Robert Tanenbaum - Falsely Accused

Beyond that, Marlene’s natural cast of mind was contrarian, the single aspect of character that she shared with her husband. As a girl at Sacred Heart, she had read proscribed books and carried herself like an infant Voltaire; at liberal Smith, and later at cynical Yale, she had dragged herself up out of Saturday night debauches and, dressed in sober black, sporting a Jackie Kennedy-style lace mantilla, had floated off to early Mass, quite astonishing the circle of godless musicians and artists she frequented. Over the years she had drifted in and out of regular communion, although she acknowledged an increase in constancy since her marriage to Karp. It might have been, at first, merely a resurgence of her contrarian spirit-marry a Jew, become more Catholic-but lately she had felt a vague discomfort of soul, the sort of thing in which the Church was supposed to specialize, although it had been years, decades, since Marlene had actually brought such a problem to a priest. On recent Sundays, looking at the dull, sheeplike face of Father Raymond at Old St. Pat’s, Marlene tried to imagine what he would say if she revealed to him her recent quasi-legal doings-and more disturbingly, her bloodthirsty prospects. Although she was barely able to admit it to herself, she had begun to hope for-in some undefined fashion-moral guidance.

And, of course, there was Lucy. Quite apart from her own beliefs, Marlene had made a solemn commitment when her family’s parish priest had agreed to marry her to a non-Catholic that she would raise her child in the bosom of Rome, and she intended to do so. Happily, St. Pat’s had an excellent Sunday school, where she deposited Lucy while she attended the service. The girl had taken nicely to the Sunday ritual (her only bitch being the necessity for unnatural cleanliness, and the wearing of a succession of darling dresses, lace-collared velvets or elaborately ruffled muslins, lovingly purchased by her mother and a supporting body of female relatives), Lucy having reached the age where theology was of interest.

This morning, entering the car in a glory of dark velvet, camel-hair coat, and wool hat, Lucy asked Marlene, “How come God has three names?”

Marlene shot her daughter an inquiring look. It seemed unlikely that Sister Theresa, who ran the junior Sunday class, had exposed her charges to the mysteries of the Trinity.

“What do you mean, dear?” asked Marlene.

Lucy counted the persons off on her fingers. “One is Jesus Christ, right? Two, is baby Jesus. Three: Harold.”

“Harold?”

“Uh-huh. AreFatherwhichArtnHeaven, Harold Be thy name.”

“Ah, mmm, I think that’s ‘hallowed,’ baby. It means blessed. Also, Jesus Christ and baby Jesus are the same person.”

At this Lucy gave Marlene a disbelieving look. She said, “I’ll ask Sister Theresa,” and withdrew into what seemed like religious contemplation for the remainder of the ride.

Throughout the service, Marlene made a greater than usual effort to open herself to divine guidance. A faint headache was, however, the only result. Afterward, the sermon was on one of Father Raymond’s two favorite themes: the need to support the foreign missions as a front line against the spread of godless communism (the other being the Evils of Unsanctified Sex). The featured mission today was the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, this particular Sunday being the feast day of St. Antony Claret, its founder.

Marlene let the words wash over her, hardly hearing, as one waits for a TV commercial to end. Fr. Raymond was, on this Sunday as usual, dull but thankfully brief, and Marlene was inclined to reward the brevity at least with the acknowledgment that St. Antony C. was the devil of a lad and his Charetians deserved at least a sawbuck. She reached into her wallet when the collection started, yanked forth a bill, and saw that her fingers had also plucked out the very slip of paper upon which Professor Malkin had written the name and address of Mattie Duran. A sign, was Marlene’s first thought, and then she carefully put that thought aside. But she gave twenty dollars to the mission when the plate came around.

After church, Marlene found herself driving east on Houston. Lucy glanced out the window, recognized the route, and asked, “Are we getting knishes?” A swing by Yoneh Schimmel’s for a bag of the tasty bricklike pastries was a frequent coda to their Sunday devotions.

“Maybe later. I want to stop off someplace first.”

“Where?”

“A place. It’s a women’s shelter I want to take a look at. It won’t be a long visit.”

“What’s a women’s shelter?”

“It’s a … sometimes there are bad men that like to hurt women and kids, and this is a place they can run to and hide.”

“Are we going to hide there?”

Marlene laughed and gave her daughter a squeeze. “No, silly! Daddy wouldn’t hurt us.”

“If he did, Uncle Harry would shoot him with his gun,” said Lucy matter-of-factly. “Then I would take care of him, and you could hide in that place.”

This comment produced enough distraction from the task of driving to have caused a serious accident on any day but Sunday. As it was, there was a squealing of brakes and a honking of horns.

“Good plan, Lucy,” said Marlene upon recovery, to which her darling returned a glance both blank and sweet.

The East Village Women’s Shelter was on Avenue B off Sixth, occupying the whole of a store-fronted six-story tenement. The former shop windows had been covered with steel plating, painted black, upon which the institution’s name was neatly lettered in white. There was an iglesia on one side of it and a shoe-repair shop with a traditional hanging shoe sign on the other. Most of the businesses on either side of the street-stores selling salsa records, cheap clothing, and furniture on credit-had their corrugated steel shutters down, and these were covered with graffiti, much of it gang spoor. There were graffiti on the iglesia too, but none on the women’s shelter-not a one, despite the blank, smooth expanse of black steel.

Marlene observed this and thought it significant. She parked and ushered Lucy up to the door, which was solid, also black, and equipped with a peephole. She rang the buzzer. A voice emanating from a little box affixed to the doorframe asked her business. She said she wanted to see Mattie Duran. The voice told her to wait, and she was aware of being observed through the peephole.

Shortly she heard clankings, as of heavy locks being disengaged, and the door opened. In the doorway was a young woman in her late teens, with a long, thick braid in her black hair and a suspicious look on her face; the face, which was thin and biscuit brown, had darkened channels cut under the eyes, as if by corrosive tears. She was dressed in a black sweatshirt and jeans. This person looked Marlene up and down, and was clearly unimpressed, although she smiled and said hi to Lucy. Without another word she barred the door with a dead bolt and a police lock and turned away, allowing Marlene to follow her if she would.

A short corridor made from plywood led to a glass door. Marlene and Lucy followed the teenager through it and into a room carved out of the center of the former retail store. The room was clearly an office: four unmatched filing cabinets stood along one wall, and another wall held a corkboard covered with messages. Two battered steel desks in the center of the room were occupied by a pair of women, one black, one white, who were talking on telephones. Another phone rang unanswered. There were grubby toys strewn in odd corners. The place smelled of cooking soup.

“She’s in there,” said their guide, pointing at a door.

Marlene knocked and, in response to a vague noise from within, opened it, revealing a tiny office, no larger than an apartment bathroom. It contained a rack of steel shelving overflowing with stuffed manila files, a scarred wooden desk, one leg of which was missing and replaced with phone books, a miscellany of straight chairs in dubious repair, and, affixed to the walls, an office clock, a calendar, much inscribed, and a color reproduction of one of Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits, with mustache. On the desk was a rough-looking, large black Persian tomcat, nesting in a wire basket full of what looked like official manifold forms. Behind the desk was a swarthy woman of about forty.