Cricket in a Fist

by Naomi K. Lewis

  “Bombs away!” cried J. Virginia Morgan.

  I threw the door open with my other hand, just as a chorus of women hollered, “Forget it!” They were sitting around a large table, and a huge blue flame exploded high from the metal can at the end of the table furthest from the door, obscuring the two women standing behind it. Jasmine yanked me back into the hallway and slammed the door shut.

  “Holy shit!” she said, and I laughed loudly, then covered my mouth with both hands. We stared at each other for a moment, then turned and ran down the hallway as fast as we could, Jasmine a few steps ahead of me. I stumbled slightly, trying to keep up with her, and regained my balance as we reached the elevators. Sure that something monstrous was right at my heels, I ran past the elevators and into the stairwell, holding the door open for Jasmine to follow me. We sat on the top step to catch our breath.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “Did anyone see us?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they heard us.” We sat in silence, breathing hard. No one came. “Don’t you think she must have been expecting us, Min? When she saw those names on the list?”

  “Unless she’s retarded,” Jasmine agreed.

  We sat in silence, and gradually the possibility of leaving receded. We were so close. She existed; she was right there.

  I remembered what I was thinking that Halloween, as I wandered across Tam-Tam’s office to the slim, pink door. I’d imagined myself taking the stairs down into the apartment to hide in TamTam’s bathroom. They’d find me lying in a bathtub full of bright red water. Mama would scream, seeing blood, not realizing that it was only dye from my hair. I’d sit up slowly, red streaks dripping down my body. “It’s my Halloween costume,” I’d say. “I’m a fetus, miscarried by a woman smoking in the bathtub.”

  I’d leaned close to the door that led to the servants’ stairwell, careful not to get hair dye on the pink-painted wood. I was sure I could smell cigarette smoke, faint but definite. After Minnie was born and Oma Esther died, I had stopped using the servants’ stairs and stopped writing letters to my great-grandfather’s ghost. The phantom cigarette pack I remembered checking each week as I descended to visit Oma Esther in the kitchen was still a mystery; I used to tell myself so many stories, I often found myself remembering things that couldn’t possibly have happened. And yet, recalling Jozef’s role in my life, he seemed as real as Helena, as real as my Oma Esther. More real, I contemplated, than Asher Acker, who existed only as twelve-year-old words on a creased bundle of paper. I leaned against the door, smelling smoke, and I pictured Jozef’s spirit relaxing in the stairwell. I wondered what he would think about my romance with Ingo Bachmann.

  A prickling sensation in the back of my neck sent a shiver down my spine, and I turned. My scream scared Mama, and she screamed, too, stepping back. “Calm down,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around her chest.

  “How long have you been standing there? Why are you spying on me?” Mama always had an eerie habit of approaching me from behind, standing quietly and watching until I realized with a start that I wasn’t alone. Asher wrote that Mama had all the habits that bothered her about Oma Esther. I’d never put it together that way before, but since reading Asher’s words, I could clearly see what a hypocrite she was.

  “What’s that smell?” She looked around. “Were you smoking in here, Agatha?”

  “No! Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  “Well, where’s that smell coming from?”

  “You can smell smoke?”

  She tried to reach around me to open the narrow door. “If you weren’t smoking,” she said, “why don’t you want me to look?”

  “Okay,” I pleaded, struggling to block her, “just don’t.” Shoving me aside, she wrenched the door open. My hands were over my eyes, but when Mama gasped, I looked down just in time to see the downstairs door ease shut.

  A group of women came down the hall, and as they waited for the elevators, Jasmine stood to peek through the door and sat down beside me again. She rested her forehead on her knees, and I put my hand on her back. “You okay?”

  “Oh no,” she said. “They all have copies of her books.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “She was probably signing them. So?”

  Jasmine slumped lower, hugging her legs. I waited, rubbing her shoulders. She had a huge knot near her neck, and I massaged. “Ouch.” She pulled away from my hand. “This is a joke. I thought it would be — different. This isn’t working at all. Let’s just go. I can’t do this; it’s a total fucking joke.”

  “No way,” I said. “We’ve come this far. Come on.” The commotion by the elevators had stopped; the women were gone. I grabbed her hand and stood up. “Come on.”

  We walked back down the hall, toward the open conference-room door. I held Jasmine’s hand tightly, practically dragging her the last few steps. I pushed her ahead of me through the door, just as I felt my head clear. I was ready for anything. White walls; polished pine conference table; curved, solid wood chairs. We stood and stared.

  “I knew it,” said Jasmine. “She’s gone.”

  “Come on,” I told her. “Where’s your buried burden?” She pulled all three of Virginia’s books out of the plastic bag, and I led her past the table to the metal trash can that was still sitting there. We both bent over to see inside and stared at the pile of intact knickknacks and T-shirts and one teddy bear with faint scorch marks, until Jasmine finally kicked the can as hard as she could.

  “Fucking sophistry!” she yelled. She slammed her three books, one old and worn, two brand new, onto the table, and a small piece of paper drifted out onto the floor. We both bent to pick it up, and she grabbed it, just as I saw her handwriting in thick, black permanent marker: Please Forgive Me. She shoved it in her pocket, and I touched her arm.

  “Those were your three words? Why?”

  “Forget it.” Jasmine reached for her books, and I pushed my arm through hers, pulling her toward me despite her resistance. Halfway down the hall, she wrenched herself free and walked a few steps ahead of me.

  “Jasmine?” I said, as we stepped into the elevator.

  She looked at me.

  “Dad’s outside in the car.”

  I was the one who needed forgiveness; I should have confessed long ago. But who could I tell? Who would have understood my anger with Mama for opening that pink door, for forcing me to realize those cigarette packs had belonged to Tam-Tam all along? How could I confess something so absurd? Mama had looked at me helplessly, arms hanging limply at her sides. We stared at each other until her eyes darted to the side like they always did when she was thinking hard. “What a sneak.” She sounded intrigued and triumphant, like a sleuth smacking her lips over a long-hidden clue. “Do you know how guilty she used to make me feel? How long do you think . . . Agatha, why are you crying?”

  “You stupid, fat cow.” I choked on tears to get the words out, and then I was yelling. “You don’t understand anything. You ruin everything. You always have to ruin everything I care about.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” Mama stepped away from me as if she was afraid I might explode. “What on earth is wrong with you?”

  “Everything! Everything is wrong with me, and you just have no idea. You’re so stupid. You’re a big blundering disaster that ruins everything and doesn’t even notice!”

  Her utter confusion only made me angrier; I wanted to slap her, punch her, make her suffer. She said, “But what does Tamar’s smoking have to do with you?”

  “What does anything have to do with me?” Mama shook her head. There was a smudge of mascara high on her left eyelid. “I have to know everything, because you’re too dense to know it yourself!”

  Mama crossed her arms. “Oh, I know more than you think I do,” she said. “I know you’re sexually active, if that’s what you mean. I wash your underwear, young lady. I know what it means when a girl trades in her sports bras for black lace ones.”

  “Asher!” I said, not caring h
ow loudly. “Asher, my biological father. He didn’t take off to you-didn’t-know-where. He went to Israel and then California. You smoked while you were pregnant with me. You only married Steven so you wouldn’t have to live with Tam-Tam and Oma Esther.” I didn’t look at my mother. Keeping my eyes focused on the door to the stairs, I told her, “I know you and my real father didn’t want me. You both hated me. And I know he died when I was ten. I was in your closet when you and Dad were talking about it. I kept waiting for you to tell me, but you never did.

  Because you’re a coward!” I finally looked at Mama’s face, and I reached for her arm, sure she was about to faint.

  Putting out her own hand to stop mine, she said quietly, “Asher’s not dead.”

  “But I heard you say so.”

  “No, we never said that. When you were ten? He came to Ottawa for some shrink conference and wanted to visit us. He wanted to meet you, and we said no. That must have been the conversation you heard.” I felt as disoriented as my mother looked. Jozef killed off once and for all, and Asher resuscitated after being dead and buried for almost six years.

  “Your father used to sleep with prostitutes,” I said. “Tam-Tam told Asher, and Asher told Steven. They all kept that from you. Like you’re some delicate flower that can’t handle the truth. And meanwhile, you don’t bother to protect me from one solitary thing. And you want to know what else I know about?” Mama shook her head. “Asher used to visit Tam-Tam when you weren’t home, and he wanted to have sex with her. When she said no, he went for you.” I said to the pink door, “You’re all assholes. Everyone.” Meeting Mama’s expressionless face, I went on, “Helena slept with Swithin Bennett and didn’t tell me. The boarding school guy. And he makes fun of her for it to his friends.”

  Unmistakable sympathy flashed across Mama’s face. “Pumpkin,” she started, reaching for my arm. “I know — ”

  “No.” I pulled back. “You don’t care. I wish I had a different mother. You’re the worst mother in the world.”

  “Ag?” I turned to see Minnie standing just inside the door. Someone had painted red sparkles around her eyes. Crossing her arms inside her cardigan and leaning her weight on one foot, she told me, “Cassandra says come get your hair washed out.”

  Before grabbing my sister’s hand on the way out of the room, I turned back to Mama, took Asher Acker’s folded letter out of my back pocket and shoved it into her hand. “Agatha,” she started. I left the room before she had a chance to finish.

  *

  “So you didn’t see her at all?” Steven said.

  “I just want to be able to forget about her.” Jasmine was crying in the front seat, Steven’s arm around her shoulders. He’d been standing, pacing beside his car when we left the hotel, and he hurried to meet us, checking around and behind us for ghostly figures of ex-wives. “I guess it was a fucking stupid plan,” Jasmine said. “Nothing I do ever works.” The sun was already setting and it was chilly; a brisk wind lifted dry brown leaves from the gutter. In the back seat, I buttoned my jacket and wrapped my scarf around my neck, up to my chin. Jasmine just groaned into Steven’s shoulder. “Why do I have to be related to that freak?” she said. “And her fucking sophistry bullshit books.”

  “But why did you ask for her forgiveness?” I said.

  Jasmine ignored me. She was still angry about Steven, despite how obviously relieved she was to see him.

  “You know why,” she said, finally, her voice muffled by Steven’s sweater. I shook my head, and Steven said he didn’t know why either.

  “The accident. The fire truck.”

  “No,” I said. “No, no.”

  “Agatha,” said Steven. He handed me a box of tissues from the front seat, and my hands were shaking so badly, it was hard to hold them. “Sweetheart,” he said.

  I choked on a sob as I tried to speak and broke into a coughing fit, still crying. Breathing hard, I waited until I was calm enough to speak. “It was my fault,” I said. “I was so mean to her that day. Right before she fell. Dad, I stole your letter from Asher Acker. The one that said all that stuff about Tam-Tam.” My voice was still shaking.

  “Oh, Jesus,” said Dad. “That letter? I thought I lost that damn thing years ago. You read that?”

  “I gave it to Mama,” I said. “Right before she fell.”

  “What letter?” said Jasmine. “What stuff about Tam-Tam?”

  “It was this horrible letter,” I said, blowing my nose. “From my other father to Dad. It said things about Mama and Tam-Tam that were” — my voice cracked — “so, so mean. If I hadn’t given her that letter, Mama and Steven would probably still be together.”

  Jasmine turned around and stared at me, her face twitching almost comically. Then she lunged between the front seats and grabbed me by the hair on top of my head, pulling me towards her. I screamed in pain, trying to pry her fingers open. “Why didn’t you tell me,” she howled, shaking me with each word. “This will never be over. You fucking psychopath! Why do you think you’re too good to tell anyone anything? Why don’t you love us anymore?”

  Jasmine let go abruptly, crying out in pain herself, and then sat back, her eyes tearing, holding her wrist where Steven had grabbed it.

  “Girls, that’s enough.” Steven put his arm across the seat between us. “Please!” he said, as Jasmine moved toward me again, fists clenched.

  “But Dad,” said Jasmine. “She made me smoke drugs.”

  I gaped at this non sequitur of a betrayal, too shocked to keep crying, but Dad said, “Jasmine, please. Your sister’s been doing her best. Ginny and I weren’t going to stay together, Agatha, even if there was no accident.”

  I sat back. “I know,” I said. And I did know. I felt my body go limp. “Why didn’t you ever say that before?”

  “I could have. I should have. I didn’t know if it would make things better or worse. You should have told me you saw that idiot’s letter. I should never have kept it. It was a piece of garbage, you know. But Agatha, there’s no way anything in that letter came as a shock to your mother or changed anything for her. It couldn’t have. We’d already grown apart. It was all ancient history.”

  “But Tam-Tam?”

  “That’s right,” said Dad. “He claimed — I just don’t know. I don’t know if any of that was true. What he wrote — I’m sorry, Agatha, but he was the kind of person who said things just to get a reaction. You’re nothing like him. Nothing.”

  Jasmine leaned forward to rest her forehead against the dashboard. I smoothed my hair where my scalp was stinging.

  “Agatha,” Jasmine said. “I’m sorry I pulled your hair.”

  “That’s okay, Jas.” I wedged myself between the seats to put my arm around her back.

  “And I’m sorry I ran away when Bev’s dying. Poor Lara. Does Lara hate me now?” I held her arm tightly. She had a home to go back to; my story was slipping away, everything I’d told myself for nine years.

  Dad put his arm around her, too. “No. We both love you girls.”

  I met his eyes in the mirror.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Look. Look! There she is.” My sister shook the hair out of her face, Dad and I each with an arm still on her back. We watched J. Virginia Morgan walk down the sidewalk from the front of the hotel, hands in the pockets of her brown leather jacket. She approached quickly, with a straight-backed, even pace, pulling out keys.

  Ingo Bachmann once said that after a moment has happened, nothing can take it away again. “It’ll always be true,” he said, “that we lay here under this tree on this day, and your hand was absent-mindedly pulling at the back of my shirt — no, don’t stop. Agatha Winter and Ingo Bachmann. We don’t need to engrave our names on any tree, because this moment is permanently engraved on every other moment that ever passed or that will ever come to be.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, caught up in the Ingo Bachmann-ness of Ingo Bachmann. “Even if I saw you on the street ten years from now, and you didn’t recognize me, or pretended not to see me, th
at couldn’t undo this moment. But that means we can never take anything back, either.”

  “Of course we can’t,” said Ingo Bachmann.

  And Virginia stepped past us. The setting sun shone on her face, making her squint. Her hair, long and slightly frizzy at the tips, shone a fake, shiny mahogany. I stared at her face as she went by. She looked like Jasmine, like my mama, as much as a cousin would. Her skin was smooth, her lips full. And she was tanned. Mama had always worn sunscreen and big, floppy hats; she’d burnt badly as a child and said it was impossible for her skin to get darker.

  “Goodbye, strange lady,” Jasmine said as Virginia passed her window. She yelled, “It was an accident.”

  Dad cowered, afraid this slender, tanned spectre might come too close, somehow touch him.

  “Goodbye,” said Jasmine. “Goodbye.”

  Dad stared at Virginia, and I watched his face in the mirror. “That’s her,” he said, shaking his head. “Jesus. Jesus. That’s all? I never knew that woman.”

  As Virginia opened the door of a new-looking black Saab, she turned and looked in our direction, and the wind blew her hair forward, over her shoulders. Her eyes were bright, reddish brown, and just for a moment, I thought I saw Mama turning from the stove, framed by paisley wallpaper, with a wooden spoon in her hand. Agatha, I heard her say. Get off the counter. Get down from there. I wondered if Dad was remembering Mama, too, maybe when they first met — back when she was the life of the party, his voluptuous young student, obsessed with Nietzsche and Spinoza, writing papers about parts of the brain and handing them in for him to grade.

  Inside her car, Virginia fiddled with the mirror and put on glasses; Mama never had glasses. I’d met Virginia once before, eight years earlier. She’d already taken everything she wanted from the house before she told anyone she was planning to leave. I was the only one who’d watched her go; eleven floors up, I stood with a hand on my newly shaven head and watched her taxi drive off. Now we all watched together as Virginia reversed out of her parking space too quickly and stopped with a bit of a jolt before driving away.