Tar Baby

6

CHRISTMAS EVE’S EVE and even the goddamn hydrangea had bloomed!

The whole island was vomiting up color like a drunk and here in the corner, in plastic filtered light, was one spot of sane, refined mauve. Valerian sprayed it with water and aerated the soil around the stem. “Merry Christmas,” he said, and toasted the shy violet buds with his wineglass. Maybe Margaret was right: this would be a warm and memorable Christmas. The black man had brought luck to the greenhouse, maybe he’d bring luck to the whole celebration. Michelin would be there; Michael, Michael’s friend; that was just enough. And Margaret was sober and busy and cheerfully preoccupied with something outside herself for a change.

Valerian walked away from the hydrangea and looked out the window toward the washhouse. The washerwoman was there, bless her heart, with the yard boy. He couldn’t hear them, but they looked as though they were laughing. A nip, he thought. They’re already celebrating and have taken a Christmas nip. He liked that. That was the way a holiday ought to begin and since everything was in its place as it should be—Michael coming, Margaret cooking, hydrangea in bloom—he decided to go out there with the servants and wish them a Merry Christmas too. All that was needed was that holiday bread Grandmother Stadt used to make. Ollieballen.

“Ollieballen?”

“Yes. My grandmother used to make it at New Year.”

“The Candy Queen?” asked Margaret. “I never heard of it.”

“It’s not hard,” said Valerian. “It’s Dutch.”

“What’s it taste like?”

“Sweet. Like a doughnut.”

“We can’t serve doughnuts at dinner, Valerian.”

“It’s not for dinner, it’s for afterward. With brandy and coffee.”

“This is going to be hard enough without ollieballen.”

“Then let’s forget the whole thing.”

“No. I said I’d do it and I’m going to. Michael will get a kick out of it.”

“So will Ondine.”

“Maybe. I’ve never seen her eat anything.”

“Nobody ever sees a cook eat anything. Let’s go over the menu again. Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans—what else?”

“The lemon whip and this ollieballen thing.”

“You can use the apples in it. It’s easier than pie and it’s traditional in our family—or it was. What about something to start? Soup or fish?”

“Valerian.”

“Something simple. You can handle it.”

“You’ll help?”

“I’ll be entertaining the guests. I can’t do both. And that’s not what you said. You said you’d do the whole dinner for everybody.”

“So how many is that? Six?”

“Seven. It’ll be fun. You’ll enjoy it. Don’t forget it was your suggestion.”

“How do you get seven?”

“B.J. has a girlfriend, doesn’t he? So there’s me, you and Michael, B.J. and his guest, Jade and Michelin. Seven. The turkey is here—beans, potatoes—nothing to it. You can make the ollieballen ahead of time. Christmas Eve.”

“You have the recipe?”

“I have it.”

“What do I need?”

“Nothing special: yeast, eggs, milk, sugar, lemon, flour, raisins, apples and butter.”

“What about the lemon whip?”

“Just lemon-flavored gelatin beaten to froth and whipped cream on top. Very simple. We can have smoked fish, perhaps, to start. All that needs is parsley. The lemon whip is a light sweet for after a heavy dinner. Then coffee and brandy with the ollieballen.” Valerian spread his fingers to show how easy it was. He wanted her occupied the next few days—not sitting around in anxiety about when (or if) Michael would get there.

“Doughnuts and brandy,” she said, and shook her head.

“Margaret.”

“No, no. It’s fine. Just sounded funny that’s all.”

“They don’t have a hole in the middle.”

“Too bad,” she said. “It might inspire you.”

“I’m sorry about last night. That wasn’t why I came. I’ve been hateful and I know it. I shouldn’t have behaved that way when you found Willie up there in your closet.”

“We’ve been through all that. Forget it.”

“It worked out okay, didn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

“You should see the greenhouse now. Black magic.”

“Really?”

“Really. You should come and see. And I am sorry, Margaret. I liked what you did though.”

“Sure. We’ll do it again sometime.”

“Soon?”

“Soon.”

“Now.”

“Now?”

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t work like that, Valerian. I mean I can’t just lie down in the middle of the afternoon.”

“I can. I can even kneel. Might need help getting back up, but I can do it.”

“No. Wait.”

“Margie. Marge.”

“WHAT KIND of dinner is that? I wouldn’t have it for lunch. Does she think she’s doing me a favor?”

“Stop grumbling. It’s Christmastime and for once in your life you don’t have to cook the dinner.”

“But I have to do the dishes, I bet.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Who then? You? No Mary. No Yardman. They decide not to show up without telling anybody. Everything’s on me. A pile of laundry a mile high in there. Jadine off playing games with that jailbird; guests coming…”

“I told you he already called Dr. Michelin, and Dr. Michelin said he’d get us somebody right away. Maybe not right away because they got Christmas there too, but he thinks his housekeeper can find somebody. We’ll just have to make do for a day or two. Let the laundry stay there, and get yourself organized. You are worrying the life out of me.”

“You can stop riding me any time you please. And if you expect anything at all to go right, you better quit soon.”

“You the one riding people. You been hot for days. Nothing can please you.”

“The whole house is upset. Hard to think and be nice in a house that’s upset.”

“The house is not upset. You are. Everybody else is laughing and having a good time but you. Mr. Street slept with his wife last night. You know how long it’s been since he did that? Slept in the same bed with her?”

“Slept is the word all right.”

“Don’t you believe it. They been cooing all morning.”

“I don’t care. They ought to sleep together. I never did know how he puts up with that. Whoever heard of married folks sleeping any other way but together. They can sleep anywhere they want. It’s where Jadine sleeps that bothers me.”

“She slept in her own bed.”

“I’m going to bring this basin down on your head. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Well, what you want me to do about it?”

“Talk to somebody.”

“Who?”

“Her.”

“Get away from me.”

“Sydney, listen here. I don’t like it. None of it. What she want to mess with him for? He ain’t got a dime and no prospect of one.”

“She’s just playing. Nothing much else to do out here, you know that. Cleaned him up and he looks fine and even acts all right. Look here. They pack a lunch, go off to the beach and swim a little. What is that? Marriage? First you was screaming because you thought she was going to marry some white boy; now she goes swimming with one of us and you still mad. Jadine’s not a fool and he’s okay.”

“He is not okay.”

“When he busted in here you were the one trying to get me to calm down. I was ready to shoot him. Now you the one want the gun.”

“I just don’t like it.”

“What you afraid of? She’s not going off with him. Just because you foolish, don’t think she is. She’s worked hard to make something out of herself, and nothing will make her throw it all away on a swamp nigger.”

“It ain’t what she thinks that worries me. It’s what he thinks.”

“You know something I don’t?”

“No.”

“Well then.”

“But I’ve seen his eyes when nobody’s looking. At least when he thinks nobody’s looking.”

“And what did you see in his eyes, Ondine?”

“Wildness. Plain straight-out wildness. He wants her, Sydney. And he’ll do what he has to do to get her and what he has to to keep her.”

“Takes two, Ondine. He can’t kidnap her.”

“Wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Mr. Street likes him.”

“He likes him because Jadine likes him.”

“No. He helped him with those plants in there. Made something grow that was dying.”

“He wants to keep him here so Jade will stay and if Jadine stays then his wife might stay and if Michael does show up maybe she won’t want to go running off after him.”

“Well. Maybe he’s right.”

“Don’t rely on it. If that boy gets in she’ll be out of here like a shot. She’s got a lot of cleaning up to do with Michael. It’s sitting on her heart and she’s never going to have no peace until she cleans it up. She’ll trail him to the end of the world and God himself knows that is exactly where she ought to be.”

“You hate that woman, and you want her out of here so you can run everything your way.”

“I don’t hate her; I feel sorry for her, to tell the truth.”

“Want some more hot water in there?”

“No, this is fine.”

“It’s going to be all right, Ondine. She is coming in the kitchen to cook Christmas dinner. And you have to get out of the way. Maybe it’ll taste bad, but it’s only for one night. We can behave for one night, can’t we? Then it’ll be over and everything will be back to normal.”

“Everything but my feet.”

“Your feet too. Put ’em up here. Let me rub them for you.”

“They not going to last much longer, you know. I get the littlest cut on them now and it don’t seem to heal. I have to stand up to do the work I do, if I can’t stand then I can’t work.”

“When you can’t stand, girl, sit down. You don’t have to work. I can take care of you, you know that.”

“We don’t have a place of our own. And the little bit of savings went to Jadine. Not that I regret a penny of it; I don’t.”

“We got a few stocks and Social Security. Years of it. Remember how I tried to get Mr. Street not to take it out, back when we first started, and he wouldn’t listen to me? Now I appreciate the fact that he didn’t.”

“Such a smart little girl, and so pretty. I never minded not having children after we started taking care of her. I would have stood on my feet all day all night to put her through that school. And when my feet were gone, I would have cooked on my knees.”

“I know, baby, I know.”

“She crowned me, that girl did. No matter what went wrong or how tired I was, she was my crown.”

“He helped too, you know. We never could have done it without him.”

“And I’m grateful. You know I am. I’ve never had no problem with him. He’s a nuisance, but he stood by us when we needed him to.”

“And she never objected to it, Ondine. A lot of wives would have.”

“I suppose.”

“Lay back. Put your legs up on this pillow. Rest yourself and don’t worry about nothing. Nothing’s going to change. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“She wouldn’t up and marry some no-count Negro, would she? I don’t care how good-looking and sweet-talking he is. You didn’t say nothing about stuffin. Is she going to stuff that bird or just roast him empty?”

“Rest, girl.”

“And what the devil is lemon whip?”

NOBODY CAME. At least none of the invited. The emperor butterflies flew in the window, but they were not invited, nor were the bees. They were roused by the six-part singing of the tin-tin birds sitting in formation at the top of the bougainvillea. But the maiden aunts weren’t there, thank God, with their wispy maiden aunt hair. Still nobody came. Uninvited and emergency guests shared dinner on Christmas Day. First the telephone operator read off the cable from B. J. Bridges: “Boston weather cannot fly okay postpone New Year.” Then Dr. Michelin called with regrets saying the crossing would be too rough. Finally customs contrôle reported there was no red trunk on the last flight arriving at nine in the morning from Miami, and there was no Houston flight at all that day. More telephone calls. Michael did not answer his telephone. Margaret would have caved in Christmas Eve except for the busy-ness of confirming the disaster: more placing of calls—forty-five-minute waits until they were connected; more cables with “confirm delivery” instructions; Michael’s neighbors were summoned, but the number had changed or the neighbors had; his old girlfriends were asked to go to his house and check. Had he left? When? But it was the day before Christmas and people had other things to do. Then there was the wrapping of gifts, the ollieballen to make, the turkey that was really a goose to prepare. Margaret was too tired to feel her sorrow at its deepest point until Christmas Day dawned bright and secular and nobody at all came to L’Arbe de la Croix, and nobody was in his proper place. Ondine was in the bathtub. Margaret was in the kitchen. Sydney was in the greenhouse cutting flowers for the table. Jadine was in the washhouse waiting for a dryer load to conclude. And Valerian was by the telephone placing incomplete calls. Son, who had no place of his own, got in everybody’s way. The exchange of gifts, scheduled for Michael’s arrival, took place anywhere, furtively and without fanfare or enthusiasm. When it was certain that no one was coming and the day looked as if it belonged to the tin-tin birds and not to family and friends, Valerian, to raise Margaret’s spirits probably or simply to get through the day, said, “Let’s all sit down and have the dinner among ourselves. Everybody. Jade, Willie, Ondine, Sydney.” They would all have a good time, he said. Margaret nodded, and left the kitchen, where the uses of things now eluded her completely. She was in control the night before—enough to wash the fowl whose legs would not stand up as they ought to. But the ollieballen recipe slipped out of reach entirely. Sydney rescued it and now when Valerian called her away from the kitchen she seemed not to care one way or another. It was just another meal now and the dinner she had planned to cook Ondine had to finish, including the lemon whip. Ondine was persuaded to dress up and join Sydney and the others in the dining room partly because she’d had the foresight to bake a ham and a coconut cake and would not be required to eat Margaret’s menu and partly because she’d have to eat alone otherwise, but she was deeply unhappy about being thrown out of her kitchen in the first place and then pushed back in when Margaret abandoned the whole thing halfway through because the guests were different. She was also unhappy because she thought Jadine had secret plans to leave right after Christmas. A few days ago she had the humiliation of Alma Estée handing her a pair of recently worn pajamas that she found in the gardenia bushes underneath Jadine’s bedroom. Ondine took them and did not mention the find to anyone, but it worried her. Jadine’s scurrilous remarks about Son seemed too pointed, too loud. Sydney took the invitation in stride. The suggestion of a special and intimate relationship with his employer pleased him more than it disconcerted him. And what was unthinkable and undesirable in Philadelphia was not so on that island. In addition, it leveled, in a way, the invitation Mr. Street had extended to Son when everybody thought he was a burglar. More than leveled—this invitation was formal and sober although it was an emergency solution to a rapidly deteriorating holiday.

Jadine was enchanted. Wanted everybody dressed up and gave Ondine and Sydney their presents right after breakfast when she heard the plans, exacting a promise from her aunt that she would wear hers to dinner. It was hard to tell what Son felt. Perhaps he did not know himself. For such a long time a Christmas spent on land for him was an extempore dinner or party with miscellaneous people he never expected to see again. This was another, except that the imminent exit of one of those persons alarmed him. She said “before I go” on the beach. Not “before you go.” And he had had a brief encounter with Margaret that confirmed it. He was still apologizing all around and saw Margaret lying in a canvas-back chair, sunning herself in the shade and away from the wind too, so she could acquire a tan but not the aging of skin that would accompany it. Her place for this was on the patio outside the living room where the piano was, sheltered by the bougainvillea bushes. Next to her chair on a small glass-topped table was a box of stationery, Bain de Soleil, tissues and a half-glass of Evian, ice and lime. She was in a bathing suit and Son thought she was like a marshmallow warming but not toasting itself. That inside the white smooth skin was liquid sugar, no bones, no cartilage—just liquid sugar, soft and a little pully. Quite unlike her tips, where all of her strength was. Direction, focus, aggression, tenacity—all that was tough and survivalist in her lay in the tips of her fingers, the tips of her toes, her nose tip, her chin tip, and he suspected her breast tips were tiny brass knobs like those ornately carved fixtures screwed into the drawers of Jadine’s writing table. Even the top of her head was fierce, pulled back as it was into a red foxtail of stamina. She heard him approach and turned her head slowly. The minute she saw him, she reached for her towel. Son picked it up from the flagstones and handed it to her. His gesture was swift and accommodating so she did not fling it over herself as she had probably intended to do but simply held it in her lap.

“I scare you?”

“No. Yes,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come up.”

He did not comment on that so she said, “What is it?”

“Nothing. I just saw you out here and wanted to say hello.”

“Hello. Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

“It shouldn’t be. You should have more to say after what you did to me.”

“What did I do to you?” He was counting on the liquid sugar. Never mind the tips.

“You know what. You sat in my closet and scared the hell out of me.”

He smiled. “You scared the hell out of me too.”

“Bullshit,” she said.

“It’s true. Your husband was right; you were wrong. As soon as he saw me he knew I didn’t mean no harm.”

“He wasn’t there. I was. I was in that closet; I saw you.”

“What did you see?”

“I saw a big black man sitting in my closet is what I saw.”

“I’m not so big. Your husband’s bigger—taller—than I am. Besides, I was sitting down. What made you think I was big?”

“There are no small men in a closet. Unless the closet belongs to them. Any stranger in a closet is big. Big and scary. I thought—”

“You thought what?”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes and did not answer.

Son finished her sentence. “That I was going to—that if you hadn’t come in and turned on the light, I was going to stay there, wait there, until you went to bed and then I would creep out and GETCHA!” He laughed then, laughed like a ten-year-old at a Three Stooges movie. Mouth wide open, bubbly sounds coming from his chest.

“Cut that out. Don’t try to make fun of it.”

But he kept on laughing, long enough to make a little anger spread inside her. When he could stop laughing he said, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing at myself. I was seeing myself do it. Or try to do it, and it looked funny. Me with my raggedy pants down around my ankles trying to get in your bed.”

“It’s not funny.”

“No, it’s not, but believe me it wouldn’t have been much of a rape. Sex is hard when you’re starving, but I thank you for the compliment.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Margaret spread the towel across her knees and picked up the iced glass. “And the part I do understand, I don’t believe.”

“When your son gets here, ask him. He’ll explain it.”

Margaret stopped sipping the water and looked at him. “How old are you?”

“About as old as your son.”

“My son is twenty-nine going on thirty.”

“Okay. Almost as old as your son.”

“He’ll be thirty March tenth.”

“Does he favor you or your husband?”

“Favor?”

“Look like. Does he look like you?”

“People say so. Everybody says so. The hair, of course, and his eyes are blue like mine. Everybody says he looks exactly like me. Nothing like his father.”

“He must be good-looking.”

“He is. He is. But tall like Valerian. Is that true? You’re shorter than Valerian?”

Son nodded. “He’s got at least two inches on me.”

“Huh,” she said, “I wouldn’t have thought so. Well, Michael is every bit as tall as Valerian, but he does look more like me. Inside though, that’s where he’s really beautiful. Do you know what he’s been doing? for a year now? He’s been working on an Indian reservation. With the young people there, teenagers. There’s a lot of suicide among Indian teenagers. The conditions are awful, you know. You would not believe. I visited him when he was in Arizona. Well, some of the tribesmen have money but they’re just—well, they don’t really help their own. Most of them live in terrible conditions and they are very proud people, you know. Very. Michael encourages them to keep their own heritage intact. You’d really like Michael. Everybody does.”

He listened. She took sips of the Evian and lime as she talked, her knees covered with the towel. She was looking at him now. Relaxed. Interested in what she was saying. Interested in his hearing it, knowing it, knowing that her son was beautiful, wise and kind. That he loved people, was not selfish, was actually self-sacrificing, committed, that he could have lived practically any kind of life he chose, could be dissolute, reckless, trivial, greedy. But he wasn’t. He had not turned out that way. He could have been president of the candy company if he had wanted, but he wanted value in his life, not money. He had turned out fine, just fine. “Jade knows him,” she said. “They used to see each other during the summers she spent with us. Oh, he’ll be thrilled to see her again. She’s not leaving till a couple of days after Christmas so they’ll have some time together.”

Son did not blink—he took it in and nodded his appreciation of Michael into his mother’s face. She was leaving soon. Margaret was perspiring a little bit on the forehead. A light glisten on the healthy and cared-for skin. Her blue-if-it’s-a-boy blue eyes wide open, not squinting in the sun for it could not get to her under the shade of the bougainvillea. Just the heat, and she was warming and marshmallow soft. But her tips were terribly sharp.

THEY SERVED themselves from the sideboard and drank wine in some haste to hurry the dismal affair along. The forced gaiety was helped into some semblance of naturalness by Jadine with much cheery help from Valerian. Sydney was awkward but subdued. Ondine was irritable, her aching feet encased in high heels with zircons up the back.

“The turkey is very tender, Mrs. Street,” said Sydney.

Margaret smiled.

“Not bad at all,” said Valerian, who had none of it on his plate. “Geese makes excellent turkey.” He glanced at Margaret to see if she would be amused. She seemed not to hear.

“Lot of fat in a goose.” Ondine was slicing her ham. “It should be cooked on its breast, not on its back.”

“Oh, but I like the juices.”

“That ain’t juice, Jadine, that’s grease,” Ondine answered.

Valerian lifted his fork like a toastmaster. “Margaret has a surprise for us. Made it last night.”

“What?” asked Jadine.

“You’ll see. An old family recipe. Right, Margaret? Margaret?”

“Oh. Yes. Right. It wasn’t hard.”

“Don’t be modest.”

Sydney looked at Ondine with what he hoped was a stern gaze. They say it’s a surprise, his eyes seemed to be saying, let’s agree and be surprised. Ondine kept her eyes on her ham.

“Is that the phone?” Margaret was alert.

“Would you get that, Sydney?”

“I’ll get it.” Margaret was rising from her chair.

“No, let Sydney.”

No one spoke as Sydney left the room.

“Dr. Michelin,” said Sydney when he returned, “calling to say Merry Christmas. I suggested he call back later.”

“I thought it might be the airport,” said Margaret.

“Airport, what for? You heard the final news.”

“I asked the office to call if there was going to be a break in the weather.”

“The weather is in Boston, not California.”

“How do you know that?”

“I think,” said Jadine, “that the radio said there were storms all over.”

“Downed the telephone lines too, I suppose,” said Valerian.

“Probably, yes—” Margaret’s voice was a bit shrill.

“Well, he’ll be sorry,” said Valerian. “He’s missing some very good food and some very good company. We should have thought of this before. Give Ondine a day off, and you get to show off in the kitchen, Margaret. It’s good to have some plain Pennsylvania food for a change. This is an old-fashioned Christmas.”

“Too bad Gideon couldn’t come.” Son, who seemed to be the only one genuinely enjoying the food, had been silent until then.

“Who?” asked Valerian.

“Gideon. Yardman.”

“His name is Gideon?” asked Jadine.

“What a beautiful name. Gideon.” Valerian smiled.

“Well, at least we knew Mary’s name. Mary,” said Jadine.

“Nope,” said Son.

“No?”

“Thérèse.”

“Thérèse? Wonderful,” said Valerian. “Thérèse the Thief and Gideon the Get Away Man.”

Ondine looked up. “They didn’t steal that chocolate, Mr. Street. That was this one here.” She nodded her head at Son.

“Chocolate? Who’s talking about chocolate? They stole the apples.” Valerian got up to go to the sideboard for some more mashed potatoes and gravy.

“Gideon stole apples?” asked Son.

“Yep.” Valerian’s back was to them. “I caught him red-handed, so to speak. Them, rather. She, Mary, had them stuffed in her blouse. He had some in each pocket.”

Sydney and Ondine both stopped eating. “What did he say? When you caught him?” Sydney was frowning.

“Said he was going to put them back.” Valerian rejoined them and chuckled.

“So that’s why they didn’t come back to work. Ashamed.”

“Oh, more than that,” said Valerian. “Much more than that. I fired him. Her too.”

“You what?” Ondine almost shouted.

“Ondine,” Sydney whispered.

“You didn’t tell us,” she said to Valerian.

“Beg pardon?” Valerian looked amused.

“I mean…Did you know that, Sydney?”

“No. Nobody told me anything.”

“Mr. Street, you could have mentioned it.”

“I’ll get someone else. I’ve already spoke to Michelin, I told you that.”

“But I thought that was temporary help, until they came back after Christmas, I thought.”

“Well, Ondine, it isn’t temporary help I’m asking for. It’s permanent because they are not coming back.”

“Please stop bickering,” Margaret said softly. “I’m getting a headache.”

“I never bicker, Margaret. I am discussing a domestic problem with my help.”

“Well, they are guests tonight.”

“The problem is still of interest to everybody at the table, except you.”

“Certain things I need to know,” Ondine was talking into her plate, “if I’m to get work done right. I took on all sorts of extra work because I thought they were just playing hooky. I didn’t know they was fired.”

“Ondine, what would you have done differently if you had known? You would have grumbled, and tried to make me keep them on. And since they were obviously stealing, and the whole house was upset anyway, I did what I thought was best.”

“I wouldn’t have tried any such thing, if they stole. I don’t condone that.”

“Well, they did and I let them go and that’s that.”

Son’s mouth went dry as he watched Valerian chewing a piece of ham, his head-of-a-coin profile content, approving even of the flavor in his mouth although he had been able to dismiss with a flutter of the fingers the people whose sugar and cocoa had allowed him to grow old in regal comfort; although he had taken the sugar and cocoa and paid for it as though it had no value, as though the cutting of cane and picking of beans was child’s play and had no value; but he turned it into candy, the invention of which really was child’s play, and sold it to other children and made a fortune in order to move near, but not in the midst of, the jungle where the sugar came from and build a palace with more of their labor and then hire them to do more of the work he was not capable of and pay them again according to some scale of value that would outrage Satan himself and when those people wanted a little of what he wanted, some apples for their Christmas, and took some, he dismissed them with a flutter of the fingers, because they were thieves, and nobody knew thieves and thievery better than he did and he probably thought he was a law-abiding man, they all did, and they all always did, because they had not the dignity of wild animals who did not eat where they defecated but they could defecate over a whole people and come there to live and defecate some more by tearing up the land and that is why they loved property so, because they had killed it soiled it defecated on it and they loved more than anything the places where they shit. Would fight and kill to own the cesspools they made, and although they called it architecture it was in fact elaborately built toilets, decorated toilets, toilets surrounded with and by business and enterprise in order to have something to do in between defecations since waste was the order of the day and the ordering principle of the universe. And especially the Americans who were the worst because they were new at the business of defecation spent their whole lives bathing bathing bathing washing away the stench of the cesspools as though pure soap had anything to do with purity.

That was the sole lesson of their world: how to make waste, how to make machines that made more waste, how to make wasteful products, how to talk waste, how to study waste, how to design waste, how to cure people who were sickened by waste so they could be well enough to endure it, how to mobilize waste, legalize waste and how to despise the culture that lived in cloth houses and shit on the ground far away from where they ate. And it would drown them one day, they would all sink into their own waste and the waste they had made of the world and then, finally they would know true peace and the happiness they had been looking for all along. In the meantime this one here would chew a morsel of ham and drink white wine secure in the knowledge that he had defecated on two people who had dared to want some of his apples.

And Jadine had defended him. Poured his wine, offered him a helping of this, a dab of that and smiled when she did not have to. Soothed down any disturbance that might fluster him; quieted even the mild objections her own aunt raised, and sat next to him more alive and responsive and attentive than even his own wife was, basking in the cold light that came from one of the killers of the world.

Jadine who should know better, who had been to schools and seen some of the world and who ought to know better than any of them because she had been made by them, coached by them and should know by heart the smell of their huge civilized latrines.

Sydney closed his knife and fork and said, “Other folks steal and they get put in the guest room.”

Jadine shot a look at Son and said, “Uncle Sydney, please.”

“It’s true, ain’t it? We were slighted by taking in one thief and now we are slighted by letting another go.”

“We are quarreling about apples,” said Margaret with surprise. “We are actually quarreling about apples.”

“It is not about apples, Mrs. Street,” said Sydney quietly. “I just think we should have been informed. We would have let them go ourselves, probably. This way, well…” He looked as if even staying on at the table let alone the job was hopeless.

Valerian, at the head of his Christmas table, looked at the four black people; all but one he knew extremely well, all but one, and even that one was in his debt. Across from him at the bottom of the table sat Son who thought he knew them all very well too, except one and that one was escaping out of his hands, and that one was doing the bidding of her boss and “patron.” Keeping the dinner going smoothly, quietly chastising everybody including her own uncle and aunt, soothing Margaret, agreeing with Valerian and calling Gideon Yardman and never taking the trouble to know his name and never calling his own name out loud. He looked at Valerian and Valerian looked back.

The evening eyes met those of the man with savannas in his face. The man who respected industry looked over a gulf at the man who prized fraternity.

So he said to Valerian, in a clear voice, “If they had asked, would you have given them some of the apples?” The whole table looked at Son as if he were crazy.

“Of course,” said Valerian. “Some, surely, but they didn’t ask; they took. Do you know how many Americans here want special treats and goodies from the consulate? Especially at Christmas. They sent us one crate, and those two, along with that girl they bring, took them, or tried to. I stopped them. Besides, it wasn’t the apples alone. It was the way they acted when I caught them. After trying to lie out of it, they didn’t even apologize. They got arrogant—the woman called me names I haven’t heard since I left the army. So I fired them. Those apples came at great expense and inconvenience from the consulate. I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Inconvenience for who?” Son asked. “You didn’t go and get them. They did. You didn’t row eighteen miles to bring them here. They did.”

“Surely you don’t expect me to explain my actions, defend them to you?”

“You should explain it to somebody. Two people are going to starve so your wife could play American mama and fool around in the kitchen.”

“Keep me out of it, please,” said Margaret.

“Precisely,” said Valerian. His evening eyes had a touch of menace. “You keep my wife out of this. I rather think you have caused her enough mischief.” Somewhere in the back of Valerian’s mind one hundred French chevaliers were roaming the hills on horses. Their swords were in their scabbards and their epaulets glittered in the sun. Backs straight, shoulders high—alert but restful in the security of the Napoleonic Code.

Somewhere in the back of Son’s mind one hundred black men on one hundred unshod horses rode blind and naked through the hills and had done so for hundreds of years. They knew the rain forest when it was a rain forest, they knew where the river began, where the roots twisted above the ground; they knew all there was to know about the island and had not even seen it. They had floated in strange waters blind, but they were still there racing each other for sport in the hills behind this white man’s house. Son folded his hands before his jawline and turned his savanna eyes on those calm head-of-a-coin evening ones. “Whatever mischief I did,” he said, “it wasn’t enough to make you leave the table to find out about it.”

“You will leave this house,” said Valerian. “Now.”

“I don’t think so,” said Son.

Margaret raised her hand and touched Valerian on the shoulder. “It’s all right, Valerian. Let’s just…”

“It’s not all right! Whose house is this?”

“We got them back,” she said. “I made the ollieballen with them.” Her voice was limp. Maybe if they all just ignored that “I don’t think so,” it would disappear. It didn’t. It clicked like a key opening a lock.

“That’s not the point!”

“Well, what is the point, I’d like to know. It’s Christmas…”

“I am being questioned by these people, as if, as if I could be called into question!”

Jadine spoke. “Valerian, Ondine’s feelings were hurt. That’s all.”

“By what, pray? By my removing a pair of thieves from my house?”

“No, by not telling her,” said Margaret.

“So what? All of a sudden I’m beholden to a cook for the welfare of two people she hated anyway? I don’t understand.”

Ondine had been watching the exchanges with too bright eyes, chagrined by Margaret’s defense of her interests. Having caused all the trouble, now she was pretending that Ondine was the source of the dispute. “I may be a cook, Mr. Street, but I’m a person too.”

“Mr. Street,” said Sydney, “my wife is as important to me as yours is to you and should have the same respect.”

“More,” said Ondine. “I should have more respect. I am the one who cleans up her shit!”

“Ondine!” Both Sydney and Valerian spoke at once.

“This is impossible!” Valerian was shouting.

“I’ll tell it,” said Ondine. “Don’t push me, I’ll tell it.”

“Nanadine! Get hold of yourself!” Jadine pushed her chair back as though to rise.

“I’ll tell it. She wants to meddle in my kitchen, fooling around with pies. And my help gets fired!”

“Your kitchen? Your help?” Valerian was astonished.

“Yes my kitchen and yes my help. If not mine, whose?”

“You are losing your mind!” shouted Valerian.

Ondine was fuming now. “The first time in her life she tries to boil water and I get slapped in the face. Keep that bitch out of my kitchen. She’s not fit to enter it. She’s no cook and she’s no mother.”

Valerian stood up. “If you don’t leave this room I’ll…” It was the second time he ordered a dismissal and the second time it held no force.

“What? You’ll what?” asked Ondine.

“Leave!” said Valerian.

“Make me,” said Ondine.

“You don’t work here anymore,” he said.

“Oh, yeah? Who’s going to feed you? Her?” She pointed up-table at Margaret. “You’ll be dead in a week! and lucky to be dead. And away from her.”

Margaret picked up her glass and threw it. The Evian splashed on the cloth and some got on Ondine’s chiffon dress. As the others jumped up from their seats, Ondine slipped out of her zircon-studded shoes and raced around the table at the target of all her anger. The real target, who would not be riled until now when she got fed up with the name-calling and shot her water glass across the table. “Don’t you come near me!” Margaret shouted, but Ondine did and with the back of her hand slapped Margaret across the face.

“Call the harbor!” shouted Valerian, but again there was no one to do his bidding. He had played a silly game, and everyone was out of place.

Margaret touched her flaming cheek and then rose up from her chair like a red-topped geyser and grabbed Ondine’s braids, forced her head down to the table where she would have banged it except for the woman’s fist blows to her waist.

It was Jadine and Son who managed to separate them. Sydney was shaking and saying, “O Lord O Lord.” Valerian was shaking and saying nothing—his evening eyes gone dawn with rage.

Held tightly in the arms of Son, Ondine was shouting wildly, “You white freak! You baby killer! I saw you! I saw you! You think I don’t know what that apple pie shit is for?”

Jadine had a hard time holding back Margaret, who was shouting, “Shut up! Shut up! You nigger! You nigger bitch! Shut your big mouth, I’ll kill you!”

“You cut him up. You cut your baby up. Made him bleed for you. For fun you did it. Made him scream, you, you freak. You crazy white freak. She did,” Ondine addressed the others, still shouting. “She stuck pins in his behind. Burned him with cigarettes. Yes, she did, I saw her; I saw his little behind. She burned him!”

Valerian held on to the table edge as though it were the edge of the earth. His face was truly white and his voice cracked a little as he asked, “Burned…who?”

“Your son! Your precious Michael. When he was just a baby. A wee wee little bitty baby.” Ondine started to cry. “I used to hold him and pet him. He was so scared.” Her voice was hardly audible under the sobbing. “All the time scared. And he wanted her to stop. He wanted her to stop so bad. And every time she’d stop for a while, but then I’d see him curled up on his side, staring off. After a while—after a while he didn’t even cry. And she wants him home…for Christmas and apple pie. A little boy who she hurt so much he can’t even cry.”

She broke down then and said no more. Sydney put his arms around her. Son let her arms go and picked up a table napkin so she could wipe her streaming eyes with it instead of with the backs and the palms of her hands. Sydney led her barefoot, her diadem braids turned into horns, away from the table. Margaret was standing as still and as straight as a pillar. There were tears in her eyes but her beautiful face was serene. They could hear Ondine’s cries all the way into the first kitchen and down the stairs to the apartment of second-hand furniture. “Yes my kitchen. Yes my kitchen. I am the woman in this house. None other. As God is my witness there is none other. Not in this house.”

Margaret serene and lovely stared ahead at nobody. “I have always loved my son,” she said. “I am not one of those women in the National Enquirer.”

“THAT WAS AWFUL, awful,” said Jadine. She was holding Son’s hand as they walked up the stairs. There had been no point in staying or even excusing themselves. Valerian was looking at Margaret and she was looking at nobody. So the two of them left as soon as Ondine and Sydney did. Jadine would not admit to herself that she was rattled, but her fingertips were ice-cold in Son’s hand. She wanted a little human warmth, some unsullied person to be near, someone to be with, so she took his hand without thinking about it and said, “That was awful!”

“Yes,” he said.

“What happened? We all went crazy. Do you think it’s true? What Nanadine said? She wouldn’t make up anything like that.” They were at Jadine’s bedroom door and went in. Still holding hands. In the center of the room, Jadine stopped, released his hand and turned to face him. She pressed her fingers together in front of her lips. “Awful,” she said frowning, looking at the floor.

“Don’t think about it. It’s over.”

Jadine put her head on his chest. “It’s not over. They’re fired for sure. Tomorrow will be terrible. God, how can I wake up in the morning and face that? I won’t be able to sleep at all. Maybe I should go down and see about her?”

“Ondine?”

“Yes.”

“Leave her alone with Sydney. You shouldn’t bother them now.”

“I wish I could figure it out, what got into everybody.” Son put his arm around her; she was like a bird in the crook of his arm. “What does it mean?” She closed her eyes.

“It means,” he said, talking into her hair, “that white folks and black folks should not sit down and eat together.”

“Oh, Son.” Jadine looked up at him and smiled a tiny smile.

“It’s true,” he said. “They should work together sometimes, but they should not eat together or live together or sleep together. Do any of those personal things in life.”

She put her head back into his shirt front. “What’ll we do now?”

“Sleep,” he said.

“I can’t sleep. It was so ugly. Did you see the faces?”

Son kissed her cheek, bending his neck down low.

“It’s true, isn’t it? She stuck pins into Michael, and Ondine knew it and didn’t tell anybody all this time. Why didn’t she tell somebody?”

“She’s a good servant, I guess, or maybe she didn’t want to lose her job.” He kissed the other cheek.

“I always wondered why she hated Margaret so. Every time she could she would jab at her.”

“Sleep,” he said, and kissed her eyelids. “You need sleep.”

“Will you sleep with me?” she asked.

“I will,” he said.

“I mean really sleep. I’m not up to anything else.”

“I’ll sleep.”

“You sure? It was terrible, Son. Terrible. I don’t want to think about it, but I know I will and I don’t want to do it alone.”

“I know. I’ll stay with you. You sleep and I’ll watch you.”

Jadine stepped back from him. “Oh, the hell with it. You won’t. You’ll start something and I’m not up to it.”

“Relax. Stop imagining things. You want somebody to be with tonight, so I’ll do it. Don’t complicate it.”

“You start something and I’ll throw you out.”

“All right. Take off your dress and get in the bed.”

Jadine folded her arms behind her and unzipped the top part of her dress. He reached behind her and pulled it the rest of the way down. Jadine stepped out of it and sat down on the bed. “No foolishness, Son. I’m serious.” Her voice sounded small and tired.

“So am I,” he said, and began unbuttoning his shirt. Jadine sat on the bed and watched him. Then, for the first time, she saw his huge hands. One hand alone was big enough for two. A finger spread that could reach from hither to yon. The first time she had been aware of his hands they were clasped over his head under Sydney’s gun, so she had not really seen them. The second time was at the beach when he touched the bottom of her foot with one finger. She had not looked then either, only felt that fingerprint in the arch of her sole. Now she could not help looking, seeing those hands large enough to sit down in. Large enough to hold your whole head. Large enough, maybe, to put your whole self into.

“I hope you are serious,” she said. She left her panties on and got under the sheet. Son undressed completely and Jadine shot him a quick look to see if he had an erection.

“Look at you,” she said. “You’re going to meddle me and all I want is rest.”

“Be quiet,” he said. “I’m not meddling you. I can’t control that, but I can control whether I meddle you.” He walked to the bed and got in next to her.

“Well, how am I supposed to sleep with you taking up half the sheet in that tent?”

“Don’t think about it and it’ll go away.”

“I’ll bet. You sound like a character in those blue comics.”

“Hush.”

Jadine turned round on her stomach and then her side, with her back to him. After a silence during which she listened for but could not hear his breathing, she said, “Have you slept with anybody since you jumped ship?”

“Yes.”

“You have?” She raised her head. “Who? I mean where?”

“In town.”

“Oh ho.” She put her head back on the pillow. “Who?”

“Can’t remember her name.”

“Men. Why can’t you remember her name? Didn’t Yardman tell you her name?”

“Gideon.”

“Gideon. Didn’t he introduce you?”

“Go to sleep, Jadine.”

“I can’t. I’m tired, but not sleepy.”

“You’re agitated. Calm down.”

“You won’t bother me? I don’t want to wrestle.”

“I won’t bother you. I’ll just be here while you sleep, just like I said I would.”

“I’m not up to any fucking.”

“For somebody who’s not up to it, you sure bring it up a lot.”

“I know what’s going to happen. I’ll fall asleep and then I’ll feel something cold on my thigh.”

“Nothing cold is going to be on your thigh.”

“I just don’t want to fuck, that’s all.”

“I didn’t ask you to, did I? If I wanted to make love, I’d ask you.”

“I didn’t say make love, I said—”

“I know what you said.”

“You don’t like me to use that word, do you? Men.”

“Go to sleep. Nobody’s talking about fucking or making love but you.”

“Admit it. You don’t like me to say fuck.”

“No.”

“Hypocrite.”

Son thought he must have had this conversation two million times. It never varied, this dance. Except when you paid your money and there was no seduction involved. Free stuff was always a pain in the ass, and it annoyed him that this conversation should be taking place with this sponge-colored girl with mink eyes whom he was certain he could not live in the world without. He wished she would either fall asleep, throw him out or jump him. “Listen,” he said, “I’m not a hypocrite. Whatever you call it, I’m not doing it.”

“What do you call it?” Jadine turned over and lay on her back.

“I don’t call it anything. I don’t have the language for it.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t. It’s not love-making and it’s not fucking.”

“If it’s not making love, it’s because you don’t love me and you said at the beach that you did.”

“I said that because I don’t know how else to say it. If I had another way, I’d have used it. Whatever I want to do to you—that’s not it.”

“What do you want to do to me? I mean if you had the language what would you do?”

“I’d make you close your eyes,” he said, and when he didn’t add anything Jadine raised up on her elbows.

“Is that all?”

“Then I’d ask you what you saw.”

She lay back down. “I don’t see anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even the dark?”

“Oh, yes, that.”

“Is it all dark? Nothing else? No lights moving around? No stars? No moon?”

“No. Nothing. Just black.”

“Imagine something. Something that fits in the dark. Say the dark is the sky at night. Imagine something in it.”

“A star?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t. I can’t see it.”

“Okay. Don’t try to see it. Try to be it. Would you like to know what it’s like to be one? Be a star?”

“A movie star?”

“No, a star star. In the sky. Keep your eyes closed, think about what it feels like to be one.” He moved over to her and kissed her shoulder. “Imagine yourself in that dark, all alone in the sky at night. Nobody is around you. You are by yourself, just shining there. You know how a star is supposed to twinkle? We say twinkle because that is how it looks, but when a star feels itself, it’s not a twinkle, it’s more like a throb. Star throbs. Over and over and over. Like this. Stars just throb and throb and throb and sometimes, when they can’t throb anymore, when they can’t hold it anymore, they fall out of the sky.”