365
Ociober 1943
A True Story*
in a Russian Theh she began to weep helplessly until she fell into a heavy sleep. “This is my mother,” Karen whis p red to herself, “whom I ought to honor.” f Suddenly, she was afraid— afraid of this strange hardness she was feeling. She wanted to love her mother. She had tried to overlook her weakness, remembering that she had not always been like this. There was a time, before their own father had deserted them when she and Andrea were tiny, that Mother had been kind and loving. But it was getting harder to keep that memory clear with Mom like this so much of the time. Mechanically K a r e n covered her mother and spoke to Andrea above the cold lump in. her throat. “Andrea, you sleep, with Mom. Karl will stay with his father, and I’ll use the couch.” Andrea, already half asleep, tumbled gratefully into bed, , and Karen left them. This house, she thought, by rights should have yielded them pleasure, for it was part of a little colony of old Russia, set down in the midst of an American city. .Russian neighbors were close about them, but the evils of the big city were closer still. In the living room, Karen sank down on the hard chair nearest the window. Perhaps if she just sat there a while, her head would stop its throbbing and the cold emptiness would leave her. She was suddenly grateful for the darkness that hid the pitiful attempts she had made to have this room look like the one at the Mission House: the splintered floor scrubbed to a pale cleanliness, the patched carpet, mended with much effort and deeply pricked fingers," the thin curtains of. dime-store material over which she had wept because she couldn’t get them to look like Miss Lucy’s at the Mission, and the two cheap pictures she had found in an ’ old magazine Miss Lucy had given her. She had had such high hopes wijen she had worked on the room. Maybe having things clean and nice would help her fnother, she had
Love K AREN AWOKE slowly, the dark ment and shaking Andrea’s shoulder.“ Shouted curses and the sudden thud of some one falling brought a swift chill to her heart. They were fighting again. “Quick, Andrea,” she urged her younger sister. “Mom and Dad are drunk again,” she added bitterly, “ you’ll have to help me.” She turned to the other bed which filled the rest of the narrow room. “Myra, Cather ine,” she called sharply to her two stepsisters. “Come quickly. We must stop Mom and Dad before one of them is killed.” The other girls were wide awake now. This was not the first time they had been dragged from sleep in the middle of the night to intervene be tween parent and stepparent. The sight in the next room would have shocked one who had not seen it repeated many times. The room was a shambles. With practiced precision, Karen and Andrea ran to their mother while Myra and Catherine grabbed their father’s arms. Just then Karl ap peared in the doorway from the living room, his yawn stopping midway when his sleep-drugged mind took in the situation. “Dad,” he exclaimed sharply. “What are you doing?” ' Hastily joining his sisters, he added , his young strength "to theirs, and to gether they pulled their father away. Karen and Andrea half carried, half pulled their" mother into their bed room where she fell limply across the bed. She was quiet enough now, her strength spent in physical exer tion. Karen looked down at her mother, and a feeling of revulsion shook her. Her mother’s graying hair fell in a dishevelled mass about her gaunt face. Her eyes, dulled by drink, looked vacantly up at her two girls. ■4Fictitious names have been substituted for actual ones.
clouds of troubled thought lift ing with an effort. Then she was on her feet in one swift move-^
thought. But what was the use now? Since Mom had started drinking, life at home was unbearable. Outside, the narrow street was dark, too, but she could see it in her thoughts as clearly as though it were high noon. By day the littered street was filled with small children who had no other place to play; dogs slept fitfully, troubled by the flies whose incessant buzzingr was an undertone to the children’s shouts or quarrels. Shifty-eyed men, avoiding work when possible, loitered on the street cor ners, passing the hours in gambling, gossip, and fighting. The neighbor hood theater, with its leud posters, flung its invitation to the restless young people feverishly looking for furl. Dirty frame houses, paint long faded to a nondescript gray, lined either side or the street. There were no flowers, no attempts at beauty or even cleanliness. Flowers . . . It eased the cold numb ness in her heart to think of the first real flowers she could remember. She had been nine years old the day she had ventured those several blocks from home, and had had a new world opened for her. She could see, even now, her nine- year-old self on that earlier day, hur rying along the streets, intent on hid ing the sight of her tears. She had rounded a corner of a strange street and had stopped in amazement. Be fore her stood the most beautiful building she had ever seen. The houses on either side were just as ugly as her own, but this one stood tall and beautiful and clean. She was to know, years later, "that the Russian Mission building was really rather small and plain compare?! to build ings in-other parts of the city. But it was magnificent to her beauty- starved eyes. Then she saw the flowers. With a gasp of pure joy, she crept forward. For long moments she stood before
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