Yonnondio: From the Thirties

by Tillie Olsen

  And perhaps it all would have been all right, that night anyhow, but after supper Ben (so wanting love) buried his face in his father’s big shoulders and proffered his finger for sympathy. Shocked, righteous, Jim told Anna (not seeing how she clutched the sink rim between dishes), “Dont you pay no attention to these kids? You do something right away about Ben’s finger. It’s swoll up like a tire. What do you mean lettin it go like that? Better soak it, draw the splinter out.”

  She put on the water to heat, poured Purex into a glass, but after she’d mixed the boiling water (pain’s hand in hers, and all else fled) she forgot that hot was hot and plunged Ben’s finger in. And still held it against Ben’s scream and writhing till Jim knocked the glass out from under. “You crazy” was all he could say. “You crazy—this madhouse. I’m clearin out.”

  She managed through the nursing, she managed through the loving till Ben was comforted and through the sharp commands till the others quieted, and then she fainted. Now she should have called WillMazieBen, for they were fled into a terror which nothing could reach. When Mis’ Kryckszi came, gleaning only from Ben’s skirt tugging and incoherent mommamomma, something terrible had happened, Anna lay peacefully as if she were drowned, in a pool of water, and Will was pouring over more, and Mazie was shaking her and begging, “Wake up, wake up.”

  Vinegar on her nostrils and wrist-chafing, and Anna cleft back from the tranquility and the quietness. Lucky the pain that bore her into its own world, so she could not see her children’s faces; lucky the numbness of sleep that came after.

  Mis’ Kryckszi said nothing, carrying sleeping Jimmie from the front-room floor onto his cot, mopping up the floor, bathing the children’s hot faces, but after it all was done she took Ben on her lap and sang to them not lullabies but songs of her own country in which her fierce anger flashed.

  Lurching down the streets, his face lifted to the stars, singing out his great crude singing, feeling the wind like a flame against him, singing against the night and the wind—so that the little Negro boy, Jeff, on the corner, waking smiled and hummed softly to himself, and heard a humming in his head like a thousand telegraph wires, a thousand messages of sound that would blend into music—singing his wide crude singing (I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear) so that the vast night throbbed about him, Jim came home.

  Mazie, her head under the bedclothes, trying to stifle the fear and horror that retched within her, heard the singing; heard the door slammed shut, the thudding steps, the toilet flushed, the drunken talk her father had with himself that the rising wind enclosed, swept away.

  No use to tell him, not a bit of use, stiffly repeated itself and marched round and round her head. No use, no use.

  What was happening? It seemed the darkness bristled with blood, with horror. The shaking of the bed as if someone were sobbing in it, the wind burrowing through the leaves filling the night with a shaken sound. And the words, the words leaping.

  “Dont, Jim, dont. It hurts too much. No, Jim, no.”“Cant screw my own wife. Expect me to go to a whore? Hold still.”

  The merciful blood pounding in Mazie’s ears, battering away the sounds. Oh Will. Crawl up close, put your arms around.

  As if in sleep (pretend sleep?): “Get away from me, ya damn girl.”He hears too? The hoarse breathing—the moan? Will, Will.

  Ben in his sleep, sucking in his breath sharp and wounded, Jimmie in his sleep, blowing out a soft bubble of sound.

  “Will.” All right, act like you’re asleep. I’ll be like asleep too. Lay down heart, go to sleep. Poppa, quit shakin me. No Poppa here—you shakin yourself. All right, I’ll go.

  Oh, Ma, Ma. The blood on the floor, the two lifeless braids of hair framing her face like a corpse, the wall like darkness behind. Be away, Mazie, be away. “Poppa, come in the kitchen, Momma went dead again, Poppa, come on.” The drunken breath. (Fear remembered such a breath.) So cruel the way he pushes her away, uncomprehending. “Lemme sleep.” “Oh, Poppa,” crying now, “Momma’s dead again. Please, Poppa, please come.”

  Running in the kitchen (so ugly, Momma, all the hair, the blood), running back with water, calling “Poppa” again till he somehow comprehends and comes. How clumsily he lifts Anna and carries her to the bed and brings the lamp. And remembering something of what Bess Ellis had done after the baby was born; with tremor hands he kneads the flesh above her womb till the blood stops pouring and stillness comes.

  What does Bess have to wake up again and cry for? Poppa gone, and I dont know what to do. Dont cry, baby, dont cry. The lamp dancin, dancin. Whats the matter with you, lamp, what you see so funny you hafta dance about? Daddy singin when he comes home like the world is all strong and singin; and the wind—hear the wind in the trees, cryin for people that cant cry no more, cryin for people that want to cry and cant. Oh Momma, dont talk like that. (“So sweet Jim, a little oyster, a little pearl, a growin … No, Bess … not bad, only I wish the bearin-down pains would start. Oh.” Such a shriek. “Elma, be careful…. All Elma’s fingers gone, Ma, just a stump a bleedin left. I didnt know so much blood was in the world. And the damn forelady yelling, go on back to work…”) No, Momma, no, Bess, dont cry. I’ll hold ya and love ya, Bess, I’ll tell ya a story, see, I’ll diaper you and I’ll tell you a story, onct upon a time the night was quiet, and the river, a cool river, Bess, was goin along, goin along, talkin to itself so happy, and it said maybe Bess would like to come and Mazie too and it dont go by no cities, Bess. Stop cryin, Bess, even baby’s cryin (so ugly the naked thigh, the coarse hair, all the blood), please, somebody, oh Momma, stop talkin.

  And the lamp in the wind from the open windows and the twitching shadows, the writhing of the trees, the waiting and words in fever and delirium.

  He is back. He sits there immolated, a frieze, holding Anna’s hand, and Mazie, so cold, clutches Bess, frightened of going back into the night of the bedroom, back with Will (get away from me, ya damn girl). And they wait till the doctor comes.

  “Miscarriage. You didn’t know she was pregnant—again?”And Mazie runs; on the kitchen floor, the blood; runs, runs outside.

  “How old’s the baby?” (Damn fools, they ought to sterilize the whole lot of them after the second kid.)

  “Four months, mm. You remember how long your wife’s been feeling sick?”Of course not. These animals never notice but when they’re hungry or want a drink or a woman.

  “Hmmmm. Yes.” She took the ergot down quietly, but moaned at the hypo. “So it was intercourse before as well as the fall?”Pigsty, the way these people live. “And she’s been nursing all along? We’ll have a look at the baby.” Rickets, thrush, dehydrated; don’t blame it trying to die. “Viosterol is what it needs—and a dextri-maltose formula.

  “Your wife’s a sick woman. Needs all the rest she can get, fresh fruits, vegetables, and liver. And medical attention. So does the baby. Unless you can afford a private doctor, see she gets to the clinic—Thursday, anyhow, for a curettage—a cleaning out. And the baby’s to be weaned right away—I’m writing it all down here—wait a minute, there’s a change. Karo syrup and canned milk for the formula; try to get some cod-liver oil—the baby really needs it—or at least all the sun it can stand with most of its skin exposed.”

  Running, so much ugliness, the coarse hair, the night bristling, the blood and the drunken breath and the blob of spit, something soft, mushy, pressed against her face, never the farm, dont cry, even baby’s cryin, get away from me, ya damn girl, the faint gray vapor of river, run, run, but it scares you so, the shadows the lamp throws in the wind.

  The cold, the world was so cold, she was wearing her slip and barefoot, and seeing the lamppost, she clutched it, trying to press the trembling vibrating thing inside her, back into where she had first heard it. And her eyes lifted in horror … lifted in horror that wavered and broke.

  Globed and golden in the green light of early dawn, the street lamps stretched far and far. Beside them crouched the solid rows of buildings, little weak lights in th
eir windows, and down in the valley, solid and quiet, the great mass of packing house and stockyard. The viaduct was laced in fairy lines, and against the sky four great smoke stacks reared, so strong, so beautiful in the glowing light with the fading smoke out of their throats, she could not help it, her arms reached out as if to touch and embrace them. A shudder went over her body, a shudder of quietness, and then tears, through which the beautiful street shimmered and was diamonded, the street lamps rayed and haloed.

  He lifted her and carried her toward home, her father. “Were you scared, were you scared? Momma’s sick, awful sick, Big-eyes. Awfully sick, and the doctor says she needs everything she cant get, tells me everything she needs, but not how to get it”(cry from a million swollen throats), “everything she needs but not how to get it. You’re so cold, kiddie. Why do you want to go back to the top of the street for? Kiss Poppa and we’ll go home and I’ll make a fire and warm you, a nice fire, and you can fall asleep on Daddy’s lap…

  “And Bess’s pretty sick, me not noticing, blind as a bat. And medicine, he says. Everything, but not how to get it. Stop shiverin, baby. We’ll make a big fire and warm you up.”

  No, he could speak no more. Watching the flame catch and sputter and die and leap up again. Covering up Anna and the baby. No, he could speak no more. And as he sat there in the kitchen with Mazie against his heart, and dawn beat up like a drum, the things in his mind so vast and formless, so terrible and bitter, cannot be spoken, will never be spoken—till the day that hands will find a way to speak this; hands.

  SIX

  Two days she lay there quietly, in a merciful numbness that was half sleep, half coma, emerging out of it once to say: I’ll be getting up now, Else, but making no move to, just lying there, tracing with her eyes the stains on the ceiling, sinking back into the twilight dimness again. Once Bess’s fretful piping pierced into her dream, and with trembling fingers she pulled her breast out, trying to rise to the baby. Ben, playing by the bed, saw and ran for Else. She came in time to hold the struggling woman down, saying over and over, Lie still, honey, go on back to sleep, lie still, till Anna gave way and turned on her pillow and closed her eyes. After that, Bess was kept daytimes out in the yard, beyond hearing.

  Wild with the exultance of the first vacation days, Mazie and Will were off somewhere. Quarrels flared in the kitchen when they came in on their forays for food. “I declare, I dont know whats the matter with you,” Else would say, “carryin on so with your ma sick in bed in the next room, needin every bit of rest she can get. Aint you shamed pickin on your sister, Will? And you, Mazie, you oughta be home lookin after Jimmie and Ben, you’re the little mother now. Come back here, where you runnin off to again, come back,” the last yelled to figures vanishing with their loot of bread and shortening. And then the house would stand empty and quiet again, save for Else’s padding about and the shuffle of Ben’s pieces of cloth as he arranged and rearranged them in pattern play on the floor by Anna’s bed.

  And at five when Else left, the stillness deepened and darkened, the late-afternoon sunlight filling the rooms with a haze golden and tranquil, gilding the face of Will as he crept in to look at his mother, flickering over Mazie taking up Bess to see if she needed changing, haloing little Jimmie’s head as he crept in, weary and dirty. And in the stillness, Will and Mazie would lift down the heavy pots and Mazie fill the plates and together bring them out on the back stoop, where they sat, Mazie and Will and Ben and Jimmie, watching the sun fire up the sky, burst and fade, while they ate their supper.

  And at seven Mrs. Kryczski would come, quieting Bess till her bottle was ready, crooning softly while she fed her, washing up Ben and Jim for the night; and last with the last darkening—Jim—to eat his solitary meal in silence, to tend Ben’s finger and round up the older children, and sit there in the soft dark, whittling, trying to figure a way out on the money, prodding himself to stay awake, fumbling through another feeding for Bess so he could go to bed at last; and the house stand there in its curious empty stillness till dawn and the same day begin again.

  The third day, Jim’s Sunday off, began a tossing. Whenever Jim came in she would be lying with her head turned toward the window, asleep, he would have thought, except for the staring eyes and the hand that quivered at her throat. Go back to sleep, he would say, best sleep again, but she never answered, answered or looked at him or questioned why it was that she was lying there, or what had happened. Once he heard her whimper: Oh my breasts, they sting so, they’re so full, but hearing him approach, she turned her face sharply away, asking in a voice not hers: “Is Bess eating all right?” But before he could answer, her eyes were closed and she was lying in a semblance of sleep he did not disturb.

  Helped up, supported by Else, still in the seeming quietude, she went to the clinic, clutching the doctor’s slip of paper Jim had put in her purse to give. Else, by her side, could not get a word out of her. But sitting in the clinic, waiting in the smell of corroding and the faces of pain, she lifted Bess out of Else’s lap, shielded her close and rasped out fiercely: “We shouldn’ta brought baby here, we shouldn’ta brought her.” And all the way home she hugged the squalling child to her—against the frowsy houses and streets of filth the streetcar jolted past.

  Home, clutching the pillow to her inflamed breasts as if she still held Bess, she sank into exhausted sleep into which the distorted faces of pain marched round and round in endlessly dragging regiments of themselves.

  In the kitchen Jim was saying to Mrs. Kryczski, stitching at a canvas: “One way to swell up the paycheck anyhow. No more soakin me for the waterproofs and boots every week. But do you think I’m gettin one cent back of all I been payin in? Not one cent. They said did I think they was in the equipment rentin business?” Then he saw Anna in the doorway.

  “Anna! You aint supposed to be up. Was you needin somethin?”

  “… The house … It needs cleanin.”

  “And you’re in fine shape to do it. Get back to bed.”

  In a mesmerized voice. “Dirt, the poster said. Dirt Breeds Disease.”

  “C’mon now. You ain’t supposed to be up.”At her side but hesitant to touch her. “C’mon. You been awful sick.”

  “Disease …” She recoiled from his touch, said, “Why, Mis’ Kryczski” cordially, naturally, relapsed again into the automaton voice: “Disease … Your children … The posters …”

  “Outa her mind,” he explained to Mrs. Kryczski. “I said c’mon. You lost a lot of blood.”

  “Germs spread … The house … The posters…”

  “I said come on. Easy now.”

  “At the clinic, they scare … And all the poor sick people settin …”

  “Dont worry your head. Cover up good now.”

  “So many ways of bein sick …” Wringing her hands, “We shouldnta brought baby there! We shouldnta brought her!”

  “I said: dont worry your head. Sleep now, you hear?”

  She looked at him sharply, bitterly; mutely turned her head away.

  “You want anything, just holler. Sleep. Try.” He did not leave her till it seemed she slept.

  Back in the kitchen, miserable, he watched the needle glitter in and out of the stiff poncho. He yearned to ask Mrs. Kryckszi about Anna but could form neither words nor thoughts.

  “It fit now, I think,” she said at last, folding up the canvas and handing it to him. “Try on.” Then, with a nod toward the bedroom: “She begin to get better now. She begin to feel things again. You be careful with her now.”

  She is stirring in the night, in the great black and blue bruise of night, waking and creeping out of bed, groping along the wall, past Bess’s basket to the open window where she kneels down and lays her hot forehead on the cool windowsill. Her fists are clenched, and behind her eyes the unshed tears stand in knots of pain. Money, she is thinking, sicknesses. Streets. Dirt. The children, my children. What is happening to them, what will be? My babies, my children. Outside no answer. Only the smell of earth, expectant of
rain, the mysterious blue light that is on everything, the trees moving palsied against the sky, and strident, strained, breaking, the sound of a freight starting up. My children, the children.

  Heavy to take up again, being poor and a mother.

  She lay there a long while after she awoke, trying to make out what time it could be. If there had been rain, it was over now. Dust motes were gleaming in the shaft of light that slanted in through the window. The house seemed empty. “Else, Ben,” she called softly. No one answered. Slowly she pulled herself up and edging along the wall, pushed open the door into the front room. It lay in shadow, and out of an old enlarged photo, a very young Anna with a baby Will in her arms smiled down upon her. Her face contorted. Quickly she closed the door.

  She had not wanted to go through the bathroom but there was no other way now. High up in a dirty brown corner, a cobweb spangled. Unsteadily she picked up the plunger and swept it down. One fly, still alive, moved an iridescent wing and buzzed. The kitchen stood blank and empty in glaring afternoon sun. It was a long while before she could make out the potato peels turning black in the sink, the dirty dishes, the souring bottle of milk about which flies droned. Flies, the poster said, Spread Germs. Germs Breed Disease. Cleaving to the table for support, disregarding the flame of agony in her engorged breasts, she swatted feverishly. The flies lifted and evaded. Disease … Your children … Protect … The soap was gone, the water spluttered malevolently at her. She rinsed the dishes, scooped the garbage up into a pot, and went out into the yard. It was deserted but for Bess sleeping in her basket, covered with an old curtain for netting.

  Someone had forgotten to put the cover on the garbage pail, and below the solid droning mass of flies gray things slithered and struggled. The stench steamed up and hit her in the nostrils. Gasping for breath, she threw the garbage in, pot and all, and jammed the cover on, then stumbled over to the stoop and sat down. The vomit kept rising and rising, but none came. Didnt know I was so delicate, she whispered. Whew. Whew. And jest garbage smell mixed in with a little packin’house.