The Little Friend полностью

“What time tonight yall fixing to revive these folks?” said Danny brightly, finger to nostril, after straightening up from his own dose of headache powder.

“We ort to leave,” said Eugene to Loyal. “Come on.”

“And then,” Gum was saying to Loyal, “then they insertioned this what-you-call balloon into my neck veins here, and they—”

“Gum, he’s got to go.”

Gum cackled, and caught the sleeve of Loyal’s long-sleeved white dress shirt with a black-speckled claw. She was delighted to have discovered such a considerate listener, and was reluctant to let him get away quite so easily.

————

Harriet walked home from Tatty’s. The wide sidewalks were shaded by pecan and magnolia trees, littered with crushed petals from the crape myrtles; faintly, across the warm air, floated the sad evening chimes from the First Baptist Church. The houses on Main Street were grander than the Georgians and carpenter-Gothic cottages of George Street—Greek Revival, Italianate, Second Empire Victorian, relics of a cotton economy gone bust. A few, but not many, were still owned by descendants of the families who had built them; a couple had even been bought by rich people from out of town. But there were also a growing number of eyesores, with tricycles in the yard and clotheslines strung between the Doric columns.

The light was failing. A firefly blinked, down at the end of the street, and practically by her nose two more flashed in quick sequence, pop pop. She wasn’t quite ready to go home—not yet—and though Main Street got desolate and a bit frightening this far down, she told herself that she would walk a little further, down to the Alexandria Hotel. Everyone still called it the Alexandria Hotel though no hotel had existed there in Harriet’s lifetime—or indeed, even Edie’s. During the yellow fever epidemic of ’79, when the stricken town was deluged by ill and panicked strangers fleeing north from Natchez and New Orleans, the dying had been packed like sardines on the porch and the balcony of the overflowing hotel—screaming, raving, crying out for water—while the dead lay heaped on the sidewalk out front.

About every five years, someone tried to open up the Alexandria Hotel again and use it for a dry goods shop, or a meeting hall, or something or other; but such efforts never lasted long. Simply walking past the place made people uncomfortable. A few years ago, some people from out of town had tried to open a tearoom in the lobby, but now it was closed.

Harriet stopped on the sidewalk. Down at the end of the empty street loomed the hotel—a white, staring-eyed wreck, indistinct in the twilight. Then, all of a sudden, she thought she saw something move in an upstairs window—something fluttery, like a piece of cloth—and she turned and fled, heart pounding, down the long darkening street, as if a flotilla of ghosts were skimming after her.

She ran all the way home without stopping, and clattered in at the front door—breathless, exhausted, spots jumping in front of her eyes. Allison was downstairs, sitting in front of the television.

“Mother is worried,” she said. “Go tell her you’re home. Oh, and Hely called.”

Harriet was halfway up the stairs when her mother flew down at her, with a great flap flap flap of bedroom slippers. “Where have you been? Answer me this minute!” Her face was flushed and shiny; she had thrown on a wrinkled old white dress shirt that belonged to Harriet’s father over her nightgown. She grabbed Harriet’s shoulder and shook her and then—incredibly—shoved her against the wall so that Harriet’s head knocked against a framed engraving of the singer Jenny Lind.

Harriet was mystified. “What’s the matter?” she said, blinking.

“Do you know how worried I’ve been?” Her mother’s voice was high and peculiar. “I’ve been sick wondering where you are. Out … of … my … mind …”

“Mother?” In confusion, Harriet smeared an arm over her face. Was she drunk? Sometimes her father behaved like this when he was home for Thanksgiving and had too much to drink.

“I thought you were dead. How dare you—”

“What’s wrong?” The overhead lights were harsh, and all Harriet could think of was getting upstairs to her bedroom. “I was only at Tat’s.”

“Nonsense. Tell me the truth.”

“I was,” said Harriet impatiently, attempting again to sidestep her mother. “Call her if you don’t believe me.”

“I certainly will, first thing in the morning. Right now, you tell me where you’ve been.”

“Go on,” said Harriet, exasperated at having her path blocked. “Call her.”

Harriet’s mother took a quick, angry step towards her, and Harriet, just as quickly, moved two steps down. Her frustrated gaze landed on the pastel portrait of her mother (spark-eyed, humorous, with a camel hair coat and a glossy teen-queen ponytail) which had been drawn on the street in Paris, during junior year abroad. The portrait’s eyes, starry with their exaggerated highlights of white chalk, seemed to widen with lively sympathy at Harriet’s dilemma.