The Chrome Suite

by Sandra Birdsell

  Elsa rests her elbows against her knees, cups her chin, and smiles down at him. “Don’t you want to see this?” Mel is desperate to gain her attention. She smiles again, shakes her head no.

  “See what?” Jill sounds half asleep.

  “This tree. It’s been hit by lightning.”

  “If scientists could discover a way to harness a bolt of lightning,” Jill recites, “they’d be able to light up a billion light bulbs.”

  “New York.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Or the City of Lights.” Elsa laughs.

  “She’s been to Paris,” Jill says. “She’s seen the Eiffel Tower.” Her legs flash as she rocks herself up into a sitting position.

  “Was that before or after Germany?” Mel hopes he sounds sarcastic.

  Jill pulls at the ribbon around one of her braids. She unties it and lets it drop. Then her nimble fingers tug at her dark hair as she unravels the plait.

  “I was born in Germany,” Elsa says.

  “Dresden. She showed me on a map,” Jill adds.

  They have become like Siamese twins, Mel thinks, with a surge of envy.

  “Then I went to Poland. Was taken to Poland, I don’t remember. That’s where Esther found me and adopted me. And Adele.”

  “In Warsaw,” Jill says.

  “Zelazowa-Wola. Not far from Warsaw.”

  Mel likes the strangeness of Elsa’s voice, her style. The way she wears her woollen tam in winter, for instance, not tilted to one side but pulled down over her ears and forehead, a frame for her round face. Her leather shoulder bag seems to be a part of her and not just something she wears when she wants to dress up like the other girls, who carry their bags stiffly on special occasions or with a hint of self-consciousness when they bring them to school. Then, the bag betrays that it’s that time of the month and they keep their little secrets in it for when they go to the bathroom and come back with lumps at the back of their skirts. Mel runs his hand over the tree’s shattered bark and then reaches inside its core where splinters bristle like a porcupine. He wants to pull a sliver loose and present it to Elsa, and say, Here, a toothpick carved by nature. He winces as a splinter pierces the back of his hand. He sucks at the wound and tastes salt.

  “Then Esther took us to France,” Elsa continues, “England, and now here.”

  Jill has unravelled her other braid and shakes the thick hair free. “Turn around. I think you’d look good like this,” Elsa says and begins to gather Jill’s hair up on top of her head. Mel glances at them and then turns away with a blink of shock. Elsa isn’t wearing underpants. Earlier she’d made a tent of her dress, made a careful point of tucking it in beneath her thighs. But as she reached for Jill’s hair her dress slid up and in his quick glance he believes that he saw bare skin. Well, all right, Mel thinks as he drinks the last bit of spiked cola. He tells himself that maybe it’s a custom or something, not to wear underpants. Elsa fusses over Jill, declaring her envy, her desire to possess such thick shiny hair. She twists it into a knot, drawing the skin on Jill’s face taut.

  “Hey, Mel, look,” Jill says. She pulls the skin beside one eye up until the eye almost closes in a slanted slit. “Mother Chinese,” she says in a sing-song voice. Then she pulls the skin beneath the other eye and the lid droops. “Father Japanese.” She finishes the joke by pulling one eye up and the other down at the same time. “Me.” She laughs. Elsa laughs top. A bit uncomfortable, Mel thinks, probably embarrassed because she doesn’t get the joke. It doesn’t occur to Mel that perhaps Elsa thinks it’s in bad taste. His eyes are drawn to her bent knees. The dress has hitched up higher, and he sees the rout of flesh between her legs. His scalp goes tight with the realization that he’s right. She isn’t wearing underpants. It looks like a mouth, he thinks. What Elsa has down there is a sideways plump mouth. Not the slender, elongated shape of Jill’s.

  “I want your hair,” Elsa says to Jill. “I wish we could trade heads.” She turns to face Mel as she speaks. Her blue eyes shine out from the shadows. She smiles and then very slowly draws her dress back down into place.

  She wanted me to see it, Mel thinks. But even as he thinks this it seems to be a preposterous idea or the result of an overactive imagination. It must be that she’s foreign, he thinks. He goes over to where the school bag rests beneath a clump of bushes. He searches through it while his mind races around a maze of possibilities and comes to a thudding stop at the word “fuck.” While the word is used frequently by others around him, he doesn’t use it. Even when he looks at the magazines or the hand-drawn cartoons that circulate at school, he thinks “screwing” or “banging.” “Fuck” is something dogs or trashy poor people do. Elsa’s blue eyes meet his and there is a knowing there, an understanding between them. “I’m thirsty,” she says.

  Mel holds up the mickey of rye and shakes it. It’s still about three-quarters full. “We need more mix.”

  Elsa lets go of Jill’s hair and it ripples around her shoulders. “Why don’t you go, Jill? When you get back I’ll do your hair up and you’ll see what it looks like. I’ve got pins in my bag.”

  The protest in Jill’s mouth dies as she looks first at Elsa and then at Mel. She grins. “Sure.” She slides down the incline and slaps dirt from the seat of her shorts as she walks towards Mel. Her eyes flash with amusement. She stands in front of him almost nose to nose while he flips through his wallet. “Just one cola?” Her hair, a frizzy loose cloud, obscures Mel’s view of Elsa. He hands her a dollar. Her fingers close around it as she leans forward and says the words softly: “Elsa says she’s not a virgin.”

  Mel’s throat goes dry as he watches Jill climb up the slope again and wind her way among the trees. She’s like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, he thinks, as he watches bits of Jill, the glimmer of a tanned calf, forearm, a swatch of pink cotton, flit away among the black tree trunks and into the deep shadows. He’s aware of Elsa in the foreground holding up a little mirror, the aura of gold around her head as branches sway in a light breeze and a beam of sunlight shines through her wispy curls. His body pulses with heat.

  “Melville,” Elsa says. She uses his full name and Mel wishes Jill hadn’t told her. “Why don’t you come and sit down.”

  “Sure.” To his surprise he feels his legs propel him forward. He still believes that’s all he will do, sit beside her and wait for Jill to return. That this may be the time he needs to ask her to go to the dance with him. She’ll say yes and he’ll enter the gym with her beside him and see all eyes turn, evaluating, second-guessing Mel Barber. Mel studies his father when he returns from the road, how his bloodshot eyes still peer over the rim of the steering wheel, steady on some fixed and predictable destination, the slump of his narrow shoulders beneath his white shirt, its starch gone soft, saying “ordinary” to Mel. He feels pity and something else that he will come to identify later as being contempt. Elsa is different. He, Mel, will be different. “Sit,” Elsa says. She reaches out and pulls him down beside her on the cool, damp ground.

  Mel has studied the bawdy cartoons that from time to time exchange hands. The most lewd of all is one titled “What Happened When They Put Spanish Fly in the Office Cooler.” Couples in an office are depicted in various positions of copulation. To Mel, every position seems equally erotic. Sometimes Mel studies the cartoon characters’ faces. The women all wear ecstatic smiles, signifying bliss, and the men leer. Only the women have drunk from the tainted cooler, Mel supposes, because the men’s crooked smiles indicate that they think they have just pulled one off. But mostly Mel studies the act itself, engorged penises entering female bodies, and he thinks that he doesn’t care what position, he just wants to do it. And Elsa had assisted him. When he fumbled, searching for the way inside her, she held him and shifted her pelvis and guided him. The moment he felt her heat, he groaned, realizing that he couldn’t hold back, he was going over the top.

  Elsa lies beneath him. Her rib cage rises and falls against him and her breath is warm against his chest. When he opens hi
s eyes he sees his curled fist against the brown earth, the skin scraped away by the tree. It’s as though the hand belongs to someone else. “Heavy,” Elsa murmurs.

  Mel pushes himself up and off her body in one swift movement. He feels himself slide back inside his own body. He averts his eyes from the sight of Elsa’s milky-white torso as he stands up and steps around her. He walks down to the damaged tree and stands there, plunging his hands deep into his pockets and whistling softly through his teeth to deny the creeping sense of disappointment. What he does with himself in secret is a desperate act inspired by images of Spanish fly in the office cooler. He thought that the real thing would be more intense than a small shudder of pleasure. He thought there would be arms holding, mouths kissing. But Jill had barely disappeared among the trees when Elsa lay down. She’d flung her arms above her head, a bent knee swaying lazily. When he tried to touch her breast, she shook her head no. Instead, she reached down, pulled her skirt up around her waist, and closed her eyes. Nothing left for Mel to do but climb on. And then it was over.

  Mel hears Elsa step up behind him. Her fingers pluck something from his hair. Then she walks around to face him. She closes her eyes offering her mouth for him to kiss. Her pouty lips move towards his and his stomach heaves. He thinks wildly, I can’t do it. I can’t kiss her. Suddenly her eyes fly open, pale agates stare into his with a question. “Did you hear that?” she asks.

  Then Mel hears a voice too, calling out. His name.

  “It’s Jill.” Elsa turns and scrambles up the embankment. Mel runs after Elsa as she sprints among the trees. The soles of his shoes are too smooth, and he keeps losing his footing on the damp ground, stumbling and crashing into trees.

  “Mel!” Jill’s voice has become sharp with fear. Mel feels as though he’s knee-deep in water, trying to run, impeded by his awkwardness, and he wants to weep in frustration. When he reaches the edge of the park and climbs up onto the grassy hill, he’s red-faced and panting. Elsa is far ahead. He tucks his chin into his chest and runs, aware through the hammering of his heart that there are voices other than Jill’s. When he looks up he can’t see her, only boys on bicycles, riding in a circle. Elsa stops running and waits for him to catch up. Her eyes bulge with anger. “Tell them to stop.” Mel sees Jill in the centre of their circle, cowering, her head tilted at a crazy angle while the boys ride around her making clucking noises. They have her by the hair. Mel feels the pain of it in his own scalp. He steps towards them, angry, his eyes fixed on the crouching form of Jill. They see him coming and brake to a stop. “Hey look! It’s Howdy Doody.” Jill tries to move towards him. She whimpers as they yank her back into place. They’re older, taller than he is, Mel realizes with a sinking heart. “Let her go. That’s my sister.” He spoke quietly. He almost said, Let her go, please.

  “Well, way to go! Howdy Doody has a sister.” The leader laughs, pushes out of the circle, and heads over to Mel. He rides at top speed, brakes at the final moment, and the bicycle slides sideways in front of Mel. “Make us stop.” Mel smells stale cigarette smoke. He can see the hairs in the boy’s nostrils, he’s that close. Mel swings, wanting to knock him off balance, but the boy is quick and has Mel by the wrist with one hand and slams him hard in the stomach with the other. Mel hears himself grunt as he falls backwards onto the grass. The bicycle thuds to the ground beside him and he sees a running shoe swing forward and he thinks, Oh God, I’m dead. The shoe stops inches from his chin and then comes down slowly. Mel feels the pressure of it against his chest. He’s pinned. Elsa’s legs flash by his head. Mel hears her scream at them, high-pitched, in German. “Hey you guys,” the voice above Mel says, “check it out, eh? It’s the Tasmanian Devil.”

  As Elsa runs towards the other two, their faces betray their uncertainty as they see the rage in her twisted features. Jill is freed suddenly as they back away from Elsa’s onslaught of words and her fingernails clawing at their faces. Mel lies still, not daring to lift his head but wanting desperately to know what’s happening. The pressure against his chest lifts suddenly as the leader swears and bolts away. Mel sits up. One of the boys is cupping his nose and blood runs between his fingers. Elsa grabs Jill and pulls her to her feet. The leader strides towards them, his fists curled at his sides. “I’ll show you what fighting dirty means.” Beyond them Mel sees an adult running in their direction. He jumps to his feet, waves, and calls out. The man waves back. “Here now! What’s going on over there?”

  The leader swipes at a dark hank of hair trailing across his forehead. He squints over Jill’s shoulder at the approaching man. He raises his hands, backing away in submission, and the other boys follow. They pick up their bicycles and walk away. The man stops and watches until they mount their bikes and begin to ride. Then all at once the boys turn and ride back, heading directly towards Jill and Elsa. They gain speed and as they go by, the leader veers inwards, kicks, attempting to get Elsa and missing, hitting Jill instead. She moans and doubles over clutching at her groin. “Now see here!” The man yells and chases after them. Jill’s face grows pale as she gathers her shorts in a fist and presses against the pain. Mel stifles an incongruous impulse to whistle a nonchalant tune as he watches the cyclists round the corner of the pavilion and disappear. The man stops running and then shakes his fist in their direction. “Hoodlums! Punks!” He turns. “Everything okay?”

  Mel carries the imprint of the boy’s shoe in the middle of his shirt. He brushes at it and hunches his shoulders, crinkling the fabric to obliterate its shape. His shame makes him want to vomit. He follows Jill and Elsa as they head back along the path among the trees. Jill sucks air through her teeth to keep from crying. Mel doesn’t think of the word “shame.” He feels it, thick, hot, rising in waves as he fixes his eyes on the centre of Elsa’s back. It’s her fault, he thinks. If she hadn’t sent Jill for the cola this wouldn’t have happened. He feels some of his shame give way to anger.

  When they reach the clearing where moments before Mel had lain on top of Elsa, he steps onto the spot purposely, grinding his anger and their act into the ground and burying it. Elsa’s murmured concern rises up among the trees as she kneels in front of Jill and examines the blue mass spreading beneath the pale skin of her groin. “I forgot the cola. It’s back there where I dropped it,” Jill says.

  Mel squints against the rush of tears. He picks up the school bag and unbuckles its straps and carries it down the path that leads to the steep river bank and the rush of yellow water below. The rye whisky bottle is cool in the palm of his hand. He promises himself to throw it into the river and to never take another drink of booze again.

  She heard their voices and crept softly through the trees towards the sound. She saw Mel first. He stood with his back to her, facing the river, the school bag dangling at his side. She saw the back of Jill’s head and Elsa kneeling in front of her. A complete picture, the three of them, and she stood as usual on the outside looking in. But what became apparent to her, what she had in the past only suspected, was their complete lack of concern for her well-being. This revelation shouldn’t have caught her by surprise but it did, and her chest ached. She wanted to limp into their picture, bruised, cut, and bleeding. It would have served them right, she thought, if she’d been struck by a car or offered too many ice-cream cones by strangers.

  If she had died and not Jill, she would have had them all in the palm of her hand forever.

  “Shorty!”

  Elsa and Jill crane their necks to get a look at her.

  “Well, so how was the picnic?”

  Mel sounds so phoney, Amy thinks.

  “How was the whisky?” It’s their loss now because she won’t tell them what she just saw in the other park down the street.

  “What are you talking about?” Mel frowns.

  She points to his hand.

  Jill titters and covers her mouth.

  “I found it,” Mel says.

  “So who’s the liar? Drop dead, Mel.” Amy is amazed to see Mel’s legs fly out from beneath h
im as though someone had just given him a quick shove.

  The bottle flies from his hand and he whoops in panic. He’s lost his footing on the slippery path and his feet take off. Still clutching the school bag, Mel feels himself being propelled forward and unable to stop. His body can barely keep up with his churning legs as the uneven ground, knotted tree roots, pass beneath his feet. Fall down, he tells himself as he sees the path in front of him end in the steep drop of the river bank and the swift current of flowing water below. He can’t swim. He sees his death happening before their astonished eyes and yet he thinks that he can’t bear the indignity of falling down. He doesn’t want to die this way, either. But, still, he can’t risk making a fool of himself. “Drop the bag,” Jill screams. Before Mel can comprehend what she’s said, it’s the bag that saves him. The bag flailing at the end of his arm snags a tree branch and Mel’s feet leave the ground as he falls backwards, landing on the path with a thud. Wind slams from his chest and for a moment his lungs refuse to open as he gulps air. He raises his head and looks down the length of his body. His feet jut out over the bank. He hears the rush of water below and then Jill and Elsa running down the path towards him.

  Amy watches the scene from above. She watches as Jill sits down beside Mel, lifts his head, and cradles it in the crook of her bare legs. Her hair falls forward, a dark curtain rippling around his face as she rocks him, laughing and crooning. Elsa stands to one side watching for a moment and then she squats beside them. She pulls loose a frond of wild fern growing among the trees and begins to fan Mel’s chest with it. Mel’s hand shoots forward and knocks the fern aside. “Take off!” His shoulders twist and he hides his face in Jill.

  Interesting, Amy thinks, how she said to Mel, “Drop dead,” and it almost happened.

  4

  e rode home in silence, drowsy with heat and our eyes half-closed against the press of sun on our faces. Our mouths were rimmed with the black licorice Mel had brought along to overpower any lingering odour of whisky on his breath. Jill had pulled her hat down low onto her forehead, hiding her eyes and feigning sleep, but now and then she would massage her groin. Adele, whom Josh had picked up at the hairdresser’s, chain-smoked and hummed, studying her reflection imposed upon the landscape gliding past the car window. She no longer wore the green turban. Her hairstyle was smooth, too perfect, I thought, like a store mannequin’s hair. Occasionally her humming broke off as she flicked bits of tobacco from her tongue or exclaimed in a scoffing or resigned way over some private thought. Mel stared straight ahead, as though hypnotized by the broken white lines of the highway. A wall of cumulus clouds banked high in the north as concrete as a range of mountains. The clouds, coloured by the sun, had their own purple valleys and snow caps streaked with pink and gold. A screen for me on which to replay the adventure I had after Mel and Jill abandoned me.