The Book Borrower (30 page)

At last came a slide that was easy to see; it happened to be a dark piece, and it showed up on the screen.

—Is that Barbara Hepworth again? Ruben said.

—No, that's mine, said Berry. It won a prize.

The sculpture was a tall perforated disk. A tree stood near it, so they could see how tall.

Berry slapped her stomach. Let it in and see if it wants any-thing, she said. See if it makes you feel good. And the students began slapping their stomachs and joking.

—That one tastes good, said Lorna.

—Tastes! Louise said.

—For me, everything is food, Lorna said in the half dark. Did you see in the paper? An old man with three or four kinds of cancer wanted to die, so he asked his doctor for medicine to die. The doctor said no, he'd go to jail. Then the doctor said to the old man, Some people starve themselves, and the old man says, But eating is my greatest pleasure.

Berry ignored her, but three or four of the women commented on the morality of physician-assisted suicide and the pleasure of eating.

—I mean, said Lorna, he didn't want to die at all!

Ruben wasn't sure. She didn't know. Would Deborah have— Oh, enough about Deborah.

The students began asking Berry questions. She was sitting now, on one of the desks, a dim slide forgotten behind her. They wanted to know how she worked, and Berry talked about carving stone and casting bronze. These days she sometimes fooled around with cardboard and string. You can make garbage sculpture, she said.

—I think sculpture must be fun, Deirdre said.

Berry looked happy for the first time. Oh, it is fun. It is fun, she said, almost kindly. She said, Resistance. Resistance is fun. Garbage, wool—that's all right when you're old. But when I was young! Well, you see, I had no money when I was young. I worked—I was even a prostitute, she said. A whore.

Ruben wondered if it could be true, but she had learned that sometimes things are true after all.

—Could I ask a question? said Louise. Why did you tell us about your son? I've been thinking about it all this time.

There was silence for a while, and Ruben noticed that the boy showing the slides had sat down, put his arms down on the desk, and lowered his head in the dimness.

—Why did I tell you about my son? Berry said. She looked confused. Maybe she couldn't remember talking about her son. But surely she remembered. Ruben thought everything Berry did was for effect and she was in charge of everything. It's wicked to be in charge of everything, she decided. Good people leave holes. And she thought of the holes in Berry's sculptures.

—You can't be good if you want to be an artist, Berry said. If I had been good, I'd have stopped doing art and he wouldn't have died, but I am not good.

—That makes no sense, said Norma firmly. No sense. Berry was not in charge. Norma was. Suddenly Ruben remembered it was the last class, and soon she'd lose these students. She felt great love, just then.

She had taught them nothing.

Maddy said, You had no reason to think it would help your son if you gave up art.

—Art doesn't go by reason, Berry said.

—I don't think you're like that at all, Norma said. You want us to think you have no morals, but I bet you do, like anybody.

Berry was grinning and looking out the unshaded third window. Look! she said. Look! And everyone who could not see what she saw jumped up, Ruben included. Suddenly they were not a class but a little crowd, standing behind Berry, who was looking out the window. The window washer, obscured by the lowered shades, had made his way along the opposite building with its huge blank windows until Berry could see him, now directly opposite the unshaded window, moving his squeegee up and down.

Everyone watched. Nobody objected that he wasn't worth looking at. I do like his butt, said June.

—If you notice, Berry said, he works high up on scaffolding without a belt. I used to do that. I installed some pretty tall things. I never used a belt.

—But the platform is pretty big, Ruben said.

—Not that big, Berry said. I will show you that artists have no morals. I'll startle him, and he'll fall.

At that she moved forward, clapping her hands. The window washer didn't turn or hear her. She opened the window, leaned out, and bellowed joyfully, You have a nice butt!

Maddy yelled, I'm calling the police! and rushed from the room.

Now Berry was continuing to yell, I command you to fall! I command you to fall! The window washer turned his head and everyone screamed, and he waved his arm amiably and went back to work. Ruben moved forward and closed the window. She began to talk about the assignments she was returning. Her hands shook and her throat felt strange. Maddy came in with a security guard, and Ruben told him nothing was wrong. It was a misunderstanding. She apologized.

—No problem, he said. Anytime you think you might need me, it's always better to call. He left.

There was a long, exhausted silence. Everyone including Berry and Ruben sat down and looked thoughtful. Ruben wondered if the class might be over.

Then Norma said, Could I ask a question?

—Certainly, said Berry.

—Do you have a religion? I mean, it's hard for me to understand how somebody with a religion could do what you just did.

The class murmured.

—I am Jewish, said Berry, and Ruben said, You
are
? out loud.

—Not all Jews are named Rabinowitz, said Berry.

—But I wonder about Norma's question, said Ruben. I'm not sure I accept the assumption behind Norma's question.

—You don't think that was terrible? Norma said. Trying to kill the window washer?

—I'm not sure, said Ruben. And I'm not sure what it had to do with religion.

—No religion in the civilized world would sanction that, said Norma. I'm not Jewish, but I assure you no rabbi would say it was all right to do that. He could have been killed.

—It's not easy to commit murder, Berry said. I ought to know about murder. I was once accused of it.

—Did you go to prison? asked Louise.

—I was acquitted. It's ironic that you ask about my religion. At that time, because I was Jewish, it was thought I was more likely to have done it.

Something stirred in Ruben. There was something she was supposed to remember.

Berry said, They called me the Little Jewish Anarchist. Do you know what an anarchist is?

The class did not know.

—The screaming headlines said it was someone who believes there should be no government, Berry said, which is not what I believed. Believe. I am an anarchist because I don't believe it's possible—Ruben was listening closely; there was something she needed to find out—I don't believe it is possible to enact fair laws and follow them, in the personal soul or in the state. It isn't possible to decide in advance. That's why I became a sculptor and made these pieces. People think some of them are in favor of revolution. But they're all just what they're made of.

—What was your name, before it was Berry Cooper? said Ruben. She was standing up. Why did she think Deborah would return from the grave when Berry answered?

—It was Gussie Lipkin, said Berry, turning in her seat and grinning. A good Jewish name. I'm a famous person. You've heard of me.

—How do you know? said Ruben.

—My sister wrote a book about me, Berry said. She called me Jessie in the book. I saw it in your house. It's on the book-case in your bedroom. On the right. On the lowest shelf.

Ruben listened. She didn't reply, but she heard herself make an odd noise. Then she hugged all her students and said goodbye. She remembered the article about Gussie Lipkin that Jeremiah had given her, years ago, when they took the drawing class. Once in a while, Ruben took out a drawing pad and drew something, still. She remembered searching for that book, helped by Stevie, who was about eight. She'd never found it. She'd given up. Now she bundled Berry home and didn't want to talk, but before Berry got out of the car, she said to Ruben, who was thanking her for coming, trying to make it sound as if ordinary things had happened, You know, I've never had children.

—But your son! said Ruben. Your son the robber, who died.

—Yes, I was tempted to save him by giving up art, said Berry. But that wasn't my son. That was your son.

She got out of the car. Stunned and full of rage, Ruben still did not drive away, but conscientiously watched the short, sturdy old woman in her green smock until the door had firmly closed behind her. Then Ruben drove home.

Mary Grace was sitting on Ruben's porch steps. Ruben sat down beside her, too exhausted to invite her in, inquire whether Harry was around, or even take out her key. Mary Grace leaned her big yellow head against Ruben's chest.

—What?

—I'm sorry.

—About what? as Mary Grace snuggled into her chest like a baby. Sweet darling, about what? Ruben stroked and fondled her favorite of Deborah's daughters, the one she'd always wanted.

—Didn't Cooper tell you?

—What? She told me plenty.

—I've been thinking all morning she'd yell at you because Peter is leaving her.

—Peter is leaving her?

—Peter and I are going back to Massachusetts. We're going to get jobs and in the fall I'll go back to school.

—When are you going?

—Today. I sneaked over here. He didn't want to say any-thing to you. He's probably furious with me. I had to tell you.

—But why?

—I have to get away from here. I should go back to school. But we can't be apart, she said.

—But where will you live?

—Oh, we'll stay with friends until we find something. Mary Grace sat up and patted her hair and clothes back into shape, all set for new seriousness.

—What about Berry?

—He told her this morning. He went to her house at seven o'clock this morning and quit. She'll be all right. But he took her car. We're just borrowing it. He kept the key, and we went just now, when we knew she'd be at your class, and took it. She doesn't need it. She's less helpless than she lets on. She's the kind who lands on her feet.

—He told her this morning? said Ruben.

—I should go, said Mary Grace. I'll have to lie when I get back. He wouldn't like it that I told you.

—He just wants us to worry?

—He knew you'd think it was wrong. But it's not that simple, she said, in Deborah's voice, and Ruben got up, hugged the child hard, and entered her house. The key seemed to be in her hand after all. She closed the door with Deborah's child outside it, rather than go on with this conversation for even one more minute. She went up to her bedroom, not stopping to leave her briefcase downstairs. She knelt near the bookcase and drew out
Trolley Girl,
which looked familiar though she hadn't seen it in twenty-two years—a battered black book that smelled of a used bookstore—and sat down on the floor with the book closed in her lap. Deborah was never around anymore when she was needed.

Chapter 5

R
UBEN
told herself she'd return
Trolley Girl
(at last, twenty-two years late), as soon as she had a chance to look it over, but she didn't look it over. It would bring to mind too efficiently the year she'd been lent it. She neither opened it nor returned it to glittery Jeremiah, proprietor of holes in the air, of scooped-out places where Deborah once lived. She didn't want to tell Jeremiah who Berry was, though he'd want to know. Jeremiah was hard. Berry was hard.

Peter and Mary Grace were gone. Teaching had ended for the summer. Even the pottery store would close for two weeks in August, and in July business was slow and Ruben worked fewer hours. She would have liked money for housecleaners and house painters, but she liked time, too, time to paint the first-floor hall and clean; yet she did little. She carried a portable phone around. Stevie came home from school, listened to her speculate on where Peter might be, then returned to college for a summer job leading tours of prospective students. He said, I like telling people things they don't know. I like walking back-wards.

When the four of them had toured colleges, Peter's senior year in high school—a time that felt tiny and distant, as if seen through a long tube—Peter had convinced his little brother, Stevie, that students auditioned to be guides by walking back-wards; he'd enacted elaborate tryouts in motel rooms at night. Now Stevie said, Once, a guide made up crazy statistics and facts.

—You wouldn't do that!

—Of course not. This guy said the biology department kept live leopards for research, and an animal-rights person complained. That's how they caught him.

Stevie was still like a curled fern frond deep in the forest, full of surprises that didn't bring pain. All summer, she didn't hear from Mary Grace or Peter and neither did Stevie. Some-times she tried directory assistance in Massachusetts towns, but nothing.

After Stevie left, Harry walked around the house naked, though someone could come up on the porch and look through the window. She liked the innocence of his genitals, which moved slightly as he walked from his study to the kitchen for ice water or orange juice.

—I don't seem to know anything, Harry said. Deborah. Peter. He said, I feel naked. I might as well be naked.

Once he lay on the living room rug on his back, and raised his hairy legs in the air. Come here, he called to Ruben as she passed. She was hot, rushed, on her way to make a phone call. It was Sunday, and she meant to wash the kitchen floor. She stood over him.

—What?

—Take off your clothes and lie with me.

—I don't think I feel like it.

—I don't mean fucking.

Feeling like a girl, though her red hair was gray and her waist was thick, Ruben took off her clothes, and stepped out of her sandals. She lay down and felt the rug on her bottom, and began laughing. Coached by Harry, she scooted closer to him, and they raised their legs between them and pressed their buttocks and then the soles of their feet together. And laughed.

—What gave you the idea? she said.

—An ad for women's tights, he said. The bottom half of two women.

Reading, Ruben would interrupt herself to think of Deborah, but once when they went to a film she forgot Deborah while it was on the screen and remembered her only in the lobby. Deborah was excluded forever from seeing this or any other movie. Ruben herself would die at some point and see no more movies, while other people would go on making and seeing movies, but that knowledge didn't change the desolation of Deborah's exclusion.

One day in August, Rose was in town and came to see Ruben. They drank iced tea and talked stiffly about Deborah. How's your dad? Ruben said, and Rose shook her head back and forth. He blames you, she said. Rose looked older than she was. She had little blondish curls with a ribbon in them that made her look like a middle-aged woman pretending to be a girl.

—Because Deborah died?

—Of course not. Because Mary Grace dropped out of school.

—Isn't she going back to school?

—I don't think so, said Rose.

Sitting cross-legged on her dining room chair with her bare legs under her, Ruben felt young, foolish, and desperate, wanting to defend love, to defend Peter and Mary Grace. Rose wore a cream-colored long-sleeved shirt, despite the weather, and now she unbuttoned the cuffs and rolled them up slowly, looking and smoothing while Ruben admired and disdained this process, and both of them stopped speaking as if it required concentration.

—M.G. was talking about nursing school, according to Dad, Rose said eventually. But he doesn't think she meant it.

—She told me she was going back to college.

—Maybe she thought you wanted to hear that. Dad thinks she conned you into lots of stuff. Ruben was stung.

—He said she didn't talk to him the entire time she was home. He doesn't know how she spent her time.

—She helped Peter.

—Caring for that senile old lady?

—She's not senile. She's an artist.

Jeremiah would recognize the name Berry Cooper, or possibly just Berry or Cooper, even after so many years. Given time, she and Deborah might have remembered together. Apparently Mary Grace had never said the name to Jeremiah.

Berry wasn't senile, or even, in truth, terribly awful. The window washer had not died, and it wasn't Berry's fault, exactly, that she had been the subject of a book lent to Ruben by her dead friend Deborah, though it was hard not to blame Berry, even to blame her for Deborah's death, as if she'd sculpted Deborah and thrown the piece out the window, where it would fall as the window washer might have fallen.

Thinking about falling, Ruben wondered if the huge head with the conical nostrils had broken through the floor yet. It was not Deborah's head, Ruben knew that perfectly. The next day in the store, as she stood waiting, one foot out of her sandal, while a fussy man examined teapots, Ruben made up her mind (stroking the floor with her bare toes, though she'd picked up splinters that way before) to close early, drive past Berry's place, and see what had become of the old woman and her laundry. It was the laundry nagging at her, as it had nagged at Harry last winter.

And she did. Nobody answered the doorbell, but the door was unlocked. The head had not fallen through the floor. As before, the door opened only partway, because of the head. The head frightened her; the protruding tongue, this time, seemed not sexy but lewd. The house smelled stale and dry. Beyond the head was the blue rock, smaller than in memory. An intruder, Ruben was quite afraid, but the head still had the power to distract and please her. The air was less emptied of Deborah with these stone objects in it. Berry's windows were closed, and in the old summer air all the heavy pieces looked dirty. On the floor was a twisted green blanket, and Ruben wondered where the dog was.

—Berry! she called. She listened hard. The house didn't feel empty; but what did she mean by that thought?

She was afraid to leave the room where she stood, where the head and the rocks stared back at her. She didn't want to turn her back on the big things in this room. At last she sat down on the floor. She wondered whether she'd eventually just get back in her hot car and drive home, but after twenty minutes or so, she thought she heard sounds, maybe a toilet flushing, which pleased her so much that she understood she had feared finding a corpse. More time passed, and then—slowly, slowly— Berry came down the stairs.

 

Ruben made noise. She went to stand below as Berry's legs and torso appeared. It's Toby, she shouted into the dimness.

The white-haired old woman who descended was not wearing her green smock. Instead she had on a flowered cotton housedress in pink and red, which made her look more like a regular old lady. Her hair had grown out a little. For the first time, she looked Jewish—maybe because now Toby Ruben knew she was Jewish. She looked like Ruben's aunt or her grandmother—or even Ruben's mother.

—My little dog died, said Berry. She spoke in her usual firm voice.

—It was a big dog, Ruben couldn't keep from saying. Then she said, I'm sorry. When did he die?

—Last night.

—But where is he?

—Upstairs.

—I came because I was worried about you, Berry, said Ruben. Are you all right?

—Your son stole my car, said Berry.

—I know. I'm sorry.

—I'm going to prosecute, Berry said.

—But what about the dog?

They climbed the stairs together. Berry smelled not quite clean. The dog was not in the front room, with the warlike sculptures made of metal tubes. The second room, where Ruben had never been, was full of dilapidated wooden bookcases filled with books, and more books on the floor, not new paperbacks but old books with black and brown covers. Berry's bedroom, where a single mattress lay on the floor instead of a bed, was otherwise filled with about ten piles of clothes. Ruben was afraid of rotting food and maggots, but she saw nothing like that. The dog lay next to the bed. He looked asleep. Maybe he really had died only the night before. Small piles of dog feces lay about the room.

—I am reduced, Berry said. I am reduced. For the first time, Ruben could tell Berry had shame and self-consciousness like other people, not just theatrical defiance.

She turned and touched Berry's hand. Was he sick? The dog had looked young.

—He must have been, said Berry solemnly.

—We'll take his body to the vet, where it can be cremated, Ruben said.

—Shall we? I think he'd like fire. Better than earth.

The dog was bony. Ruben wondered if Berry had fed him. She brought the green blanket from downstairs, and was trying to make herself lift the dog and put him on the blanket when Berry lowered herself to the floor, and, in a sitting position, leaned over and did it. Ruben wrapped the blanket around him and then she was able to lift him and carry him downstairs. She could hear Berry coming down behind her, but instead of waiting, she reached under the dog to turn the doorknob and open the front door. The sunshine outside seemed harsh and startling. Ruben wished she'd opened the trunk of her car in advance. She had to lay the dog on the sidewalk, then go back inside and squeeze past Berry, who was coming down with one hand flat against the wall, the other clutching the banister, then clutching it lower down. Ruben put her hand on Berry again to make sure she didn't jostle the old woman. She had left her purse in the room upstairs. She couldn't make herself wait, but maneuvered past Berry again on the way down. She had opened the trunk and closed it with the dog inside before Berry came out.

—I forget his name, Ruben said, as they drove away, once Berry had her seat belt fastened around her, which required leaning over her; Berry's body seemed softer and fleshier than Ruben expected; in her mind Berry was all bone, but Ruben felt breasts.

—Sasha.

—Yes. Had she ever known? She said, He wasn't old, was he?

—Dogs have a different system, said Berry.

The people at the vet's office assumed that Berry was Ruben's batty old mother, and patted the old woman's arm but talked sensibly only to Ruben, who paid the cremation fee. Berry said as they left, Appreciation is heartfelt, and the vet's assistant stared. Then Berry walked confidently although slowly, with a slight lurch, to the wrong car in the parking lot, and stood there looking at it until Ruben came up behind her and put her arm on the flowered pink shoulder. Berry took Ruben's hand. When she didn't speak, she seemed much older. Ruben got her into the car and walked slowly around to the driver's side. When we get back, I'll help you clean up that dog shit, she said, turning the key. She was not such a nice person as this. She had a kindness defect.

The shit was dry and not disgusting, but hard to scrape off the floor, though Ruben had found some rags and a knife. She looked over the piles of clothes, far too many for her washing machine. Berry had not followed her upstairs. There was a phone on the floor near the mattress and Ruben phoned Harry, who was home from work by now. He said, This I need in my otherwise perfect life?

—I need help carrying all the dirty clothes down the stairs.

When Ruben came downstairs with the first load, she left it on the floor near the staircase and ventured into the kitchen, where Berry was eating a bowl of cold cereal. At different places in the kitchen were three unmade sandwiches: two slices of bread, side by side. Next to one was an open jar of grape jelly. Harry arrived. They put the laundry in his car.

—Shall I bring you a hamburger, Berry? said Ruben.

—With ketchup.

—We're going to do your laundry.

—I miss Sasha, Berry said.

Harry said, Was Sasha the dog?

—Sasha the dog. A pile of ashes, like many of my friends.

Toby and Harry Ruben commandeered seven washing machines in a Laundromat. Toby Ruben said, I'm just getting off on being Lady Bountiful. They had supper at a Thai restaurant—hadn't they earned dinner out?—then stopped at McDonald's.