Yonnondio: From the Thirties (9 page)

“Poppa
is
home,” stubbornly, “he is. The table’s set and Poppa
is
home.”

“Yes. Poppa is home. I’ll put Bess to bed and we’ll eat.”Falling on her knees in front
of the oven as if she were praying, “I guess nothin burned. You can take the bean
pot out and turn the potatoes into a dish. And call your dad…. Why, baby,” sensing
her vibrating body, “dont tremble so. You didnt think I was goin to hit you, did you?
What made you think that? I wasnt goin to touch you.”

And Will coming in—Will? This stranger with the dirt on his cheek like a bruise and
the sullen gray eyes? “Oh boy, are you goin to get it for flunkin. Oh boy, you’ll
be so raw you wont be able to sit down for a millyun years,” without zest. “Oh boy,
wait till Ma tells Pa … Who you sayin shut up to,” pushing her against the wall.

Perhaps it frightens you as you walk by, the travail
of the trees against the dark crouched house, the weak tipsy light in the window,
the man sitting on the porch, menacing weariness riding his flesh like despair. And
you hurry along, afraid of the black forsaken streets, the crooked streets, and look
no more. But there are those who have looked too much through such windows, seeing
the pain on everything, the darkening pain twisting and writhing over the faces, over
and about the lamp like a wind to blow the flame out.

The pain, the darkening pain on everything. And it seemed to Mazie that her limbs
were crooked in sleep and a nightmare sweat were on her, for only there had she seen
such grotesqueness and crooked vision. And Anna struggling to keep her head clear
and far above. They sat there at the meal in silence, only Jimmie chattering away,
Will choking his food down as if he never expected to eat again. Once Jim pushed his
plate away and said clearly, distinctly (against the darkening pain), “Any time I
want sewage to eat I can get it on the job,” but it seemed no one heard, and hastily
he pulled the plate back and shoved the food down.

The stink of burning bacon in the air. Reaching for the frying pan, for the burning
handle, with a bellow Jim dropped it, and with one kick sent it flying to the door,
with another out into the yard, then turned (is
the burn in his hand? it seems to be burning far inside, a scorch that will not let
him be), facing Anna, facing Will, who laughs louder and louder, facing Mazie, who
stares (useless to resist, to cry out, because it all is a voiceless dream to be endured),
and Ben, who pales. “So ya think it’s funny, do ya?” not knowing it is a chair he
holds in his hand and is crashing toward Will, ducking under the table. She wrenches
herself free from the battering pain. “You crazy?” slapping his face savagely. “You
gone crazy? You coulda crippled that kid. Set down and finish eatin. It’s all right,
kids, everything’s all right. If you hold out your hand—I’ll smear oleo on so it wont
blister. Jim? Set down, you hear! Please?” And he sinks down, the madness ebbing.
Fearful what it leaves behind, the shame.

And perhaps it all would have been all right, that night anyhow, but after supper
Ben (so wanting love) buried his face in his father’s big shoulders and proffered
his finger for sympathy. Shocked, righteous, Jim told Anna (not seeing how she clutched
the sink rim between dishes), “Dont you pay no attention to these kids? You do something
right away about Ben’s finger. It’s swoll up like a tire. What do you mean lettin
it go like that? Better soak it, draw the splinter out.”

She put on the water to heat, poured Purex into a
glass, but after she’d mixed the boiling water (pain’s hand in hers, and all else
fled) she forgot that hot was hot and plunged Ben’s finger in. And still held it against
Ben’s scream and writhing till Jim knocked the glass out from under. “You crazy” was
all he could say. “You crazy—this madhouse. I’m clearin out.”

She managed through the nursing, she managed through the loving till Ben was comforted
and through the sharp commands till the others quieted, and then she fainted. Now
she should have called WillMazieBen, for they were fled into a terror which nothing
could reach. When Mis’ Kryckszi came, gleaning only from Ben’s skirt tugging and incoherent
mommamomma, something terrible had happened, Anna lay peacefully as if she were drowned,
in a pool of water, and Will was pouring over more, and Mazie was shaking her and
begging, “Wake up, wake up.”

Vinegar on her nostrils and wrist-chafing, and Anna cleft back from the tranquility
and the quietness. Lucky the pain that bore her into its own world, so she could not
see her children’s faces; lucky the numbness of sleep that came after.

Mis’ Kryckszi said nothing, carrying sleeping Jimmie from the front-room floor onto
his cot, mopping up the floor, bathing the children’s hot faces, but
after it all was done she took Ben on her lap and sang to them not lullabies but songs
of her own country in which her fierce anger flashed.

Lurching down the streets, his face lifted to the stars, singing out his great crude
singing, feeling the wind like a flame against him, singing against the night and
the wind—so that the little Negro boy, Jeff, on the corner, waking smiled and hummed
softly to himself, and heard a humming in his head like a thousand telegraph wires,
a thousand messages of sound that would blend into music—singing his wide crude singing
(I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear) so that the vast night throbbed
about him, Jim came home.

Mazie, her head under the bedclothes, trying to stifle the fear and horror that retched
within her, heard the singing; heard the door slammed shut, the thudding steps, the
toilet flushed, the drunken talk her father had with himself that the rising wind
enclosed, swept away.

No use to tell him, not a bit of use, stiffly repeated itself and marched round and
round her head. No use, no use.

What was happening? It seemed the darkness bristled with blood, with horror. The shaking
of the bed as if someone were sobbing in it, the wind burrowing
through the leaves filling the night with a shaken sound. And the words, the words
leaping.

“Dont, Jim, dont. It hurts too much. No, Jim, no.”“Cant screw my own wife. Expect
me to go to a whore? Hold still.”

The merciful blood pounding in Mazie’s ears, battering away the sounds. Oh Will. Crawl
up close, put your arms around.

As if in sleep (pretend sleep?): “Get away from me, ya damn girl.”He hears too? The
hoarse breathing—the moan? Will, Will.

Ben in his sleep, sucking in his breath sharp and wounded, Jimmie in his sleep, blowing
out a soft bubble of sound.

“
Will
.” All right, act like you’re asleep. I’ll be like asleep too. Lay down heart, go
to sleep. Poppa, quit shakin me. No Poppa here—you shakin yourself. All right, I’ll
go.

Oh, Ma, Ma. The blood on the floor, the two lifeless braids of hair framing her face
like a corpse, the wall like darkness behind. Be away, Mazie, be away. “Poppa, come
in the kitchen, Momma went dead again, Poppa, come on.” The drunken breath. (Fear
remembered such a breath.) So cruel the way he pushes her away, uncomprehending. “Lemme
sleep.” “Oh, Poppa,” crying now, “Momma’s dead again. Please, Poppa, please come.”

Running in the kitchen (so ugly, Momma, all the hair, the blood), running back with
water, calling “Poppa” again till he somehow comprehends and comes. How clumsily he
lifts Anna and carries her to the bed and brings the lamp. And remembering something
of what Bess Ellis had done after the baby was born; with tremor hands he kneads the
flesh above her womb till the blood stops pouring and stillness comes.

What does Bess have to wake up again and cry for? Poppa gone, and I dont know what
to do. Dont cry, baby, dont cry. The lamp dancin, dancin. Whats the matter with you,
lamp, what you see so funny you hafta dance about? Daddy singin when he comes home
like the world is all strong and singin; and the wind—hear the wind in the trees,
cryin for people that cant cry no more, cryin for people that want to cry and cant.
Oh Momma, dont talk like that. (“So sweet Jim, a little oyster, a little pearl, a
growin … No, Bess … not bad, only I wish the bearin-down pains would start. Oh.” Such
a shriek. “Elma, be careful…. All Elma’s fingers gone, Ma, just a stump a bleedin
left. I didnt know so much blood was in the world. And the damn forelady yelling,
go on back to work…”) No, Momma, no, Bess, dont cry. I’ll hold ya and love ya, Bess,
I’ll tell ya a story, see, I’ll diaper you and I’ll tell you a story, onct upon a
time the
night was quiet, and the river, a cool river, Bess, was goin along, goin along, talkin
to itself so happy, and it said maybe Bess would like to come and Mazie too and it
dont go by no cities, Bess. Stop cryin, Bess, even baby’s cryin (so ugly the naked
thigh, the coarse hair, all the blood), please, somebody, oh Momma, stop talkin.

And the lamp in the wind from the open windows and the twitching shadows, the writhing
of the trees, the waiting and words in fever and delirium.

He is back. He sits there immolated, a frieze, holding Anna’s hand, and Mazie, so
cold, clutches Bess, frightened of going back into the night of the bedroom, back
with Will (get away from me, ya damn girl). And they wait till the doctor comes.

“Miscarriage. You didn’t know she was pregnant—again?”And Mazie runs; on the kitchen
floor, the blood; runs, runs outside.

“How old’s the baby?” (Damn fools, they ought to sterilize the whole lot of them after
the second kid.)

“Four months, mm. You remember how long your wife’s been feeling sick?”Of course not.
These animals never notice but when they’re hungry or want a drink or a woman.

“Hmmmm. Yes.” She took the ergot down quietly, but moaned at the hypo. “So it was
intercourse before as well as the fall?”Pigsty, the way these people live. “And she’s
been nursing all along? We’ll
have a look at the baby.” Rickets, thrush, dehydrated; don’t blame it trying to die.
“Viosterol is what it needs—and a dextri-maltose formula.

“Your wife’s a sick woman. Needs all the rest she can get, fresh fruits, vegetables,
and liver. And medical attention. So does the baby. Unless you can afford a private
doctor, see she gets to the clinic—Thursday, anyhow, for a curettage—a cleaning out.
And the baby’s to be weaned right away—I’m writing it all down here—wait a minute,
there’s a change. Karo syrup and canned milk for the formula; try to get some cod-liver
oil—the baby really needs it—or at least all the sun it can stand with most of its
skin exposed.”

Running, so much ugliness, the coarse hair, the night bristling, the blood and the
drunken breath and the blob of spit, something soft, mushy, pressed against her face,
never the farm, dont cry, even baby’s cryin, get away from me, ya damn girl, the faint
gray vapor of river, run, run, but it scares you so, the shadows the lamp throws in
the wind.

The cold, the world was so cold, she was wearing her slip and barefoot, and seeing
the lamppost, she clutched it, trying to press the trembling vibrating thing inside
her, back into where she had first heard it. And her eyes lifted in horror … lifted
in horror that wavered and broke.

Globed and golden in the green light of early
dawn, the street lamps stretched far and far. Beside them crouched the solid rows
of buildings, little weak lights in their windows, and down in the valley, solid and
quiet, the great mass of packing house and stockyard. The viaduct was laced in fairy
lines, and against the sky four great smoke stacks reared, so strong, so beautiful
in the glowing light with the fading smoke out of their throats, she could not help
it, her arms reached out as if to touch and embrace them. A shudder went over her
body, a shudder of quietness, and then tears, through which the beautiful street shimmered
and was diamonded, the street lamps rayed and haloed.

He lifted her and carried her toward home, her father. “Were you scared, were you
scared? Momma’s sick, awful sick, Big-eyes. Awfully sick, and the doctor says she
needs everything she cant get, tells me everything she needs, but not how to get it”(cry
from a million swollen throats), “everything she needs but not how to get it. You’re
so cold, kiddie. Why do you want to go back to the top of the street for? Kiss Poppa
and we’ll go home and I’ll make a fire and warm you, a nice fire, and you can fall
asleep on Daddy’s lap…

“And Bess’s pretty sick, me not noticing, blind as a bat. And medicine, he says. Everything,
but not how to get it. Stop shiverin, baby. We’ll make a big fire and warm you up.”

No, he could speak no more. Watching the flame catch and sputter and die and leap
up again. Covering up Anna and the baby. No, he could speak no more. And as he sat
there in the kitchen with Mazie against his heart, and dawn beat up like a drum, the
things in his mind so vast and formless, so terrible and bitter, cannot be spoken,
will never be spoken—till the day that hands will find a way to speak this; hands.

SIX

Two days she lay there quietly, in a merciful numbness that was half sleep, half coma,
emerging out of it once to say: I’ll be getting up now, Else, but making no move to,
just lying there, tracing with her eyes the stains on the ceiling, sinking back into
the twilight dimness again. Once Bess’s fretful piping pierced into her dream, and
with trembling fingers she pulled her breast out, trying to rise to the baby. Ben,
playing by the bed, saw and ran for Else. She came in time to hold the struggling
woman down, saying over and over, Lie still, honey, go on back to sleep, lie still,
till Anna gave way and turned on her pillow and closed her eyes. After that, Bess
was kept daytimes out in the yard, beyond hearing.

Wild with the exultance of the first vacation days, Mazie and Will were off somewhere.
Quarrels flared in the kitchen when they came in on their forays for food.
“I declare, I dont know whats the matter with you,” Else would say, “carryin on so
with your ma sick in bed in the next room, needin every bit of rest she can get. Aint
you shamed pickin on your sister, Will? And you, Mazie, you oughta be home lookin
after Jimmie and Ben, you’re the little mother now. Come back here, where you runnin
off to again,
come back
,” the last yelled to figures vanishing with their loot of bread and shortening. And
then the house would stand empty and quiet again, save for Else’s padding about and
the shuffle of Ben’s pieces of cloth as he arranged and rearranged them in pattern
play on the floor by Anna’s bed.

And at five when Else left, the stillness deepened and darkened, the late-afternoon
sunlight filling the rooms with a haze golden and tranquil, gilding the face of Will
as he crept in to look at his mother, flickering over Mazie taking up Bess to see
if she needed changing, haloing little Jimmie’s head as he crept in, weary and dirty.
And in the stillness, Will and Mazie would lift down the heavy pots and Mazie fill
the plates and together bring them out on the back stoop, where they sat, Mazie and
Will and Ben and Jimmie, watching the sun fire up the sky, burst and fade, while they
ate their supper.

And at seven Mrs. Kryczski would come, quieting Bess till her bottle was ready, crooning
softly while
she fed her, washing up Ben and Jim for the night; and last with the last darkening—Jim—to
eat his solitary meal in silence, to tend Ben’s finger and round up the older children,
and sit there in the soft dark, whittling, trying to figure a way out on the money,
prodding himself to stay awake, fumbling through another feeding for Bess so he could
go to bed at last; and the house stand there in its curious empty stillness till dawn
and the same day begin again.

The third day, Jim’s Sunday off, began a tossing. Whenever Jim came in she would be
lying with her head turned toward the window, asleep, he would have thought, except
for the staring eyes and the hand that quivered at her throat. Go back to sleep, he
would say, best sleep again, but she never answered, answered or looked at him or
questioned why it was that she was lying there, or what had happened. Once he heard
her whimper: Oh my breasts, they sting so, they’re so full, but hearing him approach,
she turned her face sharply away, asking in a voice not hers: “Is Bess eating all
right?” But before he could answer, her eyes were closed and she was lying in a semblance
of sleep he did not disturb.

Helped up, supported by Else, still in the seeming quietude, she went to the clinic,
clutching the doctor’s slip of paper Jim had put in her purse to give.
Else, by her side, could not get a word out of her. But sitting in the clinic, waiting
in the smell of corroding and the faces of pain, she lifted Bess out of Else’s lap,
shielded her close and rasped out fiercely: “We shouldn’ta brought baby here, we shouldn’ta
brought her.” And all the way home she hugged the squalling child to her—against the
frowsy houses and streets of filth the streetcar jolted past.

Home, clutching the pillow to her inflamed breasts as if she still held Bess, she
sank into exhausted sleep into which the distorted faces of pain marched round and
round in endlessly dragging regiments of themselves.

In the kitchen Jim was saying to Mrs. Kryczski, stitching at a canvas: “One way to
swell up the paycheck anyhow. No more soakin me for the waterproofs and boots every
week. But do you think I’m gettin one cent back of all I been payin in? Not one cent.
They said did I think they was in the equipment rentin business?” Then he saw Anna
in the doorway.

“Anna! You aint supposed to be up. Was you needin somethin?”

“… The house … It needs cleanin.”

“And you’re in fine shape to do it. Get back to bed.”

In a mesmerized voice. “Dirt, the poster said. Dirt Breeds Disease.”

“C’mon now. You ain’t supposed to be up.”At her side but hesitant to touch her. “C’mon.
You been awful sick.”

“Disease …” She recoiled from his touch, said, “Why, Mis’ Kryczski” cordially, naturally,
relapsed again into the automaton voice: “Disease … Your children … The posters …”

“Outa her mind,” he explained to Mrs. Kryczski. “I said c’mon. You lost a lot of blood.”

“Germs spread … The house … The posters…”

“I said come on. Easy now.”

“At the clinic, they scare … And all the poor sick people settin …”

“Dont worry your head. Cover up good now.”

“So many ways of bein sick …” Wringing her hands, “We shouldnta brought baby there!
We shouldnta brought her!”

“I said: dont worry your head. Sleep now, you hear?”

She looked at him sharply, bitterly; mutely turned her head away.

“You want anything, just holler. Sleep. Try.” He did not leave her till it seemed
she slept.

Back in the kitchen, miserable, he watched the needle glitter in and out of the stiff
poncho. He yearned to ask Mrs. Kryckszi about Anna but could form neither words nor
thoughts.

“It fit now, I think,” she said at last, folding up the canvas and handing it to him.
“Try on.” Then, with a nod toward the bedroom: “She begin to get better now. She begin
to feel things again. You be careful with her now.”

She lay there a long while after she awoke, trying to make out what time it could
be. If there had been rain, it was over now. Dust motes were gleaming in
the shaft of light that slanted in through the window. The house seemed empty. “Else,
Ben,” she called softly. No one answered. Slowly she pulled herself up and edging
along the wall, pushed open the door into the front room. It lay in shadow, and out
of an old enlarged photo, a very young Anna with a baby Will in her arms smiled down
upon her. Her face contorted. Quickly she closed the door.

She had not wanted to go through the bathroom but there was no other way now. High
up in a dirty brown corner, a cobweb spangled. Unsteadily she picked up the plunger
and swept it down. One fly, still alive, moved an iridescent wing and buzzed. The
kitchen stood blank and empty in glaring afternoon sun. It was a long while before
she could make out the potato peels turning black in the sink, the dirty dishes, the
souring bottle of milk about which flies droned. Flies, the poster said, Spread Germs.
Germs Breed Disease. Cleaving to the table for support, disregarding the flame of
agony in her engorged breasts, she swatted feverishly. The flies lifted and evaded.
Disease … Your children … Protect … The soap was gone, the water spluttered malevolently
at her. She rinsed the dishes, scooped the garbage up into a pot, and went out into
the yard. It was deserted but for Bess sleeping in her basket, covered with an old
curtain for netting.

Someone had forgotten to put the cover on the garbage pail, and below the solid droning
mass of flies gray things slithered and struggled. The stench steamed up and hit her
in the nostrils. Gasping for breath, she threw the garbage in, pot and all, and jammed
the cover on, then stumbled over to the stoop and sat down. The vomit kept rising
and rising, but none came. Didnt know I was so delicate, she whispered. Whew. Whew.
And jest garbage smell mixed in with a little packin’house.

All the time it kept nagging, the pot still there, the pot she could not replace.
Scarcely realizing that she was doing so, she pulled herself erect by the screen-door
handle and, half falling, got back to the pail. The flies sprang to her face as before
and the stench retched up, but she stood there stubbornly, with head averted and nostrils
stiffened, clutching for the slippery surface of the pot.

This time she barely managed to reach the stoop. Her limbs were trembling, her bones
seemed water, her heavy breasts burned, burned. All she could do was sit there, her
head against the screen door, her eyes closed, waiting for the trembling and faintness
to cease. Slowly, slowly, her fingers loosened, and the pot slipped from her hand
to the ground.

It was very quiet. The sun lay warm on her shoulders, and far off through the muted
voices of the street a peddler was calling, his voice reminding of
an old song. Softly, she began to sing. Now a train puffed by, and the long wail dissolved
in distance. The wind just lifted against her cheek. Ben came from nowhere and nuzzled
against her. Momma, he said. She held him warm into her singing.

“Momma.” She opened her eyes and saw his eyelashes fluttering over the patches of
rash on his cheek; the dirty sore on his unbandaged finger; the stubble ground, the
harsh curtain that made the netting on Bess’s basket, and beyond, far beyond, white
foam of bridal wreath on the sea blue sky.

White bridal wreath. When she was a girl … Oh when she was a girl … The life she had
dreamed and the life that had come to be … The scabby sore on Ben’s finger scratched
against her arm, and the vagrant wind retched the garbage smell. She closed her eyes
again, but this time when she opened them, her fists were clenched, and Ben she had
held so close to her was pushed away. Whether or not she said it aloud, a cry throbbed
in the air:
No. No
.

She had wrapped a rag around the broom and swept down the walls, and swept the floors,
and scrubbed the toilet bowl, and put the diapers to soak, and was filling a tub with
water preparatory to scrubbing the floor, when Mrs. Kryckszi came in with Mazie and
Jimmie.

“You been cleanin, Anna?” Mrs. Kryckszi asked,
incredulous. “You go to bed.” Then, seeing the stubborn face flaring white behind
its fury, in harder tones: “What the matter? You want to stay sick? Clean-in goin
to wait for you, it not going noplace. You go lay down.”

“I
been
layin down. As for you, Missy,” seeing Mazie, “where have
you
been? Git in here. There’s work for you to do.”

“Annamae’s waitin.” Defiantly: “I gotta play.” Then with sullen averted face: “Poppa
says you’ll get … that way again if you don’t stay in bed.” “Poppa says! Annamae’s
got a long wait, sister. Git in now and git started. You hear me? Now if you’ll excuse
us, Mis’ Kryckszi, and I want to thank you for all you been doin, I’ll get back to
my work.”

But the tub would not lift, though she heaved and heaved, and when it finally did,
it was because of Mis’ Kryckszi’s hands at the side of hers.

“You see you not so strong yet, Anna,” her neighbor said softly. “You lay down again,
you find how you feel.”

“Mazie and me got this floor and wash to do.”

“All right, I start the floor for you and tell Annamae to call Willie. You make him
and Mazie do heavy work. Now time to feed baby; she beginning to fuss. Sit down, I
fix bottle and you give her. Then you clean.”

But Bess seemed so heavy in her arms, and the feel of her made her breasts sting,
sting. (The frenzy was ebbing, ebbing.) And her head was faint, and the hand that
held the bottle beginning to tremor.

“I need some air, I guess … Feed baby, Will.” Remembering to say like they told her
in the clinic, “Hold the bottle up so’s there’s always milk in the neck or it gives
baby colic bubbles. That’s right.”

But it was not outside she went, but into the children’s bedroom. Mazie was there,
changing her clothes. “Just look at this mess,” her mother said. “I was holdin off
cleanin it till you came. Dont you know if you cant keep your own things out of a
mess, you’ll never keep your life out of one? You clean up Jimmie and put clean rompers
on him and then get back here. Go on.” Mazie just looked at her with her great eyes.
“Go on. I’ll find him clean things … Well?”“Nothing.”

She was gone. Well? Well? re-echoed in the air. Well? Such a mess, said Anna. I never
asked her: Is that Ben or is it Will is wettin the bed again? Yes, get things back
to regular and start takin in laundering.

Mazie’s dress was crumpled in the corner. Anna picked it up and stuffed it into the
dirty-clothes bag. Then she smoothed out Will’s jacket that had fallen on the floor
and hung it on a nail. It was worn thin on the unpatched elbow and the buttons were
off
again. “Mend jacket,” she said to herself and passed her hand caressingly over the
few other garments that dangled there.

“Mend tomorrow, dont forget now,” starting over to the chest of drawers with its crust
of stuff to be mended. But she stumbled over the children’s shoes, left in a tangle
in the middle of the floor. Crouching down beside them, she whispered, “Ben. Needs
soles, well, maybe a cardboard inside will do. Will’s: holes, holes. He always wears
them down on the side like that.” Smiling. “I would know Will’s shoes outa anywhere
in the world. But no soles or new heels or stitchin, even if there was money, going
to fix these. Too far gone.” She stood up abruptly and the shoes dropped with a clatter.
Too far gone
.