and tired, but her eyes turned toward Arleen when she walked into the room, and the old aliveness still showed in them.
“Why, it’s Miss Anderson. Al, it’s Miss Anderson come to do for me.”
Al, slumped in a rocking chair by the breezeless window, turned listless, bloodshot eyes toward Arleen. It was evident that he’d been drinking heavily. The sour-sweet odor of cheap wine filled the room.
Neelie didn’t let on. She said, affection in her voice, “Al’s been sponging my face and arms with cold water all morning. I tell you, it sure has felt good.”
Al got to his feet, swaying slightly. His eyes were angry, but behind the anger Arleen thought he looked ready to cry.
“Why don’t you tell her I made a few pennies and used them to get myself drunk with, instead of getting you some little thing you might like?” he roared at her.
Neelie said gently, her voice directed at Arleen, but her eyes on her husband, “Al had kind of a rough time this morning. He got up real early and walked clear over to this place on Tenth, thinking they were hiring, but they weren’t. He walked all the way back, too.”
There was savagery in Al Ryan’s voice. “They wasn’t hiring older men!” he said. “I’m too old to live, and I can’t die! I’m no good to anybody, not even myself. I ought to hang myself. That’s a cheap way to die!”
Neelie said quietly, “You’re all I’ve got, Al. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
He stared at her for a second, his lips quivering, then turned and slammed out of the room.
“I know Al drinks,” Neelie said slowly, “but he can’t help himself. He’s one of those people who, when they can’t see no way out of something, has just got to do something to try and make the awful feeling in them go away.” Her quiet gaze met Arleen’s. “My Al’s a good man,” she said. “And he’d never do something that would leave me alone. Al would never do a thing like that.”
Outside, on the fire escape, a bedraggled sparrow lit for a second and then flew off. Neelie’s eyes followed the bird. “Oh, my,” she said, “know what I’d like? I guess it’ll sound silly to you, but I’d sure like to see that place in California the swallows come back to every year. Capistrano, I guess they call it. Wouldn’t it be something to be there and see all them birds come back every year to that same place?”
Arleen, bathing the thin arms and shoulders, nodded. “Tourists come from all over just to see it.” Impulsively she added, “Maybe you’ll get to see Capistrano, Neelie. It could happen.”
Neelie nodded happily. “Sure, why not? There’s no law against it, is there? There’s no law saying a person can’t hope. That’s what I keep telling Al.”
Arleen’s upper lip and forehead were beaded with moisture, and breathing was like pulling furnace air into her lungs. If it was this hot in May, what was it going to be like in June and July?
Neelie Ryan, as if understanding Arleen’s thoughts, said, “It’s unseasonably hot for this time of year. It don’t get no hotter than this in full summer.” She smiled at Arleen, as if she were the one to be comforted. “A body gets used to things,” she said. “I expect the good Lord knows some things has got to be gotten used to, so He lets you get used to ‘em.”
Arleen said, with sudden bitterness, “You should have a fan in here. At least it would stir up the air a little. Anything would help.”
She massaged Neelie’s shoulders and the back of her neck. “My,” the woman said appreciatively, “that makes me feel a heap better.”
Arleen sponged her face again with cool water. It wasn’t sensible to put on powder, because she knew that within seconds Neelie would begin to perspire again.
As she put her things away into her bag, she said, “Know what, Neelie? I’m going to bring you a fan the next time I come. And if there’s any breeze blowing at all, you’ll get some of it.”
Neelie looked doubtful. “Oh, I don’t think you should go to all that fuss, Miss Anderson. I don’t think the landlord would like me to use that extra electricity.”
Arleen said fiercely, “I don’t care what he likes, Neelie! I’ll say I prescribed it for you. And if that doesn’t take care of it, I’ll pay for the extra electricity myself!”
She bent over Neelie, squeezing the woman’s hand in her strong, young grip.
Neelie smiled up at her. “You’re a fine girl,” she said. “A real fine girl, Miss Anderson.”
Arleen met Al Ryan in the hall. He flashed her an angry glance, but did not speak.
Arleen walked down to the second-floor landing. She thought, “I’m not a fine girl. It’s only that I feel guilty because I have that big window fan in my apartment, and if it gets too hot I can go out to an air-conditioned movie or a restaurant. Neelie can’t do that. And I can’t rest in my own comfort unless I try and do something for her!”
As she neared the Luigui apartment, she could hear the unhappy sound of a baby crying.
CHAPTER 4
AS ALWAYS, the dirt, litter and abject misery of the Luigui apartment hit Arleen like a blow across the face.
She found Anna Luigui lying down, clad in a not too clean nightgown, her bare, dirty feet trailing over the side of the cot.
At the table, Rose Luigui was spreading peanut butter on bread for the Luigui children crowded around her. The youngest member of the Luigui clan reposed on a pillow on the table, beside the peanut butter jar. She was crying in fierce, heartbreaking wails.
Rose, unaware of anyone else in the room but the waiting, clutching children and the crying baby, said, an edge of hysteria in her voice, “Shut up! Shut up, will you? If you keep up that yelling I’ll. . . I’ll brain you!”
And then, as Arleen watched, she let the knife drop into the peanut butter jar while she reached down with fierce tenderness and picked up Carmella.
“I didn’t mean that. Rose didn’t mean that. . . .” Suddenly, feeling the strange presence in the room, she lifted her head and stared, flushed and sullen-eyed, at Arleen.
“What do you think you’re looking at?” she flung at her, as she let the baby drop back gently onto the pillow, making no further effort to quiet its cries.
She retrieved the knife and once again began spreading peanut butter on the bread, to the accompanying unmelodic wails of Carmella.
“Welcome to breakfast, Miss Anderson,” she told Arleen, in the familiar mocking voice. “Besides the peanut butter sandwiches the menu always has powdered milk to drink. Oh, it’s warm and it’s gaggy to taste, but it’s very good for you. Ask Miss Gibbons! She drinks it herself . . . to hear her tell it!”
Arleen walked over and picked up Carmella. “Perhaps she’ll stop crying if she’s held,” she said.
She was surprised to find that the baby was not only dry, but bathed and clean. Arleen felt quite certain Anna had had nothing to do with it.
She
