“When you and Agaffa first had rudeness together.…”
“Like a king!”
“Man, I didn’t know what the arse to do!” Boysie took a large mouthful of rum, washed it round in his mouth, and then swallowed it. “The first time, after all these days I rushing the woman, and gorblummuh! When I tell you that she likes dicky, I mean dicky man! Henry, when I see them legs, Jesus Christ, you don’t know I nearly went mad.…”
“Goddamn, Boysie, you’s a goddamn sex maniac!”
“But you could remember the way you did feel, the first …”
“Like a goddamn king, Boysie. Like a goddamn king!” But Henry was saddened by the way his first conquest was affecting Boysie. He could see Boysie leaving Dots, because of Brigitte; and Brigitte turning Boysie’s head behind his back; and Brigitte eventually destroying Boysie, because he was in love with a symbol.
“Cover up for me, man,” Boysie asked him. “Dots going call you; and you would know what to say.” He left, as happy as a lamb in love. He was seeing Brigitte the following day, Friday.
Standing in the kitchen sometimes, during these past days of tension and worry, Bernice realized, with some degree of surprise, that she never really did get to know Mr. Burrmann. Even after three years. She knew he ate properly, like a gentleman. When he is at home, there is a great absence of noise. This is all she knew about him. She knew a little more, perhaps: she knew the shape of his hands; and the shape of his fingers. She remembered once, when a fingernail was broken (she noticed it while she served the main course), he had trimmed it before she served dessert. And since she saw the back of his head more than the front, she knew also, when he needed a haircut. “I wish I could get inside that man’s head,” she wished one day, watching the back of his head. But she knew she never would: not even Mrs. Burrmann seemed able to.
Bernice didn’t spend much time these days worrying about Mrs. Burrmann, who was busy preparing for her Mexican holiday. She had been drinking less; but Beethoven was still being played, as loudly as ever. Bernice wondered whether this record would ever wear itself out: the record seemed everlasting; the record and her problems were so similar.
On the Friday, sometime before lunch, Estelle took a turn for the worse. She had a temperature of 101 degrees. Bernice was going frantic. This was the relapse which Brigitte had warned her about. While Bernice prepared lunch for Mrs. Burrmann, who was leaving on the afternoon plane, she worried about Estelle: should she tell Mrs. Burrmann, or should she wait until she left. “On this one day, this damn woman gotta have lunch at home!” Mr. Burrmann arrived home and he too, was having lunch. “Oh Christ! look at my crosses today!” Beethoven was playing, although nobody was listening. It was the Fifth Movement, in allegretto, the Shepherd’s Hymn and Thanksgiving. She recognized them; but today, there was nothing to be thankful for.
“Well, Bernice, I hope you enjoy the summer,” Mrs. Burrmann said, waiting to be served the soup. “I’ll be away for about two weeks or so.”
“Yes, ma’am. Have a good time.”
“Thanks. The kids won’t be back from camp before I return, so you’ll be free. I hope Estelle will get a chance to see some of our lovely country before she goes back.”
“Yes, ma’am.” And as she was about to serve Mrs. Burrmann, the bowl slipped and the hot soup fell into her lap. Mrs. Burrmann lost her colour, and her temper.
“You clumsy …” But she caught herself in time. “Oh, I’m sorry, Bernice … guess everybody is a bit shaky with the excitement of leaving …”
“Darling …” Mr. Burrmann said. (It was the first time in three years that Bernice had heard him use this term to his wife.) “It’s nothing.… We’re all excited today, somewhat.…”
“I’m sorry, Bernice. Forgive me, Sam, darling,” she said. (Bernice could not understand what was taking place in this house!) “Imagine that this is the first time in how-many-years? … three, that Bernice has ever spilt anything.… We should give her a reward.…”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Bernice said, not feeling sorry at all. But that was the end of it. Nothing more was said, either by Mrs. Burrmann or her husband. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Burrmann came downstairs in another, more beautiful, summer frock. She was carrying the soiled dress; and she came to Bernice, put one arm round her neck, kissed her on her neck, and gave her a ten-dollar bill and asked her to give the soiled dress to Estelle. “Take care of Sam, for me, please!” (“What the hell is this I hearing?” Bernice thought.) “That’s for your good record … one spill in three years; and take care of yourself, Bernice.” Before she left the house, she turned the record player off. The house seemed so odd without Beethoven in it.
“I’ll run you up to the airport, dear,” Mr. Burrmann shouted from where he was, somewhere. Bernice noticed this act of kindness, of love. Some damn thing happening or have happened in this household, she thought. And I don’t know what it is! And apparently, because she could not understand what was taking place, what transformation had set in, she threw the soiled dress into the garbage pail. But she kept the ten-dollar bill. “Some damn thing taking place between them two. He loving her up, and she loving him up, just as if they going on a second honeymoon.… ” The house was hers. But it was like holding dominion over a battlefield. Her summer was spoilt. Spoilt beyond repair. But she was glad that soon, she would be completely alone in the house, to take care of Estelle, more efficiently. “Estelle, child,” she said, “I coming up soon, and spend some time with you.” She was back in her old habit of talking, and arguing aloud, with herself. Before going up, she decided to call Henry. She was thinking a lot of Henry these days: sometimes, she told herself she was a fool to have offended his show of love that night; sometimes she reassured herself that she was better off to be alone, without a man. She was nervous now, because she had nothing to talk about. Her dullness was one of the reasons Henry thought might cause him to stop seeing her. “I am getting scared ’bout Estelle, Henry,” she began, talking to Henry on the telephone. “Estelle running a fever, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, you can only wait,” he said. And as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over. Bernice didn’t know what else to say. What she wanted to say, and what she wanted to know, was too personal; and she did not want to be embarrassed. “Look, Bernice, talk! I busy as hell, and I expecting a important phone call.”
“You-all men always busy when somebody decent want to talk business with you! I call you like a human being, to ask you a simple question concerning Estelle, and all you could tell me is, you busy, you busy. But be-Christ, you never too busy running after white woman!”
“Goddamn, Bernice.”
“It is all right, though. It is all right. Monkey say wait … and I is only Bernice. I ain’t a lady, like Agaffa.…”
“Goddamn, Bernice! That is different. Anyhow, listen to me! I am a man. I know what I’m doing. If I, a black man, is going with a white woman, well, goddammit, that’s my fucking business, and furthermore, it is different from a white man screwing a black woman like Estelle, or …” But it was too late. When she heard her sister’s name, she threw down the telephone. She had spoilt it. She knew it. At the other end, Henry felt he had spoilt it, too; for he was just beginning to have a genuine interest in Bernice. He did not love her — not the way he had (and still did) love Agatha; but he felt he could learn to love her. “Goddamn,” he said. His whole day was spoilt.
Bernice was worried too. She had visions of white men raping her sister; and in each case, the men had no faces. She saw one man who resembled Mr. Burrmann in physique; and when she went round to look, the face was the face of Henry. She was going mad, insane; tied up in her hate and bitterness. She went up to look for Estelle, and she sat beside her, and rubbed her back with alcohol, and ran her hand over Estelle’s hair, and pulled the covers up; but she was still confused by the visions of men without faces. She went back down to get some orange juice for Estelle, and on the way up, she met Mr. Burrmann. Something strange went thr
ough her body; she suddenly disliked him intensely; and wanted to kill him.
“How is Estelle?” he asked, in an off-hand manner. “Is she all right now?”
“Yes, Mr. Burrmann.”
“I thought she was not feeling well.…”
“Well, no, sir,” Bernice said, “really and truly, she ain’t feeling so good. But she is past the worst now.” He handed her two envelopes. One was from Barbados, from Lonnie; and the other contained her wages.
“I’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow morning,” he said. “So, take care of the house. I’ll whip up something for myself, so you needn’t bother to prepare dinner now, and, oh … tell Estelle … here’s the gentleman’s name on my card … tell her not to forget her appointment on Monday morning. Ten.” Bernice took the card, greatly puzzled, but not wanting to seem inquisitive. He reassured her, “It’s all right. Estelle’ll understand.” Bernice waited until he closed the door of his study, before she opened the manilla envelope with her wages. “Christ!” she exclaimed, when she saw the amount. They had given her an increase in wages. She made a mental note right then, to put an end to her sabotage of their groceries and drinks. Two hundred and fifty dollars a month was her wage now. But she did not understand why this sudden increase. “They are up to some blasted trickery with me, I bet yuh,” she told the money, putting it into her apron pocket. And there was, suddenly, and with reason, a new brightness, a new cheerfulness to her summer. She hoped Estelle would get better soon, so they could enjoy the summer and the money. But her exhilaration died as quickly as it came. She had to read the letter from Lonnie. And she sat down, anxious to get back to Estelle with the orange juice, and read: “Darling, Bernice, love, This is Lonnie. I am pining after you real bad these days. I was going to write you long long time before now, but since I had to look after the business you ask me to look after, I could not write before this time. I visited Mammy. She is in the Poor House, all right. But I think it is a good thing that Estelle put her there, because after I had a talk with Nurse Forde who is the charge nurse in charge of Mammy, Nurse Forde told me that Estelle was right to put Mammy there. Mammy put on weight and she fat. Nurse Forde say not to worry. Mammy is in good hands in the Poor House. Nurse Forde say she remember you. The island looking like New York these days. People building new buildings, almost everybody — but me — have a new car that they buy on the time-payment plan, and a lot of American ships in the harbour and the whole town full with those blasted noisy Yankee sailors. But with me, things bad as usual Rough, rough as hell, if you ask me. But I am not going to ask you again to send for me, because that is a decision that only God could make you decide …
She could take no more of the letter; she folded it; and was about to rip it up, when she changed her mind, and put it in her pocket. She must remember to keep it in her handbag, and read it sometime later. She climbed the stairs, slowly, thinking of Lonnie and of Henry, and of her increase in wages … and thinking of Estelle. “Poor Lonnie,” she said, “poor little stupid Lonnie!”
Violence had always been close to Bernice. Frequently in her dealings with Mrs. Burrmann, and with the children, this violence seethed beneath the surface of her smiles. She had contained all this for three years, in a situation which was no bed of roses. Even at times, when violence seemed to her the only honest, dignified solution to a problem (one such problem was Estelle’s earlier behaviour; and another Mr. Burrmann himself), she had still kept it off. Sometimes, she told herself that the blood Estelle had lost, and was still losing, was not caused through violence; but through love. Sometimes, she wanted to kill Estelle. Mainly, she thought of her sister as someone abused by love. But Bernice learned to live with it; and Estelle herself, had apparently accepted it as a small portion, a taste of her new life, her life in a new world. Reading the Muslim newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, as diligently as she used to, Bernice somehow never accepted returning violence and hate for the white world, as the paper seemed to suggest. And it was this violence, and this hate, which caused her to change eventually to reading Life magazine, because too, it contained many colour photographs. She was thinking about all this part of her life, this Friday night, while sitting at the window in her apartment. Estelle was resting; though she still carried a temperature.
“What you think is going to happen, Bernice?” For a while, Bernice had to ask herself if someone had spoken, so accustomed was she to the silence in the room. “Bernice, are you there?” The room was in darkness. Bernice had turned off the dressing table light, as soon as the car parked in front of Brigitte’s house. She had turned off the light because she thought she recognized the car. She had seen it parked there many times before. It was Boysie’s car. (He had redeemed it. from the people who had towed it away, because of overdue payments.) Estelle called her again, and before she could return from giving her the orange juice, the man got out of the car. She couldn’t recognize the man, but she swore it was Boysie. It could only be that whoring Boysie, she said. Bernice looked up at Brigitte’s room, and swore at the curtains because they were too thick for her to see through them. She could see only movement in Brigitte’s room. She never once saw reality. “Blasted curtains!” she swore, and Estelle heard her.
“Bernice?”
“Yes, Estelle.”
“I’m really sorry, Bernice … about everything.”
“I understand, child.”
“I wrote Mammy a letter today, while you were downstairs.” Bernice remembered her own letter from Lonnie. She made a note to finish reading it.
“That’s good, Estelle.”
“I want you to post it for me, tomorrow.”
“That’s all right, Estelle.”
“And Bernice?”
“Yes, Estelle.”
“What you think will happen? I don’t think I’m getting better … you think I’ll have to go to the hospital?”
Bernice moved from the window to the chesterfield, and sat beside her. She began rubbing her back with her bare hands. She got some more rubbing alcohol and used that. Estelle said it made her feel better. Bernice went back to the window. There was another car parked behind the first one. “That’s damn funny!”
“You say something, Bernice?”
“No, child. I just here, talking to myself.” She looks harder now, feeling something is about to happen. She thinks she recognizes something like an aerial sticking up from the roof of the second car. She looks harder still, and sees two forms, two men, sitting in the front seat. Something is going wrong, she says to herself. She looks up at Brigitte’s room, the room is in darkness, and she smiles. But immediately afterwards, she is ashamed of herself for smiling. Christ! she whispers. Two policemen in uniform get out of their car, and inspect the other car. Bernice can see they are talking about it, but she can’t hear. One spots his flashlight all over the car, and inside too, and finally on the licence plate. The other one writes down something in his book. And then they get back inside their own car. They light cigarettes and wait. The light in Brigitte’s room is still off. Bernice waits, too. Estelle is sleeping now. The room has become frighteningly quiet. She hears a noise. It is Estelle breathing. The policemen smoke and wait. Oh my God! she keeps on saying.
Violence comes to Bernice’s mind. Violence, violence is in the air, like the humidity in the summer night. She can taste it, she can smell it in the heavy breeze coming up to her. A light goes on in Brigitte’s room. The red tips of light go out in the waiting car. And now, Bernice thinks she hears the leather seats creak. They wait. The light in Brigitte’s room goes out again. And when no shadow comes from between the houses; and when the red tips return inside the waiting car, Bernice goes to the princess telephone to call Henry. There is no answer. She is frightened now, she feels alone, she needs company. His phone rings and rings, and still no answer. She dials Brigitte’s number next; and someone lifts the receiver, and before she can speak, a voice says, “Wrong number,” and the phone is slammed in her ears. Bernice lights a match to check the right
number; and she finds she has dialled the right number. She dials again. She can hear it ringing (so she thinks) from her bedroom window; but nobody answers. Holding the telephone in one hand, she checks her address book. Lord have mercy, she prays. She moves with the phone to the window: the policemen are waiting. She has an impulse to scream for help, to scream for murder, to just scream, scream for anybody. Control yourself, Bernice, she tells herself, while she dials Brigitte’s number. At last, Brigitte answers. “Yah?” Bernice, feeling the violence before it happens (how did she know there was going to be violence?) almost loses her voice, and has to whisper, as if she is really whispering across the street, so the policemen won’t hear. “Brigitte? Me! Me, man! Bernice!”
“Yah!”
“He out there! Somebody out there! Two o’ them. In front, in a car.…” Bernice hears when Brigitte rests the phone down on a table, and walks to the window. She looks out to see the curtains being parted slightly. Yes, she says to herself, there the bitch is.
“Thanks,” Brigitte says nervously.
“Brigitte?”
“Yah?”
“He, there?”
“Yah?” There is a quiver of nervousness in her answer. Bernice is becoming infected by her terror.
“Brigitte? Look, for Chrissakes, don’t let Boysie come out now, for God sake, Brigitte.”
“Yah.” And the telephone is put down.
Bernice goes back to the window. A policeman gets out; spots his flashlight up to Brigitte’s window; sees nothing; flashes it on the windows of the adjoining houses; sees nothing also; then on Bernice’s window, and gets back into the car. The car lights go on, and the car drives away noisily. Bernice sees lights in Brigitte’s room go on, and then off; and she waits. She leans out and sees only one car. Run, Boysie, run! Come out, Boysie, boy, come come before they beat you up, and kill you! Come, come, Boysie. Run cross the road now, and even come up here in my place till them two bastards leave. Run out now, Boysie, Boysie, oh Boysie, poor Boysie … and she leaves the window to call Dots, to warn her about the violence which will be done to Boysie. It is late, past midnight, but she has to call, even if Mrs. Hunter is vexed. The phone rings a long time (“In a way, it is a good thing, that you are sick in bed,” she says, looking at Estelle, “ ’cause I know where you are, tonight, praise God!”), and while she waits, she adjusts the covers, and smiles. Nobody comes to the phone, and Bernice puts it down just as a tapping on the sidewalk grows louder. She follows the tapping with her nervousness, and when the tapping turns into two men, she is disappointed. The two men are holding hands. They are the men with the two dogs, but this time, without the dogs. They look up at her, at her window, (as they do, out of habit, each time they pass), and she holds her head out of sight (as she does each time they pass). When they are out of sight, the street returns to its violence and silence. “I wonder where those two brutes now coming from?” Estelle hears her talking to herself, and she moves in her bed. Bernice follows the tapping, until it disappears at the south end of the window. Her eyes now accustomed to the darkness, she looks back north, and thinks she sees something move. Something, some-damn-thing, or somebody is moving ’bout out there? The night does not answer her; there is only the dramatic violent waiting; and Bernice, waiting too. Then, from between the houses, comes a shadow, a man, Boysie? The man comes out in front of the house, sauntering (“Brigitte must have given him something damn sweet, heh-heh!”), and just as he turns to look up, to wave goodnight, or probably thanks, or to give Brigitte the all-clear signal (although Bernice sees no one at Brigitte’s windows), two other shadows appear from the shadows, and pounce upon him. “Goddamn!” Bernice hears the man exclaim, but it is muffled by a blow in the mouth. That is his last word. Bernice sees him make a start; sees the two shadows knock him to the ground; and hit him all over his body, in heavy, vicious blows which land in the right, silent, places. They beat him thoroughly, and they beat him professionally, and they beat him without a murmur. They do it quickly, so quickly, she can’t believe her eyes. One of the shadows runs up the street, and soon afterwards, returns driving the car with the aerial. He parks behind the other car. The shadows lift the man off the ground, and drop him in the front seat of his own car; and then they drive off. And the street returns to its respectable quiet. No light comes from Brigitte’s room.
The Meeting Point Page 31
