by Zadie Smith
‘Do you like her?’
Carlene shakily passed Kiki a cup of tea, while Clotilde placed a piece of pie on a fussy china plate next to her on the piano seat. Before Clotilde could be thanked, she was backing out of the room, closing the door behind her.
‘Like . . . ?’
‘Maîtresse Erzulie,’ said Carlene, pointing to the painting. ‘You were admiring her, I thought.’
‘She’s fabulous,’ replied Kiki, only now taking the time to look at her properly. In the centre of the frame there was a tall, naked black woman wearing only a red bandanna and standing in a fantastical white space, surrounded all about by tropical branches and kaleidoscopic fruit and flowers. Four pink birds, one green parrot. Three humming birds. Many brown butterflies. It was painted in a primitive, childlike style, everything flat on the canvas. No perspective, no depth.
‘It’s a Hyppolite. It’s worth a great deal, I believe, but that’s not why I love it. I got it in Haiti itself on my very first visit, before I met my husband.’
‘It’s lovely. I just love portraits. We don’t have any paintings in our house. At least, none of human beings.’
‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ said Carlene and looked stricken. ‘But you must come here whenever you want and look at mine. I have many. They’re my company – they’re the greater part of my joy. I realized that quite recently. But she’s my favourite. She’s a great Voodoo goddess, Erzulie. She’s called the Black Virgin – also, the Violent Venus. Poor Clotilde won’t look at her, can’t even be in the same room as her – did you notice? A superstition.’
‘Really. So she’s a symbol?’
‘Oh, yes. She represents love, beauty, purity, the ideal female and the moon . . . and she’s the myste `re of jealousy, vengeance and discord, and, on the other hand, of love, perpetual help, goodwill, health, beauty and fortune.’
‘Phew. That’s a lot of symbolizing.’
‘Yes, isn’t it? It’s rather like all the Catholic saints rolled into one being.’
‘That’s interesting . . .’ began Kiki shyly, giving herself a moment to remember a thesis of Howard’s, which she now wished to reproduce as her own for Carlene. ‘Because . . . we’re so binary, of course, in the way we think. We tend to think in opposites, in the Christian world. We’re structured like that – Howard always says that’s the trouble.’
‘That’s a clever way to put it. I like her parrots.’
Kiki smiled, relieved she did not need to go any further down this uncertain path.
‘Good parrots. So, does she avenge herself on men?’
‘Yes, I believe so.’
‘I need to get me some of that,’ said Kiki, half under her breath, not really meaning for it to be heard.
‘I think . . .’ murmured Carlene and smiled tenderly at her guest, ‘I think that would be a shame.’
Kiki closed her eyes. ‘Wow. I hate this town sometimes. Everybody knows everybody’s business. Too small by a long way.’
‘Oh, but I’m so glad to see that your spirits haven’t been destroyed by it.’
‘Oh!’ said Kiki, and felt moved by the unsolicited concern. ‘We’ll get by. I’ve been married an awful long time, Carlene. Takes a giant to hurt me.’
Carlene leant back in her chair. Her eyes were pink round their rims and wet.
‘But why shouldn’t you be hurt by it, dear? It’s very hurtful.’
‘Yes . . . of course it is – but . . . I guess I mean that’s not all my life is about. Right now I’m trying to understand what my life’s been for – I feel I’m at that point – and what it will be for. And . . . that’s just a lot more essential for me right now. And Howard’s got to ask those questions for himself. I don’t know . . . we break up, we don’t break up – it’s the same.’
‘I don’t ask myself what did I live for,’ said Carlene strongly. ‘That is a man’s question. I ask whom did I live for.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe you believe that.’ But, looking into her grave eyes, Kiki saw clearly that this is exactly what the woman opposite her did believe, and she felt suddenly vexed by the waste and stupidity of it. ‘I have to say, Carlene, you know . . . I’m afraid I just don’t believe that. I know I didn’t live for anybody – and it just seems to me it’s like taking us all, all women, certainly all black women, three hundred years backwards if you really –’
‘Oh, dear, we’re arguing,’ said Carlene, distressed at the prospect. ‘You mistake me again. I don’t mean to argue a case. It’s just a feeling I have, especially now. I see very clearly recently that in fact I didn’t live for an idea or even for God – I lived because I loved this person. I am very selfish, really. I lived for love. I never really interested myself in the world – my family, yes, but not the world. I can’t make a case for my life, but it is true.’
Kiki regretted raising her voice. The lady was old, the lady was ill. It didn’t matter what the lady believed.
‘You must have a wonderful marriage,’ she said in conciliation. ‘That’s amazing. But for us . . . you know . . . you get to a point where you have an understanding –’
Carlene shushed her and came forward further in her chair. ‘Yes, yes. But you staked your life. You gave somebody your life. You’ve been disappointed.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about disappointed . . . it’s not really a surprise. Stuff happens. And I did marry a man.’
Carlene looked at her curiously. ‘Is there another option?’
Kiki looked straight back at her hostess and decided to be brazen. ‘For me, there was, I think . . . yes. At one point.’
Carlene looked uncomprehendingly at her guest. Kiki wondered at herself. She was misfiring recently, and now she was misfiring in Carlene Kipps’s library. But she did not stop; she felt an old Kikian urge – once upon a time regularly exercised – to shock and, at the same time, to tell the truth. It was the identical feeling she felt (but rarely acted upon) in churches and upscale stores and courtrooms. Places she sensed the truth was rarely told.
‘I guess I mean, there was a revolution going on, everybody was looking at different lifestyles, alternative lifestyles . . . so whether women could live with women, for example.’
‘With women,’ repeated Carlene.
‘Instead of men,’ confirmed Kiki. ‘Sure . . . I thought for a while that might be the road I was going to go down. I mean, I went down it some way.’
‘Ah,’ said Carlene and brought her wobbling right hand under the control of her left. ‘Yes, I see,’ she said thoughtfully, blushing only very slightly. ‘Maybe that would be easier – that’s what you think? I’ve often wondered . . . it must be easier to know the other person – I imagine that’s true. They are as you are. My aunt was that way. It’s not uncommon in the Caribbean. Of course Monty’s always been very harsh on the subject – until James.’
‘James?’ repeated Kiki sharply. She was irked to find her own revelation passed over so swiftly.
‘The Reverend James Delafield. He’s a very old friend of Monty – Princeton gentleman. A Baptist – he delivered the benediction at President Reagan’s inauguration, I believe.’
‘Now, didn’t he turn out to be . . . ?’ said Kiki, vaguely recalling a New Yorker profile.
Carlene clapped her hands and – of all things – giggled. ‘Yes! It made Monty think again, yes, it did. And Monty hates to think again. But the choice was between his friend and . . . well, I don’t know. The Good News, I suppose. But I knew Monty likes James’s conversation – not to mention his cigars – a little too much. I said to him: my dear, life must come first over the Book. Otherwise, what is the Book for? Monty was outraged! Scandalized! It is for us to conform to the Book, as he said. He told me I’d got it all wrong – no doubt I have. But I see they still like to spend an evening together with a cigar. You know, between you and me,’ she whispered, and Kiki wondered what had happened to not making fun of one’s own husband, ‘they’re very good friends.’
Kiki lifted her left eyebrow in n
eat, devastating fashion: ‘Monty Kipps’s best friend is a gay man.’
Carlene gave a little shriek of amusement. ‘Goodness, he would never say that. Never! You see, he doesn’t think of it that way.’
‘What other way is there to think about it?’
Carlene wiped tears of mirth from her eyes.
Kiki whistled. ‘You sure as hell never hear the brother mention that on Bill O’Reilly.’
‘Oh, my dear, you’re terrible. Terrible!’
She was truly gleeful now, and Kiki marvelled at how this whitened her eyes and tightened her skin. She looked younger, healthier. They laughed together for a while, at quite different things, so Kiki imagined. After a while the glee subsided on both sides, and they fell into more normal conversation. These little mutual revelations reminded them of their common ground, and in this they walked around leisurely, steering clear of anything that might prove an obstacle to easy movement. Both mothers, both familiar with England, both lovers of dogs and gardens, both slightly awed by the abilities of their children. Carlene spoke a great deal of Michael, of whose practicality and money sense she seemed very proud. Kiki in return offered up her own somewhat falsified family anecdotes, consciously smoothing over the rougher edges of Levi, sketching in a slender, mendacious picture of Zora’s devotion to family life. Kiki mentioned the hospital several times, hoping to segue into an inquiry as to the nature of Carlene’s illness, but each time, at the brink, she hesitated. The time passed. They finished their tea. Kiki found she had eaten three pieces of pie. At the door, Carlene kissed Kiki on both cheeks, at which point Kiki smelt her own workplace, clearly, acutely. She let go of where she held Carlene, under each brittle elbow. She walked the pretty garden path back to the street.
5
A mega-store demands a mega-building. When Levi’s Saturday employers blew into Boston seven years ago, several grand nineteenth-century structures were considered. The winner was the old municipal library, built in the 1880s in brash red brick with glittering black windows and a high Ruskinian arch above the door. The building took up most of the block it stood upon. In this building Oscar Wilde once gave a lecture concerning the superiority of the lily over all other flowers. One opened the doors by twisting an iron hoop in both hands and awaiting the soft heavy click as metal released metal. Now those twelve-foot oak doors have been replaced by triple sets of glass panels that silently part when people approach. Levi walked through these and touched fists with Marlon and Big James in security. He took the elevator to the basement storeroom to change into the branded T-shirt, the baseball cap and the cheap, skinny-legged, tapered-ankle, lint-ball-attracting black polyester pants they made him wear. He rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and made his way to his department, his eyes to the floor, following the repeated brand logo in the synthetic carpet underfoot. He was pissed off. He felt he’d been let down. Along the corridor he traced the genealogy of the feeling. He had taken this Saturday job in good faith, having always admired the global brand behind these stores, the scope and ambition of their vision. He had been particularly impressed by this section of the application form:
Our companies are part of a family rather than a hierarchy. They are empowered to run their own affairs, yet other companies help one another, and solutions to problems come from all kinds of sources. In a sense we are a community, with shared ideas, values, interests and goals. The proof of our success is real and tangible. Be a part of it.
He had wanted to be a part of it. Levi liked the way the mythical British guy who owned the brand was like a graffiti artist, tagging the world. Planes, trains, finance, soft drinks, music, cellphones, vacations, cars, wines, publishing, bridal wear – anything with a surface that would take his simple bold logo. That was the kind of thing Levi wanted to do one day. He’d figured that it wasn’t such a bad idea to get a little sales assistant job with this enormous firm, if only to see how their operation worked from the inside. Watch, learn, supplant – Machiavelli style. Even when it turned out to be tough work for bad pay, he’d stuck with it. Because he believed that he was part of a family whose success was real and tangible, despite the $6.89 an hour he was being paid.
Then out of nowhere this morning he received a message on his pager from Tom, a nice kid who worked in the Folk Music section of the store. According to Tom, there was a rumour going around that the floor manager, Bailey, required all floor and counter staff to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It then struck Levi that he had never seriously considered precisely what his employer, the impressive global brand, really meant by these shared ideas, values, interests and goals of which he and Tom and Candy and Gina and LaShonda and Gloria and Jamal and all the rest supposedly partook. Music for the people? Choice is paramount? All music all the time?
‘Get the money,’ suggested Howard at breakfast. ‘No matter what. That’s their motto.’
‘I am not working Christmas Day,’ said Levi.
‘Nor should you,’ agreed Howard.
‘That’s just not happening. That’s bullshit.’
‘Well, if you really feel like that, then you need to get your fellow employees together and implement some kind of direct action.’
‘I don’t even know what that is.’
Over their toast and coffee, Levi’s father explained the principles of direct action as it was practised between 1970 and 1980 by Howard and his friends. He spoke at length about someone called Gramsci and some people called the Situationists. Levi nodded quickly and regularly, as he had learned to do when his father made speeches of this kind. He felt his eyelids tugging low and his spoon heavy in his hand.
‘I don’t think that’s how things go down now,’ Levi said at last, gently, not wanting to disappoint his father, but needing to catch the bus. It was a nice enough story, but it was making him late for work.
Now Levi arrived at his sector in the west wing of the fourth floor. He’d been recently promoted, although it was more of a conceptual promotion than a fiscal one. Instead of having to be wherever he was needed, he now worked exclusively in Hip-hop, R & B and Urban; he had been encouraged to believe that this would involve him imparting his knowledge of these genres to knowledge-seeking customers, just as the librarians who once walked this floor had helped the readers who came to them. But that wasn’t exactly how it had panned out. Where are the toilets? Where is Jazz? Where is World Music? Where is the café? Where is the signing? What he did most Saturdays wasn’t all that different from standing on a street corner with an arrow sign, directing people to an army surplus store. And, although the dusty light sifted delicately through the high windows, and the spirit of studious contemplation lingered on in the phoney Tudor-style panelling of the walls and the carved roses and tulips that decorated the many balconies, no one in here was genuinely seeking enlightenment. And that was a shame, for Levi loved rap music; its beauty, ingenuity and humanity were neither obscure nor unlikely to him, and he could argue a case for its equal greatness against any of the artistic products of the human species. Half an hour of a customer’s time spent with Levi expressing this enthusiasm would be like listening to Harold Bloom wax lyrical about Falstaff – but the opportunity never arose. Instead he spent his days directing people to novelty rap records from hit movies. Consequently, Levi did not get paid enough or enjoy his time here sufficiently even to contemplate working the Christmas weekend. It just wasn’t going down like that.
‘Candy! Yo, Candy!’
Thirty feet away from Levi, and not sure, initially, who it was shouting at her, Candy turned from the customer she was dealing with and gave Levi a sign to leave her alone. Levi waited for her customer to move on. Then he jogged up to Candy in the Alt. Rock /Heavy Metal section and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, already sighing. She had a new piercing. A bolt that went through the skin on her chin, just beneath her bottom lip. That was the thing about working here: you met the kind of people you would never ever meet in any other circumstances.
‘Candy – I ne
ed to talk to you.’
‘Look . . . I’ve been here since seven stocking and I’m going to lunch now so don’t even ask.’
‘No, man – I just got here, I’m taking my break at twelve. Did you hear about Christmas Day?’
Candy groaned and rubbed her eyes vigorously. Levi noted the grubbiness of her fingers, the torn cuticles, the little translucent wart on her thumb. When she’d finished her face was purple and blotchy and clashed with the pink-black stripes of her hair.
‘Yeah, I heard about it.’
‘They’re tripping if they think they gonna see me on that weekend. I am not working Christmas, it ain’t happening.’
‘So, what – you going to quit or something?’
‘Now, why would I do that? That’s plain dumb.’
‘Well, you can complain, but . . .’ Candy cracked her knuckles. ‘Bailey really doesn’t give a fuck.’
‘That’s why I’m not gonna complain to Bailey, I’m gonna do something, man – I’m gonna take some . . . like some direct action.’
Candy blinked slowly at him. ‘Oh, right. Good luck with that.’
‘Look: just meet me out back in two minutes, a’ight? Get the others – Tom and Gina and Gloria – everybody on our floor. I’ll find LaShonda – she’s on the counter.’
‘Okay,’ said Candy, managing to make this sound like an overused quotation. ‘God . . . calm down with the Stalinism.’
‘Two minutes.’
‘Okay.’
At the counter Levi found LaShonda at the far end of the long bank of cash registers, much taller and wider than the six male clerks working beside her. An amazon of retail.
‘LaShonda, hey, girl.’
LaShonda waved her talons in a swift, economical move, like the spreading of a fan, each nail clicking off the next. She grinned at him. ‘Hey, Levi, baby. How you doing?’
‘Oh, I’m cool . . . you know, hustling, doing my thang.’
