“No, she left about a year ago. But I think I can find her. I’ll have to. She was one of the few people who cared about Sadie.”
At the thought of having to tell Carrie what had happened to her friend, the tears returned and my throat felt tight. “Joe McInerny threatened to kill Sadie for leaving him. And you should have seen her when she came to us. Her face…”
I was about to say he had cut her before. But I realized, in my tiredness, I was confused. I thought of Sadie’s battered, swollen features and realized the cut I had seen so clearly … was not hers. It was a different face, from long ago.
Before I could decide whether this was knowledge to share or just exhausted confusion, Officer Nolan said, “We’ll find McInerny. But you tell your uncle to account for himself.”
He looked pointedly at the window, and I understood. Those people—none of whom had cared a jot for Sadie when she was alive—wanted her killer. And they hated my uncle. It was a dangerous mess of emotion. The sooner the police caught McInerny, the sooner we’d be rid of the mob outside.
I walked Officer Nolan to the door and let him out. As I locked it, I could hear the shouts of outrage as he emerged alone. Curses against the police who showed up late and then did nothing. Degenerates, criminals, and troublemakers left among them because they were poor and didn’t matter. Who would protect their daughters? Their men? Keep the streets clean of whores and vice? Didn’t they have the right to live decent? And how could they when the city pushed all its crime and filth into their neighborhood?
I jumped as I heard glass shatter. Someone had thrown a bottle. A thud as something else landed against the door, then the sharp crack of another bottle breaking. I heard Officer Nolan ordering people home and waited, heart pounding. Then the clarion call of Mrs. Pickett: “Good people, we shall not take the law into our own hands. Let the police do their work. Let it be our task to make sure that they do.”
So instructed by their leader, the crowd began to disperse. The pounding of my heart eased, and I gathered the nerve to go to the door to make sure it was securely locked. Then, before heading up to bed, I settled on the stairs a moment to mourn the happiness of just a few hours ago. And Sadie. Then I let my eyes rest on the old hallway carpet and tried to think of nothing.
Carpets are wonderful things. You can gaze at them endlessly. All the swirls and patterns, even in an old carpet where the colors are faded and the wool is threadbare in spots. That spot there, just where you step as you come in. Thinner, darker, marked with the grime of so many shoes …
But it was not grime, I realized. The shadow that spread from the worn and ragged center. It was blood. Old blood. Washed many times, but the stain still there.
Otelia Brooks’s blood.
4
I was eleven the night she came to the refuge. She announced herself with a swift and frantic pounding at the door. I was not allowed to open the door at night; no one was, except for my uncle and Berthe. But that night, my uncle was out and Berthe had a head cold. The other women were upstairs. With no one to tell me otherwise, I had stayed up late. I had been sitting on the steps, wondering how many I could jump, when the knock came.
I looked up the stairs, thinking someone would come, but no one did. There was another burst of knocking, this time more urgent. I peeped through the curtain and saw a dark-skinned woman, her hand braced against the door for support. Her face was slashed, and blood ran from her cheek down her neck, soaking the collar of her shirt and shabby coat. Her head was down and her shoulders were heaving. Despite my shock, I still hesitated. My uncle had warned me that sometimes men used women to try to trick their way in.
There was another knock, weaker this time. An exhausted “Please…”
Undoing the lock, I opened the door slightly. The woman frowned, either surprised by my age or trying to focus through pain. The light of the hallway gave me a better look at her wound, which was so terrible it could only be real, and I opened the door fully, indicating she should hurry inside. She did, unsteady on her feet. She tried not to touch anything but at one point had to use the wall, leaving a bloody imprint. I stood, mouthing and useless, then remembered that I needed to lock the door.
By the time I had turned around, she was unconscious.
A nurse sympathetic to my uncle’s mission was called. I was told to leave the room. But I heard the muffled screams and saw the clumsy stitches afterward. “No white man will want her now,” said Rosa Lengler, whose mean streak had not faded in her time at the refuge. Still, several of the women agreed. Black women, they felt, were bad for business, and they didn’t want her in any place they understood to be theirs.
Peace was important to my uncle. The refuge was too crowded to accommodate those who had succumbed to addiction or madness. Disruptive behavior was not tolerated, and the women made clear their opinion that Otelia Brooks’s arrival was indeed disruptive. They would not turn her out while she was ill. They weren’t unfeeling. But when she could stand, she would have to go.
When I thought about what should be done, I felt like two different people. One understood the women; the new arrival was … shocking. Different. And it felt strange to have her here. It was as if something would have to change if she stayed, although I couldn’t think what. The other person in me kept seeing her gaze as she struggled to remain herself through blood loss and pain. What would it feel like to tell that person to leave? Small. It would feel very, very small.
“She can sleep in my bed,” I told my uncle.
My bed, my uncle explained, was separated from his office by a curtain. It would not do to have any woman sleep there. For now, the residents would have to make do.
Two days later, I came down the stairs to find her scrubbing the carpet. I shrank in guilt; cleaning the floors was my job, and I said so.
She glanced up at me. “Come on down and do it, then.”
Kneeling down, I set the brush to the rug and started pushing. But I was distracted by the sight of her stitches, clumsy black thread crisscrossing her face from ear to jaw. And by the hope she would say something more.
“It’s not pretty,” she allowed.
“It’ll heal,” I said. She met my eye, and I felt rebuked for foolishness.
I felt she would rather I go away, but as much as I wanted to please her, I stayed, half scrubbing, half listening for a chance to say something. When she winced and rubbed two fingers against her forehead, I said, “Does your head ache? My uncle keeps brandy in his cabinet.”
“I don’t take alcohol,” she said.
Then, noticing my half-hearted scrub motions, she said in a gentler voice, “You’re just working it deeper in. Here—”
Taking the brush, she showed me how to loosen and liquefy the stain, then gather it up with the bristles and rinse it clean in the bucket. I imitated her, with much better results.
I don’t know why my uncle decided Otelia Brooks could stay. He never gave a reason, not to me and not to Rosa Lengler when she demanded to know. Perhaps he felt there did not have to be one.
Women settling in at the refuge were often on edge; they looked for opportunities to argue, take offense, do battle—both to prove themselves and calm their nerves. Miss Brooks was different in that way. She seemed to have no interest in either allies or enemies. When she took her place in the classroom, the women nearby ostentatiously moved elsewhere. Otelia Brooks took no notice of them—or of me when I sat down in the space next to her. I would like to claim that conscience drove me to it. But really, I was fascinated by Otelia Brooks. She had told me I cleaned badly, then shown me how to do it right. Her good opinion seemed worth having.
She struggled with cursive, and I struggled with her. But she had no need of the sewing class—her stitches were small and precise. Still, she took them and often sewed after classes were over. Over the next week, the curtains were all rehemmed, my skirts let down, dresses mended. Anything that might be improved with a needle and thread passed through her hands.
�
�You don’t have to,” I told her, puzzled that anyone would take on more work.
“I know,” she said. “But it keeps me on my path.”
I had never known anyone to speak of a path. I wanted to ask where hers was, where it had begun, where it would take her. But she was not an easy woman for questions. She didn’t stay still, for one thing, beating rugs, gathering plates, working in the sewing room until we put the tables aside and set up the beds. Another time, I found her restless and wandering the parlor as if searching for something. Her hands twisted uneasily around each other. She sat down by the window, rocking, her hands between her knees. Then she stood and began draping the curtains so they fell more evenly.
If you wanted her company, you had to work alongside her, so I did. She had taken on the job of doing laundry, and I held the basket of wet sheets as she pegged them up on the line in the backyard. In a ploy to get her to talk, I said, “I like how you speak.”
She smiled, mildly disbelieving. “That’s Mississippi.”
“Is that where you’re from?” She nodded. “Will you go back there?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “I brought everything I cared about here.”
And now it was gone—that much was clear by her presence. Shy in the face of her loss, I offered the plan that made the most sense to my eleven-year-old self. “You could get married.” She would have a house, I thought, and children. I could play with the children and keep helping her with the wash.
“I was married,” she said, not looking at me.
My breath caught. I had forgotten a basic truth known by everyone at the refuge: simply because a man gave you a wedding ring—or promised one—didn’t mean safety. Wanting to make amends for my ignorance, I blundered, “He did that to you.”
She went still, then deliberately threw the pegs onto the ground before fixing on me. “You think my husband did this?”
I stepped back, knowing I was wrong, but beyond that not sure of anything.
“Let me be very clear with you. A white man did this to me. And he did it slow. You know why? Because he enjoyed it. And this was just the first cut. He meant to take his time. I know because he told me so. He breathed in my face, put his spit on me, and said those words. And in case you’re wondering why my husband didn’t stop him, it’s because he’s dead. You’re a smart girl, I’ll let you figure out what happened to him.”
Shame, like bile; all day. I tasted it in my throat, felt it roil my stomach, sour and debilitating. I tried to throw it off, tell myself I couldn’t have known, it was a simple mistake, she needn’t have gotten so angry. And at me. It wasn’t my fault. If she hated it here so much, she could just go. Never mind the fact that she’d never said she hated it here, although the other women had given her reason to.
That evening, my uncle remarked that I was in a bad mood. I opened my mouth, ready to complain. Then I realized my uncle would not respect my complaints. And that they didn’t deserve respect.
The next day, I found Otelia sitting alone in an empty classroom. Her hands were placed flat on the desk in front of her, and she was very still. She breathed deeply, held it, then exhaled. For a brief moment, she lifted her hands; they shook. Putting them back down, she took a breath, shut her eyes, then let the breath go. Then she opened her eyes.
On the table in front of her, there were some scraps of felt, a needle and thread, and an overturned bowl. She began arranging the felt, pulling and folding, around the bowl until it started to take shape.
From the door, I asked, “Are you making a hat?”
She didn’t answer right away, and I thought she was still angry with me. Then she sighed. “I’m not sure. Does it look like a hat to you?”
I came inside, shut the door. “It could.”
“In my head it does. This felt disagrees.”
I knew what it was to wrestle with fabric, wanting it clean or mended, and feeling it fight you. “It’s too old. New felt would listen to you.”
“Would it?” She smiled. “Well, we don’t have new, so let me see if I can get this old stuff to listen. Miss Jane, could you fetch me some glue?”
I did, and sat while she carefully worked the felt. When she needed a ribbon, I offered mine. It was shabby and not wide enough, but you could see where it would lead. Discarded pieces of fabric from the floor expanded the hat’s silhouette. She left off the traditional adornments but added flourishes in different places. It was and was not like any hat I had seen. Rough, misshapen, but with a halo of true potential.
Taking her hands away, Otelia Brooks looked at me and said, “Maybe?”
“I think it’ll be wonderful.”
Her body eased, and a small smile appeared. “Miss Jane, may I ask you a question? Do you always wear your hair in a braid?”
Embarrassed, I said, “It’s the only thing I know how to do.”
“I took your ribbon. How about you let me do your hair?”
Thrilled, I ran upstairs for my hairbrush and then sat down on a hassock in front of her chair. I heard her murmur, “All right, now…,” as she pulled my hair loose. “This is very pretty hair, Miss Jane. You need to let people see it. You also need to wash your neck because we are going to be showing this neck because it is like a swan’s. You ever seen a swan?”
I shook my head.
“Oh, well, that’s something you’ll have to see someday, but for now…” She started to brush, keeping the strong fingers of one hand on my head as she did. She talked, partly to me but mostly to herself, low and intent, keeping herself company as she worked. I understood that I was like the classwork stitches, the curtains, and the hats; a way to occupy her hands. To stay on her path. Lulled by her voice, feeling her fingers in my hair, the way she gathered it into coils, winding it this way and that, I fell into a dream. So I cannot tell you how long it was before the two hands rested briefly on my shoulders and I heard, “Let’s find a mirror.”
There had been mirrors aplenty in this house when it served as a brothel, but my uncle had removed most of them. There was still one in the entry hallway that led off the front parlor, and when I stood before it, I did not recognize myself. I had always felt I had a drab face, the kind you saw behind a broom handle. Features serviceable, nothing more. Otelia Brooks had made me look not just … nice, that foolish word … but like a someone. It was like opening an old packing case that sat in the cellar for years and discovering treasure inside.
“Can’t speak? You’re that ravishing?” she teased. “Well, I guess you do look pretty. What you need are ear bobs. You tell your uncle to get you some when you turn sixteen. But not before. See—”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Startled, I turned to see Rosa Lengler at the door. Then I felt myself yanked away from the mirror.
“You don’t touch her.”
“I don’t believe I was,” said Miss Brooks.
Other women gathered at the door, drawn by the sounds of an argument. I stood between Rosa and Miss Brooks, confused. “She did my hair…,” I offered.
“And you should know better,” Rosa told me. “She’s dirty.”
At this, a short burst of laughter came from Miss Brooks. Followed by the crack of a slap. Miss Brooks went completely still. I saw something flare in her eyes, and I knew Rosa should step back. But Rosa lifted her hand again. This time, Miss Brooks caught it and jerked her arm down, twisting it so that Rosa cried out.
“You going to try that again?” Miss Brooks asked, whispering into her ear. “You think that’s how this works?” She gave Rosa’s arm a wrench and the other woman bent, grunting a filthy insult that made Miss Brooks’s mouth twist in a brief, bitter smile.
Rosa spun loose and shoved. Almost exasperated, Miss Brooks shoved back. Enraged, Rosa started punching. The other women were shouting; I was shouting, too, what I don’t remember. But when Berthe broke up the fight and sent both women to talk to my uncle, I do recall feeling that this was my fault. And that my uncle should know it was my
fault.
I went up to his office to find the door closed. Standing as close as I dared, I heard my uncle say, “What do you think I should do, Miss Brooks?”
If there was an answer, I didn’t hear it.
“It will be better if we speak freely.”
“Will it?” said Miss Brooks.
There was an edge of impatience in her tone, and I could sense my uncle’s surprise as he said, “Yes, of course.” Then after a moment, “Please.”
I heard a sigh. “What do you mean to do here, Reverend? With this place?”
“I would think you knew, having come here.”
“I came because I needed safety. And I had heard you help women.” There was a pause. “Do you think you do? Help these women?”
“I gather you think otherwise.”
“I think sewing’s fine as far as it goes. But you need to teach them about money. You’re thinking these women are going to work for someone else, but why shouldn’t they have their own business? Not like they didn’t before. Don’t misunderstand, I appreciate what you do. But you’re helping these women be laundry workers, seamstresses, and they could be more. Some of them, anyway. I also think you need to let them loose.”
“Loose?”
“I don’t mean turn them out. I mean give them some rest. You make them sit in prayer when they wake up. Then they sit in class all day, sewing or staring at letters. Then there’s chores. Afternoon, it’s proper speech and handwriting. Back in prayer before bedtime. Whole day spent … tight. Silent. Scared they’re going to make a mistake. Maybe you don’t realize it, but you can be a heavy presence.” I smiled at that. “No wonder they start shoving and screaming the first chance they get.”
“People trying to change their lives need to be kept busy. I would have thought you agreed with that.”
“I do. But they can’t spend their days feeling bad about what they were, working hard to be a woman they can’t even imagine yet. You have to let them be free sometimes. Otherwise all that energy turns sour. Ugly. Let them go outside, take a walk. They have those public dances at the church, let them go there.”
Death of an American Beauty Page 5