Woman on the Edge of Time

Luis was laughing at his own joke, his head tilting way back. As he laughed, for a moment out of control, almost boyish, she saw in him that older brother she hated to remember she had adored. Up to the age of ten, she had adored Luis with her whole heart. He had seemed to her that prince, that peacock wonder he always remained to their mother. He could fight, he could talk his way in and out of trouble, he could speak English better than any of them, he could stand up for her if he wanted. Yes, Luis the street kid she had adored. Luis the young hoodlum had touched her heart and set a mold on it. Something of what she had loved in Martin, something of what she had loved in Claud: the grace, the anger, the sore pride, the refusal to swallow insult. The army had changed Luis. When he had come back, he had contempt for the rest of them. His anger and unruly pride had been channeled into a desire to get ahead, to grab money, to succeed like an Anglo.

Who knew what being poor and being brown would have done to Martin if he had lived? Perhaps he would have hardened like Luis. She could not believe that of his tenderness, yet she could remember Luis at fourteen stealing a bright scarf from the dime store for her to wear Easter Sunday, laughing as he pulled it from the leather jacket no one knew how he had come by. How beautiful he had seemed, the glint of teeth in his brown face, his eyes burning with anger or joy, the arrogant overacted thrust of his shoulders. Jesъs had been scared he would go bad, they would lose him to the streets. None of them had guessed they would lose him to the Anglos, entirely.

After supper she steamed a label off a fancy herbal shampoo in the bathroom and pasted it on her bottle. When the bottle dried, the label stuck. She would take it back to the hospital with her alongside a shoebox of old cosmetics Adele gave her–lipsticks in frosted colors no longer fashionable, the wrong shade of eye shadow, a half‑finished jar of cold cream containing oil of the palm. Adele also gave her a beige cardigan with embroidered flowers, shrunk in the wash, a pair of panty hose, and a pile of old Vogues and New Yorkers. It reminded her of the sort of things people gave you when you cleaned for them. She did not get to taste the dishes she had cooked for the party, but she discovered from the scale in the bathroom off the master bedroom that she had managed to gain four pounds from Wednesday night to Saturday noon. She did not mind. How I spent my vacation: I ate.

As she sat in Luis’s big white Eldorado idling sluggishly through heavy traffic, she realized several weeks had passed since she’d gone over. Was Luciente dead? She could not bear to think so. She was the one who was dead. She could not catch anymore. She was hardening herself as Luis had done to himself, but not for money. To succeed in her war. To fight back. She closed her eyes and saw her weapon, disguised as shampoo.

NINETEEN

That Monday Acker announced that Alice and Captain Cream were to be released Friday to welfare hotels. Alvin was taken away to be operated on, along with Orville. Sybil, Miss Green, and Connie were given yet another battery of physical and psychological tests and scheduled for meetings with the doctors on Wednesday.

“It means we’ll be done next,” Sybil said out of the side of her mouth as they stood in line for the meds.

“It means that’s what theywant,” Connie said.

She and Sybil waited for an opportunity to do their laundry at the same time. Then she asked Sybil, “If you had a chance, would you be ready to try?”

Sybil nodded. “Tina tried in a laundry cart. I’ve been thinking–is there any way to start a fire?”

“You think you could make it outside?”

“I’m ready to try, Consuelo. I cannot permit them to operate on me if I have any way to stop them. It’s a kind of death.”

“Don’t go back home. I know you never lived anyplace else, but you’re in a … circle there where they keep getting rid of you.”

“The volunteer Mary Ellen I mentioned to you? Her friend gave her a newspaper, a newspaper just for women, that had an article about witches. Real covens that worship Wica! Imagine that, Consuelo. With an address. If I got … out, I thought I might seek their aid.”

“That sounds better than going back to Albany for sure.”

The next morning when Miss Green was in the bathroom and Sybil was making her bed, Connie darted in. “Here. Take this!” She pressed into Sybil’s palm the wadded‑up money she had got from Dolly, less what she’d spent on phone calls, It came to thirty‑one dollars and sixty‑two cents.

Sybil sat down on the bed’s edge to stare. “What are you going to do? Why give me this?”

“Shhh. Hide it.”

“Don’t give up, Consuelo. Just because you couldn’t escape from your brother’s house!”

“Don’t ask what I’m going to do. Only, Wednesday, tomorrow, be ready to run. There’ll be a lot of confusion in the afternoon, when the doctors see me. Run then. Run and never let them get you again!”