by May Sarton
I am taking refuge in the past, I tell myself, in order not to have to take in what is happening to Eddie. I cannot even imagine such a death as his is bound to be. And finally at 3 A.M. I sink away from it into troubled sleep.
19
I feel blurred this morning, unready for the day, but there is the note reminding me to call Martha and at about nine, when I have had breakfast and taken Patapouf out for a few minutes, I make the call. No answer. Well, she may have gone for a walk, who knows? I keep thinking about Eddie and that blocks everything else. I must learn more about AIDS. I must try to understand what Joe and he are facing so that I can find ways to help. I wish Bettina would come back. Maybe she has had an experience with AIDS, or knows of a support group, although Joe of course will be looking into that. Someone is being poisoned right around the corner and there is nothing we can do. All I can think of is Camus’s The Plague and what fear can do to a city when the plague enters. I must have it somewhere. Vicky and I felt it was the greatest work of art to come out of occupied France. AIDS is our plague and it is moving in.
It is comforting to go down and open the store, but when I unlock the door and open it I find an envelope has been slipped under it. Inside on a large sheet of paper in large red printed words it says: “You feel safe, but we are going to get you.” So, it is all beginning again! Things have quieted down lately, a remission, but this other plague has not abated. I feel the sweat on my upper lip. It’s Joe I need to speak to but God knows he has enough on his mind without my problems. I call Joan who says she’ll come right over. “There’s nothing you can do,” I say.
“I can take that sheet to the police station,” she says. It is a relief to know she can and will do that. I am in no state to confront the police this morning. Besides, I am tending store.
The first arrival is Bagley and I cannot say that I am glad to see her, but for once she turns out to be enthusiastic about what she has been reading, one of the Amanda Cross mysteries, and wants to try another. I suggest The Question of Max and she gets out her purse, murmuring, “Books are too expensive, Miss Hatfield.”
“I know. It’s awful, but as it is I am not yet breaking even.”
“You should have a rental library the way they used to have in England.”
“Well, you know, I have thought of that but I don’t know how Joan and I could manage it as well as everything else.”
“Plenty of people come here. When I go past there is always someone talking with you, and I presume buying.”
At this I smile. “Well, sometimes they are buying. Sometimes they just want to talk.”
“I see that and sometimes I think you are simply a sucker for any odd person who needs an ear.” Sue Bagley has to have an ear herself, I am thinking, but chiefly for purposes of complaint, or setting herself up against most of what she sees. A form of ego, I suppose, a small exercise of power.
It is not a good thing that at this moment Martha walks in, luckily not visibly upset for once. “Oh, you’re the painter,” Sue greets her. “Have you sold any?”
“Yes, I have sold one. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Congratulations,” Bagley says grudgingly.
I interrupt, fearing she may have something derogatory to add, by handing Martha the note with the woman psychiatrist’s phone number on it. “The friend I told you about gave me this last night. I hope you will act on it, Martha.” She slips it into her purse without saying a word.
“Miss Hatfield is up to something,” Bagley says. “I wish I knew what is going on. Nobody ever tells me anything.”
“Sometimes what is going on is none of your business,” Martha says.
Sue Bagley laughs at Martha’s angry tone and says, “The only business I have is other people’s business.”
I find I cannot be cross for long with Sue Bagley. Together we watch Martha, who has gone over to look at her paintings and is standing there, her hands on her hips, thinking heaven knows what.
“You’re a damn good painter, Martha, so have no doubts about that,” Bagley says in very good humor now.
It’s not being connected that makes her often so difficult, I decided long ago. She has to crash in because no one invites her in, an elephant in a china shop. And now they both sit down at the table and Martha, in a very fragile state of balance, I realize, asks, “Do you really think so? You’re not just saying that to be polite?”
“I’ll tell you, Martha. When I first saw the paintings I didn’t like them at all. They bothered me, but every time I dropped in here I looked at them again and they began to grow on me, so today I came with the idea I might buy one.”
“You did?” Martha’s eyes fill with tears. “I can’t believe it.”
“I’m surprised,” Bagley says. “If I had a talent like yours I wouldn’t have any doubts.”
“That’s what people think,” Martha says, “but I guess most artists and maybe writers, too, live in a perpetual state of acute anxiety. Is this worth doing? Have I the right to do it? Shouldn’t I be doing something positively useful, like working in a hospital?” I have not heard this side of Martha before. It is rather a relief; for once her insistence on herself as the important thing is opening out a little. Is this what the ordeal of her pregnancy is doing? She turns to Sue now with great intensity. “If you had a talent, Miss Bagley, would you go so far as to abort a pregnancy because you feel your work must come first?”
Sue is flustered. Who would not be? It is a direct challenge and one rather hard to meet or to parry. “How am I to answer that? I am a spinster and have no talent except as an accountant,” but she stops now and looks straight at Martha. It is a compassionate look, one I have not seen in her eyes before. “That is your problem, is it?”
Without looking in my direction—I am now sitting at my desk pretending at least to work—Martha says defiantly, “I took care of it yesterday. I had an abortion.”
“That took courage,” Bagley says. “I admire you for it.”
“I felt like a caged animal,” Martha says.
It amazes me that these two have reached such a point of intimacy. I have been an antagonist lately for Martha but here in Sue Bagley she has apparently found an ally.
“But you’re married, aren’t you?” Bagley asks. “What does your husband say?”
“My husband will never know. I hope he won’t.” The tears she has held back till now flow and she blows her nose. “Sorry,” she says. And then, “It’s your kindness that makes me cry.”
I wonder whether anyone has ever said this to Bagley before, and she leans over and clasps Martha’s hand. “You’re a strong person and you made the right decision.” Now she draws her hand away and looks over at me, appealing for help but I am silenced.
“Miss Hatfield wanted me to see a psychiatrist but I didn’t want to be opened up and examined. I suppose I wanted to do something, not endlessly talk about it.”
“I understand,” I say quietly.
“Well,” Sue Bagley says, “how much do you want for the painting on the left, those winter trees against a troubled sky?”
“I sold the other for one hundred, but the abortion has to be paid for …”
“I’ll offer two hundred if that is acceptable.”
“Thank you. It will help—mostly that you believe in my work. I’ll never forget it,” Martha says.
What an odd example of what is known as the sisterhood they are, I think, as they go out together for lunch, the dry cranky spinster and the tempestuous young woman determined to go her own way.
My thoughts about this interesting event are abruptly interrupted by Joan’s arrival. I take the anonymous threat out, handling the paper it is written on as though it were dynamite. “Here it is.”
“What creeps!” she says. “Something has to be done about this now. I’m off to the police station and this time they are going to take notice.”
“Good luck. I’m glad you are an optimist.” But when she has left, striding up the street alone, I feel
that sweat on my lip again. Fear. For what can the police possibly do? There are no clues. Possibly the sheet of paper has a fingerprint on it; more likely the anonymous criminal wore gloves.
On an impulse I call Andrew at work and ask whether he could come by on his way home. “It’s another threat and I need your advice.” He says he’ll be here by six if not earlier. He offers to spend the night, says he has a sleeping bag in the car. But the whole beastly thing cannot be solved by Andrew or anyone else standing guard permanently. Something has got to happen.
I force myself to go over the reorders and make a few phone calls on business matters while I wait for Joan to get back, but my head is full of too many things: Eddie’s plight, Joe, the funeral this afternoon. I am in a thicket of disorder and pain and end by just sitting at my desk and doodling the heads of strange animals. I discover that it is not a bad way to relieve tension and I am quite pleased by the odd animals I am creating.
Joan comes back with a paper bag containing cheese and ham sandwiches and two milkshakes. “You’ll need lunch before you go to the funeral,” she explains, setting them out on the table.
“Thanks. Great idea.” And when we have settled down at the table, “What happened? Did you see Sergeant O’Reilly?”
“Yes. The first thing he did was just glance at that dirty sheet and lay it down as though it were nothing. Then he said, ‘I am very busy today on a drug case, Miss—’ He had forgotten my name and I said, ‘Mrs. Hampstead’ with heavy emphasis on the Mrs. I suggested that it was high time the police department put its mind on your problem. What are drugs compared to a life at risk and the life of an elderly person who has never done harm in her life.”
“You did?” I am a little shy hearing this.
“Yes, I did, and I told him something about what you have achieved, how many women of all kinds come to the store, what a center it is for lonely women, for young married women, for women of all races and ages. I felt it was a stirring speech,” Joan says with her ironic smile, “but I do not believe he was paying the slightest attention. He simply repeated what he had said to us when we first went, ‘The police are here when you need us. If anything happens let us know.’ I pressed him, demanding that he try to think of possible people who might be involved: ‘You must have some idea where these threats come from?’ ‘Sorry, ma’am, but we are not omniscient.’”
“The old runaround.” I am unaccountably in a state of acute distress. It comes out in a question. “You don’t really think my life is at risk, Joan, do you?”
“Well, I said it powerfully to wake Sergeant O’Reilly up. Maybe you are not in danger, but these attackers are lunatics likely as not. Half the people around here carry guns.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Oh dear, I have made matters worse, I see. What I really think is that whoever these goons may be, they are not murderers, but they want to drive you out. They want to make you leave here. They want to close the shop down.” She looks me straight in the eye, with warm concern. “Please don’t imagine they are killers. I simply cannot think that, and you must put the idea out of your mind.”
“Easy to say,” but I look at my watch and never finish the sentence. “Good heavens, it’s ten past one. I am meeting Angelica at the Coop at half-past and must find parking space.”
“I’ll be here when you get back. Not to worry.”
It is bliss to get away, to run away into the safe world of the Coop, where Angelica, looking very handsome in a black suit and a large black hat, is waiting for me. “Sorry I’m late. I was held up.”
“We have plenty of time,” she assures me and we walk sedately, arm in arm, waiting what seems hours for a chance to cross Mass. Avenue and get into the Yard.
“I might as well be killed by a truck,” I murmur, half to myself.
“Whatever do you mean by that?” Angelica lets my arm go.
“Nothing,” but I can’t leave it at that and suddenly the humor of the whole situation strikes me and I laugh aloud. “It’s just that those goons are threatening me again and it suddenly struck me as funny that, after all, there is danger everywhere, even crossing the street these days. So why worry about possibly getting shot?”
“Ha, ha,” Angelica responds, with heavy irony, “I’m glad you can think that humorous. I don’t.”
“Forget it! I’m keyed up. Being a sitting duck is not really my line.”
We are climbing the steps to the chapel and the sound of the organ playing Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze” pours out and silences us. I do not laugh this time but I do find it amusing and swallow a smile. I myself am no doubt a sheep but I can no longer safely graze, and it brings back a joke of my father’s, “In Kansas only the cows browse.” Oh dear, I must not give way to unseemly behavior.
We are ushered to a pew near the front where of course we nod and are nodded to by half a dozen people we know. Seated, with the great music filling the chapel, I am relieved. I can sit here in peace. I can think about Caroline. I have nothing to fear.
After the funeral I had been expected to go back to the house, but I tell Angelica that I feel I must get home, back to the store for some reason. The wonderful timeless peace I felt in the chapel, the deep rejoicing that a person like Caroline had come into my life, has given way now to an attack of anxiety. These anonymous letters take their toll. I remind myself that Andrew is coming. I shall not be alone after Joan leaves.
Still, I am always happy when I push the door open into the store, so peaceful and exciting, as Gertrude Stein once said of Paris. There are two people I have not seen before reading at the table, and as soon as Joan catches my eye she makes it clear that there is some problem. They do not look like our kind of people, I think to myself. One is a rather heavy woman in a dark blue suit, wearing a broad-brimmed red hat, and the other one an extremely thin woman in a starched collar that stands above her mink cape.
Joan comes forward from behind the counter and says to the women, “May I introduce you to the owner, Miss Hatfield?” They do not get up, but stare at me as though I am not quite human. “Harriet, this is Mrs. Thomas and this is Mrs. Ferguson.”
“How did you happen to find us?” I ask blandly. “I am always interested, since we are so new and just being discovered.”
“Someone warned us that a subversive bookstore had opened,” says Mrs. Ferguson, “so we thought we had better make an inspection.”
“And what did you find?” I ask, keeping contempt out of my voice, I hope. Since neither answers I pursue the subject myself. “This is a feminist bookstore, which means that many of the books here concern the problems and needs of women. I might suggest that you take a look at this one, for instance.” And I hand over Women, Take Care, the book addressing the need for caretakers to spell the many many women who have to take care of dying husbands or mothers or aunts and have no help at all.
It is truly providential that at this moment who but Nan Blakeley comes in with her two little girls. “Oh Nan, how I have missed you! Where have you been?” and quite spontaneously I go over and hug her. “And you brought the children.”
One of them, long-legged in a short red tunic, not at all shy, about seven I imagine, speaks right up. “We had to come. You see, Momma talks about this place.”
“She says I can choose a book,” the younger child, in a pale blue tunic and blue leotard, announces. “Can I go find it now?”
“Just a minute, kids. First you must meet Miss Hatfield. Harriet, this is Eve and this is Serena. Eve and Serena, this is Miss Hatfield.”
They stare at me and mumble, “Glad to meet you,” suddenly overcome with shyness, each clasping one of her mother’s hands.
“Now you can look. See? The children’s books are on the low shelves over there.”
Eve sits in the small armchair I have provided and Serena sits on the floor. They become completely absorbed and, rather unusually, do not take one book out after another without really looking at it. Serena is now lying on her stomach d
eep into the story of Babar. I wonder what Eve will choose. It is all like a reprieve and even the two women are smiling.
“What about Martha?” Nan asks in a low voice, her back turned to the ladies. “I have been worried about her.”
“She had an abortion the same day,” I whisper back.
“I thought she would, and I have something to tell her that may help.”
“Sue Bagley came in this morning and bought one of her paintings, if you can believe it. They went off to have lunch together—an odd couple if I ever saw one.”
Nan laughs her open, delighted laugh. “That is very good news!”
I take her hand and draw her over to the table to introduce her to Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Ferguson. They are wide-eyed, clearly, at a black woman so well dressed and at ease, hesitate whether to shake hands, and then rather self-consciously do so. My only wish is that they go away. I want to tell Nan about the new threat, so I decide to take the bull by the horns and ask, “Have you found what you were looking for, Mrs. Thomas?”
“We were informed that this was a meeting place for gay and lesbian people. There are people in this community who don’t like that,” Mrs. Ferguson answers. “We did not see any religious books.” Mrs. Ferguson is gathering momentum now.
Nan is observing them with kindly disbelief and exchanges a mischievous amused glance with me. “May I ask who sent you here?” she asks.
“The Women’s Auxiliary at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Someone told them they had better look into this corrupting influence on our young people.”
“And that somebody was?” I press the question. We may at last get a clue.
Mrs. Ferguson is flustered and gets up. “I really can’t tell you that,” she says, “it’s a private matter.”
“Well,” says Nan, “let me tell you a little bit about what this bookstore has meant to a happily married black woman.”