Chains Around the Grass (8 page)

Only Sara took the change in stride easily. She watched with admiration the older Black girls in their amazing games of double Dutch jump rope, trying to join in, tangling her feet until she was hooted, and mocked and pushed out of the way. She tried to talk to the beautiful, dark-eyed Puerto Rican girls with their shining braids, or the sweet, fat, dark-skinned babies that crawled naked through the halls. Mostly, she wound up smiling helplessly when they answered her in the rapid staccato language she couldn’t understand.

Used to the safe, child-friendly streets of Jersey, she was constantly pushing to go outside. Ruth, afraid, kept holding back. “Later,” she would say. “Later, I’ll take you to the park.” But then she would forget, or get caught up in housework or making dinner. Often, Sara snuck out by herself, holding her breath in delight and shivering with pleasurable adventurousness. Ruth, at her wits’ end, compromised. She could go by herself if she stood near the benches so that Ruth could look out the window and check on her.

Sara tried. She’d sit for a while, closing her eyes and feeling the sunlight kiss her face, breathing in the new mown grass. She would dance along the bench, or walk like a tightrope walker, one foot in front of the other, balancing along the backrest. She felt hopeful and expectant, waiting for parades to begin, music to start, and usually she was not disappointed. Something always happened.

“Wanna play?” She was a plump white girl, a little older than herself, someone Sara had never seen before. She didn’t look Sara in the face, her eyes fixed on the doll in Sara’s lap.

She had taken her gift outside for the first time, after what seemed like weeks of begging that had finally resulted in her mother’s reluctant approval. After days of just watching it, as if it were a picture, and days gradually gaining the courage to actually play with it, she had grown bored, her solitary delight proving too lonely a pleasure. She craved the envy and admiration that could only be found in the eyes of her peers. Now, in this stranger’s covetous eyes, she found exactly what she had been longing for: a confirmation of her good fortune.

The girl lunged, grabbing the doll and holding it high over her head. “Wanna play house? I’ll be the mommy.”

Sara’s stomach plunged, her heart beating wildly. This was not fun.

“Give it back!” she shouted.

“Aw, keep yer bloomers on, whydontcha?” The girl turned it around and upside-down, examining it slowly from all sides, but always out of Sara’s reach. “I had one like this here but my brother peed on it, and my Pop made me throw it inna garbage. You gotta brother?”

Sarah nodded anxiously, watching the strange fingers wrinkle the precious silver and pink fabric. She looked up, a little desperately, straining to see her mother’s face at the window.

“He tries to smash your face, right?”

“My Daddy doesn’t let,” she answered, relieved somehow at just the thought of her father.

“Jeez, my Pop don’t do nothin’. Just sits there drinkin’ beer: Wha, wha, youse fuckin’ kids, cancha lock yer damn holes shut,” she mimicked with pleasure, laughing, her eyes shifting craftily, surveying the area. “Why was ya lookin’ upstairs?”

“’Cause my Mamma’s up there. She’ll be coming down to get me in a minute.

The child’s face clouded over, sullen. “I wasn’t doin’ nothin’,” she insisted, her tone petulant and wronged. “You can have it back. You think I need this? Jeez, I got better stuff than this here. I got a whole room full. Dollhouses, baby dolls, rocking horses…” Her eyes suddenly brightened with a new thought.

“Wanna come to my house? We can play,” she smiled sweetly. “We can be mommies, and feed our babies. I have this tea set. C’mon!” She didn’t wait for an answer, holding the doll securely, walking away. She didn’t hurry, but walked deliberately, calmly. If she had run, Sara would have felt the violation, cried or run home. But watching her walk away like that, her back so calm, made Sara think that perhaps, after all, they were only playing.

Down long ?ights of stairs, past benches and fenced-in concrete playgrounds, they walked. Sara had never been so far away from home before. In a way, it was thrilling to look around, to explore. Almost as if she had crossed over an invisible barrier and was suddenly free. She skipped, danced in circles, turned somersaults, feeling almost grateful to the girl for having taken her along.

But then her feet began to drag. She grew tired of the long staircases, the dreary scenery. For no matter how far they walked, nothing ever changed. It was all the same, the same: tall, ugly buildings the color of dried blood and endless ropes around the grass.

This surprised and appalled her. For she had expected—as in any magic kingdom—that somewhere she would pass through the door and it would all be transformed. There would be tall trees again, whose fallen leaves would turn the sidewalks into oceans of crackling gold, crimson and brown. And tender grass that you could roll and roll and roll in…

She thought of her friend Mikey, wondering what he was doing now. Catching bees in jars? Picking hard, sweet pears from the tree?

At last, the girl turned into a building. “Is this your house?” Sara called after her, relieved. But she didn’t answer; she just kept on walking. Sara ran to catch up. But as soon as she entered the dim hall, she felt her body tingle with regret. It was not its strangeness which revolted her, as much as its eerie familiarity: if this, which seemed so much like home, was so far from home, then how would she ever find her own door again? She leapt up the staircase, forgetting her horror of the dark, panic-stricken that she would lose sight of the one person who could lead her back to where they’d started.

She caught up to her on the fifth landing. The girl turned to her slowly. She smiled. With relief, Sara smiled back.

“Knock, knock,” the girl said.

Sara smiled some more, confused. “Who’s there?”

“Knock, knock,” the girl repeated, this time banging Sara’s forehead with her closed fist. “Anything in there? You want your doll back?”

“I want to go home,” Sara said, rubbing her forehead. Was this a new game? She felt the first stirrings of fear.

“Then you godda do like I say. I ain’t gonna hurt you,” the girl whispered, looking straight into Sara’s dilating eyes. “I’m just…” She giggled, and the sound was so ugly, Sara thought, not happy at all, but low and menacing.

“I don’t want to play anymore. I want to GO HOME!”

She felt herself pressed back against the cold wall. Harsh, insistent fingers pressed into the secret places of her body, places she had not been fully aware of until now.

“No!!” she pushed out against the intrusion, the heavy, insistent body and felt the angry fingers withdraw, becoming fists that fell on her head, stomach and legs. A dream, she thought, with a hard edge. A confusion. That was when she understood for the first time what it meant to be alone. That was the root of her fear, more than the blows, the pain. The idea that she was open now on all sides, with no parent or sibling or friend to shield her. She tried to make fists, to kick, and amazingly, the blows fell on her less often. She turned and fled down the stairs, fingering her throbbing bruises. To be home!! To have the locked door of her own home in front of her! Her mother and father and brother on all sides! She would never, ever ask for anything more! She got up to the front door of the building, then stopped, appalled.

Her doll. Sara couldn’t even recall the exact moment when, incredibly and unfathomably, its existence had faded from her mind. A new feeling, deeper than anger, shot fresh strength into her weary body as she bounded once again up the stairs. In the darkness her foot kicked something. She heard a dull clatter down the steps. When she bent to look, two bright blue eyes stared back at her from a plastic head on which a single curl still twined. She sat down on the steps, beyond tears, feeling she’d gained a knowledge for which she was not yet ready.

Outside, she wandered aimlessly, hopelessly, led from building to building by a familiar window, or a bench she thought she recognized. But when she drew closer, she’d lose courage. The inside… the hall. The darkness! What if it were the wrong building? If she knocked on the door of 7f and a dangerous stranger opened the door instead of her mother? Terrified at the idea, she walked on, holding her breath with fear past groups of Black teenagers who loitered around the benches. But they did not even turn to look at her. They spoke to each other in low voices, sometimes breaking out into songs with mournful falsetto harmonies, like singers on the radio.

“Why, honey, you lost?”

She looked up, frightened by the Black stranger who bent over her. But then she recognized her: Mrs. Robinson!

She nodded, letting the sudden, scalding tears fall.

“Now, don’t you cry child, hear? ‘Cause I’m ?xing to take you straight home to your mama.” She offered her large, soft hand. Gratefully, Sara slipped hers inside.

Chapter six

Dave padded into the bathroom, closing the door softly behind him to keep the running water and the light from disturbing his sleeping children. He splashed icy water into his eyes to pry them open and then examined himself in the mirror. He was always

a little surprised and disappointed at his re?ection. He thought of himself as a young man, a happy man, not at all the person who stared back at him each morning—paunchy, exhausted and going gray. He slapped himself in the face with good-natured, open palms. Humming softly, he patted a few wispy strands into an optimistic wave over his balding scalp.

“Brylcreem a little dab’ill do ya, Brylcreem you’ll look so debonair. Brylcreem a little dab’ill do ya!

She’ll love to get her fingers in your hair.”

He pulled aside the jungle-like tangle of wet laundry which blocked the view from the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sea. It was actually a nice view when the incinerator smoke wasn’t rising from the basement and condensing in gray ash on the glass, as it was now. Some laundry fell to the floor, entangling with rubber ducks and battleships. He stooped patiently, putting the toys in a neat row and rehanging the laundry more securely than his wife had done.

In the dim hall, the heavy odor of baby powder and warm blankets enveloped and cheered him. He looked in on the kids. Louis had thrown off the covers again. How long had the kid been like that? Dave worried, tucking the blanket into the bottom of the crib mattress securely, army-style. The one useful thing he had learned in the Second World War. Sara’s head was, as usual, under the pillow. He waited anxiously for the reassuring rise and fall of her chest. It was foolish, he told himself. She was, after all, in kindergarten, a strapping, healthy kid long past the stage when sudden, unexplained disasters happened in the night. He wasn’t afraid, really. Just responsible. They were his babies.

He would have liked to look in on Jesse too, but the boy’s door was, as usual, closed tight and it would not have been respectful to open it. Six months and he was still mad—at moving, leaving his friends, his bike, his Little League games and who knows what else—Dave sighed, then suddenly brightened. Next year, when Jesse was Bar Mitzvah, he’d write it on the cab door: Markowitz and Sons, Inc.

Maybe then the boy would understand.

Nearing the kitchen, he heard the faint scraping of a spoon and knew he had failed again. Ruth would be there and they would have the same argument they had every morning: “Now why’d you have to get up so early? I could’ve poured myself a few Wheaties,” he’d grouse, and she—her beautiful face scrubbed pink with Ivory soap like one of the kids—would scold him back: “You don’t take care of yourself ! A man needs a warm breakfast.” And he would murmur, trying to sound annoyed, something about killing herself waking up at five every morning, trying to hide how much it meant to him. Then he would eat the awful stuff—which would either be overcooked and mushy or as grainy as sand, but never prepared the way it was meant to be, all the while conscious of her face filling with pleasure each time he took another spoonful. And when he’d scraped the last of it from the bottom of the bowl, he knew he’d have no choice but to smack his lips and ask for another bowl.

He watched uneasily as she pulled her worn bathrobe around her, giving the cord an extra tight yank. Whenever Ruth was serious, dead serious, she buttoned up or yanked closed, a kind of pulling herself together. He leaned across the table, patting her on the shoulder.

“What’s up, doll?”

She flinched. “It’s Jesse.” He looked into his bowl. “You don’t want to know!”

“What kinda thing is that to say?” his voice rose indignantly, annoyed at his own utter transparency. It was just too early. He’d have to carry it around with him all day, like an indigestible meal.

“He came home with another bloody nose, yesterday.”

He felt the cereal thick and gluey on the roof of his mouth, the dryness of the blackened toast.

“He hates the teachers and sits in his room all day sulking. He has no friends…”

“Why can’t he at least try to make friends?” he interrupted, feeling the rise of acid from his quickening ulcers. “There must be some nice kids…”

She studied him carefully, puzzled. “You know it’s a bad school, Dave. A bad neighborhood. I’m afraid.”

He stared at her, sudden understanding dawning in his eyes. “Something happened?”

“Last week. One of the girls from the ninth grade was going to the bathroom… They think it was a boy from twelfth grade. Mrs. Cohen told me.”

He shut his eyes a moment, exhaling deeply. “So what can we do? Is there anyplace else we can send him?”

“You’re not going to like this, Dave. But there’s a private Hebrew Day School in Far Rockaway. It’s not far,” she rushed on. “He could get there by bus.”

“Ruth!” But then he shrugged. Father and husband. Provider. “Private. So, how much?” When she hesitated, he realized that everything that had gone before had simply been a buildup.

“A couple of hundred, but they give out scholarships!” Her voice was pleading, apologetic and implacable.

It was like being hit over the head. He tried not to show he was reeling. “So find out about it for next year.”