The Ruby Slippers (19 page)

A
ND
now, on a quiet Monday, late afternoon, neither windy nor rainy nor cold, Michael sits staring into space. Benjy has knocked off without any inspection of cartons because, for the moment, his boss has lost all enthusiasm for it. Michael sits at the cash register, not even watching TV, because that, too, has gone by the board. On a shelf under the counter is the one practical concession he has made to recent events: a gun, a snug forty-five, loaded and ready. Not that he ever expects to see the crazy kid again, though that is exactly what now happens. Whilst idly gazing out into the street, he sees Harrison walking straight towards him, large as life – the killing boy, the kissing boy, striding cool and casual to the door. His hand goes beneath the counter and rests across the gun. Harrison pushes open the door, wipes his feet, unzips his jacket like a friend just dropped by, and even nods at him in an everyday kind of way. Michael twitches to see how this will unfold, his hand curling around the pistol-stock, turning it to a more useful position. ‘Hi,’ says Harrison, as if catching up with an old friend. ‘Now, listen to me . . .’ And then, as cool as you like, he lays it down, sets it out – the situation as he sees it – how he knows that they have the ruby slippers and knows how much they are worth, and how the two of them are guilty as sin. But Michael’s guilt is weaker than his anger at this boy: ‘You must be insane. Insane! Do you hear me?’ he yells, his grip tightening on the gun as he grows madder by the second. ‘You nearly killed me!’

‘I saved you!’

‘You cheeky piece of—!’

‘Listen to me. I ain’t here to talk about that. I know what you twos are up to and I want my piece.’

‘What the hell you talking about?’

‘You know full well what I talking ’bout; the fucking ruby slippers, the things you two got hid away. That is what I talking ’bout.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Don’t fucking play games! I was there, you fucking old fool. Right fucking there.’

‘What?’

‘OK, listen now. Suppose, just suppose someone was already there in her stinking apartment before the pair of you ever got there. And suppose that same someone hid themselves somewhere, like in a wardrobe, and witnessed the whole sneaky thing. You getting with me?’

Michael is so much ‘with him’ he’s practically having a coronary thrombosis, his hold on the gun limp now, his thoughts racing to keep up, his vulnerability sweat-drenched on his puffy red face. ‘You mean . . .?’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. You starting to see how it is now.’

Appalling, unthinkable is how it is, but even as he stands there twitching, it’s a kind of relief to Michael to know that someone was there to see them do what they did, even if it wasn’t the Lord God.

‘You stole them, man. It’s simple as that.’

Harrison brays out loud to see Michael come over so busted. It’s a full half-minute before the old man finally gets his act together enough to ask, ‘So . . . what you want from me?’

‘That’s simple: seeing as I saved your life, seeing as we two are in the same business of stealing and stuff, I want my cut, man, and I want it fair and square.’

‘And what is fair and square?’

‘You and Mrs Grocer on the one side; me on the other. That come to fifty-fifty.’

Michael is suddenly back in the real world again and furious with it, because the boy’s money-grubbing, so naked and dirty, shows up his own squalid actions for what they are.

‘Now you listen to me,’ he says, pointing his finger in Harrison’s face. ‘Whatever you think you saw, whatever you think is going on and whatever you think these supposed shoes are worth – for something to be worth something, it has to be for sale in the first place, and I don’t remember anyone saying there was any such sale.’

‘Don’t fuck with me! There ain’t no sale? You make sure there is, Grocer Man!’

‘Get outta here!’ rasps Michael, his eyes darting as he sees one of his regulars approaching the shop.

Harrison smiles and heads to the door: ‘Don’t worry, I’m outta here. You fucking sell them shoes or you fucking done for, old man.’ Caring not a jot about the man coming in, he stabs his finger at Michael and has the last word: ‘I saved your fucking life!’ And brushing past the startled stranger, he storms out and away. Michael shakes his head and mutters, ‘Crazy, crazy boy!’ And seeing the customer’s bewilderment, he turns his thoughts to things more in his power to command: ‘So, what can I do for you today, Mr Halliday? The roast beef? Or can I maybe tempt you with the pastrami?’

It’s not Michael’s finest hour. For all of fifteen minutes he feels elated at having seen Harrison off the premises, but as time goes by, he feels more and more steeped in lies and deception, and curses himself for ever having allowed the slippers out of Rosa’s apartment. Only an hour later does it occur to him that had he left them where they were, they would now be in Harrison’s possession and nobody would have been any the wiser.

Trade is dead for all of the last hour before closing. Having little to do, Michael looks around for something to keep him gainfully occupied. He flips on the TV and just as quickly flips it off again – such a God-awful babble lately. But then he remembers an untied thread, and ducks below the counter to come up with Rosa’s old valise. He opens it up again and settles down, still and thoughtful, to examine the contents. The last time he’d looked in here it was at the end of a monumental day and he had been exhausted; now he can go through it with a little more care and attention. Much of the contents is off-limits still – Latvian papers and documents – but there is an interesting thing amongst them: a yellowing but not ancient letter pad of fifty flimsy blue sheets, wrapped round by a rubber band. It’s the kind of pad still used by people who wrote letters before the world stopped writing letters. There is nothing distinguished about it, except for the fact that the words on the cover are in Rosa’s handwriting and in English. What makes Michael sit up, though, is the title: ‘The Life of Rosa Petraidis’.

He reaches into his top pocket for his reading glasses, slips off the rubber band, flips over the cover and begins to read:

I was not always like this. I did not always live in filth. Once upon a time the world was at my feet
.

Writing this I am in hope that words will come which I was never before able to say. The beginning is not so hard and this I write without pain. My name is Rosa Olga Petraidis. With my family I lived in Daugavpils in Latvia and was happy and was never allowed to believe that I was anything but loved. I cannot think of any one thing that darkened my days, although of course my country had been many times close to darkness
.

I lived with my father, whose name was Andrejs, and my mother, Jolanta. She was very pretty and, of course, he was handsome, and both of them came from families with good standing, so they made the perfect couple. He had been at Conservatoire in Vilnius and was a player of piano and composer and always being around with important people in the classical music, and some of them would come to our house and play. It seemed all the time that we were much fortunate in our lives and that we would continue to be blessed with such good fortune
.

At this time, me and my sister Magda, who was four years older than me, wore fine dresses and went to good schools. The idea that we would ever go hungry was absurd, and always there was love. But then my father started to be less successful for reasons that could not be explained, and the concerts and the commissions started to dry up. So he begins to play for cocktails parties and social occasions. But still, from this time I remember only good things, although my mother now was going out sometimes to work as a secretary. Through all of this my father was kind and gracious, and never once did I hear him raise his voice or let loose his temper, but upon occasion I would see in his eyes the sadness of the man who knows his time will not come and is in despair
.

When she was nineteen, my sister Magda left the house and went to Riga to marry a man who’s name was Janis Marcinkus, of whom my parents did not approve. He was in business, importing things, though it was never clear what. I remember him as a kind man, always smiling and making jokes, but it was true he was of a lower class and uneducated and was vulgar of speech, and therefore the marriage was frowned upon
.

One Sunday, when I was twelve, my father was rowing me in a boat on a lake on a perfect day. If you asked me where was this lake or why we were there without my mother, I could not say. But as he was pulling on the oars, my Papa, he collapsed and fell down across the seats and I was unable to do anything. And being unable to row, I fell into a panic, which made the boat go round in circles. When at last another boat came out, he was lying already dead and I was weeping and hysterical. From this moment it seems to me that misfortune came into everything for us, and it was strange indeed because the history of my country seemed also to decline from this time
.

Father left us nothing, and all was turned about because my mother was now the struggling one, having to work like a slave, while it was Janis and Magda who gave the helping hand. They say that beggars cannot be choosers, but my mother remained hostile to Janis, and the more she seemed to despise his ways, the more she seemed to insist on the best in life, enrolling me in a convent school while she worked every hour God sent to pay the fees. And all the time we wore good clothes and ate good food from the best plates. After two years this became impossible and I ended up in a different school that was dirty and noisy, with other children who were rough and who made fun of me because I kept myself so apart from them. They teased me for looking down my nose at them, although it was not really true; I wished only to keep myself from their spiteful ways
.

My mother was penniless now and moved to Riga where Magda and Janis were living. This was a city that was not kind to poor people. All around at this time there was money still, but not for us. She was yet an attractive woman and men were interested, but she was proud and always comparing them with a husband who became more perfect the longer he was dead. To me she became cruel and unforgiving with a harsh tongue, and she began to hold herself apart, as if I was to blame that my father had first been poor and then died. I think perhaps there was a question of her sanity, because there were many times she became hysterical over small things – a crack in a plate, a cushion on a chair out of place, although both the cushion and the chair were threadbare. So now we were a mother and a daughter living in the same house but in different worlds; she retiring into bitterness and self-pity, and me in my room secretly playing my father’s old jazz records over and over. Among these were many of the American jazz – Armstrong and Sidney Bechet and Bessie Smith. They seemed to me to belong to a world that was full of life and colour, the music coming out so easy and rhythmical, but so touching to the soul. Of course much of this music came from pain and suffering, but I hear only the romance and the beauty of it, and I think it is this that first set my imagination going for America
.

It was at this time I refuse to go to the school and started to go anywhere, doing as I wish because my mother did not keep check on me. I was rebellious in spirit, proud and intelligent, but also foolish and seeking out excitement to take away the emptiness. It is this that drove me into the wrong hands perhaps. I cannot talk of this now and there is more to it than is written, but just to say that in all this I decided for my own reasons that I was unwanted, which made me to break out and seek my own way in life
.

■ ♦ ■

‘OK, so tell me, what the hell’s going on?’ Grace’s voice, hard as pebbles, shattering the crystal calm he has been lulled into.

‘Sorry, I was just . . .’

‘What am I, stupid? You think I don’t see, hear nothing? I come up from the stockroom, I see you and that no-good; I hear you trying to keeping it all quiet but waving your arms and shaking your head, and then he goes off mad as hell. I say nothing – just waiting for when you gonna tell me yourself what is going on – but nothing. And now I find you sitting here reading God knows what when we shoulda shut up shop ten minutes ago. What am I, Michael, did I suddenly cease to exist that I cannot see the evidence of my own eyes, that I am no longer worth taking into your confidence? So, tell me, tell me now, what this is about, and don’t give me no nonsense!’

And that is it: he tells her. He can’t keep it in a box any longer; cannot keep it from this person with whom he has shared every other part of his being. He tells her all about the night he was locked in the cold store and nearly died and how the boy returned and gave him the kiss of life, but then turned against him and delivered his ultimatum.

As Grace stands there reeling and disbelieving, Michael comes at last to the strange debt he feels towards the bad boy and, by the thoughtful silence Grace has fallen into, he starts to believe he has won her over. But when he puts to her the idea that Harrison should maybe receive a consideration of some kind, she erupts, bellowing to shake the shutters: ‘Are you fucking insane?!’ Even after her last outburst, Michael has never heard the likes, and so he tries to play it down: ‘No, no, listen . . . between the two of us, we can just—’

‘Don’t you dare even talk about it! I won’t hear it. This is gonna stop right now!’ And this is what Grace now sets out to ensure – just as soon as she can get on the end of the phone without her husband overhearing her.

■ ♦ ■

‘Oh, my gorgeous boy! My wonderful boy! Thank the Lord!’ Great Aunt Crystal is so made-up with him that Harrison feels almost ashamed of himself; it’s worse than taking candy from a baby. ‘Of course you can come with me to Tabernacle Sunday,’ she gushes. It is what she has hoped against hope for, prayed for every day over the past ten years. ‘So how did you come to this?’ she stammers, wiping a tear – an actual tear! – from the corner of her eye.

‘I dunno, Aunty. I just looked around me and thought . . . Ya know how it is.’ Such a good show is he putting on he should get a damn Oscar! Just pray God don’t strike him down.