The Healing

by Gayl Jones

  How can you listen to that shit? I asked. I don’t know about people like you, you know.

  These are real people, said Joan. This is how the world really is. That Josef of yours he’s a right to be paranoid. Those Fascists sons-of-bitches. This is the way the world really is.

  I sighed and looked for more cuticles to remove.

  While Joan showered and dressed, I went down into the lobby and played cards with the night watchman, who kept a flask of whiskey in his breast pocket, and talked about Lulabelle, the woman he’d been married to for forty years and whom he said I had ears like.

  You got ears just like my Lulabelle. I tell her they look like seashells. Something precious.

  How’d you stay married so long? I asked. Everybody I know is divorced.

  ’Cause they’s fools, he said. You shouldn’t leave somebody until you knows the logic of why you’s together. I don’t know why we’s together, me and Lulabelle, but I know I loves my wife.

  Jack of diamonds, two aces, and a queen of hearts, I said.

  How are you in love? he asked.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant until I gathered my winnings.

  Upstairs, Joan sat naked on the bed painted up to look like a zebra. Onstage she sang better than ever.

  Do you remember Jean Claude Duvalier? she asked her audience. Do you remember Baby Doc?

  They roared, Yes, and then they waited for her song.

  Multa!

  A Italian woman got up, least she looked Italian, climbed onstage and sang with her. And not one of those nerdy types. They were wild together. The Italian woman full of black hair and thunder. A windstorm.

  You’re good, Joan told her when the storm was over, and they were drenched, exhausted, sweat racing down their faces. They stood hugging. The audience cheered.

  Are you a professional performer? Joan asked, backstage.

  No, no, no, no, said the woman, delighted though that Joan would think her a professional, still shaking her narrow shoulders and broad hips.

  Come to my dressing room, come with me, will you? asked Joan.

  Is it okay if I bring my husband? asked the woman.

  Sure.

  She went to a tall, brown-skinned man standing near the edge of the stage, his arms folded, sullen. I’d noticed him when I’d been peeking through the curtain. He was sitting there watching Joan but looking like he felt himself superior to the music. How I imagined her husband Naughton James mighta been looking if he’d gone to one of her concerts. He wore beige corduroy pants and one of his eyebrows seemed a perpetual arch. The Italian woman bent to him; he shook his head and waved her away. She whirled around in a silk dress that looked like an Oriental tapestry. Returning to Joan, she mumbled something. I followed the two women into the dressing room. I went to the bathroom and came back as the Italian woman was telling her story.

  . . . they each said they were protecting my how-do-you-say honor? and feuded with each other. Oh, I could tell you all sorts of terror stories about love feuds when these Sicilian men get their honor up, for it’s their honor, their onore, not our. It’s always a man’s onore. I could tell you all kinds of terror stories. A game they enjoy to play, and we’re the pawns. All women. Onore. You, though, you look like you’re fortunato in amore. You look like you have a man who really loves you. But men, we’re pawns to them. Only a few of us are queens. The rest of us are pawns in a man’s game. I’ve been all over the world and it’s like that. All women all over the world are just pawns in a man’s game. Why, I was even in one of those little countries where the women have several husbands and even there they’re pawns. It’s not because the women are in control to have so many husbands. It’s because the men are so poor that they have to pool their resources. One man can’t afford to have one wile, so several men share a wife. When I first heard of polyandry, I thought it meant that women ruled, but it doesn’t. The men share you. They’ll sweet-talk you, but you’re just a pawn to them.

  Per amore o per forza, said Joan.

  Oh, parla italiano?

  Un poco. Molto poco. Non lo pronuncio molto bene.

  Oh, yes you do, very well. You’ve got a very good Italian accent.

  Che belleza! You’re a great beauty, Joan commented. I can understand why the men fought over you. Why, you’re a beautiful woman. Why, to tell you the truth, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

  Ah, do you think so? In my own Sicilia, there are many like me. But you see it’s only a game, only a partita. What are we?

  Joan spotted me standing in the doorway.

  Carolina Tola, this is my . . . La presento alla mia . . . business manager, Harlan. . . .

  We nodded and smiled to each other. She turned back to Joan.

  Abio—that’s my husband—and I, we both love your music. We love it. Of course I love it more than he does, because. . . . Well, you know how men are. There are things that a woman sings, and only a woman knows the full meaning. You may sing for men as well as women, but only a woman knows your full meaning, I am not a feminista. I only think a woman should be true to who she believes herself to be. Or who she wants herself to be. Or who she imagines herself to be. I don’t know what I mean, or whether I’m true myself to any of that. I don’t think there are many of us who are true to our possibilities. I don’t blame men for it, though. I am as much Sicilian as the men who fought love feuds for me. But we both love your music very much, Abio and I.

  Thank you. You were good, you know. I thought you were a professional yourself. You should be onstage.

  I’m very aggressive, no? But I’ve never had the desire for show business.

  You stole the show.

  Abio was embarrassed for me, you know. That’s why he wouldn’t come back. He said I embarrassed him getting up there acting like a fool. He likes your music as much as I do. Well, he doesn’t like it as much as I do, but he likes it. But he wasn’t expecting this. Eh, he’s embarrassed for me. I didn’t think you’d let me back to see you, so I thought well, I said I’d make you see me. And I like it that you don’t have people keeping the audience away from you. . . .

  That’s because I don’t have the audiences that try to get to you.

  Well, you should. I think you’re wonderful. This is not flattery.

  Joan laughed and scratched her chin. She sat with her back to the mirror. I watched the zebra stripes.

  Abio thinks that one should not let others see their—how does he say it?—that everyone should keep his little devils or his little gods inside. He thinks I’m always putting myself on too much display. Sometimes he thinks we were brought together so that I could wreak havoc on him. And he’s had enough havoc. He thinks I display myself too much. I’m just being who I am. It’s okay for you, he says, because it’s your business, your profession, that rock singers are supposed to display themselves, but me, I’m the witch woman. I’m the strega.

  And you’re his moglie? asked Joan. She glanced at me. I love the Italian word for it. It sounds just like what we are. What they want us to be. It sounds more like that than the word wife, doesn’t it? Moglie?

  Ah, yes, yes, yes, said Carolina, I’m his wife, yes.

  Where’d you meet him? I asked.

  She snapped her eyes at me, but turned to tell Joan.

  I was in London and disconnected. And he was there. His books had been proscribed by the South African government, you know, before Mandela, and he was in exile and he was getting them republished in London. Oh, we got along so. I’m not sure he knew what I was. My hair was short and then the sun had baked my skin almost as black as his. Oh, I was very dark, you know, and when those men had started playing those war games around me I had cut all my hair off. I told them to all bogger off and then I went globe-trotting. Abio didn’t know what I was. He thought I was from some island. I was as dark as he was.

  Oh, he had to know what you were, Joan said.

  Carolina’s eyes widened. She shook her shoulders. I’m not sure he did.

  Oh
, sure, he must have, Joan persisted.

  You can’t imagine how I looked! After I got away from that love terror. But I used to sit out in the sun all day. I was in the Kensington Gardens or the Kew Gardens. I was reading. I suppose that attracted him. I had a job working in a little foreign bookstore. A nice little man who owned the bookshop, well not so small a man but his shyness made him seem so. He let me dust the books, you know, because at first I didn’t have the proper papers. And then I didn’t need the papers, because new laws were being made, and so I got a full job there, because I knew the different languages, and they were mostly non-English titles. When the men would fight their love feuds over me, I’d study the different languages. I thought I might teach, but the only idea they had was to wife me. What did I need to know languages for? What did I need but to know how to please them in proper Sicilian? But in London I’d borrow some of the books sometimes and go reading in the gardens. The title impressed him, I think, and we got to talking of it. Something fashionable at the time. Alla moda, I don’t remember what. Something German, A German modernist, I guess Abio was thinking what would a girl from the islands be doing reading something German, We found each other fascinating, from our different worlds. But we Italians, we are everyone’s people.

  She glanced at me, then spoke again to Joan, spoke almost in a whisper.

  He thinks I fooled him into thinking I was a decent woman, though. And all the time he is discovering me. And now, And now what a savage I’ve become! Ha! When I first saw him, though, I thought he was the most beautiful man in the world. You wouldn’t believe it to look at him what a political controversy he is, or used to be in the old South Africa. Why, you couldn’t even quote from his books without its being a criminal act. I’d read him from smuggled books and those printed abroad. He says to be a controversy in his country all one has to do is tell honest stories . . . But we both managed to escape our terrors. I tell him it is not the old South Africa, and he should return there now, that many are returning there now. But he wants to stay in this country. I tell him that now he’s a voluntary exile, because he could return to South Africa if he wanted to. I started to write Mr. Mandela a letter on his behalf, but he asked me not to. I tell him now he’s a voluntary exile.

  Good for him, said Joan. I’ve been to other countries and I’m not romantic about anywhere. Harlie still has illusions about Africa. I don’t. I don’t have any illusions about America either. I don’t have any disillusions about it, because I’ve never had any illusions. Bastards everywhere.

  He wanted to come here. Mi sono uniformato ai suoi voleri. Ha un talento enorme. He has an enormous talent, so I simply conformed to his will.

  The heat in the dressing room made Joan’s zebra stripes begin to look like zebra swirls. She played with them like fingerpaints, first her knee and then her elbow. Though she looked distracted, she was listening intently. I could always tell.

  Il paese dell’abbondanza, Joan said wryly.

  I don’t know what she meant. Abandoned country?

  We don’t know how long we can stay here, though, said Carolina hastily. He’s talking to the people at the university where he’s teaching, you know, but we’re both deportable, you see. Especially now, they don’t think he has anything to fear if he returns to South Africa. We’re both deportable. I thought we might go to Italy, but he doesn’t want to go to Italy. He doesn’t like Europeans, except for me. And London these days. Even the bookstore owner I worked for is a little Fascist. He made promises to me, and then when he saw me with Abio, I knew I’d made an enemy. He tried to win me for himself, he told me it was just calf love with Abio, but I knew I’d made an enemy. The little Fascist. But he had this idea of me, you know, the idea men have of we Italian women. And he too thought I’d befooled him. And then there’s my love terror, and I don’t want to return to Italy myself. We stayed in a little retreat with Carmelite nuns outside London, very noble women, the retreat full of Florentine-style sculpture, imitation Cellini, one of the nuns a collector of medieval musical instruments, the celesta and glockenspiel, I think, and a maker of the best turtle soup—Abio wouldn’t eat it though. We stayed in a cellar. Abio wrote and I read French literature. Cent nouvelles nouvelles. And some Boccaccio. What looked like the original manuscripts. Tales from the days when men spoke of true wifehood, as if there could be such a thing. There was a little Basque woman staying there, an exile too. She spoke only a little English, but said that outside of Spain she felt like a new creature. I don’t know the basis of her exile, but she looked like the keeper of the conscience of her people, you know the type. Abio wrote a poem for her called “The Mythological Enchantress.” I know it’s for her, though he doesn’t say so. It’s more philosophical poetry and not like his political poems and satires. There was a spy for the Germans staying there, who’d been staying there since the war, but he never spoke to anyone. A slender man with small eyebrows. He must’ve taken a vow of silence. Sometimes I’d see him in the study. Once I saw him reading Capellanus, De Arte Honeste Amandi. The Art of Loving Honestly. He didn’t say anything to me. When he saw me with Abio, I thought I’d made another enemy. When I saw him in the study again, he was reading Trollope, the Autobiography. He said nothing to me. I did not read in the study, but took the book I wanted into the courtyard among the monkey puzzle trees. When I returned the book to the study, the book he’d been reading was open on the table where he or someone had underlined the passage: “She is by no means a perfect lady: but if she be not all over a woman, then am I not able to describe a woman.” A strange man. And then we came to America, Abio and I. Abio has a small teacher’s salary and he’s working on his magnum opus. I like his work, but I don’t understand it. It’s beyond the comprehension of an ordinary woman like me. I understand English, but I don’t understand his. But he’s like a weaver of perfect language. A British reviewer calls it Caliban style, Caliban language, but I think it’s perfect language myself. I listen to cantatas while he writes, or my favorite Russian music, or Wagner, or the tenors. Sometimes your music. Abio hears it as pure rock, but for me it sounds like satire on the rock ’n’ roll genre.

  She was silent, Joan said nothing.

  Abio is thought well of . . . internationally. The police in South Africa wouldn’t be after him now, I don’t think. . . . He wouldn’t let me write to Mandela. . . . And we can’t go to my country, like I said. The devil and the deep . . . So we said tonight we wouldn’t think about it, we wouldn’t decide what country we’d try to go to, we’d just come here and listen to you. I found I had to do more than listen. And he. He adores you. He doesn’t adore you as much as I do, but he adores you.

  She kissed Joan’s fingers. He says that you’re one of the best because you use terror and turn it into music. You do in your music what he tries to do in his writing. I don’t think he’d know how to write about the new South Africa. He doesn’t know why he’s such a controversy, because he mostly writes about how the black South Africans treat each other, not so much about any regime. His books do not ignore the regime, but he’s mostly interested in how the blacks are with each other. So he is ambivalent about the new South Africa. What if he returns there and the black powers themselves don’t like his writings. Would they jail him too? Would they imprison him too?

  Joan watched the woman.

  But love terrors are such little terrors, aren’t they? asked Carolina. We could return to Italy. What are love terrors?

  But still they can kill you over love, Joan said. They can kill you over love as well as politics.

  I slouched toward an empty chair and sat down.

  But you made us happy. Even though Abio was embarrassed for me, you made us both very happy. We think that you’re wonderful. He would have come back if I hadn’t embarrassed him. He wanted to meet you himself, but I’d embarrassed him.

  That’s what you mean, said Joan. That’s what you mean. That’s what you mean. I thought you meant that.

  What? I do not understand, said Caroli
na. What do I mean? Should I excuse myself?

  What’ll you do if your university can’t help you? I asked.

  She turned toward me, as if rescued. I don’t know, she said, because you see, we are deportable. There is an immigration woman I spoke to who thinks I might be less deportable than Abio. Who wanted to play the color politics. But if Abio is deportable, then I am deportable. We have a great allegiance to each other.

  Frowning, Joan tore a page out of a notebook, scribbled something, handing it to Carolina. Here’s a place you can stay, she said. Deportable or not. We’re all refugees anyway, aren’t we? We’re all from the same country anyway. I’ll call my caretaker and tell him to expect you and to let you stay. Nobody’ll bother you there. None of the bastards’ll even know where you are. It’s like a hidden world.

  Quanto si paga?

  Non ti dar pensiero.

  Carolina looked at the piece of paper. Oh, thank you.

  It’s my farm, actually. They won’t find you there. She wrote on another piece of paper. And this is my private number, if you. . . .

  Oh, you are so kind.

  No, I’m not, said Joan. Not at all. I’m a bitch.

  No, you’re wonderful. Who else would do this for us? Strangers.

  I wish I was wonderful. I wish I was truly wonderful.

  When Carolina left, I asked Joan why she’d called James her caretaker and not her ex-husband. She was silent, then she said. It’s too much to explain. Anyway, he’ll tell them who he is.

  Are you going to tell him who they are? Are you going to tell him it might be a crime what you’re doing? That you could get into trouble with the immigration people? Especially now, with this anti-immigration bullshit.

  It ain’t bullshit. You’re bullshit, she said. I don’t believe you should just open your borders to just anybody myself. I know I shouldn’ta let you in my house. If I took better care of my own border, I’d deport your ass. Naw, you can’t just open your borders to anybody. You gotta discriminate. I don’t like the color politics either, though. The Mexicans, the Cubans, the Haitians. Plenty of illegal Canadians over here.