“Henry, Henry? I know you’re in there.” Henry couldn’t move. (Goddamn! ain’t this a bitch? Man, I never yet stand up in one spot, like this, and couldn’t move, just because of a goddamn woman!) He wanted to open the door and drag her in and throw her on the bed, and give her some good love-blows, for all the worry she had caused him; he even wanted to touch her hand; and kiss her; and sit down and watch her knees which he had spent many hours doing. He began to curse Estelle in his mind; and Bernice too; and Boysie — for causing all this. Agatha gave the door one final, violent kick, “You bastard! I know you’re in there.” And he followed her disappointed footsteps from his door, to the outer door, to the front door, seven steps … one, two, three, four, five, six, seven … then down the path cluttered with empty beer bottles and cigarette butts and packages, and he waited with her, in his imagination, until she fumbled (as she has been fumbling for the three years she’s visited him) with the latch on the front gate which Miss Diamond promised to repair. In his mind still, is Agatha; and he can see her as she walks to the corner of Baldwin Street, gives one last dirty look at the house and disappears in the late shopping crowds rambling from the Jewish Market and from the bars and stores. Henry opens the door, and looks out. He knows she is not out there. But he has to do it, has to look, for that was his woman, the woman he loved more than he knew.
He closed the door, and returned to the chair, where he had been keeping guard.
“Why didn’t you let Agatha come in?”
“Oh man! That broad’s a real drag, man.” He knows he lies: she knows he lies. “She’s sick, too. Always bugging me, always …”
“Thanks, Henry,” Estelle said. “Boy, look how I causing everybody trouble, eh.”
Bernice returned with the necessary information and instructions from Brigitte, whom she had called; and with the supplies from the drugstore. She even brought two baby-beef sandwiches on kaizer rolls, two butter tarts (one day she ate ten in Eaton’s restaurant) and a package of chewing gum for Estelle. Henry wondered why chewing gum. Bernice shrugged her shoulders, smiled, and with a little embarrassment, said, “To chew, nuh, man!” He took the sandwiches, smiled and said approvingly to himself, This goddamn woman!
They worked long to relieve Estelle of her pain; and to moderate the bleeding. Henry found a bottle with some whiskey, and they shared this. Bernice was in such a nervous state (although she did not show it) that she knew she needed something more than the word of God to help her through tonight. In any case, Henry never owned a Bible. Occasionally, he would look at her, shake his head, and confide to himself, Goddamn, this is a great woman! He had already placed Agatha in that category of women to be called up, when there were no better ones around, when Bernice said, quite simply, “Just passed Agaffa going along Spadina.”
“Who? Who?” He was taken completely off guard.
“That bitch looked at me, and look off, be-Christ, as if she think she is the Queen!” It made Henry sad; and Estelle uneasy. “Wonder who the hell she think she is! She could come in my place and eat-up all my curry-chicken, though …”
“Some women are funny in truth,” Henry said. “You didn’t know that, did you, Bernice love?” He watched her to see how she reacted to “love.” She did not react. “Man, I used to pass this chick every morning. I met her at a party, some place. The day after the party, she passed me on the street. Every morning I passing this nice chick and she ain’t saying one goddamn word to me. And then one evening, a knocking on my door! And as Boysie would say, Gorblummuh! when I open the door, I nearly drop down dead. The same woman!”
“Jezebel!”
“Wait, you ain’t going to ask me who she is?”
“Agaffa! She is the jezebel!”
“Jesus Christ, Bernice! You is a genius!” But he had made up the entire story — every detail. He said, “Goddamn, you is a real woman.” He went to her, and put his arms round her, congratulating her. She felt good to him. Bernice gave him a look that was preserved for years, on ice.
“Left me out! Left me out, man! What happen to Agaffa? She wearing her chastity belt these days?” It stunned him. And it stung. Goddamn! he thought; but this time it was not complimentary. Estelle was still in pain. She had been suffering greatly, from the beginning, although she said nothing about it.
“You own a hot-water bottle?” Bernice asked him, tears in her eyes, when she could almost feel the tight-fisted grip of pain in her sister’s abdomen. “Lend me your hot-water bottle, man.”
“Hot-what? Goddamn, Bernice I ain’t no woman, baby.” But Bernice wasn’t impressed by his Harlem accent, and she didn’t take her eyes off him. He said, “I don’t even have a woman.”
“Looka, man, everybody in Toronto knows you sleeps with Agaffa, you hear?” And she laughed like Dots, and said, “Well, heat-up some hot-towels for me, then, man. The night ain’t waiting on we. Come, get up offa your backside.”
Bernice turned out to be an excellent nurse. She worked like an army of moths: silently, efficiently, and without feeling like a Florence Nightingale. Even Henry was no longer upset by the emergency and by the blood. He made a partition of thick cloth (one of Miss Diamond’s woollen sheets) which held Estelle in her own private ward. Bernice would hand him a neatly wrapped newspaper parcel, and tell him, in the manner of a head nurse talking to an orderly, “Put that somewhere, safe, man!” This was the part he didn’t like. But he would unlock the door; slip out; throw the parcel into a garbage can at the corner of the street; slip back inside; lock the door behind him, and take a good shot of whiskey to steady his nerves. At the end of each return journey he would say, “Goddamn!” He felt badly doing it. On the third trip, he had to watch a policeman, very carefully, for fifteen minutes, before he disposed of the parcel. The policeman had seen him throw away the second parcel. “Goddamn cop!” But he had fled back to his room, and had taken a large shot of whiskey. He hoped the third trip would be the last. Trouble happened on the fourth trip. As he turned the corner to approach the garbage can, the whiskey now having taken away most of his care and caution, two drunks decided to argue and push each other around, on the sidewalk. Henry was too near the garbage can to turn back. The policeman was approaching. Just as he got near, one drunk fell and overturned the can, and the three newspaper parcels which were on top, tumbled out and ran about the sidewalk. A woman, talking to another woman, saw the contents and screamed and ran. Some men, still enjoying the fight, saw the parcels and they swore and moved on. Henry couldn’t move. The policeman was still coming closer. He was almost upon him, when just then, realizing the predicament he could be in, Henry gripped the parcel and fled. “Goddamn!” he said, but only after he had locked the door behind him. He decided to keep the fourth and the fifth parcels in his room, until morning. Morning was seven hours away.
Estelle has stopped bleeding. She is resting now. Bernice is tired and a bit worried (“Bright and early, six o’clock, tomorrow morning, I got to be in that blasted kitchen, again. God!”). Henry offers her a drink. She takes the bottle from him, and drinks from it. She takes a second larger drink. And Henry smiles in his heart. The whiskey is working love and pain inside him. Bernice is on the couch. He gets up from the floor, and sits on the arm of the couch, near her. She merely glances at him. She is tired. The night is old, very old. Time is again on her hands, and on Henry’s.
“Goddamn,” he comments.
“How are you and Agaffa getting on, boy?”
He refuses to fall into this trap; and he refuses to answer. Instead, he offers her more whiskey. Bernice takes the bottle, and takes a large mouthful, from the bottle. Henry draws closer to her (still sitting on the arm of the couch) and is almost touching her now. He actually touches her, but something tells him, it is still too soon to be familiar.
“You and that gal not setting horses too good these days, I hear.”
“Goddamn white woman!” He is doubtful: she’s asking a damn lot about Agatha! With the whiskey on his brain, he decides to make h
is move; and he fashions his words of courtship and seduction, in the poetry of his choicest Harlem American. “You’s a goddamn cool woman, you don’t know that, baby? I shouldda been grooving with you a long time ago, but I make a real big goof.” Bernice smiles. She likes to hear him talk like an American, now; and he does it well.
“Christ, man, you left out a good woman like me, for that? For Agaffa? Heh-heh!”
“Goddamn, baby, I copped out of a swinging chick, for a weirdee, baby.” Bernice smiles. Henry sees for the first time, that she is really a very beautiful black woman. He becomes more confident. “You want to know something, baby? I feel like kissing you right now. On them nice purple lips o’ yours.” Bernice’s lips quiver. She has never been in this situation of electrifying seductiveness before. But he thinks the time is not ripe for the kiss. He wants to make her wet her pants first. Peace, and slumber and a rich feeling of seduction are in the room now. “I always was wishing I could groove with a woman like you. Big! Nice! A woman who could whip me up a good goddamn home-cooked type o’ meal. Wash my threads, and other laundries, be-Christ, even better than the New Method Laundry! A real …”
“What the hell is wrong with Agaffa, niggerman? She is too precious?” She removes his hand from her shoulder. He lets it fall, as if it is a dead hand. His spirits fall too. Bernice gets up and checks on Estelle. “Sleeping,” she tells him. She looks round, and sees the photograph of Henry shaking hands with the Prime Minister of Canada. It was taken a long time ago when he was chosen Porter of the Year. At the bottom, he has written, in pencil, Mister Henry White, Porter of the Year, shaking with the prime minister. “That is you?” she asks, although she recognizes him. “When you come to think of it, you ain’t a bad-looking man, neither.”
“I’s the man for you, baby.”
“Watch your mouth!” But she blushes. He cannot mistake the blush, which comes like a violet on to her face; and he puts his hand, his left hand, on her shoulder. She does not remove it. He allows it to fall gently, imperceptibly; and stops it from falling just as it enters the plains above her breast.
“Isn’t it, Bernice? Bernice, say something, baby. Isn’t it?” He is closer to her breasts. She notices his hand, and says nothing. Something between his legs quivers. Progress and time and pain are his. He is touching her now. “Isn’t it, baby?” She feels soft. Why, goddamn, didn’t I find this out before now? This broad is goddamn soft, more softer than Agatha, man! He puts Agatha swiftly out of his mind, and says, “Isn’t it, Bea?” Bernice holds her head down, in shame, in embarrassment. Henry’s courage mounts, and so does his passion. His hand leaves the plains and enters the gorge between her breasts. He cannot swallow for fear. Tension comes to his mind.
“Why you don’t stop feeling-me-up, Henry?” she says, like a virgin. His hand freezes in the warm steepness of her bosom. Be goddamn careful, Henry, he scolds himself.
“Look, woman, don’t be foolish,” he says. “Sweetheart, we’re made for one another.” He tightens his hand round her waist, and brings her close to him. And she comes willingly. “So, what you say, Bernice?”
“Why is you feeling me up, man?”
“What yuh say?”
“You feeling me up.”
“Ain’t it? Ain’t it, eh, Bernice?” And he comes even closer; his lips quivering to touch her lips. Something like a feeling of wire is working itself through his body. “Eh, lovey-dovey?” His voice is now hoarse with tenderness. He decides not to speak again. She frees her right arm; and he thinks she is freeing it to embrace him, and seal this long-overdue pact. The arm comes loose. He relaxes, because he must be cool to enjoy this woman. To himself he says, Goddamn, I know she was only playing hard to get, but be-Christ I is a born Cassanova, baby! Bernice’s arm is loose, and just as Henry moves to kiss her, it strikes him, plax! right in the soft part of his jaw. Whiskey and success fled immediately from his brain. For a very long time, he is speechless. Bernice is a big, strong woman.
“What the hell you take me for?”
Off and on, for the next few days, Estelle was bleeding. And Bernice kept quiet about it. She would leave Estelle alone on the chesterfield in nightgown and housecoat (which Bernice had come to accept) while she did her work downstairs; but at night, she would sit beside her, and talk to her, and try to comfort her. Never once, in all the time that passed since they sat that summer afternoon listening to the bells, did Bernice mention a word about her sister’s condition; or attempted abortion. Bernice bore it silently, like a priest with a secret taken in confession. There was a new bond, stronger than the hostility that was once there, which now bound these women, sisters, together. Bernice had consulted with Brigitte again. There was no cause for further alarm, Brigitte diagnosed; she would do her best for Estelle, because Estelle was her friend’s sister. And it seemed too, that this misfortune brought Brigitte into a tight, oathbound triangle of sincerity and sympathy. Bernice had to think about it, one night sitting, watching, nursing Estelle: “Jesus God! and to think of the bad things I have said about that German girl, Brigitte! Christ, you never know who is your real friends, till the time comes! And now, I got Brigitte at the head o’ the class in my friendship book.” Subconsciously, she had placed her old friend, Dots, at the bottom; because she knew she could never tell Dots about Estelle; that Dots would spread it all over the WIF Club, and further.
Life for Bernice, these days, was centred once more in the kitchen. She could not, and did not use the telephone very often; and the radio was usually turned off, to allow Estelle some rest and quiet. It became the kitchen; and after this, the window in her room, where she kept a steady vigil on Estelle’s condition; and on Brigitte’s activities with the policeman. Dots telephoned on three occasions to say she had heard something about Estelle; but Bernice carefully guided the conversation away from that topic. Dots was actually looking for gossip. One day, while looking out, Bernice caught a glimpse of Dots coming across Marina Boulevard. She moved from the window, and waited. It was about ten days that Bernice hadn’t talked to her; and apparently she was coming to find out why. She came in; Bernice could hear her coming up the stairs; she knocked and she waited, certain that the door was going to be opened for her. When she realized that it wasn’t, she lingered there, muttering, “But I swear I just see Bernice at the window … don’t tell me that I seeing spirits!” She knocked again; and called out, “Bernice, gal, you in? … Estelle?” And when she saw she wasn’t going to be let in, she gave the door one last heavy pounding, and went back downstairs muttering all these years she say she is my friend, I running up here the moment she have a toothache; and now, because she could laugh with Brigitte, and the two o’ them could sit down, and talk everybody’s business, she saying I not good enough for her! But I learn my lesson, today I learn my lesson … and Bernice looked at Estelle, and smiled, as they both heard what Dots thought of them. The telephone rang. Bernice refused to answer it. It rang a second time, longer than the first. Bernice merely smiled at Estelle. Later that afternoon, she happened to be sitting at the window, when as she was about to go downstairs, she saw Dots coming out of the house where Brigitte worked. But look at that whore, though, eh! Bernice noted.
Because the Burrmanns were leaving within a few days for their summer holidays (Mrs. Burrmann to Mexico, as she said; and Mr. Burrmann, “somewhere in the north”), they had asked Bernice to work on this day, Thursday, normally her day off. She didn’t mind working, for she had to be close to Estelle, anyhow. She did not know whether they knew about Estelle’s condition; so she was always on the alert. She even called Brigitte, to find out (without making Brigitte suspect she was being questioned) whether she had disclosed anything to Dots. Brigitte reassured her, “Hell, no, darlink! This is something a woman does not talk about.” Still tense, still apprehensive, she called Henry to check on his trust. Henry was swift to see that she was indebted to him, in spite of the night he tried to seduce her. So he made a date with her, to take her to the Little Trinidad to hear the Tri
nidad calypso singer, Mighty Sparrow, who was in town. Bernice accepted. “Goddamn!” Henry said, remembering the frustration of that night, and the distaste and the self-hatred: that he had tried to seduce a woman, while her sister was lying on his bed, sick. “Goddamn, Henry, baby! You’re weird, baby!” He never forgave himself for this behaviour. And he was glad that Bernice agreed to go out with him; ’cause never mind she is stupid as hell, sometimes, she is a good woman. He was so happy, and excited about taking Bernice on a date, that he didn’t mind when Boysie came to ask advice about dealing with Brigitte. Henry was thinking, Goddamn, man, I just lost my woman, and this man coming to me, for advice!
“I never knew, Henry man, that a man could be so blasted happy with one o’ them women!” He could not contain his elation and his success. It seemed to have gone to his head, more than the rum he was drinking. “The first time I see Brigitte naked, oh Jesus Christ.…”
“That’s a lot o’ woman, eh, boy?”
“But how you did feel the first time, Henry?”
“What first time?”
The Meeting Point Page 30
