Hilda and Pearl (16 page)

“That's because Lydia's been carrying them around,” said Frances. “And the doll wore them.”

“You don't think I'm going to believe
that
, do you?” said Mrs. Howard. She had a nasty tone now. She looked at Frances as if nothing Frances said or did could be trusted. Lydia had come back and was standing in the bedroom doorway between Frances and the door. Mrs. Howard was still holding one shoe, pointing to the sole, where Frances could see perfectly well that what she said was true. Frances had not noticed. And the side of the shoe was creased and had been polished. Where the chalky white polish was flaking, she could see leather underneath, and it was slightly discolored. She grabbed at the shoe and started to cry.

“You're a past master at this, aren't you?” said Mrs. Howard, and now she was speaking too crisply, with her mouth too small. “You're responsible for some of these ideas Lydia comes home with,” she said. “I told her to keep away from you. Look, your father—I wasn't going to hold that against you, but—here he's been fired, teaching God knows what. He should go live in Russia, he likes it so much.”

“My father's been fired?” said Frances. “What do you mean?”

“It's in the paper,” said Mrs. Howard. “Somebody told me and I said it couldn't be true, but it's in today's paper.”

Frances clutched the shoes and ran. She had to push Lydia aside, and Lydia felt light and scared and bony as Frances pushed against her. “I don't mean you're a liar,” Mrs. Howard was saying, “just because of your father. That's not what I meant.”

Frances ran down the stairs so fast she fell down the last three. No one was there, and she sat on the floor and cried. She had scraped her knee and hurt her elbow. After a few moments she picked up the shoes and ran home.

Frances had been intending to find out about her father's trial, to ask him exactly what it was about and when it was going to happen, and she hadn't done it. Any other girl her age would have found out everything. After a block she slowed down and walked, still clutching the shoes, her coat unbuttoned. She couldn't believe that this important event could have gone by without her noticing. It was Thursday. She couldn't remember if she'd ever known when the trial was supposed to take place. Her father had not left at the usual time one morning this week, she remembered now. She had been upset, worrying about speaking to Mrs. Howard, and she hadn't paid attention. There were days when her father had a different schedule for one reason or another, days when he had to attend meetings, days when high school students had exams.

It was getting dark when she got home. There was a light in their window, and she hurried up the stairs. She didn't know what she was going to say to her mother, but when she put her key in the lock, she heard her father's step coming toward the door. He opened it as she did and looked down at her with some surprise, as if he'd forgotten that doors opened. He was wearing an apron.

“Where were you?” he said.

“I was at Lydia's house,” said Frances.

“Oh, Lydia's house,” he said. He turned and went back into the kitchen. Frances could hear him moving around, and she could smell something cooking. She took off her coat and put it on her bed. The shoes were in the pocket. Then she went to the kitchen. Her father was wearing a blue-and-white bib apron of her mother's. The bib was folded inside and the apron was tied around her father's waist. It was toast Frances had smelled.

“Isn't Mommy going to make supper?” she said.

“I haven't eaten all day,” he said. “I couldn't wait.”

“Where were you?”

“I was at the union.” The union meant the Teachers Union.

“Couldn't you go out and have lunch?” It was true, then. Her father had not gone to work.

“I guess I could have, but I didn't.” He had put some butter in a small frying pan and it was sizzling. He was making scrambled eggs. He'd broken the eggs into a bowl, and now he added some milk and beat the eggs with a fork.

“Do you want me to do that?” said Frances. He shouldn't have to do it for himself.

“No, thanks, I can do it,” he said. “I have a headache. I'm going to eat some scrambled eggs and go to bed.”

“That's a good idea,” said Frances. She sat at her place at the table, from which she often watched her mother cook. Then she thought to get up and take a plate out of the cupboard and put it on the table for her father. She folded a paper napkin and put it under a fork. She put out a knife and a spoon, too. Then she took the two slices of toast, which had popped up, and put them on the plate. She put the butter dish next to her father's place. Then she sat down again and watched him. He poured the eggs into the pan and stood with his back to her, stirring them with the fork.

“Now, you understand what's happened, don't you?” he asked gruffly after a few moments.

“I don't know,” said Frances.

“I've lost my job,” he said, “but you don't have to worry. Your mother is working, and we have savings. And of course I'll find something else.”

“But it isn't fair,” said Frances.

“Well, of course it isn't fair,” he said, looking over his shoulder at her.

“You're a good teacher,” she said.

“A very good teacher,” he said sadly. He was turning off the burner and scraping his scrambled eggs onto his plate with the fork. He sat down and buttered his toast and began to eat hungrily. He looked at her as if he expected her to speak.

“I've been wondering,” she said, and he looked interested, the way he might have looked in the classroom if a student began to ask a question: welcoming the question. Yet he also did not look exactly that way. He looked as if he was afraid of being hurt even more. She didn't want to ask a question that would make things worse. She had been going to ask exactly what had happened at the trial. She shouldn't ask that—but now she had said she was going to ask him something. She had to change the subject.

“Daddy,” she said, “that baby who died before I was born—you know, that baby?”

He looked startled, but a little relieved—pleased to be reminded that there were other subjects in the world. “Rachel,” he said.

“Rachel?” She had not known the baby's name. Something inside her began to flutter, and she felt tension rise in her throat. “Was her name Rachel?”

“Yes, you didn't know that? Of course her name was Rachel.”

“Daddy, how old was she when she died?” Frances said.

“How old? I know exactly how old,” he said. “She was fifteen months.”

She wanted to go and look at the shoes. “Could she walk?” said Frances.

“Oh, yes, she walked early,” he said. “Earlier than you. She could walk easily.”

“How did she die? Was she sick?”

He put down his fork. “It was an accident,” he said. “It was a terrible accident. I don't want you thinking—”

“What?” She could see that he didn't want to talk about this, but now she didn't care how he felt. She needed to know. It was as if the accident were still about to happen—to her little sister, not her big one, and she could prevent it if only she could understand.

“She climbed out of the stroller,” he said, and his voice was low and cold, almost a mumble. “Your mother had gone into a store.”

“Do you mean Rachel got lost?” said Frances.

Her father shook his head. He had finished his food, and he was picking up the plate and putting it into the sink. Then he put the silverware into the sink and put the butter dish back in the refrigerator. The carton of eggs was on the work table next to the stove, and he put that away too. “A car,” he said then, in a low voice.

“Oh,” said Frances. She sat perfectly still. She would not be able to help this baby, no matter what she did, and she might not be able to help her father either. She was making him feel worse after all. Her father stood in the middle of the kitchen, taking off his apron and looking around him as if he were in a circle of accusers and knew that whatever he said, they would not understand.

Her mother was at the door, turning her key in the lock. She came in holding a bag of groceries. She stood in the doorway, glanced at Frances, looked at Nathan. Her arm in its black sleeve moved to point to a newspaper that was sticking out of the bag of groceries. “It's in the paper,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “I saw it.”

5

“
M
IKE
WANTS TO BUY A CAR
,” P
EARL SAID TO
H
ILDA
. She thought Hilda might be able to reply to that remark without sounding angry. Pearl knew—for once—that Hilda was not angry with her for any particular reason, or with any of them, but she sounded angry all the time.

Mostly, though, people talked to Hilda only about Rachel. “Did the baby sleep better last night?” Pearl herself had said when she arrived, after promising inwardly not to start by mentioning the baby, and Hilda had responded, “Better than what? Better than me?” Just at that moment Rachel had been waking up in her bassinet, which stood near the living room couch where Hilda was stretched out reading the newspaper. Pearl had been given a key, and she'd let herself in.

The baby lay on her stomach in her white sacque, which had worked itself up to her armpits. Her legs looked surprisingly long and thin to Pearl, pulled up as a frog's might be, with her heels near her crotch. Her dark, angry face—Rachel looked as angry as her mother—was turned to the left, and she had stuffed her left fist into her mouth and was gnawing at it, making little grunts of effort and frustration.

The first surprise, a few weeks ago now, was that Rachel looked like
Rachel
, not just like “a baby.” The second surprise was this anger of Hilda's, the third that Pearl, who had spent a year waiting for Hilda to speak to her in a friendly way, now didn't care. It was as if Hilda
were
being friendly. Today, after Hilda's answer to her question, Pearl had gone to warm up Rachel's bottle without another word. When it was ready, Hilda had sat up and given Rachel the bottle, whispering intently to her as if she had something to say that she preferred to keep private.

Pearl thought Hilda might be interested in the car, and she was. Pearl had to talk fast. She'd found that if she dropped in at Hilda and Nathan's on her way home from work, she could help out for an hour without getting too tired and hungry, then go home and cook dinner. Nathan was sometimes there, sometimes not. Today Pearl knew Nathan wouldn't be there. Mike had gone to a meeting with him—union people planning protests against the fascist rebellion in Spain. Mike said he wanted to listen because the speeches gave him good shorthand practice. He took down what he heard. Pearl thought maybe he liked the meetings for themselves as well; she wasn't sure.

“He's buying it from the clarinet player,” she said. Mike was still in the band, and it had been playing on weekends at a few hotels in the Catskills, sometimes at the one in the Adirondacks where they'd met. The band would drive up together in the clarinet player's old black car, which smelled of cigarettes. Now the clarinet player had a new job and he was leaving the band and even buying a new car.

“A car would be nice,” said Hilda.

“We could all four go places,” Pearl said. “All five. We could have a picnic.”

“Maybe,” said Hilda. She was wearing a dark red bathrobe pulled tight around her waist. Her hair hadn't been trimmed for a long time, and Pearl liked the way it tumbled onto her shoulders. Hilda's hair was naturally wavy. She'd gained weight and it made her face look younger and softer. The angry tone was surprising each time.

“I guess Nathan will be home soon,” Pearl said. Rachel was awake now, lying on her back on the couch at Hilda's side. She waved her legs in the air. Now and then Hilda gave her a finger to chew. “She likes to suck my wedding ring,” she said.

“She's a good kid,” said Pearl.

“He's on his way to Spain, I suppose,” said Hilda.

“What?”

“Nathan.”

“Oh. Right.” Pearl glanced at the newspaper Hilda had been reading. It had slipped to the floor. She couldn't see the main headline. Lately the headlines had been mostly about Spain. The rebels were taking over cities and towns, the Loyalists struggling.