Tar Baby

when the smell hit her. She moved a little to her left to see what the mirror reflected behind her. There he stood in mauve silk pajamas, his skin as dark as a riverbed, his eyes as steady and clear as a thief’s.

“Morning,” he said, and smiled bringing once more into view the small dark dogs galloping on silver feet. Jadine could not find her tongue. She was staring into the mirror at his hair. Last night, sitting with Valerian in the soft light of the dining room, it had looked merely long and unkempt. Here, alone in her bedroom where there were no shadows, only glimmering unrelieved sunlight, his hair looked overpowering—physically overpowering, like bundles of long whips or lashes that could grab her and beat her to jelly. And would. Wild, aggressive, vicious hair that needed to be put in jail. Uncivilized, reform-school hair. Mau Mau, Attica, chain-gang hair.

“Good morning.” He said it again.

She struggled to pull herself away from his image in the mirror and to yank her tongue from the roof of her mouth. She was sober now and the thought that she had not grasped fully the night before, the picture that only Margaret had seen clearly, was framed for her now in the fruitwood of the mirror: this man had been living among them (in their things) for days. And they had not known it. What had he seen or heard? What was he doing there?

“Hey. I was saying good morning to you.”

She turned, freed at last from the image in the mirror.

“You could knock, you know.”

“The door was open.” He gestured to the door behind him.

“But it’s still a door and can be knocked on.”

He seemed to close his eyes to her without shutting the lids, and what was left of his smile disappeared into his beard and the riverbed darkness of his face.

This is wrong, she thought. I shouldn’t make him angry.

“I’m sorry, but you startled me. Did you sleep well?”

He nodded but did not return the smile she dredged up to her own lips.

“The shower doesn’t work,” he said, glancing around the room.

“Oh.” She laughed and, to hide her confusion, shed her sealskin coat, throwing it on the bed. “There’s no handle. Just push the knob in the center. It’ll come on. It took me a while too, at first.”

He looked past her to the sealskin coat sprawled on the bed. Jadine flushed as though he could see the print of her nipples and thighs in the pelts. He walked toward the coat and the bed. The pajamas they’d given him were too small—the sleeves ended somewhere between wrist and elbow and the pants leg came to just above his shins. As he stood looking at the coat she could not tell whether he or it was the blacker or the shinier, but she knew she did not want him to touch it.

“I’ll get Sydney to get some clothes for you if you like.” Then thinking of Sydney’s response to that chore she added, “Or Yardman. Yardman can get some things for you.”

“Who?” He turned away from the coat.

“Yardman. The gardener.”

“That his name?”

“No.” She smiled, searching for the leashes of the small dark dogs. “But he answers to it. Which is something, at least. Some people don’t have a name of any kind.”

He smiled too, moving away from the bed toward her. “What do you like? Billy? Paul? What about Rastus?”

“Don’t be funny. What is your name?”

“What’s yours?”

“Jade.”

He shook his head as though he knew better.

“Okay. Jadine. Jadine Childs.” She reached for a cigarette.

“Can I have one of those?”

“Sure.” She gestured toward the escritoire for him to help himself. He pulled out a Gauloise filter, lit it and began to cough.

“Been a long time,” he said, and for the first time looked vulnerable. Jadine grabbed the leashes.

“Keep the pack,” she said. “There’s plenty more if you want them.”

He nodded and took another drag with a little more success.

“Who’s the copper Venus?” he asked her.

Jadine dropped the leashes. “Where did you see that?”

“I didn’t see it. I heard it.”

“Where?” She could not find them, they were gone.

“The woman who comes to work here. She talks to herself out in the washhouse.”

Now she had them again, safely back in her fingers. “Mary. It must have been Mary.” Jadine laughed. “That was a publicity thing. When I was modeling they called me that. I wonder how Mary knows about it. I don’t think she can even read.”

“You were a model?” He narrowed his eyes with interest.