One day in the Bronx two small girls named Edie and Ruthy were sitting on the stoop steps. They were talking about the real world of boys. Because of this, they kept their skirts pulled tight around their knees. A gang of boys who lived across the street spent at least one hour of every Saturday afternoon pulling up girls’ dresses. They needed to see the color of a girl’s underpants in order to scream outside the candy store, Edie wears pink panties.
Ruthy said, anyway, she liked to play with those boys. They did more things. Edie said she hated to play with them. They hit and picked up her skirt. Ruthy agreed. It was wrong of them to do this. But, she said, they ran around the block a lot, had races, and played war on the corner. Edie said it wasn’t that good.
Ruthy said, Another thing, Edie, you could be a soldier if you’re a boy.
So? What’s so good about that?
Well, you could fight for your country.
Edie said, I don’t want to.
What? Edie! Ruthy was a big reader and most interesting reading was about bravery—for instance Roland’s Horn at Roncevaux. Her father had been brave and there was often a lot of discussion about this at suppertime. In fact, he sometimes modestly said, Yes, I suppose I was brave in those days. And so was your mother, he added. Then Ruthy’s mother put his boiled egg in front of him where he could see it. Reading about Roland, Ruthy learned that if a country wanted to last, it would require a great deal of bravery. She nearly cried with pity when she thought of Edie and the United States of America.
You don’t want to? she asked.
No.
Why, Edie, why?
I don’t feel like.
Why, Edie? How come?
You always start hollering if I don’t do what you tell me. I don’t always have to say what you tell me. I can say whatever I like.
Yeah, but if you love your country you have to go fight for it. How come you don’t want to? Even if you get killed, it’s worth it.
Edie said, I don’t want to leave my mother.
Your mother? You must be a baby. Your mother?
Edie pulled her skirt very tight over her knees. I don’t like it when I don’t see her a long time. Like when she went to Springfield to my uncle. I don’t like it.
Oh boy! said Ruthy. Oh boy! What a baby! She stood up. She wanted to go away. She just wanted to jump from the top step, run down to the corner, and wrestle with someone. She said, You know, Edie, this is my stoop.
Edie didn’t budge. She leaned her chin on her knees and felt sad. She was a big reader too, but she liked The Bobbsey Twins or Honey Bunch at the Seashore. She loved that nice family life. She tried to live it in the three rooms on the fourth floor. Sometimes she called her father Dad, or even Father, which surprised him. Who? he asked.
I have to go home now, she said. My cousin Alfred’s coming. She looked to see if Ruthy was still mad. Suddenly she saw a dog. Ruthy, she said, getting to her feet. There’s a dog coming. Ruthy turned. There was a dog about three-quarters of the way down the block between the candy store and the grocer’s. It was an ordinary middle-sized dog. But it was coming. It didn’t stop to sniff at curbs or pee on the house fronts. It just trotted steadily along the middle of the sidewalk.
Ruthy watched him. Her heart began to thump and take up too much space inside her ribs. She thought speedily, Oh, a dog has teeth! It’s large, hairy, strange. Nobody can say what a dog is thinking. A dog is an animal. You could talk to a dog, but a dog couldn’t talk to you. If you said to a dog, STOP! a dog would just keep going. If it’s angry and bites you, you might get rabies. It will take you about six weeks to die and you will die screaming in agony. Your stomach will turn into a rock and you will have lockjaw. When they find you, your mouth will be paralyzed wide open in your dying scream.
Ruthy said, I’m going right now. She turned as though she’d been directed by some far-off switch. She pushed the hall door open and got safely inside. With one hand she pressed the apartment bell. With the other she held the door shut. She leaned against the glass door as Edie started to bang on it. Let me in, Ruthy, let me in, please. Oh, Ruthy!
I can’t. Please, Edie, I just can’t.
Edie’s eyes rolled fearfully toward the walking dog. It’s coming. Oh, Ruthy, please, please.
No! No! said Ruthy.
The dog stopped right in front of the stoop to hear the screaming and banging. Edie’s heart stopped too. But in a minute he decided to go on. He passed. He continued his easy steady pace.
When Ruthy’s big sister came down to call them for lunch, the two girls were crying. They were hugging each other and their hair was a mess. You two are nuts, she said. If I was Mama, I wouldn’t let you play together so much every single day. I mean it.
* * *
Many years later in Manhattan it was Ruthy’s fiftieth birthday. She had invited three friends. They waited for her at the round kitchen table. She had been constructing several pies so that this birthday could be celebrated in her kitchen during the day by any gathered group without too much trouble. Now and then one of the friends would say, Will you sit down, for godsakes! She would sit immediately. But in the middle of someone’s sentence or even one of her own, she’d jump up with a look of worry beyond household affairs to wash a cooking utensil or wipe crumbs of flour off the Formica counter.
Edie was one of the women at the table. She was sewing, by neat hand, a new zipper into an old dress. She said, Ruthy, it wasn’t like that. We both ran in and out a lot.
No, said Ruth. You would never have locked me out. You were an awful sissy, sweetie, but you would never, never have locked me out. Just look at yourself. Look at your life!
Edie glanced, as people will, when told to do that. She saw a chubby dark-haired woman who looked like a nice short teacher, someone who stood at the front of the schoolroom and said, History is a wonderful subject. It’s all stories. It’s where we come from, who we are. For instance, where do you come from, Juan? Where do your parents and grandparents come from?
You know that, Mizz Seiden. Porto Rico. You know that a long-o time-o, Juan said, probably in order to mock both languages. Edie thought, Oh, to whom would he speak?
For Christsakes, this is a party, isn’t it? said Ann. She was patting a couple of small cases and a projector on the floor next to her chair. Was she about to offer a slide show? No, she had already been prevented from doing this by Faith, who’d looked at the clock two or three times and said, I don’t have the time, Jack is coming tonight. Ruth had looked at the clock too. Next week, Ann? Ann said O.K. O.K. But Ruthy, I want to say you have to quit knocking yourself. I’ve seen you do a million good things. If you were such a dud, why’d I write it down in my will that if anything happened to me, you and Joe were the ones who’d raise my kids.
You were just plain wrong. I couldn’t even raise my own right.
Ruthy, really, they’re pretty much raised. Anyway, how can you say an awful thing like that? Edie asked. They’re wonderful beautiful brilliant girls. Edie knew this because she had held them in her arms the third or fourth day of life. Naturally, she became the friend called aunt.
That’s true. I don’t have to worry about Sara anymore, I guess.
Why? Because she’s a married mommy? Faith asked. What an insult to Edie!
No, that’s O.K., said Edie.
Well, I do worry about Rachel. I just can’t help myself. I never know where she is. She was supposed to be here last night. She does usually call. Where the hell is she?
Oh, probably in jail for some stupid little sit-in or something, Ann said. She’ll get out in five minutes. Why she thinks that kind of thing works is a mystery to me. You brought her up like that and now you’re surprised. Besides which, I don’t want to talk about the goddamn kids, said Ann. Here I’ve gone around half of most of the nearly socialist world and nobody asks me a single question. I have been a witness of events! she shouted.
I do want to hear everything, said Ruth. Then she changed her mind. Well, I don’t mean everything. Just say one good thing and one bad thing about every place you’ve been. We only have a couple of hours. (It was four o’clock. At six, Sara and Tomas with Letty, the first grandchild, standing between them would be at the door. Letty would probably think it was her own birthday party. Someone would say, What curly hair! They would all love her new shoes and her newest sentence, which was Remember dat? Because for such a long time there had been only the present full of milk and looking. Then one day, trying to dream into an afternoon nap, she sat up and said, Gramma, I boke your cup. Remember dat? In this simple way the lifelong past is invented, which, as we know, thickens the present and gives all kinds of advice to the future.) So, Ann, I mean just a couple of things about each country.
That’s not much of a discussion, for Christsake.
It’s a party, Ann, you said it yourself.
Well, change your face, then.
Oh. Ruth touched her mouth, the corners of her eyes. You’re right. Birthday! she said.
Well, let’s go, then, said Ann. She stated two good things and one bad thing about Chile (an earlier visit), Rhodesia, the Soviet Union, and Portugal.
You forgot about China. Why don’t you tell them about our trip to China?
I don’t think I will, Ruthy; you’d only contradict every word I say.
Edie, the oldest friend, stripped a nice freckled banana she’d been watching during Ann’s talk. The thing is, Ruth, you never simply say yes. I’ve told you so many times, I would have slammed the door on you, admit it, but it was your house, and that slowed me down.
Property, Ann said. Even among poor people, it begins early.
Poor? asked Edie. It was the Depression.
Two questions—Faith believed she’d listened patiently long enough. I love that story, but I’ve heard it before. Whenever you’re down in the dumps, Ruthy. Right?
I haven’t, Ann said. How come, Ruthy? Also, will you please sit with us.
The second question: What about this city? I mean, I’m kind of sick of these big international reports. Look at this place, looks like a toxic waste dump. A war. Nine million people.
Oh, that’s true, Edie said, but Faith, the whole thing is hopeless. Top to bottom, the streets, those kids, dumped, plain dumped. That’s the correct word, “dumped.” She began to cry.
Cut it out, Ann shouted. No tears, Edie! No! Stop this minute! I swear, Faith said, you’d better stop that! (They were all, even Edie, ideologically, spiritually, and on puritanical principle against despair.)
Faith was sorry to have mentioned the city in Edie’s presence. If you said the word “city” to Edie, or even the cool adjective “municipal,” specific children usually sitting at the back of the room appeared before her eyes and refused to answer when she called on them. So Faith said, O.K. New subject: What do you women think of the grand juries they’re calling up all over the place?
All over what place? Edie asked. Oh, Faith, forget it, they’re going through something. You know you three lead such adversarial lives. I hate it. What good does it do? Anyway, those juries will pass.
Edie, sometimes I think you’re half asleep. You know that woman in New Haven who was called? I know her personally. She wouldn’t say a word. She’s in jail. They’re not kidding.
I’d never open my mouth either, said Ann. Never. She clamped her mouth shut then and there.
I believe you, Ann. But sometimes, Ruth said, I think, Supposed I was in Argentina and they had my kid. God, if they had our Sara’s Letty, I’d maybe say anything.
Oh, Ruth, you’ve held up pretty well, once or twice, Faith said.
Yes, Ann said, in fact we were all pretty good that day, we were sitting right up against the horses’ knees at the draft board—were you there, Edie? And then the goddamn horses started to rear and the cops were knocking people on their backs and heads—remember? And, Ruthy, I was watching you. You just suddenly plowed in and out of those monsters. You should have been trampled to death. And you grabbed the captain by his gold buttons and you hollered, You bastard! Get your goddamn cavalry out of here. You shook him and shook him.
He ordered them, Ruth said. She set one of her birthday cakes, which was an apple plum pie, on the table. I saw him. He was the responsible person. I saw the whole damn operation. I’d begun to run—the horses—but I turned because I was the one supposed to be in front and I saw him give the order. I’ve never honestly been so angry.
Ann smiled. Anger, she said. That’s really good.
You think so? Ruth asked. You sure?
Buzz off, said Ann.
Ruth lit the candles. Come on, Ann, we’ve got to blow this out together. And make a wish. I don’t have the wind I used to have.
But you’re still full of hot air, Edie said. And kissed her hard. What did you wish, Ruthy? she asked.
Well, a wish, some wish, Ruth said. Well, I wish that this world wouldn’t end. This world, this world, Ruth said softly.
Me too, I wished exactly the same. Taking action, Ann hoisted herself up onto a kitchen chair, saying, ugh my back, ouch my knee. Then: Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world.
Bravo, Edie said softly.
Wait a minute, said Faith …
Ann said, Oh, you … you …
But it was six o’clock and the doorbell rang. Sara and Tomas stood on either side of Letty, who was hopping or wiggling with excitement, hiding behind her mother’s long skirt or grabbing her father’s thigh. The door had barely opened when Letty jumped forward to hug Ruth’s knees. I’m gonna sleep in your house, Gramma.
I know, darling, I know.
Gramma, I slept in your bed with you. Remember dat?
Oh sure, darling, I remember. We woke up around five and it was still dark and I looked at you and you looked at me and you had a great big Letty smile and we just burst out laughing and you laughed and I laughed.
I remember dat, Gramma. Letty looked at her parents with shyness and pride. She was still happy to have found the word “remember,” which could name so many pictures in her head.
And then we went right back to sleep, Ruth said, kneeling now to Letty’s height to kiss her little face.
Where’s my Aunt Rachel? Letty asked, hunting among the crowd of unfamiliar legs in the hallway.
I don’t know.
She’s supposed to be here, Letty said. Mommy, you promised. She’s really supposed.
Yes, said Ruth, picking Letty up to hug her and then hug her again. Letty, she said as lightly as she could, She is supposed to be here. But where can she be? She certainly is supposed.
Letty began to squirm out of Ruth’s arms. Mommy, she called, Gramma is squeezing. But it seemed to Ruth that she’d better hold her even closer, because, though no one else seemed to notice—Letty, rosy and soft-cheeked as ever, was falling, already falling, falling out of her brand-new hammock of world-inventing words onto the hard floor of man-made time.