Evergreen (17 page)

“Oh, yes,” Mama said, “years older.”

“Well, you don’t look it. Do come and see us sometime, Anna. We’re at Seventy-eighth and Fifth. And my son lives just two blocks down, which makes it very nice.”

When they walked away Mama said, not really talking to Iris, but to herself, “Fifth Avenue! Naturally, the West Side wouldn’t be fine enough anymore!”

Iris remembers all of this perfectly.

“The funeral is Wednesday at eleven,” Papa says now. “I’ll try to go with you if I can make it. Otherwise you’ll have to go alone.”

“I’m not going at all,” Mama says calmly.

Iris hears the newspaper rattle. “Not going? You can’t mean it!”

“Certainly I do. I haven’t seen the woman in years. I meant nothing to her in life, so why should I go to see her in death?”

“Why do people go to funerals at all? Because it’s only decent to pay one’s respects! I’m amazed at you!”

Mama makes no answer and Papa says, “Besides, they were very nice to us, in case you’ve forgotten. There’s such a thing as gratitude.”

A touch of anger comes into Mama’s voice. “Gratitude? You take a loan at a bank, you pay it back with interest, and you’re supposed to be grateful to the bank?”

“This wasn’t a bank. Anna, I don’t understand you!”

“Where is it written that you have to understand everything?”

This is not like Mama, who is always saying things like: The man is head of the house, remember that when you get married. Or: Marriage isn’t fifty-fifty; the woman must go most of the way to keep the peace of the home.

The door of Maury’s room bangs open and he plunges down the hall. “You little sneak!” he cries, and thumps Iris on the back with his fist.

Her parents come running. “What is it? What are you doing?”

“This sneaky kid’s been standing here eavesdropping! If you ever do that to me, Iris, I’ll punch the breath out of you, you damn pest.”

“Maury, that’s no language,” Papa says. “Come in here, Iris. What’s going on? Were you really standing there listening to us?”

“I didn’t mean to listen. I was going to the kitchen for an apple.”

“Like heck she was!” Maury says.

Mama shakes her head at Maury. “Please, Maury, go back to your homework and let us handle this. I want to know what you heard, Iris.”

She wants to cry out: “I heard you say that I’m not pretty, and Cousin Ruth said I’ll be better when I’m older. It’s none of her business and I hate her and I hate you!” But she is too proud to say it.

Her mother’s forehead is worried. Meanly, craftily, Iris takes pleasure in what she is about to do. “I heard you tell Papa you didn’t see that lady, but you did see her!”

“What are you talking about?” Papa asks.

“Mrs. Werner,” Iris tells him. “We saw her last week downtown with her son.”

“Is that true, Anna?”

Mama sighs. “Yes, we ran into them on Fifth Avenue. I didn’t think it worth mentioning.”

“But you thought it worth hiding just now, for what reason I can’t imagine.”

“Joseph!” Mama says. “This is hardly the place—” And Iris knows she means:
Not in front of the child
.

“Very well, then,” Papa says. “Iris, your mother will give you some hot milk in your room and then I want you to go to sleep.”

“I want you to give it to me, Papa!” Iris protests.

Her father holds the glass while she sips the milk. “Feeling better now? Something’s upset you, so can you tell me what it is?”

Her eyes fill. She whispers, “I haven’t any friends. I’m not popular.”

He says indignantly, “If all those kids are too stupid to see your worth, that’s their loss! You’re the smartest one of the lot! You’re my little queen and when you grow up you’ll run rings around them all, you’ll show them!”

“I’m not pretty,” she says.

“Who says you’re not? I’d like to hear anyone tell me you’re not!”

“Marcy has thick braids with ribbons on the ends.”

“So what? I don’t even like braids! Your kind of hair is much nicer.”

“Papa, it isn’t!”

“Honey, I think it is. Tell you what,” he says, taking the empty glass, “next week’s your Thanksgiving vacation. How would you like to go to a movie with me? We can go to my office in the morning, and well even have time before the movie to buy you a new dress. Mama’s having a dinner party and I’d like to show you off to all the people in a brand-new dress. Then well see who’s pretty!”

“I’d like to go to your office and the movie. But not to the party.”

“All right, we won’t talk about it now.” He bends to kiss her. “Are you sleepy now? Will you go right to sleep if I turn off the light?”

She nods and he turns out the light. But she isn’t sleepy. She lies in the dark and her thoughts rush.

Lots of times during school vacations, Papa takes them to his office. Papa is proud of Maury in his navy blue suit and cap, of Iris in her good coat that has a beaver collar, of the braces on their teeth. He takes them into the private room where he has a great mahogany desk, just like Mr. Malone’s across the hall.

Mr. Malone is fat and tells jokes. He keeps a box of chocolates in a drawer. The Malones are like family; when Mama had her appendix out Mrs. Malone came to the hospital every day. They live in an apartment quite nearby, except that theirs has more rooms because they have so many children. These children are all big and healthy looking; Iris feels weak and sallow in their company, as though they could see the shoulder blades under her dress, like the frail wings of birds when you pull the feathers back. The Malones like Maury, as everyone does. He goes all over their apartment, looking at stamp collections and baseball cards, eating cake in the pantry. Iris sits with the grownups until Mrs. Malone calls the daughter who is nearest Iris’ age. “Mavis,” she says nicely, “why don’t you take Iris into your room and show her the doll house?” And Iris goes, knowing that Mavis doesn’t want her, knowing she ought to say something lively and unable to think of anything to say at all.

Mama goes on talking in the Malones’ living room. She can always talk to people, to Mrs. Malone’s sister who is a nun, to Ellen and Margaret at home, to a cranky saleswoman in a shop. People always smile at her. Papa says her voice is like a bell; it is one of the first things he ever noticed about her. “Most women yap and shrill like busy little dogs,” he says.

Yes, he loves Mama, it’s plain to see. He’s always talking about how smart she is and what a wonderful cook, much better than Margaret who gets paid for doing it. He boasts about her beautiful red hair and was upset for three days after Mama had it cut off.

Yes, he loves Mama; he talks about her too much. “Listen to your mother, Iris,” he says, “your mother knows what’s right!”

But tonight he is angry at Mama. They are quarreling inside. She hears them now, in their bedroom. Good, good. I’m glad he’s angry at her.

“It’s mighty queer,” Papa says. “I don’t know who it is
that you’ve got it in for, the mother or the son? You get all stiffened up whenever those people are mentioned.”

“I do not!” Mama screams. Iris has never heard her shriek like that.

“Yes, you do! It makes me wonder sometimes what the devil went on in that house to make you react like this? Can’t even mention a chance meeting, won’t go to the woman’s funeral. I can’t make head or tail of it—”

The door slams. There is more loud talking that Iris cannot distinguish; then the door is opened again and she hears Papa say, “Very well, I suppose it’s just false pride. You’ve risen in the world and don’t like to be reminded—”

“Will you leave me alone!” Mama cries.

Then there is silence.

A long time later the door to Iris’ room is opened. A wedge of light comes in and widens. Her mother walks over and stands by the bed.

“Iris?”

She does not answer.

“Iris, you’re awake. I can tell by your breathing.”

“What do you want?”

Her mother sits down on the bed and takes Iris’ hand, which lies in hers, not moving. “I wanted to come in and hold your hand before you fell asleep.”

Her face is partly turned away, but Iris sees that her eyes are funny; they look swollen. “Have you been crying, Mama?”

“No.”

“Yes, you have. Was it because I told about that lady and that man?”

“What lady and what man?”

Pretending again! “You know!” Iris says crossly. “The lady who died.”

“No,” says Mama, looking away.

Then something rises in Iris, something she has never felt before. It is a kind of softness, feeling sorry for Mama.

“I did it on purpose,” she says. “I wanted to make Papa angry at you.”

“I know.”

“Aren’t you angry at me?”

“No. We all have feelings sometimes of not liking people, or wanting to hurt them.”

She wants to say, I’m sorry I can’t love you as much as Papa. She says instead, “Papa wants to buy me a new dress for your party, but I don’t want to come in and meet all the people.”

He always calls her in when they have company. She has to stand alone in the doorway while all the people, the ladies in their perfume and bracelets, sit in a row around the room, their faces turned to Iris as she stands there being looked at.

“I don’t want to,” she repeats. “Do I have to?”

“No,” Mama says. “You don’t.”

“Do you promise? No matter what Papa says?”

“I promise.”

“Because I hate it! I hate it!”

“I understand,” Mama says.

She sighs with relief. “I feel sleepy now,” she says.

“Do you? That’s good.” Her mother goes out and closes the door very softly.

She could not then have known what she knew much later: that her father in his blind love lied to her, maybe not even realizing that he did. He lied when he called her a queen, for she had been no queen then and never would be. He lied when he talked of the great things she would do and the people she would “show.” She would be embarrassed to remember how foolish his loving words had been.

But Mama gave no false hopes. Mama was often ill at ease with Iris, that was plain to see. For this Iris was often to feel great anger, to feel that she could really hate her mother. And at the same time she knew that they were and always would be as closely attached as the fingers to the hand and the hand to the arm. How could she have understood
such things when she was nine years old? It was only after passing through a great deal of life that she would understand.

Yet perhaps in a way, though surely she could not have expressed it when she was just nine, perhaps in a way she did understand it, even then.

Nothing was done by any of the family in that house, or outside of it, that his father didn’t know about. Maury felt sometimes as though his presence was everywhere, even when he wasn’t at home. Some of his friends didn’t like their fathers; one or two really hated them. Some of them felt that their fathers weren’t interested in them. That was not true of Maury and Pa. He was interested in everything about Maury: his friends or his teeth or his manners. He taught him how to tie a tie. He showed him how to shake hands: “A man gives a firm handshake, as if he means it,” he said.

Pa took Maury to his barber because he didn’t like the way the old one cut his hair. They played checkers and Pa had promised to teach him to play pinochle, although Ma didn’t approve. But Maury knew he would teach him anyway. Sometimes they wrestled on the living-room floor—his mother didn’t approve of that either—and although Maury was almost as tall as Pa, Pa always won. His muscles were like iron. “That’s from years of labor,” he said, and now he kept up with exercises every morning. Once Maury saw him pick up a heavy man who had fallen in the street and carry him to the sidewalk all by himself.

But Maury wished Pa wasn’t so interested in him. Sometimes he wished Pa would just let him alone. Iris, that stupid whining kid, could talk him out of anything. Not Maury; Maury had to “toe the mark.” That was one of his
expressions. Another was “measure up,” an expression that Maury hated.

This morning Maury was angry, mad-angry, because he had to go with Pa to visit his grandmother. She was in an old-age home.

“Aw, gee,” he said, “do I have to go? A bunch of us were going to the rink this morning.”

“Of course you have to go,” his mother said. “You haven’t seen your grandmother in months, and she’s asked for you.” She handed Maury his tie and jacket and got his good camel-hair coat out of the closet. She was all rushed and anxious. “Hurry, hurry, your father’s already got his coat on. You know he can’t stand being kept waiting!”

Maury strained into his sleeve. “Washington’s Birthday, and I have to waste it! When do I get a whole day off to go skating?”

He knew that, if it were up to her, she’d let him go. She did look sympathetic for a moment, but then she said cheerfully, “Go, go. It won’t be so bad,” and pushed him to the front door where his father was ready to leave.

She remembered something. “Wait, wait, Joseph,” and thrust a flowered tin box into Maury’s hands. “I baked cookies for your grandmother. I’m sure they don’t get such wonderful food in that place.”

She kissed his father. She was tall, her face was on a level with his father’s. In the morning she wore loose robes, blue or yellow or pale green like the insides of bonbons. Her clothes smelled sweet like candy. His father was all dark, except for the white shining board of his collar. He wore dark suits, sometimes a blue that was almost black, sometimes a gray that was almost black, a hard round derby hat and black shoes.