When Fox Is a Thousand Page 12

  Once, standing in front of the altar, she imagined a man’s blood gushing over her hands. She hurried out into the wet street with cars rushing by. She heard the long sigh of bus doors closing. She ran to catch the bus. The driver opened just one of the folding doors to let her in and then pulled quickly away from the curb while she stood at the fare box counting change. She counted a dollar twenty and had to do the last five cents in pennies while her wallet threatened to spill its entire contents onto the floor. Finally she had the right coins, dropped them down the chute, snapped her wallet shut, and turned to scan the bus for a seat. There might be one in the back. She wobbled towards it, knees bent like a skateboarder’s, when the driver suddenly slammed on the brakes, cursing under his breath at two cyclists who cut in front of him. Artemis lurched forward and fell into the soft lap of an Asian woman who was growing out her dyed blonde hair. The dark roots reached her ears, and from there her hair was blonde to the chin. Artemis was sure she had seen the woman before. She didn’t know where, but the sensation of that last act of looking came to her so vividly that she said, “Hello,” before apologizing for her loss of balance. The woman smiled, and in a rich voice that was almost other-worldly she said, “Don’t worry about it,” as her warm hand half-lifted Artemis back to standing. Artemis thought she smelled chicken on the woman’s breath, but she couldn’t be sure.

  A bedraggled but defiant Diane was sitting on the front steps of Arte-mis’s apartment building with a knapsack and two stuffed shopping bags beside her. A long red streak from which skin was peeling still marred her perfect face. “I got kicked out of the house. Ming would have taken me in, but it was too awkward to ask her mother. Do you think I could stay with you for a while?”

  “Why did they kick you out?” Artemis asked, trying to conceal her feelings of delight mixed with relief.

  “I couldn’t pay the rent. I don’t know what the big deal was. It was just a sublet. Stupid white girls can afford it. So what do you say?”

  “Of course, come on in.” Artemis picked up both shopping bags and they climbed the stairs to her little one-room suite. She would have Diane to herself now. She didn’t even stop to feel hurt that Diane had asked Ming first.

  Diane curled up on the bench seat by the window, and her thin body became small, no longer a young woman’s but a child’s. Artemis put rice on the stove, crushed garlic, took sui choy out of the fridge, and began cutting. This was what she could do now to keep Diane’s attention, and it was easy, meditative. The cabbage fell easily in long diagonal slices under her hand. It felt both familiar and foreign at the same time. As a young teenager, she had hated these tasks. Her mother had made a point of teaching her to cook Chinese. She had always resisted those lessons. She resented them. Her hand had been clumsy beside her mother’s practiced one. “Teach me lasagne instead. Teach me chicken pot pie,” she would complain, to no avail.

  From the window seat, Diane watched, murmuring her approval as Artemis plunged into the serious act of cooking, slivering beef into paper-thin slices like flower petals of flesh and pouring on sherry and soy sauce so it would be tender when cooked. She threw the crushed garlic into a small puddle of hot oil in the cast-iron pan. From the corner of her eye she tossed a quick glance in Diane’s direction, ready to absorb the comfort she felt seeing Diane curled small and fragile against the window. But Diane was not there. Above the hissing of the oil, Artemis could hear her laughing with Ming on the phone. Diane was still on the phone when Artemis had finished cooking and had laid each artfully arranged dish on the table. She stuck her head into the main room.

  “Dinner,” she said in her mother’s voice to the back of Diane’s head, which faced away from the kitchen towards the entrance. Diane threw up a hand, at once an acknowledgement and a dismissal. It was a good fifteen minutes before she came to the table. She heaped her plate with food, not really looking at it, and ate hungrily.

  “Ming and I are going to a women’s bar tonight.” She did not extend the invitation.

  “Your first time?”

  “We went last week. There’s a woman there who likes me.”

  “Oh?”

  “I guess you’re studying again tonight, huh?”

  They used bookshelves to divide the room. On her side, Diane tacked up a poster of Tracy Chapman posed in the conscious act of thinking, promotional posters for a couple of recently produced independent films, and some snapshots of friends. Her futon lay unmade, the shape of her restless sleep demarcated by the indentation in the mattress and the human curves of the crumpled sleeping-bag-turned-quilt with its batik cover. She was seldom home, but her presence filled the apartment now, the way nothing up to that point ever had. Artemis’s little heap of talismans on the window sill diminished against the bright summer light that poured through the panes. She found herself always alert for the sound of Diane’s key in the lock, even late at night as she sank into sleep.

  One night, alone with the flicker of the television, she took the smocks Eden had given to her down from their hiding place high up on the closet shelf. She shook the red smock Diane had worn out to its full length. It wavered in the air, neither dead nor alive. The smoothness of the fabric as she held it at arm’s length from her body made her skin crawl. She rolled it up quickly and returned it to the bag. She pushed the whole bundle back into its place on the shelf.

  She came home late on a sunny afternoon, having spent so long sitting in the back pew of the church that the pastor appeared and invited her to Sunday’s sermon. She had muttered an embarrassed refusal and hurried home.

  She pushed the door open and nearly knocked over Diane, who was looking herself over in the mirror on the bathroom door. Diane had on a black crushed-velvet frock that fit her torso closely and then flared out in a short skirt.

  “Do you like this dress? Ming gave it to me.” She sashayed into the living room and back towards the door with a grin that was both self-mocking and self-satisfied at the same time. And innocent too, something that pulled on Artemis’s wrists where the pulse was making her feel less afraid of abandonment than she might have otherwise, and somehow protective. Diane was almost back at the front door when she stumbled and fell, clutching her stomach and gasping for air.

  “What’s wrong?” Artemis threw down her bag and flew to where Diane had collapsed.

  “Nothing, I’ll be fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. Let me help you to bed.” Artemis touched her arm.

  “No, leave me. I just need to lie here.”

  “What is it?”

  “Trouble with my stomach. It’s nothing. Don’t worry.” She got up and half-crawled, half-staggered to her bed and collapsed there. Artemis thought she noticed some bruising along the inside of Diane’s legs.

  “Why don’t I call an ambulance?”

  “No. Don’t.” She doubled over again, and suppressed something loud and animal that rose visibly from her belly to her throat. Her expression, combined with the burn scars that lingered on her face, created a forlorn whole.

  “Diane, for fuck’s sake. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “A miscarriage,” she whispered. “I had a miscarriage this afternoon and Saint gave me the dress because he felt guilty. Don’t tell Ming. Don’t tell anyone. My family can’t find out.”

  The following morning, Diane was up early, frying bacon and brewing coffee. Artemis got up and ate with her, and so they whiled away the morning the way they might have mere weeks ago, before Ming had appeared.

  “My rasta friend Tony is coming by later to drop off some weed. Hope that’s okay with you,” said Diane.

  “Have I met him before?”

  “Well, he’s not really my friend. He’s not really a rasta either. Too white, too upper class. Never been to the Caribbean and can’t get the British Properties out of his accent. But be nice to him, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “He gives me a good price.”

  Tony arrived in the early afternoon, enveloped in a cloud of marij
uana smoke and patchouli. Artemis slouched over the kitchen table as she had since breakfast, reading a novel set in an Italian villa. Tony plunked himself down beside her.

  “What are you reading?”

  “It’s called Alope’s Robe. It’s about the discovery of an ancient moon temple in a small Italian town.”

  Diane pulled up a chair. “I don’t know why she wants to read that stuff.”

  “There are worse things, girl. Jah say we should read what moves us.”

  “Somehow I’m not surprised to hear you say that, Tony,” Diane retorted.

  “Girl, sometime you should listen to what I tell you. Wouldn’t do you no harm.”

  “Doubtless. Did you bring any weed?”

  “We’ll get to that, child. Did I tell you about the time Ronnie get busted for growing hydroponic in his mother basement?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, Ronnie mother go to London for six month to see she new boyfriend. Ronnie think that plenty time to get a crop going and she have such a fine dry basement.…”

  Diane looked out the window while he talked. She played with her hair. Tony rambled on with no signs of stopping. After fifteen minutes of Tony’s unbroken chatter, Diane gave Artemis a strangely conspiratorial look, excused herself from the table, and left the house altogether. Tony did not stop his story to acknowledge her departure, but merely shifted his address to Artemis. He had her cornered for the rest of the afternoon.

  He was still there when supper time rolled around and Artemis’s stomach started to rumble. She didn’t know how to be rude.

  “You hungry?” she asked.

  “No, girl. I should be going.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  There was a knock at the door. Perhaps Diane had forgotten her keys? It was Saint. “Diane in?”

  “Saint, my man!”

  “Get out of here, Tony. Hasn’t your mother got supper on?”

  “Diane took off,” said Artemis.

  “She said she might have some things to interest my father. I think she was hard up for cash.”

  “Diane don’t have nothing to sell anyone,” said Tony. “She broke though. I can tell you that.”

  “I might have some things to interest your father.” Artemis immediately wondered whether she was being too impulsive, but it was out now, and what use would she have for those creepy smocks anyway?

  “I’m on my way there now,” said Saint.

  Artemis went to the closet and took the bag out without bothering to look inside.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “Great,” said Saint.

  Tony said, “I guess I should be going anyway.”

  The house was set back from the road and largely hidden by a tall hedge of shiny green leaves over which a profusion of morning glories climbed, the innocence of white cups disguising their intention to choke their host. Saint spoke into the intercom, and after a moment the wroughtiron gate, with spokes that curved and curled between straight iron bars and ended in sharp, unexpected points, swung open. Artemis knew it was some simple electronic mechanism that allowed a person inside the house to open them by remote control, but there was something about the hedge and gate that transported them to another place in another century, so that the swinging could just as easily have been a result of magic as of science. The grounds were not as meticulously kept as she might have expected. Roses that had passed their peak of perfection some time ago now hung sadly from thorny limbs, the hip eyes at their centres just beginning to glow. To some, a few bright petals still clung weakly. But every flicker of colour that remained, no matter how feeble, burned with life against the backdrop of the massive house itself, which towered like a tremendous stone in unsettling jet black. It seemed to have risen out of the earth, neither natural nor unnatural, its turrets pushing up out of the trees that surrounded it, as if competing with them for sunlight. The house was immense, all spires and gables, trimmed with curls and circular engravings. In the two black turrets were long stained-glass windows indicating two circular rooms with high ceilings. The lines of the glass circumscribed yet more roses – pink, yellow, and blood red.

  “Don’t mind my old man,” said Saint. “Collecting is his life. He runs an auction once a month – it’s the most talking he does. So he talks very fast. If you don’t understand what he says, just ask me. I’ll do what I can.”

  Artemis walked up to the door reverently, as though something were sleeping inside. She gripped the straw handles of the shopping bag. The smocks rested there, uncomplaining.

  “Don’t let him talk your ear off,” said Saint. “He’ll try.”

  A woman, evidently the housekeeper, answered the door. She was large with a dignified face, the most prominent feature of which was a sizeable but nonetheless elegant nose. “Mr Hawkesworth is waiting for you in his study.”

  The foyer had once been grand. Two staircases angled off in opposite directions, reversed their courses at the first landing, and met again at a balcony that overlooked the door. The balustrades were elegantly carved of some dark wood which Artemis could not identify. Against every possible wall leaned various antique tables with elegantly carved legs, scattered with small curious objects. Each table had a theme. One contained miniature dollhouse chairs, each worked in meticulous detail, some daintily carved wood, others richly upholstered in brocades embroidered with the teeniest leaves and flowers. The chairs were not of the same proportions; some were meant for larger dollhouses, some were so small they could have collectively furnished a walnut shell. Another table overflowed with objects of deception. There was a papier-mâché elephant that opened at the neck to reveal a candy box. There was a tiny slipper that was actually a hatpin holder. Long silver pins that ended with a bright jewel or a baby’s head carved from ivory spiked out from it. Yet another table was covered with clocks ticking away the hours of history as they had for god only knew how long; others had stopped, clinging to some distant moment of glory or sorrow in the past that was now remembered only with numbers, five after nine or that dubious minute before midnight. Still another was adorned with the exoskeletons of various rare and exotic marine creatures – turtles, oysters, and corals in odd geometric patterns, beautiful in their browns, yellows, and off-whites. Artemis could have examined these things for hours, but the silent pause in the foyer had already grown far too long.

  Saint took her hand. “Don’t let the old lady catch you gawking.”

  They walked into a cavernous study.

  The floor was strewn with flowering carpets that absorbed the sound of their footsteps as though with the intention to erase their presence. Among the leaves and petals, tigers prowled, snakes slithered, and little people galloped on horseback, ancient instruments of war taut in their ready hands. The walls were papered in scenes of old China, mandarins and courtesans reclining under breezy pagodas while gardeners trimmed peonies and labourers lugged twin buckets of water on poles across their backs. Above the visitors, from wall mounts, the heads of exotic animals presided, stunned eyes staring down at them with the sagacity of the dead. The place positively hummed with artificial life, objects ordinary enough in themselves made strange through the act of collection.

  Among these things sat Mr Hawkesworth, a tiny man with large water-blue eyes and thin lips from which proceeded a constant stream of words and numbers. He sat perched behind a carved oak desk against the study’s far wall.

  The volume of old Hawkesworth’s mutter increased slightly. Artemis could not make out a single word.

  “He’s asking you what you have,” said Saint.

  Artemis suddenly felt sorry for the little rolls of fabric in her bag, as though they were alive, as though she were delivering them to an unknown and unpleasant fate. Reluctantly she drew the smaller one out of the bag and unfurled it before the old man’s eyes. He beckoned her closer. He took the garment in his long bony hands and scrutinized it with an almost pornographic gaze that made her shiver. The mutter rose again.

  “He wants to s
ee the rest,” said Saint.

  If she had dared, she would have turned and run, but she remained frozen where she was and scooped the second garment out along with the accompanying pants. He took them in those hawk’s hands. She cast her eyes to the flowered carpet so as not to see the long fingers wandering over the fabric, the small bright eyes missing nothing.

  “He says they are excellent examples of their type,” said Saint. “He wonders if you come from an aristocratic family.”

  “They were given to me by a friend.”

  “He says the quality and condition are exceptional. He would like to offer you nine hundred dollars for everything.”

  She gasped at the amount. She really had had no idea what to expect. “Is that good?”

  “I think so. Of course, he wants to be able to make a profit if he decides to sell them, but it seems as though he intends to keep them for his own collection. He has quite an impressive wardrobe of Oriental garments. One robe used to belong to the last emperor’s concubine.”

  “I see.”

  More than anything she just wanted to get out of the airless room and forget about what she was leaving behind altogether. She looked the old man in the eye and nodded agreement.

  Later, walking back down the garden path with a cheque in Hawkes-worth’s looping, twisting hand burning in her pocket, she wondered how such an ordinary man as Saint could have proceeded from the body of that man and any woman.

  He parked the car in front of her apartment building. She thanked him for his help and was about to step out of the car when he grabbed her wrist. “Invite me up.”

  “I’m afraid Diane will be sleeping.”

  “If she’s there, I’ll go.”

  “Maybe another time.”

  The door was quiet as she inserted her key into the lock. It clicked open loudly. The blinds were up. The apartment was empty. Or rather, all of Diane’s things were gone from it – the futon, the posters, the books, the strewn clothes. Her shape did not linger, not in the bedclothes, nor in the faint soap and lemon smells of the bathroom, nor even as a ghost in the full-length hallway mirror. She was gone. On the walls a few of Artemis’s own uncomfortable posters remained. Here and there were furnishings that she had bought, the things that never seemed to belong to her.