Let The Great World Spin: A Novel - By Colum McCann Page 0,143
flat-out lied to her.
“Well, I got to make my way home to the Bronx, Claire, I got a church appointment in the afternoon, the choir.”
I felt plain-out awkward for the way I was lying. She said of course, yes, she understood, how silly of her, and then she kissed me gentle on the cheek. Her lips brushed against the side of my hair clip and she said: “Don’t worry.”
I don’t know the words for how she looked at me—there are few words—it was a welling up, a rising, a lifting up on the surface from the water, it was the sort of thing that could not be told. It felt for a moment that something had unthreaded down my spine, and my skin got tight, but what could I say? She grabbed hold of my wrist and tweaked it, saying a second time that she understood and she didn’t mean to take me away from the choir. I stood away from her. It was over then, I was sure, happily solved, and the corridor brightened up for me and a few more smiles went around among us, and we declared we’d see each other at Marcia’s next time—though it felt to me that there’d probably never be another time, that was the heartbreaker, I had a good idea that we’d let it slip away now, we had all had our chance, we’d brought our boys back to life for a little while—and we stepped out into the hallway, where Claire pressed the button for the elevator.
The iron gate was opened by the elevator boy. I was last to step in, and Claire pulled me back by the elbow and brought me close again, a sadness settling over her face.
She whispered: “You know, I’d be happy to pay you, Gloria.”
—
MY GRANDMOTHER WAS a slave. Her mother too. My great-grandfather was a slave who ended up buying himself out from under Missouri. He carried a mind-whip with him just in case he forgot. I know a thing or two about what people want to buy, and how they think they can buy it. I know the marks that got left on women’s ankles. I know the kneeling-down scars you get in the field. I heard the stories about the gavel coming down on children. I read the books where the coffin ships groaned. I heard about the shackles they put on your wrists. I was told about what happened the first night a girl came to bloom. I heard the way they like their sheets tight on the bed so you can bounce a coin off them. I’ve listened to the southern men in their crisp white shirts and ties. I’ve seen the fists pumping in the air. I joined in the songs. I was on the buses where they lifted their little children to snarl in the window. I know the smell of CS gas and it’s not as sweet as some folks say.
If you start forgetting you’re already lost.
Claire panicked the moment she said it. It was like all of her face whirlpooled down to her eyes. She got sucked up into her own unexpected words. The bottom of her eyelids trembled a second. She opened a limp, resigned palm, and stared at it as if to say that she had disappeared from herself and all she had left was this strange hand she was holding out in the air.
I stepped quickly into the elevator.
The elevator boy said: “Have a nice afternoon, Mrs. Soderberg.”
I could see her eyes as the door was pulled across: the tender resignation.
The door slid shut. Marcia sighed with relief. A giggle came from Jacqueline. Janet made a shushing sound and stared ahead at the elevator boy’s neck, but I could tell she was holding back a grin. I just thought to myself that I wasn’t going to fall into their game. They wanted to go off and whisper about it. You know, I’d be happy to pay you, Gloria. I was sure they had heard it, that they’d dissect it to death, maybe in some coffee shop, or some luncheonette, but I couldn’t stand the thought of any more talking, any more doors closing, any more rattle of cups. I would just leave them behind, go for a walk, a little way uptown, clear my head, glide a little, put one foot in front of the other, and just mash this over in my mind.
Downstairs, the light was pouring clear across the tiles. The doorman