lucy hissed as she left the room.

  Mrs. Girbaldi hiccuped. “A beautiful girl.”

  A few minutes later, Minna returned, gathered her purse and sweater. “I’m leaving now. Why don’t you give me a call in town once you’ve decided.”