“I was told that a certain Mr. Pietro Alvarez worked here. Are you Pietro Alvarez?”
She sees him. And yet, of course, at the same time, she doesn’t.
“Maybe. What you want to see him about?”
Sharon wants a cigarette, but she is afraid her hand will tremble. She picks up her screwdriver in both hands, and sips it, slowly, rather thanking God, now, for the shawl, which she can maneuver to shadow her face. If she can see him, he can also see her. She is silent for a moment. Then she puts down her drink and she picks up a cigarette.
“May I have a light, please?”
He lights it. She takes off the shawl.
“I do not especially want to see Mr. Alvarez. I want to see Mrs. Victoria Rogers. I am the mother-in-law, to be, of the man she has accused of raping her, and who is now in prison, in New York.”
She watches him. He watches her. Now, she begins to see him.
“Well, lady, you got one hell of a son-in-law, let me tell you that.”
“I also have one hell of a daughter. Let me tell you that.”
The moustache he has grown to make him look older twitches. He runs his hands through his thick black hair.
“Look. The kid’s been through enough. More than enough. Leave her alone.”
“A man is about to die, for something he didn’t do. Can we leave him alone?”
“What makes you think he didn’t do it?”
“Look at me!”
The children on the bandstand finish their set, and go off, and, immediately, the jukebox takes over: Ray Charles, “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”
“What you want me to look at you for?”
The waiter comes.
“What are you drinking? Señor?” Sharon put out her cigarette, and immediately lights another.
“It’s on me. Give me the usual. And give the lady what she’s drinking.”
The waiter goes.
“Look at me.”
“I’m looking at you.”
“Do you think I love my daughter?”
“Frankly—it’s hard to believe you have a daughter.”
“I’m about to become a grandmother.”
“From—?”
“Yes.”
He is young, very, very young, but also very old; but not old in the way that she had expected him to be. She had expected the age of corruption. She is confronting the age of sorrow. She is confronting torment.
“Do you think that I would marry my daughter to a rapist?”
“You might not know.”
“Look at me again.”
And he does. But it does not help him.
“Look. I wasn’t there. But Victoria swears it was him. And she’s been through shit, baby, she’s been through some shit, and I don’t want to put her through no more! I’m sorry, lady, but I don’t care what happens to your daughter—” He stops. “She’s going to have a baby?”
“Yes.”
“What you want from me? Can’t you leave us alone? We just want to be left alone.”
Sharon says nothing.
“Look. I ain’t no American. You got all them lawyers and folks up there, why you coming to me? Shit—I’m sorry, but I ain’t nothing. I’m an Indian, wop, spic, spade—name it, that’s me. I got my little thing going here, and I got Victoria, and, lady, I don’t want to put her through no more shit; I’m sorry, lady, but I really just can’t help you.”
He starts to rise—he does not want to cry before her. Sharon takes his wrist. He sits down, one hand before his face.
Sharon takes out her wallet.
“Pietro—I can call you that, because I am old enough to be your mother. My son-in-law is your age.”
He leans his head on one hand, and looks at her.
Sharon hands him the photograph of Fonny and myself.
“Look at it.”
He does not want to, but he does.
“Are you a rapist?”
He looks up at her.
“Answer me. Are you?”
The dark eyes, in the stolid face, staring, now directly into my mother’s eyes, make the face electrical, light a fire in the darkness of a far-off hill: he has heard the question.
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Do you think I have come here to make you suffer?”
“No.”
“Do you think I am a liar?”
“No.”
“Do you think I am crazy?—we are all a little crazy, I know. But really crazy?”
“No.”
“Then, will you take this photograph home, to Victoria, and ask her really to think about it, really to study it? Hold her in your arms. Do that. I am a woman. I know that she was raped, and I know—well—I know what women know. But I also know that Alonzo did not rape her. And I say that, to you, because I know that you know what men know. Hold her in your arms.” She stares at him an instant; he stares at her. “And—will you call me tomorrow?” She gives him the name and the phone number of the hotel. He writes it down. “Will you?”
He looks at her, now very hard and cold. He looks at the phone number. He looks at the photograph.
He pushes both toward Sharon.
“No,” he says, and rises, and leaves.
Sharon sits there. She listens to the music. She watches the dancers. She forces herself to finish her second, unwanted drink. She cannot believe that what is happening is actually happening. But it is happening. She lights a cigarette. She is acutely aware, not merely of her color, but of the fact that in the sight of so many witnesses, her position, ambiguous upon her entrance, is now absolutely clear: the twenty-two-year-old boy she has traveled so far to see has just walked out on her. She wants to cry. She also wants to laugh. She signals for the waiter.
“Sí—?”
“What do I owe you?”
The waiter looks bewildered. “But nothing, Señora. Señor Alvarez has made himself responsible.”
She realizes that his eyes hold neither pity, nor scorn. This is a great shock to her, and it brings tears to her eyes. To hide this, she bows her head and arranges her shawl. The waiter moves away. Sharon leaves five dollars on the table. She walks to the door. The bland, swarthy man opens it for her.
“Thank you, Señora. Good-night. Your taxi is waiting for you. Please come again.”
“Thank you,” my mother says, and smiles, and walks up the stairs.
She walks through the lobby. Jaime is leaning against the taxi. His face brightens when he sees her, and he opens the door for her.
“What time will you need me tomorrow?” he asks her.
“Is nine o’clock too early?”
“But, no.” He laughs. “I am always up before six.”
The car begins to move.
“Beautiful,” says Sharon—swinging her foot, thinking ahead.
And the baby starts kicking, waking me up at night. Now that Mama is in Puerto Rico, it is Ernestine and Joseph who keep watch over me. I am afraid to quit my job, because I know we need the money. This means that I very often miss the six o’clock visit.
It seems to me that if I quit my job, I’ll be making the six o’clock visit forever. I explain this to Fonny, and he says he understands, and, in fact, he does. But understanding doesn’t help him at six o’clock. No matter what you understand, you can’t help waiting: for your name to be called, to be taken from your cell and led downstairs. If you have visitors, or even if you have only one visitor, but that visitor is constant, it means that someone outside cares about you. And this can get you through the night, into the day. No matter what you may understand, and really understand, and no matter what you may tell yourself, if no one comes to see you, you are in very bad trouble. And trouble, here, means danger.
Joseph puts it to me very squarely, one Sunday morning. I have been more than usually sick that morning, and Joseph has had to tend to me because Ernestine has a rush job at the home of the actress. I cannot imagine what this thing inside of me is doing, but it appears to
have acquired feet. Sometimes it is still, for days on end, sleeping perhaps, but more probably plotting—plotting its escape. Then, it turns, beating the water, churning, obviously becoming unspeakably bored in this element, and wanting out. We are beginning to have a somewhat acrid dialogue, this thing and I—it kicks, and I smash an egg on the floor, it kicks, and suddenly the coffeepot is upside down on the table, it kicks, and the perfume on the back of my hand brings salt to the roof of my mouth, and my free hand weighs on the heavy glass counter, with enough force to crack it in two. Goddammit. Be patient. I’m doing the best I can—and it kicks again, delighted to have elicited so furious a response. Please. Be still. And then, exhausted, or, as I suspect, merely cunning, it is still, having covered my forehead with sweat, and having caused me to vomit up my breakfast, and go to the bathroom—uselessly—about four or five times. But it really is very cunning, it intends to live: it never moves while I am riding the subway, or when I am crossing a crowded street. But it grows heavier and heavier, its claims become more absolute with every hour. It is, in fact, staking its claim. The message is that it does not so much belong to me—though there is another, gentler kick, usually at night, signifying that it has no objection to belonging to me, that we may even grow to be fond of each other—as I belong to it. And then it hauls off again, like Muhammad Ali, and I am on the ropes.
I do not recognize my body at all, it is becoming absolutely misshapen. I try not to look at it, because I simply do not recognize it. Furthermore, I sometimes take something off in the evening, and have difficulty getting back into it in the morning. I can no longer wear high heels, they distort my sense of balance as profoundly as one’s vision is distorted if one is blind in one eye. I have never had breasts, or a behind, but I am beginning to have them now. It seems to me that I am gaining weight at the rate of about three hundred pounds an hour, and I do not dare speculate on what I will probably look like by the time this thing inside of me finally kicks itself out. Lord. And yet, we are beginning to know each other, this thing, this creature, and I, and sometimes we are very, very friendly. It has something to say to me, and I must learn to listen—otherwise, I will not know what to say when it gets here. And Fonny would never forgive me for that. After all, it was I who wanted this baby, more than he. And, at a depth beneath and beyond all our troubles, I am very happy. I can scarcely smoke at all anymore, it has seen to that. I have acquired a passion for cocoa, and doughnuts, and brandy is the only alcohol which has any taste at all. So, Ernestine casually brings over a few bottles from the actress’s house. “She’ll never miss them, baby. The way they drink?”
On this Sunday morning, Joseph serves me my third cup of cocoa, the previous two having been kicked right back up, and sits down at the table before me, very stern.
“Do you want to bring this baby here, or not?”
The way he looks at me, and the way he sounds, scares me half to death.
“Yes,” I say, “I do.”
“And you love Fonny?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Then, I’m sorry, but you going to have to quit your job.”
I watch him.
“I know you worried about the money. But you let me worry about that. I got more experience. Anyway, you ain’t making no damn money. All you doing is wearing yourself out, and driving Fonny crazy. You keep on like you going, you going to lose that baby. You lose that baby, and Fonny won’t want to live no more, and you’ll be lost and then I’ll be lost, everything is lost.”
He stands up and walks to the window, his back to me. Then, he faces me again. “I’m serious, Tish.”
I say, “I know you are.”
Joseph smiles. “Listen, little girl. We got to take care of each other in this world, right? Now: there are some things I can do that you can’t do. That’s all. There’s things I can do that you can’t do—and things you can do that I can’t do, just like I can’t have your baby for you. I would if I could. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you—you know that?” And he watches me, still smiling.
“Yes. I know that.”
“And there are things you can do for Fonny that I can’t do—right?”
“Yes.”
Joseph walks up and down the kitchen. “Young folks hate to hear this—I did, when I was young—but you are young. Child, I wouldn’t lose neither one of you for all the goddamn coffee in Brazil—but you young. Fonny ain’t hardly much more than a boy. And he’s in trouble no boy should be in. And you all he’s got, Tish. You are all he’s got. I’m a man, and I know what I’m talking about. You understand me?”
“Yes.”
He sits down before me again. “You got to see him every day, Tish. Every day. You take care of Fonny. We’ll take care of the rest. All right?”
“All right.”
He kisses my tears.
“Get that baby here, safe and sound. We’ll get Fonny out of jail. I promise. Do you promise?”
I smile, and I say, “Yes. I promise.”
The next morning, I am, anyway, far too ill to be able to go to work and Ernestine calls the store to tell them so. She says that she, or I, will be coming in to collect my paycheck in the next few days.
So, that is that, and here we go. There is a level on which, if I’m to be honest, I must say that I absolutely hated it—: having nothing to do. But this forced me to recognize, finally, that I had clung to my job in order to avoid my trouble. Now, I was alone, with Fonny, my baby, and me.
But Joseph was right, and Fonny is radiant. On the days I do not see Hayward, I see Fonny twice a day. I am always there for the six o’clock visit. And Fonny knows that I will be there. It is very strange, and I now begin to learn a very strange thing. My presence, which is of no practical value whatever, which can even be considered, from a practical point of view, as a betrayal, is vastly more important than any practical thing I might be doing. Every day, when he sees my face, he knows, again, that I love him—and God knows I do, more and more, deeper and deeper, with every hour. But it isn’t only that. It means that others love him, too, love him so much that they have set me free to be there. He is not alone; we are not alone. And if I am somewhat terrified by the fact that I no longer have anything which can be called a waistline, he is delighted. “Here she come! Big as two houses! You sure it ain’t twins? or triplets? Shit, we might make history.”
Throwing back his head, holding on to the telephone, looking me in the eye, laughing.
And I understand that the growth of the baby is connected with his determination to be free. So. I don’t care if I get to be as big as two houses. The baby wants out. Fonny wants out. And we are going to make it: in time.
Jaime is prompt, and Sharon is in the favella by nine thirty. Jaime knows the location, roughly, of the particular dwelling, but he does not know the lady—at least, he is not sure that he does. He is still thinking about it when Sharon steps out of the taxi.
Hayward had tried to warn Sharon by telling her that he had never been able to describe a favella and that he very much doubted, if, after her visit, she would wish to try. It is bitter. The blue sky above, and the bright sun; the blue sea, here, the garbage dump, there. It takes a moment to realize that the garbage dump is the favella. Houses are built on it—dwellings; some on stilts, as though attempting to rise above the dung heap. Some have corrugated metal roofs. Some have windows. All have children.
Jaime walks beside Sharon, proud to be her protector, uneasy about the errand. The smell is fantastic—but the children, sliding up and down their mountain, making the air ring, dark, half naked, with their brilliant eyes, their laughter, splashing into and out of the sea, do not seem to care.
“This ought to be the place,” Jaime says, and Sharon steps through an archway into a crumbling courtyard. The house which faces her must have been, at some point in time, an extremely important private dwelling. It is not private now. Generations of paint flake off the walls, and the sunlight, which reveals every stain and crack, does not deign to enter th
e rooms: some of which are shuttered, to the extent, that is, that the shutters hold. It is louder than an untrained orchestra in rehearsal and the sound of infants and children is the theme: tremendously developed, in extraordinary harmonies, in the voices of the elders. There seem to be doors everywhere—low, dark, and square.
“I think it might be here,” Jaime says, nervously, and he points to one of the doors. “On the third floor. I think. You say she is blond?”
Sharon looks at him. He is absolutely miserable: he does not want her to go upstairs alone.
She touches his face, and smiles: he suddenly reminds her of Fonny, brings back to her why she is here.
“Wait for me,” she says. “Don’t worry. I won’t be long.”
And she walks through the door and climbs the steps as though she knows exactly where she is going. There are four doors on the third floor. There are no names on any of them. One of them is a little open, and she knocks on it—opening it a little further as she knocks.
“Mrs. Rogers—?”
A very thin girl, with immense dark eyes in a dark face, wearing a flowered housedress, barefoot, steps into the middle of the room. Her curly hair is a muddy blond: high cheekbones, thin lips, wide mouth: a gentle, vulnerable, friendly face. A gold crucifix burns against her throat.
She says, “Señora—?” and then stands still, staring at Sharon with her great eyes, frightened.
“Señora—?”
For Sharon has said nothing, merely stands in the doorway, watching her.
The girl’s tongue moistens her lips. She says, again, “Señora—?”
She does not look her age. She looks like a little girl. Then she moves and the light strikes her differently and Sharon recognizes her.
Sharon leans against the open door, really afraid for a moment that she will fall.
“Mrs. Rogers—?”
The girl’s eyes narrow, her lips curl.
“No, Señora. You are mistaken. I am Sanchez.”
They watch each other. Sharon is still leaning against the door.
The girl makes a movement toward the door, as though to close it. But she does not wish to push Sharon. She does not want to touch her. She takes one step, she stops; she touches the crucifix at her throat, staring at Sharon. Sharon cannot read the girl’s face. There is concern in it, not unlike Jaime’s concern. There is terror in it, too, and a certain covered terrified sympathy.
If Beale Street Could Talk Page 14
