The Bird’s Nest (13 page)

All during the dark hours of the night the bus moved on, going smoothly and rocking Elizabeth gently; because it was important not to seem wakeful when everyone else was sleeping Betsy closed her eyes, and a kind of wonder came to her, at herself going alone through the night. She was for the first time in the indifferent hands of strangers, entrusting her person to the tenderness of the bus driver, her name to the woman napping in the seat far ahead; she was going to spend the rest of her life in a room belonging to someone else and she would eat at a stranger's table and walk streets she did not recognize under a sun she had never seen, waking, before. Soon no one would even know her face; Doctor Wrong would forget and Aunt Morgen would be looking for Elizabeth; from this moment on no eyes which looked upon her would ever have seen her before; she was a stranger in a world of strangers and they were strangers she had left behind; “Who am I?” Betsy whispered in wonder, and not even Elizabeth heard, “where am I going?”

It was, then, urgently important to be some person, to have always been some person; in all the world she was entering there was not anyone who was not some particular person; it was vital to be a person. “I am Betsy Richmond,” she said over and over quietly to herself, “I was even born in New York. And my mother's name is Elizabeth Richmond, Elizabeth Jones before she was married. My mother was born in Owenstown, but I was born in New York. My mother's sister is named Morgen, but I never knew her very well.” Invisible in the darkness of the bus, Betsy grinned. “My name is Betsy Richmond,” she whispered, “and I am going alone to New York because I am easily old enough to travel alone. I am going to New York on a bus by myself and when I get to New York I am going to a hotel in a taxi. My name is Betsy Richmond, and I was born in New York. My mother loves me more than anything. My mother's name is Elizabeth Richmond, and my name is Betsy and my mother always called me Betsy and I was named after my mother. Betsy Richmond,” she whispered softly into the unhearing movement of the bus, “Betsy Richmond.”

“
My
mother,” she went on, half-remembering, and Elizabeth moaned, and pressed her hands together, and dreamed. “My mother was angry with her Betsy and now I am alone, I am on a bus going to New York; I am old enough to travel alone and my name is Betsy Richmond, Elizabeth Jones before I was married. ‘Betsy is my darling,' my mother used to say, and I used to say ‘Elizabeth is my darling,' and I used to say, ‘Elizabeth likes Robin best.' ”

Betsy sat up straight in the bus, so suddenly that Elizabeth half-awakened and opened her eyes and said “Doctor?” “No, no,” Betsy said, and then, shivering, looked around to see if she had made any loud noise, if she had forgotten to be careful while everyone else was sleeping. It's Robin, she thought, Robin nearly woke up Lizzie. She waited a minute, trying to see through the darkness of the bus; the driver ahead seemed calm enough, and then someone far down on one side moved, and sighed deeply, and Betsy sat back in relief; it's all right, she thought, other people move and make sounds; no one cares. She sat back and looked out the window; I don't even know where Robin is, anymore, she thought, and he wouldn't remember me any more than anyone else, even if he saw me Robin would think I was someone he didn't know at all, and if my mother knew about him he'd be sorry. My mother loves me best, anyway, Betsy told herself forlornly, my mother was only teasing about not loving me best, my mother pulled my hair and laughed and said “Elizabeth loves Robin best,” and my mother loves me better than anyone. My name is Betsy Richmond and my mother's name is Elizabeth Richmond and she calls me Betsy. Robin did everything bad.

She wanted to get up and move around, but dared not; it was important for Elizabeth to sleep, and even if she did go up—say—to the driver and ask him how fast they were going, or when they would reach New York, or whether his name was Robin, people would notice her and look at her, because for all she knew it might be extremely unusual for people to wonder how fast the bus was going. Thinking of Robin always made her very nervous, however, and it was important not to be nervous or afraid, and she twisted her hands together and rubbed her eyes and bit at her lip; what must I do, she wondered, if I see Robin somewhere in New York?

The bus went widely around a curve, and Betsy fell against the side of the seat and giggled; it's fun, she thought. Then, suddenly very happy because she was running away, after all, and no one could find her—so how would she find Robin, then?—she sat back and folded her hands and spoke to herself very sternly.

If I'm going to keep it all straight and make a real person by myself, she told herself silently, Robin has to be in it like anyone else; he can't get out of it as easily as that. And besides, everyone who remembers at all has bad things to remember along with good things; it would seem very funny to people if all I had for a life I remembered was good things. There have to be some bad things or it looks funny. So keep Robin in, because he was bad and nasty. We went on a picnic, Robin and my mother and me. No, she thought then, shaking her head, if it's going to be in, it's all got to be in, right from the beginning, the way things ought to be remembered, so start the remembering right from the beginning of that day, right from the top, and remember it all. No one ever remembers just a bad thing, they remember all around it, all that happened before it and after it, and of course, she told herself consolingly, one bad thing is probably enough, and when they ask you what do you remember that's bad and nasty you can say Robin, and that will satisfy them. So, she went on silently, I woke up in the morning that day and the sun was shining and the blanket on my bed was blue. There was a green dress hanging on the bottom of my bed and I thought it would look funny with the blue blanket but it didn't. I heard my mother downstairs and she was saying “A wonderful day for a picnic with my Betsy, a wonderful wonderful day,” and I knew she was saying it to me and saying it on the way upstairs over and over so I would wake up hearing her say it. And then she came in and she was smiling and the sun was shining brightly on her face, and I can't remember how she looked that morning because of the sun shining on her face. “A wonderful day for my Betsy,” she said, “a wonderful wonderful day for a picnic, let's go to the bay.” And she came and tickled me and I rolled out of bed and she hit me with the pillow and I was laughing. Then she said “Peanut butter” and ran out of the room, and I said “Jelly,” calling it after her and I put on the green dress and went downstairs and I had oranges and toast for breakfast that morning because it was hot. My mother made peanut butter sandwiches and jelly sandwiches and all the time I was eating my orange she would look at me and say “Peanut butter” and I would look back at her and say “Jelly,” and it was funny because she wanted peanut butter and I wanted jelly and it was funny that two people who loved each other and had the same name liked two different things like that. She made hard-boiled eggs and packed everything in a basket with cookies and a thermos bottle full of lemonade and then my mother said “Let's take your poor old Robin along with us, Betsy, my girl. Because poor old Robin is lonesome and he is Elizabeth's darling,” and I said “Jelly,” and she made a face at me and said “Peanut butter, but let's take him anyway.”

I pretended to throw a hard-boiled egg at my mother but she went anyway and telephoned Robin and told him to come right away and we took our bathing suits. Robin and my mother and Betsy went on the streetcar out to the bay and my mother and Betsy put on their bathing suits and Robin put on his bathing suit and the water was warm and whenever Betsy splashed at my mother Robin splashed at Betsy and he said “Betsy is a mean mean girl” and the sun was bright and there was no one anywhere around. Robin and my mother and Betsy ate the hard-boiled eggs and the peanut butter sandwiches and when Betsy said “Jelly” my mother said “Betsy, must you tease all the time?” and everyone lay down on the beach in the sun. Then my mother said, “Betsy, my nuisance, go down along the beach and collect seventy-three shells all the prettiest you can find, and we will be sirens and make them into a crown for our Robin.” Betsy went down the beach and gathered shells, and she was all alone, not even strangers near her, and the water on one side and the beach on the other side and the rocks beyond, and she was singing, “I love coffee, I love tea, I love Betsy and Betsy loves me,” and matching shells because she was the sea-king's daughter and she was gathering the eyes of drowned sailors to ransom her love from the sea-king's prison in the rocks. There was an empty popcorn box, and it was a coral chest where she put her jewels, and the two rocks were her throne, and when she sang the waves came running up to her feet, and she was shipwrecked, and living alone on an island, and the empty popcorn box was washed up on the shore, and inside it she found corn to plant, and a hammer to build a house. She made plates and pots out of sand, and baked them in the sun, and overhead she had a roof of seaweed and it kept out the sun. The rocks were her signal tower, to light a fire for passing ships. Pirates came by, and captured her, and the rocks were the cabin of the pirate ship where they kept the gold, and they sank a merchant ship and made all the shells walk the plank, and the popcorn box was full of emeralds and pearls. Then Betsy stood up suddenly, feeling cold, and the shells fell out of her lap and the rocks were rocks again and the sand was only scuffed and piled instead of plates and growing corn and there were no drowned sailors in the bay. “I stayed away too long,” Betsy thought, and she gathered up her shells in the popcorn box and walked fast, because she was cold, and she heard Robin saying, “Leave the damn kid with Morgen next time.”

“No,” said Betsy, loudly enough so that people in the bus heard her, and someone turned around to look; I was having a nightmare, she thought violently, having a nightmare, is all. She waited, tense, and then people turned and moved and fell asleep again, and no one knew that Betsy was even awake, or had been awake at all.

“My name is Betsy Richmond,” she began again at last, whispering, “and my mother's name is Elizabeth Richmond, Elizabeth Jones before she was married. . . .”

When the bus stopped at last and people stirred and opened their eyes and a man down the aisle stood up and began to put on his coat, Betsy was relieved at having no longer to watch the same inside of the bus, and the windows which, whatever they framed, made it look all the same; she was among the first people standing, and she made her way hastily down the aisle, edging past the man putting on his coat, to where her suitcase was, just as the woman in the black gloves stood up and lifted Betsy's suitcase down. “Good morning,” the woman said, smiling at Betsy. “Did you sleep? I'll take the bag, dear.”

“I want my suitcase,” Betsy said. It was not usual, she knew, to struggle over a suitcase in a bus, and she must not be angry, so she took hold of the woman's arm and said again, “I want my suitcase, please.”

“I'll carry it for you,” the woman said, smiling brightly at the other people in the bus. “Dear,” she added, bringing her smile around again to Betsy.

This was wrong and very unfortunate. “I want my suitcase,” Betsy said once more, not knowing what else to say, and not sure just how far she might trust herself to show anger; here, in a situation like this, was where her unpreparedness showed most clearly—how angry, really, might a person be when her suitcase was taken forcibly away from her? How reprehensible was this false smiling woman, with her unreal sprightliness and her tawdry dull shoddy air; might Betsy strike her? Push her back? Call for help?

She turned, wanting advice, and met the eye of the bus driver; “I want my suitcase,” Betsy said to him down the length of the bus, and, because most of the people had left by now, he came out of his seat and toward Betsy.

“Something wrong, lady?” he asked the woman who still had a clinging grasp on Betsy's suitcase, and who gave him her free black-gloved hand on his arm, with a sigh of relief; “I wish this child would behave,” she said, with a gesture at Betsy that endeavored to exclude Betsy from the circle of maturity in which the woman and the bus driver were naturally included. “Alone in the big city,” the woman said vividly.

The wickednesses of the city were not lost upon the bus driver; he nodded and regarded Betsy with sadness. “If people want to
help
you,” he began, “seems like you ought to treat them nicer.”

Any needless waste of emotion in Betsy's position would be an almost criminal extravagance; “Old suitcase-stealer,” she said to the woman, “Just because I told you all my money was in the suitcase.”

“Well, surely . . .” said the woman, lifting her head high. “I wanted to
help
the child,” she said to the bus driver. “Her money . . .” and she indicated that of all counterfeit gratification in which she dealt, money was the least regarded and the most unreliable; “alone in a strange city,” she said, “someone offers to help you, and right away you start accusing them of stealing.” She took away her black gloves, and gave Betsy and the bus driver each a long and unhappy look of compassion. “I can always tell your kind of person,” she said flatly to Betsy.

“Lady,” said the bus driver sadly, “if the kid don't want your help, you can't make her. Maybe,” he added without humor, “maybe she just
likes
to carry her own money.”

“Naturally,” the woman said, and turned her back on them both; she took up her own suitcase and pocketbook and went out of the bus, walking with the proud step of one who does not steal. “You want to watch out about getting into some kind of real trouble,” the bus driver said to Betsy. “Can't trust anybody, almost.”

“I know it,” Betsy said. “I plan to be careful.”

“You got any people here or anything?” the bus driver asked, looking for the first time at Betsy instead of at her suitcase. “I mean, you got anywhere to go?”