Homesick (4 page)

It was true. I knew I wasn't supposed to go to the Mud Flats alone, but twice I had managed to sneak off for a quick visit. The boat was gone, already at home on the river, I supposed, but my little friend was there. Each time he had run up to greet me and I had given him an orange. Each time he had called me “American friend” and had walked me back to the Bund.

Of course I knew I was wrong to disobey my mother but that hadn't stopped me. Still, I did feel guilty. If my name had been Marjorie, I thought, I would not have been the sort of person to feel guilty. And if it had not been the end of November, with Christmas already in the air, I might not have thought of the perfect way to solve my problem.

“I know what you can give me for Christmas,” I told my mother.

“I've already bought your presents.” My mother was writing letters at her little black lacquer desk and she didn't look up.

“This wouldn't cost a thing,” I explained. “It would be easy.”

“Well?” She still didn't look up.

“You could give me a new name. That's what I really want.”

Now she did look up. She even put down her pen. “And what, may I ask, is the matter with the name you have?”

“I don't like it. Take it back.” I put my arm around her neck because I didn't want her to feel bad about the mistake she'd made. “Give me the name Marjorie. Just write it on a gift card and put it in a box. You see how easy it would be.”

My mother shook her head as if she couldn't understand how I'd got into the family. “I wouldn't name a cat Marjorie,” she said.

Well, of course not! “Marjorie is not a cat's name,” I yelled. And I stamped out of the room.

When I asked my father, he simply changed the subject. “I know one present you are getting for Christmas,” he said, “that you've never even thought of.”

He was a good subject-changer.

“Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” I asked.

“Vegetable.”

“How heavy?”

“As heavy as a pound of butter.” He'd give me no more clues, but of course I did give it a lot of thought between then and Christmas.

But I hadn't forgotten about Marjorie. I was going to Andrea's for the weekend and I would see what she thought.

I loved going to the Hulls‘. Not only did they have low ceilings and three children (Andrea, Edward, and David, the adopted one), but the Hull family was different from any I had ever known. They must have believed in goodness because, like us, they were a Y.M.C.A. family, but what they stressed was being free and natural. When the family was alone, for instance, they thought nothing of walking around upstairs without any clothes on. The way Andrea spoke, it was as if she hardly noticed if her parents were naked or not. Moreover, the Hulls seemed to talk together about anything, not as if conversation were divided into Adult subjects and You're-Not-Old-Enough-to-Understand subjects. They discussed whether Adam and Eve had been real people or whether there would ever be another world war. Things like that. And Andrea not only knew how babies were born, she knew exactly how she, herself, had been born.

Since Mr. and Mrs. Hull were in such agreement, you would have thought they would have been happy, but they weren't. According to Andrea, her parents did not get along. She was even afraid they might get a divorce. I had never known anyone who'd had a divorce and I had no way of knowing how married people got along, so of course I was interested in hearing the ups and downs of Mr. and Mrs. Hull's married life. Indeed, I never came back from Andrea's without something new to think about.

My mother was going to take me to the Hulls' on Friday and since my father had a committee meeting that night, she would stay for supper and Mr. Hull would drive her home in his Dodge sedan. I would go home when the Hulls came into town for church on Sunday.

So on Friday I put on my middy blouse which, more than any of my clothes, made me feel like a Marjorie, and my mother called for rickshas. The coolies came running, jostling and swearing at each other, each one shouting for us to take
his
ricksha, take
his,
take
his.
I always felt sorry for the coolies who weren't chosen. I knew how few coppers they made and how often they had to go without rice but, on the other hand, I felt sorry for those who were chosen. The harder a coolie ran and the heavier his load, the sooner he would die. Most ricksha coolies didn't live to be thirty, my father said. Of course I was not a heavy load, but even so, by the time we reached the Hulls' house, my coolie was wiping the sweat from his face, using the dirty rag that hung at his waist. It was no use telling a coolie to walk, not run. He'd feel he was a weakling if he didn't run; he'd lose face.

The Hulls' house was red brick and American-looking, not American like the pictures of my grandmother's house which had a front porch and honeysuckle vines and a swing, but American like a picture in a magazine. Mr. Hull had designed it himself, with special features for his family. Andrea's room, for instance, had a bar down one wall for her to use when she practiced dancing. We went straight to her room and I sat down in her white wicker rocking chair and waited for the news.

“Well, I'm afraid they are doomed,” she sighed. Her parents had had a terrible fight the week before, she reported, and hadn't spoken for days. “And they won't listen to me. I figured out how we could bring our whole family together but they won't listen.”

Andrea was lying flat on the floor because that was good for her posture, but with news like this, I was surprised that she still cared about her posture.

“What did you figure out?” I asked.

“A baby.” Andrea gave me time to get used to the idea. “I didn't expect my mother to have the baby,” she explained. “That would take too long. I wanted my parents to adopt one from the same place that they adopted David. Then we'd all have someone we could love together.” She began pedaling her legs in the air to strengthen her thighs. “Besides,” she added, “an adopted baby would be good for David. He wouldn't feel so left out. You know how he is.”

I did know. At twelve, David was the oldest of the children. The Hulls had adopted him when they thought they couldn't have children of their own. Then a year later Andrea had come along and afterwards Edward, but Mr. and Mrs. Hull treated David the same as the others and seemed to love him as much. Still, David felt different. He was always wondering who his real mother and father were, even though the Hulls said they didn't know, couldn't find out, and it didn't matter. They didn't even want him to talk about it and he didn‘t, except sometimes to Andrea and me.

Andrea let her legs drop to the floor and rolled over to look at me. “They weren't even interested in a baby,” she said. “But guess what?”

“What?”

“They decided it would be nice to invite an orphan here for Christmas vacation. So they wrote to the orphanage and we heard yesterday. We're going to have a girl. Eleven years old. She'll arrive by boat three days before Christmas and stay through New Year's.”

“What's her name?”

“Millie.” Andrea screwed up her face. “Ugh.”

I agreed that the name was not good. But an orphan! I'd like an orphan sleeping in my house and spending Christmas with me. “Maybe you could call her Lee for short,” I suggested.

Later at supper Mrs. Hull told my mother about Millie's coming. As soon as she was finished, I spoke up.

“Why couldn't we ...” I began, but Mrs. Hull interrupted. She turned to my mother.

“We could share Millie,” she said. “She could go to your house for a few days in the middle of her stay. I expect Jean would like that.”

That wasn't what I'd had in mind, but still it sounded like a good idea. So it was settled that when the Hulls came to our house for Christmas dinner (which they always did), they would leave Millie with us for three days. (In my mind I was already calling her Lee. She'd be more like a sister, I decided, than a friend.)

I was still thinking about Lee when we went to bed, although I didn't usually bother with private thoughts when I was going to bed at Andrea's. The Hulls believed in fresh air, so they had a sleeping porch where the whole family slept, winter and summer, with the windows wide open around three sides of the room. When I came for a visit, Mr. and Mrs. Hull slept in their own room and I used their bed. Sometimes before going to sleep, David and Andrea and Edward (who was only six) and I played Pioneer. We'd roll the beds into a semicircle and fight off the horse thieves. Sometimes we played War and lined up the beds for the wounded. Maybe because it was later than usual, tonight we didn't play anything. Andrea got under the covers and began right away to shake her head from side to side on the pillow, which was the way she went to sleep. Sometimes she had to shake her head a long time but not tonight. I had decided that I was the only one awake when I saw David sit up.

“Jean?” he whispered. “You awake? I want to ask a favor.”

I couldn't imagine what David Hull could want of me. I did understand, however, that it wasn't easy for him to ask. He was a pale, thin-faced, twitchy boy who, I had to admit, seemed out of place in the Hull family with their free and natural ways.

“I want it to be a secret.” His whisper had turned hoarse.

I got up, pulled a blanket off my bed, wrapped myself up, and went to sit on his bed.

“You know that Millie,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Well, she comes from the same orphans' home as I came from. And I was thinking. They must have records in the office of that place.” He was looking out the window and shivering as he talked.

“Why couldn't she sneak into that office when she goes back after being here? Why couldn't she find out about me?” He took such a big breath I could feel the favor coming.

“Then she could write you. And you could tell me. That way, Mom and Dad wouldn't have to know anything about it. You know how they are.”

The whole idea sounded crazy. “David,” I said, “why do you care so much? What difference does it make?”

He turned on me, his face fiercer than I'd known it could be. “How would you like it,” he hissed, “if you didn't know whether your father was a crook or what he was? Or whether he was dead or alive? If you didn't know that you were American? You might be Russian or Danish or German or anything. How would you like it?”

Well, of course, I knew I wouldn't like it. “But you're legally an American,” I pointed out.

“Legally! What difference does that make?” David's whisper was becoming raspier and raspier. “When you go back to America, you'll know you're home. When you meet your grandmother, you'll know she's your real grandmother. I won't know anything.” He spoke so fast it was as if he'd learned his thoughts by heart. “You see?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, will you or won't you? Will you make the plans with Millie?”

“Yes,” I said, “I will.” But as I went back to bed, my feelings were tangled up again. Part of me said that I had to help him; part of me said I couldn't help him. In the first place, the idea wouldn't work; in the second place, David would never be satisfied. No matter what he found out, he would always want to know more.

From across the room came his whisper, quieter now. “Thanks,” he said. “But remember. Don't even tell Andrea.”

As it turned out, Andrea and I were so busy the next day, I wasn't even tempted to tell. As soon as we got up, she announced that we were going to wash our hair. She had a new rinse made from dried camomile flowers. “It brings out the hidden lights in your hair,” she explained. Andrea had different shades of gold already in her hair, but I didn't see what could be hidden in my plain brown hair. Certainly I never dreamed I could have undiscovered red highlights but Andrea said I could; I just needed to encourage them to come out. And of course I was willing to do that. So Andrea dropped the dried, buttonlike flowers in a pitcher of hot water, and while they soaked, we began washing our hair, each of us soaping each other and giving each other a first rinse with ordinary water.

Then for the magic rinse. I poured half the pitcher of camomile mixture over Andrea's head and she poured the other half over mine. I rushed to the mirror.

“Wait until it dries,” Andrea said.

So I rubbed my head with a towel, stopping every few minutes for a look. No sign of red yet. I kept rubbing until at last Andrea (whose hair was a-glint) told me to quit. As soon as I'd combed my hair, she inspected it and assured me that there was a change. “Wait until the sun shines on it,” she said. “That's when it really shows up.” I smiled as I fluffed out my hair. I had never appreciated its possibilities before.