Vida (47 page)

She must pull herself together; from the floor, the table, the ceiling. She felt exploded. On to her plan to penetrate the hospital. “Listen, Paul, has Marsha been to see Mama?”

“No way, Vida. She’s living in Houston, and that’s a lot of dough to lay out for a plane ticket. Her husband’s a pipe layer, but she’s pregnant now. Mary Beth, Leigh’s girlfriend, Marsha—it’s a regular epidemic!”

“Listen, I want you to take me into the hospital as your daughter, Marsha. Make sure Mary Beth doesn’t get wind of it. I don’t want Mama hassled.”

“But … Marsha’s blond and six months pregnant. She’s twenty-three.”

“I’ll be wearing a blond wig and I’ll be pregnant, don’t worry. I’ll dress for the part. Just take me in real calm and don’t act nervous and don’t call me Vida.”

“Okay. It’s your funeral. When do you want to do it?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“That’s kind of hard. What can I tell Mary Beth?”

“Just say you want to see Mama alone.”

“She doesn’t care for going to the hospital, anyhow. The smells, and seeing the people on stretchers.”

“Paul, you’re an angel. I’ll meet you at seven where I met you tonight. Okay? I, appreciate it more than I can say. I just have to see Ruby … But don’t say a word to her yet. Just walk in ahead of me and whisper it to her. Natalie told her I’m going to try … You just march in ahead and whisper in her ear. Okay?”

“She’s been asking where you are. I’m supposed to bring her some pictures of Jacky, anyhow. She asked for them yesterday.”

“Okay. Bring them. I’ll meet you at seven.”

As Paul took out his wallet to pay for her food and his beer, he folded a bill and slipped it to her discreetly. His caution amused her, if it was that rather than a code of manners; she could never get him to call her anything but Vida. “Just for you to take care of yourself

On the bus she unfolded it. It was a twenty, and it would help, though not much. After her visit to Ruby, Joel and she had to solve the cash problem. Maybe Natalie would have a lead. They had a phone call scheduled tomorrow morning at eleven to “her” pay phone in the Art Institute. She was sitting at the back of the bus, where she could turn her head to the darkness outside the dirty windows and let herself loose, like unchaining a pack of tugging howling wolfhounds. How she longed to bay at the low, dirty sky, ruddy with the glare of neon: Susannah was having Leigh’s baby, and Leigh was choosing that too. Oh, Vida had gotten pregnant about a year after they were married, and then it had been, Kids get in the way. Leigh had said, Who wants a kid tying us down an crimping our lives? Then Lohania’s abortion later. Why was Susannah’s growth more precious than hers or Lohania’s?

Leigh was married, about to be a father, founding his line in another woman. He was no more hers, not at all. She felt herself cast off. The phantom ex-wife. Leigh Pfeiffer and his wife Susannah Pfeiffer and baby, a complete unit. No room for Vida. Her place had been usurped entirely. He never thought of Vida any longer except when she forced him to, and then he felt a twinge of annoyance, a twinge of guilt. Oh, that one still there, a tooth he should have fixed.

The pain was in her pride. The pain was in her sense of sexual worth. She was not the great love of Leigh’s life. She was an earlier stage, a folly, a displaced person, an old flame guttered out and the wick trimmed. Why had he bothered going to bed with her? Nostalgia? Pity? Casual lust? And why hadn’t he told her the truth? He had to have known he was going to marry Susannah. She felt a pang of hope that he had not wanted to marry his girlfriend but finally (after three months) had done so out of obligation. But she didn’t quite believe. Women had longed to marry Leigh, and at least one of them had claimed to be pregnant. He had told them he was already married. His excuse had been that if Vida was caught, as a husband he could not be forced to testify against her. He had hugged that excuse to save him from what he did not want. Obviously he wanted Susannah. That was the cup, and she must drink it down. A cup of lye; the bitter truth.

She almost missed the El stop. Up the slippery stairs she climbed to the windy platform, hugging her jacket around her. She must tell Madame Florian what she needed for her masquerade. On the half-empty train she found a seat easily. Rush hour was over, most people had sat down to their supper. Behind her a drunken old man told a litany of curses sometimes in English and sometimes in a language she did not know, although she knew it was Slavic. She wanted to stop and buy a bottle of wine when she got off the subway, but she could not afford it. One more taste left over from her life with Leigh; incongruous now. She must come to Joel without bringing her wild grief.

She ran into the dark, frightening alley full tilt and raced for the back door, to pound on it with the rhythm they had worked out. As he opened it, slung her arms around his neck.

“I saw my brother. He gave us twenty dollars—”

“Is that all?”

“He’s got too many kids. I wouldn’t take that off him if we had any choice. I’m going to see Ruby tomorrow night.”

He peeled off her Jacket, took her by the shoulders and sat her on the cot. “I have bad news for you.”

“Ruby’s worse?”

“No, I haven’t heard anything from the hospital … Sam called. Natalie got served with a subpoena when she got off the plane. They called her before the grand jury today. She refused to answer. She’s out now, but she’s afraid they’ll get transactional immunity and call her back. Anyhow, she gave Sam some money and told him to take Peezie back here.”

“Sam and Peezie are coming to Chicago?”

”Sam called from O’Hare half an hour ago. He was waiting with his sister for your stepfather, Sandy, to pick them up.”

“Why did she do that?” She was frightened for Natalie; yet irrationally and terribly, she was relieved because it took her mind off her pain. She was galvanized into fear for Natalie and released from the obsession with Leigh’s marriage and fatherhood. She did not have to force herself to pretend to think of something else.

“She’s afraid she might have to go to jail. She doesn’t want the kids terrorized anymore. She figures there’ll be less heat on them at Sandy’s. And she’s afraid if she’s busted, Daniel will take the kids and she’ll never get them back.”

“I didn’t think he wanted the older kids.”

“He wants to improve his bargaining position.” Joel smoothed her hair. “As Sam explains it—that kid is cool—if Daniel has the kids, he might not have to pay Natalie any money at all.”

“Family wars. The vengeance of fathers” She leaned against his arm. Then she took his face between her hands and kissed him again and again. He was there, he existed, he loved her. “Hey, you haven’t shaved.”

“Aw, Vida, I haven’t got any new blades. It’s like shaving with a brick.”

“Now it’s like making love to a bed of nails. At my age I’m entitled to a little comfort.” Suddenly it occurred to her that at her very age Ruby had left Tom, making her big leap from one life to another. Here she was changing men and profound allegiances also. But her life a not been structured by Leigh. Joel was not her work, as Tom and the children and the children had been Ruby’s no matter what jobs she had held. Perhaps the only time Ruby had felt differently had been during World War II when she had been intensely proud of her work in the shipyard. “It’s a man’s job,” she told Grandma and Paul and Vida in the evening when she came home in her overalls and changed into a dress. “My foreman, Gene Cornutti, says I’m faster than the man I replaced.”

“What happened to him?” Paul asked.

“He’s with your father, fighting the Japs. And I’m making ships. Even our baby Vida can do her part by stepping on the tin cans, can’t you, baby?”

She could see herself crushing the cans by jumping on them with both feet, before they were collected for scrap metal. Her early-childhood memories of wartime were warm and happy; it was almost obscene, she thought. No European Jews could have such memories. Grandma, Mama, Paul, baby me. We were never as happy again until she married Sandy, and then Paul was already quitting school to work.

All the time she was making love with Joel and afterward as they talked each other to sleep, odd flashes of childhood lit the insides of her lids. Tomorrow she would see her mother. No matter how and at what cost, she would succeed.

The blond wig was the one she carried for disguise, used with Tara; the pillow was from the cot in the back room at Madame’s; the maternity pant-suit, a hideous turquoise with dozens of shiny buttons, was provided by Madame from who knew where. She painted on a heavy mask of makeup. Paul arrived late, while she almost froze in the pantsuit. Her nose dripped freely, and all the makeup wiped off it into her handkerchief. She had stuffed cotton batting into her cheeks to distort her face to a round fat-cheeked look.

As Paul’s impulse was to lope, she had to drag on him as they left the parking garage and went into the hospital lobby. “Slowly, slowly, Dad. Do you want me to lose my baby? Remember, you have to act solicitous. You don’t make pregnant women run.”

“Aw, come on, Vida. We can playact upstairs.”

She dug her fingers into his arm. “What is my name?”

“Marsha. Marsha. Damn it, you have a grip there.”

“Damn it back, Paul. Don’t forget my name again. Not when you think we’re alone, not anytime. Okay, lead the way, Dad.”

When they reached the floor and entered the nurse’s scrutiny, the nurse behind the desk said, “Only two in at a time.”

“Oh? Who’s with her?” Vida asked smiling.

The nurse looked at the list. “Her son. Her other son, Michael”

“Listen, I’m going to take this time to run downstairs and call my husband. I’ll be right back” To Paul she said, “Get him out of there fast. Then make sure Sharon’s not around, too.”

“What am I supposed to do? Boot Mike out?”

“Tell him you have something private to discuss with Mama.”

“Yeah, he couldn’t be more bored with my life. He thinks I’m a slob”

“I think he’s spoiled. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Get Mike out by then. I don’t trust him.”

“You just better hope Sharon don’t show up tonight.”

“If she does, you belt her and I’ll run” She grinned at him. “I know you’ll watch out for me, Daddy dear. Ten minutes.”

She did not want to hang around the lobby, so she simply hid in the women’s room. When her watch read ten minutes, she gave Paul an extra five and then returned. If M & M was there—Natalie and her old name for Michael Morris Asch—what would she do? She would go on instinct. A man was sitting in the area near the nurse’s desk leafing through sports magazines. As she got off the elevator he scanned her carefully and then lost interest. It felt as if a naked electric wire had touched her, but she strolled toward the nurse, chewing her gum as if bored. “Did my uncle leave yet? You know, he’s my uncle even though he’s younger than me. Mike.”

“Yeah, you got a big family” the nurse said. “He left just now. He’s in his second year of medical school, huh?”

“Yeah, doing real good.” She panicked as she realized she had no memory of where he was going to school. “Well, I’m going to see Grandma. I take a plane home tomorrow, so this is it.”

“First left around the corner. Then it’s the third door on your right. Put on this gown. Your father will show you what to do.”

Ruby lay cranked up in the bed, but she was staring at the door, waiting, her cat eyes bright in the haggard face. “Vida, is that
you?”

Vida winced, glancing at the woman who lay on the other bed watching a television set overhead. It was loud enough, she hoped, to screen their talk if she spoke softly.

“Yes, Mama, but you have to just call me Dear or Honey, please. Okay? Anything you want to. Even You little stinker. But not my name, “ she whispered as she came to kiss Ruby, who looked years older than she had the year before. The skin hung. She was still fleshy, but her flesh seemed to be withering; her skin was pale and her veins distended. She gasped for breath and her breathing rasped in a way that scared Vida further. Vida drew the curtain between her mother and the next bed.

“I knew you were coming. I told Natalie so. She said you couldn’t. She’s a worrywart. But Sandy said you would. He’s right, the way he always is. When I listen to him, it turns out … He’s eating his supper now. He eats real late so he can see me when nobody else is here. Then at seven—”

“Mama, you’re not supposed to talk too much,” Paul warned.

“I’ll keep her quiet,” Vida said. “Paul, watch for me. Go gossip with the nurse and keep an eye. Okay? I promise I won’t stay long.” She pulled the cotton batting from her cheeks, letting her face back into its normal shape behind the curtain.

“Are you having a baby? I know Leigh’s new wife is. You didn’t go and get pregnant too?”

“No, I’m supposed to be Marsha,” she said softly, sitting on the edge of her mother’s bed. Ruby looked a little like Grandma, and that was frightening. She had never seen a resemblance before. Grandma had been a stout dumpy woman who wore shapeless clothes. After Grandma was left a widow, she had never wanted to remarry. “Once is enough,” she had said. “Too much sometimes.” Ruby was the same age Grandma had been when she had her fatal heart attack. Vida’s stomach bunched tight in her, painfully.

“You don’t look anything like her in that awful wig. Get a better wig. It breaks my heart. Your hair is such a wonderful color. Only thing we ever got from you-know-who that did us any good.”