Ann Petry

by Ann Petry

  11

  * * *

  POWTHER TOOK his shoes off in the living room. He padded quietly down the hall in his stocking feet and tried the door of the bedroom that he shared with Mamie, turning the knob, slowly, cautiously. It was locked.

  He had no blanket, nothing to cover himself with. If he should sleep on the sofa in the living room, with his clothes on, his trousers would be wrecked by morning. He undressed down to his underwear and went back to the boys’ room and got in bed with J.C.

  It was like trying to sleep with a dynamo. J.C.’s feet and knees were in his stomach, his chest, his back. He seemed all bone, all knobby knees and sharp elbows and hard round head, no flesh on him anywhere, though he was a plump child, his body putting a strain on every seam of his clothing.

  Powther turned and twisted, trying to get comfortable, thinking of Old Copper, “Get one with a big ass, Powther, makes for happiness.” Did it? The boy, the old man’s youngest son, Peter, beat his wife, the miner’s redheaded daughter, with a horsewhip. Did it? Mamie Powther locked Malcolm Powther out of the bedroom.

  He remembered that the newspapers somehow got wind of that story about Peter and his wife and when the reporters came, Old Copper sat in his big leather chair in the library and laughed at them; and ordered whiskey and soda for them, whiskey and soda, whiskey and soda. That afternoon Powther mixed drinks, passed drinks to the thirstiest set of men he’d ever seen.

  Old Copper kept bellowing, “True? How in hell do I know if it’s true? Hope so, gentlemen. I certainly hope so. Ha, ha, ha. Funniest thing I ever heard. Ha, ha, ha.”

  The reporters were in a deliciously rosy state when they left, laughing, talking. Powther wondered when they would realize that they didn’t have a story, that Old Copper had neither denied nor confirmed the story; and he supposed they would hold long confused discussions as to whether they should print his statement, “How in hell do I know?”

  One of them, a short sharp-eyed young chap, who had politely refused the whiskey and soda, cornered Powther in the hall and said, “Look here, old man, what’s this all about anyway?”

  He had sidestepped out of the corner. He said, “I hope the whiskey was satisfactory, sir,” and walked fast down the hall, the great hall lined with those tremendous oils of monstrously outsized, monstrously pinkfleshed females painted by a Dutchman. Old Copper was standing in the doorway of the library. He was grinning, looking up at one of the paintings, grinning at it. At that moment it occurred to Powther that those paintings belonged to Old Copper in a peculiarly intimate sort of way. He was always leering at them, and the big nude women in the paintings seemed to leer back at him.

  He shoved J.C.’s knees out of his stomach again, and thought, Makes for happiness, and pursed his lips. The Copper boys fought with their big wives, filled the house in Baltimore with the sound and fury of their quarrels. And yet, because of the paintings, because of the blatant lecherousness of the old man, but especially because of the paintings, he, Powther, fell in love with a woman who might have been painted by the Dutchman.

  One of the sons, the oldest one, came home for a visit, accompanied by his wife and his four-month-old son, and the wife’s personal maid, and the baby’s trained nurse, a lean fortyish looking and acting and sounding woman in a starched white uniform and cap. Old Copper met them in the hall. The nurse was holding the baby. The old man let out a roar, like a maddened bull, “Who’s that?”

  They stood there, in the hall, all of them, the oldest son, and his wife, and the nurse, and the maid, and Powther, all motionless, all frozen, frightened by the roar. The baby, probably sensing the consternation of the adults, began to wail.

  Young Mrs. Copper, the mother of the child, said, bewildered, “Why it’s the baby, Jonathan Copper Four.”

  “Dammit I know that,” Old Copper roared. “Who’s that lean-shanked witch that’s holdin’ him?”

  “The nurse. His nurse. A trained nurse.”

  Old Copper bellowed, “Give me that baby.” There was a kind of seesaw movement for a moment, the nurse trying to retain hold on the baby and Old Copper pulling at him, and the baby bellowing too, now.

  “Powther,” Old Copper shouted, “where’s Powther?” He held the baby in his arms, glaring, cursing. “God dammit, why don’t none of these people have any brains? Powther, go get a nurse for this baby. Go get a big fat colored woman.” He turned on the nurse. “Here, you. You’re fired. Get out.”

  The nurse said, “Mr. Copper, you can’t, you mustn’t. Give me the baby. You haven’t washed your hands.” She got quite excited and said, “Germs, germs, germs,” as though she were talking to an idiot, and had to repeat one word, over and over, in the hope that something would trickle through the idiot’s mind. “Germs,” she said again.

  Young Mrs. Copper said, “Oh, no. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. You mustn’t. She’s so wonderful.”

  “Shut up!” Old Copper shouted. “Powther, stop standin’ there with your mouth open. Go get a big fat colored woman to look after this brat, a big fat colored woman that can sing. Don’t stand there—”

  He walked out the front door, hatless, thinking, A big fat colored woman. He was supposed to pull one out of thin air. Where in the city of Baltimore was he going to find a fat colored woman who was suitable? She had to be suitable.

  He went, finally, and logically enough, to an employment agency. He explained to the thinfaced white woman who was in charge of the agency what type of nurse Mr. Jonathan Copper II wanted. She searched through the files and found a Mamie Smith who sounded promising.

  The thinfaced woman called the number listed on the filing card and asked to speak to Mamie Smith. There was quite a delay, at least fifteen minutes, during which the employment agency woman grew impatient, threatened to hang up, bit her lip, tapped her foot, muttered under her breath something about colored people being so slow, until apparently Mamie Smith came to the phone; also apparently she explained with suitable apologies that she had a job, but that there was a lady who was highly suitable, who lived in the same rooming house, that said lady, a Mrs. Drewey, was expected back in a half-hour, and was listed at the agency under nursemaid’s work. The thinfaced woman conveyed this information to Powther. He said he’d go right out there and interview her himself.

  It was a big frame house, in need of paint, in need of repairs, in fact, as he rang the bell, he studied the house, and decided that what it really needed was to be torn down and rebuilt. It even needed a new foundation.

  A lean, light-colored female opened the door a cautious crack. He knew instantly that she was the landlady, because of her eyes. She summed him up, all his potentialities and possibilities in one quick shrewd glance. He asked for Mrs. Drewey. Mrs. Drewey was out, and the door started to close. Then he asked for Mamie Smith, and explained hastily and untruthfully that he had come about a job for Mamie Smith, and the door opened and the landlady said, “Step inside, and I’ll call her.”

  He stood in the uncarpeted hall, waiting. He heard footsteps upstairs, somewhere; and then a woman came down the stairs. He stood, not moving, looking up at her. She came down the stairs, slowly, the uncarpeted badly-in-need-of-paint stairs, of a rooming house in the least desirable part of Baltimore, and his heart started beating faster and faster, and he wished he had brought his hat with him, he needed something to hold in his hands. If he had brought his hat, he could have turned it around and around, as though shaping and reshaping the brim, brushing it off, because his hands needed something to do with themselves, desperately needed something to do, because there in front of him coming down the stairs, in the flesh, was a woman exactly like the women in the great oil paintings with the ornately carved frames that hung in the long hall of Old Copper’s town house.

  This woman was clothed, of course. She had on a dress, sleeveless, and short of skirt. She was wearing shoes, a flimsy kind of sandal, runover at the heel, but no stockings
. The dress was a rather awful shade of brown. And her skin was brown, deep reddish brown, skin as smooth and flawless as that of Jonathan Copper IV with the same dewy quality, and it was just as though one of those big women in the paintings was coming down a staircase, the curve of the leg was the same, and the deepbosomed, bigbosomed look of her was the same.

  “Yes?” she said. “You wanted to see me?”

  Her voice was like music and it confused him even more, excited him even more, so that he swallowed twice and cleared his throat before he could answer her. “I’m Malcolm Powther,” he said. “I’m the butler at the Coppers’. We need a nursemaid and the employment agency where I made inquiries phoned here about the job just a little while ago. I came straight here from the agency because a Miss Smith suggested a Mrs. Drewey.”

  “I’m Mamie,” she said. “I was the one who suggested Drewey. She’s good. She’s about the best in the whole of Maryland. Come on in and sit. She’ll be along pretty soon.”

  He couldn’t get over her voice, and he kept asking her questions, just to hear her talk. It was more like listening to singing than listening to someone talk. He knew he shouldn’t stare at her, that he ought to look away, and he tried to keep his eyes focused on some part of the room. But who could keep looking at a shabby, cheap rocking chair, at soiled badly fitted slipcovers on horrible overstuffed chairs, at sagging curtains in need of laundering, at a dreadful newlooking machine-made rug, all garish colors, and at dusty beaded lamp shades, when Mamie Smith was sitting on a sofa with her legs crossed, leaning her head back? He thought, I’ve got to have her. If it takes me the rest of my life, if it costs me my job, if it costs me all my savings, my life savings, I’ve still got to have her.

  He asked her questions, just to keep her talking, just so he could keep hearing that voice that was like music. She lived in one of the upstairs rooms, across the hall from Mrs. Drewey. She had been married and was divorced. She didn’t like Baltimore, it was too Southern a city for anybody like her who had been born in the North. She wanted to live North again, and as soon as she could leave, had enough money saved to tide her over the business of finding another job in a new place, she would go live in a small Northern city, any small Northern city.

  He thought, Enough money. I’ll be back here again. I can spend money, I’ve saved it all my life but I’m going to spend it now, spend and spend and spend, until I can buy Mamie Smith.

  He said, “Miss Smith—”

  “Oh,” she said, and waved her hand in the air, waving his words away, “don’t be so formal. Everybody calls me Mamie.”

  “Mamie, will you, could you have dinner with me this coming Thursday? Go out to dinner with me?”

  “Sure,” she said easily. “Any night you say. Thursday’s fine.”

  He was about to set the hour, when the front door opened and Mamie said, “There’s Drewey. Come on in, honey. I got a job for you. Powther’ll tell you all about it.”

  Drewey sat down in the parlor with them, on one of the worn, sagging chairs. He thought, Suitable. Highly suitable. She was more than that. She was exactly what Old Copper wanted. She looked clean but not starchy. She was big, with a lap made for sitting on and a feather-pillow bosom made for laying the head on, and arms big enough to enfold and cuddle the young Jonathan Copper in, for five or six years.

  “Can you sing, Mrs. Drewey?” Powther asked.

  “Sing?” Drewey repeated, frowning, “Course not. Is this a singin’ job? I didn’t put in for no singin’ job at the agency.”

  Powther explained about the job, about how he felt that she was exactly what was wanted. He carefully avoided using the old man’s phrase “big fat colored woman,” because after all—Then he said, “I mean, can you, ah, sing enough to say, sing a baby to sleep while rocking him in a rocking chair?”

  “Lord, yes. I don’t call that singin’. That’s just a little hum-a-byin’.”

  “Would you mind sitting in that rocking chair over there, just, you understand, so I can get an idea, and do a little hum-a-byin’?”

  Mrs. Drewey looked as though she were going to refuse and Mamie said, in that voice that was like singing, “Aw, go on, Drewey, hum-a-by for Powther. It could mean a lot to you workin’ for them stinkin’ rich Coppers.”

  Mrs. Drewey sat down in the shabby, cheap rocking chair, her hands stiff on the arms, and glared at them. Then she began to rock, back and forth, back and forth, and the chair creaked a little every time she rocked. The glare subsided in her eyes, and she closed them, her hands relaxed in her lap, and she began to hum, and the humming, at some point, Powther didn’t know just when, became a soft singing. If there was a tune, it was not one he had ever heard before, if there were actual words they made no sense whatsoever, and he thought it was the most comforting, relaxing, beautiful sound he had ever heard.

  His eyelids drooped over his eyes, and for the first time in his life he must have gone sound asleep sitting in a chair because when he opened his eyes Mrs. Drewey was no longer in the rocking chair, she and Mamie Smith were sitting on the sofa, both of them looking at him, both of them laughing. It was evidently the sound of their laughter that woke him up. He felt like a fool, going to sleep like that in a chair, and he wondered if his mouth had been open, wished that he had teeth like Mamie Smith’s, big, strong, evenly spaced teeth, very white in that coppery brown face.

  He sat up straight. “I’m sure you’ll do, Mrs. Drewey. Can you come for an interview right away?”

  When Old Copper saw Mrs. Drewey, he promptly roared an order for a rocking chair, roared another order to the effect that Jonathan Copper IV be placed in Mrs. Drewey’s lap. Young Jonathan was still howling his head off, and the instant Drewey tucked his head into the fleshy part of her arm, covered his little feet up with a blanket and started rocking and hum-a-byin’, he stopped howling, sighed, and promptly went to sleep.

  Mrs. Jonathan Copper III stared, amazed. “Why, he’s asleep. He hasn’t been asleep for six hours. He’s done nothing but cry. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Just wanted a big fat colored woman,” Old Copper said. “Don’t never give no male Coppers to no bony white women to bring up.”

  Powther told Mamie about Drewey and the baby when he took her to dinner on Thursday night. While he talked he studied her, trying to analyze her weaknesses. He decided that she would never be able to save the money to tide her over until she got a job in a small Northern city, that there would always be something that she wanted to buy. After all, the Northern city was an intangible, and the gaudy costume jewelry or the flimsy shoes were tangible, touchable, seeable, right there in a store window.

  He knew, too, just by looking at her, that if she married him, he would always find gentlemen callers in his home. He couldn’t foresee Bill Hod, and the general shape and size and viciousness of him, because he had led a life in the houses of the very rich which prevented him from being aware of the existence of the Bill Hods, but he could foresee jealousy and insecurity. Knowing this, he still intended to marry Mamie Smith, and so directed all his resources toward that end.

  Whenever he saw her he talked about the disadvantages of living in rented rooms, about the luxury it was possible to enjoy in a small place of one’s own.

  He bought presents for her. Just before Christmas he sent to New York for three nightgowns, three such nightgowns as he was certain she had never dreamed could possibly exist. There was a gray one, because he knew the color would surprise her; a flaming red one, because she had a passion for red; and a peculiar yellowish one that would bring out the coppery tones of her skin. They were more like expensive evening gowns than like anything to sleep in.

  But they were worth the price he paid for them because on Christmas Eve when she opened the box, she stared, and said, “What on earth—”

  She took the nightgowns out of the big beautiful box, out of the layers of tissue paper, and sat with the
m in her lap, holding them, hugging them, spreading them out so that the long full pleated skirts foamed over the floor, covering part of the cheap, garish, machine-made rug.

  He thought, If I had my choice I’d ask her to put on the yellowish one.

  Mamie said, “Powther, you want me to try one of them on for you?”

  He was suddenly overcome by emotion, a kind of shyness, and he nodded, holding his head down because he couldn’t look at her.

  “Which one?”

  He pointed at the yellowish one, the almost mustard-colored yellow one, but not quite mustard, it had more green in it than that, a peculiar color. She swept all the gowns up in her arms, and he heard her going up that long uncarpeted staircase, walking swiftly.

  A few minutes later, she said, “Powther!” from somewhere upstairs.

  He stumbled on the stairs, striking his knee so that it hurt unbearably, and the pain halted him, halfway up. She called again, “Powther!” and he hurried up the stairs, his knee aching, stiff; and there she was standing in the doorway of a room, and the nightgown was made of a fabric so sheer that he could see through it, see all of her, and yet it was as though there were veiling over the flesh, and the flesh was so beautiful, that his eyes filled with tears; and that moment seemed to sum up all of his future relationship with Mamie, rapture, but pain, too.

  After that he set to work to make himself indispensable to her. When he went to see her he brought choice crackers and old cheeses and beautiful fruit, in case she wanted something to eat late at night. He slipped the landlady ten dollars so that Mamie could cook in her room, which was against the rules. He bought a small electric icebox and an extremely efficient small electric stove so that she could bake and fry as much as she wanted to. He used all of his efficiency, all of his knowledge of the luxurious, and most of his bank account, in his courtship of Mamie Smith. He transformed that rundown dismal bedroom into a very comfortable one-room apartment.