Boundaries (26 page)

For many months, Beatrice went out of her way to arrange intimate dinner parties at her home with friends she knew Neil liked, but beyond the general courtesies expected of civilized adults, John Sinclair and Neil Lee Pak barely said a word to each other. Yet the coldness between them could not last; a détente was inevitable. Both men sorely missed their chess games (
tournaments
, Neil referred to them), and it took only a rumor that his doctor friend, or doctor ex-friend, was boasting that he could beat any man on the island for John Sinclair to issue a challenge. “Come to the house Wednesday night and we’ll see who’s the real champion,” he said over the telephone. The match lasted beyond midnight and ended in a draw that required a rematch the following Wednesday. By then both men decided to let bygones be bygones and no mention was ever made of the incident that caused the break in their friendship. No blame passed John’s lips either when years later Dr. Ramdoolal informed him that his wife had a tumor that had been growing in her breast for more than two years.

Given her father’s willingness to risk a valued friendship for his principles, Anna is certain he will not agree with Rita that she should have assumed that Tim Greene, like any new boss, has the right to remove the old staff no matter how accomplished, no matter how their dismissal might affect them, no matter that plans worked on for weeks, months, would be squished like so much air from a balloon. The new boss is free to appoint a new team with people he knows, cronies, friends. This is Rita’s opinion. It happens frequently, she said, but Anna is confident her father will not approve. Only once that she knows of had he broken his rule, bent it really, when he offered to speak to a friend on her behalf. But the job she was seeking was not in the oil company where he worked. She wanted to teach; she had the credentials to teach; expatriates had been favored above her. Her father could not be witness to his daughter’s growing depression and do nothing.

Her parents are glad to see her. They have made dinner, or her father has cooked again, guided by his wife’s directions. Anna smells the pungent odor of curry wafting through the corridor as she approaches her apartment. It’s been a year since she has cooked curry and she did so only because it was Paula’s birthday and she wanted a homecooked Caribbean meal. The next day there was a note in her mailbox:

“We wanted you have some island cooking before we left,” her mother says when Anna opens the door. She is sitting on the couch in the living room. She does not get up.

Anna walks over to her and offers her cheek. “So you
are
serious,” she says. “You intend to leave.”

Her mother presses her cheek against Anna’s. “This weekend.”

“If Paul Bishop gives her permission.” Her father, who stood up when Anna came into the apartment, kisses her, his lips brushing her cheek.

Her mother glances at them, narrows her eyes, and then looks away. “Of course he’ll give permission. I feel fine.”

“We’ll see. Paul called. He said he’ll come by this evening. But I suppose you already know that, Anna.”

“Yes,” Anna says. She goes to the kitchen and switches on the exhaust fan above the stove.

“I didn’t know where it was,” her father admits sheepishly.

“That’s why I miss home so much,” her mother says. “Back home, all the windows and doors are open. You don’t smell the curry.”

“We boil vinegar in water and light candles here,” Anna explains.

Her mother wrinkles her nose. “All that to cook curry!”

“To absorb the scent.” Anna puts a pot of water on the stove and pours a cup of vinegar into it. “With the fan and this, the scent won’t be as strong.” She lights a perfumed candle.

Her mother shakes her head. “That’s why I miss home,” she says again.

“When Paul comes, he’ll give us his recommendation.”

John Sinclair sits down on the couch next to his wife.

“Recommendation or not,” Beatrice says irritably, “I want to go home.”

John Sinclair sighs. The rush of breath expelled from his throat is all it takes for his wife to understand he is displeased with her petulance.

“Not that you haven’t made us most comfortable here,” she says to Anna. “You’re a good daughter. I couldn’t want more than you have already done for me, for us. It’s just that I miss my garden. Who knows what Singh has done to my orchids? And if he doesn’t move the pots of red impatiens in the shade by midday, they’ll shrivel and burn to a crisp in the hot sun.”

“Oh, Beatrice,” John Sinclair says, barely masking his impatience. “Singh takes good care of your garden.”

“When I supervise him.”

“Singh does not need supervision. He’s a master gardener.”

“And I am not?”

Her husband has entered dangerous waters and so now he does his best to pull himself out. “Of course you are,” he says, patting her knee. “If not for you—”

“And your fish. I’m sure you’re worried about your fish.”

“I hope Lydia’s fed them,” John Sinclair says. “Most of the time she overfeeds them and my fish pond gets all clogged up.”

“With dog food,” Beatrice explains to Anna, but she knows this already. Her father has had to give up his dogs and though he has a fish pond now, fish food is scarce. Dogs, not fish, can protect you from the vicious crimes drug dealers have unleashed on the island now that NAFTA has made growing bananas and sugarcane in the Caribbean no longer profitable, and fishermen can quadruple their income ferrying drugs in their pirogues.

“I can’t seem to get Lydia to understand that she should sprinkle the nuggets in the water,” John Sinclair says. “She fills up the bowl as if she’s feeding a dog, not fish.”

“So there,” Beatrice says. “You worry about your fish and I worry about my garden.”

John scratches his head. His eyes are glazed. He seems deep in thought, worried.

Now that she has managed to redirect his attention, Beatrice returns to her complaint: she wants to go home, and as early as possible. “I miss church.”

“I can take you,” Anna says. “There’s a Catholic church not far from here.”

“It’s not the same. We have friends in the church. After Mass, your father and I get to catch up on the news with them. We have steel-pan music in church. Do you know that, Anna?”

Anna does not know that.

“And sometimes after church, your father and I go to the botanic gardens.”

“We have a botanic garden here in Brooklyn,” Anna says.

“I suppose.” Her mother adjusts the folds of her skirt around her legs. “But the anthuriums under the bamboo shed! You should see them, Anna.”

She cannot offer her steel-pan music in church or anthuriums under the bamboo shed in the botanic garden in Brooklyn. There is a greenhouse there, but the flowers are not as vibrant, the pink, red, and white anthuriums not as bright as the ones that grow under the tropical sun, seeping through spaces in the flowering vines that loop around bamboo slats. And if she took them to the Catholic church not far from her apartment, there would be no one there they know, no one to talk to about daughters and sons who have made it big in the big countries. No one to tell that their Anna is the head of a publishing house in big New York. The parents of children who have emigrated keep the fairy tale alive. The roads are paved with gold in the big countries across the ocean.

“Well, Paul Bishop will settle the matter when he comes,” John Sinclair says. “He’ll let us know if we can leave by the weekend.”

“Did you invite him for dinner?” Anna frames the question as though she has no stake in the answer.

“Oh, we couldn’t have him here without inviting him to dine with us,” her mother says.

“Of course.” Anna looks away from her, but her mother is quick to notice her agitation.

“Not to worry, we don’t plan to keep you. Your father and I intend to turn in early. You and Paul probably have things to talk about. Don’t look so disappointed.”

But Anna is not disappointed because she will have less time with Paul; she is disappointed because she wants more time with her father before Paul arrives. She wants to tell him about Tim Greene. She knows he will agree with her and she wants the reinforcement she is certain he will give her when he confirms that her anger is justified.

Anna does not respond to her mother. Instead, she turns to her father and relates to him all that has happened to her at work. He listens and does not interrupt. He waits in silence until she comes to the end of her tale, until she flops down on the armchair facing the couch where he and his wife are sitting, and says, her voice rising to a whine, “Conrad Hilton may have the qualifications, but the only one that Tim found necessary to have me know is that he’s his friend.”

“An African American?” These are her father’s first words.

“Of course,” Anna says, stretching out her legs.

“Then that’s different.”

“And how so?” Anna sits up.

“You shouldn’t fight this, Anna. Accept it.”

“Why should she accept it?” They turn in unison toward Beatrice, surprised to hear her voice, for Anna has been speaking directly to her father. Not once has she even glanced at her mother. She was talking about work, what had happened to her at work. Her mother is a housewife; she knows nothing about the world of work; she cannot advise her. “Why?” her mother asks again.

“Because she should,” John Sinclair answers.

“You never did.” Beatrice shifts her body slightly away from her husband. The movement is barely perceptible, but Anna notices it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Beatrice.”

“Neil. I’m talking about Neil.”

“Neil has forgotten that whole business a long time ago.”

“I pleaded with him, Anna, to put in a word for his friend, but he refused.”

“That’s done and finished, Beatrice.”

“Just a word, John. I didn’t ask you to demand that your boss hire him.”

“The other doctor was better than Neil,” John murmurs.

“And are you saying this … What’s his name, Anna?”

Anna is too dumbfounded to speak.
After all these years,
opposing her husband for her!

“He was a hotel manager. Isn’t that what you said, Anna?”

“Conrad Hilton,” Anna says, finding her voice.

“The owner of the hotel?”

“This is not a time for joking, Beatrice.” Her husband’s tone is scathing. “He’s African American. Anna already said so.”

“I think he used to work for another publishing company,” Anna says.

“It doesn’t matter.” Her mother waves her hand in the air dismissively. “He can’t be more qualified than you, Anna. You have worked for Windsor for years. They owe you.”

“It’s not the same situation, Beatrice.”

“I remember that was the argument you used when you refused to recommend Neil. You said the other doctor had worked for the company for years.”

John shakes his head in frustration. “Anna.” He addresses his daughter. “Anna, I think—”

Beatrice interrupts him. “I know how it feels.” She is looking at Anna too.

“How what feels?” John turns to his wife.

“I know how I felt when I was forced to give up my job. I was good at it, as Anna is good at hers.”

“Tim Greene didn’t care how I felt.” Anna is speaking to her mother, the woman who suffered through four miscarriages to give birth to her.

“I felt like some useless piece of garbage, as if my feelings did not count.” Beatrice’s eyes are still fixed on Anna.

“My feelings did not matter to him. He was thinking of himself and his friend. I was used, kicked to the curb when I had served my purpose. My job was to show Tim Greene the ropes. Those were the words Tanya used: the ropes. She hired him to work with me so I’d show him the ropes.”

“My boss hired my replacement while I was still on the job. My job was to train my replacement to take my place.”

“Now that Equiano is on its way to getting some measure of respectability, now that I have a chance to publish a Bess Milford, they take it away from me.”

“It took me months to get over the rejection, the humiliation, the feelings of powerlessness. Someone was controlling my life and there was nothing I could do.”

“What about me?” John Sinclair is now staring at his wife in disbelief. “What about our marriage? Wasn’t our marriage enough for you?”

“You needed more than our marriage. You needed something to do.” Beatrice meets his eyes, refusing to back down.

“I didn’t have a choice.” John lowers his voice. “I had to earn an income. Put a roof over our heads, food on the table.”

“And was that all work meant to you?”

John’s lips part in befuddlement. The folds in the space between his eyes contract. “Beatrice, please.”

“I saw how excited you were every time you won a case and got both parties to agree to your terms. I lived with you. I saw how energized you were. I wanted that too.”

“My job?”

“Something that excited me besides you.”

“I wasn’t enough for you?”

“There would have been more for us to talk about. I would have known you better if I knew what it felt like to be successful, to do a job that you were praised for, appreciated for. If I had experienced that feeling, I could have helped you.”

“You did help me. You gave me a home to come back to.”

“You could have had more of me. You could have known me better.”

“But I know you, Beatrice.”

The hurt in her husband’s eyes is more than Beatrice can bear. She surrenders. “Yes,” she says softly. “You know me as well as I know myself.” She comes closer to him.

“But I don’t want Anna to give up like I gave up. We could have fought them.”

“It was the law then, Beatrice,” he responds quietly.

“It was the wrong law even then.”

“This is a different matter.”

“Anna was hurt in the same way,” she says.

“I don’t want her to be bitter. She has to live in America. She needs to understand. There is a history here we were not part of. Remember the story about my friend Ulrich Cross?”

“What story?” Anna asks.