The Living is Easy

by Dorothy West

  She rose. “If you open that door, I’ll walk out of this house to the nearest telephone booth. I won’t call a priest. I’ll call a daily paper.”

  “And what,” he said scornfully, “will you tell them?”

  She did not know. She had not thought as far as that. But she gave him look for look while she racked her brain.

  “I’ll tell them you’re a white slaver, that Lenore’s been held captive here for four years under the influence of some kind of dope that’s finally killing her. Cole’s name can appear in the papers again as the one who gave it to you to give to her. Lenore’s never said more than two words at a time to anybody. There’ll be plenty of hindsight witnesses to say she did act doped. And where are the friends who will help you prove that she’s colored? No one of your men friends would tell a reporter they frequented her gambling rooms. None of your women friends ever laid eyes on her before you introduced her as your wife. By the time the mess is straightened out, the Binney name will be mud.”

  “My dear Cleo,” Simeon said dangerously, “have you never heard of libel?”

  “Of course. But I shall give the paper your name and address, not mine. The reporters will come. If you refuse to let them see Lenore, they will believe there is some truth in my story. If you let them see her with her ash-blond hair, they will believe it anyway.”

  There was a pause.

  “You win this hand,” said Simeon. “But I have a trump card, too. When you walk out of that door, you will never be welcome in this house again.”

  “That is for Thea to decide when she is mistress here.”

  “And do you think she will decide against her brother?”

  “Certainly not,” Cleo said indifferently. “But you will never tell her of this unpleasant scene. It would distress her.” She moved to the door. “Will you pick up the telephone, Simeon? I must go.”

  He picked up the telephone. She heard him ask Information for the nearest Catholic Church. She opened the door and went out.

  CHAPTER 34

  LILY PULLED THE DOORBELL as violently as the children had done earlier. There was a key somewhere in her bag. But she dared not open it. The man might be waiting for just that opportunity to snatch what was in it. If he put his hands on her, she knew she would scream. And they always killed you if you made an outcry. She could not bear to die for twenty-five cents.

  Cleo jerked open the door. “What in the name of God — I thought it was one of the children sent home sick or something.”

  Lily slipped inside the door and leaned against it, her hat askew, a lock of hair straggling, and her coat buttoned wrong.

  “There’s a colored man following me,” she gasped. “He was on the trolley when I got on. He started to speak to me, but I ran to the back of the car and squeezed between two ladies. But when I got off just now, he got off, too. I ran all the way, but he’s right behind me.”

  The bell rang briskly. Lily jumped away from the door. “That’s him,” she moaned. “Cleo, save me, save me.” She scooted up the front stairs, and Cleo heard her lock the bathroom door and turn the tap in the tub, so that she would not have to hear whatever happened.

  Cleo peered through the curtain that covered the glass half of the door, and gave a little snort of disgust that was directed at Lily. She was a born fool and would die one. Cleo opened the door to Lily’s husband.

  “She didn’t have to run from me,” Victor said darkly without preliminary. The liquor was stronger on his breath than it had been on that other visit. This time he had fortified himself to excess.

  “She wasn’t really running from you,” Cleo said, feeling as big a fool as Lily. “She didn’t recognize you. She thought you were some strange man after her. Come in.”

  “Well,” said Victor, sullenly entering the house and deciding not to remove his hat. “I didn’t come after your sister, you can bet your sweet life. I came to get rid of her.”

  “We don’t have to stand in the hall and talk,” Cleo said coldly. “Please step in the parlor. I’ll go call Lily.”

  “Sounds like she’s washing her carcass,” said Victor insultingly. “I seen her scoot upstairs through the glass. Is she trying to wash off where she brushed past me? My color don’t come off.”

  Silently Cleo muttered blasphemies at Lily. “There’s really no need for you to be uncouth.”

  “Or maybe, Mrs. High and Mighty, you’ve taught her to pass, and she don’t want no colored man, in particular her colored husband, speaking to her on a streetcar filled with white folks.”

  “If you will be good enough to go in and sit down,” said Cleo icily, “I’ll tell Lily you’re here. There is nothing more for us to say to each other. Good day.”

  Victor wandered into the parlor, and Cleo went upstairs. She rattled the bathroom door.

  “Who is it?” Lily quavered.

  “You know who it is. Open the door.”

  “Who is it downstairs?”

  “Open the door. It’s Victor.”

  “Oh, my God! Cleo, save me, save me! Has he come to kill me?”

  “Lily, will you open this door and let me talk to you?”

  “No,” said Lily wildly.

  “Lily, I could break every bone in your body.”

  “I don’t care. I’d rather you killed me than Victor. Cleo, tell him to go away. You’re not afraid of anybody.”

  “He wants to talk to you.”

  “You talk to him for me.”

  “Lily, I’ll ask you one more time. Will you open that door and come downstairs?”

  “No.”

  There it was, that once-in-a-year stubbornness of Lily’s, when the extremity of her cowardice gave her the courage to take an immovable stand.

  “You just wait until I can get my hands on you,” Cleo hissed ineffectually, and went back downstairs, feeling more like a fool than ever.

  “Lily is bathing,” she said, with great dignity, “and begs to be excused. She asks you to give me whatever message you have for her.”

  Victor dug in his overcoat pockets, then in his suit coat pockets, and finally in the pockets of his trousers. His look was owlish. For a moment Cleo almost believed her own lies. Perhaps he really was fishing for his razor. She sat up straighter, filled her face with a queenly disdain that would cower the heart of the commoner.

  A banded roll of bills appeared in Victor’s hand. “Money talks,” he said elaborately, and held it out to her.

  The width of the room was between them. Neither he nor she rose to cross to the other. They watched each other like alley cats. It was Victor whose eyes wavered first.

  “You can tell her I want a divorce. I’m living with a woman who wants us to get married. She’s going to have a baby. It’ll be a black kid because she’s black as me. You can get my yaller kid ready to be ashamed of it.”

  Cleo rose. “Now that you’ve got that off your chest, will you be good enough to go?”

  Victor sprawled back in his chair and stared at her insolently. “I ain’t quite finished. I don’t want this divorce business to hang on forever. The quicker I’m rid of your blue-white sister, the better. I don’t know the grounds for divorce in Boston, but I don’t care what grounds she uses as long as the judge makes it snappy. You can fix up a story for her. You’re a first-class liar.”

  He stood then, and came toward her. She stared at him, her eyes green as sea-water, but his liquor was not in awe of her. He thrust out his hand again and held the money close to her face. “Here. It’s two hundred dollars. Take it and go to hell.”

  She said slowly and venomously, “Get out of my house, Mister Nigger.”

  He flung the money in her face. In a moment the front door slammed.

  Her cheek was as red as blood where the money had struck it. She looked down at the roll of bills and gave it a vicious kick. The action relieved a lot of her anger. Curiosity compelled her thinking. Maybe it was a dummy roll. She crossed the room and picked it up. She slipped off the rubber band. The bills unrolle
d. They were real. But perhaps there were not really two hundred. That brazen nigger might have cheated. She began to count them.

  She did not hear Lily until her soft, anguished voice called down from the upstairs landing, “Cleo, did Victor go? Are you all right? Speak to me, Cleo.”

  Quickly Cleo took the first hundred dollars that she had counted out and stuffed them down her dress. She rolled up the rest and put the band back around them. Poor people could get divorces for as little as fifty dollars. Let Lily loose with two hundred dollars, and she’d only do something foolish with it. Probably give it to Mr. Judson.

  “Come on down, Lily. I’m not wallowing in blood. Victor’s gone.”

  She came downstairs and into the parlor, giving a fearful look around.

  “What did he want? Did he want me and Vicky to come back to him?”

  Cleo passed her the roll of bills. “He wants a divorce.”

  “What’s this for?” said Lily stupidly, staring at her hand.

  “What in the name of God do you think it’s for?”

  Lily held it gingerly, as if she feared it might explode through some trick of Victor’s. “How much is it?”

  “That’s just the way he gave it to me. Count it and see. He said it was a hundred dollars.”

  Lily freed the money from the rubber band with the greatest difficulty, and began a slow and halting count, for the money kept rolling back up in her nervous hands.

  “Ninety-five dollars,” she finally announced.

  “Well, the dirty liar,” said Cleo sincerely. “Let me count it.”

  Lily gave the money to her as if she were glad to get rid of it. “Oh, Cleo, I’ll die if I have to go down before a judge. I won’t know what to say to him. I’d just drop dead of fright.”

  “You don’t have to get the divorce tomorrow. I wouldn’t give Victor that much satisfaction. Make him wait. It’ll serve him right,” she ended acidly, for she could make the count no more than ninety-five dollars either.

  “Let’s put the money on some bills for a while,” begged Lily. She had the idea that if it were spent, she would never have to face the ordeal of going before a great big important person like a judge. And she was quite right.

  “Well, there’s the rent,” said Cleo, thinking fast. “There’s the dispossess.” Lily didn’t want a divorce. It was Victor who wanted one. Let him get one the best way he could.

  “Oh, my God, I clean forgot the dispossess with Victor coming. Those people didn’t take the flat? How much money you got in all?”

  “Serena only had two or three dollars to give me. She spent the rest on presents for Robert’s birthday. Those people didn’t take the flat. And Mr. Judson only left me one month’s rent. It never rains but it pours.”

  “Well, maybe the Lord sent Victor, after all,” Lily suggested shyly. She felt rather proud. She had saved the family from the sidewalk. Mr. Judson would certainly say he wouldn’t know what they would do without her.

  “Well, the Lord didn’t send him a second too soon. You run up to Mr. Benjamin’s for me. You’ve got your things on.”

  “Oh, Cleo,” Lily wailed, “Victor may still be around. You go.”

  But Cleo had no intention of leaving Lily to explain her whereabouts to Mr. Judson. He would rush right back to his store after he brought her the money. He need never know that she did not rush right out, too, to pay Mr. Benjamin.

  “Well, take your choice,” she said. “Either stay home and get your throat slit if Victor sneaks back through a window. Or go to Mr. Benjamin’s like I asked you. Victor wouldn’t be fool enough to slit your throat on the street with people passing.”

  But Lily was indoors, and it seemed a whole lot safer than the street. “I’ll watch the front of the house, and Charity can watch the back. If Victor tries to sneak in, whichever one sees him first can start screaming for help.”

  “Charity,” said Cleo pleasantly, “isn’t here. So what will you do all by yourself in this house if Victor comes in one way while you’re watching the other way?”

  “I’ll go,” said Lily hopelessly. Then she said in surprise, “Where’s Charity? I thought she heard Victor and was hiding upstairs. Oh, Lord, was she taken sick and rushed to the hospital? Like you said, it never rains but it pours.”

  “Lily,” Cleo prophesied, “some day you’re going to scare yourself to death. Charity went across the street to work. I thought it was the best thing for her to get her out of herself.” Suddenly she was aware that Lily should be at work, too. Lily read her thoughts and lowered her eyes. “Lily, what you doing home so early?”

  “The man came home early,” Lily said, squirming like a child under Cleo’s hard scrutiny.

  “What man? My God, you ran home from Victor. Now you think some other man’s after you.”

  “He wasn’t after me,” Lily said, with dignity. “He didn’t even speak to me. That’s what made me so nervous. He was so quiet. She went out — my lady, I mean — and he came home early, and went in his room and shut the door, and I couldn’t hear a sound.”

  “Well, how was that your business? You’re paid to work, not to listen for sounds.”

  Lily said sheepishly, “But he looked so kinda sick when he came in.”

  “Well, God have mercy, that’s why he came home early then. If you’re going to be scared of men, be scared of the well ones.”

  “I thought he must have died,” Lily said in a low, ashamed voice, for it did seem rather ridiculous now. “I thought I was all alone with a dead man.”

  “You take the cake,” Cleo admitted, with a weary shake of the head. “What are you going to tell your lady tomorrow?”

  “I guess I won’t go back. I kinda hate to face her. I guess I’ll go to the agency tomorrow.” Her eyes implored Cleo not to be harsh.

  “Well, time’s wasting while I listen to you tell me you’re a fool,” Cleo said mildly. “It’s half-past three. Go catch the next trolley.”

  In her eagerness to make amends for being jobless, Lily turned and stampeded to the front door.

  “Lord God,” shouted Cleo, in extreme exasperation, “where you going without the money? Here, I’ll give you eighty out of this. I won’t waste more time going upstairs to get my pocketbook.”

  Lily took the money. “You keep what’s left,” she offered shyly. “I know it ain’t much. But it’ll help to keep things running till I’m working again.”

  Cleo tucked the fifteen dollars down her dress. In her purse and on her person she had one hundred and Sixty-three dollars, and Mr. Judson was bringing her forty more. Her eyes blurred with grateful tears. God had answered her prayers beyond her hopes. It never rained but it poured.

  CHAPTER 35

  FIVE MINUTES LATER the Brookline trolley, out-bound for the Village, where Mr. Benjamin’s office was, came to a halt at the car stop. Cleo, who was at the window serving as lookout for Lily’s safety, saw her sister scramble aboard and tangle with a man with a load of groceries who was trying to assert his right to get off first. The man was Mr. Judson. Cleo held her breath. But he and Lily had no time to exchange anything but a look of surprise before the motorman shut the door and drew up the step.

  Bart came toward the house as loaded down as a pack horse. He hadn’t come home looking like that since hard times. He had enough food to feed a regiment. He must have stopped at every store in the Market.

  Cleo’s thoughts chased each other around like birds. What had happened between her husband and Mr. Bancroft? Maybe when Mr. Judson had explained about the forty dollars Mr. Bancroft had made him keep some more. Maybe Mr. Bancroft, as his onetime banker, had come to tell him about an inheritance from some long-forgotten relative. Maybe Mr. Bancroft, as his friend, had brought him a great big check to help him build up his business again. Whatever had happened, the way Mr. Judson was loaded down, it looked like good times were back.

  Impulsively she rapped on the window. She was not given to acknowledging her husband’s arrival home. But today she wanted him to
know that they pulled in harness together.

  He was bent under his load, and his head was down. He raised it briefly when she rapped, gave her a little salute with his eyes, and lowered his head again.

  She felt a little flutter of anxiety. He oughtn’t to try to carry so much as old as he was. For in that momentary glimpse of his haggard face, she was shocked by the showing of age. That fear of his dying oppressed her heart. Men were nuisances to have in a house. They got in your way wherever you walked. You wanted to talk, and they did, too. You fixed a snack, and they felt hungry. You had the children’s big wash to do, and they wanted clean clothes. But you could get used to anything in time, and you got used to having a husband. It was no use denying that nothing would seem the same if you couldn’t hear his key in the lock and his voice calling up, “I’m home.”

  She had the door open when he reached the stoop. He came heavily into the house, and she held out her hands to share his burden.

  “You got enough food here for a week,” she said happily, and led the way back to the kitchen.

  “I tried to get a week’s supply,” he said.

  “Well, this was too much load for one man to carry,” she scolded over her shoulder. “After this, you take a taxi straight to the door. Never count the cost when it’s a question of saving your strength.”

  She put her bundles down and began to divest him of his, for he could not have released his arms without toppling the pyramid. A ham took shape in her hands, a great thick steak, a leg of lamb, a roast by the feel of it, a slab of bacon, boxes of sausages and frankfurters. The pyramid’s base was a small crate filled with choice fruits and vegetables.

  She said, with emotion, “When times are good, God knows you’re the best provider in Boston.”

  His look was ravaged, but he quietly promised, “They’re going to be good again.”

  “They’re good now,” she protested happily. But he gave her no answering smile, and she was aware again of his aging. He looked ten years older than he had last night.

  “You’re all worn out. Sit down. I’ll fix something for you before you go back to the store.” She reached for the steak. It was his favorite. For once, let the children have second choice. He needed red meat as much as they did. He was the one made the wheels go round. If he ever took sick, the earth would tremble.