* * *
• • •
THE DAY AFTER the Negro passed through her alley, Kate sat in the family library and ate a grilled cheese sandwich for breakfast. Her mother’s Smithsonian books were still on the coffee table. Birds of the World, The River Nile. Until recently, Kate had pitied her mother these unscholarly books, but now she was interested in the photography. She had underestimated her mother, who perhaps had wished to travel, or even escape. Kate had never asked her. She bit into an apple and perused The River Nile. It embarrassed her to imagine Tacker understanding her need for him. Once in high school, he had passed her in the tunnel that connected the main campus to the gymnasium. He had stopped and she’d thought he would speak. But he’d only smiled and walked on and she had not known what it meant, though she harbored the thought that in some secret shadow life they were each other’s muse.
The subjects of great literature didn’t teach Kate anything she didn’t already know—that life was sad and lonely, or tragic and lonely, though occasionally relieved by humor and a great love, such as she felt for her father. What the study of literature taught her was that the way to deal with life was through the perfect arrangement of words. A novel contained an ordered world even if the subject was the chaos of war. A sonnet was a world in sixteen lines. Even death was made more complete in literature because it was written and thus ordered. Her father’s disappearance was a nothingness, whereas a written account of death was substantiated and could be dealt with. So literature relieved her of absence, and not through abstraction but through detail. Literature was pain organized with the symmetry of a camellia.
Kate looked to her mother’s self-portrait above the fireplace. It depicted her seated, knees covered by her skirt, her body at an angle but her face looking straight ahead, her hair more golden than it really was, a bouquet of peonies on the table behind her shoulder. There were so many questions to ask when a person was gone forever. For example: How did you keep those peonies alive long enough to paint the portrait? Did you paint them first? Did you wish to escape? Kate hadn’t paid enough attention. She had no memory of her mother bringing peonies into the house. Had she painted them from an illustration? Kate hoped not. She sat for a moment, recalling her mother’s words, the letters . . . no or no letters. Kate’s breath rose and fell. Suddenly she heard a series of loud ticks, like a piece of equipment cooling down. She thought of the Negro in the alley and seized The River Nile to her chest. Silence. In a few moments, she slipped down the hall to the kitchen and peered into the backyard. It was as peaceful as a church. “Old house,” she said.
To prove her mettle she decided to open the attic. Maybe her parents’ personal correspondence was up there. If there were no new photographs of her parents, letters certainly existed somewhere. Burn, her mother had whispered on her deathbed. She must have been speaking of her pain, but over the months, Kate had held in her mind, like a trinity of stones, her mother’s enigmatic words—know, letters, burn—hoping to solve the riddle.
The attic was spacious enough for standing, but it would be chilly. Hair tied with a red bandana, she pulled on her father’s coat again. The door at the top of the stairs creaked when she opened it and she hastened to pull the light cord. The items before her had been holding their place for years: her grandmother’s old trunk, the chifforobe her parents used to store off-season clothes, and an old rocking chair whose origins remained unclear. Dimly she heard the big clock downstairs and sensed the cool lozenge in her heart. She opened the old trunk. An enormous amount of yellowed fabric met her eyes. Her mother’s discolored wedding dress. No help at all. The chifforobe complained as she pulled at the doors. A conglomeration of old dishes filled a box on one shelf. Next to the box was the green glass jug her grandmother kept in her refrigerator so she always had cool water. Kate hugged it to her chest and felt momentarily soothed. Aunt Mildred is right. I need to get out more. Jug in hand, she descended the attic stairs, glad for the noise of her shoes on the steps. By the time she was in the kitchen, she had decided to call Mr. Fitzgerald. “Could you drop me off at Thalhimers?”
“Doing some shopping?”
“Taking pictures.”
“I didn’t know you were a photographer now.”
“But I am. Give me thirty minutes to get ready.”
* * *
• • •
A WHOOSH OF air swept up the yard as Kate opened the front door. She reached for her umbrella, Mr. Fitzgerald pulled up to the curb, and she skipped down the granite steps of the yard. She’d been cavalier about being a photographer. Yet she was beginning to wonder if she could be a professional. In the car, she leaned over and pecked the man’s cheek. He was thin with sharp features and golden eyes, forever sporting a bow tie. Though older than her father, the two had hunted and fished together when Kate was young. She had never known his wife. “What would I do without you?” she said.
“Find a boyfriend?”
“You know you’d rather I call you.”
“You’re blamed right. Not a boy in this town good enough for you.”
He smiled but Kate bristled under the paternalism, thinking of James and the way he rubbed her palm as he drove, as if he were reading braille.
“Give me a ring when you’re ready for me to pick you up,” Mr. Fitzgerald said, pulling into a parking space.
“Oh no. I’ll just take the bus. Mom and I took it all the time.”
“If you’re sure. But I’d rather fetch you.” His eyes were sincere.
“You sweet man. I’ll be fine.” She sprang from the car.
The department store was housed in a three-story Art Deco building at the corner of Fourth and Spruce. Winston’s women were more faithful in coming to it than to Sunday morning worship. Kate wasn’t interested in clothes today. In Atlanta, she had taken a series of photographs of the Fox Theatre for a competition sponsored by the chamber of commerce. One had been featured in the Sunday edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. If she wanted to pursue photography in Winston-Salem, she ought to take some pictures of it. She walked up and down the street, glancing skyward at the building. Finally she aimed the camera straight up so that Thalhimers rose in her viewfinder like a cliff. She would not have been surprised to see swallows nesting. She took several shots before bringing the camera down. A man in a yellow Windbreaker stood next to her.
“What do you see up there?” he said.
“Peaks and valleys,” she said, refusing to smile. Middle-aged men liked to tease her about the camera. Well, little lady, what are you lugging that piece of equipment for? She made her getaway, heading for the Zinzendorf Hotel on Main, built soon before her mother was born and which her mother had loved for its ornate balustrades and parapets. It wasn’t in the best part of town now, and the awnings looked a little peaked, but she loved it because they had gone to the Zinzendorf Grill for lunch after shopping expeditions, and on occasion the whole family ate there. The dining room with its recessed ceilings and tables covered in white tablecloths created in her a powerful sense of formal order when she was eight years old. The wind picked up and Kate hugged the Brick close. She had never been into one of the hotel’s bedrooms.
She caught sight of the five-story hotel a block away, just as a long shadow fell across the façade. Before the light shifted, she pressed the shutter button at least a dozen times, shifting the camera from vertical to horizontal and back. Briefer than a three-line poem. Snap. Kate couldn’t remember when she had last been in the hotel. A portly bellman with a face the color of parchment opened the door. Dark wooden chairs illuminated by globed sconces were clustered in various seating arrangements around the large room, just as she remembered. In her mother’s day, high school couples came to the Zinzendorf for dinner before prom. She banished those stiff boys and frilled girls from her imagination. She was interested only in the imprint they may have left, the sag of marbled floors occasioned by a million steps.
&nb
sp; “May I help you?” a woman said from behind the registration desk. Her hair was frozen with hair spray.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to take some pictures.”
“I don’t see any harm in it.” The woman flicked ashes from her cigarette.
“Thanks.” The hotel smelled as if it had been flooded and hadn’t quite dried out. For a moment Kate’s heart sank, but she revived herself. If she was serious, she might one day be required to work amid fire. She snapped several shots of the chairs, their seats concave in the center. These she followed by close-ups of the Mission-style arms, the wood bleached light where hundreds of arms had rested. She took the marble staircase—indeed the steps did dip at the center. Coming down she missed a step and spilled onto her knees. Luckily, a rug softened her fall and she was able to hold on to the Brick.
The bellman came rushing in her direction. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.”
He extended a hand and she felt a strength in his lift that surprised her.
“Why don’t you have a seat for a few minutes? Would you like a drink?”
“Water is fine, thank you.” He was short legged and walked like a duck, from side to side.
Kate sat, cradling the Brick, sipping her water. If only the hotel didn’t smell like old green beans. She rested her eyes and when she opened them she was captured by the idea of taking a picture from inside looking onto the street. At the window, she brought the camera to her face. The rounded shape of a farm woman, but out of focus, filled the viewfinder. The image was so uncanny she pressed the shutter button before she knew what she was doing. Then she lowered the camera. Across the street stood a Negro woman in a long skirt, clutching a shawl around her shoulders. Kate advanced the film and brought the Argus back to her face. It allowed one-step focusing and yet she worked methodically. It appeared that the woman framed in the viewfinder was staring right back at her, staring into her, into her eyes, into the maze of her interior life, into the right chamber of her heart where the cool lozenge lay, evidence that she was not, all in all, a warm and generous person, and even deeper, into something Kate could not fathom. She lowered her camera and stood motionless, gazing out the window as a little colored boy came out of the shadow of an awning, clutching a sucker—the woman’s grandson, perhaps—and then claimed the woman’s hand as they walked off.
Had other photographers felt such rebuke? She knew the answer and it was yes. She’d heard of a woman taking pictures of elephants in Asia who had been seized and murdered by villagers because they thought she would report them for poaching.
As she came out of the hotel, the first big raindrops began to splatter on the pavement. She had misplaced her umbrella somewhere along her route. She bent over the Brick, making a tent of her back. Fortunately she didn’t have to wait long for the bus. As they headed away from downtown, the world lit up in a great flash followed by a hard rumble of thunder. A second bolt of lightning split the sky right down the center of Second Street.
Chapter Four
EVER SINCE THE incident on the sidewalk, Tacker had been expecting his dad to come by to talk about it. That was his way. When the football team lost in a heartbreaker, his father never tried to talk to him right away. He’d wait and bring it up days later when they were driving to the hardware store or stopping for hot dogs. Would he have waited that day Tacker was sacked in Ibadan?
Leaving Samuel behind in the dust, Fray hadn’t driven to UCI but to an old colonial residence in Ibadan, surrounded by a low fence and a garden. Frangipani trees bloomed in profusion and the cool morning air carried their perfume across the yard. Tacker felt his spirits lift. There was some misunderstanding. It would all be worked out in a few minutes. Fray wasn’t a bad guy. He was caught in the middle; some bureaucratic hoopla. Inside the house, Tacker followed Fray to a broad open room with a fireplace, of all things.
“Have a seat,” the man said. Tacker took one and Fray another. “Tell me how you like your work here.”
Tacker looked at Fray, but his face told nothing. “I’m very happy with it. Couldn’t we have had this conversation on the drive?”
Fray looked at him impassively. “What do you like especially?”
A steward dressed in the standard white uniform came to the door. “Drinks, sir?”
“Not yet, Fidelis,” Fray said.
“What do I especially like?” Tacker said, repeating the question. “Everything. UCI is a terrific place; the guys on the team are superb. The land is phenomenal. People are friendly.”
Fray made a steeple of his fingers and placed them at his lips. “You like the nightlife, Mr. Hart?”
“What’s the ‘Mr. Hart’ about? You can call me Tacker. Not sure what you mean by nightlife. I go to the faculty club pretty often.”
“Tell me what you think of the country’s women,” Fray went on. Tacker had lost the sense of reasonable calm he’d felt in the yard.
“The women? That’s hard to say. I don’t know any that well.”
Fray looked suddenly tired, with his tapering fingernails and sun-damaged skin.
“Isn’t there a woman you know quite well?”
Did he mean the vice-chancellor’s daughter, Rebecca? She’d visited from London the first Christmas Tacker was here. He had walked her home one evening. The vice-chancellor’s home was high on a hill above faculty housing. They’d talked about living in two countries. Tacker had joked that he might never go home. Rebecca had lamented that she might never be able to return home. When Tacker had asked why, she’d laughed sadly. “My father. He will want me to be a traditional woman here, many children. Even if I teach, my money will go to my husband. In Great Britain I have more freedom.” “You can always come back for a visit,” Tacker had said. “And what will my children be,” she had said, “the ones born to me abroad?”
Fray cleared his throat. “Mr. Hart, I asked you a question.”
“No,” Tacker said. “There isn’t a Nigerian woman I know well.”
“No little postcards to the parents back home reporting on a girl you’ve been seeing in Osogbo? Let’s see . . .”
He pulled a piece of paper from a folder and read. “Most amazing coincidence . . . a woman who lives by the river and can talk about Picasso . . . makes me wonder if I could stay here . . . what would you think about your son becoming an African?”
Tacker was dumbstruck. The postcard he’d written to his parents three days ago. Or was it four?
“And by the way, what’s this business on your arm?” Fray said.
“Like I said, it’s nothing. It’ll wash off.”
“Dabbling in witchcraft to top it off,” Fray said.
“Hardly,” Tacker said.
“You were told very clearly in training. No romantic relationships with the locals. Perhaps you don’t think a white priestess is a local. I can see how it might be confusing. She is quite beautiful. Oh, don’t be surprised. Of course I’ve been to see her. A very pretty juju priestess.” He glanced at Tacker knowingly.
“I haven’t done anything to jeopardize the project. I haven’t broken a single rule. The last time I checked I had an American girlfriend. But what difference would it make if I had a Nigerian girlfriend?”
Fray rose to his feet and when Tacker looked at him, his face appeared contorted as if pressed against a glass. “It’s against the rules,” he sputtered. “No one here wants his daughter being disgraced by an American. The publicity would be a stink hole. And the Austrian woman is married to a Nigerian man. You stupid boy. You could be killed.” He slumped back into his chair, the bamboo-and-rattan frame chirping against the man’s weight. From the folder he pulled a news clipping. “What about this disturbance over the idol burning?”
“You have a folder on me?”
“You work for an American company. You’re not in Oklahoma anymore.”
“North Carol
ina.”
Fray dug deeper into his folder. “And you felt the need to tell a Shell representative that they shouldn’t be drilling for crude oil? They might spoil the jungle? The Nigerian government is collaborating with Shell Oil. They don’t particularly like the word jungle as a way of describing their country. If you’re not willing to write a formal apology for your various indiscretions, you’re going to be sent home.”
Tacker had forgotten all about the conversation with the Shell Oil man. “Who exactly am I supposed to write to?”
“To me. I’ll take care of it from there.” Fray started for the door.
Tacker caught up with him on the steps of the veranda. “But I haven’t done anything wrong. There are no indiscretions. I’ve spoken honestly about my opinions. I’ve worked hard. I have a real feeling for the country.” His voice sounded distant and his head felt hot.
“Oh hell. I don’t know what I’m doing in this hellhole of a country. I wish I could get sent home,” Fray said. “Get in the goddamned Jeep.”
Tacker wheeled around the vehicle and ran down the drive. He had no idea where he was going because he didn’t know what part of Ibadan they were in. Out of the yard, he turned left and ran down the side of the road, sidestepping children and vendors and goats. A horn sounded and he looked over his shoulder to see Fray in the Jeep, leaning out of the window.
“Get in this vehicle right this minute. That’s an order.”
Tacker turned his head forward just in time to see a cooking fire. He hurdled over it. The horn sounded again.
“You’ve got ten seconds to get into this Jeep,” Fray shouted.
Tacker slipped into an alley too narrow for the Jeep. One more honk of the horn. It seemed he ran for hours until he was in a neighborhood of old mud houses squared around a courtyard where children began to trail him, calling out his whiteness. He slowed, and an old man looked at him sternly. Goats, chickens, children, cooking pots, a central shade tree. Tacker leaned over at the waist, his shirt soaked with sweat, then backed up into the shade of a tree and sat down. Some older boys gathered. “Have you got a drink?” Tacker said. “A Fanta?” The largest of them took out a warm Fanta and a bottle opener and waited. Tacker fished in his pocket for a sixpence. He opened the bottle and shared it with the boy.
Swimming Between Worlds Page 6