Red Sky at Morning (14 page)

"Good figures have nothing to do with it. Or very little. A model has to have some imagination and lots of muscular control, and she has to know how to take orders. If she looks like Miss America she'll probably be a lousy model. Girls like that are always preening themselves and showing you their profiles and wondering if they have a pimple on their behinds. How old is this friend of yours that has the figure?"

"My age. Seventeen."

"My God, are you insane? I already have a civic reputation as a lewd old man."

"This is really a nice girl. Her father's a minister."

"Worse and worse. I can see that you have no appreciation for the niceties. Here, drink your coffee. It may help to clear your mind."

We leaned against his little waist-high refrigerator and drank coffee and watched Shirley sleep. She was a big-boned woman, long in the legs and small-waisted, with a rosy skin. Somewhere, at some time, she must take exercise, I thought, because you can't get a figure like that by sleeping. "She's from San Francisco," Romeo said. "She said she got tired of looking at the ocean and took her money—she didn't have much—and bought a bus ticket and three pounds of Monterey Jack cheese. The bus ticket ran out in Sagrado, but the Monterey Jack ran out in Elko, Nevada. When the bus driver made her get off in Sagrado she began walking, but said she kept falling asleep. The last place she fell asleep was against my gate. I opened it three days ago to put the trash out and she fell backwards into my arms. Didn't even wake up. It's just my dago luck; whenever I need a model, God sends me something."

"I think you ought to give her the pills," I said. "She's missing all the fun of life this way."

"That's a very considerate thought," Romeo said. "When I get starved for conversation or love I'll give her five or six grains and see what happens. She'll probably turn into a harpie, though, and begin to whine and move things around the studio and want me to buy clothes and cosmetics, and tell me to shave my mustache and vote Republican. You remember Anna? The one who gave me this?" He pointed to his bandage. "When she wasn't talking to me about plastic values and economy of line and masses and thrusts, she was telling me that I was a political juvenile and should join the Communist Party and man the barricades. Now I ask you, where the hell should we put up a barricade in Sagrado? Where's a Winter Palace for us to storm? Can't you see me charging into the city council meeting some Wednesday night and telling Mayor Chavez that I represent the revolution of the proletariat?"

Shirley began to stir, and her bathrobe fell open again. Romeo walked over and put his hand on her shoulder. "Cover up, dear one," he said. "You're exposing the Piazza di Spagna."

She yawned. "Can I have a sandwich? Anything but Monterey Jack."

"All right," Romeo said. "We'll have dinner. Do you want something to eat, Josh?"

I thought about the dinner Excilda would have ready, and then remembered with a sharp pang that Excilda wasn't going to be cooking at home any more.

"I ought to be going home for dinner," I said.

"Nonsense. The Montoyas left yesterday, and I know from agonizing personal experience that your mother is a vile cook."

"How did you. . . ."

"Amadeo came in this morning and asked for work. Believe me, if I had any money to spare at all I'd have been delighted to hire him, but I'm as poor as he is. Now, please stay to dinner. Will sardine and onion on rye bread be satisfactory?"

"Sure," I said.

"It had better be. It's all we've got."

Shirley dragged herself off the chair and tied her bathrobe. "I want to wash up before dinner, Romeo," she said, in a dazed way. She walked dreamily across the studio and opened the door to the patio, went outside, and closed it. Romeo and I watched the door for half a minute, and then heard the sleepy knock. He opened the door, and Shirley stood there in the snow, barefoot, looking puzzled. "This is outside," she said.

"That's right,
bellissima,
you did it again."

"But I wanted the bathroom."

"Right over there," Romeo told her gently, pointing toward another door. "If you wish, I'll paint 'Ladies' on it. Nothing's too much trouble for my Shirlina
bella."

Shirley smiled vaguely. "You're nice," she said, and walked across the studio to the bathroom, tracking snow on the floor.

"I have to watch her," Romeo said. "Sometimes she goes to sleep in the bathtub, and sometimes she dozes off when she's on the toilet."

"She's really beautiful," I said.

"Yes, she is. Beautiful and ornate and serene, like an artichoke. I'm thinking of doing a massive work of Shirley, in marble, called 'The Vegetable.' "

"You really ought to give her those pills, you know," I said. "She might drown in the bathtub sometime."

"All right," he said. "I will. You've convinced me. But I won't like her that way."

Shirley made it out of the bathroom all right this time, and the three of us sat around the scarred round table and ate onion and sardine sandwiches. Romeo let me have a small glass of the red wine he served from a gallon jug. It tasted a little like paint.

"Have they found that Velarde boy yet?" he asked me when we'd finished. "The one with the knife?"

"No, we think he's dead from the cold. The sheriff said he was either hiding out somewhere in town or he's run away south to Mexico, where carrying a knife doesn't make you stand out in a crowd. Where did you get this stuff?" I asked him, referring to the wine.

"It's local," he said. "There's a man named Northrup in the valley out east of here who has a little vineyard and makes his own red. He did a lot of research on the soil and the climate and decided that Sagrado wasn't too high to be good wine country. What do you think of it?"

"It's awful."

"You're right," he said. "It is awful. Northrup was wrong, but he won't give up. However, it costs only sixty-eight cents a gallon, and it does have an alcoholic content."

"Would you like something a little better? Dad has a little cellar at our house, and nobody's drinking it right now, except Mother, and she's sticking to the sherry. I think I could arrange for a few bottles."

"That's stealing, Josh, I won't hear of it."

"There's some Châteauneuf-du-Pape, some Nuits-Saint-Georges and some Clos de Vougeot," I said. "I don't think I should take any of the clarets. Dad counted them pretty carefully before he left. He said he'd see that swift justice came to anyone who touched his case of Château Margaux 1929."

"Your offer is falling on deaf ears, Josh. I am a man of stern principles when it comes to other people's property. Although it isn't very good, I am perfectly happy with my gallon of Flor de Yunque. Shirley likes it too, don't you dear?"

"Mmmm?" Shirley said.

"Romeo, this wine is all from the thirties, and it won't last forever. If someone doesn't drink it now it'll lose its power and go downhill. The Clos Vougeot should be at its peak right now. Another few months and it will start tasting like a raspberry phosphate."

"For a minor you seem very knowing about wines."

"I belonged to a little wine-tasting society in Mobile. The president of it was Paul Robinson, the noted Southern connoisseur and gourmet. He always said a robust Rhone or Burgundy was the best thing to accompany onion and sardine sandwiches."

Romeo poured another glass of Flor de Yunque, and when he drank it off it made his mouth pucker, as though he'd bit into a lemon. "I'm weakening," he said. "This stuff really isn't fit for human consumption. Do you honestly have Châteauneuf-du-Pape?"

"About a case and a half, all lying there getting corked."

"If you get caught at it I'll deny everything. I'll throw you to the wolves."

"Can I lie down for a spell?" Shirley asked.

I left soon after Shirley hit the sack, and walked home. Nothing had changed in the kitchen, and I knocked on my mother's door and went in. She was lying on the bed, dressed as she had been the night before, with two empty bottles of Pedro Domecq on her night table.

"Mother, do you want something to eat?"

"No, thank you."

"I can fix you some eggs or something."

"No, thank you."

"How's Jimbob? Did you talk to the hospital?"

"I don't know. Why didn't Excilda come in today? I couldn't reach her anywhere."

"I thought you fired her last night. That's what she told me, anyway."

"Don't be ridiculous. She's been with us for years. It isn't like her not to come like this."

"Mother, you fired her. Her and Amadeo. Don't you remember?"

"You were very cruel last night. I'm not hungry now, thank you."

"Would you like some more sherry?"

"Maybe Excilda will be in tomorrow. It isn't like her to stay away from work without calling."

"I'll see if I can find her."

"Thank you for cooking such a nice dinner, Josh. It was delicious."

"You're welcome. Good night."

"Come again."

I closed her door and called Steenie's house. His mother answered the phone.

"Mrs. Stenopolous, this is Josh Arnold. I think my mother needs a doctor, and I don't. . . ."

"Is your mother going to have a baby?"

"No, she doesn't need that kind of doctor. I think she needs a psychiatrist. She's acting funny. Are there any good doctors like that in Sagrado?"

"There's one. Dr. Arthur Temple." She gave me his home phone number. "He's the only psychiatrist in town."

I thanked her, hung up and called Dr. Temple's number. A child's voice answered. "This is Tsigmoont. I can answer the telephone."

"Tsigmoont, can I speak to your daddy, please?"

"This is Tsigmoont. I can answer the telephone. Do you want to hear my song?
'Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormez-vous?'
It's in French. I can sing in a whole lot of different languages.
'Muss ich denn, muss ich denn. . . ."

"I'll call back in a few minutes, Tsigmoont."

I waited ten minutes and called the number again, but the line was busy. Tsigmoont had probably left the telephone off the hook. I soft-boiled some eggs, made toast and a pot of tea, and brought a tray into my mother's room. She sat up and turned the lights on. "Isn't this nice," she said. "Dinner in bed." I watched her eat, and took the tray away. I called Dr. Temple once more, but the line was still busy.

I set the alarm clock for seven, and made my mother's breakfast when I got up. She was in a nightgown and looked better. "I'll be at school all day," I told her. "Will you be okay?"

"Of course I'll be all right," she said. "What a question! Excilda won't be in today, will she?"

"No, Mother. You fired her."

"Well, she shouldn't have been so sassy. I'll do the cooking from now on, and we'll find someone to clean. Your father paid both of them far too much. It was spoiling them. You run along, now. I'll have a nice dinner ready for when you come home."

"Would you like me to call a doctor? You were pretty sick last night." She didn't answer.

I telephoned her twice from school that morning, to see if she was still up and around, and she sounded cheerful and amused by my concern. "I can't imagine why you keep calling me," she said.
"I'm
all right.
I
don't need a doctor. The only person who needs one is poor Jimbob, and he has one. I talked to his doctor just a few minutes ago. Jimbob's out of the oxygen tent, and eating like a horse."

During the lunch hour I called her again, but there wasn't any answer. I told Marcia what had happened and, as usual, she was fascinated by the idea that my mother might be mad. Anything colorful, out of the ordinary, gory or violent made Marcia's eyes light up. "Is Dr. Temple going to see her?" she asked.

"I called him, but I couldn't get him."

"He's a weirdo," she said positively. "In one month last year three of his patients killed themselves."

"Thanks for telling me. I feel a lot better about it now."

"Well,
all
of his patients don't kill themselves. Some of them may even get well, for all I know. I've never heard of any that did, but I don't know who all his patients are. He and his wife live pretty high."

I hoped I wouldn't have to call Dr. Temple again professionally, I said, but Mother's behavior had been pretty strange last night. I told Marcia about all the sherry, and Marcia comforted me. "She was just stoned," she said. "Nobody acts right when they're really stoned."

"I know that," I said, "but this is the first time she's ever done this. She didn't drink back in Mobile. Not like that."

"She probably misses her husband," Marcia said. "You know."

After school I called home from the pharmacy, but there was still no answer, so I telephoned Dr. Temple at his office. I was afraid that Tsigmoont might be serving as his receptionist, too, but I reached him without any trouble.

"Did you call me last night?" Dr. Temple asked, after I told him who I was and about my mother.

"Yes, sir."

"Why did you hang up on Tsigmoont?"

"I'm sorry about that, Doctor, but he wouldn't let me talk to you, and he kept singing songs. I didn't want to talk to a little boy just then."

"Tsigmoont," he said crisply, "is a very
brilliant
little boy and a very
sensitive
little boy, and now he is a very deeply
wounded
little boy, thanks to you. You shouldn't be
brutal
to
children.
You should let them sing their little songs. The time of singing little songs is over too soon, too soon."

"I apologize," I said.

"Are you calling from your house?"

"No, sir. I'm downtown. It'll take me about twenty minutes to get home."

"What is the address? We'll meet you there in twenty minutes."

I told him the address, and started home, wondering who he meant by "we." Was he bringing the traditional men in white coats with him? That seemed a bit premature; he hadn't even examined her yet.

He was on time. He and a woman were sitting in the first Rolls-Royce I'd ever seen, a big catlike gray monster that purred. The woman was driving, and Dr. Temple was sitting next to her with an attaché case open on his lap, making corrections on a thick manuscript. She turned off the motor and they both emerged, looking aggressive and competent.