Liz grabbed Ethel around her waist and buried her head deep into Ethel’s stomach. She cried hard, muffled sobs. Ethel held her. Even as Liz’s bowels broke more and ran all over Ethel’s stockinged feet, Ethel held Liz close.
Noon saw it as soon as she turned Lombard Street. Her eye had been jumping all day, much the same way it had been jumping last Sunday right before she’d seen Ethel staring up at her house. That had confirmed for her what her mother always said; a jumping eye means only one of two things: Either something was going to make her so mad that she was going to curse, not just “hell” or “damn,” but words that sounded like cymbals crashing or cats fighting, or her jumping eye surely meant she was going to get a strange visit. So she had guarded her temper all morning. When her scrapple burned, she hadn’t blamed Herbie, even though she was taking him up his coffee, and had gotten in a conversation with him on the side of the bed where he liked to have his first cup. And when Fannie let the bird out of its cage because she didn’t think things should live in cages, Noon had guarded her temper even though it took her a full three quarters of an hour to get the bird back in. And when Fannie’s friend Julep dripped Popsicle juice all over the front steps Noon had just scrubbed down, Noon had guarded her temper, even though she had to wash the steps again to keep the flies from hovering around the front of the door. She had managed to keep her temper in check so well that she’d almost forgotten to prepare for a strange visit. She remembered as soon she turned the corner.
She peered down the block and saw the small figure, a straight-backed, obedient figure sitting on her steps. Red hair looked almost orange as the sun hit it. Fannie had run ahead of Noon. Got to the steps long before Noon did. Already knew that the child’s name was Liz, that her aunt told her not to move from the steps until they got home, that Liz should give Noon the rolled-up hankie with twenty one-dollar bills, that her aunt said she’d send more as soon as she got it, that everything she’d need for now was packed in the brown paper shopping bag.
“She’ll be like my sister,” Fannie panted, out of breath from running from the steps back down the block to hurry up Noon, to tell Noon all that Liz had just blurted out to her. She grabbed Noon’s arm; she pulled her, demanding, “Hurry up, Noon, she’s been sitting in the sun for a long time, let her in the house and give her something cold, c’mon, she’s been crying too, hurry. We have to take care of her. Can’t you run, Noon, can’t you move fast?”
Noon picked up her pace, almost surprised herself at the way she snapped to Fannie’s command. More and more she would take it that Fannie knew what she was talking about. Just last week Fannie had peered at the man cleaning Noon’s butterfish, and had tugged at Noon’s arm, and announced in a voice that the whole fish shop could hear, “He likes you, Noon, but don’t worry, Herbie is bigger than him.” And Noon collected her butterfish and hurried out of the shop because she knew Fannie had called that one right. And when she was only four, Fannie had stared hard into the blinded eyes of the broom man as he sang out down South Street, “Broom man, get your fresh-strung sturdy straw broom today.” And after she had stared deep in his eyes, she bounded down the street to tell Noon that the colors hurt her eyes and that the broom man was going to die soon. And Noon had gotten quiet, and the broom man died the next day. So when Fannie, out of breath, announced that was her almost-sister sitting on the steps, Noon suspected that she might be calling this one right too, that the child was here to stay.
She set her bag filled with pears, plums, and hot roasted peanuts at the foot of the steps. She looked up at the brown-skinned, red-haired child sitting on the top step, hands clasped in her lap schoolgirl style. Her back was stiff and straight. Her breaths were deep, irregular, the aftermath of long, muffled sobs. She was dressed in a high-waisted white sleeveless cotton dress, a pink ribbon threaded through the bodice, a matching quilted jacket folded neatly in her lap. Ribbed anklet socks peeked over the tops of black-and-white oxfords. She looked to Noon like the little girls that adorned the pages of the catalogs from Snellenberg’s Children’s Shop. Her eyes were fixed on the white ruffled umbrella lying against the bottom step. The umbrella was wide open, and Noon guessed that it was supposed to protect her from the hot sun, but it had fallen and she was too terrified to move from that spot to retrieve it.
“Lord have mercy!” Noon said, dragging the phrase out as if the mercy were in the saying of it. And then she did the only thing she had in her nature to do. She opened her arms wide. Not thinking of another mouth to feed or how could Ethel burden her thus and so. Not thinking of where would she sleep, or go to school, or how long, or why now, or what if. Not thinking of calling on City Hall, or tracking down her aunt, or leaving her out for the night to catch. Noon simply opened her arms wide, the arms Ethel had recognized as the good wrapping kind; she wrapped them around Liz and let the child in.
Liz felt cool inside the house. The shades drawn in the front to keep out the midday sun, window open in the back to let the cool breeze of the yard tree float in. Noon and Fannie were tending to Liz, fussing over her.
“Give her water.”
“She needs ice cream.”
“No, quiet.”
“Turn on the radio.”
“Let her be.”
“Give her a pillow.”
“No. Let her be, just let her be.”
They went back and forth until the cinnamon aroma drifted from the pot of water and cinnamon that Noon always kept simmering on the stove, “For calmness,” she used to tell Fannie. “As long as this pot is boiling, everyone that walks through that door will be calm.” The calmness reached Liz. The soft green couch pulled her down, stretched her out, opened her hands, and relaxed her stomach. The prints on the rug in the center of the smooth, shellacked hardwood floor blurred together. The cinnamon aroma hovered over her, then fell gently over her body, cradled her, until she tumbled into a cottony sleep.
ELEVEN
Herbie staggered through the street like a drunk, not a drop of liquor in him, though. No chance. After Big Carl had leaned over the leather-clad bar and whispered that he’d heard that his pretty singer did her finale last night, and when it sank in to Herbie what Big Carl was trying to tell him, Herbie banged the steely coldness of his beer mug against the bar without taking a sip. He dashed out of Club Royale and ran straight to Ethel’s apartment. He ran so fast that his heart was on fire when he got there and saw it, a big Apartment for Rent sign sitting right in the window. He pretended he wanted to rent the place, and after the motherly type doing the showing made him sit down and drink some water because he was sweating so, she gave him the key and he did a walk through just to force his eyes to see it. Ethel was gone. No note, no forwarding address, not a red handkerchief to remember her by. Even her scent of French perfume mixed with cocoa butter had already been replaced by pine cleaner. The disinfectant aroma came at him in white clouds from the floors and the walls. He took deep breaths. Maybe then his mind could take it all in, that she was gone.
His vision was doubled, tripled, with a tilt. He could barely keep his balance as he wobbled down the steps of what just last night was his sanctuary. He didn’t even know where he was headed. To the bridge to jump over the railing? To try to find her, abandon Noon and Fannie and move close to wherever she had gone just for that one night a week with her? Or just walk. Maybe he’d just walk until his heart burst. It was already skipping beats, then racing.
The yellow-orangeness of the day was fading to navy as he walked. It was twilight in South Philly. The going-out-to-dinner crowd, men in wide-brimmed hats and pin-striped suits escorted ladies in patent spike heels and dark hose with seams that curved up muscle-bound calves. Short, stout women bustled along with brown double-handled shopping bags filled with fresh-killed chicken, unbleached flour, white lard, and stone ground pepper. Choir members rushed to get to Clara’s, to get their hair washed and pressed straight as silk. Herbie moved through the rush of day meeting night howling inside. He stepped around a line that had
formed at the Saunders Funeral Home. Organ music and sobs sifted into the warm twilight air. The exterior sounds of grief intensified his own. He wanted to cry. He wanted to sit right on the curb and scream as if he were five years old. He wanted to kick and throw his fists and holler out her name. He was back in front of the Apartment for Rent sign. He had walked in circles. How many times had he circled? It was dark out, and he could smell fish frying. He wanted to vomit. He swallowed hard and headed back to Royale to tell Big Carl he had been right. Ethel was gone.
Herbie felt better when he left Royale for the second time. According to Big Carl, she was only in New York. It wasn’t California or Europe or Kansas City; a train ride away, that’s all it was. He would find her, she’d let him in, only a train ride. He fingered the red licorice in his pocket that he bought for Fannie every weekend. He thought he might even take Fannie with him sometimes. They could go to Coney Island and ride the Whip and the Cup and Saucer. Fannie could play with Ethel’s niece. He would figure out a way so that Noon would never find out. What way? Who was he kidding? She was gone. He would catch hell finding her or she would have left him a note in a perfume-scented envelope sealed with the red print marks of her healthy lips. He swallowed hard and walked up the steps to home. He opened the door and started to cry.
Liz listened to the sounds of the house swirl around in the darkness. She was all cried out. First the crying when Ethel left her on the steps, then the crying when her umbrella fell and she didn’t have anything to shade the hot, hot sun, now the crying she had been doing since Fannie fell asleep on the bed right next to the one she lay on. The circles were back in her stomach, knocking together trying to push through. But she couldn’t let them. Not on these stiff, clean sheets. What would Noon and Fannie think of her? They might sit her back out on the steps when the sun was overhead and let her bake to death the way she thought she would surely die earlier that day. She eased out of the bed, careful not to wake Fannie. She followed the shine of the brass knob on the closet door. She tiptoed to the knob, then opened the door and scurried deep into the closet’s blackness. She leaned against the wall and held her knees tightly to her chest. She pushed her fists deep into her mouth and called for Ethel; deep into her fists she said, “Aunt Ethel, Aunt Ethel,” over and over; she rocked and called for Ethel. She rocked herself until the cramping stopped. Then she moved her fingers lightly along the wall. She knew there must be one, every wall had one. Whether it was the wall upstairs at that place where Ethel left her when she went downstairs to sing or the wall right over the bed at Ethel’s. Even in this house, where the walls seemed smooth and clean. And then her finger touched it. A crack, not much longer than the tip of her fingernail. She pressed against the crack, then dug into it as hard as she could. Granules of plaster spilled out into her waiting palm. She put the crumb-sized bits into her mouth one at a time. She held them there, then chewed them into gravy. Ethel’s voice was swimming in her head. “You know Aunt Ethel loves you, precious Liz.” The circles in her stomach were getting big again. She had to go to the bathroom. She eased out of the closet, out of the bedroom. Down the hallway. She didn’t know the sounds of this house. The sound of the front door closing. Footsteps on the stairway. A grown man crying. She didn’t know the shadows in this house either. How to distinguish them from the monsters that haunted her at Ethel’s. She did know that one was in front of her now. A light-skinned one. She was frozen.
“Fannie, that you?” she heard him say. Then the click of the hall light. She wanted to run; instead she stood there looking at him, the circles gushing out. This was the man who danced with Ethel last night and made the infection in the floor spread. She let out a gasp matched only by his.
They just stared at each other for seconds that seemed to fade into forever. Two people raw with feelings of abandonment. Both with eyes red from crying over her, whispering her name, asking, “Why, why you leave, Ethel, why?” Both Herbie and Liz had this in common. But there was no empathy in their eyes as they stared at each other. Only confusion wrapped up in gazes of fear and blame. Sandpaper gazes.
Herbie cleared his throat to speak, to say what? You never saw me before, certainly not at your aunt’s? He settled on “Who are you?”
Liz didn’t answer; she backed up toward the bedroom. Her stare said it all: I know you, I know you.
Herbie moved in closer. “Come here, little girl, tell me who you are, why are you here?”
The manifestation of Liz’s fright trailed down her legs and made a line in the hallway floor as she backed up, fists balled the way Ethel taught her to do if she came across a street dog that foamed at the mouth with rabies. Slowly she backed up, dropping her eyes just slightly until her arm touched the archway to the bedroom door. She turned then and ran into the bedroom, calling for Fannie.
Herbie just stood there, shocked. Mouth opened looking at the waste on the floor when Noon ran out of her bedroom.
“Herbie, that you? What is it? Why you looking like you just saw a ghost?”
“I thought I just saw a red-haired child run through here.”
“Well, you probably did. If you could come in at a decent hour, things wouldn’t have to shock you under the cover of night.” She looked at the floor and said, “Lord have mercy. You must have scared the poor little thing. She been through a trauma today. Loose bowels all day long. What you say to her? Me and Fannie was all day getting her calmed down, now you come in here in the middle of the night and upset her all over again. Could you at least bring the mop and bucket up out of the cellar while I go tend to her?”
Herbie moved like a mannequin. He wasn’t processing this at all well. That was her; the red hair was unmistakable. He would have to play dumb, as if he didn’t know anything. He didn’t know much. All he knew for sure was that was Ethel’s niece. Liz. That was that whiny, spoiled-assed Liz. What if she was up there right now telling Noon that she saw him at Ethel’s last night? He’d deny it. Say the child was confused. She’d only glimpsed at him for a second; the room was half dark at that.
He let hot water run over the mop. The hot water pushed the scent of pine cleaner from the braided mop in cloudy puffs of smoke. The scent reminded him of Ethel’s empty apartment. He twisted the thick braids of the mop head to squeeze the water through. He told himself that he must be mistaken. That must be a new neighbor’s child or some kin from down South. Ethel wouldn’t do that to him. Leave him, leave her niece on him.
“Shit!” he said out loud. She had done it. Screwed him last night, then screwed him over today. He banged the pole of the mop against the sink. Over and over he whacked the sink with the mop’s wooden handle as if this wooden handle were responsible for Ethel leaving him, and now her niece upstairs. The pole made a crisp, clean snapping sound and then broke in two. Herbie jumped up and down. He thought if he didn’t, he might go into an unrecoverable madness. To save his sanity, he jumped and flailed his arms and punched at the pine-scented cellar air. He fought the air that didn’t fight back except to keep the pine scent exploding through his head. He was exhausted. His breaths came in heaves as he told himself to calm down. He tried to get his breathing under control. He picked up the broken mop and headed upstairs.
“I got a sister, Herbie,” Fannie yelled as she ran to Herbie and grabbed him around his knees.
“A sister, what you talking ’bout, little lady?” Herbie busied himself cleaning the mess in the hallway.
“Come see for yourself.” Fannie tugged on his arm.
“Wait, wait now, Fannie. Let me get this mess cleaned up before you go stepping in it and tracking it all through the house.”
“She only did it ’cause she’s scared.” Fannie was bouncing up and down as she talked, and almost gasping she was so excited.
“Scared of what?” Herbie asked, keeping his eyes at the floor and his ears poised.
“She’s in a strange place.”
“How she get here?”
“Her aunt left her on our steps for her to live wit
h us forever.”
“Forever is a mighty long time, Fannie.”
“But she left a lot of dollars, and a bag of clothes, and a toothbrush. Her name is Liz. Isn’t that a nice name, Herbie?” Fannie giggled as she talked and clapped her hands. “Hurry up so you can see her.”
“Hurrying, I’m hurrying,” Herbie said as he kept wiping over the parts he had already cleaned. “Who is her aunt?”
“Ethel,” Fannie said matter-of-factly as if Herbie should have already known that.
Herbie’s back stiffened at the mention of her name even coming from this five-year-old. “Ethel?”
“Yeah, the lady who Noon calls a two-bit singer. She’s nice. Noon don’t say so, but I do. Come on, Herbie, it’s all cleaned up, come on so I can show you my new sister, Liz.”
Pulled along by Fannie, Herbie peeked into the bedroom. The room was softly lit with a table lamp covered over with a pink-etched lamp-shade. Noon sat on the bed, rocking back and forth. Liz was on her lap, her head buried in Noon’s chest. She turned and stared straight at Herbie and clutched her arms tighter around Noon’s back. Ethel’s voice was in her head again. “Liz must never tell. If you ever see any of Aunt Ethel’s guests, you must never tell, must never, ever tell.”
“Awl, she’s scared, don’t be scared, it’s only Herbie, he’s my dad, he won’t hurt you.” Fannie ran to her and patted her back.
Liz squinted at Herbie. She felt more confident with Noon rocking her and holding her tight and Fannie patting her back. Even Ethel’s caution about never telling calmed her now. She at least had this connection to her aunt, this secret in this monster of a man staring down at her.
“Isn’t she cute, Herbie? Do you like her red hair? Do you like my new sister?”
“So you gonna tell me what’s going on?” Herbie asked Noon through the fire in his throat. “Who is she and what’s all this sister talk?”
Tumbling Page 10
