“At a table, no doubt?” And he stares at Fonny as though he simply cannot believe his eyes.
“Well—I would-yeah-like a table—”
“Ah!” But, “Good evening, Señorita,” Pedrocito now says, and smiles at me. “It is for her I do it, you know,” he informs Fonny. “It is clear that you do not feed her properly.” He leads us to a table and sits us down. “And now, no doubt,” he scowls, “you would like two margheritas?”
“Caught me again,” says Fonny, and he and Pedrocito laugh and Pedrocito disappears.
Fonny takes my hand in his.
“Hello,” he says.
I say, “Hello.”
“I don’t want you to feel bad about what I said to you before. You a fine, tough chick and I know, hadn’t been for you, my brains might be being spattered all over that precinct basement by now.”
He pauses, and he lights a cigarette. I watch him.
“So, I don’t mean that you did nothing wrong. I guess you did the only thing you could have done. But you got to understand where I’m coming from.”
He takes my hands between his again.
“We live in a nation of pigs and murderers. I’m scared every time you out of my sight. And maybe what happened just now was my fault, because I should never have left you alone at that vegetable stand—but I was just so happy, you know, about the loft—I wasn’t thinking—”
“Fonny, I’ve been to that vegetable stand a hundred times, and nothing like that ever happened before. I’ve got to take care of you—of us. You can’t go everywhere I go. How is it your fault? That was just some broken-down junkie—”
“Some broken-down white American,” Fonny says.
“Well. It’s still not your fault.”
He smiles at me.
“They got us in a trick bag, baby. It’s hard, but I just want for you to bear in mind that they can make us lose each other by putting me in the shit—or, they can try to make us lose each other by making you try to protect me from it. You see what I mean?”
“Yes,” I say, finally, “I see what you mean. And I know that that’s true.”
Pedrocito returns, with our margheritas.
“We have a specialty tonight,” he announces, “very, very Spanish, and we are trying it out on all those customers who think Franco is a great man.” He looks at Fonny quizzically. “I suppose that you do not exactly qualify—so, for you, I will remove the arsenic. Without the arsenic, it is a little less strong, but it is actually very good, I think you will like it. Do you trust me not to poison you? Anyway, it would be very foolish of me to poison you before you pay your tremendous bill. We would immediately go bankrupt.” He turns to me. “Will you trust me, Señorita? I assure you that we will prepare it with love.”
“Now, watch it, Pete,” says Fonny.
“Oh, your mind is like a sewer, you do not deserve so beautiful a girl.” And he disappears again.
“That cop,” Fonny says, “that cop.”
“What about that cop?” But I am suddenly, and I don’t know why, as still and as dry as a stone: with fear.
“He’s going to try to get me,” Fonny says.
“How? You didn’t do anything wrong. The Italian lady said so, and she said that she would swear to it.”
“That’s why he’s going to try to get me,” Fonny says.
“White men don’t like it at all when a white lady tells them, You a boatful of motherfuckers, and the black cat was right, and you can kiss my ass.” He grins. “Because that’s what she told him. In front of a whole lot of people. And he couldn’t do shit. And he ain’t about to forget it.”
“Well,” I say, “we’ll soon be moving downtown, to our loft.”
“That’s right,” he says, and smiles again. Pedrocito arrives, with our specialties.
When two people love each other, when they really love each other, everything that happens between them has something of a sacramental air. They can sometimes seem to be driven very far from each other: I know of no greater torment, no more resounding void—When your lover has gone! But tonight, with our vows so mysteriously menaced, and with both of us, though from different angles, placed before this fact, we were more profoundly together than we had ever been before. Take care of each other, Joseph had said. You going to find out it’s more than a notion.
After dinner, and coffee, Pedrocito offered us brandy, and then he left us, in the nearly empty restaurant. Fonny and I just sat there and sipped our brandy, talking a little, holding hands—digging each other. We finished our brandy. Fonny said, “Shall we go?”
“Yes,” I said. For I wanted to be alone with him, in his arms.
He signed the check; the last check he was ever to sign there. I have never been allowed to pay it—it has been, they say, misplaced.
We said good-night, and we walked home, with our arms around each other.
There was a patrol car parked across the street from our house, and, as Fonny opened our gate and unlocked our door, it drove off. Fonny smiled, but said nothing. I said nothing.
The baby was conceived that night. I know it. I know it from the way Fonny touched me, held me, entered me. I had never been so open before. And when he started to pull out, I would not let him, I held on to him as tightly as I could, crying and moaning and shaking with him, and felt life, life, his life, inundating me, entrusting itself to me.
Then, we were still. We did not move, because we could not. We held each other so close that we might indeed have been one body. Fonny caressed me and called my name and he fell asleep. I was very proud. I had crossed my river. Now, we were one.
Sharon gets to Puerto Rico on an evening plane. She knows exactly how much money she has, which means that she knows how rapidly she must move against time—which is inexorably moving against her.
She steps down from the plane, with hundreds of others, and crosses the field, under the blue-black sky; and something in the way the stars hang low, something in the way the air caresses her skin, reminds her of that Birmingham she has not seen in so long.
She has brought with her only a small overnight bag, so she need not wait in line for her luggage. Hayward has made a reservation for her in a small hotel in San Juan; and he has written the address on a piece of paper.
He has warned her that it may not be so easy to find a taxi.
But he has not, of course, been able to prepare her for the stunning confusion which reigns at the San Juan airport. So, Sharon stands still for a moment, trying to sort things out.
She is wearing a green summer dress, my mother, and a wide-brimmed, green cloth hat; her handbag over her shoulder, her overnight bag in her hand; she studies the scene.
Her first impression is that everyone appears to be related to each other. This is not because of the way they look, nor is it a matter of language: it is because of the way they relate to each other. There are many colors here, but this does not, at least at the airport, appear to count for very much. Whoever is speaking is shouting—that is the only way to be heard; and everyone is determined to be heard. It is quite impossible to guess who is leaving, who arriving. Entire families appear to have been squatting there for weeks, with all their earthly possessions piled around them—not, Sharon notes, that these possessions towered very high. For the children, the airport appears to be merely a more challenging way of playing house.
Sharon’s problems are real and deep. Since she cannot allow these to become desperate, she must now rely on what she can establish of illusion: and the key to illusion is complicity. The world sees what it wishes to see, or, when the chips are down, what you tell it to see: it does not wish to see who, or what, or why you are. Only Sharon knows that she is my mother, only she knows what she is doing in San Juan, with no one to meet her. Before speculation rises too high, she must make it clear that she is a visitor, from up the road—from North America: who, through no fault of her own, speaks no Spanish.
Sharon walks to the Hertz desk, and stands there, and smiles, somew
hat insistently, at one of the young ladies behind the desk.
“Do you speak English?” she asks the young lady.
The young lady, anxious to prove that she does, looks up, determined to be helpful.
Sharon hands her the address of the hotel. The young lady looks at it, looks back at Sharon. Her look makes Sharon realize that Hayward has been very thoughtful, and that he has placed her in a very respected, respectable hotel.
“I am very sorry to bother you,” says Sharon, “but I do not speak any Spanish, and I have had to come here unexpectedly.” She pauses, giving no explanation. “And I do not drive. I wondered if I could rent a car, with a driver, or, if not, if you could tell me exactly how to get a taxi—?” Sharon makes a helpless gesture. “You see—?”
She smiles, and the young lady smiles. She looks again at the paper, looks around the airport, narrowing her eyes.
“One moment, Señora,” she says.
She leaves her phone off the hook, swings open the small gate, closes it behind her, and disappears.
She reappears very quickly, with a boy of about eighteen. “This is your taxi driver,” she says. “He will take you where you are going.” She reads the address aloud, and gives the piece of paper back to Sharon. She smiles. “I hope you will enjoy your visit, Señora. If you need anything—allow me?” She gives Sharon her card. “If you need anything, please do not hesitate to call on me.”
“Thank you,” says Sharon. “Thank you very much. You have been beautiful.”
“It was nothing. Jaime,” she says, authoritatively, “take the lady’s bag.”
Jaime does so, and Sharon says good-night, and follows Jaime.
Sharon thinks, One down! and begins to be frightened.
But she has to make her choices very quickly. On the way into town, she decides—because he is there—to make friends with Jaime, and to depend, or to seem to depend, on him. He knows the town, and he can drive. It is true that he is terribly young. But that could turn out to be a plus. Someone older, knowing more, might turn out to be a terrible hassle. Her idea is to case the nightclub, to see Pietro, and, possibly, Victoria, without saying anything to them. But it is not a simple matter for a lone woman, black or white, to walk, unescorted, into a nightclub. Furthermore, for all she knows, this nightclub may be a whorehouse. Her only option is to play the American tourist, wide-eyed—but she is black, and this is Puerto Rico.
Only she knows that she’s my mother, and about to become a grandmother; only she knows that she is past forty; only she knows what she is doing here.
She tips Jaime when they arrive at the hotel. Then, as her bag is carried into the hotel, she looks suddenly at her watch. “My God,” she says, “do you think you could wait for me, just for a minute, while I register? I had no idea it was so late. I promised to meet someone. I won’t be a moment. The boy will carry the bag up. Will that be all right?”
Jaime is a somewhat muddy-faced boy, with brilliant eyes, and a sullen smile. He is entirely intrigued by this improbable North American lady—intrigued because he knows, through unutterably grim experience, that, though she may be in trouble, and certainly has a secret, she is not attempting to do him any violence. He understands that she needs him—the taxi—for something; but that is not his affair. He does not know he knows it—the thought has not consciously entered his mind—but he knows she is a mother. He has a mother. He knows one when he sees one. He knows, again without knowing that he knows it, that he can be of service to her tonight. His courtesy is as real as her trouble. And so he says, gravely, that, of course, he will take the Señora wherever she wishes and wait for her as long as she likes.
Sharon cheats on him, a little. She registers, goes up in the elevator with the bellboy, tips him. She cannot decide whether to wear her hat, or not. Her problem is both trivial and serious, but she has never had to confront it before. Her problem is that she does not look her age. She takes her hat off. She puts it back on. Does the hat make her look younger, or older? At home, she looks her age (whatever that age is) because everybody knows her age. She looks her age because she knows her role. But, now, she is about to enter a nightclub, in a strange town, for the first time in twenty years, alone. She puts the hat on. She takes it off. She realizes that panic is about to overtake her, and so she throws the hat onto the night table, scrubs her face in cold water as harshly as she once scrubbed mine, puts on a high-necked white blouse and a black skirt and black high-heeled shoes, pulls her hair cruelly back from her forehead, knots it, and throws a black shawl over her head and shoulders. The intention of all this is to make her look elderly. The effect is to make her look juvenile. Sharon curses, but the taxi is waiting. She grabs her handbag, runs to the elevator, walks swiftly through the lobby, and gets to the taxi. She, certainly, anyway, Jaime’s brilliant eyes inform her, looks like a Yankee—or a gringo—tourist.
The nightclub is located in what was certainly a backwater, if not, indeed, a swamp, before the immense hotel which houses it was built. It is absolutely hideous, so loud, so blatant, so impervious and cruel, that, facing it causes mere vulgarity to seem an irrecoverable state of grace. Sharon is now really frightened, her hands are shaking. She lights a cigarette.
“I must find someone,” she says, to Jaime. “I will not be long.”
She has no way of realizing, at that moment, that the entire militia would have trouble driving Jaime away. Sharon has now become his property. This lady, he knows, is in deep trouble. And it is not an ordinary trouble: because this is a lady.
“Certainly, Señora,” says Jaime, with a smile, and gets out of the cab, and comes to open the door for her.
“Thank you,” Sharon says, and walks quickly toward the garish doors, wide open. There is no doorman visible. But there will certainly be a doorman inside.
Now, it must all be played by ear. And all that holds her up, my mother, who once dreamed of being a singer, is her private knowledge of what she is doing in this place.
She enters, in fact, the hotel lobby, keys, registration, mail, cashier, bored clerks (mainly white, and decidedly pale) with no one paying her the slightest attention. She walks as though she knows exactly where she is going. The nightclub is on the left, down a flight of stairs. She turns left, and walks down the stairs.
No one has stopped her yet.
“Señorita—?”
She has never seen a photograph of Pietro. The man before her is bland and swarthy. The light is too dim (and her surroundings too strange) for her to be able to guess his age; he does not seem unfriendly. Sharon smiles.
“Good evening. I hope I’m in the right place. This is——?” and she stammers the name of the nightclub.
“Sí, Señorita.”
“Well—I’m supposed to meet a friend here, but the flight I meant to take was overbooked, and so I was forced to take an earlier one. So, I’m a little early. Could you hide me at a table, in a corner, somewhere?”
“Certainly. With pleasure.” He leads her through the crowded room. “What is the name of your friend?”
Her mind dries up, she must go for broke. “It’s actually more in the nature of business. I am waiting for a Señor Alvarez. I am Mrs. Rivers. From New York.”
“Thank you.” He seats her at a table, against the wall. “Will you have a drink while waiting?”
“Yes. Thank you. A screwdriver.”
He bows, whoever he is, and walks away.
Two down! thinks Sharon. And she is now very calm.
This is a nightclub, and so the music is—“live.” Sharon’s days with the drummer come back to her. Her days as a singer come back to her. They do not, as she is to make very vivid to me, much later, come back with the rind of regret. She and the drummer lost each other—that was that; she was not equipped to be a singer, and that was that. Yet, she remembers what she and the drummer and the band attempted, she knows from whence they came. If I remember “Uncloudy Day” because I remember myself sitting on my mother’s knee when I first heard it
, she remembers “My Lord and I”: And so, we’ll walk together, my Lord and I. That song is Birmingham, her father and her mother, the kitchens, and the mines. She may never, in fact, ever have particularly liked that particular song, but she knows about it, it is a part of her. She slowly realizes that this is the song, which, to different words, if words indeed there are, the young people on the bandstand are belting, or bolting out. And they know nothing at all about the song they are singing: which causes Sharon to wonder if they know anything about themselves at all. This is the first time that Sharon has been alone in a very long time. Even now, she is alone merely physically, in the same way, for example, that she is alone when she goes shopping for her family. Shopping, she must listen, she must look, say yes to this, say no to that, she must choose: she has a family to feed. She cannot poison them, because she loves them. And now she finds herself listening to a sound she has never heard before. If she were shopping, she could not take this home and put it on the family table for it would not nourish them. My gal and I! cries the undernourished rock singer, whipping himself into an electronic orgasm. But no one who had ever had a lover, a mother or father, or a Lord, could sound so despairingly masturbatory. For it is despair that Sharon is hearing, and despair, whether or not it can be taken home and placed on the family table, must always be respected. Despair can make one monstrous, but it can also make one noble: and here these children are, in the arena, up for grabs. Sharon claps for them, because she prays for them. Her screwdriver comes, and she smiles up at a face she cannot see. She sips her drink. She stiffens: the children are about to go into their next number: and she looks up into another face she cannot see.
The children begin their number, loud: “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.”
“You Mrs. Rivers? You waiting for me?”
“I think so. Won’t you sit down?”
He sits down, facing her. Now, she sees him.
Again—thinking of me, and Fonny, and the baby, cursing herself for being so inept, knowing herself to be encircled, trapped, her back to the wall, his back to the door—she yet must go for broke.
If Beale Street Could Talk Page 13
