Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn (10 page)

But it was morning, and she stepped through her apartment, which got sun only in the afternoon, when she wasn't usually home. Con associated sun with weekends. She assembled what she needed, watering a few dark plants with thick leaves, plants that didn't need much sun. Joanna's hairy sculptures looked ungainly but compelling in the morning dimness. Con liked this apartment, though it was elongated and dark. Marching back and forth, gathering notes, checking e-mail, preparing breakfast, she seemed to make the rudiments of a trail.

She checked the
Times
site: Iraqis in Fallujah hated Americans even more than in the other cities. She postponed reading the story. Once she'd trekked through the apartment and was ready to emerge into the light—her body clothed, down to those annoying but pleasantly smooth tubes of nylon on her legs, her stomach soothed by granola and banana and yogurt, her bowels emptied—she could perhaps do a measure of work worth doing. And so, although she was inadequate and the world was full of sorrow, she got herself to the door of the building, along the speckled gray sidewalk, and down the gray steps into the subway. From there on, other people made some contribution. Nobody expected Con to drive the train.

At work that day Con walked in on one of Aaron's inter
views. She'd seen the client go into his cubicle, and could hear their low voices. She herself was reading cases, searching for lines of reasoning that one court or another had adopted. She stood and stretched at the window, and then walked down the hall toward the voices. The client was a young, muscular woman who looked older close up, her face strained. Aaron—a possibly gay black man of indeterminate age and impenetrable reserve—looked baffled, his forehead creased. He often whispered.

Con introduced herself and asked if she could listen in, saying she wanted to get a better sense of the clients. Aaron looked annoyed but said he didn't mind. “So this was the second time you worked in that office, or the first?” he said, staring at his questions.

“I don't remember—he never liked it when I worked.”

“And that was why you quit, the first time?”

“There were so many reasons to quit,” said the woman.

“So when was that?” said Aaron.

“Wait a second,” said Con. “Did you quit because your husband hit you?”

“It's hard to say,” said the woman, turning to look at her.

It was intolerable to have to question people about subjects so intimate. Let Aaron do it. Probably he did it better. But she couldn't stop herself from saying, “If you didn't quit, he'd have hit you?”

“Well, he hit me anyway,” said the woman, with a little laugh. “But yeah.”

Later that day came an e-mail from Joanna. “I just told Tim we're finished. I'm going to a motel. Love, Jo.”

Con didn't know whether this was good news or bad, or whether it meant Jo would come home or not. “Are you all right?” she replied. “Now what?” She went back to the
New York Times
site and read the story about Fallujah. Sunni Muslims who lived there still favored Saddam Hussein and resented the American presence. When American soldiers threw candy at children, the children didn't pick it up because they thought it was poisoned. When American soldiers hung their feet out of the back of helicopters, Iraqis were insulted, because in their country it is disrespectful to show the bottoms of one's shoes. Reading the story, Con put her feet down. They'd been curled around each other, so anyone passing might have seen the bottoms of her shoes.

She worked until evening. On the way home, she bought a free-range chicken. She didn't hear from Joanna again, but there was an e-mail from Marlene: “There's an El Greco show at the Metropolitan Museum. And did you buy the opera tickets?” Jerry wrote that he was coming Thursday evening. That meant he'd be in New York for a day before Marlene arrived. But who was Marcus Ogilvy?

 

Con still didn't have any money and her marriage was over, but she forced herself to spend some of Thursday working. She had to learn what was on the missing papers. She talked to Mabel, who still didn't have them, but admitted it was true that two of the women had been soliciting in the neighborhood. “I told them not to,” she said. “Nobody looking for a whore is going there.”

“Were they trying to get you closed down?” If Con had her lost notebook, she felt obscurely, she'd know what to do. There was a short paragraph in blue ink, written on the train, and a longer one, in black, that she'd written in her mother's apartment. When she'd visited the house, one resident had said, “If I weren't here I'd be in jail. Or dead.” The women did not bake cookies and sew quilts—nothing that wholesome was going on—but they had ordinary conversations about shopping and laundry. Con had been happy there, despite the irritating TV in the background and the smell of cigarettes.

“Some people have a hard time with rules,” Mabel said now. “Did your daughter ever call?”

“I found her. Thank you,” said Con.

“She was missing?”

“She was with her father. She was fine.”

Twice Thursday morning her mother called. Now Gert kept fretting about the burglary. She couldn't be persuaded that Peggy hadn't paid for the new locks. Marlene had gone to work. “She told me a million things not to do,” said Gert. “Why would I leave the stove on? She made coffee and put it in a jar but I can't open it.”

“You'll be home soon,” said Con.

“Saturday. Will you be gone?”

“No, of course not. I'll make dinner. I'll sleep on the sofa and go home Sunday.”

“I miss you,” said Gert.

“I miss you, too,” said Con, and found that it was so. She pictured her mother slightly dazed in Marlene's house. Then she said, “I think Jerry and I may separate for a while.”

“You're separated now,” said her mother. “You're in my house.”

“That's right.” It was all Con could say on the subject.

“My husband and I were separated during the war,” said Gert, as if she'd forgotten to whom she was talking.

“Yes, Daddy was in the army.”

Something terrible was happening to Gert. Marlene was right.

“I was thinking about Papa,” Gert continued, “because I was looking out the window here and all the time I see birds. My friend lives in an apartment, but there's grass outside.”

“I know. A condo.”

“A condo. I keep seeing the kind of birds my father had. During the Depression, my father kept birds.”

“Pigeons?” said Con. She thought she'd heard that her grandfather had kept homing pigeons. Con's father and Gert's father had become the same person.

“Pigeons. It was on the tip of my tongue. Four pigeons. He would take them to Coney Island and let them go and they would fly home. He loved to watch them come down to their house. One day during the Depression my mother said to him, ‘We have nothing to eat. Tomorrow we eat the birds.' The next day my father sold them.”

“That's sad,” said Con, but she was hungry and impatient to get back to work. Marlene was right, but what could she do now? She got off the phone, ate toast standing up, and made some more phone calls. She wasn't sure, after all, if an appeal would make sense, if the zoning commission decided against Mabel Turner's house. Finally she called Sarah, who said, “Of
course. We'll argue that these woman have a disability. Aren't they addicts?”

“I think that would be hard with ex-prisoners,” said Con. “The judge is used to thinking of prisoners as bad, not sick.”

“Then we'll have to change the judge's thinking.”

Con phoned Mabel to find out if the women were in treatment. “Do you have AA meetings at the house?” said Con.

“Some of the girls go to the meeting at the church.”

“There's a church? Would the minister vouch for the house?” How could she make a judge understand that these women were fixing their lives?

“We threw out the ones who were turning tricks on the block,” said Mabel.

“You did?”

“Sure. This is a decent place.”

“So they're gone?”

“They're leaving soon.”

Con lost her temper. “I can't defend you if you don't throw them out. What am I supposed to do for you?”

“Oh, you'll figure out something,” said Mabel.

Late morning on Thursday, Con finally got money. Like changing the locks, it became easy. She called Howard and asked him to wire some. He too knew about Western Union and she found an office not far away. It was a breezy day, and she gulped air as she walked there, as if she were in the country. Brooklyn had trees, and their leaves, sticky looking and light green, had just unfolded. At Western Union she was handed money. She folded the bills into her front jeans pocket, and felt rich, with a comfortable awareness of money when she
swung her leg. She stopped at the grocery store, treating herself to cheddar cheese and Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream, and bought a chicken to roast for her mother. As she walked back to the apartment, Con found herself trying to feel sure that if she left Jerry, she didn't have to move in with Gert. When her mother returned, maybe Peggy would take an interest in her. Some people made pets of frail old ladies. Con told herself a quick story in which Gert continued living in her apartment, quite fine because Peggy dropped in once a day and looked around, trying the back door. Once a month, Con would visit them both. And then a new thought occurred to her. When she was apart from Jerry, men might want to have coffee with her—even go to bed with her. As she turned her key in the lock, she remembered that she should have bought tampons.

She was hungry again. Mabel had left two phone messages. She made herself a cheese sandwich and called her back, trying to chew quietly as they spoke.

“I got it back,” Mabel said, and read the paper aloud. It was the decision of the zoning commission after all. They'd lost. “It says it's an illegal rooming house,” said Mabel. “It's not a rooming house at all. I don't run some rooming house!”

“That's just the term they use,” Con said. She hung up and called Sarah, who wanted details Con didn't know. “Can't you get back?” Sarah said. “We need to see those papers. How much time do we have to appeal?”

Con didn't know. She hadn't wanted to tell Sarah about the stolen bag and her mother's confusion, but summed up her week as briefly as she could.

“That's disgusting,” said Sarah. “Anyway, we'll make some
kind of claim. These cases are working out, but it'll be harder than if they'd come to us before the hearing.”

“I wish our clients were a little more picturesque,” Con said.

“We'll deal with what we've got.”

“The whole thing started with some of the women soliciting on the block,” said Con. “Mabel said she'd throw them out, but they were still there the last time I talked to her.”

“The whole thing started when the neighbors saw a black face,” said Sarah. “Depend on it.”

“It's so quiet there,” Con said. “Everything they do will stand out. Wouldn't they be better off somewhere else? Or wouldn't we be better off using a different house to bring this kind of suit?”

“This is the client we have, Constance,” said Sarah. “If those women get thrown out of that house, they'll all bust parole. They'll be back in prison in a week or two or three. Look, I don't want to argue the merits of the case. File an appeal. If we lose that, maybe we can go to federal court.”

Later, Con was sorry she'd sounded so negative. She was tired and didn't feel like talking, but the phone rang, and it was her mother calling. “Did you get money? Did you eat?” said Gert.

“I'm fine. I've got a bit of a crisis at work.”

“You have to go to your office?”

“No, it'll wait.”

“You mean you're going home now, to your house?”

“No, I'm working from here.”

“Who will feed Sandy?”

“I'll feed Sandy.”

“You'll feed him before you leave?”

“I'm
not leaving
,” Con said emphatically. She began to talk as to a four-year-old. “When you come on Saturday, I'll meet you at the station, and we'll take a taxi here. I'm going to roast a chicken, and we'll have a good dinner. Then, on Sunday, I'll go home.”

“That's right,” said her mother, and put Marlene on. “She doesn't understand,” said Marlene. “She thinks you're leaving.”

“Is this happening a lot?”

“I told you,” said Marlene. “It's breaking my heart. We'll talk about power of attorney later. You're busy now.”

“Sometimes she makes perfect sense,” said Con.

“Listen, let's be realistic.”

Con said, “Maybe there's medication.”

“The doctor didn't seem to think it would help,” said Marlene.

The doorbell was ringing. Marlene tried to keep Con on the phone but she thought it might be Peggy, and Con wanted to see this new, interesting person. “I'm just making sure you're home,” Peggy said when Con opened the door. “I'm bringing lasagna up.”

Con winced at “home.” She declined politely. “I went shopping.” Really, she should use up the chopped meat.

“No, this is my mother's lasagna. I was there last night and she made me take a big pan home.”

“I'm sure it's wonderful.”

“What it is, is authentic. This is real Italian lasagna made by the downstairs lady's mother. You don't say no.” Peggy raised her arm to lean on the doorjamb. Her arm was long and slender.

“I'm sorry,” said Con. “I bought food. I should use it up.”

“Your mother will eat the food you bought.”

“I'm sorry.” If she were alone, she could read more of Marlene's letters.

“Homemade lasagna will go to waste,” said Peggy. “There are criminal penalties for that kind of thing.”