Читать книгу The Book of Colors - Raymond Barfield - Страница 11

Layla’s Gift from God

Not to go on about a thing, but sometimes at night when I was rubbing my hand over my belly I thought of Layla and Ambrosia alone on the other side of Jimmy’s house, and I imagined crazy things. Like Ambrosia as a sponge inside Layla soaking up too much of one part of Layla so that she was robbed of that part and Ambrosia was so stuffed full of it she had no room for anything else. Say she took all the fear. Or the rage. Or something. I couldn’t even think what one thing it might be that Layla was missing that seems all stuffed into little Ambrosia rocking back and forth. Maybe shame. After I thought of Ambrosia sucking up all the shame, say, I saw her being born feetfirst and grabbing onto Layla’s womb and pulling it out with her.

I didn’t know what Layla was like before she lost her womb but I’d never seen anything quite like her. She was not pretty but she had the roundest breasts and the roundest firm bottom I’d ever seen. And she had three dresses all made of thin material and hiding nothing of who she was and she never wore panties. But it wasn’t like she was showing off. It was more like that was the way she was made so it was hard to fault her. I think making love to Layla would be like standing in the shade when it’s hot.

So men who wandered down the tracks just came to her room and she gave of herself. In the time I knew her I counted eighty-seven bums that she made love to. In the beginning I’d hear her scream and I’d think she was being beat. But when I made Jimmy go check, even though he said she was fine, Layla was sore at me for a week. “I was just worried is all,” I told her, and that was soon after I started staying with Jimmy so how could I have known what was what in her life? But that didn’t matter. Even when I explained she wouldn’t say why she was mad that I made Jimmy walk in. It felt like walking in on a doctor’s examination or a priest taking confession I guess.

So I just started listening to her scream while bum after bum found a night’s worth of relief from whatever it was that kept them walking the tracks. It never just sounded like screams. It sounded like she was screaming at someone. But who? Not the bum, I’d say. Who else was there to scream at? God?

And I mean any bum could find that night of relief with Layla. It didn’t matter young or old, smelled bad or not, fat or bony. I’d never seen anything like it as I said. I saw men missing limbs follow her into her house. I saw men I knew were retarded, and they never just walked up to the door like the others but she had to call to them while they stood in the corner of the yard and they always looked bashful when they came out and wouldn’t look at me. And I saw men who except for not shaving and being on the tracks could be insurance salesmen for all you’d know. But there was never more than one at a time. That was just the way it was. And I never knew anyone to fight. If a man was already there the others just walked on like they understood the rules.

I wondered if they knew she didn’t have a womb, and I was pretty sure they didn’t because Layla was never a talker even to people she knew like me and Rose, though for some people it’s true that the people you talk most to are people you don’t know, people at the bus station, for example. I was pretty sure Layla’s bums just went in and did their business and left without a lot of talking. I don’t know where their seed went. There’s a lot I don’t know. But I was born a very curious person. If I had stayed in school I’d have been a scientist.

Sometimes I wish Ambrosia could talk because she heard every one of the bums and what passed between them and her mama.

I’ll say again I can’t fault her and wouldn’t want to. When she was alone down at the other end on her couch, staring out at nothing in particular, she seemed heavy, like even standing up was a chore and she was just too tired to do it. Even when she went to church she just sat there looking down, and when she went up for the bread and wine she never looked at the priest, never crossed herself, just walked back to her pew where she didn’t kneel or close her eyes or do anything but stare at the floor. But when one of her bums came along it was the one time she seemed to know what to do, which was interesting to me because as calm as she was motioning for them to go on inside, I’d throw up I’d be so nervous. For them I thought Layla was like shade on a hot day. That’s as good as I can say it.