Lament for a Daughter of Egypt

When he was a small boy, Roy’s mother liked to throw parties. She was a good dancer, especially of the Latin variety such as the samba, mambo and cha-cha-cha. After her divorce from Roy’s father, when Roy was five years old, his mother invited several couples to their apartment on Saturday nights every other week or so. Her own companions during the three years between the divorce and her second marriage were a succession of over-smiling, iron-handshaking, smooth-dancing guys who were always surprised that she had a child. It was obvious to Roy that she had not mentioned his existence to any of them prior to the evenings of her parties.

On one of these occasions, while her guests were shuffling tipsily to Art Blakey’s “Jodie’s Cha-cha,” Roy’s mother and her date, a broad-shouldered, slick-haired man with a dark brown paint-smear mustache named Bob Arno, got into a tiff over his having danced once too often with someone’s wife. Roy usually hung out on the periphery observing the action. His mother’s wrangling with Arno began in the kitchen, where he was in the process of mixing himself a drink, then continued into the diningroom before ending abruptly in the front hall, where he hammered the remainder of his cocktail, handed the empty glass to her and left the apartment.

Three women immediately surrounded Roy’s mother, each of them chattering like monkeys about the incident, indicting the wife as the instigator. A tall, blonde woman appeared in the hallway, a mink stole draped around her otherwise bare shoulders, said good night to the other women and made a swift exit. A few seconds later, a husky man in a baggy gray suit approached them.

“Have you seen Helen?” he asked.

His face was green and his eyes were bloodshot.

“I believe she just went out to get a pack of cigarettes,” said Kay O’Connor, a skinny redhead about whom Roy had once heard his mother say never left her house without make-up on and a gun in her purse.

“Helen doesn’t smoke,” said the man.

“Come on, Marty,” Roy’s mother said to him, “let’s dance.”

She handed Bob Arno’s empty glass to Roy, took one of the man’s hands and led him into the livingroom.

“Didn’t you used to date Bob Arno?” one of the women asked Kay O’Connor.

“He’s afraid of me,” Kay said.

“You mean he’s afraid of Harvey,” said the third woman.

“What’s the diff?” said Kay.

The three women walked into the livingroom.

Roy watched his mother doing the cha-cha with the husky man. His face had turned from green to bright red and Roy’s mother was laughing, showing all of her teeth.

After the cha-cha number ended, someone put on another record. A woman’s voice, high-pitched with a tremble in it, delivered the song’s lyrics slowly and directly, but somehow a half-step behind the band without dragging the beat. Everyone stopped talking and laughing and listened.

“I still remember/the first time you said/If I can’t be free/I’d rather be dead/Now that you’re gone/and nothing has changed/the answer to my question/can be arranged.”

Somebody took off the record and put on a mambo and people started talking and laughing again. Roy went to the kitchen, put the glass in the sink, then went to his room and closed the door.

The next morning, he asked his mother if she thought it had been a good party.

“Not all bad,” she said, “but not all good, either.”

“Are you going to see Mr. Arno again?”

His mother reached far back into a cabinet, found a clean cup, and poured coffee for herself. The kitchen was a mess.

“He’s not in our plans any more, I don’t think,” she said. “You don’t like him, anyway, do you, Roy?”