Part 4 (1/2)
Something Bright
Do you remember the Depression? That black shadow across time? That hurtingplace in the consciousness of the world? Maybe not. Maybe it's like asking doyou remember the Dark Ages. Except what would I know about the price of eggsin the Dark Ages? I knew plenty about prices in the Depression.
If you had a quarter-first find your quarter-and five hungry kids, youcould supper them on two cans of soup and a loaf of day-old bread, or twoquarts of milk and a loaf of day-old bread. It was filling-in an afterthoughtykind of way-nouris.h.i.+ng. But if you were one of the hungry five, you eventuallybegan to feel erosion set in, and your teeth ached for substance.
But to go back to eggs. Those were a precious commodity. You savored themslowly or gulped them eagerly -unmistakably as eggs-boiled or fried. That'sone reason why I remember Mrs. Klevity. She had eggs for breakfast! And everyday! That's one reason why I remember Mrs. Klevity.
I didn't know about the eggs the time she came over to see Mom, who hadjust got home from a twelve-hour day, cleaning up after other people at thirtycents an hour. Mrs. Klevity lived in the same court as we did. Courtesy calledit a court because we were all dependent on the same shower house and twotoilets that occupied the shack square in the middle of the court.
All of us except the Big House, of course. It had a bathroom of its own andeven a radio blaring ”n.o.body's Business” and ”Should I Reveal” and had ceilinglights that didn't dangle nakedly at the end of a cord. But then it reallywasn't a part of the court. Only its back door shared our area, and even thatwas different. It had two back doors in the same frame-a screen one and a wooden one!
Our own two-room place had a distinction, too. It had an upstairs. One roomthe size of our two. The Man Upstairs lived up there. He was mostly only thesound of footsteps overhead and an occasional cookie for Danna.
Anyway, Mrs. Klevity came over before Mom had time to put her shopping bagof work clothes down or even to unpleat the folds of fatigue that dragged herface down ten years or more of time to come. I didn't much like Mrs. Klevity.She made me uncomfortable. She was so solid and slow-moving and so nearlyblind that she peered frighteningly wherever she went. She stood in thedoorway as though she had been stacked there like bricks and a dress drawnhastily down over the stack and a face sketched on beneath a fuzz of hair. Uskids all gathered around to watch, except Danna who snuffled wearily into myneck. Day nursery or not, it was a long, hard day for a four-year-old.
”I wondered if one of your girls could sleep at my house this week.” Hervoice was as slow as her steps.
”At your house?” Mom ma.s.saged her hand where the shopping bag handles hadcrisscrossed it. ”Come in. Sit down.” We had two chairs and a bench and two apple boxes. The boxes scratched bare legs, but surely they couldn't scratch astack of bricks.
”No, thanks.” Maybe she couldn't bend! ”My husband will be away severaldays and I don't like to be in the house alone at night.”
”Of course,” said Mom. ”You must feel awfully alone.”
The only aloneness she knew, what with five kids and two rooms, was thetaut secretness of her inward thoughts as she mopped and swept and ironed inother houses. ”Sure, one of the girls would be glad to keep you company.”There was a darting squirm and LaNell was safely hidden behind the swaying ofour clothes in the diagonally curtained corner of the Other room, and Kathyknelt swiftly just beyond the dresser, out of sight.
”Anna is eleven.” I had no place to hide, burdened as I was with Danna.”She's old enough. What time do you want her to come over?”
”Oh, bedtime will do.” Mrs. Klevity peered out the door at the darkeningsky. ”Nine o'clock. Only it gets dark before then-” Bricks can look anxious, I guess.
”As soon as she has supper, she can come,” said Mom, handling my hours asthough they had no value to me. ”Of course she has to go to school tomorrow.”
”Only when it's dark,” said Mrs. Klevity. ”Day is all right. How muchshould I pay you?”
”Pay?” Mom gestured with one hand. ”She has to sleep anyway. It doesn'tmatter to her where, once she's asleep. A favor for a friend.”
I wanted to cry out: Whose favor for what friend? We hardly pa.s.sed the timeof day with Mrs. Klevity. I couldn't even remember Mr. Klevity except that hewas straight and old and wrinkled. Uproot me and make me lie in a strangehouse, a strange dark, listening to a strange breathing, feeling a strangewarmth making itself part of me for all night long, seeping into me- ”Mom-” I said.
”I'll give her breakfast,” said Mrs. Klevity. ”And lunch money for eachnight she comes.”
I resigned myself without a struggle. Lunch money each day-a whole dime!Mom couldn't afford to pa.s.s up such a blessing, such a gift from G.o.d, whounerringly could be trusted to ease the pinch just before it becameintolerable.
”Thank you, G.o.d,” I whispered as I went to get the can opener to opensupper. For a night or two I could stand it.
I felt all naked and unprotected as I stood in my flimsy crinkle cottonpajamas, one bare foot atop the other, waiting for Mrs. Klevity to turn thebed down.
”We have to check the house first,” she said thickly. ”We can't go to beduntil we check the house.”
”Check the house?” I forgot my starchy stiff shyness enough to question.”What for?”
Mrs. Klevity peered at me in the dim light of the bedroom. They had threerooms for only the two of them! Even if there was no door to shut between thebedroom and the kitchen.
”I couldn't sleep,” she said, ”unless I looked first. I have to.”
So we looked. Behind the closet curtain, under the table-Mrs. Klevity evenlooked in the portable oven that sat near the two-burner stove in the kitchen.
When we came to the bed, I was moved to words again. ”But we've been inhere with the doors locked ever since I got here. What could possibly-”
”A prowler?” said Mrs. Klevity nervously, after a brief pause for thought.”A criminal?”
Mrs. Klevity pointed her face at me. I doubt if she could see me from thatdistance. ”Doors make no difference,” she said. ”It might be when you leastexpect, so you have to expect all the time.”
”I'll look,” I said humbly. She was older than Mom. She was nearly blind.She was one of G.o.d's Also Unto Me's.
”No,” she said. ”I have to. I couldn't be sure, else.”
So I waited until she grunted and groaned to her knees, then bent stiffly to lift the limp spread. Her fingers hesitated briefly, then flicked thespread up. Her breath came out flat and finished. Almost disappointed, itseemed to me.
She turned the bed down and I crept across the gray, wrinkled sheets, andturning my back to the room, I huddled one ear on the flat, tobacco-smellingpillow and lay tense and uncomfortable in the dark, as her weight shaped andreshaped the bed around me. There was a brief silence before I heard thesoundless breathy shape of her words, ”How long, O G.o.d, how long?”
I wondered through my automatic bless Papa and Mama-and the automaticbackup, because Papa had abdicated from my specific prayers, bless Mama and mybrother and sisters-what it was that Mrs. Klevity was finding too long tobear.
After a restless waking, dozing sort of night that strange sleeping placesheld for me, I awoke to a thin chilly morning and the sound of Mrs. Klevitymoving around. She had set the table for breakfast, a formality we never hadtime for at home. I scrambled out of bed and into my clothes with only myskinny, goose-fleshed back between Mrs. Klevity and me for modesty. I feltuncomfortable and unfinished because I hadn't brought our comb over with me.
I would have preferred to run home to our usual breakfast of canned milkand Shredded Wheat, but instead I watched, fascinated, as Mrs. Klevitystruggled with lighting the kerosene stove. She bent so close, peering at theburners with the match flaring in her hand that I was sure the frowzy brush ofher hair would catch fire, but finally the burner caught instead and sheturned her face toward me.
”One egg or two?” she asked.
”Eggs! Two!” Surprise wrung the exclamation from me. Her hand hesitatedover the crumpled brown bag on the table. ”No, no!” I corrected her thoughthastily. ”One. One is plenty,” and sat on the edge of a chair watching as shebroke an egg into the sizzling frying pan.
”Hard or soft?” she asked.
”Hard,” I said casually, feeling very woman-of-the-worldish, diningout-well, practically-and for breakfast, too! I watched Mrs. Klevity spoon thefat over the egg, her hair swinging stiffly forward when she peered. Once iteven dabbled briefly in the fat, but she didn't notice, and as it swung back,it made a little s.h.i.+ny curve on her cheek.
”Aren't you afraid of the fire?” I asked as she turned away from the stovewith the frying pan. ”What if you caught on fire?”
”I did once.” She slid the egg out onto my plate. ”See?” She brushed herhair back on the left side and I could see the mottled pucker of a large oldscar. ”It was before I got used to Here,” she said, making Here more than thehouse, it seemed to me.
”That's awful,” I said, hesitating with my fork.
”Go ahead and eat,” she said. ”Your egg will get cold.” She turned back tothe stove and I hesitated a minute more. Meals at a table you were supposed toask a blessing, but-I ducked my head quickly and had a mouthful of egg beforemy soundless amen was finished.
After breakfast I hurried back to our house, my lunch-money dime clutchedsecurely, my stomach not quite sure it liked fried eggs so early in themorning. Mom was ready to leave, her shopping bag in one hand, Danna swingingfrom the other, singing one of her baby songs. She liked the day nursery.
”I won't be back until late tonight,” Mom said. ”There's a quarter in thecorner of the dresser drawer. You get supper for the kids and try to clean upthis messy place. We don't have to be pigs just because we live in a placelike this.”
”Okay, Mom.” I struggled with a snarl in my hair, the pulling making myeyes water. ”Where you working today?” I spoke over the clatter in the Otherroom where the kids were getting ready for school.
She sighed, weary before the day began. ”I have three places today, but thelast is Mrs. Paddington.” Her face lightened. Mrs. Paddington sometimes paid alittle extra or gave Mom discarded clothes or leftover food she didn't want.