Stranger On Lesbos (16 page)

Frances was silent, remembering the company guards with the bulging holsters and the MacAllister boy with the flesh rotting around the bullet hole in his leg. Yes, they would have it fixed.

It was full day now. The window squares were bright, striped with the black of metal bars against the sun. A man in uniform came to the door and called a name. The high-school girl who had been with the butch turned and gave her an imploring look, then followed him out.

"Christ," her friend said, "am I glad to see her go! My steady girl would kill me if she found out."

Others left one by one. Frances could visualize the whole thing: ringing phone, husband or father jumping up to answer, the search through drawers and pockets for money. (Would they take a check?) She was stubbornly glad she hadn't given Bill's name.

After a while the matron came in again and made a big to-do about counting off by two's, breaking up obvious couples. Frances and a thin nervous-looking girl she hadn't noticed before were led down a hall lit more or less by fifteen-watt bulbs and shown into a cell about nine feet square, with cots along two walls and an uncovered toilet. There didn't seem to be much to say. They sat down and waited. Finally the matron came back with two trays on which were plates of food, spoons and forks, plastic tumblers of water. "You can keep the water glasses."

The food was greasy
fried potatoes, hamburger, canned peas, a slice of bread with a square of butter on top. "They have it sent in," Frances' roommate explained. They ate in silence.

The afternoon stretched ahead endlessly. She sat up on the cot, fingering the mattress covered in striped ticking and the folded gray camp blanket. No sheets. Wish I had a book, she thought; never go anywhere without a book after this. Nobody had examined her pocketbook; she dumped its contents out on the cot and looked for something that would help pass the time. After she had filed her nails down to the quick and made up her face, which felt dry and gritty, there was nothing else to do. Her hands felt sticky. There were a small enamel basin and pitcher on a stand in the corner, but no water.

"They'll bring you water tomorrow, before breakfast. Shower twice a week."

"How do you
"

"Been in before."

Suppose I never get out? she thought wildly. It was silly, she knew. But it was all she could do not to rattle the door and scream, like somebody in a Grade B movie.

She thought about the girl with the earring, who now seemed like an old and cherished friend. From down the hall came a sound of hysterical crying, then a burst of hysterical laughter, quickly hushed. The matron came around gathering up trays, dishes, silverware.

Frances said, "I want to make a phone call."

"I'll ask the sergeant."

She had a five and three singles in her billfold, and perhaps a dollar's worth of change in the coin purse. She folded the five small and held it out. A gleam in the policewoman's eyes assured her that she was on the right track. She shoved the money into the woman's hand, looking the other way.

"My friend will take care of everything when she comes."

The matron went away.

She waited. Recite some poetry, like in the dentist's chair
it makes the time go faster. When I consider how my light is spent. The world is too much with us, late and soon. From thee have I been absent in the spring. National Sonnet Day, she thought, giving it up because she was too tired to remember any second lines.

"Uh, miss. You can call your friend now."

"Thank you."

The phone was down the hall, an old-fashioned wall style instrument a little too high for her. She stood on tiptoe, and dialed Bake's number with a trembling finger. The ringing went on and on.

"Hello?"

Wonderful relief flooded through her. Her knees shook so that she had to lean against the dingy wall. "This is me."

"Oh."

"Look, I'm in jail. I don't even know where it is." She looked toward the matron, who was frankly listening. The woman gave the address. "They're letting people out on bail, or something. I don't even know how much.

"Probably fifty," Bake said, as though it mattered.

"Will you come over and get me out?"

"Look, baby, I'm sorry as hell about this, I feel like a traitor, running out on you… But it wouldn't have done you a damn bit of good if they'd taken me along, now would it? I'd have been charged with assault or something. She was out cold." She stopped. Frances waited, digging her nails into the flesh of her hands. In the background, at Bake's end of the line, someone asked a question. The voice, vaguely suspended in mid-query, sounded familiar. Bake answered indistinctly. Then she said, "Look, baby, I haven't got any money. And even if I did I couldn't walk in there. Somebody might identify me."

"What am I supposed to do, stay here the rest of my life?"

Bake said reluctantly, "I don't like this any better than you do, but it looks like you better call Bill."

"Oh, I can't!"

"He'd come down and bail you out, wouldn't he?”

"I guess so, but I couldn't do that."

"Well, what else can you do?"

Bake said, "I'm worried sick about you, baby. Call me the minute you get out, will you?"

Frances hung up without answering.

The matron asked, "When will your friend get here?"

Frances looked at her. Malice overlay her thick features. "As soon as she can." She wanted to cry, but there was no place where she could be alone.

The cell door swung shut behind her.

Supper was soup and meat sandwiches. Her cellmate refused food with a mute shake of the head and lay down on one of the cots, pulling the scratchy blanket up and turning her face to the wall. Frances ate absent-mindedly, her mind a turmoil of bewilderment and raw, bleeding hurt.

Why? Why had Bake done this to her? She felt that nothing
not disgrace, not the fear of jail, not even the danger of being identified and tried and imprisoned
could have kept her from Bake if their roles had been reversed. Besides, it was impossible for her to imagine Bake timid or frightened. Bake, who drove better half-drunk than most people did sober, who walked for miles and disciplined her good sturdy body, who thought things out clearly and spoke her mind without any reservations
this wasn't a girl to take flight from trouble.

Maybe if I could understand, Frances thought miserably, it wouldn't hurt so.

She must have had a reason. She'd come if she loved me. I couldn't do this to her.

If I could only figure out why she did it. She must have had a reason.

"You got any water?"

Frances handed over the glass, only half aware of what she was doing. The girl said, "God, I'm thirsty," and took it in trembling hands. She handed back the empty tumbler and lay down again, her face turned away.

The lights in the hall burned all night. Like a hospital, Frances thought, remembering Bob's birth and the time she had her appendix out. The women in the next cell were whispering together; she could hear their voices, but she couldn't make out the words. She wished she had someone to talk to. At last she took off her shoes and lay down, uncomfortable in her clothes but not wanting to undress further in so public a place or to touch the grimy blanket.

She slept finally, too exhausted to stay awake but uncomfortable and conscious of the harsh mattress cover and matted stale-smelling wool blanket. Her skin itched, her face felt dirty. She wanted a bath.

She had been awake several times, falling back into an uneasy doze each time, when the sound of crying jolted her wide awake. Her cellmate was walking the floor, moaning, clutching her arms across her front.

Frances said, "What's the matter?" There was no answer. "Are you sick?"

The girl turned a drawn face to her. "My stomach hurts."

A policeman came to the door of the cell. "What's the matter here?"

"She doesn't feel good."

She hardly expected him to do anything about it, but he did; he went away, and came back in a few minutes with a stocky young man who, although in shirtsleeves and badly in need of a shave, had a doctor's air of being in command. He turned on the light in the cell, took the moaning girl by the shoulder and turned her around. He pulled down one eyelid, then the other; rolled up her sleeves and looked minutely at her thin upper arm.