The brownstone, p.5
The Brownstone, page 5
“What?” Justin blinked.
Billy shrugged. “Christmas is over, sweetheart—two weeks now!”
“I think I need another drink.” Justin rose and awkwardly disappeared into the kitchen.
Chandal’s mother hugged her once more and cried. A grandchild, at last. It was a blessing. Something to live for, that’s what it was. Chandal reflected suddenly what a wonderful person her mother was. She had a lot of faults, yes, but what an incredible amount of love she had inside of her. Already that love was reaching out to an unborn child. Chandal shivered, remembering her hallucination, that ridiculous business with the bell. Then she’d been terrified and it was her mother’s face that had calmed her. Then had come the other face to shake that calm, reduce her again to emotional wreckage. Even now, she could see that face. Twisted, evil...
“Chandal? What is it, honey?” Her mother’s fingers dug into her arm.
Chandal gave a quick shrug, tossing away the image. “Nothing, Mom. Just thinking.”
“Don’t worry, honey. Believe me, you’ll make a wonderful mother. My baby, a mother!” She dissolved happily into tears again, letting them flood down her face, washing through powder as they ran, and still she let them run, evidence of her joy.
“How about a drink, Mom? Hey, listen, go tell Justin to fix you a piña colada in the blender.”
As the pink plump woman bustled toward the kitchen, Chandal turned her eyes deliberately to the barren Christmas tree and the silver bell that hung silently from its lower branch. Just force yourself to look at it and you’ll never be afraid again. Somebody had told her something like that a long time ago. Something about death. Yes, when Chandal was a little girl, her mother had made her look at a corpse and told her if she did, she’d never again fear death. But that really wasn’t so, was it? Because she did fear death. Her father’s death. All death. She couldn’t take her eyes off that bell. Rather nice effect. Just the barren tree still sprinkled with a few pieces of tinsel and the one beautiful ornament. Crazy to be afraid of something so beautiful. Well, new mothers had a right to be a little nutty. She tried to smile. Wasn’t it all part of expecting a baby? The fear—the joy. But why did she have this terrible knot inside her chest? Like a feeling that something was...
“Congratulations,” said an unknown black man, shaking her hand as she felt the faintness closing in. A buzzing inside her head. No, not actually a buzzing, something else. “Are you all right?” said a voice, and she turned her eyes to the lips that were speaking. The whirling inside her head cleared, like static tuned out, and from a center of clarity, she heard a recognizable sound. The clear teasing peal of a bell! She spun away from the man, feeling all the while something holding her, pulling at her. But the only thing she could think about, the only thing she could see, was the bell. The silver bell. It floated and twisted before her eyes, ringing, filling her with a sudden nausea. “Hey, hold on, there,” said the voice again and she tore her eyes from the silver ornament, back to the face, the kind black face.
“The bell... can you hear... the bell ringing...?” she stammered, pleadingly and his eyes looked troubled, confused.
“There’s no bell ringing,” he murmured soothingly.
“You—you can’t hear it?” she gasped, and slowly, regretfully, he shook his head.
Then in back of him, the door to the apartment opened and standing there were two old women. Magdalen stared evenly in her direction. Elizabeth hovered by her side.
“Well, look who’s here, honey.” Justin moved to the doorway and took Magdalen’s arm. The bell quieted, stopped ringing.
“Is something wrong?” asked the black man.
“Oh, no—thank you. I was just... please excuse me.” She swallowed hard and moved away from his concerned eyes.
Chandal’s mother chuckled when she saw the look on her daughter’s face. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
“Nothing.” The whole room seemed to shake with laughter. The gall pushed its way into her mouth—she rushed from the room into the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?” asked her mother. She stood in the doorway, stirring the crushed ice in her drink.
“I said nothing. Leave me alone, Mom.” She bent over the sink and ran the water.
Her mother smiled. “Having a baby is nothing to be afraid of. I had you, didn’t I? And I’m still around to see you have yours. Honey, everything will be all right.”
Chandal swallowed an Alka Seltzer and listened. Jesus! Morning sickness—at night! She was still trembling. Embarrassed—that was it. Embarrassed to be showing her mother her weakness, her fear. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“For what?”
“For acting so damn silly.”
“You’re allowed.”
Chandal shook her head. “I’m confused... you know, really screwing things up all the time. I guess I’m just disappointed with myself.”
“Why?”
“Because, Christ! Mom, I...”
“Go on.”
“It’s the same thing—the theater. I’ve been thinking about it all day.”
She shrugged. “You don’t need that, Chandal. You have a husband. A life. That’s important.”
“It just isn’t fair. The way things turn out.”
“Only God and the Pope know what’s fair.” She smiled and put her arm around her daughter. “So we’ll leave it to them, okay?”
Chandal smiled. “Okay.” For the first time Chandal felt as if she had been able to listen to her mother as a friend.
Her mother leaned over and whispered, “There’s a tall, dark stranger out there. Maybe you can fix me up.” She winked.
“Come on! But I think he’s gay.” She dragged her mother back into the next room.
“They’ve just ruined that word. Ruined it. When I was young—we were all gay.”
Chandal laughed. It’s your party, so have fun, she ordered herself. Function! It’s not polite to stand around at your own party. Suddenly, she was ravenous. Recklessly, she dipped chunks of raw cauliflower into French onion dip, eating one after another. “Delicious, Mom!”
“But you’re sick to your stomach. You just took an Alka Seltzer....”
“The best way to treat an upset stomach...” announced Chandal, filling a plate with a hot Mexican casserole, “...is to ignore it.” She giggled. “Momma, will you look at that man kneeling in front of Sissy? Just look at them. Sissy’s finally found a man to give her the respect she demands.”
Her mother sniffed. “Chandal, any fool can see the man’s simply looking up her dress.”
Chandal laughed so hard she choked and set down her plate. “Momma!” she gasped when she could talk. “Did anybody ever tell you what a funny lady you are? And did I ever tell you how much I love you?”
Her mother’s eyes blinked and then filled with unexpected tears.
“No crying,” whispered Chandal, kissing her swiftly on the cheek. “Now watch me dance, Momma. You’ll see you didn’t waste all your money on those lessons.”
She danced to every kind of music. Hair flying, skirt whirling, her body alive with the music. Like a dancer. A real dancer.
“You oughta be on Broadway, Chandal,” puffed Billy Deats, jumping around in her wake, trying to keep up with her. “Hey, I don’t know how to do this dance. Slow down! Show me what you’re doing.” He looked funny, Chandal giggled to herself. Funny, nice Billy Deats.
Everything was going very well. The dancers were dancing and the talkers were talking and the drinkers were drinking. Sissy was dancing, looking very pleased with the bald-headed man, the man who’d been kneeling in front of her.
Chandal danced the tango with the lights turned down and a carnation in her teeth because they hadn’t bought roses. Her partner was an effeminate man, tall and thin, a man who knew how to move. He sold water beds in Greenwich Village. Everybody had stopped talking to watch while they danced their way across the floor, moving together as one person. Tonight she was dancing the tango like a panther, twisting, feeling her body, the music inside her blood. When the last note sounded, they gathered their energy together and struck a powerful pose and the applause and the whistles rang out. Looking over the sea of cheering faces, her elation dived into sharp disappointment. Justin had missed it. Why, he hadn’t even looked up. He was sitting on the sofa, his face turned away, staring at Magdalen. What could she be saying to him that could be so interesting? The smile fell from Chandal’s lips and she took a quick step in their direction and then stopped, feeling another pair of eyes staring at her. It was Elizabeth, sitting in a solitary corner of the room over by the window, talking to no one, just staring at Chandal in the most curious way. Almost angrily, Chandal joined the small group around the candle. Someone was telling fortunes. Chandal’s was something about great success and money. And something new coming into her life. As if everybody didn’t know that something new was coming into her life!
Billy Deats, captivated by the fortune teller’s large bosom, used the opportunity for wrestling her. “Something new!” he chortled, putting an arm around her shoulders and pretending to crush her. “How’d you get that psychic information, woman?” They fell to the floor laughing and Chandal let her eyes wander back to the sofa. They were still there—poor Justin must be having a terrible evening—being polite to that old woman. Elizabeth still sat, half-asleep, in her chair.
One at a time, people drifted out, some alone, some in twos and threes. Billy Deats left with the longhaired fortune teller. Her mother, pleasantly tipsy, left with the water-bed salesman and his roommate. They promised to put her into a cab. The nice black man took her hand at the door and looked searchingly into her eyes. She smiled back, chin up, telling him by her happiness that everything was really quite all right. Sissy, who made a funny drunk, left on the arm of her new man. Sunglasses at 2:30 in the morning! She left and then came back. She’d forgotten she had a little present for Chandal—a volume of Arnold’s poems. Chandal had to read the one called “The Buried Life.” The man pulled her back out the door by the belt of her coat.
“I’ll call you!” Chandal said to the happy face in the sunglasses. “Just as soon as we get settled, okay?”
Finally, she closed the door and found herself standing alone in the apartment, except for Elizabeth, who had fallen asleep against the steamy window. The woman wore an expression of pain, but the rest of her body seemed totally at peace.
From the kitchen, Chandal heard a faint voice. Magdalen, she thought, and moved closer to the swinging door. The voice continued. “That’s possible. I understand. But we must be better acquainted. We’ll meet tomorrow evening at the same hour.”
Through the opening in the door, Chandal saw Justin seize the woman’s hand. He was about to kiss it, but Magdalen held his hand firmly, pressed it, and said, “Good night.”
Justin turned sharply to see Chandal standing behind him. “Oh, honey—has everyone gone?”
“Yes.”
Magdalen laid her hand upon Chandal’s face. “You are very pretty,” she said. Her touch was soft and old and memories of childhood rose in Chandal’s mind. The mean woman next door who raised the sweet grapes and getting caught robbing her vines! The woman’s hand against her face. “What a pretty child.” The hand drew back and slapped hard.
“Good night,” said Magdalen, and the two sisters left the apartment.
“Thanks for coming.” Justin closed the front door. Flipped the lock.
“Did you have to invite Lizzie Borden and her sister?” Chandal was surprised at her angry tone.
“What?”
“Who invited them, anyway? I was right here when you telephoned.”
Justin shrugged, dropped into the leather chair. “I met Elizabeth at the store. I figured—why not?”
“And so you’re pleased with yourself?”
“They had a good time.” He kicked off his shoes.
“Christ!”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Jealous?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said promptly.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I keep thinking about those damn butterflies!”
“Butterflies?”
“Horrible.”
“You said they were pretty.”
“Yes. Pretty horrible.”
“Why are you so angry?”
“All I could think of was an insect holocaust!”
“Come over here.” He held out his arms.
“No.”
“Del.”
“Up yours!”
“I love you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Come on, let’s go to bed.”
He laid grinning in the darkness. “Del?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think her axe is very sharp?”
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
They kissed each other lightly, too tired for a full kiss. Seconds later they were both asleep.
Deep in the night, Chandal dreamed of the silver bell around which the wind roared—not a leaf stirring on the branch from which it hung. The bell moved slowly, pitching in the wind, changing shape. Yes, there was something forming, a dark shape, like a body. The image was distorted at first, but, yes—she believed that it was a body, a human body, a corpse of a young child, its eyes opened wide like silver dollars, shining, sparkling, yet so still, helpless, floating out somewhere in the distance. Chandal shuddered when she realized that its arms were not the arms of a child at all, but rather huge muscular arms which had been grafted into place. She could feel the infant’s body pressing in on her, moving closer, pressing its full weight upon her eyelids as she tried to open them in panic. She could see her own body now; her breasts had grown enormous, her stomach and abdomen were swollen, protruding like gigantic mountains, her legs as round as barrels. She could feel the baby clawing at her breasts now, chewing on them—violently sucking them, the tiny blue veins running to her nipples about to explode. She could see the baby’s huge hands fondling them, caressing them, squeezing them hard, harder—felt the pain shoot between her eyes, in her chest, between her legs, heard it cry “Momma!” as her body jerked in rapid succession, in spasms, as she listened to the long, agonizing moan that dissolved into softness, into pleasure, into ecstasy. Then, slowly at first, tiny fragments of sunlight broke through, soft slivers of light, reducing the images to shadows, thin shadows, transparent, gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
MOVE IT, WILL YOU? GODDAMN IT—IT’S YOUR JOB. I’m Doing Both Your Job And Mine!”
“Bullshit!”
Chandal stirred. Construction workers were yelling again under her window. Two days in a row. People sure get mean on the job, she thought. Her arm reached out for the silver-belled alarm clock, but didn’t quite make it. She groaned and sat up. Nine A.M. Wearily, she collapsed back on her pillow and watched the thin slivers of daylight flicker through the shutters. She lay still wondering if she was the same person. Yes—the same person plus one new person. She smiled and patted herself companionably on the stomach.
Beside her, Justin slept on.
Chandal felt spacy now, and it felt good, like being slightly intoxicated. Smiling, she studied the flowershaped shadow on the ceiling. Raised her hand into the air as if to reach out and touch it. Slowly, her hand seemed to separate from the rest of her body. It appeared to have a life all its own. In a flood of warmth, she found that her hand was touching her breasts and nipples and it felt pleasant. For the first time in days, she wanted Justin to make love to her.
In this frame of mind, she stepped out of the bed into the chilled air of an apartment without heat.
“Damn!” She felt the radiator. It was ice cold. She turned away to look at herself in the mirror. The person who stared back at her seemed lost, far away.
Serious blue eyes, so blue they looked almost navy-blue; fine brown hair, so straight that even a perm wouldn’t curl it for long; fair skin, lightly dotted over with freckles. An attractive, slender girl. But so solemn! I’ll fix you, she thought. She stuck out her tongue. The person glared back at her. Then she scowled. But the face she saw scared her. Maybe it was the sudden distortion of it; she wasn’t sure. She turned away from the mirror—and moved out of the room, away from the stranger she had created.
Wearing jeans and a reindeer sweater, she sat loose-limbed on the arm of the couch, holding her coffee cup for warmth. She gazed from the window and watched the people on the street below. It seemed as though they were following after each other in slow motion. She yawned and was debating whether to let Justin sleep a while longer when the doorbell rang. It was Lois Yates, a likable fat woman of forty—polite, but frank. She lived across the hall with her burly husband and two children, a young boy and girl of nine and ten, so well brought up that they passed unnoticed, like two party dolls.
“Well, we’re down to three. You, us, and the dog lady downstairs. Those damn dogs!” She wandered past Chandal into the clutter of the living room—paper plates, flat champagne, and overflowing ashtrays. Pointedly, she looked at the cake box from Schrafft’s that had been made into a miniature airplane and set, belly up, on the coffee table. “Those damn dogs!” she repeated.
“I know,” said Chandal, uncomfortable at not having invited her to the party.
“When are you leaving?”
“Five days—the fourteenth.”
“You’ve definitely settled, then?” She tapped a Salem from her half-filled pack.
“Yes. We took six thousand dollars.”
“I’ll die first—‘that man’ has got to come across with a lot more than that to get me out.” For ten years, Lois had referred to Howard Bender, the landlord, only as “that man.”
“Have you heard from Mr. Bender?” Chandal emptied an ashtray into the wastepaper basket and held the ashtray out to Lois.
“No. The last thing we did yesterday was file harassment papers against him. I mean, just look at what’s left of our building.”
Chandal had already begun to miss their apartment. It was small, only two rooms, but Justin and she had created a home. On either side of the fireplace sat two stuffed chairs, handsome and comfortable. The modern couch, designed by Krieger, sat back in the alcove in direct contrast to the stained-glass windows. These windows held gleaming glass figures of a different age and came to life each day with the morning light. Completely filled with plants, the alcove resembled an antique greenhouse. The effect lasted for only about an hour, but it was long enough. Chandal wondered, looking at the alcove now, if perhaps the landlord would sell them the stained glass for their new apartment.
