Herb's Pajamas Page 5

  Before they drove away, Edith ran back inside. She thought she might have forgotten something on the night table. On the way out, she dropped a teacup into Tyler’s disposal, pushing it well down. It would be difficult to retrieve. This gave her some satisfaction, and she smiled. She just wanted to break something of his, she didn’t know why.

  GLOVES

  EDITH’S MOTHER WAS in and out of the hospital all spring. Fluids dripped into her arm, the oxygen tank made a gurgling that sounded like surf. “Where are we?” Edith’s mother asked often. “We’re in New York City,” said Edith. “You’re in the hospital.”

  “What’s that noise?” Edith’s mother sounded suspicious.

  “What noise?” Edith strained to hear.

  “That noise. That ocean noise.”

  “I think that’s the oxygen, Mother,” said Edith.

  “What’s out there then?” asked Edith’s mother, pointing to the window.

  Edith got up from her chair and looked through a slat of the venetian blind. “More hospital,” she answered truthfully, “and some river.”

  “Thank god,” said Edith’s mother. “I thought we were in Hawaii.”

  Home again, the nurses who cared for Edith’s mother wore rubber gloves for certain procedures. There was no word to describe the sound these gloves made going on or coming off. It was a sound unlike any other. Brisk, you could say, thought Edith. Brisk. These were good women and efficient and there was nothing for Edith to do. Still, her mother liked Edith’s presence in the room, and always knew when Edith got up to leave. “Where are you going, Edith,” she said sharply, even when her eyes were closed. It was Edith’s knees creaking. Or the air she displaced, creating a draft.

  “Nowhere, mother,” said Edith.

  “I could use a glass of something cold,” said her mother. “Tea might be nice.” But she was asleep when Edith brought it back. “You forgot the ice,” said her mother later when she woke. But she was joking.

  Edith’s mother beckoned Edith to come close. Edith drew her chair up next to the bed and leaned over. “Watch those girls,” said her mother in a loud whisper. “See that they don’t steal anything else.” Edith’s mother had been imagining things missing. A pillow. An extension cord. An old watchband gone from the windowsill. “Mother,” said Edith. “Everything is where it is supposed to be.”

  “I know what I know,” said her mother and set her lips in a maddening smile. Edith’s mother’s hair was going white.

  “Don’t go through my things,” said Edith’s mother. “I’m not dead yet, you know.” Edith had quietly opened the top drawer of her mother’s bureau.

  “I am getting you a handkerchief,” said Edith, but she was slipping a pair of gloves into the pocket of her dress.

  “They won’t fit you, Edith,” said her mother. “I have small hands.”

  Edith’s pocket were crammed. Lipsticks, a pair of manicure scissors, coins from the top of her mother’s dresser. This was not stealing. It would bring her mother luck, she thought. She was going to give everything back. When she examined it all later in her own room, her heart pounding like a thief, Edith saw the gloves were her favorite kind, kid gloves that smelled so sweet. She held them up to her face and breathed in the sweet smell. She opened a different drawer the next day. “Edith,” said her mother. “Come away from there.” Edith did as she was told, although she was almost fifty-three years old. She sat down in the chair by her mother’s bed. Edith fingered the pearls in her pocket. Her mother had always worn these pearls. She had taught Edith to test a pearl between her teeth. She had told Edith they would be hers someday. Someday was not so interesting. Edith didn’t want them someday. Everything seemed so much more valuable while her mother was alive. She didn’t want pearls. She wanted her mother’s pearls while her mother was still alive. Later, she put them back. The jewelry box had a squeaky lid but her mother did not seem to mind this time.

  “Don’t come too close,” whispered her mother, pushing Edith away. “I don’t want you catching anything.” Edith’s mother’s breathing reminded Edith of footsteps, slow and deliberate with long pauses between, because of the dark, because of the unfamiliarity of the terrain.

  Edith’s mother died in her sleep. Edith was asleep too. The nurse shook Edith’s shoulder and Edith woke instantly. The nurse left Edith alone with her mother’s body. Edith looked from her mother’s face to the ceiling. She waved at the ceiling because she had read that the dying person looks down at the bed. “Good-bye, Mother,” Edith said to the ceiling. She held her mother’s hand. She kissed her mother’s forehead. Edith didn’t want to leave the room. She wasn’t sure where to go. Surely everything had changed.

  She put on her big flowered nightgown and lay down on the couch. She couldn’t go to sleep and she couldn’t stay awake. She wasn’t sure what to do with herself so she got up and ran water for a bath. She poured in soap flakes and swirled up the suds. She took off her nightgown and climbed in, gingerly lowering her large white body into the tub. What a lot of Edith there seemed to be. She lay back. She lifted one leg out of the water, then the other. Here I am, thought Edith. She made gloves out of the soapsuds, short churchy ones that covered only her hands, then long creamy white evening gloves that extended to her elbows and above, reaching almost to her armpits.

  HANDKERCHIEFS

  EDITH DID NOT cry. Her mother had had a rich and interesting life and at the end she had wished for death. During the final week Edith’s mother had called out “I love you, I love you,” to an unseen presence in the room. Perhaps Edith’s father, come back as a ghost to help his wife into the next world. Edith tried to keep her face calm at these moments, lest her father’s ghost think less of her. He had been a handsome man, Edith an awkward child.

  Her mother had never cried either, if the abundance of unused handkerchiefs in her bottom drawer meant anything. Her mother had never cried, nor had she been sick a day in her life until what took her away at the end. Edith sat on the floor next to the dresser, looking at these handkerchiefs, many in their original cellophane envelopes. “I bought this for her,” said Edith. The hankie in question was linen, in the corner a large purple petunia. Something about the color made Edith homesick, but she knew not for what since she was home, had always been home. She slid the handkerchief out of its wrapper and into her pocket. She was going out this morning, despite the risk of running into Mr. Feeley, and she wanted something to blot her eyes with if the pollen was flying. Her eyes had been bothering her lately, quite red in the mornings. Edith’s knees creaked as she got to her feet, although she was still every bit as strong as she ever had been.

  Edith was almost ashamed of her own loss next to that of Mr. Feeley. What a shabby grief was hers when you considered the poor old widower. Just as Edith would be thinking about her mother she would remember Mrs. Feeley, and the love the two Feeleys had had for each other, and how they had been inseparable, husband and wife, married for sixty years, and she felt ashamed at her own sorry state. Mr. Feeley’s suffering was so absolute as to strike poor Edith dumb. What could she possibly say in the face of such a loss? She sometimes stayed indoors for days on end just to avoid meeting Mr. Feeley, king of grief. She had lain under the bedclothes unwilling to show her face after she had heard the news. (Once Mrs. Feeley had sent a Jell-O salad to her mother. “Get that out of my house,” Edith’s mother had said, and Edith had swept the Jell-O into a bowl and returned the dish. Later she’d eaten the salad herself. “What became of that dreadful midwestern mess,” Edith’s mother had asked. “You didn’t eat it, did you? Oh, Edith.”)

  But today she found no food in the kitchen and realized she had been indoors for four days without removing her nightgown. “Snap out of it,” said Edith, “or you’ll end up in the window dusting a fern.” She cleaned up the many cups and saucers half full of milky tea and the copper bowl full of orange peels. She stacked the unread newspapers neatly on the extra kitchen chair. She bathed and dressed and left the apartment, checki
ng in her bag for the keys three times before actually closing the door behind her.

  EDITH WAS WALKING up toward Broadway, passing the Single Woman’s Bookstore, when Mr. Feeley hove into view. She had nowhere to hide, not really, unless she ducked into the shop, and she could see through the window that Georgia, the proprietress, had one breast exposed for her baby boy and Edith just didn’t feel up to that. So she took a deep breath and approached Mr. Feeley, holding out her hand.

  “I am so very sorry,” she said, offering her hand and trying to breathe through her mouth. His nails were unkempt, his hair wild, he smelled (could it be true?) of actual urine. Good Lord, thought Edith, real grief is so untidy.

  “My wife died,” said Mr. Feeley. “My Lois.”

  “Oh yes, I know, and I am so sorry.”

  “She died. She left me here by myself. She’s gone, you know.” His shoulders had begun to shake, and his left hand went toward his face, she saw his sleeve silvery with dried mucus. “I hung on for her, and see what happened. I’m alone now.”

  “Oh dear, Mr. Feeley,” said Edith. There were crumbs on his chin. Saltines? He was wearing bedroom slippers.

  “You know, I start to say something to her and then I see her chair is empty.”

  “I’m sure it must be very hard, Mr. Feeley.” She patted his shoulder.

  “Call me Martin. The worst is that I see her all the time now. That’s how you know they’re dead,” he whispered, “when you start to see them in subways.”

  Edith, who just four days ago had been stabbed through the heart by a woman in a wheelchair who from the back looked like her mother, and had had to stifle the cry “Mother!” knew what Mr. Feeley meant. When she had caught up she had seen the woman was a much younger person, and had a cheerful face.

  “How is your mother?” asked Mr Feeley suddenly.

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Edith began but he interrupted her.

  “Keeping fit, is she? You tell her I’ll be dropping by,” he said. “Your mother was one of the finest actresses of her generation.” He was shaking his finger near Edith’s face. “Mrs. Feeley loved her. We never missed a Harriet Tall-madge film. Never. You tell your mother that from me, will you? My Lois loved her work.”

  “She will be so gratified,” said Edith, “to hear it.”

  “I’m ready to go myself, you know.”

  “Oh, Mr. Feeley,” Edith began, not knowing what to say.

  “It’s true. Why not speak the truth. Mrs. Feeley was not afraid. She said she wasn’t afraid. ‘I’ve always liked to travel,’ she said. I miss her,” he said, bits of saltine-like crumbs flying into the air. Edith pictured God, a messy eater with crumbs in his beard, before he created the solar systems, napkins. He spoke out of loneliness, after a meal, and the flying crumbs and spittle became stars and planets. “A couple of pears would be nice,” said Mr. Feeley. “Not too ripe, not too many dents and bruises. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “Yes, certainly,” said Edith. “And I’ll just ring your bell when I come back, shall I?”

  “I may be resting,” said Mr. Feeley. “Just hang it from the doorknob.”

  A few blocks down Broadway Edith took out her handkerchief. “I know just how old I was,” she said, “six. And I thought this the prettiest thing I ever saw. And my mother saved it all these years. Imagine.” She stood in front of the New Delhi Restaurant, which had closed soon after opening. Its tattered plastic flags blew cheerfully in the breeze, unaware that the festivities were over. Edith peered in the window. On a table stood a stack of white plates at the ready. They looked so eager, but had been abandoned. Inanimate objects were having too strong an effect on Edith. “I am a stack of white plates,” said Edith to herself. On the way home she bought three pears but ate two of them herself on the street, one after the other, wiping her chin with the handkerchief.

  FUR COAT

  THE CRAZY LADY began to shout just as Edith’s coffee arrived. “Oh dear,” thought Edith, “Esmerelda.” This was not, of course, the woman’s name, but you couldn’t just call someone the crazy lady, not forever, not even in your own mind, and Edith had settled on Esmerelda. Not that the woman looked like an Esmerelda; she was Chinese, or Tibetan, perhaps even an Eskimo, but she felt like an Esmerelda, at least to Edith, for whom the name conjured up somebody doomed by (among other things) love. Edith dropped the thin curl of lemon peel into her espresso and then turned sideways in her chair to look down the street. Poor Esmerelda, there she certainly was, gesturing at nobody Edith could see, and shouting what were presumably oaths in a language Edith did not recognize. Probably gibberish, no real language at all. She was a small woman, sturdily built, and she was wearing what she always wore, two huge spots of rouge and a short fur coat. Her hair looked as if it had been recently chopped at, or sawn off, Edith thought, with a dull knife. Edith had seen her around the neighborhood for months, and given her a wide berth.

  Edith called to the waiter. “I think there is something floating in here,” she said apologetically, holding up a pitcher of milk. This was her favorite waiter, the one she called Pablo because of his enormous burning dark eyes. Pablo frowned, and took the pitcher away. He returned moments later with sugar and a small vessel of cream. Edith didn’t want cream. She never took cream, she wanted milk, and she already had sugar, but she decided to leave well enough alone. She would just drink her coffee black this morning, she wasn’t really all that fussy, black with sugar. “Thank you,” said Edith, but Pablo was looking over his shoulder at Esmerelda, who had stopped to search in a trash basket. “Crazy lady,” said Pablo, tapping his head. “No-good lady.” Edith didn’t think you should blame someone for being crazy and she was sorry for Pablo that he had said such a mean thing. Especially not crazy in love, which was part of Esmerelda’s problem, or at least the form it sometimes took. Edith shifted in her chair again and realized that the table where she was sitting was going to be uncomfortably close if Esmerelda stood outside Hector’s Flower Store today. Edith glanced around for another place to sit, a table further away, but they were all occupied. The café had filled up. It was a lovely morning.

  Why Esmerelda had fallen in love with Hector nobody seemed to know. Of course, nobody knew why anybody loved anybody. Or why anybody didn’t, either, for that matter. Edith herself thought it must have to do with flowers. Maybe Esmerelda had loved a gardener in another land. Or maybe Hector had once given her an old corsage, something he had been going to throw away. Maybe he had pinned it on her coat to fulfill a bargain with God. You never knew. Hector had certainly been nice enough to send flowers to Edith when her mother died, even remembering that the old lady had loved freesias. You could fall in love with Hector and remain perfectly sane, Edith decided. She shut her eyes and tried unsuccessfully to imagine falling in love with Hector. When she opened them, she let out a little cry. Esmerelda was passing so close to Edith’s table that Edith might have reached out and touched her sleeve. Her hideous ragged sleeve.

  Esmerelda’s coat was more dreadful close up than Edith could have imagined. There was a ghastly slickness to the fur, and the lining was torn and hanging down in front, and Edith wasn’t a bit sure what kind of animal this fur had originally come from. It reminded her of some terrible red monkey, big as a child, balding in places. But Esmerelda was clearly an Eskimo, Edith decided, getting a good look at the woman’s cheekbones. In which case it was no wonder she had gone crazy. You would have to be crazy not to go crazy if you were an Eskimo woman in New York City. Edith’s heart was beating rapidly, but maybe she had only imagined the smell.

  Edith patted her hair, straightened the collar of her nice navy-blue jacket. She opened a napkin and put it in her lap. Esmerelda was now standing among the lilacs outside Hector’s, and she was plucking at something on the front of her coat. She wasn’t shouting or singing right now, and unless you saw her close up you might not know she was crazy. The only crazy person Edith had ever known had been her Aunt Neddie, and she had never wandered a
round shouting, or singing. “Neddie is not herself,” Edith’s mother sometimes said. Edith knew that Neddie had seen visions and heard voices, and they had not been friendly. Poor Neddie. She had perished so long ago, and in a far-off land, and Edith had not even been thirteen. Now that Edith’s mother was dead there was nobody left to remember Neddie except Edith, and all Edith had were fragments, shards really, painful bits and pieces of a woman whose lipstick was too dark, whose kisses had always hurt Edith’s cheeks, whose breasts had always been embarrassingly visible in her loose bathing suits, and whose favorite poem had begun, “O Western wind, when wilt thou blow,” a poem that had meant nothing to Edith when Neddie had shown it to her years and years ago, weeping, when Edith had been eight.

  Edith opened three sugars and put them in her coffee, but it was too much, and did not make up for the lack of milk. She knew most people did not like milk in espresso, but Edith did. She decided to call to Pablo. Pablo was looking into the street, where Hector was crouched behind a blue van, waiting for Esmerelda to leave. Kind-hearted, Hector never called the police. Instead, he hid. Edith watched as Hector peeked around the back of the vehicle and Edith waved a tiny wave at him, but he didn’t wave back. No doubt he hadn’t seen her. Hector had a big soft wife somewhere, Edith was sure of this, a nice wife who cooked lamb for him, and orzo, and dropped cinnamon in all his food to give it mystery. Edith tried but failed to imagine him in a house with furniture, she could only picture him on the sidewalk surrounded by flowers, flowers of all kinds in all kinds of containers, big mayonnaise jars of flowers.