Blood in the Water and Other Secrets

by Janice Law

  Mother came home just minutes later. I was sitting on the bed. My dress was torn, and there was blood on my legs. Mother took one look at me and her face went white. She wrapped her arms around me, cursing and sobbing at the same time. When she stopped, she said, “I’ll fix that bastard. He’ll never hurt you again.”

  Taut with anger and pain, her face was almost unrecognizable, and I was nearly as frightened of her as of Mr. Conklin. “I promise,” she said. “As God is my witness.”

  “No,” I said, “no!” I had an intimation of disaster, loss, some terrible punishment. Good or bad, Mr. Conklin was the chief power in our small universe.

  “You’ll see,” Mother said, “I won’t bear this.” Then she sat back on her heels and looked at me. “It’s got to be a secret. God forgive me, you’ve got to keep this a secret. The police would tell Immigration. Do you understand that? We can’t tell anyone what that bastard did.”

  I nodded my head. I didn’t want to tell anyone. I had no words for what had happened. “A secret,” I said.

  “A deep, dark secret,” Mother said grimly.

  Sometime after ten P.M. the next Friday, Mr. Conklin died behind his fast food restaurant. A stab wound stopped his heart so suddenly that he was dead before he hit the pavement. The papers made much of the speed of his passing, and for years, I carried an image of Mr. Conklin, tumbled like a large, ungainly bird from the sky and dying in mid-fall.

  That night my mother was late coming home from work. The city sounds made me nervous— the sudden shrieks and eerie lights of police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances, the accelerating hot rods with their booming radios, the hoarse, quarrelsome voices of men drifting back from the bar— and I was still awake at eleven o’clock when I heard her footsteps. I ran to unlock the door.

  Mother’s weary face was bloodless. “I’m sorry I’m so late, Darling,” she said. “I had to wait and lock up. Mr. Conklin didn’t come back from making the night deposit.”

  “I hope he never comes back,” I said.

  Mother gave me a sharp look. “Be careful what you wish for,” she said, then she went into the bedroom and began to pack our cases.

  Mr. Conklin looked out at us from the morning paper. His picture made him seem younger and more benevolent than he ever looked in life. The accompanying story told us about his violent end. I was thrilled and horrified by his death, by the unlooked for fame of one of our acquaintances. These were sensational and superficial emotions, but I was genuinely sorry and frightened about leaving our apartment.

  “My job’s gone,” Mother explained. “We don’t exist. There never were any papers, agreements.”

  I asked about school, about the park chorus, our concerts; Mother looked me in the face and shook her head. I felt suspicion dawn in a shiver of anxiety which grew stronger when we caught the morning bus to Boston without saying goodbye to anyone, not even to Annie. Once in Boston, the MTA took us to the South End, where we started calling ourselves Malloy instead of O’Brien and quietly disappeared into the Irish community. We put down a security deposit on a shabby apartment, and a very distant relative of Mother’s found her a job in a sweatshop sewing curtains.

  That fall I attended a real urban school, where I learned to smoke and swear and became outwardly tough. Inside, I was frightened of a lot of things, all related to secrets and to July: men, sex, sudden death, Immigration. Underneath were even deeper fears, more terrible because unacknowledged: the fear of guilt, police, and discovery, the fear, worst of all, of being separated from Mother, whose protection, I sensed, was both sure and terrible.

  It was several years before I learned that my particular horrors were not unique. Fear and loss were the common experiences of my classmates, and the art of keeping secrets was so essential to our survival that, though we could not forget old fears, we could push them down relentlessly. I put away my suspicions and learned to live with ambiguity. When I graduated from high school, I joined the Army, where I became a citizen and trained as a nurse. Amid the suffering of others, I at last grew really tough, tough enough to ask Mother the question that had haunted my youth.

  It was on another summer day, and tough or not, I would probably not have dared ask if we hadn’t gone to Hartford. I’d had attend a lecture at the Medical Center, and Mother said she’d ride along and visit a friend who lived nearby in Farmington. When I picked her up after the program, she suggested driving down to Park Street to see the old triple decker. At once, my childish fears returned. I stopped in the parking lot and looked at her.

  “If it’s not out of the way,” said Mother, handsome in her dark navy dress. For years, she had worn only dark colors, black, navy, deep purple, somber shades that gave her a vaguely european air. The rich ladies who patronized the bridal salon where Mother worked thought her taste distinguished and sophisticated.

  I shook my head. “Is it wise?” I asked.

  Mother gave nothing away. “Who do you think will notice us?” she answered.

  Of course, she was right. I parked near the house, and Mother got out on the sidewalk and looked up at the big solid building with the flaring eaves and the prow-like porches. Blue-gray vinyl siding covered the dark wood shingles, and Mother approved. “Saves the painting,” she said. “Clean looking. Young Joe must be up on all the latest.”

  “Young Joe?”

  “Mr. Conklin’s son. He must be just a few years older than you are. Aileen’s probably turned everything over to him by now. It was her money, part of it, anyway. Her people owned some grocery stores, you know.”

  I did not know and I thought Mother might say more about the Conklins, but she took a last look up at the apartment and got back into the car. “I’ve never been so hot as in that third floor flat,” she said. “Remember how hot it used to get?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Go on down Park,” Mother said. “We might as well stop by the snack shop, too.”

  She spoke so casually that I felt guilty for all the years of suspicion and apprehension. Nonetheless, I drove down town carefully, nervously alert for stop signs, traffic lights, and squad cars. Next to me, Mother looked out the windows and remarked on changes in the neighborhood. The Portuguese shops had mostly gone, leaving a mix of Indian and Southeast Asian businesses: Bombay Foods, a Vietnamese market, shops that promised to speak Khmer, Vietnamese, Hindi, or Laotian. The old snack shop had been transformed into the New Thai Palace Restaurant, and Mother said, “Turn in. There’s room for you to park.”

  I pulled next to a van labeled “New Thai Palace— Restaurant,Catering, Takeout,” and shut off the motor. The late spring evening was mild and pleasant. The sun turned the bricks of the restaurant to gold, and the sky was a peachy shade of pink. Mother stepped out of the car and walked around back of the restaurant where a big exhaust fan whirred out the smell of hot oil and spices. Beyond a brown board fence, children were shouting and playing, and, on the sidewalk, two women in saris and dark sweaters pushed their children in strollers. Mother studied the restaurant, the garbage cans, the little open porch that led into the kitchen. Long ago, Mr. Conklin had been seized by some swift and terrible force right at the foot of those steps.

  For years I had wondered about the precise agent. Now that I was on the verge of discovery, I found I’d rather not know.

  “Please let’s go,” I said.

  Mother seemed surprised that I was nervous. She, herself,was perfectly composed, a fine looking woman somewhere in middle age, her hair still dark, her face only faintly lined, old hardships and weariness visible only in her eyes. The days of sweatshops and exploitation had eventually ended in Boston, where she had turned her toughness into such elegance that men admired her and were afraid of her. Six years ago, she had married a brave one who owned a fancy funeral home and had become comfortable and happy.

  “There is no danger,” she said as she walked back to the car. “I told you that years ago.”

  I remembered the hot apartment, panic, fear, and pain— and Mo
ther’s contorted mask-like face. “You said you’d fix Mr.Conklin.”

  “I wanted to comfort you,” my mother said, looking at me calmly. “But people are different. You would have been happier not knowing. You lack the taste for vengeance. It is a shame you never went to the Sisters. They would have approved.”

  “I would have suspected anyway,” I said. “We packed right up and left.”

  Mother gave a slight shrug. “We’d have gone immediately in any case. Aileen hated me; she’d have had us out of the apartment before his funeral.”

  “I was terrified you’d be questioned,” I said. “For years, I worried that someone would come, that you’d be taken away, that somehow . . .”

  “We didn’t exist,” said Mother. “If he told me that once, he told me a hundred times.”

  “But the knife, the fingerprints, the other workers? There must have been evidence. Look at this place— where was there to hide anything?”

  Mother got back in the car and fastened her seat belt before answering. “I didn’t have a plan,” she said. “I’ve been told that makes a difference, not planning, I mean. I don’t even know all that was in my mind when I went out the door after him. It was around ten-fifteen; He was going to the night deposit but first he stepped out for a smoke— one of those vile cigars. There was a boning knife on the counter, sharp as a razor. I picked it up because I wanted him to know I was serious. I was desperate and hot and sick and my heart was breaking. He’d gone too far. I wanted to tell him that he was never, ever to touch either of us again.”

  “What did he say?”

  Mother’s face grew dark and reflective. “He laughed,” she said. “He had trampled my heart; he had hurt the one person I had left, my only treasure, and still he laughed— you see what it is to be rich and powerful. Then he said that I was looking older, and I understood everything. We were nothing to him, nothing at all, and he was thinking of you for a replacement.”

  “I was ten years old,” I said in a small voice.

  “There was really nothing else to do,” Mother said. “I was surprised he took such a long time to fall.”

  I imagined the night parking lot with the moths swirling around the security lights, the long shadows, the urban smells of hot asphalt, exhaust, and garbage cans, and my mother, young then and frightened, standing by the stair with a knife in her hand.

  “Everyone thought it was a robbery,” I said.

  “So it was: the day’s takings from two restaurants,” Mother said with a slight smile. “The police blamed the gangs, the Puerto Ricans, wild kids from the project. What else could they do? He’d managed very carefully, and very few people knew me.”

  “But the knife?” I asked. “What about the knife?”

  “You don’t know restaurants,” she said. “Restaurants are full of knives. I rinsed off the boning knife in the sink and threw it in the dishwasher. As far as I was thinking at all, I figured the staff would unload it the next morning and put it back in the rack as usual.”

  “Of course,” I said. I realized that my brave and decisive mother was untouched by fantasy. While I had been tormented for years by fears of discovery and loss and guilt, failure had never crossed her mind. She was a woman without imagination. “But didn’t he have a wallet? Didn’t he used to carry something for the money?”

  Mother opened her pocket book and pulled out a battered green leather zippered purse which I’d seen a thousand times without recognition. “No matter where you discard things, they’re apt to be found,” she said calmly.

  I was dazzled by the simplicity of her strategy, which had required only nerve and silence. Until now. I could not decide whether her guilty secret had finally and irresistibly resurfaced as guilty secrets are supposed to do— or whether she felt a satisfaction that demanded recognition. I realized uneasily that the parish gentlemen who admired and feared my mother were right. Life had made her desperate, and then it had made her remarkable. Mr. Conklin had been hit by a force quite out of his reckoning.

  Lions on the Lawn

  Lions. Lions on the lawn. No, no, not lawn. Lions on grass, in grass. Is grass right? Leaping, jumping, hunting. Hunting is right, but another word, like plant, plant stalks, stalking lions on the lawn, on grass. Forgotten words. Could be worse, have the idea still, ideas. Awake? Yes, tv flickering:

  .” . . the lionesses are hungry. They move out across the veldt to the watering hole . . .”

  I sit up: living room, tv, low sun. Time. Time to move using the whatsits name? Frame? Frame for walking, walker. Yes, I’m awake again which beats the alternative and ideas are dropping into place and words, some of them, enough of them, are there for use. But what’s the time?

  Right hand on useless left, turn watch: 4:25 pm. Five minutes. Time to get up, to concentrate. Hard with one hand, one arm. When I think of the work I did, the loads I could carry, the strength effort. Effortmore? Effertleast? Effort. Make an effort. Up. One hand, one foot. Two feet, leg better than arm, arm better than hand. Straighten up, step, another. Vastness of the rug, vast as lawn, as grass, no, no, as veldt, veldt where lions hunt. Are there lions today? We’ll see.

  The chair’s by the window. A tricky maneuver, like parallel parking, like sliding heavy trucks and big sedans into tight spaces neat. Lining up, lining up walker, feel chair, easier on the right side, guess on the left, drop. Ah hah!

  Take a breath. Well done; motion’s good. I can see the street; ideas all in place, and words coming easier. There are days, moments of days, times of days, when I think, this will work. I’ll beat this, stroke or no stroke, so hang on a bit, hang on.

  The window overlooks an old house fitted up with picture windows. It’s the office for the lumber yard and hardware store. Front door opens onto parking spaces. Good as tv, really, to watch who comes in and out. Who’s driving a new truck and who’s got a junker. Who’s laying in the paint and lumber and hardware and supplies— and who’s in the office trying to raise some credit.

  Sitting smack by the window I can see the far corner of the yard and watch them loading ply and 2 x 4’s and planks. Trucks come out further up the street, but the drive right under my window leads to employee parking. That’s my interest. Time?

  Turn wrist with right hand. Slow. Everything is slow. Is time my friend or my enemy? How much is left? I’m prepared either way; I’ve had a good life, a long life, oh, yes. But there’s always going to be something left undone, isn’t there? If you’ve got nothing you’re leaving undone, you’ve overstayed your time.

  And yes, there she is, right on time. Black, curly hair, black eyes— maybe Puerto Rican? The red coat today; she always looks snappy in that red coat.

  I lift my hand and smile— I think I smile. Ellen says, Yes, yes, you can smile, but I don’t know. Left side a problem all the way up and more up than down. Ellen says I smile okay, and I choose to believe her.

  I smile and the pretty woman in the red coat waves back. The day I don’t smile at a pretty girl is the day you can put me in the box and nail down the lid. A nice girl, too.

  I watch until she gets to her car. Just a habit of mine. I can’t say how it started, but it gives the day another landmark besides meals and evening news and the Discovery Channel.

  She pulls out and I check the street one last time. No lions today. Her car’s a bit of a worry. I’d rather it was newer, faster. You can’t be too fast with lions around.

  She needs a fast car, I tell Ellen when she arrives to give me supper. Actually that’s just what I try to say but it doesn’t come out so well. Just a lot of grunts and howls. She brings me the pad and pencil but it’s too much effort to try to print. And what would I tell her? The car would have to be explained, and the lions, one lion in particular. I point to the window and try to smile.

  “Been flirting with Kim Alvarez again? I’ve seen you waving to her. At your age, too!”

  This is a little joke between us. To Ellen I’m an awful man for the ladies. She fusses about me and I give her extra
time off and never notice the housecleaning.

  “She’s a nice woman. Has her troubles like the rest of us.”

  I perk up at this. Ellen brings me tells. No, no, wrong word again. I’m getting tired. Tells me words. Papers, newspapers. Tells me news. I look up and nod my head so that she knows I’m interested.

  “Her husband was Jimmy Alvarez— you know, the policeman who was shot. A drug raid went wrong or something.”

  For a minute raid means nothing and then drugs and policeman come into a kind of focus. I grunt and wave my hand, and Ellen puts one hand on her hip and concentrates. “A year ago maybe, maybe less. They raided a house on Milk Street and something went wrong. Shots were fired and he was hit. Very sad. And terrible for her. They have a three-year old.”

  Talk, talk, I think, but time for dinner— Ellen has to get home. My man needs his dinner, too, you know, is what she says. My dinner is heated up turkey, gravy and canned beans and mighty good. Ellen helps me into my pajamas and says good night. I try to concentrate the way I could before the stroke when I read the newspaper every day and remembered things like drug raids gone bad. Something was nasty about the Alvarez shooting. Contraband? No, but C, something with a C. Controversy, that’s it. The Alvarez shooting was controversial in some way. I fall asleep on this triumph.

  So now it’s important that I’m at the window every day, even if there’s not much I can do beyond watching Mrs. Alvarez get safely to her car. Four-thirty she comes out, waves, and hurries into the parking lot. I put an OK mark on the calendar. I mark each day, awkwardly, because I was a lefty and my right hand doesn’t like the pen. End of the week, I look back at the record and check how many lions.

  The man stopped by on Monday. He’s a big guy with a smooth, hard face. A muscular face is how I’d describe it like he’s done a lot of heavy frowning and scowling. Looks like muscles elsewhere, too, the kind for show that you don’t get with honest labor. He went into the office but just for a few minutes. So he could have been anyone, no lion at all.