Lazaretto (5 page)

“Oh my goodness, will you look at that,” Ann whispered excitedly. “He rather likes me holding him—don't you think?”

“I think he just desired the feel of your closeness,” Meda said, looking away as she spoke, gazing out on the foyer where their teacups nestled together on the half-moon table. Deciding then that she would ask Tom Benin to allow her another month here.

AS ANN HAD
predicted, Tom Benin consented to the additional month. So Meda had time to begin to wean Linc, time to further grieve the loss of her own child. Time to find a word for that feeling that Ann had stirred up in her, that feeling that was too complex to name; it was wearing too many layers, each layer with its own row of buttons, each button difficult to undo. She'd unfastened them in stages: maybe while in the yard, stretching diapers across the line, and a breeze caught her face; or in the parlor, opening the thick drapes at night to let the moonlight in; or while hurrying back from the market stall with the milk that Bram preferred and sudden storm showers soaked her to her skin. She picked through the layers, gave them names—resistance, fear, agitation, excitement, esteem, affection. She'd not moved beyond affection.

Then, late one night, Ann tapped on the parlor door and invited Meda to join her in the foyer for tea. She was distraught because one of the boys had suffered a devastating fall during playtime at school. Ann had just left the hospital and said his condition was grave, that if the swelling in his brain did not go down, he would likely succumb. “They have endured so much at the start of their young lives to be without parents, to be so poor that they must rely on the charity of strangers such as we can amass here to give them at least a semblance of the innocence of childhood, and with all of that to then have a random tragedy such as this . . .”

“Sh, sh, sh,” Meda said. She touched her finger to Ann's lips to quiet her as she watched the feeling finally conjure up a word. Desire. It had been there all along as a shimmery glaze over each of the layers Meda had heaped on, hoping to hide the word from herself. She pulled Ann into a hug, then pulled her all the way into the parlor. She was astounded now at the simplicity, the smoothness of desire as she at last allowed the feel of it against the bareness of her skin. She was simultaneously bold and timid: like a charmer, a vamp, powerful and seductive; like a shy girl just needing softness, just afraid to ask, to accept. She'd never known she could be . . . what? Again there was no word, just a feeling she'd never known, of total release because how could she know it when from the time she was thirteen she'd had to keep it covered, keep it hid, because everything else was taken from her against her will, even her baby, and she believed that had she held her baby, she would have lived. But right now, here with Ann, Meda didn't have to protect her capacity to totally let herself go. For the first time in her life she was untethered, felt as if she were floating outside of herself, unmoored and glittering. If the parlor ceiling were not there she was sure she would have touched the tender ocean that was the night sky, and gone further still, until the shimmers came in waves, and then Meda reached out for Ann and held on.

When Meda's extended stay at the orphanage was approaching its end, they received word that Mrs. Benin had vehemently opposed any arrangement that allowed for the boys to take up residence in her house. Meda was not surprised. Benin's wife was a woman concerned with pedigree and would not have her home sullied on a full-time basis with almshouse orphans. Ann persuaded Meda not to accept that as the final word, insisting that in some particulars Meda had more sway over Benin than she realized, that Meda should use that power to her advantage. “In every instance once you return to that house—” Ann had said, and then
she stopped herself and cringed as if the thought of Meda back at the Benins' pained her. And Meda promised her that she would.

So Meda posited to Benin that she spend Thursdays into Fridays at the orphanage, and then pack the babies up to stay with her at the Benin house over the weekends and extended holidays. She'd considered it a victory when Benin said no to Thursdays, but consented to the rest of the arrangement. She was able to further arrange her errands—she'd suggested a new milliner for Mrs. Benin, one that was closer to the orphanage, as well as a more convenient bootery and haberdasher—enabling her to procure time in between her work duties to check in on the boys. She managed time, too, to steal away with Ann, time that seemed to speed by in an instant, even as it seemed to stand still.

THAT FIRST WEEKEND
back in the Benin house felt like Christmas to Meda as she made up Linc and Bram's sleeping space in her bedroom. She had the best sleep she'd ever had in that house. Even though her sleep was interrupted when they cried to be fed, the air in the room was like velvet, as soft as their quiet breaths—the air not disturbed by her watching for the glass doorknob to turn. Tom Benin never made his way into her room when Bram and Linc were there. It was as if they were her protectors, especially Linc, who still woke more often with his fussy self, his dark eyes always open and shining, the sight of which made Meda giggle as she'd offer him milk. “Save some for your brother,” she'd whisper. She'd decided then that they would be brothers. Even though their looks grew more opposite the older they were. Linc was dark-haired, dark-eyed with ruddy skin and hard-edged features that gave him a dramatic appearance. Bram was blond and freckled with a polite nose and thin lips and ocean-blue eyes. They were close. Babbled to each other before they could even talk;
always aware of the other's presence; always looking around to know where the other was. And always looking for Meda.

When they were old enough to question how they could be brothers and only days apart in age, Meda concocted a fairy tale of a history. Explained to them that they'd been fathered by the same man whose young wife—Bram's mother—was with child when he deployed for battle in July of 1864. He'd taken cannon fire and was being cared for at the home of Union sympathizers and in his delirium mistook the young woman tending to him for his wife. He begged for her to lie down with him, and when she would not—Meda would allow her eyes to mist up at this point in the story—he wailed so plaintively that even the sparrows flocked to the bedroom window, wishing that they could stem his suffering. In the hours before he died, when she was cleaning his wound, she was so taken by the longing in his eyes that she could not deny him. And so, Meda said, as she'd stop as if trying to choke back sobs, he died peacefully that day, leaving another seed—Linc—who would become his second son. Both of their mothers, Meda told them, had died in childbirth.

She could not tell them the truth of their early hours, that one of them had been put out with the trash and almost mistaken for a river rat, and the other came from who-knows-where. So she'd imagined for Linc and Bram a history that they could latch on to, related that history to them over and over as they grew into young boys. Over time, she made that tall tale of a history so real for them that it became part of their fiber, and in the process, part of hers, too, understanding as she did the tragedy of a life with no history at all.

IT HAD BEEN
two years since Sylvia ushered Meda's baby into the world and that image of the baby reaching for its mother still haunted her, lying dormant for months at a time and then emerging, rankling her. It helped that she stayed busy. Between school and hours with Dr. Miss and the social commitments that her mother insisted on, the teas and cotillions and gatherings sponsored by her mother's Ladies' Literary Society, her father's Pythian Baseball Club, her attendance at the grand wedding and anniversary affairs that her parents catered, she had little idle time. And when she did have time not otherwise spoken for, she'd visit with Nevada, to her mother's chagrin, because Maze didn't think Nevada had sufficient pedigree. But even Maze had to concede that Nevada's free-spirited nature might be good for Sylvia, who tended toward the serious. And their affection for each other was palpable. They were close and confiding one minute, sniping at each other the next; they were sisters, without the bloodline.

Right now Sylvia and Maze were in the yard, retrieving clothes from the line. Sylvia had just handed her mother the white gloves her father wore when he set up the tea service. Maze had just placed the gloves in the basket of the folded garb when she gasped and let the shirt Sylvia was handing her fall to the ground. Maze's brother, Mason, had just stumbled into the yard. He dangled a baby, a practical newborn, though to his credit he managed to support the infant's head. “You got to take
her, Maze,” he said, hysteria running through his voice. “Her mother's no good to her, no good at all.”

“What—who—what the—” Maze matched his hysterics with her own. “Where did you get this child, Mason? Who's the mother?”

“Some ole gypsy gal I took up with over on Ridge Avenue. I swear it, Maze, she don't wanna do nothing but drink rye all day long. Liked to roll over on the baby and dern near crushed her. You gotta take her. Please, you gotta help me, just till her mother rights herself, or I figure summin else out. Please, Sister, please.”

Maze's first instinct, before she even considered the baby, was to comment on her brother's diction. She hated that he talked like those black people who'd recently migrated from the fields, even though he was Philadelphia-born and -raised. She'd taken special pride in the fact that the only dirt her hands pushed into was on this patch of backyard land that she and her husband owned that grew the flowers that filled her window planters out front and were the envy of the block. But this situation, with this baby, superseded even his cringe-worthy dialect. “Mason, you are insane,” she said, hands on her hips, as Sylvia hunched her shoulders and gave her uncle a playful, you're-in-trouble-now look. Sylvia was mostly amused by her uncle, and by the ire he was so good at arousing in Maze. “I cannot just take in a baby,” Maze continued.

“You godda, Maze. I swear to you, her momma tain't right in the head.”

“First of all, there is no such word as ‘tain't' used the way you just did. Secondly, Levi and I are preparing for a large job, and this infant certainly cannot join us, and Sylvia has her lessons, and her work with the midwife, which means we are not positioned to help you. We just cannot. How do I even know this child is your blood? Looks like a white child to me.”

“Don't look at her coloring, Maze. Look at her features.” He
turned the baby so that her face was fully visible. “Say hello to your aunt Maze, Vergilina—”

“Vergi-
who
?”

“Vergilina Mayella,” he gushed as he looked at the child and kissed her forehead.

“Leave it to you to come up with such a country name.”

“Forget about the name, Sister, just look at her.” He tried to thrust the infant into Maze's arms, but Maze kept her arms wrapped tight across her own chest. “You cain't deny she my flesh and blood,” he persisted. “Means she yourn, too, Sister.”

The baby flapped her legs and swayed and even in her new life seemed to be laughing. Maze could see that the baby and Sylvia had identical mouths, dark and full. The resemblance softened her, and she thought about what she would do. Only one thing she
could
do. She snatched the baby from her brother. She was careful not to let the newborn-scent catch her nose, because she knew that was such an irresistible scent and she might well jeopardize the catering job that was to be especially lucrative and instead stay here to hold and rock and feed and coddle this apparent niece of hers.

She quickly passed the baby to Sylvia. “She's yours,” she said. “Until your daddy and I return. Perhaps Dr. Miss will allow her to accompany you during your hours there.”

Sylvia took the baby as her uncle bolted from the yard and was halfway through the alley calling out “Thank you” and “Love you” as he went. She sat on the steps under the shirts still hanging on the line and rocked the baby and kissed her forehead and thought back to how old Meda's daughter would be now; two, she would be just about two years old. “She died. The baby died. She died.” Sylvia repeated it to herself now, the way Dr. Miss had made her repeat it over and over until it became a truth that settled into her fiber the way it apparently had for Dr. Miss. As she sat on the
steps now, swaying and rocking this newborn cousin, the drying shirts flapping back and forth in the morning breeze hiding the sun and then allowing its warmth to swipe against her forehead, she fought the urge to cry.

“New life will bring tears to your eyes,” her mother said then. “You can go ahead and allow yourself to get attached. My sense is that your uncle won't be returning anytime soon to permanently claim his child.”

SYLVIA DID GET
attached. Spent every minute of her time with Vergie when she wasn't otherwise occupied with school, or work with Dr. Miss, or the social obligations that her mother insisted upon. Nevada visited frequently, and she fell in love with Vergie, too. Vergie's father popped in with regularity, squeezing his hat between his hands as he apologized for taking so long to work things out. He'd toss Vergie in the air and laugh at her squeals and plant a penny or two in Sylvia's hands, promising more next time, promising also to soon relieve her of the burden of caring for his child—though Vergie was far from a burden to Sylvia, with her bouncy disposition and her wide smile. She had a sass about her that amused Sylvia. Once Vergie learned to string words together—earlier than most children—Sylvia would have to chastise her for publicly mocking people. But later, when she was away from Vergie, she would remember the way, for example, Vergie would pretend to be Clo and plant her hand on her hip, poke out her mouth, stretch her neck the way a turtle does as she imitated the way Clo called up and down the block when her husband went missing. “Seafus! Seafus!”— her voice would rise with each incantation of the name—“now where that dern man done gone and went?” Sylvia would have to stem fits of laughter when she pictured Vergie's antics, especially if she was in class, where she'd dare not jeopardize her reputation as a stellar student.

There was a problem, though, with Vergie the older she grew: she hated her coloring. She was much lighter than Sylvia's mild honey shade; she was even lighter than Maze, who was a blend of yellow and tan. Her hair was thick but straight. “She got white—people hair,” she'd heard so often that she would go into a tantrum, crying that she didn't want white people's hair, or white people's skin. She wanted pretty skin, like Sylvia. Her family often complained of their treatment by white people, and Vergie was afraid that one day her aunt and uncle and Sylvia would tire of her white skin and straight hair and put her out with the trash. She needed reassurance from Sylvia that such a thing wouldn't happen and would cry to Sylvia when she heard people whispering about how she looked. Sylvia would console her, tell her to ignore people when they said such things, that her family loved her just the way she was, and would love her even if she was polka dot. Vergie would laugh at that. Then Nevada would add that most of them teasing her were jealous because they wanted to look like her. “They the type that if they can't be white, they'd settle for mulatto. Want to be anything than what they are, which is colored. But you standing on a higher rung than most of 'em, Vergilina, 'cause you proud that you colored. So anybody try to tell you otherwise, you tell them that you got as much claim to the race as Blue-Black Bob.” Vergie would ask who Blue-Black Bob was, and Nevada would say she'd never made his acquaintance but he had a heck of a name.

Vergie wanted to be with Sylvia all of the time. She'd try to follow behind her whenever she left the house. Sometimes crying for extended periods after, especially if she had to spend the time with Clo. Her consolation for Sylvia being away for extended times came when her father would show up to take her on week-long fishing trips on the banks of North Carolina, or Virginia Beach, or wherever his newest wealthy lady friend lived. She was in heaven then. Her other consolation came when she could stay with Nevada.

Nevada was a natural consideration to keep Vergie when Sylvia had to travel to Boston on a three-day excursion with the Society for Negro Girls with Promise, when it coincided with an event Maze and Levi were putting on in Connecticut. Maze agreed to the arrangement, but with reluctance. Though Nevada had managed to endear herself to Maze—despite Nevada's reputation as a clam-buster—and Maze even gave in to allowing Sylvia to take Vergie onto Nevada's block, where there were known gambling houses and otherwise undesirables, she was apprehensive about Vergie spending an entire three days there. Plus, she wasn't at all fond of Nevada's grandmother. Not only was Miss Ma unchurched, Maze didn't want Vergie exposed to Miss Ma's uncouth ways: walking through the streets barefoot, her apron wrinkled, her hair not captured in a bun or braid, not even combed through, just out and wild. “Is she mute?” Maze had asked Sylvia once. “I saw her in the fabric store and she communicated more in sighs and grunts than she did with words.” But Sylvia had assured her mother that Miss Ma was harmless; Nevada had been persuasive, too, promising a suitable list of activities for Vergie that included studying her musical scales.

Vergie's excitement was uncontainable. She loved Nevada as if she were her aunt by blood, and she was fascinated by Miss Ma. She'd heard her aunt Maze say that Miss Ma had a mouth shaped like a pipe and Vergie would stare at her, waiting for hot ash to spew from her mouth. She especially looked forward to Miss Ma's fits of laughter, which formed an uninterrupted stream of sound and seemed to come from different places in her throat so that they reminded Vergie of the soprano section of the children's choir mixed with the off-key baritones. Vergie also liked that the laugh came with no provocation. Miss Ma would be sitting in her chair, hemming a petticoat, and out of nowhere would come the laugh, occasioned by whatever was going on in her head
alone. Vergie would sit next to Miss Ma and laugh along with her, until Nevada called for Vergie to help snap peas, or practice words for the spelling bee, or have a dish of cream and berries. “Careful around my grandma,” Nevada would caution. “She doesn't really like people.”

On the final morning of her stay, Vergie woke to the sound of Miss Ma's laughter. She eased through the bedroom so as not to wake Nevada and followed the sound out to the backyard, where Miss Ma sat on the step, cutting a swath of burlap. The air had a cottony feel as Vergie squeezed in next to her on the step and Miss Ma's laughter hung unfinished in the air as she acknowledged Vergie with a grunt, though she did shift herself to allow Vergie room to sit. “What you cuttin'?” Vergie asked.

“What it look like I'm cuttin'?”

“Looks like a sack.”

“Then why you askun if you know aready?”

“Why do you not like people?”

“Like some people.”

“Do you like me?”

“Don' care much for white folk.”

“I am not white.”

“You look it.”

“Well, you look mean.”

“I
am
mean.”

“Why?”

“Just made up that way.”

“Well, I am not made up white,” Vergie said, as she pulled at the ruffled hem of her night slip. “People ought not to say that about me.”

Miss Ma turned to study Vergie, and Vergie thought that her face softened. At least her mouth wasn't as poked out as it usually was. “You got nits in your hair?” Miss Ma asked her.

“Ugh, no! Sylvia and Aunt Maze keep my hair clean.”

“Bet you gonna have nits. All white people get nits in they hair one time or nother, though a nit can't live on no colored scalp.”

“Then they cannot live on mine,” Vergie said with conviction. She folded her arms across her chest and pouted.

Miss Ma laid her scissors in her sewing basket on the next step down. “Lean your head in, lemme see.” Vergie did and Miss Ma ran her hand through Vergie's hair to the scalp. “Now this sure do beat the drum, your hair sure is nappy at the roots. I guess you got some colored in you after all. Anybody call you white gal from here on, you just prove 'em wrong and show off the roots of your hair.”

“I want to show off my roots all the time.”

“Only way to do that is to cut all your hair off,” she said as she reached into her sewing basket and pulled out a spool of thread and a thick embroidery needle.

Vergie eyed the scissors resting in the basket. “I wish my hair was cut all the way off.”

“You talking crazy talk, you got a nice suit of hair, let it be. You cut it off, you end up looking like a bald-headed boy.” Miss Ma concentrated on guiding the thread through the needle's eye.

“Not if I wear a dress. Could you cut it for me? Please, please, Miss Ma, could you cut my hair off? That way people will know I am really a little colored girl.”

“Stupid people in the world,” Miss Ma said as she licked the end of the thread and then pressed it between her fingers to close the fray. “Can't go cutting your hair off 'cause they wasn't born with sense. Further, I don want your siddity people gettin in my craw 'bout cutting your hair.”