The Walking People

by Mary Beth Keane

  "Thanks very much," Greta said, accepting the sweater. She felt the pressure mounting behind her nipples. "I'll be out as soon as I can." Bonnie took a step toward the door, but at the last minute she turned and looked at Greta again.

  "I'll put a note at the register so you don't forget to pay for it."

  "Perfect," Greta said, and tried to nod Bonnie out the door.

  "Has Mr. Halberstam spoken to you yet?" Bonnie asked. Mr. Halberstam managed the entire store, and Greta tried to block out what was happening to her body for just a few seconds so that she could figure out why Bonnie had asked.

  "To me?" Greta said. "Why?"

  "Oh, nothing," Bonnie said. "I just thought he might have."

  "No," Greta said. She could hear the question mark plain in her own voice. She momentarily forgot her bare stomach and dribbling breasts. Just before she had gone on leave to wait for Eavan to arrive, Greta felt sure that Bonnie was going to accuse her of taking a few of the crocheted hats and scarves they'd set aside for return to the warehouse. She had taken two sets—one lavender and one heather gray—but that wasn't the point. Bonnie had no reason to accuse her. At least, no reason to accuse her above any of the others. They weren't even for her. She'd given the lavender to Mrs. Cooke to make up for Julia being over in 225 so often, and the gray she'd mailed to Lily.

  "What are you so worried about?" Michael had asked at home. "You've no reason to be nervous. You would never take anything without paying for it. That kind of thing doesn't go over in America like it might at home."

  "No, of course not," Greta had said, and decided on the spot to pay for every little thing she took from that place, even the sample moisturizers and perfumes Lorraine told her to stick in her bag. It was just that there was so much — not only out on the hangers, but in the back rooms, in the dusty basement that ran an entire city block, tossed in corners and in cardboard bins behind the register, all to be packaged and shipped in different directions. It was hard to see how little things here and there could matter.

  Once Bonnie left, Greta locked the door and rooted through her bag for her pump. She knelt on the cold tile floor and pulled the mouth of the bag as wide as it would go. She found the empty bottle and stood it on the floor next to her; then she found the nipple, the nipple cover, but no pump. Finally she turned the bag upside down and let the contents bounce and roll across the floor. "No, no, no, no," she chanted as she moved her things back and forth. Then her mind flashed to exactly where she'd left it, freshly sterilized on the drying rack at home.

  She took a series of long breaths to keep the tears at bay. Eavan had slept through the night for the very first time, but instead of embracing the sleep she'd been so greedy for, Greta woke up at four A.M., disoriented, feeling that there was something important she'd forgotten to do. When she opened her eyes, she found herself on Michael's side of the bed and noticed that everything in their bedroom seemed drawn on a different scale from his side: the door that much farther away, the window that much closer. Michael was all the way up in the Bronx now, burrowing underground with the other men like rabbits in the fields of Ballyroan. He'd been working as a sandhog for seven years now, and every January he said that year would be his last. Eavan looked like him. The nurses at the hospital had said so just hours after she was born, her face so pinched and red Greta couldn't see how they could tell. Then when they came home, Mrs. Strom had said so too. "And of course, Miss Julia is a mystery," Mrs. Strom had added, clutching Julia at the waist and squeezing. "You must have been dropped down from the sky."

  "That sort of stinks, doesn't it?" Julia had asked as Greta waited with the baby for Julia to unlock the two dead bolts and open the door. "Going through that whole thing twice and neither kid looks a thing like you?"

  "Do women have babies so they'll have people around who look like them?" Greta had asked. She'd asked the question to be funny, but realized once she'd said it that she wouldn't be surprised. Just the other week she'd seen a woman on Park and Seventy-seventh pushing a baby carriage, and when Greta looked inside, she saw a Labrador puppy dressed in the very same coat as its owner, right down to the fur-lined hood.

  Greta's knees were beginning to ache against the hard bathroom floor, and the tips of her nipples had become like two blunt knives. She stood.

  "Okay," she whispered. She reached back to unsnap her bra. She leaned over the sink and tried to relax. There was a song Michael had hummed to Julia when Julia was an infant, and he had resurrected it for Eavan. Greta did her best to remember the tune, and she hummed it to herself in the small bathroom. When she felt calm enough, she placed her right hand on her right breast, her thumb an inch above the nipple, her fingers an inch below, and she pressed straight back. She rolled her breast gently, gasping at how sore it had become in so little time. When the milk arrived, she tried to catch as much as she could in the bottle, but it was spouting in too many directions and she quickly gave up. After a minute or so, the flow eventually became calm trickles that ran down from her nipple and marked paths across the soft fullness of her lower breast. She reached for a handful of paper towels, and as she pressed the towels to her chest, the thought of home came to her as it usually did, without warning: the boys pushing torn tea towels against the rain that leaked down the walls of their bedroom, like using a tissue to stop a flood.

  After about fifteen minutes, she patted her left breast dry, put her bra back on, and shoved a few paper towels inside the cups. She ignored the rawness of the rough paper against her sensitive flesh. She pulled the shell of the sweater set over her head. For a moment there, as she'd been scrubbing and wringing the blouse and again when she realized she'd forgotten the pump, she felt sure she was going to cry. She had felt the sobs gathering like thunderclouds at the back of her throat. Now she realized she was in real danger of breaking down into giggles, and she felt the first warnings course through her body on different nerve endings from those that had carried the knifelike pain of her nipples. Once she had the sweater on, it got worse, her breasts even more foreign to her with the additional padding. Looking at herself in the mirror, she pushed them out even farther and put her hands on her hips. She noticed that she'd lost the clip that had been holding her hair in place at the back of her head, and during the commotion the curls had sprung forth. Her face was even rosier than usual, as if she'd just walked a mile in the cold, and her neck was splotchy.

  "My God," she said, and then bit down on her lip and turned away from her reflection. The giggles were bubbling up from her stomach to her chest, and she knew from experience that once they started, they wouldn't be stifled. She took a few deep breaths.

  "You're grand," she said to her reflection, and then splashed her face with water, hung her wet blouse over the doorknob, and was back out on the floor by twelve-thirty.

  Eavan was born in mid-November 1976, on a perfect fall day. Julia was at school, but once the nurses assured Michael and Greta that it would be a few hours, they decided that Michael should go over to the school to get her. Michael had recently requested the unpopular midnight shift so that he'd be at home during the day in case Greta went into labor and everyone they knew was at work. It was easier to find people home at night. At the hospital, they didn't have to wait as long as the nurses told them they would; by the time Julia would have been home from school on a regular day, Eavan was born.

  In the apartment, they made room for Eavan in Julia's room. They'd stored Julia's old crib in the basement, and when Michael brought it upstairs again, it was even more handsome than Greta remembered it. She cleaned it; Michael bought a new mattress. Julia made a poster of Eavan's name spelled out in bubble letters and filled with glitter. She hung it where Eavan could look out from her crib and see it. "E-A-V-A-N," Julia said to the baby almost every time she passed the crib, pointing to the letters one by one. "That means you." At twelve going on thirteen, Julia was interested in everything having to do with babies, and she barraged Greta with questions as they popped into her mind. She wanted
to know if she'd been breast-fed and for how long. Did breast-feeding hurt? Did Greta know that she winced and said "ouch!" every time Eavan latched on? Had it been the same with her? What was labor like the first time compared with the second? Was it better or worse knowing what was to come and how much it would hurt? And did Greta know it would be a girl because the baby had felt the same inside of her as Julia had?

  Greta answered what she could, and to the rest she just said, "Julia, please. Too many questions."

  Julia was taking sex education at school, and unlike the other parents, who complained that talking about sex only made their kids more embarrassed about it, Greta saw that Julia had taken the door her teachers cracked for her and pushed it wide.

  "Don't say dick," Greta had overheard Julia tell Pam Cooke just before Eavan was born. "It's a penis." Greta had started her temporary leave two weeks before the baby was due, and all those quiet daytime hours at home were like a peephole that looked into Julia's life when Greta wasn't around. As Greta waited for some sign from her belly, her feet propped up on the kitchen table, propped up on the couch, propped up on a stack of pillows in bed, she listened for Julia. And later, when she was sick of lying down, as she paced the hall, paced in front of the windows of the living room, decided against doctor's orders that the baby was ready no matter what his calendar told him, she eavesdropped on Julia and her friend. Each afternoon from Julia's bedroom, where she and Pam Cooke usually did their homework together, came the sound of glossy heavy-stock textbook pages being turned.

  "And those are the testicles," Julia said evenly on the same afternoon.

  "Don't be so disgusting, Jule," Pam said, and giggled.

  "You're the one who's disgusting, with all those dumb nicknames," Julia answered. "Prick. Dick. Balls. Nuts."

  Greta, her back aching and her ankles swollen, took one step farther down the hall to peer into Julia's bedroom just as Pam finally laughed so hard she collapsed to the floor. Julia leaned over her, "... wang, dong, bat, Mr. Floppy..." By now Julia was laughing too and was struggling to keep the list going.

  "Mercy," Pam shouted, clutching her stomach.

  "Don't get me started on breasts," Julia said, and dropped to the floor beside her friend.

  "Girls?" Greta had interrupted, looking at the textbook, which was abandoned on Julia's bed, and Pam lying on the ground. "What's so funny?"

  "Excuse me, Mom," Julia said as she jumped up and brushed past Greta. "I have to urinate." Pam had a laugh that sounded like she'd been kicked in the belly.

  Later, when Greta reported all that she had overheard, Michael said he thought it was good for young people to learn those things. Deep down, Greta thought so too, but sometimes, when the other parents complained about things, especially the loudmouth types, and letters came home needing her signature so that Julia could watch a movie that Greta later learned some parents had refused to sign, and every school meeting was about one more thing the children had been told in sex ed, Greta sometimes felt like she should object, like the other parents expected her to, but she didn't know why. Sometimes she felt like all the other parents had an extra piece of information that had been kept from her—an oversight, most likely—and if she had access to that extra bit of information, everything would be easier to understand.

  When Greta's shift finally ended, she rode the subway uptown, climbed up the stairs to the sidewalk, walked the two blocks and two avenues between the subway and the apartment, and was reaching for the knob of her building's front door before she remembered that she'd left her blouse hanging in the employee restroom.

  "Shit," she muttered to herself. They'll throw it out, she knew. An almost brand-new blouse. Just as she turned her key in the lock and pushed the inner hall door open, she heard Eavan begin with the faint, short cries that were a prelude to longer wails. "Okay, baby. Okay," she said as she unlocked the apartment door and dropped her bag to the floor. She threw her coat over the back of the couch and was already pulling up both layers of the sweater set when Michael emerged with a roaring Eavan tucked up high on his chest, one broad hand on her back.

  "How was work?" he asked, handing Eavan over.

  "The usual," Greta said, and then winced as the baby latched on. "Why don't you lie down," she said to him. She looked over her shoulder at the clock. "Did you sleep at all?" At Greta's breast, Eavan clenched and unclenched her small fists as she rooted and sucked.

  "She'll roll over any day," Michael said, sinking into the couch beside Greta. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "I can see her trying when I put her on her belly. She was almost there today, and I thought I might give her little push so she can see what it's like, but then I thought that's cheating."

  As they both looked down at Eavan, they heard the locks sliding in the door once more.

  "I'm home," Julia called, dropping her bag beside Greta's and plopping down on the couch next to Michael. "Jeez, is she starving or something?" Julia asked, leaning forward to watch Eavan's little mouth move.

  "I was just saying she's about to roll over," Michael said. "Let's be on the lookout."

  "How many weeks was I when I rolled?" Julia asked, resting her index finger in Eavan's open palm and then smiling as Eavan grabbed hold.

  Greta glanced up at Michael. Once in a while, not often, but once in a while she felt as if Julia might be testing them with all her questions about her birth, how it had felt for Greta to be pregnant so young, so on and so forth, worse now that Eavan was here. Michael had long since decided to follow Greta's lead. This fib they'd been keeping up for more than twelve years seemed to mean more to her than it did to him. Not that he didn't care what Julia thought or believed, he had clarified recently, but he really didn't see how it mattered very much. Julia wouldn't care whose belly she started out in, Michael said. She knew who raised her. She knew who loved her most of all. This, Greta felt, was one of the few leftovers of tinker in him, all that handing about of babies for raising by whoever had space and need.

  "You rolled right about the age she is now," Greta said, and Michael agreed.

  "Better hurry up," Julia said to the baby, who opened her small milk-wet mouth and laughed. "Oh, yeah," Julia said, jumping up from the couch and walking over to one of the shelves Michael had installed above the radiator. "Mail for you. Ireland." She dropped the letter on the cushion beside Greta and then told them she was going across the street to watch TV with Pam.

  Michael leaned over and looked at the envelope with interest. "Been a while, hasn't it?"

  "Has it?" Greta asked. Yes, it had been a while, she knew, but whose fault that was she couldn't decide. How often could a person write? There were things to do every single hour that ate up the time, especially since Eavan was born. She had variations on the same thought at least a dozen times a day: I'm so busy. I'm too busy. If only I had the time. Those big blue mailboxes on every corner made her feel queasy. The telegram office across the street from Bloomingdale's felt like a reprimand. Her body stiffened, as if she'd been having an argument and was bracing herself for a sharp response.

  Eavan flailed her arms and wailed.

  Julia was turning out to look only like herself. Her hair was soft and smooth, pin-straight, and when she wore it loose, it hung down her back like a gleaming curtain sewn with threads of gold, blond, red, brown. At twelve, she was already taller than Greta, and her face — wide-set eyes, a straight, pert nose, a large mouth that revealed upper and lower teeth when she smiled — came from neither of her parents. Only when she was angling for something and wanted Greta to give in did she remind Greta of Michael's sister, Maeve. It was a comparison Michael couldn't understand, considering Greta had seen Maeve only a few times and only when they were children. He once suggested to Greta that she might see Maeve in Julia because she liked the idea of daughters looking like aunts. "That's not it at all," Greta said at the time, but the possibility had been wandering in and out of her mind ever since.

  The first months of Julia's life had been both
the hardest and the easiest. Hard because Greta couldn't quite grasp what had happened, what was continuing to happen every day that Johanna stayed away. Easy because neither could Julia. Julia raised her arms to be lifted, and Greta lifted her. Julia cried to be changed or fed, and Greta changed and fed her. When Greta came home on that hot August afternoon in 1964 to find Shannon O'Clery standing in the middle of the apartment, bouncing Julia in her arms, she guessed what had happened. She needs a break, Shannon had assured her. Gone to the movies, probably. Hot day like today. Who could blame her? Young mothers do strange things sometimes. Yes, Greta agreed, almost shouting over the dumb thumping of her heart, she probably needed a break. Probably went over to the park to cool off a bit, Greta suggested, but she didn't believe a word. The space just below her ribs felt hollow, the flesh scooped away and replaced with worry. Since arriving in America, worry felt to Greta like something tangible, like one more organ, or a person who followed her into rooms and walked beside her on the sidewalk and once in a while covered her face with his hands. Taking the baby from Shannon, she went into her bedroom and found the note on the pillow on her side of the bed.

  "She'll turn around when she realizes what she did and take the bus back home," Shannon said, looking over Greta's shoulder at Johanna's neat print. "Happens all the time, believe it or not."

  "Home?" Greta had said. "You mean here?"

  "She'll probably sneak in tonight when everyone's sleeping."

  "That's exactly what will happen," Greta agreed, feeling it was important that Shannon believe this.

  "Well, listen," Shannon said as she gathered her things and took four backward steps toward the door. "Call me if you need anything, and tell her to come down to the clinic to see me when she gets back."

  "I will," Greta said, feeling suddenly as if she'd overstayed her welcome, as if she and Johanna were still sleeping on Shannon's foldout bed, Michael in the closet, and all three still making meals out of her cupboards. There was a limit, Greta knew, to people's kindness. Lately it had struck her that Shannon never thought they'd take her up on her offer of New York, that they'd never use the address she gave them when she left Ballyroan. She probably never imagined that good Irish children like the ones her mother had always told her about could be capable of getting into such a mess. "I'm sorry," Greta added. "Your day ruined."