The Right Thing to Do Read online

  The question, she thought, is whether you do. “Where do your parents live?” she asked instead.

  “In Philadelphia,” Alex said, chewing on his ham and rye.

  “I’d love to meet them both,” Gina said insincerely, relieved they weren’t in New York. What can you say to any of them? She realized that for all the weeks they had known each other, neither had said much about parents. The less said, the better. Anyway, they all seemed so remote. Everything seemed remote except the whitewashed room, and Alex with his rich hair and hazel-green eyes.

  When she got home, she was relieved that everyone had gone to sleep. She could hardly wait to turn out the light and get into bed. As soon as the room was dark, she could smile. She stayed awake just to keep the happiness alive. When she fell asleep, men came running after her in black coats and dark pointed hats. There were six of them, carrying a coffin and running through a park. It was very cold: winter bitterness without snow, the ground frozen brown and bare trees sprinkled here and there with rotting leaves. The men were running toward her. She realized the coffin was for her. She began to run and reached a place like a formal garden, desolate now and out of bloom. In the center was a huge rectangular reflecting pool, still filled and apparently bottomless. The men were reaching her. They set down the coffin on the flagstone walk around the pool and advanced. She had nowhere to turn. She dove into the pool and swam down. At the bottom of the pool it was summer. The water was warm and slightly perfumed; somehow she could breathe in it. There was a sunny cave filled with multicolored fish. I can stay here forever, she thought. But she swam to the surface, and when she did, the park was transformed. It was tropical, filled with heavy, lush foliage. Lily pads floated on the surface with perfect flowers. She touched one and found she could climb on it like a raft. When she did, she realized that she had become half fish.

  I got off easy this time, Gina thought, waking up disconcerted but happy. There had been too many dreams lately. She couldn’t remember ever dreaming before she had met Alex. But this one was good; maybe it was even an omen. It was 4:30 A.M. She picked up a book and began to read. She liked the time before dawn—between work and Alex she hadn’t much time to herself.

  It was six o’clock when Laura knocked softly at the door.

  “I saw your light,” Laura said, coming in with a glass of juice. “You’ll ruin your eyes with so much reading.”

  “I wanted to finish this. I have to return it tomorrow,” Gina said guiltily. Half the books she returned were returned unread. Going to the library had become such a convenient lie.

  “How are things at work?” Gina asked, wanting to shift the subject away from herself. She hated to lie, so it was better not to talk.

  “More of the same,” Laura said. “We’re making blouses out of such cheap material it unravels while you work. There’s so much detail—with tucks and darts and smocking.” She waved her hand. “They’ll sell them for forty dollars, but they’re not worth five with that material. And then,” Laura went on, “the girls all have problems. Concetta’s daughter had a boy. Poor thing. She was so pretty, too. She ruined her life marrying that boy without a job or even a trade. She was so pretty.”

  “Yes,” Gina said. “She was.” She could still remember her coming into high school, hugely pregnant, to sign some papers. She had been crying. “She should have just gone away and given the baby up for adoption, instead of getting married.”

  “You can’t give away a child. Once you have it, that’s it. But it’s true it’s not always like that. In the old neighborhood there was a woman named Anna who was a midwife. She used to do abortions too. She was always busy with one or the other. But Marty, her husband, he did nothing but fool around when she was out. To make a long story short, he put a woman in the family way. When I was your age, I heard Anna tell this story to my mother. She said, ‘I didn’t want to lose him,’ over and over. The woman was single and she thought Marty would marry her because of the baby. So Anna offered the woman an abortion. But the woman thought she was jealous and she wouldn’t trust Anna. So Anna reasons with her. She says, ‘Look, he’s no good. He’s supposed to watch the children when he’s not working, but instead he lets them run wild and runs around with you. He isn’t going to marry you. Do yourself a favor. I’m fifty-eight and I can’t do any better. But you are young and pretty and you should learn from your mistakes. So do yourself a favor and get yourself out of the mess you got into.’

  “By the time the woman made up her mind, it was too late for an abortion. So Anna offered to take care of her at the end, deliver the baby, give her a few hundred dollars afterward, and keep the child to raise as her own. When the time came for the woman to deliver, she took her into the house and kept her there ten days after the child was born. Then the woman went away. Today that boy is married and lives in California and he never knew Anna wasn’t his mother.” Laura was visibly impressed.

  “Wasn’t fifty-eight too old for Anna to pass off a child as her own?” Gina asked, also impressed.

  “If Anna had been bothered by questions like that, she could never have pulled it off. It never pays to be too sensitive about what people say.”

  “She must have been pretty thick-skinned,” Gina said, thinking of Marty living with Anna and the pregnant woman.

  “Oh, she was. There wasn’t much she didn’t see or go through. It worked, too, what she did. Marty stayed with her, although he was never much good for anything. But she knew that,” Laura mused. “Now you. If you would go out instead of burying yourself in the library every night. If you would only go out with Arthur. He keeps asking you. He’s a really good boy. Take my advice. It’s not for nothing I’m old enough to be your mother. Arthur is good. He goes to college, he works in the fruit store after school. He’s loyal. He would make a good husband. He gives every penny he makes to his mother. How a boy treats his mother, is how he’ll treat his wife.”

  “I’m too young to get married,” Gina dodged. “Anyway, Arthur hasn’t asked me.”

  “If you would go out with him, he would ask you,” Laura persisted. “He is an exception. Like your father.”

  “I hope not,” Gina said.

  “You can say what you like about your father, but he’s all for his family. Now Arthur would be exactly like that, only not so Sicilian. If Anna could keep Marty until the age of ninety-four, you can get Arthur to marry you.”

  “I’m not interested. He’s boring and fat.”

  “Just think about it. A man who isn’t handsome makes a better husband because he’s grateful to you for marrying him. He appreciates you more,” Laura said, getting up.

  She has a proverb for every situation, Gina thought, amused. Not to mention a story, an anecdote, a relative who had experienced firsthand everything from a visitation by Saint Teresa to a potato cure for warts. Crazy schemes, bizarre situations erupting in orderly lives—all reminders that since anything could happen, it was better that nothing did. So a boring husband was a hedge against catastrophe—a gambler, a drinker, a womanizer. Having “character” was having the stamina not to be bored or desperate, the stamina to be grateful.

  Nino placed a low estimate on unhappiness, even though the impulse to self-pity ran high in him. He was given to sulking depressions from which anything could erupt. “Look at him!” Aunt Anna-Maria would say, qualified for some expertise in despair by her months as a patient at Creedmoor. “What’s he got to be unhappy about? Everybody gets old and sick. He gets around. He’s happy as a clam in the water,” she would certify, licking custard from her fingers.

  But Gina knew he wasn’t happy. She could see in Laura a stream of small satisfactions, a gift for finding amusement and meaning in daily things, that gave her a steady joyousness. Nino brooded. He brooded out loud because everything he believed in was unraveling. But he was most unhappy because—Gina hesitated for a moment—because of me. I am, she thought, amused, the thorn in his side, the nail through his hand. . . . So we should be quits, because he is that
to me. But it wasn’t working out that way. There were no arbitrated settlements, no agreements to disagree. There was only guerrilla warfare on both sides, with Nino having the edge. No fair, she thought dreamily, drifting from the kitchen Laura had cleaned. Least fair to Laura, she thought, browsing through her closet, looking for the right dress.

  When he heard the door close a second time, Nino stretched and sat up. He wasn’t ready to talk to her yet. He wasn’t ready to say anything directly. All in good time, he thought. He knew she must have met him at work. Some bum who hung around Columbia. He was sure. Well, he would pay a surprise visit and meet her for lunch. He would watch to see whom she was trying to walk out with and force her to introduce him. One way or another, he would find out his name.

  The way things were done today was ridiculous. When Nino had gone out with Laura, the old man went with them. Whenever they went to a movie, he came along. If they went to a dance, he had to take her two sisters, too. They were never alone. When he had to go out and the young one wanted to go somewhere, her father tied her to a chair. He overdid it, Nino admitted to himself. He overdid it. But it was better than doing nothing. Laura thought Gina had good judgment. Good judgment! The words felt like worms in his mouth. She had no judgment. A creep with a beard.

  By the time he got to the bursar’s office where she worked, it was 11:45. As soon as he walked through the doorway, he saw the jerk working a paper-cutting machine. I knew it, Nino thought grimly. Not for nothing have I tracked people for years.

  “Excuse me, young man,” Nino said to him politely. “Is this the registrar’s office?”

  “No,” answered Alex, “this is the bursar. The registrar is three doors down, on the right.”

  “Thank you,” Nino said. He stood looking at him. He was repulsive.

  “What are you doing to those stamps?” Nino asked.

  “Perforating them with the school’s initials, C.U. They think it will stop people who work here from stealing stamps.”

  “It might work,” Nino said. “It might work.”

  “But then again,” said Alex, “it makes them more valuable because they’re unusual. I think they’ll be stolen more this way.”

  “Unusual things aren’t always more valuable,” Nino said. “The hardest thing to find nowadays is something perfectly ordinary. Something normal.”

  Alex looked up at him.

  “What’s your name?” Nino asked.

  “Alex.”

  “Alex what?” Nino said softly. He could, after all, just walk away.

  “Alex Arjine,” Alex said, without looking up. He had stamped through the last sheet.

  “How do you spell that?” Nino asked, pushing his luck.

  “I have to go,” said Alex. “I have a class.” He reached for a slim book, but Nino picked it up first. The Language of the Mandarins: A Chinese Grammar. He checked the title page. Sure enough, the creep had written his name on it.

  “You study Chinese affairs?” Nino asked.

  “This is just a hobby,” Alex said, walking off.

  Careless, Nino thought. He’s sloppy, leaving that machine with the stamps still in it. Anyone could take them. He paused, lingering over the sheet. And he’s foolishly trusting, blabbing about himself like that. He walked farther into the room. He caught sight of Gina typing with her back to him. It’s for her own good, he thought. The boy might be bad, or he might not. Chances were that he was, wearing that beard. Nino concluded decisively: a man that will hide his chin will hide anything.

  He limped over to her desk and tapped her on the back with the edge of his cane.

  “Hello,” she said, swiveling around. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just going for a walk,” he said cheerfully. He was beginning to enjoy himself. It was all so much easier than he had expected. “I thought I might take you to lunch.”

  Gina looked at him appraisingly. He never did anything for nothing. “Lunch?” she said. “Fine. I thought you were bringing me some more mail,” she added, reaching for her bag.

  “No letters today,” he said. This message, he thought, isn’t going to be so easy to read. “What makes you think there were? Expecting anything?”

  “I just know how you like to bring me bad news,” she said. “When I see you, I think, Is it doomsday today? And then, if there’s no such thing as a free lunch, I think, What is this lunch going to cost me? There has to be some bad news.”

  “Sometimes the news you think is bad turns out to be good news in the long run. It’s a question of having the patience to see how it all turns out.” That was it, he thought, agreeing with himself; he wanted to see how it all turned out with her. That was the fun of it, but he suspected he wasn’t going to be around for the crucial act. “Sometimes the things you think are good to begin with turn out to be rotten,” he pontificated genially, sizing her up.

  “What did you ever think was good to begin with,” she asked, taking her purse from a drawer and getting up.

  “Don’t fish.” He smiled. “Although I will say you were always ready to keep me company when I came home at midnight. Everyone else was asleep, but you, you were ready to talk as soon as you learned a few words.”

  “Let’s eat,” she said. There was nothing that bothered her more than Nino in his affectionate phase.

  “A real restaurant,” he insisted, limping after her. “Not one of those two-carrots-and-ice-water places you go to.”

  “There’s a Greek restaurant down the street,” Gina said.

  They walked out into the brilliant midday heat. Even the thick, dusty air couldn’t stop the burning impact of the sun. The brick walk seemed to scorch her feet through the thin-soled sandals; the sun seemed to blister her bare arms and throat. It’s not the heat, she thought, it’s him. She walked slowly, to keep pace with him and to avoid the impulse to run. It wasn’t his toughness that scared her, but his need for her obedience, his domineering love, his self-mastery. The neat, immaculate suits, the white shirts and carefully knotted ties he wore in the most intense heat, made her want to scream at his discipline. The dark Sicilian skin, turned gray from illness, the face fixed in sour lines, was lit up now. He has an idea, she thought. It’s bringing him around. It has to do with me.

  “When you’re young,” he said expansively, “you never think how wrong everything can go.”

  “Ignorance is bliss,” she said.

  “But only knowledge is power,” he answered.

  “Bliss is better than power,” she came back.

  “Maybe,” he smiled, “but it doesn’t last. If you read any of the books I told you to read instead of the trash you waste your time with, you might learn something. Did you ever read that Conrad story, ‘Youth’? Now that’s the kind of thing you can remember: the boy going out to sea and the ship burning up. . . . ‘A high clear flame, an immense and lonely flame, ascended from the ocean, and from its summit,’” Nino chanted, “‘the black smoke poured continuously at the sky. She burned furiously. . . . ’” He was losing the thread. “‘. . . A magnificent death had come like grace, like a gift’”—Nino had found the words again—“‘Like a reward . . . like the sight of a glorious triumph.’ But then, of course, the ship sinks without a trace. Now that,” he said, waving his cane, pleased at remembering so much, “is life.”

  “It’s not exactly all of it,” Gina said. “You left out everything that happened before the ship caught fire. And all the other ships that are still around,” she added. But the truth was that she admired his cheerful fatalism. He had sounded the depths; his limp proved it. But he too had made a mark; had flattened the depths out a little. Now the consistency with which hopes went under gave him no anguish, no bitterness, but a sense of rightness. That was the good part.

  She could see from his easy manner that something was up. He was always compassionate when he was destroying her hopes, as though in bringing her down, he pitied her fall. He drew her into some greater proximity to him—a closeness with fatalism for glue. Alrea
dy she could feel his dimness gumming up her mood. It was never possible to be with him without getting hurt. He never meant ill, but he always did harm, with an unerring sense of where to strike.

  Watching him speak, and linger over the burning of the ship—the ship always burned up under you, the ship that might get you out—she could hardly remember how many times his stories had lured her into some trap, some embarrassment, some moral that added up to her humiliation. There were moments when his face relaxed and she could remember his laughing, playing catch with her, telling her every night the same bedtime story of the bird and the worm.

  Was it his stroke that had changed him, or just her growing up? He had been so affectionate when she was little. It seemed as though one morning she woke up and he had changed, become wary, suspicious, remote. Had he always been that way? What difference does it make? She grew up just as the vessels in his brain exploded; she wanted out just as he started going down. His dogged pursuit of her seemed darker, more complex, and more hopeless as each month passed. She knew he was curious about what she was. There had been too many papers disturbed on her desk, too many books placed in the wrong order, too many sudden encounters on the street. Nino never left anything to chance if he could help it.

  “Good, isn’t it?” Nino demanded, pleased he had remembered the description of the burning ship. “That’s English. And he was even a Pole, just an immigrant.” Nino nodded, surveying the black kids milling around the steps of an SRO hotel on Broadway. “Superficial differences don’t count all that much,” he said expansively. He waved his cane over Broadway. “The truth is,” he paused, “we’re all damned, white souls and black. And who knows the way out of that? Your mother thinks I am too Catholic, that I believe everything the Church says. But the Church has no conscience and no concern.” He shook his head.

  “You’re right,” Gina said. Better the Pope than me, she thought wryly, knowing her turn would come to take the heat. “Angelo told me about Maria. That was terrible.”