The baked goods were not the same as they used to be. Instead of brownies, square chocolate cake still in the pan, apple pies, oatmeal cookies and home-baked bread, there were cake-mix things with three times as much frosting as anybody needed, cocktail snacks made out of cereal and nuts. The rummage tables had the same worn kitchen tools, statues of slave girls with glitter on them, wooden boxes and peg racks. The needlework seemed to be all teacloths with embroidered windmills, never used, laid away in some mothball trunk since the twenties, pale yellow crocheted bedspreads with the texture of barbwire and baby bibs stained with ancient applesauce. The babies had to be grown men and women now.
A big square wicker basket with a lid. That caught her attention. The basket came up to her waist, and she lifted the lid and looked in. It was packed with yarns, hundreds of colors and weights, fine hand-spun linen thread, hand-dyed skeins of wools, the dark green of cocklebur, red madder root, indigo blue, the cloudy gray of walnut, gold knotweed. Richer, more subtle colors than she’d ever used. The deeper she rummaged the more treasures she found, a tender color that made her think of teal-wing ducks, and in that minute she saw the sweater, saw it entire with the ducks in many colors swimming against a dark background, and every few stitches she’d work in cattails behind the ducks.
‘That was old Mrs. Twiss’s yarns, she died in jury and the fam’ly wants to clear all the stuff out of the house,’ the woman blurted. She was lantern-jawed and with an anxious voice like prayers. ‘Half the reason we’re havin’ this sale is to sell off her stuff. They kept the sheep until Mr. Twiss died, and then she still had a lot of wool on hand. She made rugs on a loom. I never cared for them myself – I like a nice nylon carpet in a solid color – but I guess a lot of people, the summer people, bought them. She knitted, too. This basket was her knitting yarns.’
‘What are you asking?’ Jewell wanted that basket as bad as she’d ever wanted anything.
‘Five dollars sound about right? It’s mostly a lot of leftovers. Prob’ly be all right for socks or something.’
It took four of them to carry the basket out to her car, and then the lid of the trunk wouldn’t close and she had to tie it down with string borrowed from the poster-tying woman. She took her name and address and mailed the string back the next day with thanks.
Jewell walked out to the strawberry bed behind the collapsing house early in the June morning and pulled the nets off the dark rows. She would get a head start on Mernelle. Quack grass choked the rows and something had gotten under the net and eaten the berries on the end plants. She remembered worse: the hailstorm that made strawberry jam in five minutes, the loose cows trampling the plants. She spread her piece of carpeting on the cool soil and began to pick, setting the full baskets under the shady rhubarb leaves as she went. The sun heated up quickly, the baking soil shimmered with heat waves. By the time Ray dropped Mernelle off she had stripped the plot of ripe berries and replaced the nets for another picking in a few days. The black oil was in her cracked fingers.
She sat in the rectangle of shade behind the trailer in an aluminum-framed lawn chair, Mernelle sat a few feet farther out for the sake of the sun. The marigolds blazed. Mernelle’s arms and legs were the color of pecan shells. The black, long hair was teased up and twisted into a puff. She wore an orange playsuit. Her voice flung high words. But she was good-tempered.
‘I’ll make that strawberry-rhubarb pie for Ray if you can give me some of your rhubarb. Ray can eat a whole pie at one sitting.’
‘Well, I don’t blame him. You make wonderful pie. Sure, take all you want of the rhubarb. There’s plenty. And strawberries. Ought to do another picking next week. There’s so many this year I can’t begin to deal with ’em. And it seems like I lost my taste for strawberries. There was a time I could eat anybody under the table with strawberry shortcake. Jam. Just strawberries and cream.’ Jewell’s fingers were red to the knuckles with hulling the heavy berries.
‘Did you wash these. Ma?’
‘I rinsed ’em under the spigot out back. You can see they’re wet.’
‘I can see they’re wet but they feel gritty.’
‘You must be workin’ on the ones at the bottom of the basket. Dub. Dub was the only one of you kids could never eat strawberries. He’d break out in a rash – strawberry hives your grandmother called ’em. Old Ida. Any kind of a rash she called some different kind of hives. Mosquito bites? That was “skeeter hives.” Get in the nettles you got a case of “nettle hives.” Your father’d come in from pitching hay up into the haymow, all that chaff down the back of his neck and he’d itch just wicked and you know what that was, it was “hay hives.” First time I heard that I bust out laughing. “Hey-ho, Mink has got the hay hives!” She didn’t talk to me again for some time. This is before we was married. Quite the old hen, I thought. She’d say all hoity-toity, “I don’t b’leeve a person ought to be held up as a figure of amusement for what they say.” But she had to put up with plenty. Old Matthew, he was a miserable old cuss. Temper! That’s where your father got his temper, and Loyal, too, I daresay. I see him one time, old Matthew, ask your grandmother something, wasn’t very important, just something about where something was, if she’d seen it. She was rattlin’ some pot lids at the time and didn’t hear him. She got a little deaf as she got older. Lost most of her hair, too. Used to wear a switch up in the front that was a different color than the rest. Sort of a rusty brown color. Well, he took it the wrong way, that she didn’t answer him and he flared up. Snatched up ajar of tomatoes she had standing on the shelf to put in something, and he held it out over the floor and just let go. The first thing she knew anything was wrong was this terrible smash right behind her, felt the wet on her legs, and looked around to see the tomatoes and glass all over her clean kitchen floor and old Matthew like a turkey cock with his face gobbled up so red. Yes, those old girls, they put up with a lot. It was considered pretty terrible to get divorced, so they put up with a lot, things no woman today would put up with.’
‘What about old Mrs. Nipple. You never would tell me what happened to her. You know.’
‘I have to say, though, old Ida was wonderful with the desserts. Made Queen of Puddings for Sunday dinner with raspberries – your mouth would almost faint it was so good. Apple puffets, plate cake. And the ice cream if she could get the boys to turn the crank. She made rhubarb ice cream. I know it don’t sound good, but it was. Same with the Concord grape. Ice cream if the grapes made it. If we didn’t loose them to a late spring frost.’
‘Quit stalling, Ma. I heard all that. What about Mrs. Nipple?’
‘She had a hard life, but kept her humor, I don’t know how.’ The dark cone of strawberries rose higher in the bowl. The white dotted undersides of the caps strewed the grass where they had thrown them. ‘I wouldn’t of cared to have been her. I used to say that to myself, “Thank god I’m not so bad off as Mrs. Nipple.” But in the end maybe I wasn’t no better off. The way things fall out is funny. Life twists around like a dog with a sore on his rear end that he bites at to make it stop plaguin’ him.’
‘That’s a nice picture, Ma.’ Mernelle itched to plunge her hands into the berries, lift handfuls high and squeeze until the juice ran down her arms. Unaccountable and strange wish, like her longing for children. They had the dog, she thought derisively.
‘Well.’
‘Mrs. Nipple.’
‘You probably don’t remember her husband, Toot, he died when you weren’t more than five or six, but he was a big, good-lookin’ man when he was young. Brown straight hair that fell over his eyes in a certain way, real nice eyes with dark lashes, sort of aquamarine color.’
‘It’s funny but I remember his eyes. He was a fat old slob and I was just a little kid but I remember his eyes. They made an impression on me. A strange color.’ And remembers the old man rubbing his hand over her heinie when she was on the ladder in the barn. I’ll give you a boost up, he’d said, and then the hot fingers.
‘When he was young he was a bi
g fellow, quick and clever, a terror on the dance floor. He wasn’t a fat slob then. Good-lookin’. He’d joke, had an easy laugh and got along good with everybody. Girls was crazy about him. Called him Toot because after he’d been tomcattin’ around he used to say, “Guess I been on a toot.” He married Mrs. Nipple, of course she was Opaline Hatch, then. But soon became Mrs. Nipple and nobody could figure that one out because he kept right on like he wasn’t married at all, dated girls, went out every night. Mrs. Hatch, that was Opaline’s mother, had a big smile for everybody at the wedding. But Ronnie was born about three months afterwards so we had a good idea of what the attraction had been. It was a funny thing, she never got mad at him for all his hellin’ around. He’d come draggin’ home drunk and smelling like he’d been dipped in throw-up and perfume, both, and she’d fix him something for his stomach and make excuses for him the next day to whoever he was workin’ for, that’s before they moved onto the farm. That farm passed to her from her family. Toot’s folks didn’t have a pot to piss in. It got so he depended on her for an awful lot. She got to thinkin’ she’d tamed him down, that life was finally evened out for her. Maybe he thought so, too. And that’s when it turned on ’em and started to bite.’
The naked, bleeding strawberries lay in the smeared bowl. Jewell reached for another basket and set it in her lap. Her fingers darted at the strawberries, plucking their crowns with cruel pinches.
‘What happened was when he was around forty-five, forty-six he got cancer of the prostrate. The doctor told him, “We can take the cancer out but you’ll be impotent. Or we can leave it alone and you’ll only have another six months or a year to live. You’ll have to decide.” Well, he decided to have the surgery done. And he was impotent. He was that kind of a man, you know, where that was the most important part of life. He went cold, then. He wouldn’t even put his arm around Mrs. Nipple any more, wouldn’t joke with the ladies like he always done. Wouldn’t touch any of them in tenderness or affection. It was as if he’d turned impotent all over. See, the touching was all connected with sex for him. Then he started in on suicide. He’d talk to her about it at supper. He wanted to kill her, then himself. Wanted to take her with him. “Tonight,” he’d say while they was eating the string beans and the hamburger patties. “We’ll do it tonight.” Always at suppertime. He done this for six years. She stood by him, I’ll say that for her. Short of giving in and letting him shoot her, she stood by him. He finally hung himself. It was after that Ronnie moved back to the farm. He never got along with Toot and lived over at his aurnt’s place from the time he was about fourteen. And I pitied her so bad, that her life had taken this terrible turn. And when it came at me in the same way I felt like … I still can’t say what I felt like. But I know one thing. You’re never ready for when it turns on you and goes for the throat.’
Mernelle held a strawberry in her hand. Her fingers folded, she squeezed. She threw the clot in the grass, glanced at her red palm.
32
Pala
SHE WAS CLEAR about what she wanted. Looking at her ivory face, her black oval eyes, he felt himself the fool again. She had the thick little Cuban arms and a crooked nose, but there was a cool glaze he loved. The quick hands moving while she talked, the hurrying voice drew him to her.
‘I want this secretary job to learn more about real estate. I want to understand the fine points, get familiar with the names and the ideas of the big investors from New York, see how you make things work.’ He nodded. She wanted his secrets.
‘But a year from now I will be ready for a bigger position. I am very ambitious.’
‘I can see that, Miss Suarez. What type of real estate interests you – residential properties?’ The women in real estate all worked with houses.
‘I am more interested in the special commercial properties – centrally designed, landscaped projects that balance hotels, shopping malls, marinas and services in a beautiful and coherent way. Spaces with water elements, plants, esplanades, open-air restaurants. That is why I applied here. I have studied urban architecture and I admire many of your projects. Spice Islands Park. Enchanting, those ziggurat offices and shops built around pocket parks of fragrant trees. The lovely rooftop gardens, the flower balconies. All soft colors. And everybody wanted to work there right away. I know the architect you worked with well. He is my cousin. No other “American” real estate developer would think of using a Cuban architect.’
She was so serious, he thought, leaning a little forward in her grey silk suit, her stubby hands folded on her knees. The hair was plaited and the plaits wound sleekly around her head. Her ivory skin was a little rough with old acne scars – it gave her a tough and interesting flavor that he associated with the name ‘Mercedes’ for some reason.
‘I can be useful to you, too,’ she said. He knew that.
‘There are many invisible Cuban millionaires in this city. There are banks and bankers, a whole society that the American establishment in Miami ignores. In that world we have our own ideals and thoughts, our own television and radio, a certain style, a way of thinking and walking and talking, holidays, celebrations and balls, charities and school curricula utterly unfamiliar to your world. I can be your bridge to that society. If you are interested, of course.’ She was so serious.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You cannot have the secretarial job. But I just realized that I am looking for someone to fill the position of Director of Intercultural Marketing and Development. Perhaps you would care to apply?’
When she smiled, he saw, in the white dazzle of pointed teeth, in the gold glint of a back tooth, that he had a pirate.
33
Obregón’s Arm
IN THE STUDIO a mirror hung over the sink. He looked in it only to shave, and over the months soap spatters, dust and flyspecks dulled his image until after the trip with Ben to Mexico City, a trip made not for any reasons of his own, but to haul Ben up out of the street swill when he fell. It was the worst he’d ever been.
They got back, after two weeks. He helped Ben, trembling and voiceless, into the big house through the kitchen door, guided him past the dishwasher, the chopping block, past the swaying strings of chili and garlic, the bouquets of herbs hanging upside down, the Spanish ham in verdigris mold dangling like a punching bag from the heavy wrought iron hook.
The cook stood in front of the refrigerator. She held the door wide, showing the meat, the jars of West Indian pepper sauce, French mustard, Niçoise olives, capers, pinon nuts, walnut oil, quarts of milk and cream, half-empty bottles of white wine, waxy cheeses, endive and chicons, brown peppers, the great black grapes, the breasts of chicken.
‘Piano,’ Ben seemed to say. His voice shook deep and ruined. ‘Piano.’ Loyal could see past him into the living room to the painting like blood on the wall.
‘He says for you to go away now too,’ said the cook to Loyal. “The missus wants you to go. Wants you to leave. They both wants you to get out.’
‘Piano.’
In the studio Loyal saw that Vernita, the biologist of jellyfish, had ordered sea changes. All was drenched, swept away as by equinoctial rides. The walls were freshly calcimined a bitter white, the floor tiles scraped and washed and waxed until they reflected like red water. He read the message in the sheen of the aluminum kettle, spout tip like a cherub’s mouth. Books and magazines squared on dustless shelves, the bed stripped, window glass so clear it erased distance. He turned slowly. The curtains swelled, the empty sink gaped for a sweet gush of water, its faucets burning with light.
The mirror drew his eyes like a tunnel opening into another world. He had not looked in so long, still thought of himself as a young man, strong arms, the black fine hair and hot blue eyes. His face, he saw, had gaunted out. The blue mirror frame enclosed his fixed features. The ruddy liveliness, the quick rage of the eyes had faded. Here was the skin of the ascetic whose neck is never marred with sucking kisses, the rigid facial planes of someone who spends time alone, untwisted by the squinting disguises of social li
fe. His eyes did not change when women walked past. It could be, he thought, that spark was finally dead. But did not believe it.
In an hour he was packed up and heading north in the truck. Age seemed at his throat.
But the old urge for the farm was like the heat of a banked fire, the time was dipping down. Fifty-one years old. The prospecting, the barroom nights, the summers digging with Bullet, the climbs up to the passes in the mountains, moving through the breast-high rabbitbrush, his way had been that of an exile for a long time. He had tried to keep the tremulous balance of his life, walking a beam between short friendships and abrupt departures. He thought of the nights on the sand, the squalls of desert foxes, the stars screeling points of light cutting paths and orbits, the gaping core. And the shuddering hours with Ben in the observatory tracing sidereal arcs with the still camera, trying to follow Ben’s vaulting talk of distant energy and collapsing matter. Yet, reeling through corridors of galactic ice, chill remote starlight, could not completely forget the warmth of barn, kitchen, the spark-furred heaps of peltry. Never was the mood of farm work closer than when Ben was ruined with drink, slobbering in the black swillbowls.
In Mexico City swaying before the statue of General Alvara Obregón with Ben slouched against him, the old longing swamped Loyal. On a granite pedestal below the statue the general’s arm floated in a lighted jar of formaldehyde. The yellow bone protruded from the flesh, and Loyal saw in the angle of the bone himself lying on his back in the bed, his hands behind his head, his elbows jutting up.
One of these days he would wake up dead. He had not yet made a start on the farm, on curing his trouble with earth, clacking hens and a dog springing up with muddied feet. He imagined a family of silvery children and warmth in the bed, a voice in the dark instead of the forceful stars and the Indian’s silent book.