The Melting Pot Read online

  When he was old and sick and I visited him, I brought along many pairs of corduroy pants to hem—I had young children and was busy, I couldn’t waste a minute. He wasn’t saying much. But sitting on the back porch, watching me pick up one pair of corduroy pants after another, he did say, “You haven’t stopped sewing since you got here.” I nodded and kept on. Would it not be sufficient, he was asking, simply to keep him company, even if he could no longer offer the flow of words? He may even have been acknowledging—little as I like to think he knew about such matters—that I couldn’t sit still and watch him die, I could hardly sit under the best of circumstances, so I let down hems for growing children. At that moment he was undergoing, as Jakob Rosenberg says of Rembrandt’s last portrait, “some decline in ... expressive power.” His face showed “a diminished intensity.” His spirit, so amply present in the serene and judicious photo, was leaving puff by puff. He was in the process of ceasing to care.

  I have had the graduation photo of my father for almost ten years, since he, raging without words, died, and the picture postcards of the Rembrandts for about two years. Only the other day did the fourth one, my father in his sixties, fall into my hands, completing the group, that is, notifying me that they formed a group. My father would find all this silly and suppositious, especially since I clearly live, as he did, by the word. I would not attempt to explain to him, even if I could, that the pictures have been speaking to me in sentence fragments, subjects only, for a very long time, and that the arrival of the fourth picture was the long-awaited predicate. And then they had to be translated.

  The Last Frontier

  FOR GEORGE MADISON IT was the final indignity. His wife, Louise, woke first that Sunday morning, to find the two older children in their sleeping bags on the floor but the three-year-old gone. The chair George had placed in front of the door to substitute for the broken lock lay on its side. Louise threw on a robe and ran out into the corridor of the Peter Minuit Hotel, where they had been sent after a fire in their apartment building, shouting the baby’s name, Denny, short for Dennis. A torn bag sent a barrage of empty beer and soda cans rolling across the floor. She navigated her way around these and a clump of children huddled over toy soldiers, ignoring the boy from across the hall who proudly waved a plastic bag containing a captured mouse. When she heard an answering, gurgling shout she swept through the partly open door from which it had come. The baby, wearing his terrycloth stretch suit with the padded feet, stood near a rickety bridge table where four big boys clustered. On the table lay a hand mirror and one of the boys bent over it, sniffing something through a straw.

  “Denny!” she called sharply. The baby, seemingly unharmed, ran happily to embrace her knees.

  “Pigs!” she shouted at the boys. “What do you want with a little baby!”

  “No one hurt your precious baby, lady. He walked in just like you. He’s cute.”

  “Trash!” Louise hissed.

  “Hey, watch your mouth, girl. Take him, just get out, okay?”

  She scooped up the baby and, nearly colliding with a girl on a skateboard, ran back to their room, where she woke George.

  “We are not staying in this rathole one more minute,” he said when he heard her story.

  None of her objections—where would they go, what could they do, with three children and three suitcases?—could shake his will. Within an hour Denny and the others, Ronald, eleven, and Coralie, seven, were dressed and had had their orange juice with doughnuts from the box Louise kept on the windowsill, the suitcases were packed, and the Madisons were downstairs in the mud-colored lobby that smelled of ashes and air spray. George slapped the useless key on the desk before a lean, sleepy-looking man chewing on a toothpick. “This is no place for us,” he accused. The clerk adjusted the toothpick and lowered his head over his newspaper.

  Outside the Peter Minuit, George felt a surge of relief, like waking from troubled sleep into blessed reality. The life assigned his family had been an error made in some downtown office; now that it was corrected, his body expanded in the open air of midtown Manhattan as if something essential were restored.

  “You’re a crazy man, you know?” Louise said hours later. “How long you think we can all keep walking?” She was pushing the baby in the stroller luckily salvaged from the fire, with Coralie hanging on to the side. George and Ronald carried the suitcases. All day they had been in and out of apartment buildings. “I can pay rent,” George told the doormen. “We’re working people. No welfare.” His Aunt Matilda had warned him about making that clear, but it did no apparent good. With two exceptions, forlorn sunless places costing more per month than George presently earned, the answer was no. Often rent was not even an issue—you had to buy the little cells for unthinkable sums. A couple of building superintendents, remarking on his accent, had tried to be helpful, suggesting he look around the edges, uptown in Harlem or downtown in Alphabet City. George nodded politely. The city people had tried to lure him there too, but he had not traveled all this way to be worse off than he began, or to raise his children in such unlovely, frankly perilous surroundings. The family had stopped twice to use the bathroom, first in the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and then, a few miles north, in the Museum of Natural History, where they had had to pay. “But we’ll only be a minute,” George protested. The clerk pointed to a sign above his booth: “Pay what you wish but you must pay something.” George took a dollar from his pocket. “How many?” the white man said, disdainful. “Five. Family of five.” After the museum they stopped to get slices of pizza and Cokes.

  “These children can’t go on much longer,” Louise said. “We better go up to your aunt’s.”

  “Matilda’s got no room, you know that. I’ll find us something.”

  They trudged south, and then west, Coralie whining that her feet hurt. “Hush,” Louise murmured. “Just hush up now.”

  The light was fading. Exhausted, Louise began to doubt her own eyes: quite a few people on the street, the children, mostly, seemed to belong to another order of reality. A small antennaed Martian, green from top to toe, pranced by, holding a woman’s hand. Behind them, a troop of skeletons. Convicts in their stripes, a mermaid, and a centaur appeared out of nowhere.

  Ronald glanced at his mother’s gaping face. “Halloween, Ma.”

  “Trick or treat?” A girl held out her hand. She wore a silver tiara and a long white dress with stars sewn on the skirt and carried a scepter. Her denim jacket was open to show loops of rhinestones around her neck. George passed her by and pressed his family on. Louise had to yank Coralie by the hand; she was walking backwards, gazing after the beggar queen.

  Suddenly George came to a halt. They stood in the twilight on a bleak empty street near the land’s edge; the river sent its chill through the air and Coralie whimpered that she was cold. Opposite them was a squat, four-story white building with plate-glass doors, a building George had been in half a dozen times over the last few weeks, hunting down mazes of corridors for the secretaries who had ordered lunches. On weekdays men in business suits and women in high-heeled shoes, carrying briefcases, streamed in and out, but today it was deserted.

  The baby whined and clutched at his pants.

  “Shh, one more minute.” George leaned down to pat him. “Just another minute.” He rushed them all across.

  “Excuse me,” he addressed the guard fussing with the locks on the door. He was a young black man in a blue uniform, scarcely older than Ronald, it seemed. “Would you mind—the baby needs to use the bathroom. ...”

  “Uh-uh. You need a pass to get in. Try the coffee shop down the street.” He waved east.

  “Come on, man.” George smiled with a certain charm. “He’s just a baby.”

  “This is not a public building. Anyway, it’s closing.”

  “Which island you from?” asked George. “I can tell the way you speak.”

  The guard looked astonished and murmured, “Barbados.”

  “We’re from Sai
nt Thomas. Charlotte Amalie, you know? American citizens. You a citizen yet?”

  “Look, I don’t care what you are—”

  “Come on, be a good fellow. It’ll take a minute, how about it?”

  Evidently the young guard was not yet a thorough New Yorker, for in the end he pointed the way, frowning. Louise and the others waited on the street for what seemed an unduly long time. When George finally returned with Denny, he thanked the guard cordially. “This way,” he commanded, back outside. “Walk slow.”

  “What’s in your mind, George? How much longer—”

  “Just follow me.”

  He led them around one corner, then another, till they came to a heavy metal fire door at the rear of the building. A rolled-up handkerchief held it slightly ajar.

  “Get in here, hurry.”

  “Dad, what are you doing?” Ronald said. “You’ll get us arrested.”

  “It’s no crime for a man to take care of his family. You all were cold, weren’t you? So come along!”

  He ran jerkily through a dim corridor, the suitcases bobbing at his sides. When he found the elevator he used on his deliveries, he urged them in and pressed four, the top floor.

  “This is no good, George. It’s crazy.”

  “You tell me something better and I’ll do it. Wait, you’ll see.”

  More dim corridors brought them to a vast black open space. George found the switches on the walls, and dozens of lights came on. They were square black fixtures, row upon row, high up, imprisoning circles of light like moons dropping from the ceiling.

  “What kind of place is this?” Coralie whispered. “A castle?”

  It was a twentieth-century castle, cavernous, and divided into sections, rooms without walls, or rather half-finished spaces trying to become rooms. Tables, chairs, and couches stood about in purposeless groups. Household bits, an ironing board, a broom, a lamp, unattached doors and windows, leaned against the far walls. Television sets hung from the ceiling like chandeliers.

  Coralie danced away and vanished. As if from a great way off, her voice rang out, “Mama! A regular house!”

  Louise ran towards the voice, pushing Denny. Coralie was plunked on a beige couch in an elaborately furnished living room, her feet dangling over a mustard-colored carpet. This room was almost complete: coffee table, a small, elegant desk, a china closet, paintings on the walls, sliding glass doors that led to what resembled, inconceivably, a terrace, and on one wall, shuttered half-doors that opened to a commodious kitchen. The front door opened on an outside hall leading nowhere. The children were rushing here and there, exploring; Denny climbed out of his stroller to trail after them.

  “It’s missing the last wall,” said Coralie. “It’s not a regular house.”

  “It’s got a roof,” George replied gruffly.

  Louise opened the refrigerator. Empty. “It’s not cold. Not turned on.” She tried the faucets in the sink. No water. But there were a few pots and dishes and glasses in the cabinets.

  Off the living room George noticed a master bedroom with an ample double bed. The very sight of it made him want to lie down and never get up, but he needed to fix the lock and the alarm on the fire door downstairs first. When he returned he found Louise trying the knobs of the gas range, to no avail.

  “Didn’t I tell you I’d find something? What do you think?”

  “I think you need to have your head examined.” The place looked familiar in an unsettling way; she had the feeling she had seen it before, long ago, somewhere else, and not quite so cluttered.

  “Dad,” Ronald began gingerly. “Dad, don’t get mad, but ... we can’t stay here. You know what this is? It’s not real.”

  “What do you mean, not real!” George stormed into the living room and threw himself on the couch, slapping the cushions with fury. They were soft, unresisting. “This couch is real, ain’t it? That big bedroom there is real. You shut up now, about real and not real. I’m deciding what’s real.”

  “George, take it easy,” Louise said. “You’re wore out. The bed is real, so go lie down on it. You kids help me with the sleeping bags. Then we’ll go find where to wash up. You’re all grimy.”

  “I’m starving,” Coralie said.

  Louise took the doughnuts and a bag of apples from her carryall. “You make do with these for now. I’ll get you a good breakfast before school tomorrow.” She went to put her bag on the desk and drew back with a start. There was a large framed photograph of a woman, and several smaller photos in a plastic cube. Yes, she knew these people all right. But it had been so long. Ronald would hardly remember, and Coralie was too young. ... Nevertheless, while the children were busy eating, she placed the photos in the top drawer.

  By seven-thirty the next morning they were ready to leave. The men’s room near the elevator had been decent enough, although Coralie objected to the liquid soap—she said it looked like pee—and Louise said she was dying for a shower.

  “Take your shower at Matilda’s,” George grumbled. “Or at that Mrs. Axelrod’s.”

  After Louise checked one last time to be sure they hadn’t left any traces, and surreptitiously replaced the photos, they tiptoed down three flights of musty stairs, carrying suitcases, stroller, and baby. George adjusted the lock on the fire door before they set off in the hazy sunshine. A cool watery smell rose from the river, and the breeze at their backs was soft, not yet wintry. On the street still lingered a benign aftertaste of dawn.

  “I’ll meet you later at Matilda’s,” he said at the subway. “You going to manage all right with those suitcases? Ronald, you help your mother.”

  “What about tonight? One night, okay, but—”

  “Not now, sugar. I’m late.” He kissed the four cheeks and dashed. George worked at a delicatessen a few blocks south, unpacking supplies, making deliveries, clearing tables. His fellow workers were much younger or much older men, several of whom didn’t speak English; a few in the kitchen displeased him with the seedy demeanor of people who did not lead regular lives. To George it was crucial to lead a regular life to the extent that one was available; overnight he had come to cherish the new found haven for its fluffy bed and its drapes and carpeting, and most of all for its shuttered half-doors between the kitchen and living room, through which food and drinks might be served, a nice touch. Back home they had had a small neat gingerbread house in a pretty part of town and he had been an electrician, doing all right, but he would never do much better. And for five years his Aunt Matilda had been urging them to come. She was lonely for family in New York, she wrote—since her husband had died there was no one of her blood, and George was like her own son. He had a useful trade; he wouldn’t lack for work. As for those clever children, why, here they could become anything. Her letters touted the names of black entertainers and athletes and politicians. From the quantity of names, Louise used to say, you would think that black people had taken over, the millennium had come. Matilda was keeping her eye out for an apartment: the building’s super owed her a favor for the time she nursed his infant grandchild through a week of projectile vomiting; she had been a practical nurse in her youth. At last there were four vacant rooms on the floor below, and George and Louise made the giant leap. He had taken the first job he saw—a Help Wanted sign in a downtown window one month ago—to get the family started, but he was sure to find work in his own line soon enough. He would be moving on up, and with Louise working too, it would not take long. Their new neighborhood, Washington Heights, was on the drab side, its streets fallen from grandeur, but for all that it was no slum. The bustle of large and noisy families was generous, fluid; it accommodated new arrivals. Naturally they missed the grace of the island, most of all the gaudy splashes of flowers everywhere, but they were prepared for that. There was no preparation for the building’s going up in flames two weeks later, wild bursts of color like gorgeous bougainvillea turned treacherous. They had hardly any furniture to lose yet, not even a TV set. The loss was less tangible.

  Misfor
tune deposited them in municipal hands, to dispose of as they would. Men and women with spectacles and clipboards asked intimate questions, then sent them to the Peter Minuit Hotel, which existed, they explained, to provide for the unfortunate. What it provided was deprivation. It dragged George’s spirit into foul byways, through smells, dirt, and all the emblems of decay. Seeing his wife and children join its wretched colony was the ultimate mortification.

  Meanwhile Matilda moved in with a friend next door to the charred building, the friend being a sister of the same super. Guilt-stricken, she did what she could—took the kids in after school, minded Denny while Louise went out to work, even found work for her. With Matilda’s help, Louise soon had her days all organized: Monday, Mrs. Axelrod; Tuesday, Mrs. Butler; Wednesday, off—she tended to errands and looked for an apartment; Thursday, Mr. Vickers, the easiest because she never saw him—he left the key with the doorman and the money on the kitchen table; Friday, Mrs. Takamura, wife of a diplomat, and tennis friend of Mrs. Axelrod. Louise would arrive before nine and clean as fast as she could, discouraging all conversation till the ladies thought her dull-witted or mute, in order to finish in time to pick up Coralie at school. Ronald, who had made friends, might want to stay on and play ball—he should not be always saddled with a little sister. She hoped it was ball he was playing. You could not badger a boy with questions, but she scrutinized him carefully on his return, and when doing the laundry, the heavy jeans, in the basement of Matilda’s building, was reassured to find smudges of dirt on the knees or the seat of his pants; that was as it should be when boys played ball. After the day’s work she would rest at Matilda’s place, in front of the friend’s big color TV, holding Denny on her lap. She didn’t much care what she looked at and let Coralie fiddle with the dial. Coralie fancied reruns of cheerful families whose problems got solved in half an hour. Their houses or apartments looked alike, all with a big sofa absurdly set in the middle of the living room, but monotonous as they were, Louise would gladly have accepted any one. She lapsed into reveries picturing her family in those places. With the right clothes and TV makeup they could look as fine as any Partridges or Keatons, Cunninghams, Bradys, or Bradfords, Huxtables, Romanos, Evanses, or Thomases—enough to populate a small village back home. Coralie in particular was very pretty, taking after George with her wide face and strong cheekbones, and George was a stocky square-jawed man, even better-looking since he had grown the mustache. She would be more than willing to fret over little mix-ups that seemed intractable but were always cleared up in the end.