Ruth approached it slowly, holding a handkerchief against her mouth, partly to control its trembling and partly to protect it from the dust.
Her voice came through the handkerchief, muffled and strange. “Everything is so dirty. I must clean.” I must face things, I must expiate, I must clean, I must, I must... She removed the yellow slicker and a faint odor of urine rose from the mattress pad and vanished.
The hedge clipper lay snugly on its side, but it did not breathe or move; it did not look or smell or feel like a real baby, and yet for a brief time in Ruth’s mind it had been real. It had breathed against her scrawny chest and warmed her arms and made loving sounds in her ear.
She reached into the buggy and pulled the clipper out roughly by one handle.
“Only a clipper,” she said with a sharp little laugh. “You see? It is funny.”
“Yes.”
“I wish you’d laugh. You laugh at other things, why not at this?”
Hazel didn’t answer.
“I suppose you think I’m crazy. Well, I’m not. I sometimes wish I were. Life can be so dirty, so cruel, so terrifying.” Life is dirty, I must clean; it is cruel, I must be kind; it is terrifying, I must be brave, face things.
“Where does he live?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Escobar.” It was the first time she had ever called him by his name.
“On Quincy Street, 509, I think.”
“You said the hard part was over, Hazel. You were wrong.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m going to take the clipper back myself. That will be the hardest part, explaining to him.”
“For God’s sake, Ruth, be sensible. You can’t explain to him, you—”
“I must.”
She turned and walked back through the dead leaves and the dust, with the hedge clipper hanging loosely from her hand, striking her thigh as she moved.
She took a bus across town in the direction of Quincy Street. Since it was Sunday, the bus was nearly empty and the driver had to go very slowly to kill time. On weekdays, in order to keep to his schedule, he was compelled to drive at a wild clip, dodging in and out of traffic, blowing his horn, spurting through the streets like a grounded pilot demoted to the wheel of a dilapidated bus but not admitting it for a minute.
Sunday was different, low gear, five miles an hour. He had time to look around and enjoy himself and study his passengers through the rear-view mirror. The young Negro couple were in love, probably newly in love, from the way they sat and looked at each other in utter silence; the old man behind them was smiling drowsily to himself as if the bus was his own private Cadillac and he was taking a Sunday drive.
Only the gray-haired woman sitting taut and rigid near the rear exit door with a parcel across her knees seemed anxious for a destination. She kept peering out at the street signs.
“Driver?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You heard me say Quincy Street?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll be sure and—?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He looked at her curiously. Her features reminded him of a teacher he’d had years ago in Jefferson grade school, a very gentle, pretty, young woman who had trouble keeping the class quiet. When she said goodbye on the last day of school she had cried a little and most of the children had cried too. Miss Kane. He hadn’t thought of her for years.
“Quincy Street,” he said, and the woman got up, clutching her parcel, and headed for the door.
He swung around in his seat and stared at her, his eyebrows raised, as if he expected an answer to some question.
Miss Kane?
She stared back at him for a moment, and then turned away. Sorry, Miss Kane doesn’t live here any more.
The door closed behind her and the bus moved away, its ageing insides grumbling and letting off wind.
She stood and watched, remembering the bus driver perfectly, his name, his age, his report card. Melvyn Schlagel, grade three. Dear Mrs. Schlagel, Melvyn is a bright and lovable boy, and I am sure his indifferent marks are merely the result of high spirits and will improve greatly in time to come. Sincerely, Ruth Kane.
Miss Kane?
Yes, Melvyn.
She raised her hand and waved, just as the bus reached the corner. She was not sure whether Melvyn waved back or whether he was making a left-turn signal. No, they never make signals, she thought, he must have waved back at me. He knew me after all these years. I can’t have changed so much. Perhaps next time, if I see him again, we will have a little chat about old times. What a noisy class I had that year, but I loved them all.
The bus turned the corner and Ruth began to walk in the opposite direction down Quincy Street, a new glow in her eyes and a bounce in her step, as if the unexpected reminder of happy years made them more real in the past and more possible in the future. The gap between the two seemed suddenly smaller, its walls lower, its moats easier to leap across, its doors already half-open.
Quincy Street was packed solid with small square frame shacks, their front windows no more than six feet from the sidewalk. Five hundred and nine was in the middle of the block, indistinguishable from its neighbors except for two potted geraniums precariously balanced on the sagging railing of the tiny porch. On the front door someone had printed in chalk, “Viva la Fiesta,” and in ink, on a card above the doorbell, “Out of Order.”
She banged on the door with the side of her fist to make herself heard above the street noises, the rumble of roller skates, the shrieks of children, the barking of dogs. She was aware that people were watching her as they watched anyone new or different in the neighborhood. Windows were raised, blinds snapped up, lace curtains parted, eyes narrowed.
She knocked again and waited, half-hoping that Escobar would answer right away so that she could get the whole thing over with, and yet dreading the moment when she would come face to face with him and try to explain: Here is your hedge clipper, Mr. Escobar. You didn’t lose it, you didn’t leave it anywhere. I took it, yes, quite deliberately. I committed a sinful act. I must pay for it. I must—
A young Negro in a T-shirt and a straw hat came around the side of the house and looked at her over the porch railing.
He said, in a monotone, “Ain’t nobody in.”
“Oh.”
“They went away couple hours ago. Fishing. They eat a lotta fish.” He folded his arms on his chest and teetered back and forth on the balls of his feet. He was wearing very long pointed shoes the color of mustard. “I live next door. Name’s Jenkins.”
“I’m Miss Kane.”
He tipped his hat briefly. “Pleased to meet you.”
“I — you have no idea when they’ll be back?”
“Depends on the fishing.”
“Could I–I wonder if I could leave this parcel here on the porch? It’s Mr. Escobar’s hedge clipper.”
“Oh, that. I heard them talking about it. The walls are thin,” he added, as if that explained everything. “It fell off his bicycle.”
“No. No, it didn’t.”
“Just saying what I heard at supper.”
“He never had it on his bicycle!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Still holding his arms over his chest he took a step back, as if her voice had struck like a spear at his vital organs.
“I know, because I took it. I—” I stole it, I committed, a sin. I must expiate. Viva la Fiesta. Out of Order. She inhaled deeply and the hot dusty air rattled in her throat like gourds. “I took it and put it away in the garage — for safekeeping.”