The Featherbed. Джон Миллер

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СКАЧАТЬ was going. On Mondays, to the market on Canal Street. On Tuesdays, the library. Wednesdays, her Mah Jong game at the Bialystoker Home. Thursdays, the book club, and Fridays she worked in the back garden in the morning, then her constitutional in the afternoon. Always wearing that nice beige jump suit you bought her, Mrs. Cooperman. You remember?”

      “I...,” Anna gasped and yanked the bench up another step, “remember.”

      “And your ma, she was wise, knew the ways of the world, like me. She knew when you were suffering. Sometimes, just when Donnie was driving me crazy, there would be a knock on the door and there would be your ma with some chicken soup or a piece of spice cake. She would come in, and I’d put out some tea and almond cakes. Your ma — such a sweet woman, Mrs. Cooperman. So good to my husband, you know?”

      Anna smiled with jaw clenched as she pulled the bench up to the second floor landing. Mrs. Huang pushed from underneath, almost knocking her off balance. Still hardly breaking a sweat.

      Anna sat on the bench and waited to catch her breath before continuing. Perspiration was now pouring down her forehead. Mrs. Huang sat next to her and put her hand on Anna’s knee.

      “Ha ha! You need exercise, Mrs. Cooperman! Your ma, she hardly got out of breath even with ninety years old.” She chuckled and pulled a tissue out of her brassiere, offered it to Anna.

      “Is that so?” Anna nodded politely. She was less than thrilled at the idea of wiping her face with something that had been stuffed down Mrs. Huang’s chest, but she took her offering so as not to offend and dabbed lightly at her brow.

      “Ya-siree! Only the day before the stroke, from my apartment I heard her go up and down the stairs many times that day.”

      People were always telling Anna about her mother’s physical fitness. They talked about how she carried her groceries effortlessly up to the third floor. Since they shopped together, she knew it was an exaggeration, but it was true that her mother was in better shape than most people thirty years her junior.

      “That day I remember — three times up and down. The last time, I came out of my apartment and said, ‘Mrs. Kalish, do you keep forgetting something?’ but she paid no attention, just moved out to the backyard. ‘You’ll pick me some vegetables to make a nice soup, Mrs. Kalish?’ I joked with her. Then she laughed. Said she would make me some soup in the morning, but not from her garden. Too bad.”

      Mrs. Huang got up to rub a spot on the wall with a rag she pulled out of her pocket. Anna was thinking about calling Sadie down to help when she heard the stairs creaking and her sister appeared around the corner.

      “Thank you, Mrs. Huang. My sister and I will take the bench from here. We’ll see you at four. You’ve been a dear.”

      They heaved the bench up the next flight, Sadie pulling from the top, Anna pushing from underneath. Inside the apartment, they sat side by side to catch their breath and looked straight ahead at the wall. Anna noticed that the hall mirror was still uncovered. Sadie followed her stare, and then there was a moment when they realized that they were looking at one another in the mirror. It was only an instant, hardly enough time to even fix an image in the mind’s eye, and then they both looked away.

      “I forgot the mirror,” Sadie said.

      “I’ll go get something.” Anna stood abruptly and left the room, returning a moment later with a brown and ochre embroidered scarf. Arranging it carefully over the mirror, she waited to make sure it would not slip off. On the bench again, she listened to her own breath subside. When her chest calmed itself, she heard Sadie clear her throat.

      “Well, Annie?”

      “Anna.”

      “Anna. Shit, I’m sorry — Anna. I keep forgetting.” She gave a few seconds to show she meant it. “So, what are we going to do now for the next two hours? The place is ready.”

      “I thought we could take the time to go through some of Mama’s things in her bedroom and in the closet in the back room. There are a few boxes in the bedrooms with some old clothes and stuff.”

      “Fine. I’ll do her bedroom.” Sadie picked herself up and marched into their mother’s room. Anna got up to follow her, but Sadie closed the door. Anna sighed, then sat back down, sloped her shoulders forward, put her palms to her forehead.

      She sat still and listened until she heard Sadie rustling about, then got up and went into the back room. Beside the bed was a small wooden night table. A dresser stood against the side wall, displaying a comb, a brush, and a faded doily. A throw rug lay on the floor beside the bed. On the other side of the bed was the closet. Opening the closet door, she reached her hand in to push aside a few dresses and pant suits hanging in front.

      At the back of the closet on the floor she saw two boxes. She leaned over and pulled one out. It was filled with books. Mila 18. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The Urban Gardener. Jane Fonda’s Workout Book. The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Roots. A hardcover copy of The Mosquito Coast... She tugged at the second box and sat down, her knees to the side. Folded on top was the purple dress of a small child.

      She recognized it at once. Her mother had made it for Sadie on her seventh birthday, with lace ruffles on the sleeves and a sash at the back. She remembered that Sadie had resisted wearing it to shul that day, and that she could not understand why. Anna was four, and she thought it was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen, so fancy and special. But her sister complained that it made her look ugly. Anna had cried because she wanted one too, and when Sadie tried to take it off in shul so that she could try it on, her mother had become angry with them, saying one did not undress in shul. It had caused a commotion in the upper gallery, so that their mother had to pull them both down the stairs and into the street to sit on the steps of the synagogue until the service was over. Later, their father had slapped them both across the face.

      Anna pulled the dress up to her cheek and breathed in the smell of the fabric. There was a faint odour of perfume, but mostly it smelled of must. After a moment, she pulled it away and smoothed it against her lap. Her eyes were moist, and she blinked the box back into focus. There were more books at the bottom, peeking out from under some other clothes.

      Reaching inside, she pulled out a plain, brown volume with no title on it. Opening the cover to the first page, she saw, inscribed in the top corner, in curlicued handwriting:

      Rebecca Ignatow, Ludlow Street, New York.

      November 12th, 1909

      and underneath,

      My very own personal diary — Do not read!!

       Chapter Two

      November 12th, 1909

      Dear Diary,

      Papa has found me someone to marry. He told me so tonight. He said I was already sixteen and that being married would be better than working in the factory. But I am not ready to get married, and I told him so. Yes, this apartment is cramped, dark, and awful, and maybe factory work is exhausting and dangerous. But I still don’t want to get married. Not yet.

      When Papa told me this, I argued with him and managed to buy myself some time, but now I can’t sleep because I am overflowing with thoughts and feelings.

      Mrs. Pearson, my night school teacher, says that when one wants to make sense of something upsetting, sitting back and writing СКАЧАТЬ