The Atlas of Reds and Blues Read online

  The telephone continues to ring, the doorbell continues its chime, the family collectively says “Oh, no!” to one another, and only Greta runs back and forth, sensing the anxiety in their voices.

  &

  A month after an actress bumps her head on the ski slopes and dies, Mother has been suspended from the newspaper for two weeks—for pointing out what others refuse to acknowledge, the burning crosses she sometimes sees in the distance, when she’s driving on less-traveled highways. She is being suspended because she wants to write a story about the Klan rallies in North Georgia, and the city editor, Matt, said no three times, and warned her if he had to say no a fourth time there’d be no turning back. Mother couldn’t help herself, kept asking to go, and she was sent home. Two weeks.

  The school nurse calls and says the Middle Daughter’s weeping is inconsolable. “She fell backwards on the blacktop after lunch,” Nurse Angela says, her Southern drawl lengthening each word into a horrid parabola of enunciation. “But she won’t tell me anything else.”

  “May I talk to her?” Mother asks, cradling the telephone as she sits down in front of her laptop and relays the information to her hero in e-mail form before he boards a flight home.

  “Well, to tell you the truth, her teacher brought her in here, and after about ten minutes told her she had had enough and just took her back to the classroom.” Angela laughs nervously. “I’m sure you understand.”

  Mother doesn’t. “Is she bleeding?”

  “No. There’s a tiny bump on her head, but it’s really not serious,” Nurse Angela says.

  “I’m sure you understand that I might feel anxious,” Mother says in her best reporter voice. “Maybe I could come and get her? Take her to the pediatrician?”

  “Bless your heart, I don’t think you’ll be able to get her now,” the nurse says. “They’re too close to the end of the day. Remember, today is early dismissal anyway. Just wait.”

  She cannot. “Her teacher took her back to the classroom, even though she was crying?”

  “Well, yes, I mean, she was calming down . . .”

  She hangs up, crates Greta, texts the new houseguest, grabs her keys, and runs to the car.

  Mother is in the examination room with Middle Daughter and the emergency room doctor. She is wearing a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt that at one time belonged to her presently nonexistent sister, her hair pulled into a tangled bun, her leggings stained from cleaning out vomit from Greta’s food and water bowls. She smells of shepherd. After a five-hour wait, the daughter’s cries have subsided into a whimper.

  “I want a thorough test,” Mother says. “Check everything.”

  The doctor looks like a very young version of Dolly Parton. Her voice is as soft as a down quilt. “Kids get headaches, Mom. Kids cry about their headaches, too.”

  Mother points to her daughter. “This kid doesn’t complain. So for her to cry means it really hurts.”

  Doctor Dolly’s smile is sympathetic. “Of course you know your daughter better than I do, but maybe this is embarrassment on her part.”

  Mother makes her hands into a pair of perfectly formed boxing fists. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Anyway, getting an MRI exposes the child to radiation,” Dr. Dolly says.

  Mother stares at her, unable to prevent her lower jaw from slacking. “No more than going to get your teeth X-rayed at the dentist’s,” she counters.

  Dr. Dolly’s grin is a grimace. “Who told you that?”

  “My cousin the cardiologist,” Mother says. “My other cousin, the brain surgeon.”

  The doctor laughs. “Well, let me look her over,” she says, and takes the glasses off Middle Daughter’s face. “Mom, did you know her eye wanders?”

  Mother responds with the magic words: “Yes, esotropia since the age of three.” The spectacles are not to correct vision but to help with alignment, to prevent crossing.

  Dr. Dolly sits up straight in her chair, looks over at Mother. “What do you do, Mom?”

  Mother’s smile is thin. “Oh, I’m the family maid and chauffeur and concierge right now, but once upon a time I used to be a journalist.”

  Just then her man of the hour enters the room, his suit as wrinkled as his haggard expression.

  “And what do you do, Dad?” Dr. Dolly asks, as she uses an instrument to stare into their daughter’s ear.

  He takes out his wallet and hands her his business card.

  “Thank you,” she says, and takes a second to read. She reaches for the telephone instead of a stethoscope. “I have a child here who needs an MRI, right away.”

  Middle Daughter is wheeled out. Her parents start to follow, but Dr. Dolly stops them. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of your girl, but she’s got some bruises on her upper arm. And the scar on her forehead, right at the hairline. You know anything about it?”

  Her hero gasps. “What? What are you saying?”

  Mother blurts out, “A couple of boys at her school are bullying her.” Then she clasps a hand over her own mouth. “I’m supposed to keep it a secret.”

  “From whom?” her hero asks.

  “Which school?” the doctor asks.

  Mother and her hero say the name in unison.

  The doctor nods. “I went there, for high school. Those folks are old money, they’re not going to lift a finger.”

  Concussion. Weekly trips to the neurologist and neuro-ophthalmologist for the coming six months plotted like graph theory on the wall calendar in the kitchen. Mother’s comments scathing as she writes her daughter’s letter of withdrawal.

  Her man of the hour waits until she is finished, then snatches the paper from her, folds it into a sleek jet, and it sails across the length of the kitchen, landing close to the garbage pail. “No.”

  “Why not? They need to know . . .”

  Her hero shakes his head. “We have to live here.”

  “So? So what? You want nothing?”

  “Withdrawal, yes.” He folds his hands in front of him. Namaste. “Commentary from the peanut gallery, no.”

  “I’m hardly the peanut . . .”

  “It’s the gracious thing to do.”

  The distance is short but the drive is long, traffic is interminable. On the sports radio channel, the pundits are still debating foot faults and line judges and the African American tennis player’s denim tennis skirt, years after the bad calls have been archived for history and the tennis player was awarded the loss. It is some sort of remembrance day.

  Mother giggles as she reads the bumper stickers on the cars ahead of her as they inch bumper-to-bumper to the next doctor’s appointment. She is behind an ancient white Plymouth Valiant and cannot help herself as she reads: “Remember, life is an epic poem, not a sentence.”

  Middle Daughter awakens from her nap in the back. “I told you not to tell Daddy,” she says, her voice sleepy.

  “Yes,” Mother says, turning down the volume.

  “Why did you?” Middle Daughter rubs her eyes and looks out the window to the terriers in the backseat of a yellow Fiat, stuck in the next lane.

  “It was an accident,” Mother says. “You were being wheeled into X-ray.” What she notices is the sea of red brake lights, a sea of little Cyclops, danger.

  “You got scared?”

  “Yes.”

  Middle stretches her arms and adjusts her glasses. “I get scared too.”

  “I know, sweets,” she says. “I wish we could be happy, and not scared.”

  “Poor us, Mommy,” she says, and closes her eyes again. “We both lost the Stiff Upper Lip game after all.”

  Mother turns the knob to another station and turns up the volume.

  On public radio, an interview with the most celebrated travel writer of her time, who has no use for a smartphone or a tablet, who wastes no time on social media, who lives so remotely that he must travel by train and bus forty-five minutes one way when he has to send a fax. He advocates meditation instead of travel, he advocates stellar observa
tion instead of watching TV. He advocates exercise, such as tennis.

  “What do you do when you get a good idea during a tennis match?” the interviewer asks, her tone melodious, amused.

  “I stop the match,” he says. “I run to the side and pull out my notebook, and write down my ideas.”

  She tries to speak it softly, lips barely moving, just under her shallow breath so that it almost sounds like a whisper. It is near-silent chanting. A giggle escapes over stopping a tennis match to write down an idea; what she really wants is to blubber into a glass of vodka with ice and lime. Drinking, well, drinking is completely out of bounds: spirits create revolution on her face, blisters and hives erupt, painkillers are summoned. A recumbent cycle that does not lead to weight loss or peace.

  &

  And then the shot is fired.

  &

  In 1963, Mattel offered a How to Lose Weight book with the Barbie Baby-Sits ensemble. The book advised: “Don’t eat.”

  &

  She cuts their shiny hair. Thirteen colonies of lice have lingered on: mud-colored soaps and foul-smelling shampoos and concoctions of rubbing alcohol and mouthwash are no longer effective.

  At the moment that Mother hacks off their braids, her own parents and her in-laws are crossing the International Date Line together, her presently nonexistent sister is celebrating Christmas with her Mother Superior, her man of the hour is at the gym on a borrowed pass before he is set to fly the next day to China. The girls weep and scream and hold their braids in their hands while their mother holds the red-handled scissors in hers.

  Mother doesn’t cry but bleeds as though she is having a miscarriage, blood gushing out of her though medically it isn’t possible. Not possible but there it is, a bright gift that keeps giving.

  &

  The women in the neighborhood stop chatting, the owl hoots and then no longer hoots.

  &

  Perhaps the first time the Real Thing tries to fill out census data for the federal Department of Education. Coincidentally, it is the last week of school before the summer break and she knows many of the teachers will not be returning to teach in the fall, she had heard whispers, but no one has confirmed who is leaving and who is staying.

  At the start of the exercise, the physical education teacher Mr. King did not want to hand her the same questionnaire as her peers, saying, “Well, I’m not sure you’re supposed to get this form. It’s only for Americans.” He looks over the Real Thing’s mother-approved kurti top and matching pants and asks, “Were you born here?”

  The Real Thing says yes but doesn’t add how she hopes he returns to Kentucky or Tennessee or wherever he’s from, as soon as the school year is over.

  The fifth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Heath, standing in the doorway of the classroom, clears her throat. “Everyone gets the same form, David,” she calls out.

  Mr. King reluctantly hands her the form.

  The questions appear easy enough, but there are not enough answers to go around. All of the other kids in the combined fourth- and fifth-grade language arts classroom have boxes to check. Even Henry.

  There are four boxed answers: White, Black, Hispanic, American Indian. There are several similar questions about citizenship asked in different ways. The Real Thing hears the roar of a plane overhead but sees nothing as she looks out the window, past the brick wall and up to the cloudless sky.

  She stands up and approaches Mr. King at the head of the classroom. He smiles and points to the last box. “That’s where you make a check mark,” he says.

  “I’m Indian American, not American Indian,” she says.

  Mr. Hill scratches his muttonchop sideburns and readjusts his glasses. “Oh.”

  Mrs. Heath marches into the room, clipboard in hand. “I can take it from here, David.”

  The Real Thing trots back to her desk.

  Mrs. Heath claps her hand against the clipboard. “May I have your attention, please?” Everyone suspends his or her No. 2 pencil in midair and watches Mrs. Heath turn her back to the class. She writes the word AMERICAN with blue chalk on the muted green chalkboard. She takes the red chalk from the aluminum sill and underlines the word. She turns around and asks all of the students to turn to the bottom of the next page.

  There is a box marked Other. And there are a few lines of space for Explanation.

  The Real Thing and Mrs. Heath lock eyes.

  “You are not obligated, ever, to answer these questions,” Mrs. Heath says. “You have a second option: You can check Other on the second page and write the word I wrote on the board next to Explanation, and we can move on with our day.”

  The Real Thing looks away first, before Mrs. Heath notices there are tears starting to form at the corners of her eyes.

  All the kids but Mary-Margaret Anne and two fourth-grade boys sitting behind her hurriedly check the box, write in the word, and rush to the front, where Mrs. Heath waits with a large envelope.

  The Real Thing waits in line to turn in her form, blinking furiously.

  “I won’t always be here,” Mrs. Heath says to the class as she accepts the Real Thing’s paper. “But I hope you’ll remember today.”

  &

  And her stomach begins to ache. Not an ache of hunger. But an ache of loneliness.

  &

  Mrs. Williams, Henry’s mother Mrs. Williams, doesn’t like to come inside the front doors of the school. She is not like Noland’s mother Mrs. Williams. Noland who has hair the color of organic carrots. Noland who picks his nose and cries when Mrs. Heath scolds him for his messy penmanship. Henry’s mother Mrs. Williams prefers to stand on the sidewalk, and wait for Sister Joan or Sister Grace to finish their tasks inside the principal’s office and speak with her. Henry with the perfect scores, Henry who never says a word, Henry who remains the only Black boy in the school. And she, the Real Thing, is the only girl with brown skin today. Baby Sister wouldn’t matriculate to this campus for another four months.

  Still Mrs. Williams gets the phone calls from the office; and Mrs. Williams shows up, standing in a black print skirt and sandals, on a sidewalk bleached white by the sun. The school’s front doors swing open and shut as the other students stream past Mrs. Williams and Sister Grace that Wednesday morning. She knows it’s a Wednesday because it’s the day they have indoor PE followed by choir rehearsal. As if the stinky gym could be transformed by taking a white sheet off the mahogany-colored piano on the small wooden stage. The Real Thing is waiting to see what the charge is this day. She was absent the day before, with a cold. She has heard that Henry had finished his geography test, placed it facedown on his desk. And then gone to the globe, to look at Africa gleaming gold on the sphere on Mr. Hill’s desk. Mr. Hill tore the paper in two unequal pieces and sent Henry to the office.

  The door opens and Mary-Margaret Anne and her friend Ellen scoot by and she sees Mrs. Williams hold up both pieces. “He wasn’t cheating . . .” Mrs. Williams says.

  The Real Thing knows that tone of voice. It’s the one her own mother uses when the grocer tries to shortchange her after she buys a bitter gourd from the Hillsborough produce market.

  “Come inside, Deborah,” Sister Joan calls out from the threshold of the front office.

  Her name isn’t Deborah but Sister Joan refuses to learn her real name.

  Sister Joan says the Real Thing should just answer to Deborah.

  It would be easier.

  For everyone.

  The Real Thing ignores Sister Joan. She watches Mrs. Williams mouth the words please and my son.

  To no avail.

  Henry is suspended.

  A note placed on his permanent record, branding him a cheat.

  &

  She lies on the carpet of concrete on her driveway. For a single clear moment, she hears the boredom of the policeman as he grapples with her full name from her driver’s license and, in amateur fashion, butchers it. “Sweet Jesus,” he says into his microphone. “What the hell were her parents thinking?”

 
The dispatcher’s mic squawks, and there is laughter. “Just spell it.”

  &

  The Real Thing is young enough that she doesn’t hear the cars on the overpass. Of course she sees them, queued up during rush hour, waiting for the light to change. She is in the backseat of the car, in a time when seat belts were definitely optional and motorists followed the speed limit. The Real Thing peeks through the space between the driver’s and shotgun seat and admires the shiny chrome of the sports car in front of their dad’s mint-green Nova. Their dad at the wheel. How many things she thought are muted but are actually in full force, their dad cursing in Bangla at the man in the station wagon cutting him off, their mother cautioning him to slow down, to stop swearing regardless of which language he chose, the radio playing “Midnight Train to Georgia,” which their one friend from school liked and sang during recess, the car horns blaring when the driver in the turn lane doesn’t bolt at the first sighting of the green turn arrow, the Baby Sister’s mouth open, breathing in nap sleep, her nose full and whistling with every exhalation.

  &

  She lies on the concrete, wanting to laugh but can’t, but the corners of her mouth turn upward. Gift from God echoes inside her. Her name means “Gift from God.”

  &

  Groaning machines exhale steam behind him, hot fog lapping the countertop where canvas bags of dirty laundry wait to be dry-cleaned and made anew. Mr. Patel rakes his thin hands through his thinning hair. They look around the rest of the shop, broken glass underfoot and glistening in the midday sun. September 12. Despite the floor-to-ceiling American flag broadly displayed in the now destroyed plate-glass window. Despite the banner proclaiming “God Bless America” for all to see, they will never pass for American. A broad white man parks his German convertible in the loading-and-unloading-only zone, stomps in, sporting a keg-sized gut and aviator sunglasses.