Dark Plums

by Maria Espinosa

  On the all-night jazz station, Billie Holiday sang blues. The husky voice ate into her. She switched the station, then turned the radio off.

  Sleep. Sleep, she told herself.

  Still, she couldn’t sleep, and at five a.m., weeping, she put on her comforting fox fur and went downstairs into the street where she walked and walked until finally she collapsed on a deserted piling by the East River. Pale sun rose in the sky. The streets began to stir again with traffic. When she returned to the loft, her throat was sore.

  Despite fever and sore throat, she worked the next three nights, but on the fourth night she fainted just as she was about to walk out the door.

  Alfredo was unexpectedly tender and insisted that she stay home to recover. The next few days she slept most of the time on the couch with the help of Courvoisier and codeine cough medicine.

  One afternoon she watched Alfredo furiously sketch with ochre crayon on butcher paper. He was sketching a woman embracing a machine. She was pleased because this was the first time he’d sketched in weeks.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” she asked.

  “Shit, Adrianne, don’t bug me with stupid questions. And don’t cringe like that. I hate it when you cringe like a beaten dog. Goddamn, stop crying!”

  She huddled beneath the blankets and relaxed only when she could tell from the silence that he was working again.

  Later, he sat down next to her on the couch. “These are my dreams I’m sketching, baby, my nightmares,” he said, his long, slender fingers soothing her damp forehead. “You’re burning up with fever. Now go back to sleep.”

  “I’m glad you’re working again,” she whispered.

  He kissed her with more affection than he had shown in months. For a moment she felt the old bond between them, with all the invisible threads that had once bound them together.

  But then Michelle leaned over her, too, and said, “Can I get you anything?” Her long hair swept over Adrianne’s face. How perfect Michelle’s breasts were underneath the gauzy white nightgown. An image passed through her mind of giant shears snipping off those breasts.

  “Can I get you anything to eat, Adrianne?”

  “No, thanks.”

  A few minutes later she heard Michelle and Alfredo in the kitchen. “Gimme those cigarettes … gimme, you bitch!” She heard them laugh and scuffle.

  Ground glass or roach poison or household bleach in their coffee could kill them. She could stab them in their sleep. God help her from having these thoughts.

  Finally, the front door slammed as Michelle left for acting classes or auditions or a little hustling. How much did Michelle bring in, she wondered, before she drowsed off.

  She awakened to feel Alfredo gently shaking her. A vague, disturbing dream fragment rose up then dissipated as he lightly kissed her her lips. “I brought you a cup of tea, sweetheart.”

  She turned over his wrist to look at his watch. It was one-fifteen in the afternoon. He wasn’t high on anything yet; he was himself; he was the Alfredo she had first fallen in love with.

  Just then the phone rang. She heard him talk to someone on the other end. His voice became tense. When he hung up he said, “I’ve got to go meet someone.”

  Agitated, he dressed to go out and put on his cashmere overcoat. Before he left, he fortified himself with more rum. Then he sniffed up a few specks of white powder on the back of his hand through one nostril at a time.

  On the fifth day Adrianne was better, although she still felt shaky when she walked around the loft. Both Alfredo and Michelle were out. She noted with distaste how crammed the loft was with Michelle’s belongings. Michelle’s white panties and Alfredo’s pale blue jockey shorts were entwined with the bed sheets. It all seemed unbearable! With regret, she thought of Max who had once been so kind to her.

  For the past few days Max had been appearing in her dreams, and now she made up her mind to visit him. Did he still live in the rooming house? What day was it anyway? Sunday? Would he be in? With great hesitation she picked up the phone to dial the number. Suppose he had died?

  Her stomach churned.

  When the phone rang at the other end she had an urge to hang up, but she held on. “May I speak with Max?”

  “Who’s calling?” asked the landlady.

  “Adrianne.”

  “Oh, hello. How are you?” the woman asked in her matter of fact voice.

  “Fine. Is Max in?” Adrianne held her breath.

  “I’ll see.”

  At last she heard his familiar voice with its thick accent. “Adrianne,” he said. “This is a surprise.”

  “I’ve been thinking about you, Max. Could I visit you?”

  “Of course. When would you like?”

  “Would today about five be all right?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Ah, but this is a surprise,” he repeated. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  All afternoon as she lay on the couch under blankets, she wondered and worried about what she was going to say to him.

  After she showered and put on her makeup, she decided on a wool dress of virginal ivory with gold earrings and bracelet. Carefully, she combed and brushed her hair and applied dabs of Chanel Number Five. Little was left in her large bottle. Michelle must have been using it. She debated what coat to wear. The fox seemed too rich. The black rabbit fur was worn through in spots. When she leaned out the kitchen window, the air felt warm, and so she decided on her new beige trench coat.

  Excited and nervous, she hailed a taxi. The sun was low in the sky. Spring buds were breaking out on the small street trees.

  When at last she rang the doorbell outside her old rooming house, Max opened the door and stood there, thinner and more haggard than she remembered. He was not in his usual scruffy bedroom slippers but was dressed to go out in a brown suit. His shoes were well-shined, and he wore a blue and gold print tie.

  “Max.”

  “Adrianne. Meine liebchen.”

  As they embraced, she caught a whiff of his old man’s smell. They stepped back from each other, and he said admiringly, “Adrianne, you look so beautiful. What do you want with me?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “You are in trouble? You need money? You look so, well … so beautiful … such beautiful clothes … but inside … the girl inside … you are all right, meine liebchen?”

  “No,” she blurted out.

  “We go out for coffee, yes? Or better still, a bite to eat. Is it warm outside, or do I need an overcoat?”

  “It’s getting chilly.”

  He put on a worn grey overcoat and a hat. Then tucking her arm under his, he walked with her down the street. “You will do me the honor of allowing me to buy you dinner, yes?” His voice was warm and caring.

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  “A little something … a bowl of soup or a lamb chop, yes?”

  “That would be nice.”

  They went into the same Horn and Hardart’s where they’d been last summer, nearly a year ago, and they both had vegetable soup with crackers. While they were eating, she suddenly felt nauseous and excused herself. She threw up in the rest room.

  Max, Max. What am I going to do with you? she wondered. She threaded her way back through the crowded cafeteria and spied him at their table, self-possessed, dignified, and so lonely.

  “What brings you to me? You are in trouble? That man … you are with him still?”

  “Yes, but I’m not happy. I want to leave him.”

  “Tell me, what have you been doing? What kind of work?”

  “Oh, just a job.”

  “A cooking job?”

  “No … a long story. I don’t want to talk about it right now.” Her throat constricted.

  “All right, meine liebchen.” Timidly, he patted her hand. “Why do you come to me?”

  “I … I want to get to know you better.”

  “Is much you are not telling me,” he said. “But is all right. You tell me
what you want. I am so glad to see you. I have missed you. You were like a bird with a broken wing. Did I ever tell you that? I hope that now the wing it is fixed,” he said tenderly. “I will not ask you more questions if you do not want to talk. Ah, but you are so beautiful. You are a sweet girl … sweet like the springtime … like my daughter Miriam. If she had lived, maybe she would look like you. Excuse me.” He blew his nose. “I must forget the past. The doctor tell me not to think always of the past. Is not good for me.”

  “Max, you’re a kind man,” she said. “You’re a good man.”

  “Could you love me?” he asked, his eyes glittering as he leaned slightly forward.

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps you will think I am too bold, an old man like me. Perhaps I am crazy. You do not have to answer me now … only think about it. Would you marry me?”

  She swallowed. “You’re not crazy.”

  “Will you think about it, Adrianne? I have money to retire. I offer you all my love and a good life. I spend so little on myself, but I have money invested to last the rest of my life, and for both of us to be comfortable, to buy you beautiful clothes. We could live in the country, a simple life. You will think over my proposal?”

  “I will.”

  Chapter 32

  Adrianne gripped a black wrought-iron railing to keep from falling. Everything around her spun. She vomited onto the sidewalk and it felt as if her guts were spewing out. Nine o’clock in the evening on March 23rd. A clock chimed from a church tower near where she stood on Park Avenue and 49th Street. People’s electric currents swirled around her as their bodies passed by. Someone took her arm to keep her from falling again, but she brushed him off and kept on walking.

  “Time to leave Alfredo. Leave him. Leave, leave, leave,” she chanted to herself as she walked past Grand Central Station downtown.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” shouted Alfredo when he walked in the bedroom.

  Adrianne stood there with her arms full of underwear. She was packing her suitcase, which lay on the unmade bed. Time slowed down. She took a deep breath. The light burned into her eyes as she blinked and lowered them, staring at a spot on the floor. “I’m through with this life.”

  He knocked the underwear out of her arms. Panties, brassieres, stockings, lacy slips flew all over.

  Stunned, she watched while he lit a cigarette. He blew the smoke right into her face. “If you leave, watch your step. You might get into an accident. A car might run you down.”

  “I thought you loved me.” She could not believe he was saying this.

  “You belong to me.”

  “That’s not love.”

  “You can’t change any more than a leopard can change its spots. You’re a puta, a cunt. You’ll always crave different men.”

  He pulled the suitcase off the mattress and threw its contents on the floor along with her underwear. “Now put that shit away.”

  In shock, she picked up her scattered belongings while he went out for liquor. She stuffed her things back in the suitcase and quickly filled two other suitcases, stacking them in the closet just before she heard his tread on the stairs.

  Later she lay in his arms, scarcely daring to move. “Adrianne, don’t leave me,” he whispered. “Stay with me. I love you. Stay, mi amor,” he breathed into her ear.

  Towards dawn, Michelle came in.

  At seven-thirty in the morning while Alfredo and Michelle were sleeping, Adrianne dragged her suitcases down the five flights of stairs and hailed a taxi.

  PART THREE

  April, 1960

  Chapter 33

  The following Thursday as soon as they had received the results of their blood tests, Adrianne and Max were secretly married by a justice of the peace.

  Afterwards, he took her to a furnished studio apartment on West 86th Street which he had rented the day before. “Is only for a short time, meine liebchen. I want to live in the country far away from all this dirt and noise and from city life, if that would please you. You would like that?”

  “Where, Max?”

  “Vermont.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said.

  Awkwardly, he kissed her, and then slowly he removed her clothing. How beautiful she was with her soft white skin, full thighs and hips, and breasts like cantaloupes. With her tiny rosebud nipples, she was as beautiful as he had imagined—even more so—and she was giving herself to him. Could she truly desire an old man? Was that a pitying smile he saw on her face? Her golden hair brushed his cheek, her soft body pressed against his, and, incredibly, her mouth sought out his lips and then her tongue parted them while she grasped him tightly to her by the buttocks. Ah, such softness. She smelled sweet like the springtime, like apple blossoms. He was getting hard, and they moved to the bed. She lay beneath, pinning him tightly to her, and helped guide him into her moist, soft crevice. Once more he kissed her. Adrianne wanted to scream, bite his fingers, whisper, “I do this all the time, baby. Ten, twenty times a day.”

  What if he were to find out about her past?

  She had screwed much older, much uglier men.

  His fleshiness had something gentle, even feminine, about it, to which she began to respond. There was something soft and caring in his touch. She bit down on his lower lip. He began to thrust faster, climaxed, and in a little while it was all over. Afterwards he lay with his arms around her. To her surprise, when she felt the wetness on his cheeks she realized it was tears.

  That night she dreamed of white clouds, sparkling streams and forests, and of searching for a house she used to live in. Finally, someone told her that she was standing in front of it, but it did not look familiar to her.

  The next morning, Friday, Max went to work at the shop where he had repaired watches for so many years. Adrianne looked through the Want Ads in The New York Times. Perhaps she should get a job again. The cooking job hadn’t been so bad. Besides, she would go mad inside these four walls.

  Max had left her fifty dollars to buy a few groceries and to take care of anything else she needed. “Buy yourself something nice,” he said, and she realized that this was coming from a man who renounced pleasure and luxuries for himself.

  Saturday they took a bus to Vermont, to an inn where he had reserved a room for three days and nights.

  As she sat on the bus next to Max, she thought, “This is my husband.” It felt strange and unreal. The bus jolted on while she dozed.

  Later, as the bus rolled along, she looked out the window at the countryside. She missed Alfredo intensely, but she was determined to be kind to Max.

  “I am so much older than you,” he said suddenly, breaking the silence as though he could read her mind. “If you do not fall in love with me right away, it is all right. In Europe where marriages are arranged, often the couple do not love each other until they get to know each other after they are married. Only in America and only in this century are the marriages romantic.” Then his voice trembled. “Do you think you may grow to love me?”

  “Yes, Max.” She kissed his thin old man’s lips, pitying him because he had known so many years of self-denial.

  He dozed now, snoring slightly. In his lap lay a copy of Der Zeitung from West Berlin and beneath it a copy of The Jerusalem Post.

  The bus droned on. Towns of old brick houses gave way to tall budding trees and green pasture land. It was April and the sky was blue. Lulled by the steady jolting rhythm of the bus, Adrianne again dozed off.

  When they came to a stop, she awakened. They had reached Burlington. A fair-haired man in an old green Packard met them at the station and drove them to an inn far out in the country.

  Adrianne and Max spent three calm and restful days.

  “Meine liebchen, do you think you would be happy here?” They were walking through a meadow of fresh, green grass surrounded by forest. Max plucked a violet and handed it to her. Patches of snow still lay on the slopes of distant mountains.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I’d like to try living in the
country.”

  Far away from Alfredo, she thought. Far, far away.

  Chapter 34

  In the synagogue on West Ninety-Third Street, Max glanced about anxiously. Adrianne was upstairs in the Women’s Section, so he couldn’t see her.

  “God forgives,” the rabbi had said. “God forgives, or else the souls he created would be totally destroyed.” Perhaps Adrianne was a sign that he was at last forgiven, thought Max. Perhaps she was a sign like the twig brought back to Noah between the dove’s beak after the flood.

  Max put his hands on his thighs, feeling the shiny brown gabardine with distaste. Now that he was a married man, to please Adrianne he must buy himself nicer clothes. His left knee itched and he scratched it. His stomach felt heavy. The men around him were rising to their feet. He stood, too, and chanted the familiar Hebrew words. “Adonai Israel … Adonai Eluhenu … Adonai ya Israel.” Usually he looked forward to the the weekly service, which had helped to sustain him all these years. But tonight, with the tumultuous emotions caused by his marriage, he could scarcely breathe. His longing to be in bed again with Adrianne was intense, and he could feel his heart pounding too fast.

  The congregation sat down, and Rabbi Zimmerman, a frail, bearded man, began to speak. The pounding in Max’s heart slowed, but his chest felt tight.

  Dr. Goldfarb had advised him that he could retire early because of his heart condition. The doctor would sign documents enabling Max to begin drawing Social Security benefits, as well as his employer’s pension now, so that he would not have to wait until he was sixty-five. Despite the manner in which he had been living, Max was not a poor man. Over the years, he had invested wisely and had built up a portfolio of stocks and bonds.

  He wished right now that he could lean over and touch Adrianne. He would like to feel her soft cheek against his and luxuriate in her warmth. For so many years he had not held another human being.