So tense, so distorted, so small.
It’s almost six. The hour hand’s dropped down, as if defeated, at last, by the force of gravity, a force which the minute hand is still trying to fight. Now it seems to have come to a stop. It’s stuck there, just short of its mark.
I stare at it thinking, I should get up from the floor already. I should take hold of the clock, ignoring its curvy surface, which shows a mirror image of my hand, and of my split lifeline. I should wind up the key, right there in the back of it, so that time’s gonna move forward, and the little hammer at the top’s gonna hurry up and at last, strike them bells.
Just then, quick footsteps can be heard, climbing the stairs. And by the rhythm I know who it is—and so does Lenny.
So we hold each other and struggle, somehow, to our feet, and I hand him his crutch so he can reach the entrance door, in a big hurry, and like, greet his son.
And watching him as he turns away from me, I think to myself, He’s afraid, he don’t want to tell me nothing—but still, I’m glad he’s started to open the door for Ben.
Things could be so much simpler. If only...
How sad it is that at this moment, when Lenny is injured and here, behind him, I’m holding my belly because of this dull pain, this is the time we keep ourselves apart, in an effort, a lame effort to play our game, play it now in front of the boy, as if, I swear, as if all is well.
Oh, at last—the alarm! The ringing of them bells! The sound of laughter... How lonely it must be, to be the keeper of secrets, the inventor of lies.
Chapter 11 In My Defense
As Told by Anita
In my defense I have this to say: When men notice me, when the lusty glint appears in their eyes, which betrays how, in their heads, they’re stripping me naked—it’s me they accuse of being indecent.
Problem is, men notice me all the time.
How can a girl like me ever claim to be innocent? Even if I haven’t done nothing wrong, I’m already soiled, simply because of their dirty thoughts.
And sometimes, it’s because of their actions. Like the time I was twelve, and Johnny shoved me into the bathroom and pinned me to the floor. And afterwards, he pointed his finger at me, saying I made him do it, ‘cause to him, I looked sexy, more sexy even than my ma, whom he was gonna take on a date, just as soon as she would come back from her evening shift and like, freshen up. But I, he said, was fresh anyhow.
So I try to forget the yellow stain at the foot of the toilet, and the hard, sticky floor, both of which took care of the freshness all right—but still, to this day I go on learning how to live with the blame.
And it don’t matter, really, if I try to keep my eyes lowered, and stay out of the way, and wrap myself in something modest, like this old, rumpled blanket which I’ve just fetched from the sofa, ‘cause any second now, they may be coming in here.
So I bundle myself, bringing the corners of the blanket under my arms, and tying them tightly over my breast, so the edge winds up gathering the flesh, a bit like the pleats of a curtain. Oh shoot, I don’t hardly care! I’ve come to dislike the way I look, and dread that thing in me, which they see as a power—but I know as a curse.
The more bewitched they claim to be by the way I look—the more I reckon I’m in danger. I swear, I’ve had it up to here with men who say they was ruined by a woman.
In the end, they tend to recover, and one way or another build themselves back up. And they do it, without fail, by destroying her. So, like ma says: to keep myself out of trouble, and my name clean, it’s strength that I need—not power.
Which is why I’ve turned away, the moment Ben came in and was kissed by his pa. I knew right away that I must put as much distance as I can between us. Even there, from across the room, I could feel, like, something which couldn’t be denied, passing between his eyes and mine, behind Lenny’s back.
Right now, Ben’s trying to shrink away. His back’s kinda bent, his shoulders—angled forward, like, to defend himself, in his own timid way, from his father, and from any further contact, any further show of love. And his gaze, hanging heavy under those long, dark lashes, seems so sad, so full of regret, because of a moment, a brief moment of joy being held in that embrace.
The features of his face, they’re so fine. They seem to be penciled in. By some mother-like instinct—which is totally new to me—I can tell Ben’s kinda lost. He’s like a boy, longing to feel the worn-out, familiar feel of his mama’s apron, and breathe her good smell, and just stand there, giving himself up, and crying, and waiting for her to wipe his wet face, and take away the hurt.
In my head I can only imagine how shocked he must feel—despite knowing about Lenny and me—to find me in this place, instead of his ma. You can tell he’s swamped, totally swamped by this new reality, as well as by his memories, and like, hopelessly sunk in his daydreams. Somewhere deep inside, he wants me to be her.
I bet he has an old, vague image of his ma, from a long time ago. By the way he looks at me, I reckon he can find her, somehow, in my face. For him, I ain’t here at all. I’m see-through.
When Ben realizes his mistake, he seems to become annoyed. I bet he’s worried, worried about his ma, and about the past that keeps haunting him, keeps coming up to the surface. Me, I can’t even define how he relates to me, exactly, ‘cause it keeps changing. In the last two days, ever since I met Ben, I’ve found him confused—and confusing:
I pity him, seeing how consumed he is by desire. His entire body is like, burning up. And his eyes, they’re fluttering around me until—like a moth heading, in a roundabout way, into a light source—they connect with mine. I can sense his hate sometimes, and at once pull back from him, ‘cause I spot how hard his jaw is set, and even, how murderous the spark right there, in that shadow under his lashes, which reminds me of some animal, getting pretty tense, like, getting ready for the kill.
And so, while Lenny and his son huddle together by the door, exchanging words, I sneak out of the living room. First, I tighten the blanket again across my chest. Then I rush past them, across the hall and the corridor, and into the bedroom. From the closet I pull out an ice-blue, long sleeve dress. It’s hers—but all the same, I put it on. It fits. I’m safe. I’m shielded.
After a while I notice that their voices, which have been flaring out in heated talk, have given way to silence. So I crack my door open, and listen, and I can’t hear nothing at all, so I tiptoe down the corridor.
And from here I catch sight of Lenny, lying there across the sofa. After a night with no sleep, fatigue must have caught up to him. His glasses, they’re askew: one lens magnifies the high forehead, the other—his thinning, sleeked-back hair.
My heart aches, it goes out to him: his lips, they’re tight even now, guarding the gate, like, the gate between being awake and dreaming. He don’t talk in his sleep, not even a word—but right now a snore escapes, quite by surprise, from the corner of his mouth. His arms, they’re folded across his chest, like he’s holding himself prisoner.
And around the corner, there’s a sound of steps, so I know Ben’s there. He’s pacing back and forth, this way and that around the walls, like, to measure his cage, same as his father.
I turn back and the minute I mount the bed, I hear someone rapping softly on the closed door, saying, “Anita?”
“What is it, Ben,” I ask, bluntly. “What d’you want?”
His voice is muffled. “Nothing,” he says. “I—I hope you are feeling better this morning,” he says. “I think I am going out, in just a few minutes, to see my mother. I mean, to visit—”
Which takes me completely by surprise, ‘cause since she disappeared, I’ve been waiting to hear word about Natasha. From time to time I would ask Lenny—only to get a kiss and nothing, nothing else in return. So, for the last five years I reckoned she don’t want him to speak. I reckoned it’s for her sake he’s silent.
So now I fling the door open, and as I face Ben I let slip, “You gonna visit her? Like, where? I mean, she’s back?”
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“He did not tell you anything about her, did he,” he says, stating rather than asking. I don’t even have to say it, Ben knows. I can tell he’s been through secrets. Like me, he’s been fooled. He totally gets how it feels.
And so I have to lie, “Tonight, for sure, Lenny’s gonna reveal everything. Really, I swear.”
Ben tries to say something, which curls his lips in a strange way. If not for the bitter look, you could call it laughter. “Would you like to know? Would you? Would you want me to tell you,” he advances, “right here, right now?”
“No,” I insist, hoping he can’t see through me. “I’d rather he did.”
“I see,” he shrugs.
And so I counter, “Do you,” and then we’re just waiting there, on each side of the threshold, not knowing what to say and where to go from here.
Finally Ben comes up with, “So here, here is something I wanted to ask you. Forgive me, I know nothing, really, about you—but please, try to put yourself in my place. Suppose you were going to visit your mother, and wanted to remind her, I mean, about the past. About your childhood, perhaps—”
“The past? My ma isn’t too fond of that. I won’t bring it up with her, if I was you—but of course, if you was to pay her, that’s totally different: she used to be a fortune teller, for real. I bet she could tell you a thing or two about the future.”
With a confused look, he passes a hand through his tousled hair, trying to smooth it the same way as his father—only in his case, it resists and falls right back, over his brow. “Please,” says Ben. “Help me... There is no one else. I mean, no one I can trust. And it is not easy for me to try, to beg you for an answer. I find it nearly impossible, to seek advice like this, without giving up something, some information about my mother; which apparently, you do not even want to hear.”
“So,” I say, “just don’t,” which makes him angry.
“You,” he snaps, “you must find all of this strange, and much too ambiguous.”
“Ambigu-what?” I say. “Just tell me plainly, Ben: what is it you want?”
He stands there, kneading his hands, looking kinda torn. “Mom and I, we have not talked for a long while,” he admits. “I want her to be able to look back, somehow... I mean, I want her not to forget. Now, how would you go about it?”
In spite of the pity I feel for him, I don’t really want to help him. It’s gonna go against me, ‘cause Natasha is my enemy even when she isn’t here. If she wanted to, I reckon she could take my power away.
Go, go away already, I tell him in my mind—but aloud I say, “Just talk to her. She’s gonna get it.”
“No, I am afraid she won’t,” he says, grimly.
Against my interest I pity him again, this time for being so full of doubts, and so sad, and most of all, isolated.
“Just tell her a story,” I suggest. “Bring up something, anything from the heart.”
“I cannot. I do not know how,” he mumbles, painfully.
Me, I must be out of my mind to try to take him out of a tight spot; which in spite of myself, I’m getting closer to doing. “Think of something you share, both of you. You’re gonna be surprised, she’s gonna listen. She’s gonna tell you stories about you, which you don’t even know about yourself.”
“No,” he says, with a grave tone in his voice. “I doubt she can.”
And I say, “Wait—wait here, don’t move. I have an idea.”
Which is the moment when, because of that stupid sense of pity, I ignore this feeling, down in my guts, that tells me to shut the door in his face. Instead, I make a bad mistake: leaving the it open I take a step back, and roll myself over the bed, all the way across, to Lenny’s side. And from his drawer I pull out an album, a thick album with a metal clasp, which locks over the gilded edge of its pages, about which I know: I’m not supposed to know nothing.
Still, I can tell you that there’s one picture, one special picture missing there, in the middle of the second page.
The reason I’m so sure about it, if you must know, is that it took me a few tries—first by trying to pick the corner, then by heating the glue with my hairdryer, which kinda damaged the surface, and later, by threading a floss under it—to remove the picture and finally, stash it away.
“Here,” I say coming back, carrying the album to him. “You must know this album, right? Just look at it together, you and your ma. The rest’s gonna come easy, I promise.”
He smiles, like he’s overcome by a thrill. As if being greeted by an old friend, he passes a hand, so tender like, over the cover, feeling the fine cracks in the leather, the raised spine. Meanwhile, he lets me go on holding the thing. So by now I have to support it with both hands, it’s awful heavy. At last I give up. I take a step back and sit there, on the edge of the bed. Ben draws closer. He unlocks the clasp. Now he’s spreading the pages wide open, right here in my lap, over my wrists.
And together we look at the pages: how they’re turning yellow along the edges, how brown spots are like, blossoming all over them, and how them photos look faded, even though they’re protected, under the seal of clear plastic sheets. On each page there’s glue, lined in strips. It holds the photos in place—but also, because of the acid in it, destroys them.
“God,” he lets out. “It takes so much guessing to study these images. Just like a memory: you are left clinging to something which now, is no longer a record. Instead, it is just... Nothing. I mean, nothing more than a hint, a suggestion.”
With a clap Ben shuts the album, and takes it off my hands, and slips it under his jacket. So now it’s held in place by the close-fitting waistband, and pressed to his chest by both arms. Already I see him standing kinda taller, more erect than earlier this morning. I bet it’s because of the weight, the extra weight he’s carrying now, next to his heart.
Like ma says: the heavier the load—the more you straighten yourself. For me this is something new, something that only now that I’m pregnant, I begin to understand.
My hands, they’re empty now, and like, I can’t give him no help no more. Which wakes me up to a change: from the corner of his eye, he’s looking down at me, and a glint flashes there, under his lashes, a glint which I’ve come to know all too well. It exposes his desire, his craving to touch me. To him, who cares what I have to lose. Like, who cares that I’m carrying a baby inside. Who cares whose wife I am, or whose son he is. Who cares how we got to this place.
Suddenly here we are: a man and a woman and nothing in between—other than a tremble in the air, and a thrill, the sharp thrill of danger.
In a blink of an eye I can see the trap, and I hate him for setting it up—even if he did so without intent. And I hate, hate, hate myself for being caught in it. Sooner or later, my innocence is gonna be called into question, and who’s gonna believe a girl like me?
This brings back a memory of ma calling me Bitch, because of what happened back then, when I was twelve, between Johnny and me. Me, I argued with her, insisting that no, don’t call me that, I get to decide who I am and what I am, and what I would be, I—and nobody else but me. And she countered that if he’d touched me, we already knew—beyond any doubt—what I’d become.
At this point the only thing, the only barrier that seems to make Ben stumble, and holds him back from taking me, is the sight of the dress—which Natasha used to wear—hanging stiffly, kinda like ice, over my body. I find myself grateful, awful grateful to her, ‘cause in a way, she’s shielding me.
This way, he can’t strip me naked—not even in his mind.
So I gather my strength, and before he can pour out his feelings, and confess to have fallen, like, under my power, and tell me he’s ruined, all because of me, I wave my hand and tell him to go, go away already.
Ben seems unhappy to be dismissed so casually. I bet he’s thinking me cruel to him. He’s asking himself, like, Why is the bitch playing so hard to get? She’s drawn me here, to her bed—hasn’t she? He seems so unsure about himself, about what, if anything,
he is supposed to do now. But if he’s feeling ashamed, it’s not for wanting his old man’s woman—but sadly, for what he considers his own flow, his show of impotence.
He hesitates, then turns slowly, to walk out of the bedroom; at which time I can swear I see an outline there, over his shoulder, far in the depth of the corridor. Maybe I’m seeing things, but—for just a second—I detect a flash, reflected like, in someone’s glasses.
Down there in the shadow, someone’s recording every detail, listening to every damn whisper of this scene.
Record. Play: a man and a woman, and nothing in between.
I want to ask, Is it you? Is it you, Lenny? Why ain’t you coming to my help? But instead, I just slam the door shut. All I want to be is alone. Why do I feel guilty when I haven’t done nothing wrong.
Then I raise the corner of the mattress, which is where I’ve stashed away that old picture, the one that was glued in the middle of the second page of the album. The sight of it calms me down, at first.
Apart From Love Page 11
