|
Loss of the good quiet dark
By Julie Wakeman-Linn
When Juliette opened her cubicle door, expecting
Ellen, she found a strange white gentleman clutching the spa robe to his throat.
“So sorry, sir, you have the wrong room.”
“Ellen’s not coming. I’m here instead.” He
spoke through clenched teeth.
“Pardon?” Ellen Andersen had been her Tuesday
3:00 appointment for the last six months. Ellen was her favorite client of
the diplomatic wives, a big tipper, even if she was a bit odd. This week Juliette
had counted on that tip so she could afford bus fare home to see her mother.
What to say to this nervous man? Juliette hated talking, especially in English.
“Why?”
“She died last week in a car accident on
the Great East Road. She paid in advance. I’m her husband.”
“Pepani.” Juliette felt a rush of
sadness. Staring at his taut white face, she held her hands quiet, while struggling
for proper English words. “My sorrows at your loss.”
“Zikomo. Friends said a massage would
do me some good.” He clipped the d’ sound in his words; he was an American
like Ellen.
Juliette couldn’t remember if Ellen mentioned
what his Embassy position was. She hadn’t massaged a man in months, but it
was the same routine, just bigger muscles. “Lie face down on the table. Pull
up the draping sheet.”
She slipped into the corridor. Funny, pleasant
Ellen—dead. Unlike any of her customers, foreign or local, Ellen talked. As
Juliette pushed, rubbed, and stretched, Ellen moaned about little delights
and then kept talking—about shopping, about Embassy parties, about home which
was a cold place called Massachusetts.
Massage clients lay on the green padded table
with their eyes closed. Only the pulsing of their blood in their veins proved
they were still alive, not corpses. Ellen never moved a muscle—only her mouth.
Juliette had been trained to play recordings of birds, ocean waves, or mountain
streams, but Ellen provided the quiet noise.
Juliette heard his robe swing against her
door and she forced her mind to practical matters. She’d deliver an excellent
massage and then she’d get her tip and have her weekend at home. She knocked
and stepped into the welcoming fog of aloe and eucalyptus.
“You’re the one, aren’t you? Juliette?” His
head up, his eyes staring. “You used to do my wife?”
What a frightening way to say it. She motioned
for him to lower his face into the ring headrest. She needed to start, so
her routine of hands and short phrases in the quiet dark could soothe them
both. She folded back the sheet, dripped four droplets of oil on his back,
and pressed her palms in the middle to focus his energy. His spine felt rigid
like a door.
“Did she talk?” His voice was muffled.
Maybe if she began the pulsing motions, he’d
relax and be still. Her thumbs circled deeper. At least he isn’t hairy. He
inhaled in a gulp, constricting his shoulder blades.
“Please, tell me –what did she say to you?”
How to answer? Ellen had said many things.
Once Ellen said her hands were big as shovels, but she’d meant it as a compliment.
Juliette remembered the day, in their first weeks; Ellen grabbed her hands,
turning them over and touching her pink palms, flipping them and tapping her
black knuckles. Ellen said her hands were magic. This man, nervous about his
secrets, wouldn’t understand. “Never you. Only holidays, her friends.”
She circled her shoulders, releasing her
own tension; now to focus him on the massage. She spoke her next phrase. “Breathe
in. Hold for two counts and breathe out.”
“I know—” His inhales and exhales choppy.
“I know she didn’t talk about me, about sex, or anything private.” He rolled
onto his side, propped on his elbow. Clients never did that. “I mean—did she
talk the whole time?”
Juliette wished she was an old woman who
didn’t have to answer an impertinent youngster. He was not exposed, thank
goodness, but she couldn’t continue until he was flat on his stomach. He wouldn’t
lie down until she answered. “She did.”
He flopped down. “I thought so.”
Poor widowed man. Juliette retreated into
the rhythm of rubbing, pushing, fingertip stroking. She dropped more oil on
her hands, lavender this time, and tucked the sheet off his leg. The thigh
muscles were the best to rub, whether fatty or lean. She could use her strength
on them.
“She talked all during sex. The whole time.”
Juliette’s fingers clenched. Answer nothing.
She quickly lit an aloe vera candle, breathing in the cooling grassy odor.
She dug hard, forcing the thigh muscle to respond, a long muscle which always
responded on the most calm to the most nervous client. She began kneading
the knee cartilage.
“Will you talk to me?”
“No, sir. We masseuses don’t.” If only he
would stop his questions. “Perhaps ocean waves?”
“That’s ridiculous. Zambia is a landlocked
country.” His words spit out.
Juliette tried to ignore his outburst, massaging
his calf. He was lean, but so stiff. Was it anxiety or an injury? If he had
injured it, she needed to know how. “Your leg—have you hurt it?”
“No. Yes. Yesterday, playing tennis. Maybe
I slipped. Does it feel wrong?”
“Tendon stiffness. I will correct.”
“How?”
“I pull to realign the tendon.”
“What next?”
These words, outside her routine, snatched
away her control. How could she regain it?
“Some Jazz? Perhaps an American. Billie Holiday?”
“No music. Do you play a sport?”
“Not now.” She tugged his ankle in a stretch.
“Before.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Football.” She remembered running wild with
her brothers, tumbling, laughing. No words needed.
“You mean soccer, don’t you?” he said.
There would be no escape. The silence was
destroyed. She must now fill the air. “Would you like to talk about your wife?”
As she spoke, his ankle locked in her hands.
“Not her,” he answered too loudly.
Juliette’s fingertips circled his ankle bone:
how to get through this hour? This injured joint was a problem which could
be solved with her hands, but her fingertips weren’t the repair required.
She had to speak. If she went slow, her tongue wouldn’t tangle so much over
the strange words. “When I was a little girl, playing football, I had no shoes.”
His ankle flexed. Her fingers melted the knot. She laid the leg down, covered
it and uncovered the other leg.
“Go on.”
Juliette inhaled the scents of cedar, aloe
and him. “My brothers, were, um, much faster. I cheated—my big hands got on
the ball.” The green numbers on her clock showed only a half an hour remained.
Soon he would go away and she could go home.
“How many brothers?” His words slower.
“Three. All older. They cared for me while
my mother worked. As housekeeper for a British madam.” Maybe if she pretended
she was with her brothers. Maybe she could find the words to make a picture
of home. Her English failed her and she slipped into Chinyanja; his muscle
got rigid under her palms. She switched back to her bits of English and his
muscle relaxed again. He was clean, only a soap scent. She pushed deep into
the fibers as she struggled to tell about her village as the clock’s numbers
progressed to the last minutes of the hour.
Finally at 4 p.m., reaching the last of his
facial group, she applied gentle pressure to his temples. She whispered the
last phrase of her routine. “I am finished.”
“Good. This worked,” he said. “I will see
you next week. 3 p.m.”
His words punched the air; she ran down the
salon corridor, out of sight of the locker room.
He ruined her dark silence. In her cubicle,
all were equal, naked under the sheet, relaxing at her touch. It didn’t matter
that she was homely and shy, how she bumbled words. In the salon’s other rooms,
manicurists like Makeni had the pretty round faces with properly straightened
hair.
If she waited 10 or 15 minutes until he was
gone, she’d be all right again. She began sorting the nail polish colors.
Next she folded Makeni’s stock of towels, so much nicer than the dirty dishes,
rubbish, and soiled linens she had wrestled with as a hotel maid. The rich
foreigners could be so nasty to an invisible maid, but they appreciated her
as a trained masseuse.
“Poor Juli, your widower was quite a character.
I had to remind him to leave a tip.” Mrs. VanderHoek’s dyed red waves bounced
as she crossed the room, waving the tip envelope.
Juliette bowed, receiving her tip. This transfer
was their game; she never acknowledged the tips in words; the boss preferred
delivering them. She yearned to open the envelope, pluck out the kwacha and
be free for her trip home. Makeni and Anna always haunted the front desk to
get theirs directly from the clients. She couldn’t – she didn’t know enough
proper words to converse. Anyway, she thought it looked like they were begging.
The envelope contained a mere 1000 kwacha, only 10%. Not enough for the trip.
Maybe if Juliette could tell the boss how hard he was, she might be able to
ask for a loan. “He made me, um...”
“What, Juliette, made you what?” She gasped.
“He made me talk.” The boss who taught her
everything must understand how she valued the quiet she created. “You say
a good masseuse is silent.”
“That’s all?” The boss dusted a stray hair
off her silk sleeve. “Part of the spa industry is dealing with a difficult
client. You must practice speaking. Then you’d get better tips.”
Mr. Andersen hadn’t made an improper sexual
advance —very bad for business—so Mrs. VanderHoek chattered her usual “the
happy client” is the backbone of the spa’s success.
“Juli, you’ve learned better than the other
girls how to fix muscles. You’re my best masseuse. Next week you’ll sort him
out.” The boss patted her shoulder. “You can go now. Let the other girls clean
up. They can remember that they started out as maids, too.”
“Zikomo—for my time off.” Maybe she
would figure how to conquer his need for talk, a puzzle like repairing a stiff
ligament. The boss trusted her. Maybe she could memorize how to say ‘hush’
in English and still be polite. She now had two days off and nowhere to go.
***
On the next Tuesday, around 3:00, Juliette
sat on the stone bench in the spa’s courtyard, relaxing in the sun, sweating
a little at her hairline. Mr. Andersen was not coming or he’d be here already.
Anna and Makeni told jokes about boyfriends and their clients. Some day she
might have a boyfriend who didn’t care if her body was all angles, one who
liked a quiet woman. Easy to laugh when the girls laughed, not having to talk
at all.
Next Juliette would mop out the steam room,
then the boss would pay her extra—that would make up for the lost money from
him. Rich people were so careless about money. She let the sun heat her face,
eyes closed.
“There you are, Juliette.” Mr. Andersen,
his hands stuck in the robe’s pockets, called from the doorway. “I’m ready
for my massage.”
The girls giggled at him, a white-legged
man in a white terrycloth robe standing in middle of the spa. Even if it was
the courtyard, it was so public. Juliette was embarrassed for him, essentially
unclothed. Makeni snickered; she with her fancy red smock, she was too bold.
Juliette wanted to block their view. Why
did she care if he made a spectacle of himself? She moved in very close, closer
than Americans like, to make him retreat.
Still he didn’t move. She squeezed his elbow
to drive him the three steps to her door. His joint shifted under her touch
and she dropped it. The sensation lingered on her fingertips like heat. She
never touched a client outside her cubicle. She heard Anna and Makeni laugh,
Anna like a cat coughing.
“The sun’s nice today, isn’t it? Zambia is
so warm this time of year.”
Slipping past him, she opened her door and
inhaled the cedar smell, letting it soothe. “Lay down now.”
“Have you had a busy week?” he asked, not
budging over the threshold.
“It is late. We must begin.” She stared at
his feet, slender toes gripping his flipflops.
“Of course, excuse me,” he said as he closed
the door.
She listened for the robe swinging against
the door, sheets sliding. Why hadn’t the boss put him in her cubicle? Juliette
stretched her ear to her shoulder, realizing Mr. Andersen came looking for
her, unbidden. He was a stranger in the spa as much as he was a stranger in
her country.
For her to work the massage’s magic, she
had to resist his desire for talk. She handled other men she met outside the
spa like that Samuel at the market who teased her, even though he was married.
Her brothers had taught her something of the world, so no one took advantage.
Here in her own world, she would be careful not to give offense, but she would
not answer.
She entered, dimmed the light and turned
on bird song music.
Over the music, he said, “Juliette, first
attack my right shoulder. Extra this week. I played a lot of tennis. A lot
of hard serves.”
His request derailed her plan to reverse
and begin farther from his head, giving him time to appreciate the quiet.
She glided the sheet to his mid torso. She fingered the shoulder blades, feeling
the knot in the muscle.
“Ellen always said I should come see you
when I played too hard. She said you could fix me, my aches.”
Juliette froze, catching her weight in her
wrists. Ellen, even now was with them. Her plan to ‘hush’ him, ignoring whatever
he said, seemed too cruel. A tiny response and she could be silent. She worked
the knot in circles, expanding over the shoulder blade. “Shhh, I will try.”
Even as the muscle relaxed, his breathing
became more jagged. Ellen still. She could almost feel him miss his wife.
He lay still for a moment and then said,
“Have you seen your brothers this week?”
A safe topic of conversation, even though
he couldn’t know how she missed them. Almost like he recognized she was not
without men who would protect her. “They are, um, in my village. It is nearly
the planting season so they help my mother.”
“What crop?” He paced his breaths in time
and depth, relaxing in his outer skin, but, deep in the fibers, the muscles
in his shoulder kept the tension. “Wheat? Vegetables?”
An answer couldn’t be avoided. “Maize. We
must till the ground.”
“How?”
“Lifting the red ground, breaking up, softening.”
“Like you do here – to people.” His voice
so low, so sad.
“I want to be there.” Her words spilled out,
unbidden.
“Tell me more.”
So it began. Juliette tried to describe planting,
the soil, the rains. His questions, one or two words, nudging her as she worked
down his right side and up the left. Her stutters breaking her rhythm, yet
the muscles were unraveling. With his scalp massage, her fingertips circling
his skull, she chanted the words of prayer for the harvest.
When it was 4:00, her throat felt so tired.
In the dim glow of her green lamp, his hair glistened, a tuft curled up. Reaching
to smooth the strands back in place, she stopped herself. “I am finished,
sir.”
“Thank you so much,” he said. In a single
sudden motion of wrapping the sheet, he twisted up on the table. His head
and torso towered, filling the room. She backed away, bumping the table. “I
won’t be back next week. I’m going on home leave to take Ellen’s ashes to
her parents.”
In the low light, she realized that he was
older than Ellen, his chest hairs were tipped, mingled with gray. He never
expected to bury his young wife. “Safe journey. Um, Please to tell Ellen’s
family I feel their loss. A kind woman who cared for others.” Perhaps he would
never come back to her country where his wife had died.
“Book my appointment for the first Tuesday
of the next month. Ellen was right about this.” He crossed the room and dug
in the pocket of his robe. He offered her a roll of bills. “Here, I think
your boss takes her share of your tip. I’ll be back before the harvest.”
She accepted the kwacha in both hands,
fumbled the door and escaped to Makeni’s manicure spot.
“Heyyah Juli, how’s the widower?” Makeni
flopped her magazine shut.
Juliette scurried behind the pedicure chair
and counted the roll. A lot of kwacha. “Not gone yet.”
“Don’t hide. The boss was happy how you greeted
him. She told everybody.” Makeni pointed to the short padded stool in front
of her. “Come, massage my feet.”
Juliette buried the kwacha in her pocket.
It was enough to go home twice. Was he right? Did the boss cheat her? Aiyee
– he’d sounded so grateful. Who to trust? What to believe? She picked up Makeni’s
right heel.
“Your fingers feel so good. I could teach
you how to do pedicures.” Makeni’s lips were bright pink. “You already know
the rubbing part.”
“Maybe.” Juliette rocked on the stool with
the rotating of the ankle; maybe she could do pedicures. On the short stool,
lower than the client, she wouldn’t have to meet their eyes or talk. It wasn’t
dark, but it might be quiet, away from sad men and tips that were too big.
She needed quiet now.
“Your hands are awful big for the little
pots and brushes.”
Out here in the open rooms, her magic of
silence and proper hands were a flaw. She felt the tears coming. She couldn’t
do this.
Makeni handed her a tissue. “Don’t get fussed.
We all practice. Besides, you never get men for a pedicure.”
“I don’t dislike men clients. It’s --”
“Wouldn’t you like to learn pedicures, Juli?”
Mrs. VanderHoek’s tone both offered and commanded.
Juliette nodded, not trusting her voice and
not wanting to see the boss’s eyes.
“You’ll be less shy if you work out here
with the other girls. Mr. Anderson forgot your tip.”
“I have it.” Juliette fingered the roll but
left it buried..
The boss frowned but began step by step pedicure
instructions. All week Juliette practiced on Anna, Makeni, and Mrs. VanderHoek.
On Sunday on her visit home, Juliette painted
her mother’s toenails orange. Even as they’d laughed over such foolishness,
her mother told her she was proud of her, glad for her independence while
working for a rich foreign woman. Juliette didn’t know how to mention the
tip skimming.
After a month’s time, Juliette found herself
with her usual massage clients and three new pedicure clients, Makeni’s excess.
***
It was the fifth Tuesday since Mr. Anderson
left. She had practiced her tennis conversations with her pedicure clients.
She reviewed serve, ace, love as she retied her scarf over her straightened
hair.
“Is your widower back today?” Makeni looked
over her shoulder at the big black appointment book. The pencil marks had
faded gray after a month but they were still there, no change, no cancellation.
Juliette smiled a bright smile, the one she
practiced yesterday in the locker room mirror. “I can talk all he wants.”
“How? You never talk.”
“I talk easily now.” Juliette replied. Remembering
his voice, she wondered if he would say thank you again?
“You do not. You smile more, yes.” Makeni
swished the air with her red nails. “You nod and wave your great big hands.
You don’t talk.” Makeni laughed, and it was cruel to hear how the sound carried
around the lobby.
“Hush,” Juliette marched out to the courtyard.
She brushed the fallen frangipani blossoms off the stone bench. Perhaps the
massage would still be wonderful. She could stay in control, even if she spoke.
Mrs. VanderHoek signaled it was time. She walked out of the sunny courtyard
into her corridor, her new pedicure flip-flops slapping on the tiles. At her
door, she tugged her uniform collar. Would he notice the change to the more
tailored manicurist style? She tapped on the door.
“I’m here. Is it you, Juliette?” Mr. Andersen
sounded the same.
“Good afternoon, Sir. How was your..” She
stopped. He stood, his robe still belted around him. “Please lie face down
on the table, under the sheet.” He started to take off the robe –before she
got to the door. “Wait, sir.”
“All right.” He shrugged the robe half off
his shoulders.
She spun around the door and leaned against
its cool wood. Would he never learn how to behave? He was almost naked, which
didn’t bother him, but it made her feel naked.
“I’m ready now.” His voice steady through
the door.
She tightened her facial muscles and released
them, before she opened the door. She lit an aloe candle and turned on the
bird songs. Gliding her fingertips up the sheet, so important to maintain
a soft touch so as not to startle the client, she asked, “How was your home
leave, Sir?”
“Fine.” His single word flattened as it fell
from the ring headrest.
“How did you find Mrs. Andersen’s parents?”
“Mostly interested in her sister’s children
and their garden.” He huffed out as she pushed across his rib cage.
Children—a bad subject? Ellen had never mentioned
wanting children. She had to stop to remember what next: shoulder blades.
She poured oil into her palm.
“What’s that smell?” His voice echoed.
“Peppermint. A new oil. Very soothing.”
“I think I liked the other better.”
“Just a moment.” What a nuisance. “I will
heat the old one.”
“Never mind. Start on the right shoulder.”
“More tennis?” Now she could start her prepared
words.
“Uh-huh,” he muttered.
He didn’t demand talk. He no longer needed
words. Yet, she had started – her cubicle was no longer peaceful. Now it was
empty.
She massaged his back and legs. When she
held the sheet for him to turn over, her tongue felt swollen. “Please, um,
roll.”
He complied, without a word.
Her hands seemed bigger as she pressed on
his collarbone. His eyes opened. She looked away—at the green clock, at the
gray linoleum, at the door.
“It’s all right, Juliette. You don’t have
to talk.”
She swallowed, trying to speak but she couldn’t.
Her fingers trembled. She had tried hard to change, to learn conversation
for him, and it was all for nothing. Her dark silence would never be the same.
When she glanced back, his eyes were shut.
His breathing regular. His skin supple. Totally relaxed. She worked down his
arm. It lay heavy and still, like a dead snake in her hands.
The birdsong ceased as the tape advanced
to sea songs. The minutes ticked to four o’ clock. She pressed his temples
with her fingertips. “Finished.”
“Good,” he said. “See you next week.”
She fumbled the door handle, intending to
flee to the steam room, but she stopped in the corridor. His demands had damaged
her peace and forced her to change, but had not ruined what she did well.
Juliette marched to the reception desk to await her tip. She’d face the boss
and him, fully clothed, and speak, no matter what came
out.
Julie Wakeman-Linn is chief editor of the Potomac
Review, a literary magazine.
|
