A Manual for Cleaning Women (12 page)

I went out into the hall. I wanted to call Bella Lynn, to leave. All the other doors were locked, except for the kitchen, where the cooks shooed me away.

A door slammed. The doctor had arrived. There was no question that he was the doctor, although he looked like an Argentine movie star or a Las Vegas nightclub singer. The old woman helped him off with his camel’s hair coat and scarf. An expensive silk suit, a Rolex watch. It was his arrogance and authority that labeled him as doctor. He was dark, liquidly sexy, he walked softly, like a thief.

The doctor took my arm. “Back with the other girls, dear, time for your exam.”

“I changed my mind. I want to leave.”

“Go to your room, sweetie. Some change their mind a dozen times in an hour. We’ll talk later … Go on.
Ándale!
”

I found my bed. The other women were sitting on the edge of theirs. Two of the young girls. The old woman had us strip, put on gowns. The really young girl was trembling, near hysterical with fear. He began with her first, and I must say, was patient and reassuring but she slapped out at him, kicked her mother away. He gave her an injection, covered her with a blanket.

“I’ll be back. Just relax,” he told the mother.

The other young girl got a sedative too, before he began a perfunctory exam. He asked a brief history, listened to the heart through a stethoscope, took a temperature and blood pressure. No urine or blood samples had been taken from us. He did a quick pelvic exam on each woman, nodded, and then the old woman started packing each woman’s uterus with a ten-foot length of IV tubing, shoving it in, slowly, like stuffing a turkey. She wore no gloves, moved from one patient on to the next. Some of them cried out, as if in terrible pain.

“This will cause some discomfort,” he said to us all. “It will also induce contractions and a healthy, natural rejection of the fetus.”

He was examining the older woman next to me. When he asked when her last period had been she said she didn’t know … had stopped having periods. He took a long time on her exam.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You are over five months along. I can’t take the risk.”

He gave her a sedative too. She was staring up at the ceiling, wretched. Oh, Jesus Christ. Christ.

“Look who’s here. Our little runaway.” He put the thermometer in my mouth and the cuff around my arm, pinning my other arm. When he let go to listen to my heart I took out the thermometer.

“I want to leave. I have changed my mind.”

He couldn’t hear, the stethoscope was in his ears. He cupped my breast, insolently smiling at me while he listened to my lungs. I recoiled, furious. In Spanish he said to the old woman, “Little tart acts like nobody touched her tit before.” I spoke then in Spanish, roughly translated I said, “
You
don’t touch it, asshole scum.”

He laughed. “How rude of you, to allow me to stumble along in English!” Then he apologized and went on about how cynical and bitter one became after fifteen, twenty cases a day. A tragic but so necessary an occupation. Etc. By the time he was through I was sorry for
him
and, Lord forgive me, was gazing back into his big brown swimmy eyes while he stroked my arm.

Back to business. “Look, Doctor, I don’t want to do this and I would like to leave now.”

“You realize that the money you paid is nonrefundable?”

“That’s okay. I still don’t want to do it.”

“
Muy bien
. I’m afraid that it will still be necessary for you to spend the night. We are far from town and our drivers won’t return until morning. I will give you a sedative for sleep. You will be gone by ten tomorrow. Are you sure, m’ija, that this is what you want to do? Last chance.”

I nodded. He was holding my hand. It felt like comfort, I was dying to cry, be held. Oh, what we won’t do for just a little comfort.

“You could really help me,” he said. “The child in the corner is very traumatized. Her mother is in bad shape and no support. I suspect the father, or some particularly bad situation. She really should have this abortion. Will you help me with her? Soothe her a little tonight?”

I went with him to the girl’s bed, introduced myself. He had me tell her what he was going to do, what to expect, to explain that it was safe and easy and everything would be fine. Now he is going to listen to your heart and your lungs … Now the doctor needs to feel up inside you … (He said it wouldn’t hurt. I told her it would hurt.) He has to do this to make sure everything will be okay.

She still resisted. “
A fuerzas!
” he said. By force. The old woman and I held her. The doctor and I held her then, talking to her, trying to calm her, while the old woman packed her tiny body with the tubing, foot after foot. I hugged her when it was over; she clung to me, sobbing. Her mother sat stone-faced in the chair at the foot of the bed.

“Is she in shock?” I asked the doctor. “No. She’s dead drunk.” On cue, she toppled to the floor; we lifted her to the bed next to her daughter’s.

He and the old woman left then to go to two other rooms full of patients. Two young Indian girls came in bringing dinner trays.

“Do you want me to have my dinner here with you?” I asked the girl. She nodded. Her name was Sally; she was from Missouri. That’s about all she said, but she ate, ravenously. She had never had tortillas before, wished there was some plain ol’ bread. What’s this stuff? Avocado. It’s good. Put some with your meat on the tortilla. Like this, roll it up.

“Will your mama be all right?” I asked.

“She’ll be sick in the morning.” Sally lifted the mattress. There was a half-pint of Jim Beam. “If I’m not here and you are, this is for her. She needs it so she don’t be sick.”

“Yes. My mother drinks too,” I said.

They took away the trays then and the old woman came with big Seconals for us to take. The young girls were given injections. The old woman hesitated by Sally’s mother, then gave the sleeping woman a shot of barbiturate too.

I lay in bed. The sheets were rough, smelled of being dried in the sun, good, and the rough Mexican blanket smelled of raw wool. I remembered summers in Nacogdoches.

The doctor hadn’t even said good-bye. Maybe Joe would come home. Oh, I had no sense at all. Maybe I should have the abortion. Not fit to raise one child, much less two. Dear God … what should I…? I fell asleep.

There was a ghastly sobbing from somewhere. The room was dark, but from the dim hall light I could see that Sally’s bed was empty. I ran out into the hall. At first I couldn’t budge the bathroom door. She was lying against it, unconscious, dead white. Blood was everywhere. She was hemorrhaging badly, tangled up in coils and coils of tubing like a berserk Laocoön. The tubing had clots of bloody matter sticking to it. It arched and buckled, slithering around her as if it were alive. She had a pulse but I couldn’t rouse her.

I ran down the hall, banging on doors until I woke the old woman. She was still dressed in her white uniform; she put on her shoes and ran to the bathroom. She took one quick look and ran to the office and the phone. I waited outside, listening. She kicked the door shut.

I went back to Sally, washed her face and arms off.

“Doctor is coming. Go to your room,” the old woman said. The Indian girls were behind her. They grabbed me and put me in my bed; the woman gave me an injection.

I woke in a room filled with sunlight. There were six empty beds, neatly made, with bright pink bedspreads. Canaries and finches sang outside and magenta bougainvillea rustled against the opened shutters in the breeze. My clothes were on the foot of my bed. I took them to the bathroom, spotless now. I washed and dressed, combed my hair. I was staggering, still sedated. When I got back to the room the other women began to be wheeled in on gurneys to their beds. The woman who didn’t have an abortion was sitting on a chair, looking out the window. The Indian girls came in with trays of café con leche, pan dulce, slices of orange and watermelon. Some of the women had breakfast, others retched into a basin or went stumbling toward the bathroom. Everyone moved in slow motion.

“
Buenos días.
” The doctor was in a long green gown, his mask under his chin, his long black hair tousled. He smiled.

“I hope you slept well,” he said. “You will leave in the first car, in a few minutes.”

“Where is Sally? Where is her mother?” My tongue was thick. Hard to get out the words.

“Sally needed blood transfusions.”

“Is she here?” Alive? The word wouldn’t come out.

He grabbed my wrist. “Sally is fine. Do you have everything? The car is leaving now.”

Five of us were hurried down the hall, outside and into the car. We took off and heard the gates close behind us. “Who goes to the El Paso airport?” All of the other women were going to the airport.

“Leave me at the bridge, on the Juárez side,” I said. We drove along. None of us spoke. I was dying to say something stupid, like “Isn’t it a lovely day?” It was a lovely day, matter of fact, crisp and clear, the sky a gaudy Mexican blue.

But the silence in the car was impenetrable, heavy with shame, with pain. Only the fear was gone.

The din and the smells of downtown Juárez were the same as when I was a little girl. I felt little and like I wanted to just wander around, but I waved for a cab. The hotel turned out to be only a few blocks away. The doorman paid the cab. Bella Lynn had taken care of it. They were in the room, he said.

The room was a complete wreck. Ben and Bella were in the middle of the bed, laughing, ripping up magazines and tossing the pages into the air.

“This is his favorite game. He’s going to be a critic when he grows up?”

She got up and hugged me, looked into my eyes.

“Judas Priest. You didn’t do it. You little fool! Fool!”

“No, I didn’t!” I was holding Ben to me, oh I loved his smell, his bony little self. He was babbling away. I could tell they had had a great time.

“No, I didn’t do it. I still had to pay, but I’ll get you the money back. Just don’t go lecturing me. Bella, there was this girl, Sally…”

People say Bella Lynn is spoiled and flighty. Not a care in the world. But nobody understands things like she does … She just knew everything. I didn’t have to say a word, although of course I did anyway, later. I just cried and so did she and Ben.

We Moynihans, though, we cry or get mad and then that’s that. Ben got tired of it first, started jumping on the bed.

“Look, Lou, of course I’m not going to lecture you. Anything you ever do would be okay with me. All I want to know is what do we do now? Tequila sunrise? Lunch? Shopping? I’m starved, myself.”

“Me too. Let’s go eat. And I want to get something for your grandma and Rex Kipp.”

“Well, Ben, does that settle that, or what? Can you say ‘Shopping’? We got to teach this kid values. Shopping!”

Room service came with her fringed jacket. We both changed and put on makeup, dressed Ben. I had thought he had a rash, it was only her lipsticked kisses all over his face.

We had lunch in the beautiful dining room. We were gay, not a care in the world. Young and pretty and free, with our future stretching out before us. We gossiped and laughed and figured out everybody in the dining room’s whole life story.

“Well, we’d better get on home to this reunion sometime,” I finally said, over our third coffee and Kahlua.

We bought presents and a straw basket to put everything in, including all the toys in the room. Bella Lynn sighed as we left. “Hotels are so homey, I always hate to leave…”

*   *   *

Inside the massive front door of Uncle Tyler’s country house Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were belting out Christmas carols. A bubble machine was rigged up inside the door too so your first view of the gigantic Christmas tree was through a soapy blur of prisms.

“Judas Priest, it’s like going through a car wash! And look at the rug.” Bella Lynn unplugged the machine, turned off the music.

We went down the flagstone steps into the mammoth living room. Logs, whole trees, burning in the fireplace. Aunt Tiny’s relatives were all slouching around on leather couches and Barcaloungers watching football on TV. Ben sat right down; he had never seen television. Sweet little baby, never been away from home; he was taking everything in stride.

Bella Lynn introduced us all, but most of them just nodded, barely took their eyes from their plates or the game. They were all dressed up, like for a funeral or a wedding, but still looked like a bunch of sharecroppers or tornado victims.

We went back up the stairs. “I can’t wait to see them at Daddy’s party tomorrow. In the morning we pick up Uncle John, then go spring your ma. Then there’s a huge open house. Eligible bachelors, mostly, so we won’t like any of them. But lots of old friends too, who want to see you and the baby.”

“Jesus, our Blessit Redeemer!” It was old Mrs. Veeder, Tiny’s mother. She had swooped Ben up in her arms, dropping her cane, teetering around with him in the dining room. He laughed, thought it was a game, the two of them crashing against sideboards and china closets, crystal shattering. One of my mother’s favorite expressions is “Life is fraught with peril.” Mrs. Veeder staggered off with him to her room, where there was another TV, tuned to soap operas, and enough junk on her bed to amuse him for months. Outhouse saltshakers from Texarkana, poodle toilet paper covers, felt sachet bags, bracelets with stones missing. All grimy, in the process of being recycled as Christmas presents. Mrs. Veeder and Ben fell together onto the bed. Ben stayed in there with her for hours, chewing on Jesus statues that glowed in the dark while she wrapped presents with wrinkled paper scraps and tangled ribbon. Singing away, “Jesus loves me, yes I know! Cuz the Bible tells me so!”

The dining room table resembled the ads for smorgasbords on cruise ships. I stood staring at the array of meat platters, salads, barbecued ribs, aspics, shrimp, cheeses, cakes, pies, wondering where it would all go, when it began disappearing before my eyes as Tiny’s relatives darted in, one at a time, making furtive forays and dashing back down to the football game.

Esther was in the kitchen, in a black uniform, stooped over a huge washtub of masa for tamales. Mince pies were baking in the oven. Bella Lynn hugged Esther as if she’d been gone for months.