Yonnondio: From the Thirties

by Tillie Olsen

  All the time it kept nagging, the pot still there, the pot she could not replace. Scarcely realizing that she was doing so, she pulled herself erect by the screen-door handle and, half falling, got back to the pail. The flies sprang to her face as before and the stench retched up, but she stood there stubbornly, with head averted and nostrils stiffened, clutching for the slippery surface of the pot.

  This time she barely managed to reach the stoop. Her limbs were trembling, her bones seemed water, her heavy breasts burned, burned. All she could do was sit there, her head against the screen door, her eyes closed, waiting for the trembling and faintness to cease. Slowly, slowly, her fingers loosened, and the pot slipped from her hand to the ground.

  It was very quiet. The sun lay warm on her shoulders, and far off through the muted voices of the street a peddler was calling, his voice reminding of an old song. Softly, she began to sing. Now a train puffed by, and the long wail dissolved in distance. The wind just lifted against her cheek. Ben came from nowhere and nuzzled against her. Momma, he said. She held him warm into her singing.

  “Momma.” She opened her eyes and saw his eyelashes fluttering over the patches of rash on his cheek; the dirty sore on his unbandaged finger; the stubble ground, the harsh curtain that made the netting on Bess’s basket, and beyond, far beyond, white foam of bridal wreath on the sea blue sky.

  White bridal wreath. When she was a girl … Oh when she was a girl … The life she had dreamed and the life that had come to be … The scabby sore on Ben’s finger scratched against her arm, and the vagrant wind retched the garbage smell. She closed her eyes again, but this time when she opened them, her fists were clenched, and Ben she had held so close to her was pushed away. Whether or not she said it aloud, a cry throbbed in the air: No. No.

  She had wrapped a rag around the broom and swept down the walls, and swept the floors, and scrubbed the toilet bowl, and put the diapers to soak, and was filling a tub with water preparatory to scrubbing the floor, when Mrs. Kryckszi came in with Mazie and Jimmie.

  “You been cleanin, Anna?” Mrs. Kryckszi asked, incredulous. “You go to bed.” Then, seeing the stubborn face flaring white behind its fury, in harder tones: “What the matter? You want to stay sick? Clean-in goin to wait for you, it not going noplace. You go lay down.”

  “I been layin down. As for you, Missy,” seeing Mazie, “where have you been? Git in here. There’s work for you to do.”

  “Annamae’s waitin.” Defiantly: “I gotta play.” Then with sullen averted face: “Poppa says you’ll get … that way again if you don’t stay in bed.” “Poppa says! Annamae’s got a long wait, sister. Git in now and git started. You hear me? Now if you’ll excuse us, Mis’ Kryckszi, and I want to thank you for all you been doin, I’ll get back to my work.”

  But the tub would not lift, though she heaved and heaved, and when it finally did, it was because of Mis’ Kryckszi’s hands at the side of hers.

  “You see you not so strong yet, Anna,” her neighbor said softly. “You lay down again, you find how you feel.”

  “Mazie and me got this floor and wash to do.”

  “All right, I start the floor for you and tell Annamae to call Willie. You make him and Mazie do heavy work. Now time to feed baby; she beginning to fuss. Sit down, I fix bottle and you give her. Then you clean.”

  But Bess seemed so heavy in her arms, and the feel of her made her breasts sting, sting. (The frenzy was ebbing, ebbing.) And her head was faint, and the hand that held the bottle beginning to tremor.

  “I need some air, I guess … Feed baby, Will.” Remembering to say like they told her in the clinic, “Hold the bottle up so’s there’s always milk in the neck or it gives baby colic bubbles. That’s right.”

  But it was not outside she went, but into the children’s bedroom. Mazie was there, changing her clothes. “Just look at this mess,” her mother said. “I was holdin off cleanin it till you came. Dont you know if you cant keep your own things out of a mess, you’ll never keep your life out of one? You clean up Jimmie and put clean rompers on him and then get back here. Go on.” Mazie just looked at her with her great eyes. “Go on. I’ll find him clean things … Well?”“Nothing.”

  She was gone. Well? Well? re-echoed in the air. Well? Such a mess, said Anna. I never asked her: Is that Ben or is it Will is wettin the bed again? Yes, get things back to regular and start takin in laundering.

  Mazie’s dress was crumpled in the corner. Anna picked it up and stuffed it into the dirty-clothes bag. Then she smoothed out Will’s jacket that had fallen on the floor and hung it on a nail. It was worn thin on the unpatched elbow and the buttons were off again. “Mend jacket,” she said to herself and passed her hand caressingly over the few other garments that dangled there.

  “Mend tomorrow, dont forget now,” starting over to the chest of drawers with its crust of stuff to be mended. But she stumbled over the children’s shoes, left in a tangle in the middle of the floor. Crouching down beside them, she whispered, “Ben. Needs soles, well, maybe a cardboard inside will do. Will’s: holes, holes. He always wears them down on the side like that.” Smiling. “I would know Will’s shoes outa anywhere in the world. But no soles or new heels or stitchin, even if there was money, going to fix these. Too far gone.” She stood up abruptly and the shoes dropped with a clatter. Too far gone.

  Jimmie did not seem to have a single whole sock in the drawer. Ben’s hand-me-downs, no wonder; and only one pair of rompers. She began going through the sock pile for a pair that could be most easily mended. Bess’s baby socks, Jimmie’s, Ben’s, Will’s, Mazie’s, they passed through her hands, and with each one inspected, her head ballooned lighter and lighter. “Barefoot season, I forgot. Socks can just wait.”

  The rompers. There was a tear in them, too, right across the seat. She had not noticed. “Mend,” she said loudly and stopped there and stood in the middle of the bedroom, holding the rompers.

  The strength and fury she had felt an hour ago were all gone now, and she stood there swaying in the middle of the bedroom with its swayback bed and the mattress on the floor with its acrid urine smell, and the trickle of light coming in through the thin high window—and she thought that she would suffocate of the tears strangling in her throat that would not ascend to her dry eyes.

  It was not that the clothes were beyond or almost beyond mending and that there were none others and no money to buy more; not that four children slept here in this closet bedroom, three on a mattress on the floor; not that in the corners dust curled in feathers, dust that was Dirt That Breeds Disease You Make Your Children Sick; not that one of her children had stood a few minutes ago (ah, which hurt more, the earlier averted face or this?) looking at her with pain and fear and pity for her in her eyes.

  It was not any and it was all of these things that brought her now to swaying in the middle of the floor, twisting and twisting the rompers in soundless anguish. It was that she felt so worn, so helpless; that it loomed gigantic beyond her, impossible ever to achieve, beyond any effort or doing of hers: that task of making a better life for her children to which her being was bound.

  Oh, what was the matter with Momma when Poppa said she had to stay in bed, acting and looking so funny, and that ol’ Jimmie having to say (cheerfully), “Madie hurt me, Momma, she hurt me in the baf.”

  “Tattleliar! I didnt hurt him, he’s slippery, Momma. Poppa said you got to stay in bed, got to. Momma, can I have JimJim’s rompers?” Coming closer, but wanting to run. “Oh Momma, what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing, Mazie.” Kneeling down on the floor alongside to reassure her; smiling a tormented smile. “I’ve got to…” her throat constricting, “do something.”

  “What, Momma?”

  “I dont know,” twisting and twisting the rompers, “I … dont … know.”

  When Jim came home she was sitting on the back stoop, directing Will to hoe up the stubbly ground.

  “Hey, what are you doin up?” he asked gently, coming up to her. “Forget them
take-it-easy, stay-in-bed orders?”

  She clenched her teeth and fists and huddled farther back into the twilight shadow.

  “You feelin that much better, honey? Then let’s go in,” hesitantly touching her arm, “and you can set up and tell us how to fix supper so it tastes better … C’mon, Anna, the kids’ll be waitin.”

  “Maybe they’ll be waiting for supper someday and there’ll be none to give. You ever think of that? We’re puttin in a garden like you promised and never done, that’s what I’m doin up. And I’m startin launderin work again if I can get it … Go on in yourself.”

  “Don’t get me mad now, Anna.”Beseechingly: “Anna, you been so sick. You know you shouldn’t be up.”

  “And shouldn’t I?” pulling herself erect, “and shouldn’t I? Let the dirt stay, let the kids run wild and not a decent stitch on ’em, let there be no makin do on the money, I shouldn’t be up. Don’t touch me! And who’s to cook and clean and look after the kids if I’m in bed? Who? The servants? The fine servants we keep on the big wages you’re makin?”

  “Stop it, Anna, stop it. You’re makin yourself sick … Oh Anna, honey, dont.”

  “Dont sweet Anna me. Who’s to do it if I’m not up? Answer. Who? Who’s to… look out for …”Gasping hoarsely. “Who’s to care about ’em if we dont? Who?”

  Fighting off his attempt to enfold her, to quiet; his broken: “Anna, dont, please dont.”

  “Who? Answer me. Oh Jim.” Giving in, collapsing into his reaching embrace. “The children.” Over and over, broken, “The children. What’s going to happen with them? How we going to look out for them in this damn world? Oh Jim, the children. Seems like we cant do nothing for them.”

  Oh Will, hoe in hand chopping viciously the air, running down the block away from his father’s stricken face, his mother’s convulsed words; oh Ben, clutching first his mother’s legs and then his father’s legs, trying vainly to still them, curling up now close to Mazie, heaving his asthma breaths; oh Mazie, stopping up her ears so as not to hear, yelling out a song to Jimmie and to clinging Ben so they will not hear—it is all right, it is over now.

  It is over. There is reconciliation in the house where your mother lies weeping; not hearing I’ll spade up your garden and tomorrow, payday, we’ll get seeds. We’ll work things out, you’ll see, dont take on so. Hearing only the attempt at comfort. And now your father lies beside her, stroking and kissing her hair, silently making old vows again, vows that life will never let him keep.

  SEVEN

  Always while Jim worked—down underground the dripping water diamonds his hair, trickles down his neck, makes a gay sound on his canvas poncho: no mackinaw and boots, but it means a buck more a week dont it, it means stuff for the baby, dont it?—heavy and sore in his breast would lie the torment of the questions Anna had asked, and such a sad baffled flame of tenderness flicker above.

  Work through, with a heart that ran far ahead of his feet, he would hurry, hurry home, a nameless fear on him, and his hello be almost a sob of joy as he flung open the door and saw that all seemed as it had been.

  A gaunt Anna who could not understand this body of hers that tired so quickly and quivered like a naked nerve; this stranger self. One minute her old competence and strength; the next: addled, nervous, brutal, lost. Not managing, having to give under, to let things go. Any effort wearing her out; everything an effort.

  Seeing her so, with the look of exhaustion on him, Jim would ask: “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Sometimes she did not answer at all, sometimes say: “You look right tired. Go ahead and set.” But once she blazed: “If you cant see what needs doin, just dont trouble to ask, you hear, just dont trouble to ask.” And another time, in the most chilling of voices: “Why dont you go set like you always do; done.” Adding: “’Cept that one wintertime on the farm I was carryin Bess. And that didn’t last long.”

  Now, in her slow mending, she began to ask him to chase the kids down, or to chide, or distract them. “They’re runnin me crazy. I declare I dont know what’s got into ’em, seems like the devil hisself.”

  Ben whining or wanting to be babied, afraid to let his mother out of sight, always underfoot with questions. Go out, she would force him, go out and play. Go on. But he huddled close to the kitchen door, his only playmate Jeff and sometimes Jimmie. Jimmie at an age where he was always having to be watched, likely to get into any manner of mischief. Will defiant; Mazie contrary—too exhausting to force their help (and the feeling: they’re kids, let them play and feel good while they can).

  Troubled, she saw them running, shrilling out laughter, playing their frantic games wildly, disappearing to come back hours later; flushed, hostile, excited, secretive. A lust for sensation, for the new was on them, a lust for the streets, for looking into store windows; for moving over the dump, the stretches of weed and alley. They clamored for pennies she did not have for licorice, shoestrings, blackjacks, jawbreakers, Juicy Fruit gum—litany of wonders endless at the corner store; on Saturdays, for nickels to go to the movie show. No, she had to say over and over, we dont have it, no—but sometimes if she had it set aside for another purpose, she gave them what they asked.

  She began to neglect the already neglected house to go out and weed and work in the garden. The washtubs and wringer sat out in the yard now, beside Bess’s basket. She would have liked to range the stove alongside too, even cook over an open fire. Inside suffocated her (outside too when there was packing-house stench) but a need was in her to be out under a boundless sky, in unconfined air, not between walls, under the roof of a house.

  The cumulating vision of overwhelming, hostile forces surrounding which had come to Anna that week of the clinic, never left her. But she was not strong enough to contend with it now. Only sporadically could she try to order, do something about their lives. And a separation, a distance—something broken and new and tremulous—had been born in her, lying by herself those long unaccustomed hours free of task.

  One dusktime, when Jim got home, she and Mazie were still wringing and hanging clothes. “Get in and see to supper, Mazie, while I finish up out here,” Anna said, seeing him. Cheerfully: “I got my first launderin job today.”

  “I see that.” Sinking down heavily onto the stoop as the light drained. Bitterly: “You aint well enough to keep us ’uns clean, or get your other work done like you used to, let alone do for other folks.” “What’s well enough or other work got to do with—have to?” she asked, and went on hanging up what was left in the basket; took down blouses, shirts, dresses from another line.

  “I said you aint well enough for what you got to do for us ’uns now,” he repeated. “We never lived in such a mess.”

  “It’s a dollar every time.” Dreamily: “That looks nice across the river, dont it? The mist comin up like way away soft laundry blowin on a line. White.”

  “You fixin to get sick on me again? … Ferget that launderin, Anna. We’ll get by. We ain’t starved yet.”

  She looked at him with an expression that, in the uncertain light, he thought might be anger or bitterness, but her voice came humble: “I’m helpin, Jim.” She came over, her arms heaped; sagged beside him. “Feels good to sit, dont it? You look mighty weary.” Carefully she smoothed and rolled the garments, arranged them in the basket.

  “That’s pretty how you do that,” said Ben, rising from the shadows. “Are you making it a sunflower? Can I try tree and branches?”

  “You touch that wash with your dirty hands, and you’ll never touch another thing. How long since you washed up?”

  “Bess was laughin and laughin today, Poppa,” Ben reported. “Lookin cross-eyed at her hands, so we got laughin. When I say, ‘Bessie, Bess, Bonny Bess,’ she turns and looks for me, dont she, Momma? Do you have a penny for Will? Your hair’s still wet, Poppa.”

  “How’s yourself, old tricks?” drawing Ben close. “I got a penny for you, all right.”

  “Jim, a man came by today and for a quarter a week if we st
art now, a kid gets three hundred dollars when he’s sixteen. For a sure edjication.”

  Jim jabbed at Ben’s arm, shadow-punched at his face. “Dont you know how to duck yet?”

  Holding his father’s hand: “Guess what, Poppa? We blewed soap bubbles today with green onions. Momma showed us how. All shiny. Mine was the biggest, then Mazie’s. Where do bubbles go with your breath when they bust, Poppa? Where’s gone? What does nothing look like, Poppa?”

  “I want it for Will, then he can help the others. Finish high school sure. A good job, Jim.”

  “You think I dont want it? Even to be sneakin timekeepers and office people that treats you like dirt? But you dont know nothing about it. Miss one week pay’n’ and you lose it all.”

  “I asked him. He said the plan allows. He said…”

  “It’s a buck a month. A buck a month. Ferget it, Anna. Ferget that launderin, too.”

  Voices of children around the corner lamppost. “Alley, alley ’ats in free” came shrill and sweet. Mist tendrils curled closer over the river bluff, heavier fog behind already blotting out the farthest line of clothes.

  “Momma, Poppa, why do peoples talk and dogs cant, but last night Shep came back and talked words, but I couldn’t any more, just in ‘woof, woof.’ What did I say in woof woof that made Shep mad? He bit me, Poppa, bites all over. Do you see bites on my neck, Poppa?”

  “That was a dream, Benjy.” Anna said. “Dont you remember Momma came in? I held you and showed you there wasn’t no bites and sang you back to sleep?”

  “But I saw Shep. Poppa, Momma, for why do mens give dogs nails in meat, laugh and the dog is bleedin, shakin? A big boy, Antsy down the block, if he sees me he says, ‘Hey, shit, come here,’ bad words like that. ‘I’m going to have me your birdie.’ I dont like that big boy, Poppa. For why is he that way? For why is …?”