Letty Fox

by Christina Stead

  Her reminiscences of childbirth made them laugh. So long ago, and only one! Or was it two? The stories did not match up. And where was he, the one? Far away, she said. She had a rich daughter-in-law, she said; and the daughter-in-law had a mother so rich, you couldn’t count it, she said; and when the grandmother died, which God forbid, the daughter-in-law so rich and beautiful (with such a pretty face) would come into something, she said. But who lived with her now? A foreigner who couldn’t speak American at all; a German probably, the way she talked. This Edie. Edie itself was certainly a German name

  My grandmother was very unhappy. She had no furniture, but two iron cots and two old armchairs which Grandmother Morgan had got out of her basement, and an assortment of old kitchen things which various friends had contributed. Grandmother wept about her poverty. This was not calculated to impress the Italian, Jewish, and American wives alongside. It did not go at all with her stories of traveling in Europe. She had been a governess at Bismarck-Schoenhausen? Ha-ha. The old lady was a bluff; crazy, said one, meshuggah, said the other. “But, I’m telling you, absolutely crazy. Old women get like that, and it looks like she has no boy at all. No one comes to visit her. Where is this rich dotter-in-law? It’s all a fake, they get that way. A bluff, that’s all. Well, maybe she has a boy, who knows, but he never shows up. Something wrong, you think? Who knows, maybe only a loafer, a no good. Either a gangster, eh? In jail? No, no, she is a nice woman. So a nice woman can’t have a gangster, eh? Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  Poor Grandmother sat at the window above the asphalt, in the hot evenings, fanning her pasty little face, listening, with no lights on. She heard everything, she forgot what she could, and invented stories for the next day. I will tell them—I will tell them—and, at night, she turned on her pillow—why does he leave his old mother alone like this? For a black-haired girl with no children, a nobody, not even money, nothing! Why? What use to have children? A son they say; better, a daughter. A daughter stays with her mother—they understand each other. A son goes off with a black-haired girl who flops her curls at him; she knows nothing, and he’s a smart man—or was. A college graduate! But what does it all matter when a girl with long black hair, like a high-school girl—what does she know? She doesn’t care because she doesn’t know. Young, too young. They don’t care for us, and who cares for us? I’m old, I’m old.

  A stranger, Edie, nice, but English, cares for me. Mathilde doesn’t care for me. Why should she? Look at the trouble my own son caused her! And the children, dear little children—it’s no use asking anything from them. They have their life to lead. We lived ours. Let them be. They shouldn’t have our tears mingled with their little troubles. Poor little things. No father. Grandmother often wept.

  In the next room lived Edie, more and more discontented. Her wiry, brunette type did not appeal to New York men. She did not know the right answers. She had a whining, pert way. She looked about for work, but couldn’t join the union till she had a job, nor get a job till she joined the union, so she said. Though she was a legally admitted immigrant, she now wanted to return. She had seen New York at its worst, with its dust, heat, abrupt, rude, overworked men, and painted, rude, overworked women; its sex laxity and roughness. In certain society circles, girls were supposed to kiss men and think nothing of it; it was all a part of their training. Here, girls were supposed to sleep with men and think nothing of it; more than that, provide the bed, sandwiches, and beer; and never expect even a telephone call of thanks.

  “Look, baby, this is just between you and me; we won’t make anything of it?” and “Say, we’re a new country, we haven’t got all those fancy manners they have over there; we’re new, we haven’t got the time.”

  Dreadful land. She wanted to return to her “nice, comfortable home.” In the hot evenings, after she had wandered all over town, wearing out her feet in her cheap, high heels and feeling the misery of the girl who isn’t the local type, she would return to the whining old woman who had tried to rest during the heat, and who had lived on porridge or a little chicken soup, or a bit of a chop, “What can I eat? What can I do? I’m old!”

  She paid her rent out as agreed, and saw her money dwindling. She began to be angry with the old woman. She found out the truth about the old woman’s son: Solander and Persia were not married. Her respect for the old woman dropped. She met Lily Spontini, complained, and found a friend. Lily knew her old aunt. She had been jealous of Edie, her supplanter. Now she said, in her slow voice, soft and obstructed, like someone in a nightmare, “I’d like to come and live with you, too. You know I’ve always lived with Aunty. We got on all right. I know how to manage her.” She laughed gently, “She’s difficult, but we get on all right. I’ll get another cot. Where I live, I’m all alone. A furnished room. I don’t like it. Now my cousin Bert, he’s so silly, I don’t know what’s the matter with him, something wrong, maybe; he tried to get in my room the other night; he said he’s got no place to sleep. He said the cops are after him. He’s crazy, I think. When I went to work in the morning, there he was on the landing asleep. The next night he tried to climb up over a roof next door, a garage. He called to me. I looked out and there he was in the moonlight. And he don’t seem to know he does wrong. He said, ‘Help me in, Lily.’ Of course, I wouldn’t. I’m his first cousin. So I don’t want to live alone. You see it’s inconvenient, and men follow you. You know,” she said, “the man on the bus last night, coming up, asked me my address. ‘Is this where you get off, girlie, what’s your street?’ he said, and he said he signed off at 128th Street and to come to the barn, or he’d come to meet me. Now he could easily find out where I live.”

  With a vacant smile, Lily looked at Edie, asking for help. Edie was delighted, “All right, you want to share the rent? I can’t stand the old witch any more, pore old thing. She mutters like an old three-times-three-make-up-nine.”

  “It’s worry,” said Lily, kindly.

  “Yes, I know she means well,” said Edie, “but you know she always lied to me; she said her son was married and I don’t know what.”

  “Yes,” said Lily dreamily, “yes, she says things, poor Aunty.” Grandmother Jenny revived to find her dear Lily with her again. Lily brought a few things from her room; and bought a bridge table with four chairs she saw advertised in the daily papers, modern style, nickel tubes and leatherette. Lily dug out curtains from Grandmother’s boxes that were known to her and that Grandmother had carried round with her from apartment to apartment for forty years or more. Some of them came from the Bismarck-Schoenhausen time, when, a young woman with old European notions, she had begun to collect a trousseau; and these particular curtains, which had never been used, fine thick muslin with tatted edges, Lily now hung. She put up two pictures a boy friend had given her, one showing Pierrot, white on black, and one with a Columbine asleep under a tree.

  On the Saturday morning, when Edie was helping her zealously, the first time she had ever helped in the house, Lily confessed timidly, “This boy friend, he’s English, too; he wants that I should marry him. He would get his citizenship if he is married to an American, and he wants my cousin Solander to give him a little money to start with, only a loan and he could go into a toy business, a leather business maybe; I told him handbags, but he calls it saddlery, that’s what they call it in England.” Timidly, she laughed. “So, I thought if I moved in with my aunt I would save the money. And, you see,” she said, “my aunt and I have lived together so long, it is a pleasure for me anyhow.”

  After tacking up the two pictures which they both loudly admired, Lily added, with an even more broken and breathless accent, “And Mathilde, she is a nice woman. I haven’t nothing against her, you know, and the children are nice children, but they have their own troubles, and they don’t want no bother with my old aunt. It’s natural. I was lonely there in the furnished room; and then the men follow you. They want to know, ‘Where do you live? Do you live alone? Haven’t you got any family? Can I come and pay you a visit?’ I want to get married an
d have a nice place. I was married, but I lived with my husband’s parents. They were real nice to me. But he was dying, and he died in the bed with me; and there was no other bed—I didn’t have no real home.”

  She laughed, a sweet, troubled laugh. Edie looked at her narrowly. Edie was herself a poor girl needing money to get married and she was not convinced that Lily was really naive. They both knew, as hundreds of people knew, in the Hart-Morgan circle, that Grandmother Fox had five thousand dollars. Lily said somnolently, almost whispering, “Did you see Persia? Before you left London?”

  “Yes, of course, I saw a lot of her, and especially him.” Her bad temper betrayed her. “He didn’t tell me they weren’t married.”

  “Well,” said Lily, easily, “they will be soon, I guess. Maybe she’ll have a baby.”

  “Before getting married?” Edie was severe.

  Lily laughed, “Well, why not? I wouldn’t blame her.”

  Edie said, “Why, the old woman would never leave her money to an illegitimate baby.” She gasped slightly, in excitement.

  Lily plucked at her dress. She answered in a dreamy voice, “My aunt hasn’t any money. She hasn’t anything to leave, illegitimate, not illegitimate. You think they wouldn’t come to see her, if she had some money to leave?” She laughed frankly, at Edie, “They aren’t slow, the Morgans. They’re some lively crowd. Where money is concerned. Friendly, too. Good sports. They are all right. I got nothing against them.”

  She laughed with pleasure.

  21

  The girls quarreled and would not clean the flat. They were both disappointed that each had to pay the full rent, agreed upon separately, with Mrs. Jenny Fox. They lived in the same room, and that room was, after all, the living room, into which the hall door opened directly. They had no privacy and it was ten dollars weekly.

  Grandmother Jenny, tormented and half-crazed by the worry about money and the presence of two noisy young women in the place, with their cooking, complaints, and washing, harassed them and muttered at them.

  When Lily was laid off for an indefinite time, and the two girls had nothing to do all day, Grandmother entered that region of personal misery and isolation which seems like madness to others. She hardly recognized anyone; she shouted to herself in the kitchen. She thought of the way she had lived in London, of Grandmother Morgan’s hotel and of our place. We were now living in a place on Riverside Drive with five rooms.

  Grandmother Morgan’s youngest sister, a childless, married woman in her early forties, who lived in East Orange, had taken Jacky for an indefinite stay. I lived with Mother and my little sister. To Grandmother, it seemed that there was room for her with us, and that she could have been a nurse for Andrea. She did not know how old she was. Her neighbors did not believe her stories about Riverside Drive. She tried to forestall Edie’s gossip and Lily’s naivetes by saying, In London, she had lived like a queen, with a housekeeper and a maid, with her son. But now she had no news from her son, perhaps he was dead. He was wandering in Europe. What was he doing? Something he could not tell her? Perhaps others had news. She had none. God knew what people did these days in Europe. He would return no more to the U.S., and had abandoned her. She began to complain about her two young women. Lily was lazy; Edie would not pay the rent and told lies about her. Edie wanted to go back to England.

  Lily Spontini visited everyone. She went from one person to another at all hours of the day. She had hundreds of acquaintances. Sometimes she induced Mathilde to entertain Grandmother Fox, even though my mother now hated the old woman who asked so many pressing questions about Solander, and who begged endlessly to live with us.

  Grandmother dreamed of Mathilde’s meager invitations for the whole week before. Looking very worn, she would arrive at last at our place on a Saturday and receive my fierce caresses, which were cruel, not kind. The lamentations she made over the fatherless Andrea were so heart-rending and adroit that Mother pretended as much as possible that Andrea was sleeping; or else she sent her to a neighbor. Grandmother, clothed, in her right mind, would sit, chat, and soon begin to beam with hope.

  “Well, my dear,” said Grandmother, “if you only would pay me a little visit! But why should you? Such a hole! Not for you. Not nice neighbors.

  “But, Madame, at last here I am with the Herrschaften! Do you know what that is, Mathilde? It means elegant company, in German. Well, if you know it, you know it, Mattie. Is it a crime to tell you? And have you been enjoying yourself? You must enjoy yourself; what use is it to cry? I did not say you cried! Misunderstood, we gather false impressions. That is a poem, my dear. You know I would not—Have you seen Phyllis’s new boy? She’s marrying again I hear. Well, what kind of a wild animal is he? What sort of a puppy, Mattie? What? What do you say? I don’t hear you! I’m getting deaf as a post! … What about next week? I am paying attention. (Like a post.) What? She says something, she even hollers at me—I don’t hear anything. What is he, Mathilde, a businessman? What kind of business— there are all kinds? For the third time—very well, but I didn’t hear what you said the first time. So he’s coming here next week? Next we-ek? Urn? … I can’t help it, my dear; you don’t understand … and Lily tells me you were at your mother’s and then you went with her to visit someone, Dr. Burning. Burning as a flame, ha? And did you like his lady, his wife? What? No family? No sweetheart either? A bachelor, eh? Does he live with his mother? And why not? … Ah! I see, his mother lives in the Bronx? In an apartment, I suppose. What sort of an apartment, Mathilde? … I know you didn’t see it, my dear, but you must have heard. How funny you are, dear! … Has she three rooms, four rooms, four rooms and a kitchen—that’s what I mean? I mean, how much rent, now? … Well, because he’s a medical man, he can’t talk about apartments, you mean? That’s rubbish. Probably, three rooms and a kitchen, don’t you think? Enough room for him—but who knows what he does? … Listen, my darling, it’s very unpleasant the way I live—you know that—you have seen—a shame for you to see it, a pigsty! Well, the other day, Lily came in, little Lily, my Lily, you know I call her my Lily.” She laughed, “My Lily, Mrs. Spontini. She said, she’ll clean up the place a bit because she was free now, laid off for three weeks nearly—my tea too, she forgot the tea, for she didn’t get her strike pay, but she will bring me new tea, never fear. Then she wanted to visit her mother-in-law, so I had a bed empty—oh, such a fine mother-in-law no one ever had, what do you think? Probably the mother-in-law is better than the daughter-in-law in this case. Well, not all are so good. But sometimes the daughter-in-law loves the mother-in-law, a nice, quiet woman, better than her own mamma. There was a case in my own house when I was young. Oh, dear, dear! I think of it now. It was a young man. He came to hear me play the piano every day. He loved Beethoven. He had a real musical sense. Where is he now? When young, they’re all nice. Probably I wouldn’t like him now. But then he said, ‘I love you better than my own mother, Mrs. Fox.’ She was no good. A fly woman. No wonder, eh? … What did Lily tell me now? Pooh, all her tales—I can’t—a head like a sieve, I’ve got. Yes, now I know. She said her mother-in-law has three rooms and a kitchen all for herself. Too much. It-is-too-much, said Lily. How stupid! She drags her words out of her mouth. For thirty-eight dollars monthly. A palace, she says, really, a palace. And Kirkland Avenue. Where is that, Mattie? That’s Coney Island? Not a nice quarter? But in summer, just think, you get the air; the houses are all empty she says, to let; you can get bargains, and think of the air. Well, it’s fine for children. But for old people like me—what do they want with sea air? Naturally, if I could—that’s really a bargain, thirty-eight dollars and a palace and the sea air. I love the boardwalk! And think of how the children could play there and on the sand? Well, for summer only, naturally. Also I hear the chicken is good, there. The Jews like it so much, you get plenty and cheap; cheap and good. They have nice taste in some things, you know. Chicken is excellent for children. Meat is too much for their stomachs, especially in summer … Once in London, she—what am I saying?
A lady friend of mine, a nice Irish woman, brought me a little half of chicken. You need it, she said to me; you’re old and can only take little, light things. In some things, you see, the English are nice, refined; they are thoughtful. But, of course, she is only a stranger. What does she really know? Well, Lily brought me this piece of chicken, a breast it was, with the compliments of Mrs. Spontini, her mother-in-law. Very thoughtful! But it wasn’t much, not good, not good quality. I know how to buy better. I could buy a whole chicken for a whole family and you would see something— naturally, for a little piece, you don’t get the best quality. Why should they? And then … Yes, yes, yes, talk about things like that. She talked for an hour about Mrs. Spontini and the breast of chicken. It was nice of course, but not what she made out. Yes, yes, she loves her mother-in-law. That’s a very odd thing, but some do. I said, Why don’t you take your mother-in-law a breast of chicken? It is not her place to give you breast of chicken? Well, she said, she is rich. Stupid! Thirty-eight dollars is certainly not a high rent … Yes, yes, and now Lily must be careful with her money. The boss signed with the C.I.O. See, he bought a machine worth a thousand dollars, and he saves so much, his cost is one-tenth of what it was. And then Dinkle, Lily’s friend, the manager, said Lily must be laid off for a while … I, do you hear, I say a worker, do you hear, a worker works; a worker must work or have money. I have no money; what next? … I told her. She said she was in the Bronx and saw a job in the paper. Then she went to the address in the Bronx and she met a boy from the factory. He told her that she must go back, the strike is finished, and when she puts in an appearance, she’ll get strike pay. But she got there too late. She was terribly disappointed. She ran, but it’s too far. And you know, with something tied on her, a picket they call it, she goes up and down, up and down; and then she gets tired of it. I tell her a worker must work … Now she will go back to work. In the meantime she went to see her mother-in-law, she had the chance, and she was able to bring me back a breast of chicken. Well, sometimes strangers, you see, are closer to you than your own. Why is that? They see you, they like you and—What am I talking about?”