The car made its way awkwardly and noisily up St. Charles, yet faster than any horse-drawn carriage. And the girl sat still between Richard and me, under Stella’s curious eye, staring at everything as if she had never been out of doors before.
Mary Beth waited on the step.
“And what do you mean to do with her?”
“Richard,” I said, “I can’t walk any farther.”
“I’ll fetch the boys, Julien,” he cried, and off he ran, calling and clapping. Stella and the girl climbed down and Stella lifted both her hands to me.
“I’ve got you, darling. I won’t let you fall, my hero.”
The girl stood with her hands at her sides, staring at me, and then at Mary Beth, and then at the house, and at the servant boys who came running.
“What do you mean to do with her?” Mary Beth demanded again.
“Child, will you come into our house?” I said, looking at this lithe and lovely girl with pale shell-pink tender little mouth protruding beautifully on account of her hollow cheeks, and eyes the color of the gray sky in a rainstorm.
“Will you come into our house,” I said again, “and there safe beneath our roof decide if you want to spend your life a prisoner or not? Stella, if I die on the way upstairs, I charge you to save this girl, you hear me?”
“You won’t die,” said Richard, my lover, “come, I’ll help you.” But I could see the apprehension in his face. He was more worried about me than anyone.
Stella led the way. The girl followed, and then Richard came, all but carrying me in his exuberantly manly way, with his arm around me, hoisting me step by step so that I might keep what dignity I had.
At last we entered my room on the third floor of the house.
“Get the girl some food,” I said. “She looks as if she has never had a square meal.” I sent Stella off with Richard. I collapsed on the side of my bed, too exhausted to think for a moment.
Then I looked up and my soul was filled with despair. This beautiful fresh creature on the brink of life, and I so old, very soon to end it. I was so tired I might have said yes to death now, if this girl, if her case had not demanded my presence here.
“Can you understand me?” I asked. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, Julien,” she said in plain English effortlessly enough. “I know all about you. This is your attic, is it not?” she said in her little treble voice, and as she looked around at the beams, at the books, at the fireplace and the chair, at all my precious things, my Victrola and my piles of songs, she gave a soft trusting smile to me.
“Dear God,” I whispered. “What shall I do with you?”
Twenty-one
THE PEOPLE WHO lived in this bright little house were brown people. They had black hair and black eyes; their skin gleamed in the light above the table. They were small with highly visible bones, and they wore clothes in very bright red and blue and white, clothes that were tight around their plump arms. The woman, when she saw Emaleth, got up and came to the transparent door.
“Good heavens, child! Come inside here,” she said, looking up into Emaleth’s eyes. “Jerome, look at this. This child’s stark naked. Look at this girl. Oh, my Lord in heaven.”
“I’ve washed in the water,” said Emaleth. “Mother is sick under the tree. Mother can’t talk anymore.” Emaleth held out her hands. They were wet. Her hair hung wet on her breasts. She was slightly cold, but the air of the room was warm and still.
“Well, come in here,” said the woman, tugging her hand. She reached for a piece of cloth on a hook and began to wipe Emaleth’s long dripping hair. The water made a pool on the shiny floor. How clean things were here. How unnatural. How unlike the fragrant beating night outside, full of wings and racing shadows. This was a shelter against the night, against the insects that stung, and the things that had cut Emaleth’s naked feet, and scratched her naked arms.
The man stood still, staring up at Emaleth.
“Get her a towel, Jerome, don’t stand there. Get this girl a towel. Get her some clothes. Child, what happened to your clothes? Where are your clothes? Did something bad happen to you?”
Emaleth had never heard voices quite like these, of the brown people. They had a musical note in them that the other people’s voices didn’t have. They rose and fell in a distinctly different pattern. The whites of their eyes were not purely white, these people. They had a faint yellowish cast to them that went better with their beautiful brown skin. Even Father did not have this kind of soft ringing quality to his words. Father had said, “You will be born knowing all you need to know. Do not let anything frighten you.”
“Be kind to me,” said Emaleth.
“Jerome, get the clothes!” The woman had taken a big wad of paper off a roll and was blotting Emaleth’s shoulders and arms with them. Emaleth took the wad of paper and wiped her face. Hmmmm. This paper felt rough, but it wasn’t hurtfully rough, and it smelled good. Paper towels. Everything in the little kitchen smelled good. Bread, milk, cheese. Emaleth smelt the milk and cheese. That was the cheese, wasn’t it? Bright orange cheese in a block lying on the table. Emaleth wanted this. But she had not been offered it.
“We are by nature a gentle and polite people,” Father had said. “This is why they have been so hateful to us in times past.”
“What clothes?” said the man named Jerome, who was taking off his shirt. “There’s nothing in this house that’s going to fit her.” He held out the shirt. Emaleth wanted to take it but she also wanted to look at it. It was blue-and-white-colored. In little squares like the red and white squares on the table.
“Bubby’s pants will do it,” said the woman. “Get a pair of Bubby’s pants and give me that shirt.”
The little house was shining. The red and white squares on the table were shining. If she grabbed the edge of the red and white squares she could have pulled them off. It was one sheet, that thing. Shiny white refrigerator with an engine on the back of it. She knew the handle would bend just so, just by looking at it. And inside would be cold milk.
Emaleth was hungry. She had drunk all of Mother’s milk as Mother lay staring under the tree. She had cried and cried, and then she had gone to bathe in the water. The water was greenish and not fresh-smelling. But there had been a fountain on the edge of the grass, a fountain with a handle. Emaleth had washed better in that.
The man came rushing back into the room with long pants such as Father wore and he wore. Emaleth put these on, pulling them up over her long thin legs, almost losing her balance. The zipper felt cold against her belly. The button felt cold. But they were all right. Newborn, she was still a little too soft all over.
Father said, “You will walk but it will be hard.” These pants made a warm heavy covering. “But remember, you can do everything that you need to do.”
She slipped her arms into the shirt as the woman held it for her. Now, this cloth was nicer. More like the towel with which the woman kept patting her hair. Emaleth’s hair was golden yellow. It looked so bright on the woman’s fingers, and the inside of the woman’s hand was pink, not brown.
Emaleth looked down at the shirt buttons. The woman reached out with nimble fingers and buttoned one button. Very quick. Like that. Emaleth knew this. She buttoned the other buttons very fast. She laughed.
Father said, “You will be born knowing, as birds know how to build their nests, as giraffes know how to walk, as turtles know to crawl from the land and swim in the open sea, though no one has ever shown them. Remember human beings are not born with this instinctive knowledge. Human beings are born half-formed and helpless, but you will be able to run and talk. You will recognize everything.”
Well, not everything, Emaleth thought, but she did know that was a clock on the wall, and that was a radio on the windowsill. If you turned it on, voices came out of it. Or music.