Torsade Literary Space The Mirrors (part thirty-five)
The Mirrors
(part thirty-five)
“And what do you do at the institute?”
“Um…the studies…”
He said this, her driver, and was silent at the wheel, thinking. “So they collect data, and the submissions, what the researchers send us when we put out a call, all that’s in our files. Say a professor in Canada, a doctor maybe, in California, wants to know if a public milk program would improve test scores for children. I look for anything done on milk, anything showing upcurves in performance of schoolchildren, and compile the fields that overlap. Of course the client makes use of our work as he sees fit.”
“And so you don’t particularly assist Veronica?”
He turned pink and laughed. “Everyone assists Veronica.”
“Oh, I believe you.”
Small talk had provided a name, Paul Myers, a hometown, Toledo, Ohio, and an age, twenty-five. If while directing his turns she could, Charmante hoped to learn what the institute staff knew of Dumain. Likely they were naïfs. Possibly they shared the mirrors’ secret and guarded it.
“And do professors recommend graduates for a place at the institute? Is it…” She cut short the answer he was bursting to give, and covered herself. “I’m sorry to pry, but it’s so interesting! Will you work for the government? Or will you be a doctor yourself when your schooling’s done?”
“No to that, ma’am, not me. But not government per se, more like public welfare. Making the world a better place.” He said this as a quote, and the laugh came again, abashed.
They passed the canning plant, the gas station. At once, it seemed, they were at her house, a time/distance equation always measured walking. Those who owned cars here contrived their ways of keeping them. A few plank bridges over the ditch led to lawns. What Paul was to do, or what he might want to do, she hadn’t thought.
“Park if you can, and come in.”
“Oh, I should stay with the car.”
“I need to change clothes. It’ll be a while.”
He didn’t mind, he said.
Well, she couldn’t fault his courage, bound to carry only so far. He had described his work without tone or simplification, called her ma’am without condescension. If Veronica taught her people things, safe to say they’d keep those lessons in mind. She pulled the door shut, her mind on what to wear. Her work shift and apron couldn’t suit the visit she’d hectored herself into paying…
Before the daunting thing; before Rothesay’s house.
“Who’s that out there?”
“You look comfy. Maybe I should let you take that chair home.”
Esta was stretched on the brown rocker, feet on the ottoman, blanket on her lap. “Now, was I sitting here talking to myself?”
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“His name is Paul. He works for the Metropolitan Institute, in town.”
“Dumains.”
“I don’t know. The only bona fide Dumain I’ve met is Veronica. And she’s an employee too…of some kind. What are your plans?”
“I came to see you got home all right.”
“Maybe you ought to make coffee while I change. Maybe Paul will come in.”
Charmante’s silk stockings, home-dyed, were for church. For church, this was not showoffish—it was respect, donning your best to visit His house. But what would Jane think? Mrs. Breedlove to you. And being honest, she found she had that inclination…to not love Mrs. Breedlove, for whose opinion she had to weigh which would earn the greater condemnation, her best or the clothes she wore maiding for Rothesay?
“That boy of yours is out there talking to Mr. Meeker and writing down in a book.”
Esta reported this, coming into the bedroom, not having put the pot on.
“It’s his work. They’re serious people at the Institute… Esta! We’ve never talked about the riot.”
Charmante stepped into a taffeta frock, and Esta moved to fasten the buttons.
“Don’t worry. I don’t want to know much. Just, what did you think went on, yourself? About Daddy.”
“I thought what everyone knew. Not where they took him…not if he was dead. They all folks, Dumains, stirred the trouble up, that’s what I thought. Two hundred men arrested and sent off for labor.”
Even Esta approached with care, even in a town where the sentiment was universal. They had wanted men for the coal mines. Prison labor cost nothing. The only bar between a free citizen and a prisoner was a fall. A fall was an easy thing to arrange for a black man.
“What did you think about Harold Wright? And Rance, of course, Rance Goodson.”
Who’d had a mother too.
“No sense. Couldn’t do what they was taught.”
“But…”
Esta’s face came round Charmante’s waist, in the mirror catching her eye, making her close her mouth.
“I set up for you cause I have a thing to tell you. You never could surprise me no matter what, once you got yourself in with Dumains. I said, I know just why she ain’t come home. Nothing I can do. But then I said, Esta, after all this time you better tell.”
Said this, for the ears of Mrs. Parkins, or of God?
Charmante sat on the bed. Esta took the armchair.
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The Mirrors
The Mirrors (part thirty-six)
(2020, Stephanie Foster)