13
MEDA HADN’T THOUGHT it would be so easy to get into the parlor of the orphanage, where she’d not been in almost a decade. She’d concocted a story of having been sent by her employer to inspect the parlor for new furniture he was planning to donate. But the door to the home was unlocked, and she walked in and stood in the foyer and took in the air that smelled of garlic and thyme. The charcoal stain was still there on the foyer floor after all these years, and she was glad that it was. She cleared her throat and whispered a hello, and hearing no reply, assumed that it was still the quiet time here, when the older ones were at their studies and the youngest down for naps and the staff disappeared on breaks. She made her way directly into the parlor and closed the door and stepped back in time because not a thing had changed. Same velvet fainting couch, same brocaded draperies—blue with flecks of gold—same boxy writing desk with the missing drawer pull. She looked at the space where the cradles had been that first night she came here, and the space was empty save for the dust beams twirling in through the tall window. She sank into the couch and leaned back and kicked her shoes off and swung her legs around and closed her eyes. She felt at once beautiful, the way she’d felt when she and Ann shared this space, and also the sense of fulfillment that she’d get when she sat here and nursed Linc and knew that she was connected to something larger than herself. She nestled deeper into the couch and thought of church.
Dr. Miss had suggested church when Meda saw her earlier in the day. Dr. Miss, like this room, had not changed: still in that high head wrap and long straight dress that hung more like a robe, as if she were a sort of high priestess. She had not been able to tell if Dr. Miss remembered her, she didn’t act as if she did, but then Meda thought she was likely an expert liar. This time Dr. Miss examined Meda in a room that was painted yellow, not white like the room where she’d lost her baby. She’d looked around for a picture of Abraham Lincoln on the wall and was disappointed that there was none, and she suddenly missed him with an ache as Dr. Miss inspected her breast—pressed it, turned it, apologized when Meda pulled in her breath sharply from the pain. Meda had tried to read Dr. Miss’s face, but she could not. Reasoned that years of doing what she did had molded Dr. Miss’s face so it better resembled an ebony carving than something of flesh and emotions. Not that she needed Dr. Miss’s face to tell her what she already knew. The thunderclaps of pain in her breast had already told her; the gradual disfigurement; the way that her breast leaked, which Meda thought of as tears; reasoning that her breast was so sorry for what it was doing to her, for eating away her life, that every now and then it broke down and cried. She’d caress her breast then, forgive it, everything deserved forgiveness.
After Dr. Miss had completed her examination, Meda watched her lips move; it seemed that her mouth and her words were not in time with one another. At the point when the words reached her ears, she’d already deciphered them as they pushed through Dr. Miss’s mouth. The words were grating to her ear with their redundancy. So she sifted through them. Cureless, pray, church—these were the words that she allowed to register as she assembled herself back into her corset. She fastened the word “church” along with her corset so that it lay against her skin.
She’d not gone to church much as an adult. But during her childhood she’d regularly experienced two types of religious services. One was the Meeting for Worship that was a daily part of the routine at the Quaker school, where they’d sit in silence, and anybody moved to speak, did. There was generally more silence than speaking, and Buddy would look at her and mouth the words “Tain’t doing dis.” Then he’d lean down and scurry the length of the long, hard bench and sneak out to find his relief in the noise of the streets. Meda, however, would luxuriate in the silence. Sometimes the air whispered to her that it loved her, and then she would sit up straighter and let it kiss her forehead the way her mother did when she thought to. Her other churchlike experience was the one she partook of with her mother when the workers would assemble in the courtyard of the prison at the end of their shift. Someone would strike a tambourine, another would let go a throaty hum that grew into a song; Bible verses would flow like stormy rivers; prayers that moaned mixed with dancing, shouting, and convulsive shakes; and handkerchiefs tossed in the air floated through the courtyard, lending grace and softness to the grand display.
Dr. Miss had said “church” like a question, and Meda had come here because didn’t people go to church to find God? Had she not found God here in the purity of those infants’ soft breaths that first night; in the trembling righteousness of Ann’s touch; in the honest laughter when the babies fixed their faces like clowns; in the thoughts that sifted in with the stillness? She’d know things all of a sudden as she’d sit here, and sometimes the knowing made her cry, like the time the knowing floated in with the light of day that had been gray with clouds and she realized that her mother had not been cleaning the penitentiary, that she had in fact been jailed there. Sometimes the knowing made her sigh, like the time she’d seen Miss Ma’s granddaughter parading up Fitzwater Street with a little girl who looked white and she’d asked Miss Ma about her, and Miss Ma said she was kin to Nevada’s siddity friend whose people were big-time caterers and she herself was studying to be a nurse. And Meda asked about her people, did her people look white. “ ’Bout as mixed up as any colored folk, though not white, white like that child. Hear it told from Nevada that all they know ’bout the mother is that she was some kinda gypsy that didn’t want to be no mother.” Meda had kept Miss Ma on the subject until she called Nevada’s friend by name, Sylvia. Sylvia. She’d wondered about that little girl for weeks. Maybe that was her little girl. Maybe Sylvia had taken her infant that morning and pretended to have gotten her from a relative. Even though the ages were off by two years, she could have lied about the little girl’s age. But the knowing of that came to her finally; she was certain that was not her child. That’s the knowing that made her sigh the most.
And sometimes the knowing made her laugh, like right this instant as she watched the dust beams assemble where the cradles used to be, the specks gathered so closely, dancing so hard they appeared to be standing still. She doubled over with laughter now, enjoying the feel of the laughter pulling from way deep in her breast, where the sickness couldn’t reach. The dust beams twirled and showed hints of color, a little blue, a little yellow; they sparkled. She laughed harder still at this particular knowing, so tickled by the knowing that the pain in her breast went away. My, my, my, she said when she had recovered herself. This one had been the best knowing of all.
14
THE LETTER WAS addressed to Linc. His hands shook as he opened it. His eyes glazed over as he read the words, even as he tried not to comprehend the words. It was from Nevada. She introduced herself as Buddy’s dear friend. Said that Buddy was too distraught to write himself, and anyhow his penmanship was less than legible, so she was writing, she said, to give him the sad, sad news that Buddy’s sister Meda had passed away, that she was likely already buried by the time this letter arrived, that Buddy was heartbroken, but on the mend.
Linc had been unable to say the words out loud, Meda’s dead. So he went straight to Bram’s room and simply handed the letter to Bram so that he could read it for himself. They stood in the middle of Bram’s room, refusing to look at one another because the pain on the other’s face would be unbearable. Their world shrank then to the size of a dot, a dot too small to contain them both. Bram said that he needed to go to Philadelphia right then, he needed to inhale the same air that Meda had when she took in her last swallow of air.
Linc just stood there, dazed; his chest felt as if it were collapsing in on itself. What good was Philadelphia without Meda? What good was anyplace without her? He told Bram that he was engaged in a big bricklaying job and could not travel just now. “Just as well that you don’t,” Bram said. “Robinson’s people must still have it out for you. But with my scars they will not know me.”
Linc felt a rage brewing
then. “To hell with Robinson’s people. Weren’t they the cause for us having to to run away like rats without a hole? Weren’t they the reason we were separated from Meda in the first place? They will not keep me from”—he stopped himself, asked himself from what? From Meda? She was dead. Dead! “They will not keep me from at least kneeling down at Meda’s grave and telling her goodbye. Thank her for being, for being—” For being what? he asked himself. Just for being, he thought. That was enough, her being. He wanted to see Buddy, too. He wanted to stand in front of Buddy dry-eyed, shoulders squared, and tell him he was sorry for his loss. For their loss. “Let Robinson’s people come after me; I’ll give them what I still owe Robinson.” Bram lowered his eyes when Linc said that.
Linc and Bram made arrangements to meet the next afternoon at McGillin’s Olde Ale House on Drury Street in Philadelphia. Bram left. Now Linc had the time and space he needed for a proper breakdown, such as no other man should be witness to, because men just did not cry the way that Linc needed to cry. And he did cry. He cried and cursed God, he cried and called out Meda’s name, he cried and wished for the faceless, nameless woman who’d pushed him out into the world, the father who could have been a prince or the devil himself for all he knew, cried that he did not know. And after that, he just cried.
15
BY THE TIME Bram arrived in Philadelphia he was already feeling sick. He’d already experienced that predictive dry mouth, sweating already, and then shivering, already losing his coloring. He traveled to Buddy’s house but no one was at home, no one on the entire block, it seemed. Then a young girl sitting outside near the corner told him that Buddy had gone fishing ’cause his sister died and he was hurting.
He ended up at the Benins’. He was greeted by a pleasant brown-skinned woman, this one not in a uniform, just as Meda had never worn a uniform, though the rest of Benin’s house staff did. He wondered if this was Meda’s replacement. Taller than Meda, and meeker, she looked down, away, not directly at Bram. When he told her who he was, her eyes shot open. “I have heard of you from Miss Meda! You are quite the virtuoso. Mrs. Benin speaks of you often, as well.” She ushered him into the music room and left to summon Mrs. Benin.
There stood the piano, just as before, that elaborately carved Schomacker. It appeared now less like the mountain it had when he was a child. He touched it, then drew his finger away lest his touch cause it to crumble and collapse down upon him in an avalanche. Then he heard Mrs. Benin’s voice behind him. She said, “Why, hello, Bram,” and the avalanche began in earnest as his craggy emotions loosed and the foundation no longer held and the precipice toppled and his eyes flooded. They were soft tears, for Meda; he covered his face and cried into his hands for Meda. “Bram,” Mrs. Benin called his name again, and his cry went stormy because now it was for Mrs. Benin. It was a hard cry because it was unexpected. He fought this cry, tried not to cry for her, even as he did, so this cry rankled him as it forced its way out. He sensed Mrs. Benin tighten as she stood behind him, the way she would tighten when he’d pour everything he had into a piece of music, when it would even be a moment of transcendence for him, she’d tighten lest she be forced to feel. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his face and wiped it dry. Then he turned to regard her. She looked as she had when he’d last seen her, more than ten years ago, same globed-shaped face, same pert nose and thin lips, just a measure hardened.
He saw her gasp; she raised her hand toward his face and then pulled it back quickly. He remembered his burn scar then, and he put his own hand on his forehead, almost as if he was doing it on her behalf. “It looks worse than it is, actually. I got into a tussle with a candle and the candle won the first round.” He forced a laugh, then cleared his throat and apologized for the display of emotion he’d just unleashed.
“It is somewhat understandable. Meda showed you inestimable affection.”
He nodded. “If I may, I’d like to visit her room.”
“There is nothing there. Her brother’s people have collected her belongings.”
“Did she take her last breath here? In this house?”
“You should of course know that I permitted—”
“Did she take her last breath here?”
“She did.”
“Was she alone?”
“Her brother’s lady friend had come to see her, she was with her. Good Lord, Bram,” she said, as she moved toward the piano and took a seat at the bench, “is this an interrogation? I did not keep a log of her visitors, after all.” She ran her fingers along the keyboard. “And as I was about to say, before your rudeness prevented me, I allowed for her to remain here for weeks after she was no longer able to perform her duties. I saw to it that she was comfortable. Mr. Benin even arranged that she be examined by his best physician. I was not obligated to do any of it, but I did.”
“That was kind of you,” Bram said. “I am glad you had the opportunity in the end to make up for the times when you were not so kind to her.” He was sorry as soon as he said it, the way her face seemed to break up like a shifting jigsaw puzzle. He slid in next to her on the bench. She started playing Beethoven’s Sonata in D major, their favorite duet, which formerly had served as his reward for a good practice session. He allowed her to play alone at first. Then he found his way—more likely his fingers found their way—to the keys, and he picked up his spot and started to play. She called out “decrescendo,” then “piano, piano,” encouraging him, instructing him as if he were still ten.
When they were done, he moved from the piano and bowed toward an imaginary audience, the way she’d taught him. She applauded. She stood then and cleared her throat and said, almost in a whisper, that there had been complicated situations with Meda that he wouldn’t understand. He thought he saw a pleading in her eyes and he nodded, sensing that he’d freed her some with the nod, and it had cost him nothing after all. She asked him then if Linc had returned to Philadelphia with him.
“No,” he said, stiffening at the question. “Why do you ask?”
“Robinson’s family is still looking to bring him to justice.”
“So they have not relinquished their hunger for revenge?”
She held up her finger. “Bram, you cannot deny that Linc has caused that man—caused his entire family—horrendous suffering.”
“Mrs. Benin, just as you aver that there are things I do not understand about your situation, trust me, there are things that you do not understand about ours.”
“Well, I suppose we can agree on that much,” she said with a half-laugh. They stood there awkwardly, then she pulled Bram into a quick hug that caught him off guard, and then promptly departed, leaving him free to go to Meda’s room.
Bram was leaking sweat by the time he reached McGillin’s, where he and Linc were to meet. His insides felt charred, each breath so heated that exhaling burned his throat, his nostrils. Even when he used the necessary, the thin stream leaving him was boiling hot. Then Linc arrived and they settled in at a table.
“You look like shit, worse than the black death,” Linc said to him, as he ordered a glass of ale and a shaved pork sandwich, and Bram said that he would have the same. “This is the worst I’ve seen you, you need to get to a dispensary.”
“I will be well soon enough, as always,” Bram said.
“This is not some dead ghost inside of you, Bram, no matter what you believe. You’re truly ill—are you such a flaming dunce that you don’t see it?”
“I went to Meda’s room . . .” Bram tried to talk over Linc, but his voice was thinning.
“Look at you, even your eyes look like piss—”
“I felt her while I was in her room. I felt her spirit—”
“And I’m sure you have no appetite, as usual.” Linc stopped then, as he realized what Bram had just said. “You felt whose spirit?”
“Meda’s. If you calm down—”
“Brother,” Linc said, as he looked directly at Bram, though it hurt to look at him in such a state, “Meda is dea
d, she is not coming back to talk to you, or me, or anybody else, because the dead do not return.” As Linc said it, he realized all over again that Meda was dead, the realization of which had been coming to him in rough waves. One minute he was going about his business, and the next drowning again. Afraid that he might not be able to contain a fresh display of emotion, he got up, said that he had to relieve himself.
He was halfway to the back door that led to the alley of the pub when he turned around, sorry now for the harsh way he’d just spoken to Bram, realized that he was speaking to himself as well as Bram in that instant. Realized that he wished he could believe as Bram did that it was possible to hear from, to speak to Meda. But he could not believe it, and he envied Bram’s capacity to trust in things that he could not see. Bram was looking down at the food that had just been set in front of him when Linc called his name. As Bram looked up, Linc extended his elbow, that gesture that they’d had from childhood was between the two of them only, and it said: You are my brother and I love you more than life itself.
Bram extended his elbow, returning the gesture. He smiled, though it hurt even to smile. He watched Linc walk away from the table and if he’d had the strength he would have called him back and told him just to sit for another minute. But he barely had the strength to call out, used what strength he had to lift himself from the table and take the few short steps across the sawdust-covered floor to the tavern’s front door. He just managed to get to the outside where the blazing sun was no match for the heat roiling inside his stomach, moving up past his chest, forming a ball in his throat, choking him. He leaned. Then he gagged. He spit up an ocean of black-colored blood. He fell then against the red-colored cobblestone pavement. It felt good to rest here, as he pulled his knees to his chest as if he were five years old again and curling up on Meda’s bed to take an afternoon nap.
Lazaretto Page 13
