Rubies from Burma

by Anne Lovett

  Uneasy, I jaywalked. A warm, fetid wind skittered trash around my heels. Passersby glanced at me, the stranger. I walked up to the entrance past a bedraggled palm tree covered with dust.

  I pushed through the revolving door into the building and found myself standing on cracked tiles in a lobby with faded velvet rumpsprung chairs, upon which two elderly men sat, reading newspapers and smoking cigars behind plants that looked like they had died years ago. The men looked up and then went back to their papers.

  The elevator, with a tarnished brass door, stood at the far left of the lobby. On the door was a hand-lettered sign, OUT OF ORDER. From the curled and dirty look of the paper, the elevator had been out of order a long time. To its right a bank of numbered mailboxes stood. To its left, a door labeled Office was tightly shut, frosted-glass pane dark.

  Broad steps covered with threadbare carpet ascended to my left, and I hoped these led to the first floor. At the top of the steps, a hallway covered with carpet that might have once been green stretched left and right. Four doors down, again on the left, I found number 115. The wall beside the door was dark with smudges, as though many hands had leaned there. I pushed the bell.

  You’re early, a voice yelled from inside.

  Early for what? I looked behind me, to see if anyone was coming. But the hall was empty. Of course—I was early.

  She opened the door five minutes later, a poofy blonde with sleepy eyes whose dye job was way overdue. She was wrapped in a silk kimono, red with embroidered dragons, that did not quite cover up her black lace bra. Wobbling a little on her red satin mules, she grabbed at the gaping kimono and scowled.

  Who are you? Where’s Marvin?

  I don’t know any Marvin, I said.

  What the hell are you doing here, kid?

  Are you Viv?

  She peered at me. Your boyfriend ain’t here, and neither is your daddy.

  I must have turned forty shades of red. I’m looking for a Jack Austin, I said. I held out the matchbook.

  She took it and looked it over, then handed it back to me with a tiny flicker of a smile. Honey, there are a lot of Jacks in my line of work.

  A pilot, I said. But she was looking over my shoulder. I turned to see a bald man with jug ears, who reminded me of the man in the game I’d once had—the magnetic man you fitted with hair, mustache, and beard by pushing around iron filings with a magnet. Marvin, she said, and then to me, Sorry, I gotta go. Nothing personal, just business.

  She grabbed Marvin by the arm and pulled him inside and shut the door, saying there oughta be a law against these magazine people.

  By now sweat was running down my forehead and my sides and the building’s funk of grease and moldy carpet and decay was filling up my nose. Maybe I should just give up. But I couldn’t—I’d come all this way, and she knew Jack. Maybe I’d try again after Marvin left. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be long.

  I walked back to the lobby and sat on one of the ratty upholstered benches. If Jack wasn’t here, then what had become of him? Had he gone on to South America? I had a feeling he’d never come back anywhere near our town again. I didn’t want to see him anyhow. I just wanted to find Ava.

  Cigar smoke drifted my way, along with pairs of curious eyes. The ancient men were still there. One of them got up and came toward me, and I decided to wait outside. At the revolving door I stopped to let in a woman wobbling on impossibly high heels, clutching a bottle in a brown paper bag. Her hair, wild and dark and dull, looked as though it hadn’t been combed for days. Retired hoods, prostitutes, winos—

  The woman tripped, on a loose tile I guess, and dropped the bottle, and it cracked in two like a gunshot. She gazed down at the spreading dark puddle and shrieked, convulsing with wild, wailing sobs.

  A numb feeling spread over me. I knew those sobs. I walked over, and she looked at me with a scowl which melted like an ice cube on the sidewalk back home and said, My God. Mae Lee.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ava put her hands to her face. I grabbed her shoulder and shook her. Ava, come on, get up. Is there anybody who can get this cleaned up? Does the building have a janitor?

  She just stared at me dumbly. One of the old geezers ambled over, chewing on his cigar, and looked more kind than menacing. I’ll get McGillicuddy, he said.

  A woman in housecoat and curlers emerged from somewhere as I was trying to persuade Ava off the floor. I’m the resident manager, she said and looked at Ava. You again.

  She tripped, I said.

  Can’t stand up, said the woman. I’m sick of it. She toed at the puddle. Fred will take care of it. Not that she will be grateful, she said to me.

  She’s my sister, I said.

  I pay my rent, Ava said.

  You’ve been warned, said the manager. We don’t want trouble here. This is a quiet place.

  I’ve come to see about her, I said. My eyes met the woman’s, asking for a little compassion. The lines in her face unfolded a little. Relieved, I suppose, that someone had come to take charge.

  I’ll go get Fred, she said, and left.

  Come on, I said to Ava, taking her arm. The old guys were standing there watching as I hauled her up the stairs trailing an odor of staleness and sweat, of rancid hair. I found the stairwell and walked her up to the third floor, and she let herself into apartment 302, fumbling with her key.

  Good Lord.

  In the dingily-lit studio we stepped onto a rich-looking Oriental carpet. Make yourself at home, Ava said, dropping her handbag—which looked like alligator—on one maroon velvet chair. I laid my own bag on the chair’s twin and stroked the soft velvet. Silk, I’d bet. The covers were still rumpled on the round bed which stood against the far wall, but the covers were gold satin and the sheets were shiny and black. French bistro posters hung on the wall. A wilting red rose drooped in a glass vase on a black lacquered table.

  Lie down, I said. I’ll get you something to drink. She followed me into a tiny alcove to the right. Under fluorescent light her skin looked yellow, almost jaundiced.

  I opened the refrigerator to more mildew than food—a bottle of milk, a jar of pickles, and a half brick of cheddar cheese with dried edges. I sniffed the milk and poured it down the sink. A small glass jar with a gold label, way to the back, caught my eye. I pulled it out—quarter full of cherries in brandy. No meat, no milk, no vegetables? I said to Ava.

  I eat out a lot, she murmured. Gimme. She grabbed the cherries, opened the jar, and fished them out with her fingers. I’d forgotten they were there, she said. How could I have forgotten those? Albert gave me those. She turned up the jar and drank the brandy. Aah, she said. God. There were dribbles on her chin.

  I need a real drink, she said. She swiped the dribbles off with trembling hands and opened a drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She shook one out and lit it with a kitchen match.

  No, you don’t, I said. I pulled open the freezer compartment, frosted over and empty except for two aluminum trays filled with ice. I took one out, yanked the lever, poured the ice into a bowl, refilled the tray, and put it back. You’re going to tell me everything that’s been happening to you.

  Ava was talking all right, wailing again. My wine, my wine, disappeared into the cracks of the goddamned Alhambra. Fred probably lapped it up. That was my last five bucks.

  Is that all you think about? I said.

  She picked up the empty cherry bottle and gazed at it. I didn’t ask you to come.

  Tell you what, I said, looking in the rusting metal cabinet for a glass. You take a bath and change into some clean clothes. Wash your hair. Then I’m going to go out and get us something to eat. And if you eat what I bring, I’ll buy you some wine. And then we’re going to talk. I found a glass that looked like some kind of wedding crystal and filled it with ice.

  She stuck out her lip at me, and I saw the girl who had stuck out her lip at Momma over being made to go to church. I filled the glass from the tap with water smelling of sulfur and handed it to her. Drink this, I said.


  She took a few sips, made an ugly face, then walked over to the bed. She set the glass on the bedside table and flopped face down on the rumpled covers. I walked into the bathroom and looked at the tub. I chased the spiders out, found a plug, and screeched open the faucet. Water gushed out brown and muddy before it ran clear.

  I looked for shampoo; an empty bottle lay behind the toilet. A cake of soap had curled up and died in the recessed soap dish, but it would have to do. When the tub was full, I walked out and shook her shoulder. Get in, I said.

  Why are you doing this? she said.

  Just do it.

  When Ava was clean and wrapped in a parrot green nylon peignoir, torn at the hem, I left her sitting in the velvet chair and went out. Following the directions she gave me, I found a deli on the corner and bought Cuban sandwiches and two quart bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. No one asked for I.D.

  Beer, she sniffed, when I set it on the table.

  That’s right, I said.

  She drew herself up, and for a moment became the old haughty, glamorous Ava. And then the illusion dissolved, and her eyes looked frightened, and across the kitchen table from me sat a pathetic woman.

  Eat, I said. I bit into my sandwich.

  She looked at the sandwich suspiciously, picked it up, and nibbled on the corner, and then disregarding me, dug in. I figured she hadn’t eaten for a while. In spite of the bath, she hadn’t managed to clean her fingernails, flecked red from a long-ago manicure, and grime remained under them.

  We ate in silence, wary of each other, like two strange cats.

  Her sandwich was half gone, along with most of the beer in her quart, when she pointed her sandwich at me, curled her lip, and said, I suppose you and Duke are shacking up.

  The bedraggled kitten, dried and fed, had become a saber-toothed tiger. I forced myself to take a deliberate swallow of beer before I answered. You don’t have any damn idea what you did, did you?

  She tossed her hair and smoothed a forefinger across her lip to wipe away the beer foam. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  I don’t suppose you would, I said. Duke has been in a mental hospital for the last three years. He’s getting out soon. He’s coming home. And he expects to see you. He thinks you’ve been waiting for him. Like you waited for him while he was in Burma.

  A mental institution? Her face changed, and I couldn’t read it.

  I leaned forward and my eyes bored right into hers. That night made him go over the edge. He was awfully close to it for a lot of years. You knew that.

  Her eyes slid away, she opened her mouth, and then . . . she dropped her head into her hands. God, Mae Lee. If you only knew. Living with him was hell.

  Did you ever try to understand? I asked softly.

  So? You were going to understand? She pressed her lips together.

  I shook my head. So where is Jack? And where did all this stuff come from? Did he buy it for you?

  She sighed and drained her glass and wiped foam again. Jack and me, we didn’t last long. We had a lot of laughs while the money held out, and one night he balled me three times and the next day he flew off and never came back. I couldn’t go back home, could I? Face Norma Radford and her clan? Have Duke slam the door in my face? I sold my wedding set, bought some clothes, and got a job as a restaurant hostess.

  I shook my head slowly. He would’ve had you back in a heartbeat.

  She got up, found her bag, and pulled out a cigarette. She lit it and tossed the matchbook on the table. Her little gold lighter, I guessed, was long gone. I picked it up and noticed it was from the same bar as Jack’s matchbook, the one that had Viv’s name and number.

  The smoke curled out of her mouth and shimmered to the ceiling. What did you ever know about me and Duke?

  Oh, more than you can imagine, Ava, I wanted to say, but didn’t. She took a deep drag, sucking like a baby. The smoke flowed out her nose. I told you I was a hostess. Vito came into the restaurant a lot, and we started going out. He liked to spend money on me. Then I met Bernard, Vito’s boss. She paused, waited to hear whether I was going to make any comment.

  Okay, I said. Go on.

  Bernard was older. Married, she said. I looked good then. He set me up in an apartment, bought me anything I wanted. I had the life, I did. Go look in my closet.

  I just looked at her. Go on, she said, look. Then I’ll tell you the rest.

  In the bedroom, I opened the tiny, grim closet. It was crammed with clothes: fancy gowns from Saks and Bloomingdale’s, snug-fitting linen suits, hats in boxes, spike-heeled shoes. All limp and smelly, because dry cleaning was a waste of good liquor money.

  I had a fur but it’s gone now, Ava called.

  A fur?

  He took me to New York sometimes, she said.

  I walked back into the kitchen. Ava was pouring beer from my bottle into her glass. So what happened with Bernard? I asked.

  She shrugged. One day somebody shot him, she said, flipping ashes off her cigarette onto the sandwich wrapper. Outside, it was now dark and through the filmy curtains I could see a big, round Miami moon.

  Did you care? I asked.

  What do you think? she said. I had to get out of my apartment. It was his, after all. His wife was very ugly about it. I was lucky to be able to keep all my stuff.

  How did you wind up here?

  She blew out smoke. Jack and I stayed here for a couple of months when we first came to Miami. It was cheap.

  You’re lucky you didn’t wind up dead, too. I said.

  I was talented, she said.

  You need to get out of here, I said. For your sake as well as Duke’s. My voice went up a few notches. I’m just glad Momma and Chap aren’t here to see this.

  You came down here to get me to come back? Well, I won’t go, she said, and you can’t make me. She drank the last of my beer. The bottles were empty and the sandwiches were gone, and the chips. Her head fell forward and she passed out on the table.

  Somehow I got her into the bed and pulled the sheet over her. That round bed was one she had made, and maybe she ought to lie in it. Maybe I ought to go back home and forget about the whole thing. I sat there at that table with the two empty beer bottles and the ashtray full of cigarette butts and the remains of the sandwiches and I balled the paper up and threw them all in the trash. I found a tattered phone book and copied down the number of a taxi company. I could go back tomorrow and say I hadn’t found her.

  I looked out at the moon and thought about the moon above the pines and the night Duke and I had looked into one another’s eyes, and he had pulled away. How I had wanted him not to pull away. What if I let him think she was dead? What would happen then?

  And what would happen to Ava when she had sold all her clothes, when she had sold the chair and the rug and the bed?

  What would happen to her tonight, when she woke up from her drunk and I was gone? She would dress in one of those silk dresses that smelled of cheap perfume and the sweat of men and she would go out, that much I knew.

  I still don’t know how I did it. I went into her closet. I dressed in one of her outfits. It didn’t fit me too well, but so what. Tight in some places, loose in others, way too short, but it was black and red. I fluffed my hair over my face and put on some of her red lipstick. And then I went out to the liquor store. Guys called to me from the cars but I didn’t turn my head. I hustled there and hustled back, clip clopping in her heels that pinched my big feet with a bottle of gin in her big swinging pocketbook. No one asked for an ID in the liquor store and I didn’t figure they would.

  She woke up an hour later raging for a drink, and then I proceeded to get her drunk, hoping that if she got drunk enough she would come with me. I would keep her drunk until we got to the bus station. That was my plan, anyhow.

  It didn’t quite work out like that.

  She decided I was boring her and she wanted me to go away but leave the gin. She wanted to go out, she knew a guy. She lurched into her closet and pulled ou
t a teal dress which looked awful against her sallow skin. They wear that color here, she said. Bernie loved that color. What the hell are you doing in my clothes.

  I stripped them off and got back into my things and took the dead soap and scrubbed every speck of makeup off my face. I can’t wait to get out of here, I said. Why did I ever try with you?

  A sob escaped my throat, and tears started leaking down my cheeks. I had failed. I had found her; I had gone on a bus and stayed at a motel and made phone calls asking questions like some private eye, all to try to find her and bring her back to Duke. And she didn’t want to go. So she liked living here in the smelly tatters of her life? In this squalor? Selling herself for a bottle of booze? I was heartsick and disgusted. I took a Kleenex from my pocket, blew my nose, and dried my eyes. I swallowed hard. Let her rot, then.

  I called the taxi.

  Ten minutes, the guy said. I grabbed my pocketbook; I’d wait in the lobby. I thought about leaving her a twenty while I waited. No. I would not.

  Just as I got out the door I heard her retching.

  Talking on the big white telephone, they call it now. Hand and knees on the cold white tiles, except here in the Alhambra they were sandy beige and teal. She could drown in that commode for all I cared. Mae Lee, she croaked. Mae Lee, help me.

  I’m through with you, Ava.

  Mae Lee, I’m bad sick.

  Sure, Ava. sure.

  Mae Lee. I love you. My baby sister.

  You lie, I thought, but it was like a stake in the heart.

  Mae Lee. I’m scared.

  That did it. I grabbed a wet towel and hoped the taxi would wait.

  You’re coming home with me, I said. I grabbed a suitcase out of the closet and started filling it with whatever I could lay a hand to.

  If I can have a drink, she said.

  We both rode the bus back to Mimi’s. It had taken me more than a week to find her, and it was less than three weeks until Duke was coming home. Jesus was right about that damn prodigal son. You should have seen Mimi. I’m glad she didn’t have any cows because one would have been slaughtered for sure to provide Ava with some veal cutlets. As it was, Mimi let her stay in the best room while Mimi moved over to the one that had been Mr. Linley’s.