Hilda and Pearl

by Alice Mattison

  “But it could have been any time she went to bed with a man,” I said. “It could have been that time. Why shouldn’t it have been that time?”

  “It’s not,” he said. “Believe me, it’s not.”

  “How can you be so sure? Pearl isn’t sure, I gather.”

  “Pearl is hysterical. She cut off her hair—see what a state she’s in?”

  “Well, we’ll have to find out,” I said. “We can find out whether it’s your baby, Nathan.” I don’t know what I was thinking. Blood tests, or something.

  “Hilda,” he said, “we don’t want to find out. This is Mike’s baby. If God forbid it isn’t—if it isn’t from Mike’s sperm—it’s going to be his in every other way and the only reasonable thing is to make up our minds that the subject is closed.”

  “Does Mike know?” I said.

  He stood up. I thought he was going to walk out of the room, but instead he picked up Racket, who had been lying on her back in the playpen, not crying, trying to put her toes into her mouth. When he picked her up I felt uneasy, as if we were in a game in which whoever held the baby got to decide what happened next.

  “I don’t care whether Mike knows,” he said, and then he really did walk into the other room, into our bedroom, carrying Racket. I sat where I was for a time, and then I put on my coat and went out to buy the groceries.

  It was a cold day and I wore my gloves and hat, but my ears were cold and I turned up the collar of my coat. I still couldn’t warm up. I felt like an old, old woman, someone from another time, from a country in which old women huddled along the street and bought a few potatoes to feed crowds of people. I was still in my twenties, I told myself, but it seemed that women who had babies were old, that women with husbands like Nathan were old. A man looked at my legs and I told myself again that I lived in the twentieth century and was a young woman.

  I had a chicken at home and I was going to buy soup greens. In the store, the thick carrots and turnip and parsnips and parsley seemed more my friends than Nathan. I couldn’t imagine him touching me again as freely as I touched the parsley and carrots. They were mine, I had a right to them if I paid the fruit and vegetable man a little money, but I was afraid Nathan would never again think he had a right to touch me. He had that way of looking at things.

  And yet I had no choice. I would have to care for my husband instead of being his lover, and I couldn’t leave Pearl alone, mourning her hair and pregnant—pregnant with somebody, no matter whose child it was. And Mike. I couldn’t imagine what had happened over there. Now I tried to imagine, and I couldn’t. I thought of the shorn-off blond braid, with the ends coming unbraided at the top and bottom—so strange, like an amputated limb—and it did seem that cutting off the braid must have been the end, that Mike might have killed her when he saw what she’d done, because he’d have guessed what had happened if she didn’t tell him. That was the only thing I could imagine, Mike stabbing Pearl with a kitchen knife. I took my soup greens and walked to their house.

  I always walked up the stairs but this time I took the elevator. I don’t know why. When I got out on their floor, I saw Pearl locking her door with her back to me. She had a scarf over her head. I stood there and she turned around. If I’d taken the stairs I’d probably have missed her, because she always took the elevator. When she turned around I was struck by how beautiful she looked in that foolish scarf. The scarf was red and mustard-colored and she looked like someone in a costume, dressed up as a peasant woman in a ballet—dressed as what I felt like. I didn’t look like a peasant woman, though I’m short and round. I had on a respectable brown coat and a nice hat with a feather. But Pearl was wearing a plaid jacket that couldn’t be warm enough and a skirt in a checked pattern and with all her patterns she looked like a waif, a child without parents.

  She stood there with her purse and her key in different hands, looking at me. I said, “I’m sorry about your hair.”

  She reached up and touched the back of her head quickly, and then smiled slightly, a smile I took to mean that she knew I’d seen the gesture and that it didn’t make sense, also that what I’d said wasn’t a fraction of what was going on. I could see her realize that I knew what was going on.

  “Do you want to come inside?” she said.

  “Were you going someplace?”

  “To have my hair trimmed,” she said. “I still didn’t do anything about it. I was home sick yesterday.”

  “Does it look very bad?” I said.

  “Do you want to see?” Pearl glanced to either side but no one was there except me. She took off the scarf and turned around slowly. Her hair was chopped off unevenly. It hung on her neck pathetically in bunches of different lengths.

  “Mike wouldn’t trim it for you, for a start?”

  “He’s not here,” she said.

  I thought for a moment she meant he’d left her. “Where is he?”

  “He’s been going out a lot. I don’t know where. He hasn’t touched me. I was afraid he’d hit me.”

  “You told him the whole thing?”

  “I had to,” she said. “When I did it, I didn’t think about Mike seeing me—or about you, when Nathan got it. Is—is Nathan all right?”

  “He’ll live,” I said.

  “I didn’t think you’d come here,” she said. “I mean ever. I didn’t think you’d ever come here.”

  “I came because I’m upset,” I said, but it wasn’t just that. I was worried about her, too. I’d come because I was worried. And disgusted. I wanted to say something impossible to her. I didn’t want to say “I hate you” or “I’ll never forgive you.” I wanted to say, “So it happened. My husband put his penis up your vagina, which is not the end of life on the planet. Will you stop taking yourself so seriously?” That felt like the one thing I wasn’t allowed to say.

  Pearl tied the scarf over her hair again. “Do you want to come in?” she said once more.

  “I’ll walk you to the beauty parlor,” I said.

  “All right.”

  We didn’t talk, all the way down the stairs and out into the street. Walking with Pearl, I have always had to hurry to keep up, and it was true that day, too. Her stride couldn’t help but be longer than mine.

  We didn’t say anything for the first block either. Then she said, “You will never forgive me.”

  “Can we talk about something besides forgiving?” I said.

  “If you want to,” she said meekly. Then, after a pause, “I’m afraid to go into the beauty parlor.”

  I thought about that. “They won’t know what happened.”

  “I know,” she said. “I thought I could say I got tired of long hair and I just couldn’t wait to get over there. They won’t know the whole story from looking at me.” Then she seemed to remember who I was and how I’d be feeling. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m even worse than you thought, worrying about the beauty parlor.”

  “It’s not going to make me feel better if you’re embarrassed at the beauty parlor,” I said. I’d become interested in the problem of what she could say to the woman there, even if it was a trivial problem.

  “You mean I deserve so much worse. Should I tell the truth?”

  “The truth?”

  “I like her—I go to Beatrice. Do you go to her?”

  “No.”

  “She’ll ask what happened and I’m afraid I’ll tell her the whole thing.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Pearl,” I said.

  “Hilda, you should have nothing to do with me,” she said. “I should go away from here. You’ve been kind and look at what I did. Why are you even walking with me?”

  She started to cry, and as we walked she cried harder and harder. We had reached Flatbush Avenue and there were a lot of people, some of them looking at us.

  “Pearl,” I said, after a while, “I understand you’re having a baby.”

  “I’m sorry, Hilda.”

  “It’s all right to have a baby,” I said.

  “Bu
t—it’s Nathan’s baby,” said Pearl.

  I didn’t answer, and we didn’t talk for two blocks. It was cold. We were behaving like schoolgirls, walking without a purpose; when we passed the beauty parlor we kept going without even mentioning it. We didn’t even slow down and glance at it. I wanted to walk until I was tired enough to think. I was still carrying my soup greens. I was hungry. When Nathan told me Pearl said the baby was his, I thought she would know whether it was or wasn’t. Now that seemed silly to me.

  “You’ve had relations with Mike?” I said finally.

  “Oh—yes.”

  “So it could be Mike’s baby.”

  “You don’t believe me either,” she said.

  “You want it to be Nathan’s?”

  She’d been crying and stopping and crying and stopping, but now she sat down on the bottom step of a house we were passing, lowered her head, and sobbed.

  “You love Nathan,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you can’t have him,” I said.

  For some reason I didn’t wonder whether Nathan would leave me for Pearl. The vomit seemed to establish that he wasn’t going to. He would probably think Pearl wouldn’t clean up his vomit. Maybe she would, I don’t know—this is just what I thought Nathan would think.

  I stood looking down at her for a long time while she sobbed. Then I said, “Let’s go buy a pair of hair-cutting shears and go to Prospect Park and I’ll give you a trim.”

  “All right,” she said, snuffling.

  “Did Mike hit you?” I said then, suddenly thinking that something from before wasn’t right.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, he did.”

  “A lot?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “In the face?”

  “In the face,” she said, and then I put my arm around her.

  But that wasn’t right either. I stood there, leaning over a little, and it was awkward and of course not honest.

  Pearl stood up and we walked back the way we’d come. There was a five and ten nearby, and when we got there, I said, “Wait here,” and went inside. I didn’t know why I didn’t want her to come in. I found the scissors counter, which held quite an array of scissors in different sizes, all arranged before me in categories: nail scissors, paper-cutting scissors, big shears for cloth. They all looked shiny and sharp. I found the hair-cutting scissors and bought a pair, thinking it was wasteful. Pearl might already have some—the ones she’d used to cut off her braid.

  Outside, she stood obediently, looking into the shop window at the dishpans and scrubbing brushes, as if she took an interest in anything like that. I began to walk again and she fell into step. Now the wind was in our faces, and it made my eyes tear. I walked quickly, almost kicking at the pavement, my little parcel containing the scissors tucked under my arm, my soup greens still in my other hand. I felt more like a peasant than ever, an impatient, unfeeling peasant.

  I was taking Pearl to the park to cut her hair because it was more or less private there and I could sit her down on a bench. Hurrying her—for once I walked faster—while she hastened meekly and silently at my side, it was as though I were going to drown her in the lake, or to murder her and leave her body under the trees, as though she had been chosen to be sacrificed in some ghastly rite—the young blond virgin, except that Pearl wasn’t a virgin. First the girl’s hair must be cut off, the ritual would go, and then she would be strangled and thrown into the lake. She would be the most desirable maiden in the village, overwhelmed and terrified by her good fortune, too stupid to understand that after her death she wouldn’t be around to see the celebration. In the park she would suddenly panic and scream and fight me, but I would manage her.

  When we reached the park, Pearl looked around as if she wasn’t sure where she was. We walked along a path near the lake. There were benches, but it was windy and the benches were exposed. Finally we came to one that was set back, with more trees around it. I stopped and patted the bench and Pearl sat down. She took off her scarf. I put down my soup greens and took out the scissors.

  I didn’t know much about cutting hair. I just held the clumps of blond hair in my hand and tried to even them. I had to bend over and my back ached. I’d taken off my gloves to work and my hands were cold. Pearl must have been freezing in that light jacket but she didn’t complain.

  At last, her head still bent, she said, “I’m sorry I love Nathan.”

  “I don’t know why you love him,” I said, though in a sense I loved him too. I thought of jabbing the sharp point of the scissors into Pearl’s neck—not that I wanted to, exactly, I just found myself worried that I might. I might even do it by mistake. I didn’t know how to cut hair safely any more than I knew how to cut it attractively.

  “Look, if we can just make you look decent,” I said.

  “I’m not decent, why should I look decent?”

  “I think you’re proud of yourself.”

  “In a way I am,” she said. “I really love him. I guess I’d do it again. I’m sorry, Hilda. You must hate me for saying that.”

  I didn’t hate her for saying it. “No,” I said, “it seems more sensible than what you said before. I can’t stand all the apologizing.”

  “I don’t feel apologetic,” she said. “I just love him. And I’m so upset that he doesn’t love me, and doesn’t love this baby. I’m going to have Nathan’s baby, if you and Mike don’t kill me.”

  “I won’t kill you, and I don’t think Mike will.”

  “I’m not so sure,” she said.

  And then I suddenly—wildly—couldn’t bear what had happened. Maybe it was because I had just promised not to kill her. I’d let her know I was going to keep on being nice to her, of all things! Maybe I did want to kill her.

  I left Pearl sitting there, her head still bent, her neck bare, and I walked to the lake, just below our bench and the path we’d walked on. I stood on the granite rim around the lake. There was a police sawhorse with a sign on it, No Skating, and it was half in the lake and half leaning on the bank.

  I flung the scissors into the lake, underhand, not knowing I was going to do it—so they didn’t go far—and when they fell, I could see them wavering under the water at the bottom of the lake. I’d thrown like a girl, and suddenly I felt like a girl, not a strong woman, not a peasant. I remembered that I was a young mother whose husband had been unfaithful. My throat tensed with knowledge and misery, and I thought I’d feel bad forever. And the only person present was the one least likely to help me, the woman with whom he’d done it. But I had no mother, I’d never made friends easily, and I couldn’t think who else I wanted.

  I walked back to Pearl and said, “I’m not feeling well. I have to get home to the baby.”

  “Do you want me to carry the groceries?” I was reaching for them but she took them. She didn’t comment on what I’d done with the scissors. Her hair looked a little better. She didn’t put the scarf back on but tied it around her neck and tucked the ends into her jacket. I looked up at her as we walked. Her hair blew back and she looked like a boy, an old-fashioned boy with hair down to his neck, a page boy or the king’s messenger. Her eyes looked blue; indoors they were darker. If Nathan wanted her—if he wanted someone tall and blond … but even then I knew enough not to be worried. Nathan couldn’t have Pearl, I thought. And then I thought something that startled me: I needed her for myself.

  On the way home I began thinking about Mike. I could believe he’d hit. Nathan would never do that, but Mike could. In his rage, he would hit hard with his eyes closed, not knowing what he was doing. “Will Mike be home when you get there?” I said.

  “Probably.”

  “Are you afraid of him?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do you keep fighting?”

  “He doesn’t talk.”

  “He hasn’t talked at all?” I said.

  “Not since that night. I came home. I was crying a lot. He saw my head. He couldn’t figure out what was going on. Maybe he
thought I’d gone crazy. Then I told him—about the baby, too—and he hit me. He slapped me. No, he ran at me with his arm swinging. It wasn’t really a slap. I fell back. He ran out of the room and he ran in and did it again. He kept running, as if he were in the park. As if he were outside.”

  “And then what?”

  “Nothing. He goes in and goes out. He hasn’t said anything.”

  “We have to talk to him,” I said. I don’t know who I meant by we. I felt alone—but there were things I had to do. It was as if there had been a train wreck and I was lying in the wreckage, in pain, and then I saw that I was the only one in the car who could still crawl. I had to drag these stupid people out of the wreckage. Mike, for example, had to be made to forgive his brother. Now there was a job. I guess I’m just bossy, because I thought it was my job.

  I had been out for a long time, and as I walked home at last with my soup greens, I thought guiltily of Racket. But Nathan knew how to take care of her, and sometimes he could calm her better than I could. He was walking her when I came in. He had a regular route he’d take through the apartment, from the window at the back of the bedroom through the hall into the living room, through the living room and into the kitchen. Then he’d turn around and start back toward that same bedroom window. He’d always glance out of it when he got there.

  Now I wondered whether he thought of Pearl whenever he looked out the window, which faced her house, a couple of blocks away, though of course he couldn’t see her building. Our bedroom looked out at the back of the apartment house, and the block behind ours had one-family houses with yards, so there was green to look at, back yards behind a fence.

  Nathan always looked sorrowful, like a monk humbly making a pilgrimage, as he made this trek, with Racket propped against his shoulder, wrapped in one of her quickly fading receiving blankets. Now, though, he looked even sadder, or I couldn’t help thinking he did. He seemed to be marking the stages of a journey, working out a kind of penance. I hoped Racket had cried a lot while I was gone, not just to make him suffer, but to make him feel he’d been punished, so we could start to get on with things. But no crying in the world was going to make him feel that.