The Walking People (32 page)

The news was, Michael discovered, a relief to him. A break from Johanna for a few weeks—surely she'd be back in less time—might clear the air in the apartment where Johanna had sat so unhappily for so many months now. He'd been a fool with Johanna: the excitement of the Atlantic crossing, feeling like he'd finally have his dream of settling, even while making the longest journey of his life. He couldn't even think of the crossing anymore without also thinking of Greta's face the day he asked her to put down the letter to Dermot telling the news of the expected baby. He had been certain that Johanna had already told her, privately, as she'd promised she would, but Greta's biro,
which had been moving steadily in those careful rows he admired, stopped dead, and she continued to stare at the page. "Greta," he'd said as her face flushed and her body sagged, just a little, where she sat. That was the first time he'd wanted to put his arms around her like he was holding her now, to waltz the problem away.

And now that he was holding her, the nest of her hair a place for his chin to rest, her body softer than he'd imagined it to be when he'd watched her, all angles and joints, cross the room to lift the baby, he discovered that for the first time since setting foot in New York, his mind was at ease. He ran his hands down the smooth white undersides of her arms, her ribs, her waist, resting on her hips, and when he felt her pull him closer, he felt joy. Maybe this is what he'd been searching for all along when he stopped to look at cottages with their stone walls and turf billowing from chimneys. Maybe this was what Dermot had been trying to tell him with all those stories of ancestors and how far they'd traveled together. I understand now, Michael wanted to tell his father, already shaping the letters in his mind like Greta had taught him. We don't settle in places. We settle in people.

The first postcard from Johanna came two months later, postmarked Chicago, and said only "Thinking of You!!" Greta and Michael went immediately down to the delicatessen on Second Avenue, changed a five-dollar bill into dimes and nickels, and with Julia strapped in her umbrella stroller on the other side of the folding glass doors of the phone booth, they took turns calling operators in Chicago and asking for any listing under Cahill. They called motels, hotels, B and B's. Then they tried Ward. They tried the last name of the woman Johanna had gone with, but no luck. As they considered what they should do next, a woman walking along Second Avenue stopped next to Julia's stroller and crouched down.

"Pardon me," Greta said, pulling on the knob that should have collapsed the folding door. She pulled again and then pushed when it didn't work. Michael reached around and pulled it for her, and Greta stumbled onto the street. The woman had her hand on Julia's belly.

"You're asking for it," the woman said as she straightened to standing. She turned to look at Greta. "You know how fast someone could
lift up this whole thing and start running? He'd be around the corner and down to the park before you even figured out how to open the door."

"Pardon me," Greta said again, louder, the only thing she could think to say. She stepped close to Julia and put her body between the baby and the stranger.

"I'm just letting you know," the woman said. "It happens all the time."

Greta could hear the tinkle of Michael's keys on his belt as he crossed the short space between the phone booth and where the woman was standing.

"Get yourself away from our child right this second," he said. The woman threw up her hands and continued on down the avenue.

"Do you think she would have taken her?" Greta asked once the woman had turned the corner.

Michael considered. "No. But why did she touch her? She shouldn't have done that."

"No," Greta agreed, and looked closely at him. Whenever he spoke of home, he said he had had trouble raising his voice in public; it had been a problem since he was a boy. Now he was the papa bear protecting his cubs. It was America, creeping in. An older Irishwoman Greta met at the market told her to save her pennies now while she still had the ways of home; too long in America, and the new Irish spend every penny they get hold of. Just that morning, Greta realized, they'd gotten coffee from the street vendor on the corner instead of making tea for themselves at home. They were growing more comfortable with each other every day, small touches as they worked around each other in the kitchen, bodies unnecessarily close when they sat together at the table. Greta often thought of Lily's warning: if he touches you. She had not said anything about what to do if Greta wanted to touch him back. And just like the dimes and quarters they'd stopped worrying about saving, it was America that gave Greta the courage to lean into him one evening as they were washing dishes and press her mouth to his. He had stepped back, surprised, before stepping forward again and placing his hands on either side of her face to kiss her back.

***

After their failed attempt to find Johanna in Chicago, the Irish postmark, which used to make Greta want to drop everything and eat up the news from home on the spot, now brought only dread. She and Michael went back and forth over whether they should tell Lily what had happened. And if they told, should they go home or should they stay? Should they send Julia home? And then send for her later? The second question was raised only once, and not seriously. They'd both known children at home who waited and waited for parents to send for them from England, Australia, Canada, America. Both knew those children grew up to adulthood in the place where they'd been asked to wait. What happens in these faraway places to make parents forget promises? Plus, Greta pointed out, Johanna wanted Julia to stay in America.

As Lily's worry grew—a worry Greta swore she could feel from three thousand miles away—so did her impatience with letters. She listed dates and times when she'd be at Mrs. Norton's shop and wrote to Greta in advance telling her to call during those times. When the first date and time arrived, Greta went down to a store on Seventy-seventh and First Avenue that advertised low rates on international calls. She purposely called an hour too soon. As the man at the front of the store listened to her, and New Yorkers milled around her, shopping for batteries and envelopes, Greta made her voice bright and competent, just like the ladies at Bloomingdale's. As much as anything else, America was a way of speaking. Not the accent, as Greta had first thought, but that way Americans have of pushing their voices out so they're heard without shouting. Michael had shown her that he could do it on the street outside the phone booth. Greta's supervisor at Bloomingdale's told her she'd need to master her interpersonal skills if she wanted to get ahead. Interpersonal meant, Greta figured out, how she spoke to strangers. Mrs. Norton was no stranger, but there were strangers all around her, glancing over at her and the tea-stained canvas bag she had trapped between her feet. Mrs. Norton's voice carried over such a long distance was even more itself: crisp, like the stationery she carried in her shop, like the sharp corners of the tea and biscuit boxes lined up on the wall under the window. When Mrs. Norton shouted into the line that she hoped Greta and Johanna were getting on well in America, Greta mistook it for a question and told Mrs. Norton they loved it. Everything they'd ever heard about it was true. Things couldn't be better, really. Just lovely.

Greta could hear the tingle of the bells on Norton's shop door—an Irish tingle, bells sounded different in New York—and Mrs. Norton calling away from the mouthpiece of the phone, "The Cahill girls. From America. Go on. I'll be with you in just a second."

A female voice in the background of Norton's shop said, "Ask them is there plenty of work in America now like people say."

Mrs. Norton whispered something Greta couldn't make out, and then came the sound of static rising and falling as if on the wind. Greta kept her eye on the second hand of the clock, which was hanging above the counter.

"And what about Johanna?" Mrs. Norton asked in a rush when she came back to the phone, abruptly aware of American cents adding up with every minute. "And the baby," she added.

Greta heard a measure in Mrs. Norton's voice that told her Johanna's news was big at home. They'd be aflutter with the information: a tinker, a baby, Johanna not even twenty, no ring on her finger, no ring on the way. Their conversation now, Greta realized, would be a prize Mrs. Norton showed off to every single person who came into the store that week.

"Oh, you know Johanna," Greta said, equally rushed. "She could get on anywhere. Look—can you tell my mother I tried but missed her? I should get off now."

In the panic often induced by overseas connections, Mrs. Norton hung up without another word.

The second time Greta called, Lily had arrived at the shop an hour earlier than planned and was there to take the receiver from Mrs. Norton.

"Greta.?" Lily said in an overloud voice Greta didn't recognize. "Hello?"

"I'm here," Greta said. "Mammy?" she added foolishly. She could hear Lily fumbling with the phone, pressing it tight to her ear. All the effort it must have taken, Greta realized. Lily's week planned around the possibility of this conversation. Tom's week too, most likely. And
how they would have discussed the plan over supper the night before and breakfast that morning. Lily would have boiled water thinking of this call. Milked, swept, seeded, washed, and collected eggs thinking of this call. Fixed her hair against those she might meet in town. Rubbed some of Dr. Joyce's Miracle Cream on her water- and wind-chapped hands. Tom would be out on the street waiting for the news from New York, nodding hellos to all who passed.

Lily cleared her throat into the phone and Greta started crying.

"What's happened?" Lily said.

"She's gone off," Greta said helplessly. "Chicago. We tried to track her down but couldn't find her." She hadn't planned on telling, but there was her mother's voice in her ear, somehow brought all the way over the ocean on wire and string. What the boys had once told her was half true: a person could throw her voice all the way from Galway to New York if the wind was pitched in the right direction. They hadn't been able to imagine that New York could shout back.

"Chicago? She doesn't know anyone in Chicago. And the baby?"

"The baby's doing very well. Michael knew a lot and taught me and we're taking care of her."

Silence. And then in a lowered voice: "I knew something happened. I've spoken to the bank about borrowing the fare. I could be there by the end of the month."

It was already the tenth of the month, and Greta felt greedy for her mother. Lily in New York. Lily in the apartment. Lily there at the table with the baby with a plan. Now that the possibility had arisen, all Greta wanted to do was sit down on the ground right where she was standing and wait. The man behind the counter turned the little clock so Greta could see it. She'd paid for ten minutes. No time for extra words. "To stay?" she asked.

"Just until we see about Johanna, and then all of us will go back home together."

"And Michael?"

"We can't worry about Michael. He can do as he pleases."

"What do you mean? Myself and Julia go back and Michael stays?"

A high-pitched buzz came from the other end of the phone.

"What was that?" Greta asked, and saw in her mind the brand-new telephone lines of Conch swinging like jump ropes in the school yard. The connection had gone faint, as if another Atlantic had added itself to the first and doubled the distance.

"Will I try to borrow the fare, Greta?" Lily shouted as if from behind a dozen closed doors.

"I'll call again next week," Greta shouted, and everyone in the store turned to look.

But Greta did not call next week. Or the week after. The greed she'd felt standing in the store, pressing the phone to her cheek as if to bring her mother closer, had faded to something different. Michael came home the afternoon that Greta spoke to Lily and swooped Julia up in the air. "Will we go to the park?" he asked, the musky scent of a hard day's work rolling off his body and into the currents of the air. He loved her. He had told her so just two weeks after Johanna left. He knew his own mind, he told her, and there was no doubt about it. And although she did not say so for another full week, she knew immediately that she loved him back. Love, it turned out, was disarmingly simple, straightforward, and there was no better way to put it than the way they already knew. They loved each other, but they didn't know what to do about it yet.

The second postcard from Johanna came four months after the first, from Minneapolis. Greta and Michael went back to the deli with another five-dollar bill and then to the same phone booth. This time they left the door to the booth open, and Julia, now almost seven months old and bundled in her one-piece snowsuit so that only her eyes, cheeks, and nose were exposed, laughed up at them as Greta slammed the phone down. They borrowed a Polaroid camera from a man in their building and took snapshots of Julia. They enclosed the pictures in a long letter to Lily and told her, once again, there was no need to come. They were happy. They were getting on well. They'd be home for a visit one day soon, and there was no sense wasting money. They'd heard from Johanna, they told Lily, and she was working and had a
nice apartment in Chicago. No sense telling Lily she'd moved again so soon. They told her it was all working out just fine.

"What would we have done," Michael asked gently once the letter was sent, "if we'd gotten hold of Johanna?"

"Told her to come back," Greta said, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what would happen if she came back? And wanted to take Julia with her? What if she wants to take her to Minneapolis? Or back to Ballyroan? Or even if she came back to New York and stayed?"

"What do you mean?" Greta asked again, feeling a little like she did the few times she and Michael had gone to the movies and she had to step out to use the ladies' room halfway through. Everything about the end, it seemed, depended on those few minutes that she'd missed. She felt her stomach rise and flop the way it used to when she first started using the elevator at work. It had not occurred to her that Johanna would take Julia away with her; she'd only allowed herself to dream of Johanna back again, the way she used to be in Ballyroan—not the silent, spiritless girl she became once her belly grew large. But Michael, she saw, was worried about the very possibility Greta had been hoping for: Johanna's return. She reminded herself that although Maeve was his twin, she was also a girl and he a boy, and things could not be the same between them as they'd been between Greta and Johanna. She had slept next to Johanna every night of her life until Johanna took off for Chicago. Even when they fought, and each girl felt that the other was a millstone that could not be lifted, it was a load so familiar that Greta couldn't imagine not having it to bear. She had weighed every decision and every thought she'd ever had against what Johanna would do and how she might react. And now, three thousand miles from home, she woke up for the first time in her life to a blank pillow beside her, no breath in her ear. Even when Michael began sleeping on Johanna's side of Greta's bed—first on top of the covers and soon underneath, his body fitted behind hers like the spoons in the kitchen drawer—his company could not replace Johanna's. Nights were easier than mornings, and Greta's heart jumped each evening when they acted out the familiar parts of pretending
they didn't both know where he would end up. He'd come in with a pretense of a question, or she'd call him in to look at something — a crack in the windowpane, a small mouse hole in the wall — and next thing he'd be kneeling on the bed, pulling her and pressing her as if it were possible to get any closer.