IV: Ending/With/Balloons
I called Helga every other day, letting her know I was still around, wasn't going to abandon her. June crept by, and I still hadn't told my grandfather. I was still spending my evenings with Ruth.
" What's the matter with you?" she would say sometimes, over the rim of a martini glass. Ruth drank a lot, and prompted me to do so, too. It was my escapism, the beginning of something dark that I hadn't seen coming.
" Nothing," I'd respond. I wasn't an idiot – I knew I couldn't confide in her, tell her I was falling apart. Ruth was not going to catch me. News of my dilemma would spoil me for her.
In the meantime, she loved the idea that I was cheating on Helga with her. She asked about her, often.
" She's Olga Pataki's little sister, right?" she asked me one night. I nodded, not comfortable with the idea that she recognized her, knew something about her beyond her 'relationship' with me.
" Olga Pataki," Ruth said slowly, laughing to herself. " What a buffoon. An overachiever, to be sure – she got into some Ivy League school and did just fine – worked like crazy, was adored by her professors. But the girl comes to Brown for lectures and gets laughed at. She's a brown-noser, with no real intelligence. Its unbelievable, how any simpleton who works hard can get ahead, these days." She rolled her eyes.
" But – she's a talented violinist, isn't she?" I asked, feeling strangely offended. I remembered Olga giving a concert at the high school and embarrassing the hell out of Helga. She was so beautiful – she made you look twice at Helga, who was pretty, but marred her looks by carrying herself under a dark cloud while her sister shined.
Ruth shrugged. " It doesn't take brain power to practice so hard that you never miss a beat," she said, annoyed by my insubordination. I made a face.
" That's not true," I said, " It takes – an inspired person to make music beautiful. You can hit all the right notes and still sound flat, if you can't . . . feel what you're playing." Lines I'd borrowed from Gerald, who played a mean piano himself. Ruth scoffed at this.
" Arnold, the girl was a dunce," she concluded, ending the conversation,
" Maybe her fingers were inspired – that's it."
I would walk home from Ruth's house after a half-night's sleep on the rug in front of the phony fire, or under the blankets she'd piled on the covered couch. The sun was usually coming up as I made my way home, preparing to get back in bed again until work.
I spent weekend afternoons with Helga – though I always thought I'd prefer to be with Gerald or Phoebe, Helga's was the only company that seemed to make sense – no one else knew what we were going though, and even if they had, they would not have understood.
Mostly we laid in her bed and watched movies on the tiny TV she kept on her dresser. One Sunday we were watching Born on the Fourth of July, and I felt tears pooling, stubborn, in my eyes. The movie was sad, about a man who lost everything in the Vietnam War. I didn't usually cry at movies – in fact, I never did – but my emotions were heightened after everything that happened, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I glanced over at Helga to see if she was shocked at my tears – she was crying, too.
" So sad," she said, quiet, watching me. I sniffed.
" I didn't realize you could cry," I said, embarrassed, trying to turn things onto her, " I never saw you cry, not even when we were little." She wiped her eyes.
" You made me cry once," she said, reaching over to dry my eyes – she swept her thumb across my cheek, taking away the trails. I thought the action was very forward, but I didn't mind her touch.
" When?" I asked, surprised. She was the one who taunted me. I was always turning the other cheek.
" When we worked together on that stupid egg project in fourth grade," she said with a sigh, " I'd made this promise to myself that I was going to be nice to you – and you jumped all over me as soon as I sat down next to you –"
" Helga, I –"
" I know, I know," she said, " It was completely founded. I was so . . . I was confused. It made me mean." I stared at her – I couldn't believe she remembered all this stuff. I was beginning to wonder if she'd had a crush on me when we were younger – she'd written in the yearbook that she used to spy on me.
We were silent for the rest of the movie. It was a happy ending, with balloons.
In mid-July, our friends were packing up for college. No one knew about Helga's pregnancy – not her parents, not my grandfather, not even Gerald or Phoebe, our best friends. Helga's belly was still flat. I was still sleeping with Ruth, but our rendezvous lacked the excitement that it had held at the beginning of summer – there was something else I wanted, something Ruth couldn't give me.
Helga and I didn't talk about the baby. We just didn't. We knew why we saw each other, why we met each week when I got off of work, or when she came home from her poetry workshops. I thought about her sometimes, in those dank classrooms with the sun blazing outside, listening to published poets brag on about their methods. She probably had all their talent packed twice-fold into her pinky finger. Helga, who felt everything so completely, too intensely – how could she not be a poet?
We found one of Olga's old chess boards, and would bring it to the park when it wasn't too hot out. I was never good at chess, but Helga was even worse, and it boosted my confidence a bit. Our friends began to see us out together, and they must have wondered. But everyone was so busy - getting prepared to go off to college – there was no time to discuss the turns our love lives had taken, no matter how bizarre.
" I've been writing a lot," Helga told me, over the chess board one day, " I feel so ridiculously inspired by my depression."
" You're depressed?" I moved a pawn, not in offense or defense, just because I had to move a piece.
" In an inspired way," she answered, with a wicked grin, sliding her queen across the board. " I've been thinking about baby names, if you can believe that."
I pushed the timid pawn forward another space – she brought her knight down upon it and swept it off the board, paying more attention to the game than I was.
" Baby names . . ." I trailed off. It was easy for me, with a dead and therefore saintly pair of parents. One name for a girl – Wendy, my autumn haired, doe-eyed mother, one for a boy: Charlie, the dashing father. Shadows, with names that could be inherited. Very convenient.
" I was thinking Gretchen or Ingrid if it's a girl," she said, the reality of her words – the possibility of having a daughter – making me queasy. " Something Norse. We have the strongest women." She curled up a forearm in demonstration, smiling.
" And if it's a boy?" I asked, my mouth going dry – it had to be one or the other, it couldn't be vapors, regrets, a second chance.
" You can pick," she said, " If it's a boy."
That seemed fair. I moved my bishop blindly, and she swept it away with her rook.
" How's Ruth?" she asked, a glimmer of vindictiveness surfacing in her tone. Her first offensive move since we'd become allies.
" She's fine," I answered, careful, scooting my remaining bishop back two squares. " She'll be leaving soon." It was a lie – it would be another month and a half before Ruth alighted, returned to Brown.
" Are you sleeping together?" Helga asked, trying to be coy, faltering – her voice shook. " What will you do if you get her pregnant, too? What would you do then?" I put my hand in the pile of pieces that I'd taken from her, squeezed them, frowned down at the board.
" I don't get girls pregnant," I snapped. " I'm not that kind of guy. What happened between us was – a fluke. A mistake."
" I'm not saying that it wasn't," Helga returned, taking that final bishop with her queen, snapping up the pieces harshly. " Of course it was a mistake. It was the mistake to end all mistakes."
We were quiet for a while after that. Our chess game progressed viciously – Helga bit back tears and stared down at the board, head in her hands. Maybe it was rude to call our tryst in the bathroom a mistake. But what else could I call it? It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, and to her, too.
" Check."
Still, there was some tenderness between us, and, lying there in the grass with the sun on my back, I didn't feel so trapped. I would be pressed sometimes by these sudden aches for her – because she had something of mine that I couldn't take back, and because I felt her aching for me, too.
I looked up at her and said, " Let's get married." She laughed, and pushed her rook into my king.
" Checkmate," she said, beaming. I stared at the board, dumbfounded. It was the first time she'd ever beaten me.
My grandfather got onto me about not preparing for school in the fall – of course I hadn't bought supplies, of course – that money was going toward, what? – formula? I knew nothing about babies, only that they were expensive.
Ruth asked coyly why I never took her out. "Don't you want to hang onto me?" she teased. By now she'd realized that I wasn't so dumb as she'd originally guessed. When I didn't answer her – only chugged her fancy Merlot:
" You've got some secret, don't you?" she asked. My guess was that she'd known for sometime. Not much got past her – I'd always imagined that she'd been battered and turned hard – she knew people's slippery architecture, their impossible rough places. She worked around them, but didn't bend – only made herself stronger, let things stack upon her and pushed back. She was, ironically, akin to Helga in this.
" She's pregnant," the words busted loose from their gates, and I was happy to set them free. Weighted buckets tumbled off my shoulders – Ruth knew, she would surely let me go, now.
" I see," she said carefully, and I was surprised with her restraint. I'd come to know that "nothing's sacred" was Ruth's motto, her t-shirt decree. " Olga's little sister," she said thoughtfully, and I waited for the punch line.
" That's the one," I said when nothing came. " That's her. Helga." It felt rude to say her name in Ruth's den – the fake fire, the dizzying wine – Helga was so far away from all of this.
" But you're here," Ruth said, pensive. " I thought – well." She stopped herself, " I guess you're more like me than I thought," she laughed.
" No I'm not," I said, drunk, unashamed. " I just don't know what else to do."
" Get the operation," she said, irritated now, " I did." I looked up at her and she answered me with a smug poker-face. God, what happened to you? I wanted to ask - you were a girl, you had ribbons in your hair. I thought of Helga's bow.
" She won't," I said, my lips shaking. She won't turn into you, Ruth, I won't let her. Whoever wrecked you – I won't do the same for her.
I thought of my parents. Were they watching me now? God, I was naked – and drinking. In the lap of the serpent. I reached for my boxers, my shirt. Ruth watched me coldly, fire in her eyes. The phony fire. Reflected, orange flames on her dark eyes. I stumbled, realized how drunk I was. Realized how bathed in ludicrously this scene was – Ruth turning up the air-conditioning until it was cold enough to have a fire in the middle of summer.
" Do the words the rest of your life mean anything to you?" she asked me as I dressed. My hands trembled on the button of my pants – how would Helga and I raise this child? Would I visit, with my shining girlfriend – would I pick him up on weekends in a McDonald's parking lot, Helga's eyes shooting daggers? Would I ask my child to call my lovers Aunt Brittany, Aunt Kelly? How would we explain – how would we ever explain?
" I've got to go," I tripped over her rugs on the way to the door.
" You might as well drive," she called, venom surfacing in her usually languid voice, " Hope for the worst." I shuddered at her words – she was hurt, I had stamped on her pride. Not a mound of boulders after all – a house of cards. So much like Helga, the pretense, the closely guarded fragility. What was I doing with these girls? Why did I need to save them?
But I wasn't saving Ruth. I walked away quickly, hot summer wind at my back. Left my car parked outside her penthouse, headed for the nearest landmark: Helga's brownstone.
The night had turned to morning since I'd last been outside – but it was a still a black morning, the sun only a dim threat on the horizon. I hurried along the cracked city sidewalks, far away I could hear the eternal buzz of Manhattan traffic.
" Helga," I choked on her name, let it slide past my lips as I walked. I wanted to meet her at the door – Helga, I wondered what kind of bedclothes she'd wear. I wanted to know everything. I wanted her forgiveness, her arms around me. I walked faster, until I was running – the wine I'd had churning in my stomach, my side cramping in tremendous pain. I felt like I might throw up if I stopped – so I only ran harder, my feet pounding the pavement furiously. I finally saw her brownstone up ahead and catapulted toward it – stopping to lean against its cool bricks, catch my breath. A wave of nausea moved over me, but I pushed it down.
I first considered the front door – but no, I didn't want to go through Big Bob, a dazed Miriam. I glanced up at the side fire-escape that led to her window – God bless these old buildings.
Taking the ladder slowly – my vision was blurred, my senses numb – I worked my way shakily onto the platform that looked into her bedroom. I was surprised to find the light on, a record playing almost inaudibly on an old turntable.
" See the market place in old Algiers," sang the jazz beauty, her voice morphed by dust and age, " Send me photographs and souvenirs; just remember when a dream appears – You belong to me."
The window was open a bit, and I stuck my face near the crack.
" Helga!" I hissed. She started and gasped; I saw her when she sat up in bed. Her bedclothes – a pale yellow tank and blue drawstring pants. Her hair pulled up into a messy bun, revealing those soft, sloping shoulders. She sat on the bed and stared at me for a moment, unmoving.
" What are you doing?" she demanded, stopping the record player.
" Can I come in?" She walked to the window, pulled it open. I stuck my head inside and kissed her cheek, sloppy. She made a face.
" You're drunk," she said, disappointed. But she didn't move back.
" But I'm thinking clearly – for the first time," I said, and it was true. My movements were sloppy, my breath was stained with wine – but I could finally see Helga, when she'd been hiding from me all those years. I remembered the night I'd found her and Phoebe on my fire escape. Some ridiculous explanation and they were gone – my sneaking suspicions that I pushed down – would anything have been different if I'd let myself realize it? Every insane corner I'd turned to find her – she loved me, that little girl, so awkward, secretly soft, doomed.
She helped me inside – I swear I heard guitars playing, her hands, the feel of skin on a warm summer's night, guiding me to the bed.
" Lay down," she instructed, making her voice soft. Again I thought of my mother, what she would have done. " I'll make you some coffee," Helga offered, but I grabbed her wrist.
" No, don't take care of me," I moaned, arm draped across my forehead – I was often dramatic when drunk. " I don't deserve it." She laughed.
" I know." She picked up a bottle of Evian that had been sitting on her bedside table, dripping condensation, pulled my arm away and put the cool plastic to my sticky brow.
" Helga," I breathed, shutting my eyes and melting into her bed, my muscles aching pleasantly from my impromptu jog – we're pained, they seemed to say, but here is our reward, what we worked for. Drops from the sweating water bottle slid down my forehead, tickling my cheeks like tears of joy. My body was throbbing with the sadness of not being able to remember the only time I'd been inside someone who loved me. All I'd found in Ruth was sharpness, hurt, and diatribe. In Helga – I couldn't remember. But the parts that surfaced, clear and slow, were warm, profound.
" You can sleep here," I heard her saying as I drifted off, " They won't notice."
I wondered if she would continue with her late night love songs, her records, her lamenting. Or would she lie beside me, drink me in, her captive? You belong to me. My sleep was so deep and comfortable, I'll never know.
A/N: This fic will have a brief hiatus, part five won't be finished/posted until I get back to school next week. Have a great Thanksgiving vacation, and thanks for reading/reviewing! ^_^ ~Mena