The Book Borrower (31 page)

Berry seemed surprised when they returned, and surprised by the hamburger.

—You didn't remember I said I'd bring one? Ruben said.

—I thought it was a hamburger in theory only.

—No.

—Your son stole my car. I suppose you owe me a hamburger.

Ruben felt rage outline the veins in her arms, then recede. They drove home in separate cars. Ruben listened to the radio. The news from Zaire was now the news from Congo. Deborah had been right. The rebels who'd liberated the country had also massacred refugees. Now the U.N. was investigating.

—You were right to worry, she said to Deborah, who couldn't hear her, a fact she never doubted. People had said to her, Now Deborah will always be with you: meaning, apparently, that Ruben could pretend to talk to Deborah and pretend to hear her answers. But when she did that, she had at her disposal only her memory of what Deborah had said in the past. If Deborah were alive, she would not say exactly what Ruben imagined she might say. She never had. Ruben found she was imagining telling Berry all this. She'd missed the rest of the news, with all this thinking.

In the morning Harry said, We have to make an arrangement. A social worker . . .

—She's not senile.

—She can't care for herself.

—The dog's death upset her.

—Or she couldn't remember where the dog food was, and he starved to death.

—I don't think it's that bad, said Ruben. There was a bowl of dog food in the kitchen.

—It might sometimes be that bad.

For three days Ruben led her life and then she went over to Berry's. She offered to take Berry shopping and was pleased when Berry said no.

—I have food, she said, but no dog and no work.

Again, Berry was wearing the pink housedress. What do you do all day? Ruben asked. The house had no television, and the books didn't look as if anybody read them.

—I remember my life, Berry said, but her voice didn't have its usual boldness. Today I remembered the Second World War, which changed everything. I would enjoy reading, but I've lost my reading glasses. And my teeth. I've lost my teeth.

Her jaw looked sunken. Ruben helped search for Berry's teeth in dresser drawers and desk drawers and cabinet shelves. The clean clothes were where Ruben had last seen them, and she helped put them away.

Harry said, that night, I bet she doesn't even have a will.

—She's poor.

—How do you know? She could be rich. And she has the statues. There don't seem to be any relatives. What will happen to the art?

The next time, Ruben asked Berry questions. The gallery in New York no longer existed. Berry had no kin. Ruben had requested a glass of water, and they sat in Berry's kitchen like two ladies. The white-haired woman opposite her leaned forward, but her back was straight. Her hair was wild. Ruben could believe she'd been a political activist, despite the pink housedress.

—Don't you have another sister?

—Dead.

—The one who wrote the book?

—The one who wrote the book.

The next time Ruben visited, a week later, Berry was wearing the green smock, and that made Ruben feel better. It had been among the dirty clothes. Everything made sense. She didn't wear it when it was dirty, but did when it was clean. In the smock, Berry looked like a crazy artist, which was much better. Are you eating? said Ruben pleasantly.

—No, I'm talking to you.

—I mean in general. Have you eaten today?

—Pears. By now it was early fall. Stevie had come home and was gone again. Mary Grace and Peter were still silent and gone. Pears were a good choice in the fall. Now Ruben could smell them. She said, Did someone bring you pears?

—I bought them. I bought a big bag of pears.

The kitchen was bare but clean. Not much cooking went on there, but a plastic bag of yellow Bartlett pears was on the table. Some had brown spots. Ruben washed the pears, cut out the brown spots, and found a bowl. She put them into the refrigerator.

—What else do you eat?

Berry didn't answer and Ruben snooped in the cupboards. Berry ate breakfast cereal.

Ruben went home and called a state agency. A social worker called her back. Suddenly Ruben was a primary caregiver. The social worker was surprised that Berry lived alone. Possibly she should be living in Ruben's house? Wait a minute, said Ruben.

There followed telephone numbers and kindness. Even the social worker, once she got the point, was kind. People were surprised that Ruben was making these calls about someone who wasn't her relative. She's my friend, Ruben said. Don't friends count? She'd get off the phone and cry about Deborah. Friends count. She thought of the hospital where friends didn't count.

—Friends count, she said to Berry.

—Of course. Once, a friend died for me. I have a corn on my toe, but the drugstore has shut down.

Ruben bought corn plasters and washed Berry's feet and ap-plied the thing in the package, with Berry's stubby foot on her lap. Drying Berry's foot, she felt happy.

It turned out there was money. Berry had a bankbook, and the bank had not closed its doors.

Harry said, We need a lawyer. She has to make a will, and she ought to give somebody power of attorney. Probably us.

Later he said, She's our hobby.

Washing a few dishes, one day, in Berry's kitchen, Ruben felt the entire pain of not knowing where her child was. Mostly, she decided, she felt it half strength. Bad enough.

Harry said, We have to call Jeremiah. Jeremiah is a lawyer. He's that
kind
of lawyer.

She said, Jeremiah has been trying to find Berry for years and years.

—What do you mean?

They were in bed, interrupting themselves during the preliminaries. Ruben sat up. In her youth, Ruben said, needing to keep laughter from her voice because the story made her nervous, Berry was a revolutionary. I think I told you.

—I don't think so.

—I heard the story years ago, but I didn't make the connection. Then she told my class. Ruben interrupted herself. Oh— that's why I didn't tell you. It was the day the kids left. Anyway, she blew up a trolley, I think. There's a book about it, which, Toby Ruben said archly, I have been borrowing from Jeremiah for more than twenty years. She'd imagined the first words she'd read if she ever opened the book: Deborah didn't love you, and Peter and Mary Grace are dead.

—What do you mean, a book? Where is this book?

—It's there.

—Where?

—On the bottom shelf, on the right. The last book. That black book next to the green one.

—That book? Harry started to get up.

—Hold my breasts, said Ruben. Lie here. She spread her legs, and when Harry moved onto her, she clamped her legs over his back. Harry was buying the city a playground that fall. He was happy and excited, and she liked a happy husband.

She still didn't read the book. Days passed. She didn't call Jeremiah. The children didn't phone. These days, when she looked inside herself, someone was still screaming, but Ruben cried mostly in the bathtub and when she was alone in the house, or even in the store, in the back room, knowing Archie was hard of hearing. Soon he'd retire; sometimes Ruben thought she might take out a loan and buy the store. How unfeeling to consider changing her life without Deborah's knowledge.

—Did you call Jeremiah? Harry sometimes asked.

At the store, now, she usually selected the stock. One afternoon Ruben was arranging a display of new bowls, terra-cotta with blue enamel inside. She placed them near a shelf of dishes by a local potter whose work she liked; thick glazes, secret color rising to the surface. She wondered if the potter made pitchers, and the words drawing pitchers, drawing pitchers played tauntingly in her mind. It took her two days to place them: Jeremiah and the art class. She remembered that Jeremiah was in pain and was funny; he was not merely difficult.

So at last, that evening, she called him. Dialing, she rehearsed: she'd explain who Berry was, ask about a will, apologize for keeping Berry to herself. The voice saying hello sounded like Deborah. Who's this? Ruben said.

—Mary Grace Laidlaw. Toby?

—How long have you been there? She was amazed, hurt.

—A week.

—Why didn't you call me?

—Oh, Toby. Because I don't know where Peter is.

—But I haven't known where Peter is for months.

—But I did know.

The girl was crying. Mary Grace, Ruben said. Mary Grace. She was angry, then merely needy. Mary Grace, come to my house. Now.

Okay. The phone was clicked down and a minute later it rang. I don't have a car. Come get me?

—I'll meet you in front of the house in five minutes.

Young people have no strength. She and Deborah used to walk the six blocks over and over, back and forth. Ruben waited in her car at the curb, and then Mary Grace came out of Deborah's old house and ran down the porch steps and got in. She turned to face Ruben, who was held back by her shoulder harness. Ruben released the harness and took Mary Grace in her arms. Mary Grace's hair was short. Ruben ran her hand over it. You cut off your hair?

—One sad day.

—Where have you been living?

—My father doesn't open the curtains, said Mary Grace quickly. Now and then he calls a cleaning service and they push everything aside and vacuum the middle of the rooms. Things are piled on things.

Ruben drove home. It was early in the evening on a Thursday in October, and Harry wouldn't be home for a while. It was dark. Ruben brought Mary Grace into her kitchen. Sit, she said. Talk to me. Mary Grace sat on one of the kitchen stools, and Ruben took off her coat and began cooking: eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms. On the counter were three toma-toes so red their skins were beginning to stretch and wrinkle, and a lot of basil and parsley she'd bought because she'd been too sad in the spring to grow any.

—Mostly we were in Boston, Mary Grace said now. We sublet a place in J.P. I don't think he loves me anymore.

—You broke up?

—I didn't know he was leaving. He was just gone, one day. I had to tell the lady he worked for. He left while I was out.

—He has Berry's car?

—If it's still working. It wasn't doing so great.

—I thought you went back to school.

—No.

Ruben cut up the vegetables. She couldn't just cook vegetables, though Mary Grace was sometimes a vegetarian. Maybe rice with them . . . She said, Why didn't you call us?

Mary Grace was silent for a long time. Then she said, Peter said you'd be mad about the car, about a lot of things. I think he didn't want to have the conversations you'd have .. .

—But he could have said .. . All I wanted was to know you were alive!

—You thought we were dead?

She considered. Well, no, technically I didn't think you were dead.

—My mom was like that, Mary Grace said. Anytime any-body was ten minutes late, she started planning the music for the funeral. After a while it feels like a person's trying to kill you off. People just don't die that easily.

Ruben clamped her jaw to keep from saying, Your mother did. She knew Mary Grace was thinking it. She said, You're right. We overdo it. Mostly when people are late, they aren't dead.

—Did you ever think what it's like to receive all that worry? I think Peter feels as if there's just too much worry over him in this family. Oh, I don't know what Peter feels. The last week, he hardly talked to me.

—What kind of job did he have?

—Baby-sitting. He took care of two little kids while their mother worked, then he got an older one from kindergarten. Little black kids. Peter likes taking care of people.

—He walked out on them, too? Ruben sat down in the dining room to take in all this information, and Mary Grace began fussing in the kitchen—making herbal tea, Ruben saw. All right. Ruben watched—her vegetables sitting on the counter in pieces. When Mary Grace handed her a mug, she drank. It was a blue mug from the store, and Mary Grace had taken the one that matched it for herself. A middle-sized, chunky girl, she sat on the stool, hunched forward, her short blond hair on her cheeks, blowing on the tea and drinking while watching Ruben across in the dining room, as if to make sure her mother's old friend drank her tea. Ruben drank half of it. Want to walk to the store with me? she said then, standing up and thumping her mug on the counter. We'll get some bread. Cheese. That would be enough supper: vegetables and rice and bread and cheese. They put on their coats and Ruben stuck her wallet in her pocket. Now they walked side by side in the dark. It was cold and Mary Grace walked fast; she did have strength. She was taller than Ruben, with long swinging arms and a good smell, probably shampoo. She had on her green parka, getting old and saggy now, heavy for October.