“Where was your mother?” asked Grandmother in a gray kind of voice.
“Oh, Mother—she had a couple of long drinks, she can’t take it the way I can, and she passed out—out of sight,” I emended, seeing my grandmother’s face. “I don’t know where she was, sleeping, I guess. She was dancing a bit with Mr. Bozo, something or other, but she got dizzy and went off the floor. Grandmother was in full sight, however. She didn’t let up all night. So I felt no qualms about staying—and I guess I wouldn’t have, anyhow. Well, after a bit of necking, we wanted another drink to jazz things up a bit, and we went back on the floor. I don’t know what time it was. I would have been tired of Errol by that, although he’s a swell kid, but frankly, I hardly knew who I was with. I just had to have someone to hang on to; and my recollections are, there were more than Errol. What did it matter? We were too drunk to even talk. No one could have made an improper advance, believe me, Grandma. We went back on the floor after the drink; the swing band was hopping away. I felt sorry for the poor guys. They were a swell band, but they just had to keep going. Mr. Masters, that’s the manager, you know, paid them three times the usual rate to get them that night; and they knew what to expect. When we got on the floor, we found we couldn’t dance, so we just trucked and shagged.”
“What’s that?” enquired Grandmother, in alarm.
“Really, Grandmother! You’re not serious? You’re not joking, are you? Why, all the kids, even round here—look out in that courtyard any time— Look! That’s trucking; now I’ll show you shagging; that’s shagging.”
“So you were trucking and shagging …”
“Yes. Then I got sick of Errol and I said, ‘I say, I’m sick of you, Errol, let’s get a couple of other guys.’ He said, ‘Okay,’ and we went to look for a partner for Errol first, because I can always get anyone, partly because I’m Tommy Goodman’s employer’s grandchild, I suppose, or maybe—I don’t know—not worth the inquest. Well— Jacky had disappeared hours before, I don’t know where. Anyway, there was Edwige, nearly passed out, and I dumped Errol down beside her and left him mushing her. He didn’t know she was only thirteen; no one would. I went off to look for someone. There was a kid there, was hanging round me all the evening. Dizzy they called him. Dizzy said, ‘Let’s go some place, kid.’ I said, ‘Okay, but remember, I’m not the age of consent.’ He said, ‘No fooling?’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t fool you, I’m only sixteen.’ I didn’t dare tell him not even that; quite, that is. ‘Well, there’s something I want awful bad,’ he said. ‘Me too,’ I told him What’s the good of beating round the bush, Grandmother? You may as well know what life is these days. We’ve got to be realists. Otherwise, you and I’ll get into those mushy, old-fashioned conversations where you still pretend I’m a little girl. It saves all the baloney, too, between the girls and boys; and if a boy tells you what he wants, he certainly isn’t deceiving you or seducing you, or anything. It’s all darn clean and honest.”
Grandmother looked as if she had been a French woman just hearing of the Battle of Waterloo. I laughed and kissed her on the cheek. Her cheek was dry, cool, ruggedly soft like an old peccary glove. Her eyes were dull.
“I’ll put you out of your misery, Grandmother,” I said tenderly; “I am still as Mother delivered me to the world, though how I can’t say. I guess that age of consent or something—I don’t know. Or, I ought to tell the truth I suppose. We had some liquor; we went and sat in a car and we both passed out. I didn’t catch a cold —not even that. A hangover! Oh, boy. Well, there you are, I did a plain, unvarnished tale deliver! And you’ve got to stand for it, Grandma, for I’m grown up now and there’s no turning back. No standing with reluctant feet, you know. So let’s you and I get along all right, eh?”
Grandmother kissed me softly, and with a very lovely expression, called me her turtle dove; but she was worried, I could see. I believe that she wrote to my father that day. This led to an interchange of letters. My mother spoke a good deal about the wildness of children in the States, and the immorality of local family life, and family illhealth. This was not the first time this had occurred; but now my father had finished his job in England and was ready to come home. Some members of the family had wild hopes that he would leave Persia behind. He did not.
Mathilde was again visited by more serious members of the family circle, and advised to come to an understanding with my father, a separation or a divorce; the latter would be more profitable. This was treated in a more sedate manner than before because Philip Morgan had just been jailed by Amabel for back alimony; and the serious side of married life had appeared again to these spinning heads.
It was reported that in the cell, Philip met Percival Hogg, who had been jailed by Aunt Angela.
“I shall never pay that woman,” declared Hogg; “even if that makes this a life sentence. It’s against my principles.”
“Well, well,” said Philip humbly, “I feel I’m being punished. I haven’t been too nice to the girls; I suppose at times—”
“Rubbish! Trash! Twaddle!” said Percival Hogg. “Pay a woman who doesn’t sleep with you? What are we coming to?”
25
My father returned with Die Konkubine; and to save rent, Grandmother and Lily went to stay with them, in the face of the whole family. Lily visited and did not mind; Grandmother was ashamed. Now, the old woman made secret visits to Mathilde and us, bringing us her last poor treasures, one by one. She fancied all the Harts, her relatives, were waiting for her death, to rifle her trunks; and even the woman and Solander only waited to throw her carcass out of the house: “They caught a bird with a broken leg in the courtyard and fed it, but it died; the next day they threw it out in the garbage can: that is their idea of things!”
She brought her French meat chopper, her American self-baster, even her little boxes with old handkerchiefs saved for twenty years past. Already Mrs. (General) Rode had followed her to her new roost and taken away a brass spoon; the others, not so bold, merely waited.
Mother tried hard to be patient with the rapidly failing woman and to please her with food she liked well. But now, nothing had any taste.
“Borden’s,” said Grandmother Fox, “not everything is good either, even with advertising; the French also, some say good food, the best—some, is yet the smuttiest—dirtiest—all over the world, my dear, is the same, for nothing is nothing. You must not look for bargains. Tell me, Mattie, what is the Ukraine? Now, my brother Theo Hart was there; also in Kazan—the name of a place. Oh, he liked it very much, but the food—he travels and then he comes back home and marries—don’t speak of it. That Vera! In taxis with men—all the time. Theo said I was to go with Lily, my Lily, little Lily, Mrs. Spontini, to his place. Why should I go to Vera’s place? But this I must say, she acts very nice. An educated woman, no doubt—Who can understand? She says he is no good—to her— Is that a reason for being a tramp? My God! In taxis—a regular Mary Sugar Bum. My dear, what is the use? A lovely boy and marries—h’m—And Solander was a lovely child. Oh, what a lovely boy, a genius—yes, pooh, I say. A genius runs off with—They are nice apples you have, my dear, but in October we must ask—apples are such good fruit. A woman told me—on the avenue—she has four rooms and a kitchen, told me on the promenade, you know on Morningside, she had intestinal troubles, because the doctor said take—she is cured—take only scraped apples. Yes, just so. It isn’t dried out. Well, tomorrow will be warmer, but cloudy, says the newspaper. Is the Post a good newspaper? Yes? Ye—? Yes? Yes, who knows? All the lies. The shops are full of spring chickens. Perhaps at Thanksgiving Mrs. Morgan will send you a couple of spring chickens, eh? But what is the use? My appetite, I have none. You do not understand, my dear. Old is old. Young people do not understand. It is God’s blessing upon earth we do not understand everything. A wonderful big pineapple your mother sent. This I must say, that your mother, Cissie Morgan, is not stingy. She has a good heart. Yes, my brothers, you do not know them, Uncle Theo and Uncle William, like stones they are. They were in Fr
ance three years—not a word! Like stone; what is the word for potatoes, they asked me! Pommes de terre! What sort of a word! In Rome do as Rome does, I said. Rome! Rome! All the priests are swindlers of course. That is not the question. The Spanish cannot speak foreign languages. But they are good neighbors. I had one once; yes, you see, all the volunteers go in Spain and they all speak together. Yes, people can learn if they’re not stupid. Ah-ah! But let me tell you, that’s not the only thing. She, Persia, can speak French, and now she is learning Spanish! I said to Sol, ‘What does she do at night, always out?’ He said, ‘She’s at a class.’ I’m old, but not stupid, I said, ‘A class, always learning, always a pupil? I know what I know.’ ‘Mamma, this is propaganda,’ he said, and he laughed. Laugh! Laugh! I know. She’s clever, all right, but she’s too clever. Chekhov wrote in a very simple language; everyone could understand it. That is to say, every Russian. Foreigners, naturally not. Now, Russian, she does not understand. She could not. No foreigner could. So smart as that—no. The wind in my room is terrible. ‘Do you like your room, Mamma?’ he asks. Do I like it? Do they ask me when they move? Pooh, fooey—but a nice neighborhood. Not a nice view. But in the neighborhood, on the promenade, very nice people, a very fine gentleman, that’s quite another story.”
My mother said coldly, “Will you have some coffee?”
“If it is fresh.”
“I don’t reheat it.”
“Reheat it: well, that to me is poison. I can’t take it. That’s another kind of thing, altogether.”
“Mother, I asked you would you have some coffee!” (A pause.) “Is it fresh? Who knows? What is she talking about?” (A pause.) “Not if it is reheated. I’m very sorry, I thank you, but I can’t.”
“I told you it was fresh.”
“Well, if it’s fresh … Reheated, you say? No. All right, if it’s fresh, but you say—” (A pause.)
“Here’s your coffee.”
“So late in the afternoon? I don’t know, my dear. I don’t sleep.” (No response.) “Tea is better. Is it fresh, anyhow?” (Mournfully, low.) “They don’t tell me. I don’t know. I know nothing!”
“Drink your coffee,” said Mathilde, “it’s getting cold.”
“Cold, hot? What does it matter? I’m dying, my dear!”
“Mother, please don’t keep saying that. Every time you come—”
“My dear Mathilde, if you knew—” Grandmother let out a great cry, with a fresh voice, a wail; “I can’t keep going any more; it’s all over, my dear.”
When she had had her coffee, she calmed down, grew bright in the face, and unwrapped the china teapot she had carefully brought from home. It was an old painted teapot, cherry blossoms on white, that I had seen ever since babyhood. “It is for you, Mathilde. I want to give all my dear ones something, for the time is coming on me, and I don’t want her to get it, nor any of them. Theodore’s wife keeps writing to me—and Lily asks me, ‘What will you do with your money? What will you do with your fur coat?’ No, no. It is for my friends.”
As she sat there, evening came on, and the coffee had a bad effect on her. Her fancies began to torment her. “I cannot tell you. You would never believe what they do to me. It is torture. They keep everyone away. Theodore came and she stood all the time in the corridor—the woman—with a broomstick, ready to hit me, listening to what I say. I speak in German; she does not understand, but she watches the least thing; she will hit me.”
“Mother, what are you saying? I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t believe it? You do not know—who knows? She hit me with her fist here on the shoulder, and knocked me down in the corridor! I lay on my back. I called. She stood there and she looked at me; she laughed. In the evening he came home, Sol, came home. She told him and they laughed at me!”
“It’s impossible, Mother! This is a lie.”
“Oh, my God! This is what I suffer and it is all a lie because you cannot understand. No one can understand such a woman—”
“But,” said Mother, “Lily is there, she lives with you!”
“Ah, when Lily is there,” said my grandmother, who seemed delirious, “naturally she is too smart to do anything. Too smart is no good, my dear. Lily sees nothing. Lily looks in my drawers. She counts what I have. She puts rotten fruit in my room. People come to the door to see me. She drives them away—she will not allow anyone to come to see me. And the house, the house, wind, dirt—I cannot explain it, my dear, to you, I am starving; they buy nothing. I starve; I am thirsty. I cannot sleep. And at night they make noises to keep me awake. The icebox is always empty. They do not drink coffee or tea, they drink beer, wine. The coffee she gives me is old stuff, poison, they are throwing away. Oh, my dear, I cannot tell you; I am dying. She pushed me on the floor and now every day she stands there with a broomstick. She says, ‘If you tell anyone how I treat you, I will hit you with a broom.’ She threw the china on the floor and smashed it; and all I said was, ‘Can I have a little bit of sugar, my dear?’ I say, my dear, for I am afraid.”
My mother, terrified, said, “But Solander is there?”
“He is there? He does what she likes. She winds him round her finger. He kicked me the other day. I asked him, ‘Where is my money?’ He said, ‘It is all gone. Never mind. Don’t ask. I kept you, didn’t I? Don’t ask,’ he said. I began to cry. He kicked me. I fell on the floor. Then they went into the room and laughed. Oh, dear, dear, dear; and I’m dying!”
“Mother,” said Mathilde, “don’t you think you ought to see a doctor?”
“No, no, no; what would he tell me? That I am old? I know it! Every man’s hand is against me. Why? You do not know. Because I am old. No use. Let us die!”
In the end Mother got rid of the weeping old woman. When she was once settled in the bus and had kissed us and received the cake we had for her, she seemed herself again. She smiled, smoothed her skirt, and looked young, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sweet, innocent and bright.
“She has forgotten what she said,” said my mother, taking my arm, “and you must forget. I don’t wish that woman any good luck, but I guess she’s paying for her tricks.”
A week later my Grandmother Fox was dead. It was only then that Mathilde had the sense to see what had been the matter; that death had been at his tricks. I was afraid, “Do you get mad before you die?”
“Some do.”
I shivered. At that time, now, when I think of the dreadful day, I love my grandmother more, through horror, than through affection. It was not fair, and this was not she. And I thought, When I am old will I remember this? I am her blood; I will watch for every sign. For the worst thing about it is, that sometimes without any such excuse (for she was trying to keep off death), I am pretty much of a liar and fraud; oh, what have I said at times in cheat and deceit? And then I thought about my New Year’s story! Did she think that about me? Letty is lost, a loose girl probably, she thought (with her old-fashioned morals), a wanton, a drunkard, and she loved me with this selfsame horror. But I love her all the more, because of my fear? I hope not.
I hope Grandmother was not so complicated as I am. But I suppose all human beings are pretty much the same, except Elks and D.A.R.’s and that sort.
She must have loved me, for she left me the proper amount, twenty-five hundred dollars, and the same to Jacky; but it was all verbal. At the end, she had begun to think bad things about me, too, said my father; and during the last month she had told strange stories about me; he would not say what. In her last three days she was lucid, kind, loving to everyone, even to Persia; the fever seemed to have dropped. The only thing was that she cried all the time, in a clear, intelligent wail, like a person who has just lost a child. And the last day, she said, “Persia, my dear, call Sollie. Sollie, you can get the doctor if you wish. And ask for Big Lily and tell Little Lily to come home from work, and whatever I may have said, remember I do not want a headstone, but an urn.”
That evening she died in a hospital. My mother and I were there and no one else
. In the afternoon, the nurse told me, Solander and Persia had been there, and Persia, who was taking her a glass of water, had slipped and fallen on the polished oilcloth and wet her skirts. “What bad luck,” cried Persia. “Oh, what terribly bad luck.” Grandmother died at sunset, exactly as the last rays were shining level in the window. Two other women were in the room, a blonde and a brunette, both middle-aged. They were excited by the event; it was a gossip item for them.
Grandmother said, “Is that you, Letty?”
I said, “Yes; Mother is here, too.”
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