Weekends were best, because Danny was around to pitch in and help out with the washing and the shopping. Sometimes we'd arrange for a baby-sitter and go out to dinner and a movie. It was a big help and what was nicest about those breaks was that we'd both come home renewed and excited to see the baby again.
It snowed all the time. It was too cold to go out most days and too warm in the apartment. One particularly gloomy afternoon, I sat with Mae on my lap and felt suddenly that if I didn't find something to do fast the walls were going to eat me. I had not dreamed of Rondua for a while, which was too bad because it would have given me something to think about during the endless feedings. As an exercise while sitting there. I tried to remember the finer details of what I had seen and experienced: the mysterious color combinations, the way amber light fell across the Ronduan mountains at daybreak and sunset.
Remembering daily life is difficult enough, God knows. Remembering dreams days or even months later is a wee bit more difficult.
When Mae had had her fill and dozed off, I put her in her crib. Rummaging around in a desk drawer, I dug up the notebook I had kept when the first dreams started. I hadn't put anything in the book since our return to America months before, but this time I set to work putting down these newest Ronduan scenes before they slipped away from me completely. The more I wrote, the more I remembered: the color of the camel's eyes, the sound of Felina's leathery feet padding across sandy ground.
My mind, which since Mae's birth had fallen into a kind of sleepy stupor, stretched and began shaking other parts of itself awake. It was like «Reveille» played in an Army barracks; one guy got up, then another, and soon the whole place was clattery noise and blankets thrown aside, feet hitting the floor everywhere.
I filled a few sides without worrying whether it was sequential or chronological or logical. It was a diary and diaries are conversations with yourself. _I_ understood what I was trying to say, so it didn't matter whether the entries made perfect sense or not.
The hours didn't «fly by,» but I did spend a long afternoon at it, working myself into a kind of tiredness I hadn't known for a long time – the kind of tiredness that comes at the end of good hard work which means something to you.
When Danny came home I was very animated and glad to see him. I didn't say anything about the notes, because I wanted to think about why I was really writing them. Were they catharsis, or just a way of passing time? Perhaps I was even laying the groundwork for the children's book I had thought about writing earlier. I didn't know what was at the heart of this and until I did, I decided to keep it all quiet.
A few days later I bought a very sharp leather notebook at a stationery store and started transferring everything into it. I knew I was getting serious when I forked out twenty-seven dollars for a notebook: I hadn't kept a real one since college. I was both stirred and intimidated by the vast number of unfriendly white pages in there. I don't have very nice handwriting, so I wrote slowly and very carefully, enjoying the act in itself and understanding for the first time why monks had once devoted so much time to illuminating manuscripts.
The first thing I tried to do in that pretty book was pull all my Yasmuda dreams together and somehow shape them up. I began with the first dream and my first words to Pepsi when we were in the plane, descending on Rondua.
«I remember when the sea was full offish with mysterious names; Mudrake, Cornsweat, Yasmuda, and there wasn't much to do in a day.»
While Mae slept or lay in her bassinet, eyeing her pink owl mobile, I wrote.
4
My mother took Mae and me out for lunch to «Amy and Joe's»: one of those presumptuous «really American» restaurants where they served us okay chili for seven dollars a bowl.
Walking home through breezy cold, Mom insisted on pushing the baby carriage the whole way. She talked about how one day all three of us girls would be having lunch together. Her face was one big smile after she said that.
The thought intrigued me. What would Mae James be like when she was old enough to sit at a restaurant table, legs long enough for her feet to touch the floor, her face interesting enough to draw the looks of men?
«What are you thinking about, dear?»
«About how kids get gypped by their parents. Their birth is _our_ second beginning, but then our death is the beginning of their end.»
«That's very poetic, but don't be morbid, dear: it's bad for the complexion. Isn't that your building? What's going on down there?»
Alarmingly, five police cars stood at strange angles to the curb in front of our apartment house. The drivers had been in too great a hurry to worry about proper parking.
Thank God in heaven I knew Danny was safe at work. I had called ten minutes before to warn him that dinner would be late due to «lunch-with-Mom.»
«Cullen, it looks like something bad has happened. Should you come over to our apartment? We'll get a cab and call Danny from there.»
«No, Mom, I want to see what's happened. It could have something to do with our apartment. Maybe I didn't turn the gas off. . . .»
We came to the barriers the police had put up to keep people back.
«Officer, I live here. What's happening?»
«Had a couple of murders, lady. Some nut killed his mother and sister. Somethin' real bad.»
People like to say that immediately after they heard the news they knew who did it. but I'd be lying if I said that. At the moment, I didn't even remember Alvin Williams _lived_ in the building. He wasn't the most memorable guy you'll ever meet, apart from his crimes.
«Holy shit, look at that damned guy!»
We had been chatting with the policeman, who knew nothing more about what had happened. He was the first to see that they were bringing Alvin out of the house. It was the middle of the day, but he wore a plaid pajama top over what I _think_ was a skirt. I couldn't tell because I was too shocked, then too drawn by the expression on his familiar face. Calm: absolute and total calm. His hands were handcuffed in front of him and he kept stumbling as he walked out of the building to the first police car.
«Look at the fuckin' blood, man!»
Two black teenagers in identical windbreakers and green watch caps stood next to us, taking everything in.
«He musta fuckin' cut the shit out of evvabody _in_ there.»
«Mother _fucker_, man! Where's his knife at?»
«Cullen, come on. Let's go to our house.»
We had started back from the barriers when Alvin shouted, «Mrs. James! Hey!»
His excited hoot grabbed me like a lasso and I froze where I was, but couldn't get up the nerve to turn and look at him.
«How're you, Mrs. James! How's the baby!»
A man in a ski jacket came up to me and showed his police badge. He was a nice-looking man. I heard doors close behind me, a siren start its wail.
«Do you mind if I talk to you for a minute, lady?»
«Want to know something strange? One of the last times I ever talked to Alvin, I came in here afterward for a cup of coffee.»
We were sitting in Marinucci's Ice Cream Emporium. The police detective's name was Gabe Flossmann and he had a soft voice wrapped around a thick New York accent.
«How well did you know him, Mrs. James? Did you ever have him over or anything, or go to his place?»
I shivered involuntarily. «No, nothing like that. We were just hall-friends, you know what I mean? 'Hello, good morning. How's your dog?' Nothing beyond that.»
«And you say the dog's name was _Loopy_?» He looked at the pad in his hand. I'd been surprised at how much he'd written down so far.
I nodded, then turned my head from side to side to ease the tension knot which sat in the middle of my neck.