Ruby Morris was Japanese and Hawaiian, twenty-six. She had been adopted by some missionaries on the Islands and brought to this country, where she so profited by the public school system that she soon outgrew her foster parents, teachers, and all those tender sentimental benefactors, who—treating her always as a pretty doll—had hovered over her progress. She renounced Christianity, relearned Japanese, turned Buddhist, and struck out for herself. With help from the small Japanese community in Chicago, she opened a store for curios, kimonos, and gifts. She prospered.
He entered into each relationship with an intensity that approached violence. He pursued several simultaneously to the verge of endangering even the redoubtable store of health that had been allotted to the Ashley’s. This phase of dissipation, however, came to an end almost as abruptly as it began, and without rancor. All was conducted under the sign of independence. He had made no promises and exerted no claims. Demetria and Ruby wanted to do his laundry for him; Anne-Marie and Lauradel wanted to buy him shirts and shoes; Ruby and Anne-Marie offered him a room in which to live; but he avoided any shadow of dependency.
These young women divined that something was amiss, that he was pursuing some end beyond sensuality and beyond vanity. They knew also that he was honest and that in some obscure way he was “in trouble.” Without knowing it he called upon their understanding; without knowing it he afforded them an opportunity to serve. And he, in turn, brought them an exceptional gift—his ardor held a large measure of wonder and curiosity and discovery. They were accustomed to being desired; it was something new to be listened to.
Lauradel:
“I used to see you come in and sit in that dark corner. You weren’t hiding from me, Junior. I knew you were listening. And you’d come up afterwards and say something gentlemanly and put twenty cents in the saucer. I don’t forget anything. And then you put that piece in the paper about our ‘Ballroom’ and about my singing and the white people started coming to the place and we had to move in eight more tables.—Have you gone off to sleep again, big ears?”
“No, I hear everything you’re saying, Lauradel.”
“Go to sleep, if you want . . . ? Men! . . . ? But that thing you put in the paper about me being such a good singer that I didn’t have to sing bad taste—I was mad! I wasn’t sure I knew what that meant. I asked people—some said it meant vulgar and common and dirty! Oh, I was mad. You and your cat’s-mess taste. The next night you came in, I wanted to go over to your table and tell you to GO HOME and take your taste with you. We didn’t want you and your pweetsy-tweetsy taste here. You! . . . ? You! . . . ?”
“Stop hitting me, Lauradel!”
“Because there are only two things I like to sing about: my religion and making love. And I don’t have to ask permission out of you, Mr. Tasty. I’m sorry I hit you, newspaperboy. I didn’t break any of your bones. Aren’t you ashamed to be lying there looking like a half-peeled radish?—Oh, you people that live in the middle of the United States and don’t know anything about the ocean! Do you know where I came from?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ll tell you. I came from the islands off the State of Georgia where only the boiled shrimps are that color of you. The sun gets hot in Chicago, too, but it isn’t real sun, not real. It hasn’t got any salt in it. You’re a poor little fresh-water nothing.”
“I can’t breathe, Lauradel. . . . ?”
“Taste!—Think about this for a minute. If nobody made love for a hundred days! Are you thinking about that—just to please your big Lauradel? People would be creeping around the streets as though their spines had turned to jello. Even the children would stop jumping rope. You’d go in a store and ask for a pair of shoes and the man would say, ‘Ma’am, shoes? Oh yes, shoes, let me see, have we any shoes?’ Just imagine what people’s eyes would be like—like holes you burned in wallpaper. The birds would fall out of trees; their wings wouldn’t have any zupp in them. The trees would sag like old widows with female trouble. And God would get up. He’d look down. He’d say, WHAT’S GOING ON AROUND HERE? THIS HAS GOT TO STOP! I DON’T WANT ANY MORE OF MR. TRENT’S CAT’S-MESS TASTE AROUND HERE.”
Roger slid out of bed and, kneeling, put his arms around her. She pushed him away, roaring with laughter, royal.
“GET LOVING, YOU SONS-OF-BITCHES, OR THE WORLD WILL TURN COLD. That’s what I sing about! Now do you understand?”
“Lauradel, you’re as big as a house!”
“Well, don’t you start getting me mixed up in my head about what’s vulgar and what’s not vulgar, because you don’t know and I know.”
Still laughing, she bent his head to the floor with her foot. “Get away from me, you little paperboy! I don’t know why I go around with such a pink wart.”
“You can hit me all you want to, Lauradel.”
“Get back into bed and stop playing the fool on my carpet. You’ll get splinters in your foot.—I told you about all the bad times I’ve been through, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“When a person’s been through ALL THAT and comes out alive—that person knows what’s what.”
“Tell me some more about your grandfather Demus.”
“Well, first: I’ve got another old bone to pick with you.”
“What else have I done wrong, Lauradel?”
“Mr. Trent—I mean Mr. Frazier—you hurt my feelings so bad that I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. And you know how you did it!” Roger was silent. “You sent back that overcoat I sent you. That wasn’t honorable or decent.”
“Lauradel!”
“You keep saying ‘Lauradel,’ but you don’t love me.”
“Lauradel, that’s the way I am.”
“When people love each other money doesn’t matter. Love kills money. I love to give, Mr. Trent. I wish I had a million dollars. I’d give you a . . . ? shoelace. You sent back the coat I gave you. You dress bad. You don’t dress any better than an old crow.”
“Don’t cry, Lauradel. Don’t cry.”
“You gave me a present: a real genuine invitation to Abraham Lincoln’s funeral.”
“I didn’t buy that. A lady gave it to me. An old lady gave it to me because of a piece I wrote in the paper.”
“But you gave it to me—in your heart you gave it to me.”
“Don’t cry, Lauradel. We all have to be as we’re made.”
“Well . . . ?”
“Lauradel, I have to get some sleep. I have to be at City Hall early tomorrow. Sing me to sleep, will you?”
“What’ll I sing you, boy? Shall I sing you ‘Sometimes I feel like a motherless child’?”
“No, not that one.”
“I’ll sing you one I never sang you before. It’s in the language my people talked on Sea Island, Georgia. It’s about why God made shells.”
And Ruby:
“What are you whispering to yourself about, Ruby?”
“Go to sleep, Trent. I’m reciting the Lotus Scripture.”
“I don’t want to go to sleep. I want to hold your hand and hear you talk.”
“Sh . . . ? sh . . . ?!”
“What is that new sign they’re putting over the door downstairs, Ruby?”
“I’m changing my name and the name of the store. I’ve wanted to do it for two years, but I had to wait until the business was going well. Tomorrow’s an important day for me, Trent. Please, will you, please, never call me Ruby again. My name is IZUMI.”
He kissed the tips of her fingers and said, “Izumi, Izumi.”
Weightlessly, trailing her soft robe, she left the bed and knelt on the floor. She lowered her forehead, as though acknowledging a courtesy. “You are the first person to call me by my name.”
“What does the name mean, Izumi?”
“Trent, have you heard that some people believe that men and women are reborn many times?”
“As many times as there are sands in the Ganges River.”
“Trent!”
“And that we either go up a
great staircase to the threshold of happiness or that we sink down and drag others down with us.”
“Trent!”
“We become almost-Buddhas. I forget what we are called then.”
She put two fingers on his lips. “The Lady Izumi was a poet. Because her poetry was beautiful and because she loved the Lotus Scripture she became a Bodhisattva.”
“Do you believe that, Izumi—that people are born again and again?”
Again she placed her finger on his mouth. “We call the world the Burning House.”
“What?”
“We are born again and again in the hope that someday, someday, we shall escape from this burning house.”
“You are very high up on the ladder, Izumi.”
She drew herself up straight as though she were offended. Then she laid her head down upon the pillow and turned away.
“How can you tell whether a person is high up or low down? Is it when a person is good?”
“Do not use the word ‘good.’ Say ‘free.’ I am very low down on the ladder, Trent.”
“You?”
“Yes, I have a great many weights that hold me down.’’
“No!—Name just one, Izumi.”
She placed the knuckles of her left hand between her breasts. “Here! I have a great ulcer, here.”
“Ruby! Ruby! Izumi!”
“Weights. Weights. Of anger. Of spite. I cannot forgive the people who tried to be kind to me. They hung their weights on me. Why should I be angry at them? They were ignorant. They were Christians! Oh, their burning house! To please them I was a detestable, unnatural, false little girl. They robbed me of my childhood and girlhood. See how angry I am! Go to sleep, Trent. I must say the Lotus Scripture.”
“Name one more weight, Izumi.”
Again she turned her head away on the pillow. She whispered, “You.”
“No!” He seized her hand. “Say no.”
She raised herself on her elbow and said, “You are very high on that stairway, Trent.”
“I! You don’t know what you’re saying!”
“You are not attached to things. You do not want fame or riches. You do not want to crush people with your power. You do not envy others. You are not proud. You have no hates. You are freeing yourself from everything that is bad in your Karma. When I first knew you I thought that maybe you were a Bodhisattva. But when I knew you a little better I could see that there was a little violence in you, left over, a little violence in your Karma.”
“What is Karma, Izumi?”
“It is the burden of fate that we have created for ourselves during all our thousands of past lives.”
He went around to her side of the bed and knelt before her face. “I am a weight in your life. I am not helping you to climb the great ladder.”
“Trent, do not be impatient. Impatience never freed a man from the burning house. I think you are helping me to forgive those people who were so kind to me. Will you go to sleep now?”
“Yes.”
She returned to whispering her sacred text.
“Translate to me the words that you were saying just then, Izumi.”
“I had come to the place where it tells of the plants that are reborn.”
“Plants go to Heaven, too??!”
“Trent! Trent! Every living thing is a part of the nature of the One. You know that. That’s why you write about animals so well. And about the planting of oak trees. We are all in the One.”
The turbulence of these associations subsided. When he came to have more money in his pocket he invited one or the other out to dinner. How they talked to him and his large ears! He laughed oftener—with them and at them and at himself.
Roger’s interest in the opera had abated. Reading—his new discovery—was now feeding his hunger for the noble and the heroic. He occasionally returned to the opera house, however, when his favorites were performed.
There was a late spring season in 1905. At the close of a performance Roger stood near the main entrance watching the audience disperse. His attention was attracted by a very beautiful young woman who was also lingering by a marble column. He had noticed her on a number of occasions, always seated in a box with a handsome couple of older years; he assumed she was their daughter. On this evening the mother was absent. The father had been detained in conversation by friends. The young woman had just replaced an enormous hat on her head. She was elegant, tightly laced, conspicuous, accustomed to the world’s gaze and unabashed by her temporary isolation. She had acquired the art of looking through the admiring faces that turned toward her. With one gloved hand she meditatively smoothed the veil drawn over her chin, with the other she played with a feather boa thrown over her shoulders. This was not the kind of woman that Roger found attractive. What had long interested him in her, however, was her air of being upborne on some tide of supreme assurance.
Suddenly he realized that this was his sister Lily.
Her companion rejoined her and they left the theatre, Roger following. Apparently they had only a short distance to go. They talked in Italian. He heard his sister’s laughter—of a kind he had not heard from her before; it ranged over an octave and a half; it echoed in the streets. They came to a grey sandstone house that bore a brass plate: “The Josepha Carrington Jones Club for Young Ladies.” Lily, latch key in hand, turned and thanked her escort warmly. He continued down the street, humming. As she was unlocking the door Roger spoke her name softly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Lily, I’m Roger.”
She flew down the steps on the wings of her great cloak and threw her arms around him. “Roger, Roger! Darling Roger!—Oh! How tall you are! Oh, how you look like Papa!—I want to show you to Maestro Lauri, my singing teacher. He just left me here at the door.”
How long had he been in Chicago? What did he do? Oh, how he looked like Papa—dear wonderful Papa!
“Can we go somewhere for a cup of coffee? No man is allowed in this building after six. Wait for me here until I change my clothes. . . . ? I have to kiss you again. Roger, what does it all mean—what happened to us?” She started up the stairs then turned back. “Roger, I have a little boy—he’s wonderful, wonderful. Roger, how did Mama feel about my running away? I had to do it, Roger. I had to get away from Coaltown. I’m never going back—never, never. I send Mama money every month.”
“I know you do.”
“Soon I’ll be able to send her lots.”
Twenty minutes later they were seated in a German restaurant. Lily resembled her mother and Constance; Roger resembled his father and Sophia. For a time what they saw was more engrossing than what they said. The cascades of laughter.
“I have the most beautiful baby in the world and I’m not even married.” Laughter. She raised her hand and showed him the gold band. “I bought it in a pawnshop! I’m Mrs. Helena Temple. The boy’s name is John Temple. He’s living with an Italian family that loves him to death. I don’t know when he’ll learn to speak English.”
It was not new to Roger that those who ask no questions receive the fullest answers.
“I passed his father on the street yesterday. He hates me.” Laughter. “He hates me because he struck me.”
“What?”
“Twice, in fact. He struck me because I laughed at him. Men hate to be laughed at. He kept trying to teach me such stupid music. He wanted me to go on the vaudeville stage with him. He wanted me to practice kicking a top hat off his head. Imagine!” (Laughter.) “But—in his way—he’s a perfectly nice man! I’ll always be grateful to him for taking me to Maestro Lauri. I sang two of those songs I used to sing in Coaltown and the Maestro said that I was the pupil he’d spent his life hunting for. Every month I write him a receipt for the lessons I’ve had and when I earn enough I’ll start paying him back. I sing at funerals and weddings and I sing in the Episcopal church on Sunday mornings, and in a Presbyterian church in the evenings. The funeral parlors send for me five and six times a week—Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria.??
? Fifteen dollars—take it or leave it! I won’t sing ‘I know a garden where roses sleep.’ I’m a tartar, Roger! Weddings—Handel’s ‘Where’er you walk’—fifteen dollars. I won’t sing ‘Oh, promise me.’ Lots of people are furious at me, but I get jobs.—Roger, what do you do?”
“I’ll tell you later. How did it come to an end with the father of your boy?”
“Well, he struck me a second time. There we were in that hot hotel room and he’d been trying to teach me a song and dance called ‘The Way We Do the Cancan in Kentucky.’ Imagine! I said I wouldn’t do it one more moment and I laughed at him. He struck me hard. And he cried. He really loved me in a way. When he left the room I stole his amethyst ring and went to that club for working girls. For a while I washed dishes and helped cook. I showed them I knew everything about boardinghouses! They wanted to make me housekeeper. Then I had my wonderful baby in a Catholic hospital. I loved everything about it. I sang to the other girls. I sang even when I was having the baby. The doctor and sisters were laughing. Giovannino was born to laughter and my screeches and Mozart’s ‘Alleluia.’ He was a seven-months baby, but he’s as strong as I am. I’m going to have a hundred boys and girls—all beautiful and strong like Gianni.”
Roger could not take his eyes from his sister’s face. His mother, who had so beautiful a smile, seldom—never—laughed.
“But that’s enough about me! Tell me, what work do you do?”
“I write for newspapers.”
“Oh, do that! Do that! Someday you’ll be as good as ‘Trent.’ Do you ever read ‘Trent’s’ pieces?”
“Yes.”
“I save them. I sent some to Mama. The Maestro thinks they’re very good and Signora Lauri has collected every one of them.”