Listen Ruben Fontanez (13 page)

“I clean your kitchen for you,” she offers.

“The baby?”

“I leave him downstairs. My mother come to watch him while Carlos at work—”

I drink more juice. Nydia gets up. Her body moves smoothly across the room. She raises the window shades and I see that it is already dark outside. I look for Marty on the rooftops but I see only television antennas.

“I talk with my mother about what I gone to ask you. She know that you a teacher.” I see her face now. She looks at the floor. “If Carlos find out I want to go to night school he get angry and—” She stops. “—and do things.”

She hesitates. On my night table my doll is smiling at me. “Did you want to ask me something?” I say.

She is surprised by my response. “I thought—” she begins. I sit up and find that I am somewhat dizzy. I can hear the sound of my voice and I know why Nydia takes a step backwards. “I think maybe you could help me get ready,” she says. “I not been in school since—”

I nod, cutting her off, but I do not say anything. Beyond the edge of my rug, under the windows, I can see the linoleum drying where Nydia has been working. I picture her mother, rocking the baby in her arms by the window, watching the street. “If you don't got the time—”

“What about Carlos?” I ask.

She shrugs. “My mother says she come to watch the baby. And Carlos be working nights soon, to make the extra money.” I watch her fingers turn slowly in her lap, and my mind turns with them. “My mother say she give you the money, and I come to clean and cook for you when—”

“Stop,” I say. “Enough. I will think about it. Stop now. All right?”

She nods. My head does not clear. “A man was here,” she says.

“A man?”

“While you sleep.” She is uncomfortable. I can see my monkey walking around her, surveying her young body. “A big man—he say he be back.”

“A colored man?”

“No.”

“It was Morris,” I say. “We were boys together.”

“I guess I go now.” She moves to the door. “I sorry to bother you—”

Above the brownstones the sky is a deep blue. I lift the covers and put on my slippers, then my robe. I will look at your eyes later, my monkey. “I would like to meet your mother sometime,” I say.

Nydia smiles. “You like her,” she says. “You like Carlos also,” she adds quickly. She steps toward me. Between her skirt and sweater I see a narrow strip of brown skin. “When you know him sometime. You see—”

“I am sure,” I say.

“I worry about him sometime, but I afraid to tell my mother. She say she gone to call the police on him next time—” I wander away from her and see that she has cleaned the grease from my gas burners.

“Would you like some juice?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I like to talk to you sometime, Mister Meyers,” she says. “I got to tell somebody about what he do when he get crazy in the head—”

“I am an old man,” I say, and I smile at her.

“Your boys from the school, they look up to you.” I drink more juice and wonder when my monkeys will return. “Carlos, when he not happy, he do things—”

“What?” I ask. The question is out, abruptly, and I am not unhappy about it. It is the least I can do in return for her services. “What does he do?”

She moves her shoulders. Her neck is lovely. The shadow from the mop handle rises on the wall. “To the cat we used to have—he—he do a bad thing.”

“Yes?”

She shivers and crosses her arms upon her bosom, holding herself. “I tell my mother the cat run away, but—”

“And you would like me to help you with your studies?”

She is confused momentarily. She nods. She comes toward me and I move away so that she cannot touch me with her young fingers. I know these games. “Sometimes Carlos, he come home late at night from drinking with his friends and he say things to me—in
El Barrio
he say he see me with other men—he call the baby ugly—! I—”

The buzzer sounds. I smile. It is on time, I think. Marty has scheduled things perfectly. Nydia moves to the kitchen table and puts her cleaning rags in a paper bag. “I—I sorry,” she says.

“Sorry?”

“I got to tell somebody.” Her eyes are wide now and they are not the eyes of a young girl. “He a very good husband sometimes, Mister Meyers. You got to believe me! That why I like to go to school again, so I can—”

She sees that I am not interested. The buzzer sounds again. I go to the door and press the button. I look at my young student and know that she will not receive her answer from Harry Meyers today. I am sorry also. But there are other things to think about, Nydia. I hear steps. She seems frightened. She does not, I realize, want to see my three guardians again today. She runs her tongue over her lips and her eyes seem tired suddenly. “What,” I ask her, “did Carlos do to your cat?”

She grabs the doorknob. A knocking comes at once from the other side and she backs away. I will not look into your eyes, my child. I hear the door open. A man is standing there, tall and broad-shouldered. As Nydia slides by him, I start to follow her. There was no need for the question, after all. “Hey, what are you doin' out of bed?” The door closes and I let Danny push me backwards into the room. In his right hand he is carrying a large leather suitcase. A bag of groceries is cradled in the nook of his left arm. He wears a black overcoat. “C'mon, Mister Meyers, into bed with you.” I smell beer on his breath. “You ain't lookin' so good, you know.” He has put his suitcase down. The groceries are on the kitchen table. “Boy—cold as a witch's tit out there tonight. They say it's gonna snow before morning.” He takes his coat off and places it on the easy chair by the fireplace. Then he pulls the chair from my desk to the bed, and straddles it, backwards.

“So how ya been feelin'?” he asks.

“It is only a cold,” I say.

“Sure,” he says. “Sure. That's how come ya look the way you do, huh?” He shakes his head sideways. I remember what I thought when I viewed my reflection in the window. I do not fool myself about such things, I can assure you. He is laughing to himself now, his stomach knocking against the chair. “I got to hand it to you, though—sick or not, you don't let up, do you?”

I try to smile at him.

“I knew you had something going for you—” He nods his head a few times and I see that the hair at the front of his skull is beginning to thin. The long black strands do not deceive me. He gestures toward the door with his head. “Not bad, either, what I seen. At least she cares about you, you know what I mean? That's something in a woman nowadays.” He bends his head closer to mine. “But don't you think you ought to go a little easy now—I mean, your condition and all—?”

I shrug. “It is only a cold,” I say.

He slaps his knee with his right hand. “You're really something, Mister Meyers, I gotta hand it to you.” He will not stop wagging his head. “You got some spirit. I was saying that to Jean this afternoon after I come by here. I only hope to God I got your spirit when I'm your age, Mister Meyers.” He pats his stomach. “I'll have to get rid of this, though, if I want to keep at it, I guess—huh?” He laughs. “Like that sergeant I was tellin' you about in the army, you remember—?” I nod. “He said he'd be getting his nooky when he was past seventy, and I believe him. He used to brag to all the younger guys that he was gonna die in the saddle, like that actor did—what was his name—?” He takes a wrinkled handkerchief from his back pocket and rubs his face with it. “Nice and warm in here,” he says. “I'll tell you the truth, if you gotta go, that's the way I'd like to do it.” He points a finger at me. “But no sense speeding things up, the way I see it, you know what I mean? You're just gettin' to where you're gonna be able to have all the time in the world—you gotta take care of yourself, Mister Meyers.” He puts the back of his fat hand to my forehead and concentrates. “And we're gonna see that you do, hear?”

I nod.

He stands up and paces around the room. He is not happy with the results of his examination. “You want some supper?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “I am not hungry. Something to drink would be nice, though.”

“Right,” he says, and goes to the refrigerator. He is worried about me. I touch my own hand to my forehead. It is warmer than I expected. “I saw from before that you're stocked up pretty good on juice. That's the best thing for you when you got a bad cold.” He punctures the top of a can with an opener and rinses out a glass for me. It is grapefruit juice this time and as it goes down it burns slightly. Danny opens a can of beer he has brought for himself and drinks from it, his elbow on the fireplace mantel. “You know something—? It's not bad here for a one-room place, but Jeannie and I were thinking a man like you, with your education, you ought to have more room for books and things—and a separate kitchen.” He tells me that he remembers the apartment on Eastern Parkway, before I moved, when the photographers took pictures of us together. He recognizes the rug in the middle of the floor as one I have brought with me from Brooklyn. It is a rectangular Persian rug and I realize that I have not actually looked at it for years. The birds and trees and flowers that run across it have faded long ago. The dull red color does not interest me. If he admires my room now, think what his feelings will be when I have put the pictures on the walls. He will not see any need for moving then. “What got us worried, see, was when Jean called this morning and found your phone had been disconnected. She called me at work to tell me and first thing I did was to call your school. They told me about you being sick for over a week, so I just said to my foreman—‘Jack, I got something important, you want to reprimand me, go ahead—I don't give a damn—' and I left the factory and come straight here by cab.” He wipes some beer from his chin. I drink my juice. “I told him it was on account of you, and he said he'd cover for me. All the guys at the factory know about you—”

“Of course,” I say.

He seems unsure of something. He is considering. Well. He is entitled also, I think. “You were sleeping like a baby when I come here this afternoon—the girl, she says you didn't even budge when I rung the bell. Then when I found—” He puts his beer can down on the table and sits next to me again. In truth, though I am somewhat groggy, I do not feel sick at all. My chest is full and warm. “Well, I just took a cab straight back to Brooklyn and packed up some things. Pajamas and a shirt for tomorrow. I probably forgot something, but I can call and Mary can bring it if I need anything—”

Next year, I think, I will do translations. From Spanish to Hebrew, Hebrew to Spanish. Despite his sidelocks, Menachem Schiffenbauer will be no match for me, I promise you. My cowboys will love the Don and Sancho in Hebrew. Danny's eyes are olive-green, I see. I picture him in a cowboy's hat, with a beard. His nose would be appropriate. But he will have to do away with his stomach. He is right about that. “I figure I can sack out on the easy chair—you know me: give me a couple of beers, I can sleep anywhere. It's wine that keeps me awake—funny, huh? With most people it's the opposite—”

“There is no need,” I say. “Go home to your wife and family. It is only a cold—”

“Sure,” he says again. He takes a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. “You feelin' better—?” I nod. “Cause I want to talk to you about somethin' serious. Okay?”

“Of course,” I say. Under the covers I clasp my hands on my chest. I slide my fingers from knuckle to knuckle, and along my forearms. Despite the winter, my skin is smooth and soft.

“I mean, I don't like the idea of scolding you like I was your old man or something, but I feel I gotta lay it on the line with you, Mister Meyers.” He looks at the paper, then at me. He cares, truly. I will put him in charge of the others. If he does not like Marty's schedule, he is free to revise it. “The way I figure it, you gettin' sick now—seeing as how you'll be well in a couple of days—it's a lucky break. Otherwise we might never of found out.” He smiles. “We know you mean well, Mister Meyers, and you want to spare us and all that—but in the end, if something would happen to you, you'd only cause us more grief. You done enough for us already.” He sits up straight. He has finished his deliberations. He wrinkles his brow and is ready to tell me his secret. He does not look directly at me, but I can see that there is something fierce in his eyes. “You should of told me about Jackson's son-of-a-bitch brother,” he says. He curses under his breath, in Italian. It is a language I do not know. Perhaps I will study it next year. “He must really be keeping a close tab on you—cause by the time I got here this afternoon, he knew about your phone. It said so in the note. The girl said she found it slipped under the door. She thought some kids from the neighborhood must of done it, so I didn't tell her different.” He stops and looks at me. “You been getting a lot of these, right—?”

“I suppose,” I say.

His eyes bulge forward. He leans close to me and whispers. “Well, let him come, baby. Just let him come, Mister Meyers.” He motions to his suitcase. “He'll have a surprise in store for him if he comes into this room.” He slams his fist into his palm. “A real surprise.”

“I suppose,” I say.

“And I'll tell you something else—I don't want any secrets anymore, see—maybe I shouldn't of done it, maybe I should of put the whole thing to you first—but I found all the other notes in your desk.” He is embarrassed by this disclosure. “The guy's a real scribbler, ain't he?” he adds.

“People on welfare do not have telephones,” I say. “That is the way the city improves their literacy. They must send their messages through the mails, or—”

Danny bursts into laughter. “What a guy!” he says. He slaps his thigh. “I got to remember that for Jeannie.” He stops abruptly. He sets his jaw and gives his head a quick jerk. He is not angry with me, I see. My remarks touch him. His admiration for Harry Meyers only increases. “You really got some spirit, don't you?” He is considering again. “Let me tell you something, Mister Meyers, and I hope you don't take it the wrong way—but a lot of guys I work with at the factory, when we get into talks sometimes they say how maybe the Jews all got it from the Nazis cause they had no guts, and I tell 'em they'd think different if they knew a man like you.” He pauses. There are extra bed sheets in the bottom drawer of my dresser. He will be able to use those. But all my blankets are on my bed now and I know he will not permit me to give one of them up. “I never seen any point in tellin' you about this before, but now it seems right, you know what I mean?” I nod. Perhaps Manuel can obtain a folding cot. We will see. Marty can take care of himself, I know. I do not worry about him. “Last year, when we were talkin' this way I about broke a guy's jaw for saying that maybe the Nazis had the right idea—” I look into his large face and see, from his eyes, that he is truly moved by the recounting of his own deed. He swallows and I watch his Adam's apple slide in his throat. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know.” His eyes narrow. “You don't hear any of that kind of talk around me anymore. They watch out for Danny Santini—”