Black Rainbow

by Miriam Sagan

  I had never been stoned. I had smoked dope a few times, but I was always disappointed. The walls did not drop rainbow colors, the hearts and aces did not leap off playing cards, and snakes did not wiggle across the floor. Then, too, I was relieved that the world did not change drastically before my eyes. Still, I would have been happy to inhale acrid smoke and to change, subtly, to sit very still until a monarch butterfly appeared and landed softly on my knee, wings pulsing. I would have liked to call something to myself the way Noah did, not the pair of giraffes or of bison but one lone dove would do, a white bird with something in her beak, dropping a message of peace into my lap.

  Monique lit a chunk of hashish and inhaled deeply. She held her breath.

  “Try this,” she said in a squeaky voice.

  I inhaled and held smoke in until I could feel it swell against my lungs. “Expansion weed.” I coughed.

  Monique nodded, took another hit. “Good stuff.”

  “Where’s it from?”

  She shrugged. “Hawaii maybe? Smuggled in a surf board? The lump had a funny shape from being crushed in a corner.”

  I smoked some more. It was starting to happen. My mouth was dry, my hands were warm, my body was soaking in a hot bath without me.

  “Ice cream,” said Monique.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ice cream. We need ice cream.”

  Monique was right; we needed ice cream. We floated down the stairs. In the freezer we found plain vanilla ice cream, perfect. Monique scooped it all into a large soup bowl and took out one spoon. She took a bite, she fed me a bite.

  “Feel it,” she intoned. “Feel the ice cream. Feel it slipping down your throat, your neck, feel it in your stomach, feel it slip past your knees, into your legs, feel it in your feet.”

  I felt the vanilla ice cream in my toes. I felt the silver spoon as if it were Monique’s tongue. I was stoned.

  Outside, it had started to rain again. The wind came up, wind full of gray rain. Inside the kitchen, Monique and I finished the ice cream and were now eating liverwurst sandwiches, smoked clams on Melba Toast, pickled baby eggplant, and diet coffee soda. The rain had driven the last of the trick-or-treaters home. The pumpkins were smashed in the street. The leaves were gone from trees. Water was rising and flooding suburban basements. There was a message for me in all that water, if I could learn to read it.

  CHAPTER 9

  “I WONDER WHERE SHE IS,” Monique would say.

  “Shut up,” I would say.

  “I’m just wondering.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  But of course I was wondering about her, too—about my other mother, the second figure, the one in the old housecoat with the sash missing, the one with the red knife palmed in her hand. What had she been thinking that hot afternoon in the parking lot, and then that cool early evening up in the mountains? Was it me that she had wanted, or just any baby? And when my birthday rolled around, when the starry Crab of the Zodiac sparkled and rose and scuttled across the sky, did she think of me then the way a mother always must on her child’s birthday, or even the way a midwife might look back in triumph or fear at her most difficult birth?

  I told myself I only wanted to know where she was so I could put the whole thing out of my mind once and for all and concentrate on something important like my Latin homework or on finding a boyfriend. Years of education and now an expensive private school had not been wasted on me. I knew how to use the public library. A boy with nice brown hair smiled at me as I walked in, fulfilling my quota for the week.

  It was simple. I took a map of New Mexico and the telephone directories for the state. I didn’t think she would stay in Albuquerque. South was desert, north were mountains and rivers. I checked Santa Fe first, but she wasn’t there. Then I looked up Taos and vicinity and the phone book offered her up alphabetically. She was living in a hamlet called Pilar. I could see her, suddenly in my mind’s eye, living in a trailer among dusty trees by a river. I saw her step outside in crisp morning air and scatter bread crumbs for a flock of white pigeons. I saw her walk a short distance down a dirt road to her mailbox. When she opened it, it was empty. She seemed disappointed, as if she had been expecting something. Maybe she was expecting a postcard from me, one of the blue skyline of Manhattan all lit up at dusk as if it were the only nighttime view in the world.

  Pilar, I said to myself, Pilar. It sounded like a woman’s name. It was covered in sunflowers and roses. It smelled of juniper and pine. I copied down the phone number and put it in my pocket. When I came home, Grace scented something about me that worried her. In her own way, she had a mother’s psychic qualities. It was not comfortable to have a secret around Grace. She began to nag me nervously, day and night.

  “You are not going out of the house dressed like that,” Grace announced the next morning.

  “Like what?”

  I had my school uniform rolled up around my waist to create a mini that could be rolled down immediately if a hall monitor caught me. Around the wad of rolled skirt was a cummerbund, silver on one side and hot pink on the other. In addition, I was wearing green knee socks (uniform), loafers, dangling earrings in the shape of daisies (not uniform), and a strand of purple love beads. I looked like one of those children’s flip books where the top and bottom halves of the picture don’t match and the strong man gets the midget’s legs or the giraffe’s neck tops the armadillo.

  “You’ll be sent home.”

  “Well then, it’ll be your fault.”

  “Oh really?”

  “For sending me to that fascist school.”

  “You haven’t the faintest idea what fascism really is,” said Grace.

  “Just don’t start in with the Turks again, what they did to our families, because I don’t…”

  “That is no way to talk.”

  “You’re always bossing me around,” I said. “I never asked to be born. You’re the one who is a fascist!”

  “But you’re not going out of this house dressed like that!” shouted Grace, cracking at last.

  I stretched my arms over my head and yawned in a world-weary fashion.

  “Are you wearing a bra?” continued Grace.

  I showed her one dirty beige strap.

  “Tighten it.”

  “What?”

  “Tighten it. You need more support. It looks sloppy.”

  “Oh,” I made no move.

  “And what is that?”

  “What?”

  “You’re not shaving under your arms.”

  “No.”

  “And why not?”

  “It isn’t natural,” I said primly.

  “Don’t forget, miss, I teach at your school. It’s my school too, and I will not be embarrassed by your…”

  “You’re not my mother.”

  “Of course I’m your mother.”

  “Oh no you’re not. My real mother is dead but the lady who killed her is alive.”

  Grace took a step backwards. “Who told you that?”

  “I just know,” I said hysterically. “I just know.”

  My real mother bore me but never gave birth to me. Instead, she saw the gun. Quite suddenly she thought of her own grandmother who had been a young woman when the Turks had come. The gun was pointed at her belly. If my little mother thought of Noah on Mount Ararat with his ark pregnant with so many twins, she still didn’t say anything.

  My second mother was mine for only a few hours. Before my eyes could properly focus, she was taken from me. My father was discharged and moved back to his parents’ apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey. There he sat in the gloom, eating doughy cake dripping with honey and pine nuts and drinking sour wine out of a heavy crystal glass. He looked at the wine decanter with its round bottom and he wanted a woman again. I was screaming in the kitchen as my grandmother tested the formula she was heating in a chipped blue enamel pan. My mother was gone, a blur, a stain, a chalk outline rubbed out, a helix, half of the two X chromosomes inside of me.

  S
o introductions were made, small cups of bitter coffee brewed, my young pale father was introduced to Grace, a spinster school teacher, at twenty-three, from the town of Elizabeth with its terrible factories and golden domes lifting a crucified Christ into the air. And she was glad to marry him, and to mother his motherless child.

  And now this woman who claimed to be my mother was telling me to shave my arm pits.

  “You listen to me now.”

  “Make me,” I said. I could feel all my teeth sharpening inside my mouth as if I were a ferret or an opossum.

  “I will.” We hated each other so much at that moment that she might almost have been mine. In an instant, she whipped open a kitchen drawer and pulled out a nail scissors. “We’re going to cut off that hair.”

  “No.”

  “You will do as I…”

  But I snatched the scissors out of her hand. It had small curved blades, incapable of much damage, or I would have plunged it into my heart. Tentatively, I lifted the scissors to my throat. The pair of blades seemed to grow, like the wings of a large white bird. A steady pulse began to beat. I brought the scissors up to the string, and then I cut the love beads. They were some sort of bean, painted purple. Beads began dropping and scattering across the linoleum.

  “God damn,” screamed Grace. “God damn it.”

  I picked up one of the love beads. I popped it into my mouth. It tasted vile, like paint thinner, but I swallowed it anyway. Deep inside of me that seed began to grow into a dark tree with metallic leaves and poisonous looking purple flowers.

  Grace was still screaming at me, surrounded by bouncing love beads.

  “You’re not my mother,” I said, and ran out the front door.

  I wondered if I would have had the nerve to actually stab Grace or myself. My real mother would never have stabbed anyone. She might have bought me a toy Noah’s ark, or patted her belly, or bit into half of a navel orange. But she would not have stabbed anyone, not even if they had tried to take me from her.

  CHAPTER 10

  Mary Rose

  THE ANGEL BABIES BEGAN TO TALK to Mary Rose and to wake her at odd hours. She would be up at 2 a.m., sitting in the old rocker, wrapped in an afghan, rocking. Now she was the mother of triplets, and in their own way they needed to be fed. So she rocked and let the angel babies nurse her neck.

  The triplets made little nests for themselves around the house. Sometimes they slept in the linen drawers, on the towels. They liked to be in the closet and hide in the shoes, especially Bud’s. But their favorite place was the sewing basket. All three of them were small enough to sleep cozily under the unfinished quilt.

  Caring for the triplets took all day. Mary Rose had to wash them separately in the basin, and then she set out three little bowls of milk. Then they needed to go to the park. It was just a few blocks away, a quiet square of green with climbing bars and a seesaw. Mary Rose would walk over in the late morning, just before the start of the real heat. It was only May, but already the acacias had blossomed, and the lilacs were long gone. The cottonwoods had lost their fluff in the breeze and were nothing more than a shimmer of olive-colored leaves.

  At the park, the triplets loved to run and play. They made friends with a little boy named Ted. He was about two years old and a stolidly good-natured fellow. His mother was a tired-looking redhead, who confided to Mary Rose that she had never quite recovered from his difficult birth. Mary Rose just smiled. She was so busy with the triplets that she had quit her job. Bud hadn’t noticed until her next paycheck never arrived.

  “But honey…” he said.

  She just looked at him.

  “Honey, shouldn’t you try and keep busy? And we could use the money, too. It’s not like we always will, but…”

  “I am busy,” she said. “I am very, very busy.”

  The next afternoon at the park, Ted’s mother realized she had left the iron on at home.

  “It’s just around the corner,” she said to Mary Rose. “Could you watch him for a second?”

  “Sure,” said Mary Rose.

  “Hey, Ted,” she called when his mother was out of sight. “Want to come to my house? I have chocolate chip cookies. Come on.”

  Trustingly, he put his chubby hand in hers. At the flat he ate four cookies, drank a glass of milk, and fell asleep on the couch. When Bud came home, Mary Rose had cooked a nice dinner of spaghetti and meatballs.

  “Who is the kid?” Bud looked surprised.

  “He’s ours,” she said. “He’s our little boy.”

  “Now Mary Rose, now honey.” She heard something new in his voice, a touch of panic.

  Suddenly, the doorbell rang. The police were on the stairs, with the redheaded lady.

  “Mama,” Ted said sleepily.

  “Darling boy, darling.” She crushed him to her and glared at Mary Rose. “You bitch, you crazy person, you sick bitch devil, I’ll…”

  Mary Rose drew herself up primly. She was not the one using foul language.

  The police officer drew Bud aside. Mary Rose overheard snatches: “Won’t happen again…no charges. Yes, women get that way…a hysterectomy…fine soon.”

  When they left, the apartment seemed very quiet. Mary Rose realized immediately what was wrong. It wasn’t just Ted that was gone; it was the angel babies as well. They had finally flown off to heaven. Perhaps it was for the best. Now that the triplets were gone, Mary Rose’s real baby could come to her at last.

  “Are you all right?” asked Bud.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Want to visit with your mother for a while?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m fine, just fine.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I ALWAYS WORE MY SKIRT ROLLED UP around my waist. The uniform skirts were oppressive, gray or pleated plaid, and the wool itched. The school rule was that the skirt should be no higher than the center of the knee. Fashion dictated otherwise. And so we rolled up in the morning, down when we saw a hall monitor coming. But Monique had taken more decisive action and hemmed the plaid skirt. It was so short that from the right angle you could actually see her black lace underpants. Oddly, the action went unnoticed for several days.

  Then Mr. Love caught her when he was patrolling the hall-ways. “Young lady!” he said, too surprised to say more when it became obvious what he was looking at.

  “Good morning, Mr. Love.”

  “Yes sir?”

  “Oh dear. “She tugged at it. “Is it crumpled?”

  “Kneel down,” he ordered, pulling out the tape measure that went with the job. But no tape measure was necessary. The skirt barely grazed Monique’s plump white upper thighs.

  “Change immediately, Missy. Oh you gerls, you gerls, what will you think of…”

  “But Mr. Love…”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t have anything to change into.”

  “Then go home at once.”

  Of course, if Monique showed up at home in her micro-mini, she would be grounded all over again. So there was no help for it; we would have to sneak into her bedroom and steal a proper length skirt before math class. Luckily, Monique’s house was walking distance from the school. It was raining gently, but we each had an umbrella. We walked in wet silence, drops falling from the black trees.

  We came up to the back of the house. We couldn’t see the cars in the garage from that angle, or tell who was home. But we could swing ourselves up on an overhanging porch and pry open the window to Monique’s room. The house lay still about us. Monique’s mother was probably at the hair dresser having her roots done or something. Monique found a neatly pressed gray skirt hanging in the closet. But as she stood there in her underpants, the door to her room creaked open. We both froze. I hid in the shadows of a corner.

  It was Monique’s father. Wordlessly, as if it were natural, he embraced Monique. He swept her into his arms in a movie clinch, lips pressed on hers, until she twisted free.

  “Dad,” she said, “Rania’s here.”

  “Allo,” he sa
id, looking up, not missing a beat.

  “I was just changing my school skirt,” Monique said, as if that explained something.

  “See you at dinner.” He turned and left the room.

  “What was that?” I said.

  “That,” said Monique, “was nothing.”

  “But Monique, your dad, that wasn’t normal. What is going on? I don’t understand.”

  “Nothing is going on. Nothing happened. Nothing.”

  I had no choice but simply to believe her. This time we let ourselves out the front door in a civilized manner and were back at school before anyone could miss us. Monique’s new skirt came decorously well below the knee.

  That Saturday, Monique said we should go to this anti-war rally in the city. It was way downtown, on the Lower East Side, in a neighborhood I was not allowed into. I was not permitted south of Fourth Street or east of Second Avenue. But I had to do whatever Monique told me. So I lied.

  “Where are you two going?” asked Grace.

  “To the Metropolitan Museum.” I wished it were true. I loved the museum with its foyer full of sphinxes, its cafeteria where the coffee came in little glass pots, its vast gallery of Buddhas. I liked to sit with the Buddhas and feel them beaming down on me. They made my body feel large and light; they made me feel happy. But I was not going to the museum. Instead I took the number 86 bus to the George Washington Bridge bus terminal and then I took the A train down the granite length of Manhattan.

  Monique was meeting me at the rally. In a way it felt good to be on my own. The subway fascinated me; it was one danger I was allowed. I got a seat at 179th and watched the other passengers. Hasidic Jews sat squinting into large black books and tracing one finger in the air. By 145th Street, lots of black people would get on. There were Caribbean people from the islands, too, with a lilt in their voices. Indian women sat in their saris covered by overcoats. By 59th Street, the subway was jammed with a midtown crowd. By 14th Street, things were really interesting. Hippies got on. Boys and girls wore bell bottoms and love beads. One girl looked like a beatnik, with heavy black tights and a short skirt, big earrings, a shoulder bag on a strap. One guy wore a wool cap over his Afro crocheted in the three colors of Africa: red, black, and green.