“You said you saw it happen?”
“You calling me a liar, Estelle? I never said such a thing.”
“You said a minute ago, correct me if I am wrong, but you said and beat him so unmercifully as I saw how them two white police beat Henry and nearly slaughter that poor man, and you said he was in the gutter panting from the blows and begging for mercy from the whomps …”
“Well, I didn’ mean it that way,” Bernice lied. She knew she was slipping. She knew also she couldn’t afford the disclosure that she had sat at her window and had witnessed the two homosexuals pass, without their dogs, late that night; that she had seen Boysie’s car park in front of the house, opposite, where Brigitte worked; that she had seen the police cruiser park behind Boysie’s car; that she had seen the two policemen waiting in the shadows; and that she had seen them beat Henry, drag him from the alleyway, drop him in his car, and then drive away. And she had seen one of the policemen return in the cruiser, she saw him go up to Brigitte’s room, and come back outside; and she had even called Brigitte late that same night to find out whether it was really Boysie down there in the beaten car. She had done this because she thought she heard the man being mauled by the policemen scream, “Goddamn!” and it was only then that she knew the man could not be Boysie, or was it Henry … because Henry was the only person she knew who said goddamn like that. Anyhow, she was determined to hide all this from Estelle. All this evidence of fear. Fear of implication. Fear of disclosure. Fear of criticism. Fear of allegiance. And relating the story to Estelle, she knew she had to conceal her participation in the beating, her observation of it from her window because of a new reason, a new fear: the fear of deceit. “I didn’t mean it that way, Estelle.”
“All right, Bernice. I understand.” Bernice knew Estelle was too perceptive to be deceived. She felt she should change the conversation; and did, but Estelle wasn’t paying attention. She was thinking of the days ahead.
It is the early hours of morning. In most of the taxicabs near the Toronto General Hospital, the drivers are loitering or dozing until the tap-tap-tap of drunken or late-night workers rouses them. The hospital is quiet. It is as inbred and unloquacious as Chinatown nearby, as stealthy and secretive as the male orderly who kisses the night nurse behind the medicine cabinet, in the security of the lowered lights on the sixth floor ward. There is an occasional tip-tap-tip of a nurse reluctantly and sleepily going to a bed to take a bedpan for the bedridden; or administering medicine for the health-ridden. A woman snores. A woman cries out loud in her distant sleep from the harmless bottom of a dream, dreamed in the dungeons of fever and delirium. A radio is humming, reminding the night nurse through her passion that it is now off the air. Outside the ward, the noise of taxicabs comes up with the breeze and does not quite enter the uneasiness of the resting sick. A woman sleeps with the sheets over her head, imitating and anticipating the time when the night nurse will do that last decency for her when her hour is up, when her life and night are like death. Another woman sleeps with the reading lamp as strong as a candle, burning above a whispering, gargling head. If the nurse whose duty it is to be on duty, and who is coming to the head of her violent, hectic and stolen boredom with the orderly, had a better vision or a stronger sense of responsibility, she would see that at the west end of the ward, there are two women lying in their neighbouring beds, holding over to be closer to their whispering, so as not to wake the light, malicious sleeper on the left, so as not to rouse the night nurse and have her come and cross-examine them as to their history and convalescence and insomnia. The two women are Mrs. Joseph Macmillan and Estelle. They are talking in low voices, in a kind of abbreviated, note-taking conspiracy.
“Didn’t tell her?” Mrs. Macmillan whispered, referring to Bernice. Estelle shook her head, to signify no; and Mrs. Macmillan continued to whisper, “Sensible thing to do, hear me, darling? You was wise not to.”
“Bound to hear some time, though. She must.”
“Leave that till when it happens. And the doctor? Didn’t say what the doctor said?”
“Nothing ’bout the doctor.”
“Sensible thing too. Now, listen. I getting outta this slaughter-house in two days. Going home. Timmins. You promised. Coming up day after me, right?” Estelle wasn’t too certain about the wisdom or the practicality of this suggestion to go to Timmins with Mrs. Macmillan. She couldn’t picture herself so far up north, even more north than Toronto already was from her Barbados.
