Now her mother appeared in the doorway.
Her son ran to the older woman and hugged his grandma’s thigh. He began sobbing immediately. “She is going to go, Grandma. She is going to go.”
“You be a good boy and go play outside,” the grandmother said softly. She knelt down to wipe away the boy’s tears. She kissed him tenderly on the cheek and then patted him on the bottom and sent him on his way outside.
In the doorway the boy looked back at his mother.
Teresa raised her hand and waved good-bye.
The boy stood staring at her as if it would be the last time he ever saw her.
“Go play,” his grandmother said.
The boy vanished.
The grandmother was scarcely five feet tall. She had skin the color of coffee and eyes the color of a midnight sky. She wore a loose-fitting white dress and sandals. She came over and sat on the couch, careful not to wrinkle the new yellow spread when she sat down.
“I do not want you to go,” she said.
“I have already told him I will.”
“It does not matter, Teresa, what you told him.”
“He is expecting me.”
“Your children are expecting you.”
“They love you. They will be happy you are around them.”
“Can you imagine what the priest will say?”
“He will say nothing to me.”
“Oh?”
“Victor does not believe in priests. He does not want me to see the priest.”
“It’s terrible what you do.”
“It’s not. I will lose my looks in a few years. Then I will have only regrets.”
“I have had three daughters.”
“Yes.”
“And I should be thankful.”
“Thankful, yes. For our good health.”
“And for one other thing, too.”
“What?”
There was craft and malice in the old woman’s gaze. “Only one of them turned out to be a whore.”
Teresa flushed. “You do not understand.”
“You think I was not young once, Teresa, as you are young-and beautiful, as you are beautiful?”
“It is different in the modem world, Mama.”
“He made you take down the picture of the Virgin?” “Yes.”
“And he does not want you to see a priest?”
“No, he does not want me to see a priest.”
“And he wants you to leave your children?”
Teresa said nothing. She did not want to be called a whore again.
“Does this not tell you about the man, Teresa? About what is in this man’s heart?”
“He’s a good man.”
“In bed he may be good. No other place.”
“We will be back often.”
“You don’t really believe that. I can see the lie in your face, Teresa.” She wrung her brown hands. “You are so stupid.”
“He loves me.”
The old woman scoffed. “He puts gaudy dresses on your back. He makes you promises. He puts his seed in you. These things are not love.”
“He said we will live in a fine house in St. Louis.”
“You are forgetting your cousin Donna.”
At mention of the name, Teresa lowered her head. “He is not like the man Donna was with.”
“Oh, no? And what makes him different, Teresa? What makes him different?”
“Victor is a man of honor.”
“So was her man until he got tired of her. And do you remember what he did then?”
“Please. You know how I hate to talk about it.”
“He threw fire in her face so that she would be in agony and no other man would ever want her. He could not even give her the rest of her life, a chance to live well without him. He would not even do this much for her. So he burned her.”
“Please.”
“Do you know how she lives today?”
“I know.”
“She lives in the cellar of her parents’ basement because she looks so horrible that no one can stand to set eyes on her.”
“He is not like this.”
“Oh, no. He is a most honorable man. He makes you take down the picture of the Virgin, and he persuades you to leave your children.”
She got up and walked across the room to where Teresa sat in a chair. She slapped her very hard across the side of the face.
Teresa began sobbing.
“Because he puts his seed in you does not mean he loves you, Teresa.”
The old woman shook her head sadly, then went out the door and down the steps to play with her grandchildren in the sunlight.
Chapter Twenty
The referee was a man named Macatee. Stoddard had requested a man named Simek but Simek was sick with gout.
Stoddard knew nothing about Macatee, whose first name was George, and this made him nervous. He stood inside Macatee’s dressing room, watching a bluebottle fly perch at an angle on the windowsill.
Outside the open window four women in crisp summer dresses carried placards back and forth. Obviously they knew this was where Macatee was getting ready. They wanted him to understand their seriousness.
Stoddard tried a nervous smile. “You can’t escape them these days. They’re in every town with more than one hundred people.”
“Oh, they’re all right.”
“They are?”
“Sure. They just don’t like to see people get hurt. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”
Stoddard continued to smile. “I like to see men get hurt. When men get hurt, I have a good payday. So do you.”
Macatee had been shining his black boots with a coarse-bristled brush. The room they were in was smaller than many closets. There was a chair, a bureau with a mirror, and a spittoon.
As they passed by the window this time, the ladies leaned in toward Macatee. One of them, a redhead in an emerald-green picture hat, waved.
Macatee waved back.
“You know her?” Stoddard said.
Macatee, a tense little man with freckles on a white bald head, nodded and said, “I should. She’s my wife.”
“You have a wife who protests boxing?”
“It’s her right. Just as it’s my right to referee.”
“Oh, I’m glad I came over here, Mr. Macatee. To see you, I mean.”
“You are?”
“I certainly am. Do you know how many people are going to be here today?”
“How many?”
“The estimate is four thousand now.”
Macatee whistled. He took a cigar from his shirt pocket, ran a lucifer along the front of the bureau. “Four thousand. That’s the biggest sporting event this town has ever seen.”
“That’s one of my concerns.”
“What is?”
“That the event lives up to the billing.”
Macatee looked at him with eyes as green as his wife’s hat. “What are you trying to say, Mr. Stoddard?”
“They tell me you’re a good referee.”
“I try to be.”
“But I wouldn’t want you to be too good.”
Macatee blew heavy cigar smoke in Stoddard’s direction. The blue-tailed fly was noisy in the corner. “Wish I had a swatter,” Macatee said. “That goddamn thing’s driving me crazy.”
“You ever hear of the Sorgenson fight?”
“Sorgenson?”
“Over in Omaha about four years ago. Hmmm. Four years ago exactly this summer.”
“I think I’ve heard of it. But what about it?” Macatee went back to shining his boots with the brush. He wore a short-sleeve shirt. He might be a small man, but he had outsize biceps for his size.
“Sorgenson was supposed to knock out his opponent pretty early in the fight. Everybody expected it. But Sorgenson was so good that he put the other fellow to the canvas in the first round.”