Tatjana Soli - The Forgetting Tree

“You don’t even know her name?” Gwen said.

“Minna. I think her name’s Minna, okay? It’s not like she wants the job. Bay leaves!”

The whole plan unraveling, the girls arguing, Claire’s chance to stay at the farm taken and replaced by an unwanted, cobbled second childhood in a condo in Sacramento. “Go talk to her. I have a feeling about this one.”

Lucy got her keys.

“What about dinner?” Gwen said.

“I lost my appetite.” Lucy slammed the back door.

* * *

Mrs. Girbaldi hummed as she cut cucumbers. One of the traits Claire loved in her was her cool unflappability. Nothing, including their family squabble, affected her.

“Take it easy on Lucy,” Claire said to Gwen. “She’s still fragile.”

“How long does she get away with that excuse?” Gwen banged the oven door shut on the potatoes and left the room. Despite her maternal solicitude, her taking charge, her furious cleaning and cooking in the house, she chafed against her self-appointed role.

“She’s mad about me hiring a girl. Thinks it will interfere with me selling the ranch.”

“Will it?” Mrs. Girbaldi was never sly about getting to the point.

“As if that’s the only way she can be happy.”

Claire turned away to set the table. Knife, fork, spoon. Knife, fork, spoon. Raisi’s love of routine now her own. The farm would go on for a while longer, and she would go on for a while longer with it. She banged the glassware down on the table so hard it was in danger of shattering. Gwen and Lucy weren’t the only ones with a temper. Sometimes people simply didn’t understand what it was that created and sustained them. Regardless, this girl Minna would have to do.

After an uneasy dinner spent listening for Lucy’s return, the dishes had been cleared away, and Gwen, still angry, watched a movie while Claire played gin with Mrs. Girbaldi, pretending not to notice when she cheated by fudging on their long-running scorecard. Mrs. Girbaldi was on her third cocktail by the time Lucy returned with the girl from the coffeehouse. Driven by different motivations each, they rushed from different rooms of the house to gather in the entry hall to satisfy their curiosity.

The afternoon had blued to evening, and the only thing that illuminated was the small, overhead light from the open passenger door, as a tall, lanky form stretched out her legs. The girl stood in the driveway, turning once, and then again in a full circle, appearing satisfied as she surveyed the grounds around her as if she owned the place and had merely come to check on things, perhaps take a retreat, rather than to be in service there. They stood in line for inspection and greeting.

Claire admired this sense of confidence. What struck her first as the girl walked toward them was that, despite the dusk, she wore dark, oversize sunglasses, and this gave her both a glamorous and a pitiful air, making it unclear whether they were being visited by someone famous, determined to hide her identity, or, conversely, a blind person hopelessly dependent on the whims of strangers. Transformed, ebullient, Lucy bent her head near the girl’s, whispering something low enough for only her to hear, and both of them giggled with the air of conspirators, reinforcing the feeling of her being just another in a long line of the girls’ many friends who had come visiting over the years. Claire had to remind herself that the two had only just met, their intimacy seemed so natural, and this was yet another thing in the girl’s favor.

When she entered the hallway and stood under the light, at last taking off the sunglasses, a moment’s hush enveloped them. A perverse sense of pride went through Claire at Lucy’s having felt no need to inform them that the girl was black, or at least biracial. She held out her hand. “Hello, I’m Minna.”

The first to break the spell, Claire moved closer to shake her hand, first lightly, then more forcefully, cupping her frozen, thin fingers in her own. “You’re ice-cold! Poor thing. Where have you been?” Claire felt an immediate desire to protect and moved closer still, wrapping an arm around Minna’s shoulders as if offering refuge to one distressed — the girl had a vulnerability that evoked maternal instincts. Taller than Lucy, her body, although slender, gave an impression of muscularity. She had powerful, wide shoulders, and long, tapered fingers that looked as if they held musical promise. Her skin glowed the shade of coffee with milk stirred in, and her brown hair had the sleekness of being straightened and held to a shape not of its own volition.

“Come in, come in,” Claire said, trying to erase the impression of their inspecting her by further and further kindnesses, ushering the girl into the family room, corralling her into the most comfortable chair, fluffing a pillow behind her back, offering a footstool, a bowl of long-preserved, dusty mints. In the girl’s presence, the mints appeared hopelessly provincial. Behind her, she could hear Mrs. Girbaldi’s throat clearing as if to say, Who is interviewing whom?

When Claire first looked at Minna, the green of her eyes startled her, unexpected and lovely, the soft hue of moss. As the girl took in the room — the floor-to-ceiling bookcases around three walls, stacks of books on every surface, including one tented open along the sofa’s arm — she picked the splayed book up, twisting a delicate wrist, to read the spine. “ Tales of the Arabian Nights ? Are you a classicist, or are you drawn to the fairy-tale elements?”

Claire smiled. “I’m making up for a stunted education,” she said, diffident as if she were being courted. “I love stories.”

“Do you love stories or love love stories ?”

Minna chuckled and stretched her long legs out in front of her, crossing them at the ankle. She wore a loose summer dress, but what drew Claire’s attention were her expensive-looking gold sandals, the heels high, calling for a more glamorous occasion than the one she was there for. Her toenails were painted an iridescent red, her toes hanging over the front as if the shoes were a size too small. Her feet were long, narrow, aristocratic.

“You found me out. I love both.”

“I already feel at home here,” Minna said, granting them for the first time her wide, brilliant smile. “My great-grandmother was a novelist. We always had books around. At one point I wanted to be a librarian just to be able to read all day.”

“Really?” Gwen said, as if this were an outlandish statement.

“What was her name?” Claire asked. Triumphant, she would not look at Gwen or Mrs. Girbaldi. Now, besides Claire’s being transported by her exotic looks, Claire’s heart quickened because Minna had entered her territory. At no time did she not prefer the imaginary to the real.

“Jean Rhys.”

“Oh,” Claire said. “Oh.”

She swooned. It was as if the last thirty years were swept away and she was back in her college English lit class, reading Rhys for the first time. Her masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea, had turned all the Jane Austen and Brontë sisters books on their head. A prequel to Jane Eyre, it was the madwoman-in-the-attic’s side of the story, the one that Jane so easily dismissed. After reading it, Claire felt that if one knew any person thoroughly enough, almost all could be explained and forgiven. What had happened to the girl who read that book?

“She was one of my heroes in college. I loved her books,” Claire said.

“I never heard of her,” Gwen said.

Minna looked at Claire for confirmation, and said, “She was well-known in the thirties and forties. Interest revived in her in the seventies with all the postcolonial Caribbean and feminist studies. Although she hated that label; hated the island and being lumped together with other women writers.