Читать книгу Cover Before Striking - Priscila Uppal - Страница 6

Animal Stains: Apply vinegar and baking soda; then scrub.

Rosa knows Teresa is the pretty one: she has more problems. Today it’s the bath. Water running, Rosa knows Teresa will be pouring in some of the red bubble bath that smells like raspberries her sister always finds enough money for when it’s on sale. Sometimes Rosa uses it, too, waiting patiently until all the bubbles disappear before calling for someone to take her out. Then, after Mamma or Teresa help her into a nightdress, she keeps the towel beside her, inhaling the faint scent of the berries on the cloth. Rosa only bathes on Sundays, but Teresa bathes whenever she wants.

Today the bath is a problem, Rosa can tell. Her bedroom is beside the bathroom since it’s easier for her to go in the middle of the night. She can hold on to the walls until she reaches the Virgin Mary in a light blue-and-white frock, eyes and hands pointing to the heavens in prayer. It is a good picture, and Rosa, in the dark of the night, always knows which door is the right one. Today, lying down on her single bed, she can hear a faint sobbing from the Virgin Mary’s direction like the hum from her old radio. She decides to get up, pushing against the guardrail for leverage.

Rosa slides her leg over the end of the bed where the guardrail doesn’t intrude and puts on her brace, attaching the straps across her calves, slipping her fingers through the steel wires. She can tell where the straps should be from the marks over and under her knees, slightly darker than the rest of her skin, pressed like pleats in linen. She tries to be quiet. She doesn’t want Mamma to catch her taking a peek at her sister, which she likes to do when Teresa bathes. If the door is locked, she returns to her own bed, wraps her wool blanket around her shoulders, and looks through one of her picture books, her favourite about a small girl in a red dress who meets a wolf in the forest. Resting the book across her chest, she imagines herself skipping off down a path in a forest to the washroom where Teresa is and pushing her fingers in front of her nose, imagines the smell of bubble bath or leg cream, all flowery and sweet. Then sometimes Rosa pretends to shave her legs, the way she has seen Teresa do it, propping her ankle on the bed board instead of the edge of the tub and scraping against her skin with a hairbrush. She even moans quietly, the way Teresa does once in a while, splashing the water just over her skin, hands hidden and eyes closed, cheeks flushed and breathing heavily, a sound like the soft and quick bursts made when trying to open a stuck can lid.

Rosa has to use both hands to keep her leg straight when she drops it lightly on the carpet to make her way to the washroom. She can already imagine the back of Teresa’s head, her long hair like roots descending into the water, and her long naked body half-covered in bubbles. If Mamma were to come down the hallway, collecting laundry from the hampers placed just outside of each door, it would be easy to pretend she’s just checking to see if she can use the bathroom. She could even hold on to the elastic waistband of her pants and wriggle her upper body a little.

Today the door is locked. Rosa frowns, but then remembers. She has an excuse to go in. Teresa is crying: she has a problem. Rosa might be able to help. She knocks. No sound, not even sobbing. Resting her head against the door, Rosa’s cheeks flatten into the Virgin Mary’s tight hands.

“Get away from the door, Rosa.”

Rosa doesn’t budge. “You’re crying. I can help.”

“Rosa, listen to me. I’m fine. Just get away from the door.” Teresa’s voice is firm, but low.

“You feel sad, Tera?” Rosa wishes she could get on the floor and peek through the crack, but she wouldn’t be able to get up without help.

“Go away, Rosa. Right now!” Rosa recognizes the “I don’t have time for you” voice. Teresa doesn’t use it often, but when she does, Rosa is expected to obey. As she bows her head beneath the Virgin Mary’s chin, her eyes begin to tear.

“Sorry, Tera. I don’t mean it.”

Rosa hears sniffling. “Just go and read and maybe I’ll tuck you in later.” Then guitars and drums, insistent and hard, blare through the door. Rosa’s voice can’t compete, so she ambles back to her room.

After taking off her brace and placing it neatly upright, Rosa crawls back into bed. She likes to lie down all alone, pretend she’s wearing white shoes and a red dress with fancy beads, and that there’s a bouquet of pink flowers by the nightstand given to her by some boy. Tonight she pretends this boy has a ticket to the school dance. Last month Teresa took her. Rosa liked handing over the ticket. “I’m here,” it said to her. “Look at me.” Some boys were turned away, ones with tickets, too, who smelled and walked funny. But they never turned Rosa away. Miss Brown told her she looked pretty, and Teresa bought her an orange drink at the booth, leaving Rosa with her. Rosa didn’t need to go with a boy, that’s just what a lot of girls did. Teresa danced with boys, close if the songs were slow, like the songs she usually liked to listen to in the bath. Before, dances had been a problem, when Teresa and Rosa were at separate schools. But now Rosa also attends the high school, though she stays in the same class, not like Teresa who spends her day moving from one room to another with different textbooks. Teresa doesn’t have class with Miss Brown, but Rosa does. Miss Brown helps Rosa with her sewing, since she is one of the few allowed to sew.

“That girl’s gonna get in trouble, Mamma. I had a dream—”

Papa’s voice is harsh and he coughs when he yells too loud. Mamma must be rubbing his back, Rosa thinks. Maybe she could check, make sure Papa hasn’t hurt his chest, but Mamma doesn’t like it when she knocks on Papa’s door without asking. “You need to be sure of his mood,” Mamma told her. “He’s sick.”

“I’m sick, too,” Rosa replied.

“No, you’re not, Rosa. Don’t say that again. And don’t say that to the neighbours. They don’t understand.”

Rosa can hear Mamma stamping down the hallway. She is crying, too, and Rosa imagines a white handkerchief dangling from her fingers, grey hair hanging out the back of her net.

“Teresa. Get out of there right now!” Mamma knocks vigorously. Rosa lifts her back off the bed to get a look into the hallway. This is certainly “a commotion,” what Mamma said Rosa shouldn’t do outside in front of anyone, that if someone speaks to her she should pretend she can’t speak English and point to the house. Maybe Mamma can’t help making “a commotion”; Rosa sometimes couldn’t help it. Maybe Mamma thinks the bathroom is dirty or the music is too loud.

“Just a minute, Mamma.”

“Right now!”

The music stops. Hands clenched into fists, Mamma turns and thumps down the stairs. Rosa can hear the plug being pulled, the water swirling and burping down the drain, and Teresa getting out of the tub. Soon after, lock unfastened, Teresa emerges in a white terry-cloth robe, black hair frizzed up even though it is wet and should be straight and heavy. Teresa didn’t comb it, Rosa thinks. But she always gave her hair a good combing in the bath or else it hurt the next day and Mamma would need to help her, the way Mamma always combs Rosa’s hair.

“Teresa Maria Campanous!”

“One minute, Mamma! I have to get some clothes on!”

“Ha! Clothes! You better put some clothes on and keep them on —”

“Mamma, I’m coming! Please!”

“If I could walk …” The coughing stops Papa’s sentence.

Teresa halts at Rosa’s door, her face red and prunish. “You go to sleep, Rosa.”

Rosa nods and pulls the covers over her head, imagining herself in a car with guitar and drum music playing, wind from an open window sweeping up her hair. After fifteen minutes, Rosa wants to close her door, but doesn’t want to get up. She hates it when people talk loud, but not loud enough to pass through doors. Then it’s just noise and it hurts to concentrate.

A half hour later, her sister walks by again. “Tera,” she whispers, but Teresa turns off the light in the bathroom and shuffles to her room at the other end of the hall.

Once again, Rosa puts on her brace and steps quietly out her door. She holds on to the walls, past the bathroom, past Papa’s room, to Teresa’s room. Without knocking, she inches the door open with her foot and Teresa, crouched on the floor, shoves some clothes under the bed. Looking up, Teresa sighs, but with a finger against her lips waves to Rosa to come in and quietly shut the door.

“You need those washed, Tera?”

Teresa wipes her eyes and kicks a pant leg farther underneath the bed. “No.”

“I can wash them.”

“No, Rosa. And don’t tell Mamma.” Teresa has slipped back into her bathrobe. Rosa notices how red her legs are and that the yellow sponge from the bathroom in her hand has red blotches on it.

“You cut yourself shaving? You gonna take another bath?”

Teresa doesn’t answer. She gets up, sits on the edge of her bed, and pats the place beside her. Rosa sits down. Rosa likes Teresa’s comforter. It’s pink, like the walls.

“Pretty clothes, Tera. Can I have them, if you’re gonna throw them away?” Rosa likes to get clothes from Teresa. Teresa has store-bought clothes instead of wearing only the dresses Mamma makes.

“No. They’re no good. They’re garbage.”

Rosa gasps, knowing Mamma does not like it when they throw things in the trash.

“Good for rags then, Tera. Good for —”

“Listen, Rosa. This is important,” Teresa stresses, gripping Rosa’s arm. “And you don’t tell Mamma.”

“Okay.”

Rosa concentrates, staring at the pink comforter. There are things Rosa must not tell Mamma. That’s what sisters do, she knows, keep secrets. Rosa waits, but Teresa’s hand starts shaking, and the sash on the white robe grows a spot of pink.

“Oh, Christ.” Teresa pulls off the white robe in front of Rosa, her slim naked body with small, tight breasts and just a triangle of hair between the legs open to Rosa’s eyes, presses the sponge against her thighs, then grabs a large T-shirt from the back of the closet.

“Don’t say that. You’re not allowed to say that. Did Mamma do that to you?”

“No.” Pulling the T-shirt over her head, the hem under her thighs, she sits back on the bed, takes her pillow and lays it over her lap. “An animal did,” she adds, as if to her legs and not to Rosa. Now Rosa starts to shake, imagining the wolf from her picture book, his fangs bared and growling.

“Rosa, some boys are bad. This is our secret.”

“Not the boys you dance with.”

Teresa makes a noise like biting on hard candy. “No, not the boys I dance with, but that’s only where the people are, the teachers.” Rosa nods, holds out her hand to touch Teresa’s legs.

“Don’t touch, it hurts. Listen to me, Rosa. This is a secret.” Rosa really must concentrate. The pink comforter is no help. She bites down on her lip, tasting her own blood, hot and salty.

“Some boys don’t listen when you’re alone with them. Don’t be alone with a boy.”

“You have problems because you’re pretty,” Rosa says, touching her tongue, blotting at the blood with her finger. She and her sister both have dark eyes and hair, but Rosa’s is cut short since she can’t brush the tangles by herself. Rosa’s face is defined by the same long eyebrows and oval face, yet it’s stretched wide, making all her features larger than Teresa’s. Rosa has larger breasts and thighs, too, a version of what Teresa might look like one day in middle age. Only the one leg has never grown into the shape of a woman.

“Oh Rosa, what did you do? Did you bite your tongue? Who told you that?” Teresa frowns, stroking the top of Rosa’s head, blotting at her lip with the sponge.

“I heard Mamma and Papa say it about you. You get problems when you have a pretty girl in a big city. I’m not pretty like you. No problems for me.”

“Rosa, a boy might ask you to go alone with him sometime. You don’t go. You understand?”

Rosa taps her foot. She can’t imagine any boy asking her to go away with him, although there had been the boy who offered to walk her to the washroom at the dance. Miss Brown said he was a nice boy, and he was. He smelled like pine cones, and he took her to the bathroom upstairs, the far one, he said, because Rosa must like to have fun. Rosa giggled, said she did, and he put his hand on her blouse to fix her button. Rosa laughed, because he missed her button. Then the door opened, a young girl came out drying her hands against her yellow dress, and so she went in after and then he took her back to the dance. He hadn’t asked her to go away with him. He hadn’t asked her anything, not even her name. One day, Rosa knows, Teresa will go away. Go away with a boy, marry and have babies like their mamma.

“It’s hot there, Tera?” Teresa nods. “I know,” Rosa says, taking the tube of cream off Teresa’s end table, “I’ll put this on your legs and you’ll feel better.”

Rosa opens the bottle and squeezes the white liquid into a mound onto Teresa’s sponge. Teresa stretches out her legs, and Rosa smells the flowers, but another smell, too, something Rosa can’t make out, a strong smell, not very nice, maybe the smell of an animal, like her sister said, like the smell on your clothes when dogs get too close to you. Then she remembered walking one day with Teresa when a dog peed on the fence next door. Rosa laughed at the funny streak it made, and Teresa told her dogs do that to show where they’ve been. Now Rosa, too many images in her mind, is confused. Berries. Wolf. Boys. Trash. Dogs. She can’t imagine everything together. Better to concentrate on Teresa’s legs.

“You smell nice, Tera,” Rosa tells her, but Teresa isn’t looking at her. Her face is covered with her arm and she curls herself up into a ball.

When Rosa goes back to bed, instead of looking at her picture book, she takes out her hairbrush and pretends to shave her legs until the bristles scratch her skin. “Look at me. I’m here,” she says to the wolf and the girl in the red dress. Then she turns off the light, and thinks about her secrets.