The Cosmopolitans (8 page)

Chapter 8

B
ut I wrote you!”

Bette had never opened the letter. She did not think it would matter.

And this, perhaps, is what happens when one refuses knowledge. A kind of chaos ensues. Now, as a consequence of her own avoidance, Bette found a young woman named Hortense at her threshold. This young woman had anguished for weeks about her youthful fate, and then one night, when everyone else was asleep, had written in secret to a hidden, forbidden address, asking for a place to stay when she ran away to New York. She'd waited futilely for a response, with daily anxiety. Intercepting postmen. Finally, deciding that the only possible explanation for Bette's silence was a well-intentioned response waylaid into a dead letter office someplace east of the Mississippi, Hortense acquired a suitcase and hid it in the woods. Realizing she had to take that chance, she bought the bus ticket.

Hortense's arrival in New York City occurred that
very day. And Bette had denied herself the right to say yes or no by avoiding the facts of the matter—that
someone
was trying to get her attention. So, despite her knowledge of the dangers posed by others, Bette listened to her better self, the one who had a very active interest in the ways of the human mind and a general curiosity about how people experience the world. Besides, such a particular request had never come her way before.

“I thought that . . . usually . . . when people . . . decline, they say
no
.”

“That's true,” Bette conceded, recognizing, with some concern, how far she had stepped from common convention.

The girl before her had a small nose, blue eyes, long brown hair streaked with blonde. A foreigner.

“Why would you want to stay with me?”

“Well,” the girl squeaked, somewhat endearingly for her obvious lack of sophistication, her heartland manner, Midwestern accent, and the simple fact of being new. Then she stopped, embarrassed, not knowing if she should say more. But having that thin kind of Caucasian skin that Bette herself had once possessed, Hortense's hesitancy showed itself immediately as a blush swept over her pink little ears. Bette remembered, suddenly, that
back home
this was considered “cute.” But here it provoked a flat response of waiting, waiting for the person to change into someone to be taken seriously. It's not that city life changed one's biology enough to impede blushing, but rather that embarrassment was less and less of a common reaction to events.

“Well?” Bette asked.

“All my life I've heard . . .”

Oh
. Bette felt pain.
They still slandered, habitually
. Having to picture
them
, the banal and powerful who had driven her from her home. They were still so closed? They hadn't adjusted their views after thirty years? She'd almost forgotten but not quite. They were so small. All this time later and they still pointed to her as the bad example. For new generations! The one to be avoided. No better object of blame had come along to take her place.

Bette thought about her cousin's triumph, her parents' condemnation, her brother passively smoking in the corner as she packed and left. She remembered them almost in black and white. More like sepia. Like a photo portrait from her parents' time instead of the contemporary snapshot. Frozen. Formal. Distinctly ill at ease. They led their petty lives filled with lies and deceit, and they dared to condemn her. She had long ago come to understand, with Earl's help, that her expulsion by the family was the most determining act of their lives, as well as hers. It made them who they are. Just as their cruelty had created her it had also created them.
That's why I never opened the letter
, she realized. She'd ceased to believe that her actions could have consequences on others, since it was these others who had always had consequences on her. That was a breach, Bette knew, of decency. She must always be responsible for her actions. Therefore she owed this girl her full consideration.

“Bette! I'm so sorry.”

Sorry?
Bette looked up to discover Hortense's expression
of recognition. She saw Bette's hurt! She acknowledged it. And she was feeling regret at having caused it. The girl was so clean, all this showed in her face. She cared. But why?

“Yes?”

“Cousin Bette, don't let it . . . don't let them . . . they condemn people like us just for . . .”

“Like
us
?”

There was only one
us
in Bette's life. A black homosexual actor who lived next door. She had never heard another human being compare themself to her. Of course Hector
tried
to implicate her into his responsibilities at the firm. “We,” “the team!” and other kinds of gung ho. But she would have none of that. Here, this young girl . . . it was . . . destabilizing, in the desire it provoked. Bette could not deny the longing to belong, and how quickly it had come upon her. After all this time, literally decades, the mere mention of ancient transgressions propelled her into a whirlwind of lack and confusion. And she suddenly, desperately wanted to be loved by more than one other person on this earth. She wanted this. When had she last wanted something she couldn't have? A family. How could it still be so open? This wound?

“Yes!” Hortense insisted enthusiastically. “Women who want to live differently. As
we
do. Who have bodies and minds to be used for other things than marrying off into ignorance and staying there, recreating themselves in tiny ignorant babies and some dull man. When instead
we
can have . . .”

“What can
we
have?”

“Adventures!” Hortense found the word.

Bette looked at her with interest. This young Hortense was more what, in the old days, would have been called the flapper or suffragist type. The kind who could have been found in the speakeasies
and
registering to vote. Somewhat the way Bette, herself, had begun. Hortense was ahead. And certainly she had an accurate picture of the fate that awaited her in Ohio. But . . . Frederick . . .

“Your father?”

“Yes?” Hortense was shy now.

“Does your father condemn . . . this . . . too? Still?”

“Father has a woman,” Hortense blurted out, seemingly in spite of a resolve to caution.

Ah
. Bette felt calmed. Hortense was important. She had information. And she also had a fury to her words. Hortense was offended. But
why?
Did she identify with her mother's claims and the order of propriety? Or was it lying in any form that provoked her outrage?

“He has a mistress!” Hortense blurted out again, like a truck backfiring diesel fuel. Then she looked secure, as though she understood the social terrain of apartment 2E. “And yet he condemns
you
for offering yourself to him.”

“
Offering?” HYPOCRITE. Still
. “Still.”

Bette backed off from the face to face. She was exhausted. Like rushing to work through a terrible snowstorm, it took all of one's determination to carry on, but impossible to go back. The only alternative was to sit on the snowy curb and freeze to death. This was more intimate interaction with a stranger than she had had in decades. Perhaps ever. She walked to her window for a brief escape. Back to the world she knew
so well, from the perch she preferred:
observer
, instead of
participant
.

Outside, it was all there waiting for her. Relief. She saw a young Negro boy selling newspapers and an older Negro man carrying his shine box home from work at the shoe repair. Would one grow into the other? Or would the child heal the violations endured by the adult? Were they father and son? Friends? Did they share their workday together, give each other someone to talk to? Side by side, telling their stories about what it was all like? Did the older reassure the younger, was he proud? Did he respect him? Understand? With that kind of love, was having dreams possible? Bette had built a life for herself, without dreams. Oh, she wanted the best for Earl, but for herself? It was too lonely, a goal. If she were to reach for anything, she would surely be disappointed. No motive could outweigh the potential for pain.

Bette knew she had to step back into the room. She couldn't just do what she wanted to do, sit in her chair and watch the world. She had a responsibility to respond. Slowly, she turned around and was slightly dizzy to discover that Hortense had not moved. The girl was waiting. Waiting for Bette. For Bette to decide. Bette looked right at her, as someone in authority would. Summing her up.

There were two things about Hortense that stood out boldly: her flawless skin and her hope. Hope to escape the fate of Ashtabula, Ohio. None of the biblical prophesies of retribution for evil acts had come to pass for these oh-so-righteous relatives. They just lied on and on, apparently. On and on and on. In grace.
Apparently
.

“Does your mother know? That Frederick has a woman?”

“No. Mother does not know.”

Only then did Bette see that Hortense was still standing in the doorway. That the door was still open and that Hortense was still holding her suitcase. That's how much Bette was in charge here. The girl made no assumptions. How odd. How fresh.

“You can put down your suitcase.”

“Thank you, Cousin Bette.”

Bette noted that this interaction felt reasonable. It felt manageable. It felt good.

“So, he has a woman.”

“His mistress lives only a mile from our house. Downtown. Her name is Mildred Tolan.”

This name, it was buried somewhere in Bette's psyche. “Not Patricia Tolan's daughter?” That was it! How had she remembered that nonentity from fourth grade?

“Her
grand
daughter.”

Hortense's eyes lit up. How preposterous. And Bette felt the same way. They agreed, it was clear. Frederick was ridiculous.

“Oh, Hortense.” Now, this was the advantage of living long. One survives to see the cruel, the misguided, the deranged show themselves again and again.
Patience, Bette. Patience
. Knowing witnesses were accumulating now, standing by the road, waiting for the parade to finally appear.

“My father is destroying our family over a girl my age.”

“You're sure your mother doesn't know?”

“Yes.”

“And tell me, Hortense. What do you think about that?”

“That is the life that they wish for me. And so I know I am not loved. For a parent who truly loved would wish better than deception and petty passions, and would fight with everything they had to give their child another path.”

Hortense did not feel loved, because Hortense somehow knew what love truly was. And she knew that her parents did not hold those capabilities. Bette smiled. Frederick had once known real love. She was the witness. That he'd never found it again was no surprise. Bette was enjoying this enormously. Her horrible cousin, Crevelle, successfully deceived in front of her own child! She felt no pity for Crevelle, and she was glad to know that Frederick was unhappy. Foolish. A squanderer, still. Certainly this would all lead to his transformation somehow. She dared to think it could.

It had finally come. What all books and plays and films promised. The reversal. Bette had long ago dismissed these manufactured literary devices as unhealthy as frozen vegetables. But here it was before her. On her doorstep. A reversal. After all this time of yearning, yearning, missing Frederick, her family, her life—after all this, it had come to her. On a cross-country bus. Today. The change was before her.

Bette had to be wise. She could not slam her door now, now that the heavens were singing. But she had to also see Hortense as her own real person, with her own character. Not just a messenger.

Sizing her up again, Bette discovered an arrogance
that she appreciated. Clearly Hortense had gotten on the Greyhound already expecting Bette to give in to her request, to invite her to unpack, and to stay. And now Hortense had achieved this goal. Without making Bette feel pressured. She had learned well at those etiquette classes. In church. And every other place where facade was installed. If the family had remained prosperous, then most people in that little girl's life had opened the door for her, until the moment she'd rebelled. But by then, of course, it was too late. She was a conceited, healthy female looking for equals to respect and resonate with. And this had made her leave the known and be alone. That showed far more than entitlement. It was a wishful pluck and courage from which good things could come.

On the other hand, Hortense had no picture of the horrors that awaited her if Bette were to say no. After all, it was Bette who had been forced to walk up and down the avenues, dragging her belongings, looking for boarding houses, and settling into the wrong ones. It was Bette, with no one to help her, who had spent frightened, sleepless, freezing nights with insects and worse, enduring the terrifying sounds from men and women in alarming states of despair and disintegration. She was the one who had lived on old bread and coffee for an entire year and had to save for two more years to buy a real bed. Now, this pretty girl before her wanted the short cut. In fact, she expected it. She wanted heat and locked doors, cups with saucers and matching forks. She wanted sheets, lamps, a soft couch, and Bette's precious radio. She wanted tea.

“I have an allowance,” Hortense said into the silence. “I can contribute.”

Oh
. “I see,” Bette answered quietly. This was a more civilized separation from family than she had assumed. No horrendous ejection with her father's back turned and her mother's teeth bared. No crawling on the floor, crying, begging her brother to
say something, do something, help me. Help me
. No door flung open, threats to phone the police, a one-way ticket to Cleveland thrown at her feet, and Bette having to grovel and grab it, having no other resource. Then pawning it and her locket and books and glasses for a bus ticket to New York and arriving hungry. None of that for Hortense. This departure was arranged, monthly allowance waiting at the Western Union. Hortense was less damaged than Bette. She was not as deprived. She did not carry the blame for someone else's failings, only for the price of her own ambitions.
Yes
, Bette realized. Hortense was a different animal. One who had not been beaten.