If I Told You Once: A Novel (20 page)

Oh,
no,
mother, you really don’t need to do that, I said. I had just walked in the door, red faced and gasping from the stairs.

It’s time, Sashie, she said.

Call me
Shirley,
I told her for the hundredth time.

I knew she wouldn’t.

It was autumn, chilly out. My mother was busy with the week’s laundry; she was using a wooden paddle to stir the clothes in an iron pot on the stove. The steam billowed up around her, damp wisps of hair clung to her face. Clotheslines stretched across the kitchen, some already slung low with sodden clothes. I had to push them aside to make my way across the room.

Tell me what you want and we’ll find it, she said.

It’s too soon for me to think about
that,
I said.

Tomorrow then, my mother said without looking up.

I was eighteen now. I was taking courses in shorthand and typing and stenography. I had considered finding an apartment of my own, living the life of a single girl, but I felt I could not leave my mother alone. She was no longer young. She had no one left; I knew she needed me.

Also I admit I couldn’t afford to live alone.

And there was a part of me that didn’t want to leave her to her own devices. I didn’t want to let her out of my sight, not for a minute. Who knew what she could get up to once my back was turned? I thought of my brothers, their faces were hazy but I remembered how she had not wanted them to leave home. And when they did, they had died in a faraway place just as she had known they would. It had been all her fault somehow.

I did not want to go away and have the same thing happen to me.

She had killed my brothers, practically.

She talked to ghosts.

Don’t you want to get married? she said.

Of course, I told her, but not right this minute.

I had never discussed marriage with my mother before, although I did notice men. That fall they seemed particularly vibrant, in their bright ties and crisp shirts like birds in mating season. I saw them filling the streets of the city, walking briskly with their shoes polished and their hair sleeked back. I made a game of picking out my favorites as I stood waiting for buses.

I certainly did not want my mother’s help. I knew her feelings about thrift and practicality. I suspected her idea of a perfect man was one who would work steadily for sixty years without a break, wear the same suit of clothes day after day.

I respected my mother but she had no sense of refinement, no
delicacy.
When I accompanied her to the marketplace, I was always shocked by her feinting and thrusting, her swift grabs at dead fish and plucked chickens, her fierce haggling over carrots and cabbage. She liked to stand nose-to-nose with the shopkeepers, jabbing them in the chest with their own produce, until they threw up their hands and gave in.

She seldom spoke of my father anymore.

Now my mother hoisted the wet clothes from the pot with a grunt and loaded them into the wringer.

Tomorrow we’ll go, she said.

I can’t, after my classes I’m going shopping with Tessie and Mari anne, I said quickly.

My mother worked the handle. The clothes twisted in agonized postures, tighter, tighter; water dribbled out.

Then Sunday, she said through her teeth. Sunday evening we’ll go, no excuses.

I saw one of my dresses pass through the wringer, its sleeves flap ping in protest.

All right then, I said. Go where?

You’ll see, she told me.

The following afternoon, as I walked the streets gazing in shop windows with Tessie and Marianne, I wondered what my mother had in mind. I walked between the two of them, we linked arms and stepped in unison. I was so preoccupied I think I would have stepped in front of a streetcar if it weren’t for them.

My mother had only seen my friends once, from a distance, but she disliked them. Those girls, they’re nothing but leeches, she often said. All soft and hungry, sucking the life out of everyone around them. Girls like that, they’ll let their husbands waste away, they’ll lock their children in closets to keep the house clean. You should be careful or they’ll get you too, Sashie.

Shirley,
I’d remind her. And she’d say: Remember, a leech’s bite numbs you at first, so you don’t even notice it until it’s stuffed itself with your blood.

As I walked with my friends, I could not help recalling my mother’s words. She had a knack for doing that: casually painting unappetizing pictures that affixed themselves like halos to everything I held dear. It was true that Tessie and Marianne were unusually plump and healthy looking. They both had long graceful legs, they filled out their dresses generously, they had no corners. Marianne wore her blond hair in a permanent wave; she had a large flat face, rather shovel-like, but still quite pretty. Tessie had auburn hair and freckles which she covered with thick pasty makeup. She talked a great deal, with much waving of hands, and had a sense of style I greatly admired: her jewelry, her scarf flung over her shoulder just so, her hats decked with dried flowers, false fruit, stuffed birds.

We strolled along looking at the splendidly dressed mannequins, with their aloof faces and pointed toes. Every now and then I caught a glimpse of our reflection in glass, two pale swans with a dark shadow between. I had grown to be slight and wiry and dark haired like my mother. My mother called me skin and bones; I called it svelte. I also had her probing eyes, although I could not use them as she did. My mother could intimidate young men into giving her their subway seats or drive away salesmen without a word, merely with a glance. I did not. Still, when I studied myself in the mirror and saw my mother’s eyes staring back, I felt a twinge of power, the potential in me.

But I did not want to be like my mother.

I did not want to be a force of nature. I wanted to be a
lady.

So I avoided my mother’s ways, her pugilist stance, her out-thrust chin. I’d paced with books on my head for years, practiced enunciation with a pencil between my teeth. I bought high-heeled shoes; I loved that nice clatter on hard floors. The tap-tap of shoes, a pair of gloves, a precise tight-lipped smile with no vulgar teeth showing: these were the hallmarks of a lady.

Shirley, for God’s sake, said Tessie.

Where’s your head? That cab nearly flattened you, said Marianne.

You ought not moon about like that. Those fellows thought you were staring at
them,
Tessie said.

I did not know which fellows she meant; the streets were full of men, in groups, in pairs, in suits, in shirtsleeves, leaning against walls with cigarettes. Some touched their caps when we passed, others touched the front of their trousers and smirked.

The wind whipped our skirts. Tessie’s gossip whirled about in a flurry of shrill words, like dry leaves.

The men turned up their collars, cupped matches like secrets between hand and mouth.

We stopped at a drugstore soda fountain. The sudden warmth indoors made me breathless. Tessie and Marianne hoisted themselves up on the only empty stools, their hips overflowing. I stood, my elbow on the counter, and watched as they sucked up their sodas. Ravenously they pulled at the straws, their cheeks drawing in, their mouths so red.

Tessie bought some candy in a white paper sack and the two of them dug into it. They daintily licked their fingers.

Shirley? Tessie said, offering the bag.

No thank you, I said. Bad for my complexion, I said.

You should try drinking a glass of milk in the morning, with a raw egg mixed in, Marianne offered. That should clear those spots right up.

Mmm, I said. I’d been avoiding sweets merely to maintain my figure; my skin didn’t
need
improvement.

How’s your new fellow? Marianne asked Tessie.

Ah, that oaf, Tessie said. Took me skating last weekend, told me he was a pro. Helps me on with the skates, offers to hold my hand. And then the minute we’re on the ice there he goes, crashed out, knocking people down like ninepins.

No! How embarrassing!

For
him,
yes. I pretended I didn’t know him.

You didn’t!

And wouldn’t you know, he gets up, falls right back down again with his trousers completely split up the back.

How terrible!

But it turned out quite well. I met this fascinating man; when I told him I was alone he bought me coffee and walked me home. He was a charming skater and he could speak French. And
he
at least could keep his trousers in one piece.

Marianne and I digested this.

But men are all the same, they’re all fools, Tessie said, sinking her teeth into butterscotch.

She’d had more experience than us, we could not argue.

They’re all fools, Tessie went on, they go from their mothers to their wives, and if they have any time in between, they don’t know what to do with themselves. It’s single men who cause all the trouble in the world. Look at wars, tavern brawls, tramps—they’re all single men. If men stay alone too long they start touching their private parts, more and more, until they fall off. Then they turn into criminals, or lunatics, or artists.

You’ve got it all figured out, Marianne said admiringly.

Though I knew it was not what Tessie had meant, I found myself picturing a man’s private parts propped before an easel holding a paintbrush.

You’ll see, girls, Tessie said wisely and patted our hands.

I thought of my brothers, their broad-shouldered hulking presence throughout my childhood. I recalled their massive shoes, sour socks, the mess of beard stubble and soap scum they left in the sink. Tessie made men sound as flimsy as a handkerchief, to be folded neatly or soiled according to whim; but when I thought of my brothers I thought of glaciers making their massive, inexorable progress, permanently reshaping the landscape as they passed.

Oh, shy little Shirley, Tessie said. One day you’ll find a man.

She never said such things to Marianne. But then, Marianne was blond.

I’m not shy, I said automatically.

Marianne snorted. Daintily.

Tessie sighed and slouched, resting her bosom softly on the counter. Her breath in my face was heavy with chocolate and cinnamon. She settled her hips more comfortably on the stool, and a passing stock boy turned his head and stared and stumbled, his load of cotton balls and white stationery spraying everywhere.

*   *   *

Are you ready? my mother said on Sunday evening.

Yes, I said.

I knew she was. My mother had her own rules of propriety. Her hair was strained back from her face, braided, looped and knotted and tucked away.
Not a hair out of place
was her mantra. She was superstitious about such things: if she noticed stray hairs or eyelashes on her clothes she’d put them in her pocket. She carefully collected her fingernail clippings, burned them in the stove and made me do the same. She had a good figure for a woman her age but refused to flatter it; she wore drab, baggy clothes. Fine clothes, she said, tempt the evil spirits. By this I assume she meant pickpockets. She never carried a purse, kept the apartment keys on a chain at her wrist, her money stuffed down her dress.

As for me, I wore my rust-colored wool dress, new stockings, hat and gloves and the cameo pin. I had bought the pin because Tessie had one like it. When my mother first saw it she asked: Who is that a picture of? When I said I didn’t know, she asked: Why do you want to wear some stranger’s picture?

My mother wore no jewelry, she did not care about such things, she preferred to collect bits of hair, crushed insects, a ticket stub from ten years ago squirreled away in her pockets.

We walked through the darkening streets. The sidewalks were crowded with men and women, with gangs of children having a last lark before they were called home.

If you saw us then, strolling arm in arm, talking companionably, you would have thought us the best of friends; you would be surprised when I told you we were not.

Oh, we talked, but only of the most mundane things. My mother is not an articulate woman.

She spoke of recipes, of clothes she had mended for me, of pipes she had repaired that day; she had an uncanny knowledge of plumbing. How did you know what to do? I asked, and she shrugged, saying: Have you ever seen the inside of a cow? Next to that, the sink is nothing.

She spoke of the sick people she had visited with her herbal remedies: patients too poor for doctors, or too superstitious, or else they were illegal immigrants who distrusted everyone who did not speak their language. She grew the herbs herself, in pots on our windowsills; they were twisted, skeletal ugly little plants, and she kept their names and uses to herself.

I knew a good daughter was supposed to take her mother’s arm on the street, to help her over the curbs and puddles, to support her feeble steps. Not so with my mother. When I took her arm, she ended up dragging me, my hand clamped beneath her elbow, my feet hardly touching the ground. She led me through a neighborhood I hated, with the tenements and narrow streets, foreign cooking smells and babies’ cries pouring from the windows.

We turned onto a quieter street.

Ah, here we are, she said.

We paused before an apartment building of weathered brick. At street level was a butcher shop, brightly lit. We could see the red-and-white marbled meat in the glass cases, resting on soaked paper, and the ropes of sausage, all different thicknesses, hung on hooks. Behind the cases stood a heavy, jowly man in a stained apron, his arms folded and resting on his protruding stomach. He watched us through the window, tiny eyes sunk deep in his face.

A smell of blood, of spices, of mopped floors hovered in the air.

Hung on the wall of the shop facing the cases were photographs, framed and glassed in, photographs of smiling girls in wedding gowns. Even from the window I could see that they must have been his daughters or nieces, they had his embedded eyes, his thick shape. I could see the girls’ meaty pink faces, flushed from excitement or the tightness of their dresses, their fat fingers choking the stems of flowers. No grooms, only the red-faced girls in their identical dresses, lined up like a row of merchandise.