Policewoman

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  “Now if she makes us,” Charlie said, “we let it go; we don’t press anything. I don’t think you look like a cop and you don’t think I look like a cop, but she might think we both have shields on our foreheads. We just play it by ear and see what happens.”

  Madame Zoruba’s was not a typical gypsy storefront opening on the street. It was down about six steps, in the basement of a shoddy, once elegant brownstone on West 93rd Street. There was an iron grating over the entrance-way, which was located beneath the stairway to the first floor of the building. There was a small sign over the bell and a larger one of chipped black paint on the door. MADAME ZORUBA, the signs said, and over the letters was a faded yellow symbol of a crescent moon and five-pointed stars. We rang the bell a second time, and when the door opened, Charlie had his hand on my shoulder. In the darkness of the doorway, Madame Zoruba looked us over quickly, then said something to Charlie in Polish.

  Charlie spoke hesitantly, and I gathered she was asking us who we were, what we wanted of her. They spoke for at least two minutes, and I would not meet her eyes, which were studying me. Finally, she jutted her chin decisively at me as Charlie, facing me now, explained me. Then she opened the door and let us walk past her, to grope in the darkened entrance hall. She grunted some direction to us, and Charlie parted the hanging beads which covered an archway into a small, hot room which was filled in every corner by ancient, worn, velvet-covered furniture—a great stuffed sofa, three armchairs, a foot-rest as large as an easy-chair. The original color had probably been some shade of green, but it was grayish now, and there were traces here and there of some gold fringe along the bottoms. There were tables placed wherever a chair ended, and massive, ugly lamps, all unlit, were on every table. There were pictures hung haphazardly on the walls up to the low, chipped ceiling: dark brown photographs of dark old people staring out blankly at some ancient camera.

  Seen in the dreary dimness of the room, Madame Zoruba strikingly resembled the furnishings with which she had surrounded herself. She was a short, heavy woman, upholstered in an endless series of nondescript skirts topped off with a thick blouse of heavy, cheap satin, which had apparently been white at some long forgotten time. She was like some animated junk-jewelry shop. She clinked and rattled and clanged from all manner of hanging things (long, beaded metallic loops of things hung from about her neck, dull beads and tarnished chains with dangling amulets that flopped massively against the bulges in the blouse). Along the outer seams of the blouse and down the front of it were the mere remnants of what must have once been machine embroidery, in what must have I once been bright, dazzling colors; they were now faded tatters sticking grimly to the fabric of the garment.

  Madame Zoruba’s head was covered down to her forehead with a rag that made no attempt to disguise itself. It was filthy and disreputable and tight against her skull, held with a giant safety pin. Bits of frazzled hair protruded from all the edges of the scarf, kinky from the chemicals of home permanents and home blackening procedures.

  Her face was brown with age, and round, with great empty sacs of skin under the eyes and along the mouth. The eyes, however, gave life to the woman. The eyes seemed somehow capable of listening, apart and for themselves. Her mouth, which worked constantly, was a brownish pit in her face and the few teeth that remained were blackened stumps, uneven and deformed, noisily clicking against each other in irregular pairs. I wondered, in some despair, at the feelings of those girls and women who had come here, to this woman, to find solutions to their overwhelming problems.

  Charlie’s voice was hushed with concern, and now and then I could catch a few of the Polish phrases, vaguely similar to the Slovak language of my husband’s parents. The girl ... very young ... the girl, again. Each time he would turn his face toward me. Madame Zoruba watched us both, her eyes moving swiftly, flashing first at me, then at Charlie, sizing us up, taking our measure.

  When she spoke, the words of her language were indistinguishable: a mere series of wet, slippery, sputtering and guttural sounds, rapidly spit out with much gesturing of the shoulders and clinking of the beads and teeth. Suddenly and without warning, at least without warning that I could comprehend, she whirled toward me with a flourish of skirts and planted her face inches from mine, looking into my eyes, her own eyes flickering back and forth, studying whatever she saw there. Then she nodded brusquely, backed away. She motioned me to another chair, switched on a yellow lamp and sat on the footstool, her knees wide apart, skirts reaching to the floor. She motioned for my hand, pushed back my left and grasped my right hand. She covered my hand with both of hers and rubbed it roughly; her palms were like chips of rock and they grated. Then she rested my hand lightly in her own and squinted and frowned at my palm, tracing lines from beginnings to endings with a stubby yellow fingernail. She hunched over and made a hawking sound in her throat, and I was almost convinced that she was about to spit into my hand, but she merely made some growling, gagging sounds in her throat. She studied my hand so intently, and with such mutterings and squintings and concern that I began to feel there was something written there, unreadable to me, but known to her. Her concentration seemed complete, and she dug her stumpy nail deeper and deeper into my palm, then twisted my hand over, rubbed the back with a horny palm, and turned it palm upward again. Then, she placed her face into my hand, and her breath felt hot and moist and dirty and I could feel it along my arm and down my neck and between my shoulders, but I sat rigid and unmoving.

  Finally, she tossed my hand back to me: she had seen all she had to see. It was all there.

  For the first time, she spoke to me and her English was as guttural and nearly as incomprehensible as her Polish had been. “You are two months with this thing?”

  It was not really a question but a declaration, and I nodded. It was a good measure of her shrewdness: two months was just about right. The first month, the man would tell the woman that maybe she’s just late, maybe she’s just upset. But when the second month had passed, she knew for sure, and if something was to be done, this was the time to do it, when she entered the third month.

  She ignored me then, not even favoring me with her sly squinty glances, but spoke to Charlie, who stood awkwardly, his hat held in both hands, shifting from one foot to the other. They spoke in low tones, excluding me, and she turned and waddled from the room, trailing beads from the doorway behind her. I glanced over at Charlie, but he was studying his feet, and then Madame Zoruba was back with her hand extended toward me. She opened her hand and showed a small piece of pink tissue paper in which rested two white pills. She bent her face low over them, muttered, wetly spattering the tablets, then took my hand, pressed the little package into it, breathed on it a few times, her lips moving wetly, then closed my hand into a fist.

  “Tonight,” she said, “at nine o’clock. Take. Maybe no more trouble.” Then, shrugging her shoulders, “Maybe no good. Who knows?”

  Charlie spoke again to the woman, and she shrugged and shook her head, offering him no assurances, then gestured for us to follow her into the second room, through the beaded doorway.

  The room was painted some dark color, and heavy black or navy blue drapes of a lush material, possibly velvet, hung over the window. There was scuffed linoleum on the floor, but it was so dark in the room it was impossible to guess its color. Against one wall was a kind of altar, a hodgepodge collection of semireligious items. There was a crucifix with a dreadful looking Jesus, all chipped plaster, and painted blood oozing down his wrists and forehead. Artificial flowers—fuchsia and brilliant yellows and oranges—the kind some people buy to put on graves on Memorial Day, were ranged along the altar, and the altar cloth was decorated with grotesque embroidered figures and designs. A cloth behind the crucifix was decked out with stars and half-moons and strange symbols. There was a brass bell resting on the altar, and several jars of incense candles, all unlit. In the center of the altar was a large brass box with a huge padlock and a wide slit in the center, and a little card hung from the pad
lock, apparently written with some Polish words of solicitation.

  It was a stifling, cramped room; the air was dusty and dry and stale. Madame Zoruba handed each of us a long taper and then lit them from a book of matches. Then she indicated the incense candles, and as we lit them, she made a strange cry.

  She stood behind me, her hands raised over my head, her face turned up to the ceiling, wailing thickly and heavily. Charlie watched her, his face unreadable in the flickering candlelight. Then, her incantation over, she spoke to him, indicating her cash box, and he pulled out a five-dollar bill from his wallet. She caught his hand mid-air and spoke rapidly, her eyes narrowing. Charlie then dug back into his wallet and came up with a twenty-dollar bill, which she examined, slobbered over and placed into her brass box with a few muttered words. Then she harshly blew out the candles, but not soon enough, for the sickeningly sweet perfume had already penetrated our clothing and hair and skin. We walked back into the first room, and Madame Zoruba took my arm roughly.

  “Take pills,” she said. “Wait two days. Nothing happen—you come see me again.”

  I nodded and started after Charlie for the door leading to the street, when she suddenly caught my arm again, turning me toward her. Looking fully into my face, her eyes bright and cruel, she said, “This one—here,” poking into my stomach, “no good, see?” She circled her face with her hand, then jabbed her index finger and her thumb into her eyes. “No good, see? No eyes, this one. What is word, hah? Blind. This one here,” again poking my stomach, “blind. No good. Not have the eyes!”

  We walked down the street silently, staring straight ahead. I felt lightheaded from the smell and atmosphere of the place, from the clinging, trailing incense. We walked slowly, heavily, each of us caught up in it. Driving back to B.O.S.S., I noticed that Charlie’s face was gray, drawn, his mouth pulled down slightly at the corners.

  The pills were aspirin. Madame Zoruba could not be arrested for dispensing medicine without a license. Anyone can give you an aspirin.

  The money she had demanded from Charlie was a donation for her religious order. And Madame Zoruba could not be arrested for predicting the future for a fee.

  Two days later, we appeared again at Madame Zoruba’s. Reentering these premises was enough to make me feel ill, and apparently my appearance satisfied her, for she studied me carefully, nodding now and again, then stood back from me, speaking to Charlie about me as though I were some statue or object in the room. Charlie spoke with his head down, his toe scuffing, his hands twitching and spinning the hat he held, shaking his head. Madame Zoruba made clicking, swallowing noises, speaking something to Charlie, jutting her round chin at me, waving her hands in front of her face, pounding her stomach a few times. Then she motioned for me to sit. She waddled away for a moment and returned holding a piece of paper and a pencil, which she thrust at me. Then she eyed Charlie, motioned him to the next room, stood watching the swaying beads until they became still.

  “Write this,” she whispered at me. “Yah, now write this. 426 West 87th Street. 16-A. Two days from now.” Shaking her head for a moment, in some confusion, counting on her fingers. “Two days: today Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Write down, write down.”

  I wrote it down.

  “Seven-thirty. Nighttime. Write down.”

  She watched the words forming on the paper, then shook my arm and held up five fingers, stretched apart. “Five, hundred, you bring. He say ... that man, he say okay.” I nodded.

  Then she stood away from me and motioned me into her inner sanctum again, where Charlie stood waiting. We went through the whole routine again, and Charlie parted with another twenty-dollar bill, and we were covered again by the heavy fragrance.

  Just before we left, she crept up close to me and squinted her eyes tightly shut, losing them in a network of crumpled wrinkles and motioned with her hand wildly. “That one,” she said, “no good. Blind, blind, no eyes, no see.”

  And then we left Madame Zoruba’s with the address of the abortionist in my pocketbook—in my handwriting and unwitnessed.

  The building was a rooming house occupied by those faceless world-weary transients who appear one day with enough money for a week’s rent, blend into the bleakness of the surroundings and then move on without ever having existed within the walls of their featureless rooms. As soon as we left Madame Zoruba’s, Charlie made a few phone calls, then told me very briefly what had taken place. He had had the premises checked out and found that 16-A was on a long-lease basis, occupied only occasionally by a “Mr. Dormanski.” Mr. Dormanski was not at home at the moment, and a few dollars and a concocted story to the janitor of the building would give our men time to “prepare things.”

  “Prepare things,” I knew, meant they were going to bug the rooms. Charlie didn’t say too much, because as in all such matters, the fewer persons who know the details, the better. All I did know was that the rooms would be bugged by the time I arrived for my appointment, and that other police officers would be at listening posts somewhere in the building and would take appropriate action at the appropriate time. That was all I needed to know, and that was all Charlie told me.

  I couldn’t sleep much Wednesday night, as the events of the next night were working over and over in my mind. I had an appointment for seven-thirty the next night to have an abortion. My tossing and pacing of course kept Tony from sleeping, which was probably what I had in mind, because he finally got up and made me a cup of tea. This is the standard thing my husband does for me when I am tired, irritable, excited, nasty, sweet, happy, unhappy, quarrelsome. I have lived half my life inside a cup of bitter, unsugared tea with just a drop of milk. He never asks if I want a cup of tea—I never even know he’s boiling it up. He just hands it to me and I drink it and then usually say what it is I have to say. If there has been one symbolic thing in our marriage, one thing that represents love and devotion and understanding, that one thing would be a cup of tea.

  I thought about the assignment all the next day as I was poking around our little apartment, watching the clock. In so many hours, I will have left here, covered my assignment and be back here and it will all be over. Tony called at noon, and I told him I was fine and that I would leave his dinner in the refrigerator. All he had to do was heat it up; the meat was all cooked. He said okay, that he’d see me when I got home. If he was asleep, no matter what time it was, I was to wake him.

  Charlie called me at five-thirty and told me everything was set up and I wasn’t to worry about a thing. He and three other squad men were set up in a room on the third floor. Apartment 16-A was on the first floor, rear; there was one small room in the front and a larger one in back. They had bugged both rooms, and they would break in the minute they had what they wanted. He told me to show up about five minutes before my appointment, and he told me everything would be fine. Charlie’s voice had the calm, certain assurance of the professional policeman, and I carried the knowledge with me that he would be near by.

  I always shiver and sweat at the same time. My teeth chatter and I have to clench them together, because if I take a breath through my mouth, they bang together like a child’s on a winter day. It wasn’t particularly cold; it was the end of March and there was already a trace of spring in the night air. The front door of the building was open, and I pushed my way in to the typical, narrow, dark hallway. There was one uncovered yellow bulb which streaked the narrow passageway, showing all the bulges and lumps of plaster which were held on the wall by a covering of shiny brown paint. The linoleum on the floor was fairly clean, but pieces had broken off and a bug scampered out of a large hole in the center of the floor. I pulled my arms close against my sides: you never let your clothing touch these walls, and you have to watch for cockroaches dropping from the ceiling. Apartment 16-A was located directly behind the tall, high stairway, and the number was nearly rubbed off the door. There was no bell, so I knocked. Maybe no one would answer.

  The door opened instantly and a woman looked out. “Yes?”

/>   “I ... I was supposed to come here.”

  “Yes?” she asked again.

  “Yes. I ... Madame Zoruba said at seven-thirty.”

  The woman opened the door, standing in the doorway so that I had to enter almost sideways to avoid her, and then she closed the door behind her. I heard a series of locks or bolts or something, sealing us in.

  “Stay here,” she said, then left for the other room. When she opened the door, I could see a brightness, the glimpse of a man’s arm, heard muttering voices. The room was very small with no window, and I stood dead center, not wanting to sit on the sagging heavy couch. A few minutes went by, and I sat down on the edge of a wooden chair, taking in none of the details of the room, straining to hear the conversation in the next room. It was apparently in a foreign language, for it sounded like a humming, formless murmuring: two men, one woman. I looked around the room, vaguely wondering where the microphone was planted. I leaped to my feet when the woman flung open the door.

  She had a card in her hand and she went to the small table against one wall and motioned me toward her, indicating that I should pull over a chair. She switched on a small light which was set into the wall. It was fluorescent, and the purplish-blue light made her short-cropped bleached hair almost green. She was a short, solid woman with small, hard, grubby hands and a dirty, flowered house dress. Her feet, which she kept tapping flatly on the floor, were encased in cracked white gum-soled shoes, and there were lumps near the small toes.

  “So,” she said. “I am Mrs. Poland. You will answer these questions. Are you married?”

  “No,” I said loudly. She looked up sharply and then I remembered that the microphones were supersensitive. I fumbled with my fingers nervously as she marked something on the card.