Onyx

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  Dickson Keeley struck a match to light a cigar.

  For the rest of her life whenever she thought about this interlude while Dickson Keeley smoked his Havana, it was with the absolute conviction that she had been flung into a surrealistic world running parallel to the real one; a hellish world whose chemistry was composed of elements inimical to sanity.

  Her face was a few inches from Dickson Keeley’s black shoes, and the smell of wax polish overpowered the dusty smell of the floor to which Smith was pinning her shoulders. Potter bent over to rip down her cotton step-ins. She lay exposed to the waist, thrashing like a landed fish, fearing to shut her eyes lest she somehow be trapped in this monstrous world, forcing herself to squint up at the red tip of Keeley’s cigar. From the corner of her eye she saw Potter unbutton his pants. Dickson Keeley aimed a casual kick between her knees, and Potter punched apart her vibrating thighs.

  Once Justin had told her that the Germans affixed their bayonets not with normal knives but with sharp, corkscrew-shaped ones. This travesty of the act of love was like that, inflicting hideously jagged wounds into what until now had been a spiritually dedicated private joy shared by Justin and her.

  She stared up at that moving red star while her small, delicate body was rattled and ground into the worn linoleum of the narrow, dimly lit hall.

  V

  The Green Hornet, tuned loud, woke Ben, and he went to the top of the narrow stairs.

  If the men had been hitting his mother, he would have charged down, an instinctive reaction of his belligerent bravery, but one was calmly smoking a cigar, watching while the fat guy held down her shoulders and the other sprawled between her legs, his pants around his knees, his bare, viciously bouncing butt like two stuck-together bubble gums. Ben accepted that this particular harm they were inflicting on her was that adult mystery he could not be part of, even as her protector. He stood in the dark, shivering. The fat guy who held her shoulders took the other’s place.

  Long before he finished, she ceased struggling.

  The man with the cigar bent over where she lay, her skirt rucked up. There was a lull in the radio, and Ben heard him say, “Los Angeles is the town for you, Elisse.” Noise sizzled as he pressed his cigar between her limp, spraddled legs. The music blared.

  The men left, for the program changed. Neither Ben nor Elisse moved. He stood what seemed hours before she rolled over and pushed herself up on all fours. Darkness pooled on the floor where she had lain.

  Ben tiptoed back to bed and lay with his arms tense across his chest.

  The radio went off. He would never listen to The Green Hornet; never, never again. He feigned sleep when she came to lead him to the toilet so he wouldn’t wet the bed. Her hands trembled wildly. He could not pee.

  VI

  She lay pressed to the mattress, her breath coming in mechanical gasps as though an iron lung were inhaling and exhaling for her. She was not crying. At first she could not think, could not feel anything beyond the burn. Gradually, though, an undefined determination began to radiate from the bleeding, outraged center of her. A queer, woozy determination that grew stronger.

  Dickson Keeley’s punitive brutality had failed in its purpose of dispatching Elisse, whimpering and sobbing, back to the safety of Los Angeles. Even granted the slow, benumbed way her mind was functioning, she knew she would not go back until her purpose was accomplished.

  With the plodding repetitiveness of a child learning by rote, she thought, I have to put a stop to this sort of thing. I must put an end. Yes. I’ll force the Bridgers to put a stop to this kind of thing. Her sense of humor hors de combat, she found nothing ludicrous or mad in one small woman’s declaring war on her loathed, never met, other-side-of-the-blanket in-laws and their mammoth instrument of mass production—a single one of their factories, Woodland, employed more people than lived in the entire state of Nevada. Her mind refused emotionally freighted words like terrorize and rape, her precarious stability would shatter if she thought clearly about what had transpired against a background of loud radio melodrama. This sort of thing must stop, she thought. In her daze she found fortification in the eleven hundred and thirty-seven members of the AAW. With a union, this sort of thing will end.

  Several hours evaporated.

  Justin’s secondhand Seven halted outside. She inched onto her side, stifling whimpers of agony in the pillow. When he came up, she did not speak or open her eyes. In bed he kissed her averted shoulder. Once they had promised to share desire, passion, mortal love, but since then she had visited that other world, and now his kisses were moist, slightly repellent nuzzling on bare flesh. “Elisse?” he whispered. She did not reply. He must have assumed she slept heavily, for he curled around her back, and soon his breathing lengthened into a deep, regular pattern. It was then, at last, that tears squeezed in odd shapes between her tight-shut eyelids.

  CHAPTER 27

  The new streamliner with its silver-grooved promise of a swift glide into the future drew the crowd’s attention. Few people on Track 14 turned to react to the loud scene Ben was making. Balking at the steps, he hurled himself at Elisse, burying his face in her white piqué jacket, clinging to her waist with a parasitic grasp. Bending, she kissed his curly brown hair, concealing the pain that his scrabbling clutch inflicted on her pelvis and her soul, saying: “Hey, Ben. It’s called the Zephyr.”

  “You come,” he said, muffled.

  “You’re the one who’s taking the vacation with Grandma and Grandpa,” she said.

  It was the middle of August, two weeks after Dickson Keeley’s visit, and by hook, crook, and long distance wire, she had connived this “vacation.” The children’s departure wrenched her as much as if her vital organs were being removed for safekeeping.

  “I don’t wanna go on a dumb train.”

  “You let Grandpa buy your ticket.”

  “So what? I wanted to see what the streamliner looks like,” he replied pugnaciously.

  Mr. Kaplan put his hands on his grandson’s shoulders. “How about the duets we’re going to play?”

  And Mrs. Kaplan fluttered closer. “The compartments on the Zephyr are lovely.”

  “Booooooard!”

  Elisse gripped Ben, torn between crushing him yet closer and thrusting him onto the protective safety of the throbbing train.

  Justin, who was holding his daughter, set her tenderly on her tiny white boots. Tonia’s face crunched as if in preparation for tears, but instead of crying she trotted to her grandmother, reaching up for the kid-gloved hand, a docile, pleading gesture that mangled Elisse.

  “I have a good-bye present for you, Ben,” Justin said as he unclamped his son from Elisse. “Come take a look.” He dragged the child a few steps.

  Elisse murmured to Mr. Kaplan, “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s never been a mama’s boy.”

  The Kaplans glanced at each other, but Elisse did not see. Kneeling by Tonia, resting her lips against the warm, silken cheek, she wondered how she could entrust her precious to that sweet, vague woman and the foolish-clever stout little man in Hollywood white flannels and navy blazer. “Love you, Antonia mine,” she whispered.

  “Love Mommy,” Tonia replied with a strangling hug.

  The other passengers already leaned from windows, waving.

  “Boooooard!”

  “Dad gave me an AAW badge,” Ben said in a combative, unassuaged tone and, not glancing at Elisse, sprinted onto the train. One more hasty round of embraces. “Look after them, Daddy.… Mother, remember don’t let Tonia eat strawberries.… Byee.… Byeeeee.…”

  Whistles shrilled and the Zephyr slid from the depot. Wiping her eyes with one hand, waving with the other, Elisse found herself remembering what her mother had told her, a German second cousin had sent his two little daughters to live with her uncle and aunt in London. Hitler, her mother had whispered with a tremulous sigh. It’s very bad in Germany.

  As they started along the emptying track, Justin took her bare elbow. Once his touch
on her skin had brought tingles of erogenous pleasure, but now it only depressed her. I’m a dry stick, she thought, stepping away.

  Sun blazed on a sullenly hot morning, and they opened the car windows. On Fort Street they passed the large brake-drum factory, Milfrond Dome, which stood on the site of the old Stuart Furniture Company. Here, Tom Bridger had driven his first gasoline-powered quadricycle, here Hugh Bridger had lost his angelic beauty, from this place had come Justin’s inheritance.

  “Harris is worried about you,” Justin said.

  “Daddy?” It was Mrs. Kaplan who kept reiterating, Dear, you’re so pale, a little holiday home would do wonders for you.

  “He said you asked them to invite Ben and Tonia.”

  “We had a bad connection. I can’t remember who said what.”

  “I don’t understand you, Elisse. We’ve never taken a weekend without them. And now you insist on sending them two thousand miles?”

  “I’ve given up my overprotective ways, all right? What’s so terrible about grandchildren visiting their grandparents? You agreed it was a good idea. They’ll be out of this muggy heat.” What excuses will I find to keep them out there in autumn?

  “Harris wondered if you’re pregnant.”

  “Chummy little chats you two had.”

  “Are you, Elisse?”

  “In my tenth month,” she said. “Oh, honestly, Justin!”

  “You haven’t been yourself the last couple of weeks. And … well … you’ve never put me off before.”

  She felt the blood in her face and was grateful for the protective brim of her out-of-date mannish hat. “A little problem down there,” she said.

  He shot her a look of concern.

  “Nothing to worry about,” she said hastily. “I’ve seen a gynecologist.”

  “You never told me.”

  “Irving Weiner, M.D.”

  “What does he say?”

  “Cervicitis. Sorry it’s been inconveniencing you.”

  She heard him swallow. Shamed by her flip cruelty, she squinted through the windshield at the Guardian Building, the Penobscot’s stepped tower, Tom Bridger’s Michigan Bank of Commerce, the Ford (no connection to Henry) Building. The brash blue day, the layers of industrial smoke, gave the downtown skyscrapers the theatrical look of a modern cityscape on a backdrop scrim. She murmured, “What a rotten thing for me to say.”

  “Write to your parents,” he said crisply. “Make it clear there’s no baby.”

  “Justin, you know I didn’t mean it.”

  His left hand touched her knee. Absolution. “Now tell me what’s wrong,” he said.

  “Nothing. The cervicitis is clearing up, I’ve gained two pounds as ordered, and I swear solemnly to blunt my tongue. All’s right with the world.”

  “You’ve been looking—the only word I can think of is frightened. You seem so frightened, nerved up all the time.” The traffic was heavier, and he shifted into second gear. “We ought to go home to Los Angeles. Pick up where we left off.”

  “After what we’ve seen here?” she cried.

  “You’re what’s important to me.”

  “Justin, stop brooding. It’s a common female problem. It’s clearing up.”

  “You’d tell me if anything were upsetting you?”

  “I’d nag you to death with it.”

  II

  Justin had the second half of the swing shift. As his car pulled away, Elisse left the dishes soaking and went into the living room. The dingy, finger-stained mustard wallpaper depressed her utterly, and she picked up the one-eared elephant that Tonia had dropped on the floor, cuddling the worn stuffed toy to her as she telephoned Mitch. He promised to take the trolley over as soon as he closed headquarters.

  At his expected knock, she jumped. Going to the front door, she called shrilly, “Who is it?”

  “Me. Mitch.”

  She pushed the dead bolt, turned the new lock, opening the door an inch while it was still chained. At the familiar short, broad figure, she relaxed.

  She had perked fresh coffee for him and set out a ragged quarter of a fudge cake. “Leftovers from the Last Supper,” she said lightly enough, but her face was wretched.

  “You miss them already?”

  “What do you think?” She filled his cup. “Mitch, can you borrow a car?”

  “For what?”

  “I need somebody to drive me to the doctor.”

  Thick eyebrows pulled together. “Is it what I’m thinking, Elisse?”

  Her face withdrew into sharpness, and her pupils swelled. Folding her arms on the checkered oilcloth of the kitchen table, she rested her forehead in her palms. Loud sobs convulsed through her.

  Mitch, behind her, kneaded her shoulders. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

  She stood up, weeping into the shoulder of his faded blue cotton shirt, which smelled of harsh sweat and Fels Naptha soap. She had not yet been able to let Justin hold her, but Mitch’s squat body held no tormenting memories of the poetic delicacy of early love, no hauntings of fulfilled passion, no sepulchral reminders that the carnal joy of marriage was dead. After a few minutes she pulled away, blowing her nose.

  “Have you found a decent person?” Mitch asked. “I won’t take you to a butcher.”

  “It’s not an abortion.”

  “Elisse?”

  “Dr. Weiner’s in that gray medical building on Griswold.”

  “You’ve got me baffled. If it’s on the up-and-up, why can’t Justin take you?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said, sitting again. She had not intended to tell him, but the crying jag had lowered her inhibitions. She sketched a bare outline of Dickson Keeley’s visit, whispering a sentence about the double rape, the burn. Mitch’s head tilted so his good ear was toward her.

  “The filthy bastard, those filthy, filthy bastards,” he growled in a thick, choking anger that she had never heard from him.

  “The burn isn’t healing. Dr. Weiner prescribed a salve, but the darned burn hasn’t responded. Yesterday I phoned and he said he’d have to do a mite of surgery. Daddy slipped me some money, thank God.”

  “Justin’ll have to know you’re in the hospital.”

  “I wept into the mouthpiece and Dr. Weiner finally agreed to manage in his office. That’s why I need you to drive me.”

  “Now I know why you sent the kids to your parents.”

  “How could I risk keeping them here?”

  Mitch drank his cold coffee. “You ought to tell Justin.”

  “Keeley’s plan exactly!” she cried. “Don’t you see, Mitch? Justin’s brother to the Crown Princess, so he’s afraid to touch him. He thinks he can scare Justin off through me.”

  “He ought to take you home.”

  “What?”

  “If you don’t tell him, I will.”

  “Can this be dedicated Mitch Shapiro speaking?” Since he had confessed over a bowl of soup in the Book Cadillac that hopeless love of her had driven him into the Party, then had embarrassed her thoroughly by saying he was merely trying to cheer her up, a question had lingered: Did he love her or didn’t he? Yet wasn’t it the height of conceit to imagine that Mitch might nurse anything so bourgeois as an unrequited passion?

  “It’s one thing to rough up men, but—”

  “I survived.”

  “I know you’ve worked your heart out, but—”

  “Oh, cut it out, Mitch!” She clapped a fist into a palm. “How can you talk like this? Now, when we’re finally getting someplace?”

  Mitch stared at her. Her face, thinner, tanless, pink at the nose from crying, had a lit-up fervor that dazzled and weakened him; this face was yet more lovely to him than her previous sleekly tanned beauty. Sighing, he capitulated. “Leo Jackson, he’s in the Young Communist League, has a Fiver.”

  “My appointment’s ten tomorrow morning.”

  “What about Justin?”

  “He won’t be here. He’s changing to the morning shift.”

  III


  Elisse chewed her lower lip as Mitch drove the borrowed Fiver, a trembly old 1924 Runabout with a fouled spark plug.

  Over the noisy putt-popping, he asked, “How do you feel about Zawitsky?”

  Elisse snapped out of her reverie. “Are you kidding?” The bearlike widower, after twenty-five years at Onyx, had lost his job—a tap on the shoulder by a uniformed Security guard and that was it—the same day that his son had gotten word of winning a scholarship. “Zawitsky’s my buddy.”

  “I figured he’ll take Ben’s room and I’ll take Tonia’s. Then somebody’ll always be around the house with you.”

  “So you’re not telling Justin?”

  “Did you really think I would?”

  “You were fuming. I haven’t seen you like that since Martha called you a Trotskyite.” Elisse’s pretty bitch smile showed briefly. “Mitch, thank you.” And then she clasped her hands and was silent again.

  As Dr. Weiner came into the examining room Elisse, from her position on the stirrup table, said, “Here I am, ready for the Saturnalia.” A forlorn little joke referring to the toga-like sheet that draped her.

  The doctor’s aquiline face did not relinquish its tight-lipped aloofness. This repair surgery ought to have been done at Detroit General, where a spinal could be administered, but these years he practiced less than perfect medicine on malnourished women, battered women, women hemorrhaging from botched abortions, burying his dismay under impenetrable professionalism. He had not asked Elisse how she had acquired her loathsome burn, for the simple reason that he no longer had the emotional capital to invest in his patients. He glanced at the stout German refugee, his nurse, and she snapped rubber gloves on him.

  Elisse stared through the open sash window to the madly blue sky, trying to empty her mind so the dope pills could work. But thoughts popped up, as clear and sharply formed as cartoons. Her father in his studio playing a duet with Ben. Justin holding her hand at a Garbo movie—which one? Lying on the beach at Santa Monica, the sun hot on her back. Somewhere nearby in the tall gray medical building a radio was playing—or was this, too, imagined? A trained tenor voice was singing.