Читать книгу The Fall of Alice K. - Jim Heynen - Страница 19

12

Alice wandered into the old redbrick core of the school after lunch, past Miss Den Harmsel’s room and down the granite-floored corridors and along the walls that still had the original dark-wood moldings and down the narrower marble stairways with the wooden handrails that were dark and smooth from hands passing over them for almost a hundred years. The old section of the school did not give her the comfort of the haymow, or even of the cab of the 150, but it always felt like a good place to put herself together and to get grounded when the ground was shifting beneath her.

The old section with its old classrooms was where the most serious classes were taught—advanced calc, AP English, and senior chem. To leave the old section was to enter the more raucous wider hallways with their slamming steel locker doors and loudmouthed students. As she wound her way through the noisier hallways, she saw a few of the jocks, but they couldn’t keep eye contact with her—that shifting unease in their whole body, their feigned attention to something else, anything else. They really were scared of her. Losing them was no loss at all. But Lydia. First Aldah, and now Lydia.

In the noisy hallways after sixth period Alice saw the dark hair of Nickson bobbing at shoulder-level of the students around him. She did not see his face, whether it said he was scared, carefree, angry, or totally content. It was hard to imagine contentment for him: the only bird of a feather he might find at Midwest was the adopted Korean girl named Sarah Vande Kamp. Alice tried to imagine a day when half the students at Midwest would have dark hair and tan skin and when a rainbow sea of sounds and colors would obliterate the bigotry of Dutch Center—and probably of her own parents. By that time she would already be gone, away from Dutch Center and swimming in her own sea of many colors.

As she walked alone toward the 150 after school, she saw Nickson again. He was talking to the notorious bad boys of Midwest. It looked as if the dopers were reaching out to Nickson. Even worse, he grinned and swayed with them in a little brotherhood circle. These guys were worse than the jocks. They were a little gang that Lydia and Alice had labeled “the Slouchers.”

“Hey, Nickson!” Alice yelled.

He stepped away from the Slouchers and walked toward her, the seat of his pants hanging loose as an old sow’s jowls.

Alice felt a tantalizing warmth as he walked toward her. She felt as if she was protecting the vulnerable, even though he looked confident in his easy swaying steps. And he looked so different from all the blond hair and white faces swarming out of the swinging front doors of Midwest.

“Sorry I couldn’t talk longer after church,” said Alice.

“That’s all right,” he said. “Your folks were waiting.”

“Want a ride home?”

The question made his eyebrows jump in surprise, but he said, “Sure.” His eyes lit at the sight of the 150: “Yo,” he said, “nice wheels,” and got in.

“Your Toyota station wagon looks like a good vehicle,” said Alice.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Sits low compared to this baby.”

Alice could see his profile in her peripheral vision as she drove. He was looking straight ahead, though he may have had peripheral vision too. Alice glanced down at her knees as she drove and wondered what they looked like from his position. She put her right hand down on the seat between them and turned a corner using only her left hand to steer. She knew she was trying to show off just a bit, though she couldn’t tell if he was impressed with her casual driving skill.

A few minutes later Alice pulled up behind the Vangs’ Toyota station wagon. She thought she saw an apparition. She refocused her eyes. It was no apparition. Someone had put that awful bumper sticker on the rear bumper of the Vangs’ station wagon: “If You’re Not Dutch, You’re Not Much.”

Alice looked over at Nickson, but he just smiled.

“I know it’s not funny,” said Alice.

“It’s pretty lame,” he said, but he was still smiling.

They both stepped out. Alice walked around to the front of the pickup, but Nickson walked toward the house.

Feeling her temper rise at a time like this felt perfectly right. She felt righteous indignation and a justifiable feeling that somebody should be punished. She didn’t touch the bumper sticker. The police would need it for evidence.

“Alice!” It was Mai, standing on the front steps of their house.

“Mai.” Alice pointed at the bumper sticker. “I just can’t believe it,” she said. “I apologize for whatever jerk did this.”

Mai walked toward the evidence. “Oh that?” she said. She was wearing jeans, an oversized gray T-shirt, and flip-flops. Strands of dark hair swirled around her bright face. Everything about her was animated.

The blue-and-white bumper sticker glistened. This time Alice did not stand in front of the evidence, and she didn’t rip it off.

“I’m going to get them for doing this,” she said. Her lips tightened. She was on the basketball court with nobody to elbow.

“Oh, you don’t like it?” said Mai.

“Don’t like it?”

“I put it on yesterday before driving to campus,” she said. “What a hoot.”

“You put that bumper sticker on your own station wagon?”

“Yep,” she said. “Now all the minority students at Redemption want one—but I’m the only one with a bumper to put it on. Most are putting one on their dorm room doors or wrapping them around their backpacks. They only cost three dollars, two for five.”

This was a turnaround Alice wasn’t expecting, and she was getting an education in a subject she didn’t understand. “Isn’t this a little twisted?” she said.

“In a good way?”

“You seem to be enjoying it, so I would say yes,” said Alice. “The more I think about it, yes, in a very good way. You have a perverse sense of humor.”

“But you get it, huh.”

“It caught me off guard, but I get it.”

Mai’s playful grin had as much sparkle as her eyes. She was probably as smart as she was funny.

“Come inside, see our house.”

“If there are more bumper stickers in your house, I’ll really think you’re twisted.”

“No more bumper stickers,” said Mai, “but you’ll probably find other reasons to think we’re twisted.”

The screened porch had a small bench-swing suspended on chains from the porch ceiling. Several potted plants sat on the porch sill facing south. Two were in clay pots, but others were in gallon plastic ice cream buckets. There weren’t any marigolds or begonias. Next to the door was a heaping scramble of sandals, quite a contrast to the work shoes and rubber boots that cluttered the porch on the farm. Alice took off her shoes and added them to the stack.

The living room furniture was ordinary Goodwill American, but the biggest piece after the dining room table was the TV set, which was so big it blocked one of the living room windows. It was turned on with the sound off. The walls were a dull, rental-house green and beige, but the room came to life with many potted plants that made the place smell like some kind of greenhouse that cheated Midwest weather. Photographs of family members took up most of two walls in the living room. There didn’t seem to be a plan in the photo arrangement—except that the older men were in the middle and everyone else was spread out around them like leaves that had grown from the stable trunks of those men. Some of the older men were in army uniforms that were not American. Women were in most of the color photographs and wore elaborate dresses that fluttered with color and necklaces that looked like silver-chain bibs—and the whole dress ensemble was topped off with a purple turban. Not even the wildest getup at the tulip festival could match these colors. God help them if they ever wore clothes like these on the streets of Dutch Center.

The house had a small footprint but surprising space—besides the dining-living-room area, it had three bedrooms, two baths, and a tiny kitchen. One of the bedrooms had been turned into Mother Lia’s workroom. She was sitting down and leaning over a humming sewing machine. Stacks of colorful fabric were layered on modular metal shelves around her.

“Here are some story cloths that Mom has finished,” said Mai and placed her hand on a stack of rectangular cloths that had red, yellow, and green animal figures stitched onto a blue cloth. At the sound of her daughter’s voice, Lia got up and spoke to Mai in a strange voice that made Alice think of a cat meowing.

“Our mother wants to give you something to eat.”

Lia was already leading the way to the kitchen. A huge rice cooker sat on the kitchen counter with its little red light glowing. The kitchen didn’t smell at all like the farm kitchen, which, more often than not, smelled like mushroom soup or bacon. This kitchen smelled like a spice rack with the caps off. At the kitchen table sat Nickson with the Dutch Center telephone directory. He looked up, and for the first time Alice really looked at his eyes. Dark, bright eyes alert to everything. There was more of his sister Mai in him than she first realized.

“This telephone book is kind of weird,” he said. “It’s really small but it’s got all these V-names. How much Dutch is enough?”

He had Mai’s humor too. Alice let out a little laugh but not as loud as Mai’s. Mai took the directory from him and paged through it. “Hey, it really is full of V-names! Look, there must be hundreds of them. Vuh vuh vuh vuh vuh,” she said in a stuttering voice.

They were right about the Dutch Center directory. It had more than its fair share of names starting with V. All those Vans and Vandes and Vanders and Vandens. You had to know if you were looking for a Vande Griend or a Vanden Griend. Was it Vander Heide or Vande Heide? And did the family use the handle Vanden, one word, or did they use two capitalized words—Van Den?

“Let’s see where our name will go,” said Mai.

She found the exact spot—Vang would come between Van Essen and Van Gaalen. With all the Van-somethings, it would be among the shortest names on the page, along with Vos and Vonk.

“Van Essen Vang Van Gaalen!” said Mia. “Shouldn’t it be Vang, Vang Essen, Vang Gaalen?”

“We better cut the g off,” said Nickson. “Fit right in.”

They were both laughing now. “What a hoot!” said Alice and joined in.

“Don’t you have any Smiths or Joneses in Dutch Center?” asked Mai.

“Not unless one slipped through the dyke while we weren’t watching,” said Alice.

“Here’s a Rodriguez,” said Nickson.

“Oh, yes,” said Alice, “you’ll find some Martinezes and Gonzalezes. Lots of Mexicans have moved in.”

“What about this name? Moeldema?”

“That’s Frisian,” said Alice. “The only thing that makes Frieslanders different is their names—their names all end in ‘a.’ There are the Miedemas, the Osingas, the Hamstras, the Siebesmas, the Fritzmas, the Fiekemas, the Wiersmas, the Tammingas, the Plantingas, the Turbstras, the Boumas, the Bonnemas—on and on like that.”

“Oh, here’s an Aardema in the A’s. And Rev. Prunesma, would he be Frisian?”

“Yes, and if you go to the E’s you’ll find some Ennemas.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Just look.”

“Oh, but it’s spelled with two n’s—E-n-n-e-m-a.”

“Right,” said Alice, “but when you say it, it sounds like ‘enema.’ Most of the Ennemas changed their names to Brennema so people would stop making fun of them—like putting enema syringes in their mailboxes. Or telling jokes like the time this girl introduces herself as Emily Ennema and the other person says, ‘Tell me about your family,’ and Emily Ennema says ‘Oh, we’re pretty regular.’”

“Too much!” said Nickson and slapped the table.

“You people are really funny,” said Mai.

Mother Lia had been standing near the rice cooker, listening but not reacting.

“Now let my mom give you something to eat.”

“That’s awfully nice of her,” said Alice, “but I really have to get home to the farm to do my chores. My parents are expecting me.”

Alice didn’t want to be rude, but she saw a click in the expression on Mai’s face at the mention of parents.

“I understand,” said Mai. “ We’ll feed you some Hmong food another time.” She spoke to her mother, who nodded and smiled at Alice.

“Thanks again for that ride,” said Nickson as Mai led Alice out.

“Before you go,” Mai said, “let me show you what Mom planted out back. It really took off. A farm person will appreciate this.”

“Took off already? You’ve hardly been here for a month.”

“Mom’s amazing,” said Mai. “Wait until you see her sewing. Plants and needles, that’s Mom.”

A parking spot behind the house was simply two strips of concrete spaced the width of a car’s tires. Most people would have been using this spot to park their car, but not the Vangs. Mai pointed at the area between the concrete strips. Small points of green plants sparked from the sandy soil.

“What are those?”

“Those are some of her herbs.”

“Amazing.” But then Alice saw a metal cage with metal flaps on each end. “What on earth is that?”

“That’s a squirrel trap,” said Mai. “Put peanut butter on that little tray inside and when a squirrel goes in the trap, pop, the doors on each side flip shut and you’ve caught your squirrel.”

“Who’s trapping them?”

“My mom,” she said.

“To keep them away from her herbs?”

“Squirrels don’t like her herbs,” said Mai. “We eat the squirrels. Great soup. And Mom cuts up the hide into tiny pieces. If you mix the pieces of squirrel hide with lemon juice, you can get rid of gallstones. My mom thought she was getting gallstones. Not any more.”