Black Rainbow

by Miriam Sagan

  I bought myself a package of M&M’s with peanuts at the next newsstand, got on the A train and then the bus, and went home.

  Grace was not serving chicken breast and rice pilaf. She and my father went off to a dinner party, leaving me to babysit my brothers along with a pan of lasagna covered in tin foil. I was too tired to even heat up that lasagna, but my brothers didn’t mind. They ate some cold, and then made themselves dessert in the form of huge bowls of Lucky Charms breakfast cereal and milk and went up to the attic to watch The Cat People on TV.

  I took a long soapy shower to wash the smell of the subway off my skin and the city cold out of my bones. I put on a ratty flannel nightgown, made myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes, and went up to see how the horror movie was going. A woman from someplace like Romania who had a name that sounded like mine was watching a black panther stalk back and forth in its cage. She killed a canary, but to my brothers’ disappointment she did not eat it herself but fed it to the panther. We figured out that she was probably a Cat Person, and that when her husband got her good and angry, she would kill and eat him. My brothers were prepared to stay up half the night to see this happen—the plot was slowed down considerably by all the used car commercials—but I was getting sleepy. I made them promise they would tell me how it ended.

  I climbed into bed but didn’t turn off the light. I wondered if Monique had gotten home yet. Probably everything was fine, and she would tell me about the commune on Monday. Still, I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. I watched the ceiling, but there were no clouds and no angels with crossed wings watching down on a sleeping child. A street lamp glared outside the window. Against its light I could see sleet coming down, an icy rain that was already flooding the gutters of the house.

  CHAPTER 13

  Mary Rose

  THE JUNE DAY WAS HOT. Mary Rose was wearing an old house dress with a sash that she had made years before in Home Ec, white and blue, but cool and not faded. She dropped Bud off and then drove aimlessly. The gun was on the seat beside her; the knife was in her pocket.

  Mary Rose paused in the parking lot, thought about buying a soda, and then saw the pregnant woman outside the obstetrical office.

  “That should be me,” she thought. The woman was small and dark and badly swollen. “That is me,” Mary Rose said aloud, and she picked up the gun.

  The rest was easy. The pregnant woman let out a small gasp of air, an ooh, when she saw the gun, but after that she was silent. It was as if she knew why Mary Rose had come for her. After all, she was only flesh, a vessel.

  Mary Rose drove up into the mountains. She pushed the pregnant woman out onto pine needles. She strangled her neatly with the sash of her house dress and then took out the knife. For the first time, her hand trembled with desire, then pure joy. She cut the dead woman’s womb open and lifted out the baby, saw it turn from blue to raspberry in a second of cool mountain air. The child would always have more cells in her lungs than either her mother or father. She cried to be born, but not much; the cheeping was from a bird that greeted the new day.

  Mary Rose cut the umbilical cord and knotted it off. Then she lifted the placenta out of the dead woman’s belly. Mary Rose wrapped the baby in a towel and placed the bundle gently on the pine needles. Then she took a shovel out of the truck and dug a hole beneath a pine tree. She buried the placenta and covered it with needles. She picked up her daughter, murmuring. The placenta was the child’s twin. Now the girl, no matter how she roamed, would always come back to these mountains.

  Mary Rose felt like an old song. She felt full. She could see the blue sky over New Mexico more clearly than she had in years. White clouds ran in the wind. She sat with her daughter for a while, under the whisper of evergreens. The dead woman’s belly was full of ants. She looked caved in, like a broken pot.

  When the child began to whimper, Mary Rose drove back into town to buy a bottle and some formula. She stopped at one of those little still countrified stores at the edge of town. The old man behind the counter looked at her oddly. Suddenly, Mary Rose realized that both she and the child were covered in blood.

  “Lady,” he said.

  She backed away a few steps, but something in her slowed down. She was suddenly exhausted, too tired to run.

  “Hold it, lady,” he said. “Hold it right there.” And he reached for the phone.

  Perhaps Mary Rose, the killer, was for one moment inhabited by the spirit of the dead woman, who also could not run. Maybe no woman who was a mother could ever truly run; maybe it is left to their daughters to do that. Whatever the reason, Mary Rose stood still in the store, stood still for too long to be anyone’s mother ever again in this lifetime.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE NEXT MORNING, Grace woke me at 7 a.m. This was in direct violation of her usual let-sleeping-dogs-lie policy. She never woke any of us, as she liked to putter quietly and do the New York Times crossword puzzle in peace.

  Grace’s hand felt oddly gentle on my forehead. “Wake up, darling,” she said.

  “Darling?”

  I stuttered fully awake. “Mmm?”

  “Time to get up.”

  “Why? It’s Sunday, isn’t it? Is everything all right? What’s going on?”

  “Would you like some hot cereal for breakfast? You could have oatmeal with brown sugar.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Monique didn’t come home last night,” said Grace softly, brushing a strand of hair off my forehead.

  “Oh wow.”

  “It is very worrisome.”

  “I’ve been worried about Monique for a long time.”

  “Then you show good sense, Rania.”

  Monique had vanished. She had taken a turn in the subway tunnel and disappeared. Her gold hair shone in the darkness for a moment, and then she was gone. I wished that Monique had simply told me to jump off the George Washington Bridge, the expression that Grace always harped on. That would have been cleaner. Instead, she had wanted me to follow her through the gray freezing city to have dinner with a bunch of anarchist bombers. That went against my better judgment. Besides, Michael had been there. If she had told me to jump, I would have jumped and she would have jumped and now we would both be dead. It would have been a lot less complicated than having everyone involved.

  “I am really worried.” Grace was watching me with concern. “Worried. Very worried.”

  “I’m worried too.” She added raisins and cream to my oatmeal. “Eat your cereal. We have to go over to Monique’s house in a little while.”

  “I don’t want to go.” I dribbled brown sugar into the steamy bowl.

  “I don’t want to go either. But you were the last person to actually see Monique.”

  “Alive?”

  “Oh Rania!”

  “But you don’t want to go either. You don’t like Monique’s parents, you never have.”

  “It’s not that I don’t like them. It’s just that they are…”

  “Vulgar,” I added for her.

  “Not that nice,” she said.

  “You’re right. You are absolutely right.”

  It was raining again. We put on our coats and boots. The inside of the car smelled safely of upholstery and heat and some stale caramel popcorn left over from Halloween. Grace’s lipstick was on crooked, a little too thick, and a little too red. She was wearing a tailored black dress, much too formal for Sunday morning, as if she were going to church or a funeral. I was wearing a pale pink sweater with fluffy balls on it. My grandmother had given it to me, and I never wore it.

  Grace swung the car slowly into the circular drive. She leaned over and rubbed at a spot of dirt somewhere over my left eyebrow as if I were a very young child. Then she smoothed her own hair, and we walked in together.

  Monique’s mother appeared at the door in some kind of at-home caftan, all brocade and sequins, purple and orange and sky blue. Her lips were pursed beneath a frosted shade of pink lipstick. Her fingernails were immaculate in a matching shade. She sho
wed us formally into the living room. Monique’s father had a glass of whiskey with ice clinking in his hand. It was still early in the morning. Monique’s father gestured for us to sit down on the couch. Grace sat down like a mother cat, positioning her body between me and them.

  “Monique did not come home last night,” he began.

  “Rania was home for dinner,” said Grace.

  “When did you last see Monique?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Maybe you should tell us what happened,” said Grace in a soft tone. I had never been so grateful for her presence.

  “Can I have something to drink?” I asked.

  “Cherry coke, Tab, 7-Up, diet coffee…” Monique’s mother rattled off the familiar list.

  “Ginger Ale?”

  She poured me a glass. I took a procrastinating sip. The bubbles were delicious.

  “Well,” I said, “we didn’t go to the museum. Not like we said we would.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No, you see, we went to this rally…”

  “You took Monique to a rally?”

  “No, she took me.”

  “She took you to an anti-war rally?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Monique believed that the war in Vietnam was a terrible thing. Once she even considered jumping off a window ledge just because she couldn’t stand it anymore. Napalming babies, that kind of thing, really got to Monique. So anyway she said we should go to this rally to help stop the war. She said we were only high school students, but it was the least we could do. In a way, the war was our fault too, because we were Americans. I wanted to go to the museum. There was a Chinese exhibit I wanted to see but Monique said we should go to the rally.”

  “If Monique told you to jump off the George…” interrupted Grace, and then she caught herself and silently chewed on a bit of her lipsticky lip.

  “The rally was way downtown, on the Lower East Side. I’d never been that far east before. I’m not allowed. There weren’t that many people there, but some guys, older guys, invited us to go back with them for dinner. I didn’t want to go, it didn’t seem quite…”

  “Quite what?” interrupted Monique’s father.

  “Well, I didn’t have permission; I had to be home for dinner.” It sounded lame but it was true. I could feel Grace relax by my side. “Monique went, though. We got on the subway together and then…we just went in opposite directions.”

  All three adults were staring at me. Six eyes bored into me. I couldn’t tell if I appeared smart or stupid. I was smart because I hadn’t gone to dinner with a bunch of terrorist bombers. But in a way I was stupid. After all, I was the one sitting on the couch being interrogated and Monique was off somewhere doing drugs and having sex and being cool.

  “Have you called the police?” asked Grace.

  “Of course. Both New Jersey and Metropolitan.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “They seemed to think she might show up at any moment or that she had run away.”

  Instinctively, Grace and I both glanced at Monique’s mother. There were violet shadows under her eyes, and she was wringing her hands in her lap.

  “Did Monique say anything? Give you any indication that she might…”

  “Run away from home? She didn’t take any clothes,” I said brightly. “She didn’t even take a toothbrush. And you know Monique is careful about her things, she likes them just so.”

  Monique’s mother nodded sadly. “And she didn’t even take any money with her.”

  This, of course, was not the case. Monique always had money, lots of money, stashed. She stole regularly from both her mother and father, from purse and wallet. She kept money in her bra and in her sock, in her pocket and in her shoe. Monique could probably manage for months.

  “I’m sure she’ll come home soon,” said Grace. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was home by dinner tonight.”

  Monique’s father nodded. “It’s pretty cold out there,” he said. “When she realizes just how cold it is out there she won’t be able to come home fast enough.”

  I gave him a funny look.

  “What do you think, Rania?” he asked, catching the look.

  “Nothing much.”

  “Don’t you think Monique will come running home once she realizes how cold it is out there?”

  “Sure.”

  “Rania, think for a minute,” said my mother. “Did Monique ever imply she had troubles that might make her want to leave? Family trouble? A misunderstanding, boy trouble?”

  “Monique didn’t go out with boys,” said her father.

  “Well, did she ever say anything?”

  “Sort of,” I mumbled.

  “What sort of thing?” Monique’s father was glaring at me now. I wondered if it was my imagination, or did he look a little frightened as well?

  “Just something that you used to do to her, that…”

  “What kind of thing! That girl with her lies and imagination.” He raved at his wife. “How many times have I told you I won’t have that kind of accusation in my house? How many times…”

  Grace touched my arm gently. “I think it is time for us to go,” she said in her kindest tone.

  CHAPTER 15

  MONIQUE DID NOT RETURN. It rained Monday and Tuesday; it kept on raining. By Wednesday, the rain mixed with snow, then sleet. When Monique had been missing for two weeks, a blizzard finally fell and brought life to a crystalline halt. But even that melted. The winter was all freeze and thaw, hard on the boots, hard on the heart.

  Our headmistress said a prayer for Monique in the school assembly. Her parents hired a private detective. I dialed Michael’s number and hung up on the second ring. Monique’s parents printed up handbills with a picture of her and the word MISSING in bold face.

  I knew Monique was not dead. If she had floated and then sunk in the East River, I would have felt it somewhere in my body. Monique was alive, but no private detective was going to be able to find her. And school had become intolerable without her.

  “Where’s Monique?” Someone with pale ugly eyes cornered me in the corridor outside of Latin. It was the smartest girl in the class.

  “Good question,” I said.

  “People say she took an overdose and she’s dead. People say she’s pregnant and got sent to her aunt in Ohio. People say she transferred to Fieldston and the school won’t admit it, or that she’s gone to boarding school.”

  “People say lots of things.”

  “You don’t know, do you? And you used to be her best friend. Monique and Rania, Rania and Monique, The Bobbsey Twins.”

  “Watch out,” I said, menacing her, and I fluttered the air next to her cheek with my hand. “Watch out. Don’t push me.”

  But she just laughed. “Even you don’t know where she is.”

  And she was right.

  But I began to see signs everywhere: a crack in the sidewalk, a maple tree where the trunk had split and grown in half, the Doors on the car radio, blood stains in my underwear. The weekly death toll on the news. Even the current brand of sugary cereal favored by my brothers—all these things pointed my way. It was inescapable. I was the only one who would be able to find Monique.

  I planned my escape carefully. I would have to leave on a school day. The weekends were out. Since Monique’s disappearance Grace had been watching me like a hawk. She had never been nicer to me. In fact, I often forgot to remind myself that she wasn’t my real mother. I loved how she had stuck up for me at Monique’s parents’ interrogation. But she was watching me.

  Wednesday was the day we switched gym uniforms, bringing a clean pair of the hideous navy blue bloomers and taking the dirty pair home to be laundered by maids or mothers. On Wednesday, I always carried my back pack. Wednesday was my day.

  I packed carefully. I rolled up three pairs of underpants, two pairs of bell-bottoms, a black T-shirt, my purple sweater, a pale blue sweatshirt, a pair of purple socks, and my daisy-shaped screw-on earrings. My cloth
es smelled of Tide and static. I took my toothbrush and toothpaste and a small bottle of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap. It was horrible tasting, but in a pinch served as shampoo. Besides, I liked that the bottle was covered in labels, each more esoteric than the last, exhorting the reader to homeopathy and natural methods of farming. I never actually read those labels, but it comforted me to think that if I was ever trapped somewhere I would always have something to read.

  I added a comb and a bandanna. The red Swiss army knife was carefully in place on top of everything else. I hid my money in my boot, but none in my bra, because I wasn’t planning to take a bra. I added a kelly green peace sign to the back pack and shook myself once, to straighten my thoughts.

  I had my plan worked out. I had told Grace I would walk home from school.

  I was afraid to take the bus across the bridge in case someone saw me waiting. Our last school period was French. A discussion of the hero in The Red and The Black was lost on me. My French was among the poorest in the class; and I figured I could always read the Cliff Notes in English. After class, I casually called a taxi from the pay phone. I met the cab on the far side of the soccer field.

  In the taxi, I pulled a pair of jeans on under my skirt and then added the purple sweater over the uniform blouse. I took my bra off through an elaborate system. First, I pulled the straps down and out under my sleeves. Then, I turned the bra around and unclasped it. The entire operation was quick and modest. The driver was a middle-aged Italian man who did not turn around. The radio blasted The Supremes singing “Love Child.” I left a large tip. I also left my bra and skirt at the bottom of the cab.

  The George Washington Bridge looked beautiful that hazy Wednesday afternoon. It had stopped raining but the sky wasn’t clear, rather mottled like a white marble. The bridge was all blue spider web strung between two shores, glistening with dew, with no spider but the dreamy city of Manhattan drowsing to the southeast. Skyscrapers shone with the color of a stone that had been dropped into water. Behind me were the Palisades, square cliffs of granite. Just over those cliffs were the towns of homes where children ran out of yellow school buses and cats meowed on back porches, waiting to be let in out of the afternoon damp.