It goes without saying that nothing in our apartment matches anything else. The four wooden chairs around the dining table, for just one example, are not only different shapes but also different colors. Still, I know Portman’s not fazed by our poverty. Impoverished households are as familiar to her as waking up in the morning. She’s a poverty connoisseur.
“Looks good,” she announces. “So, I guess that’s it. I don’t see anything that merits our attention.”
I should leave it there, but I can’t. “Excuse me, but I’m trying to understand what exactly we did to warrant all this attention.”
“I’ve been wondering myself. The court ordered Protective Services to make this inspection and file a report. We weren’t provided with a reason and have no choice except to comply. That said, if the rest of the inquiry goes as well as this inspection, our report will be positive.”
“The rest of the inquiry?”
“Well, we still have to talk to your neighbors.”
CHAPTER THREE
SERENA
So stunning, to be alive, to be outdoors, a simple pedestrian, no more and no less than any pedestrian on any street in New York, an absolute equal marching down a city street on a spring day with a warm southerly breeze carrying the primitive scent of the harbor. No trees here, no flowers or green, surging grass, no bunny rabbits, frolicking fawns, instead practical, always-in-a-hurry city folk, instead old men and women inching their way along, instead destitute and desperate panhandlers talking to themselves, eyes locked into their own madness. Four adolescent boys evaluate my sexual potential, their energy washing over my body, adding to the scream of an advancing ambulance. Eyes down, skirt falling to her ankles, a woman in a black hijab pushes a crying child in a stroller. A small, white dog squats at the curb, owner hovering above, poop bag at the ready.
The universe flows down Fulton Street, everything connected, every tendril in place, until there are no pieces, only one chord, each note sung, even the trash in the street, the buzzing sign above the entrance to Crunch gym, the hiss of released air as a bus pulls away from the curb, a true plainsong, proof everlasting of our creators at play. I take joy in the knowledge, the certainty, the evidence as plainly displayed as the exhibits at a murder trial: rope, restraints, knife, handsaw, the collective gaze of shaken jurors as they dutifully examine photos taken after the body was finally discovered.
Fulton Street evolves as I head south, penetrating the gentrified neighborhoods closer to Brooklyn Heights and the bridge. Faces and bodies flow effortlessly past, words bounce against my ears: Arabic, Spanish, Russian. A Hasidic couple passes, arguing in Yiddish, the words tangle with Martha’s entreaties, her pragmatism another note, only adding to the perpetual harmony.
“Halberstam, Halberstam, Halberstam, appointment, appointment, appointment . . .”
A cold, wet mop, never knowing even the ecstasy of Eleni, the physical release, the surrender to whatever consciousness- altering substance happens to be available and to the ultimate threat arising from casual sex with strangers. I pause to inspect a fruit vendor’s long table, the yellows and greens and oranges, a soft, soft peach, fuzz bristling, all caught in the revealing light of a perfect sun, a pure gold disc in a pure blue sky.
I buy an apple from a turbaned vendor with a triangular black beard and eat it as I turn on to Boerum Place, now called Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard, the street renamed for tourists who add their own essentials to the collective scent. I feel them around me, that we share a common goal, the still- shielded bridge rising just beyond a long curve, a yearning for the heights. Victoria and Martha want to eat me, me and Eleni, to swallow us down, to digest us, to empty us from their bowels, to flush us away. That in so doing they abandon their futures, consigning themselves to an empty survival, no joy, no love, no ecstasy, troubles them not at all. I hurry along, moving with a river of humans, the bridge a vacuum drawing us into its center, the force irresistible, up the promenade, between a spider’s web of intersecting cables, to the great arches where I press my hands against a massive block of rough-hewn stone. Two bridges cross the East River to the north, ahead the great towers present a solid front to would-be invaders, Lady Liberty stands, a solitary figure on a lonely pedestal in the harbor to the south, resolute.
CHAPTER FOUR
MARTHA
I’m running like a fool. Like the pitiful mental case we are. Tourists stare at me and speeding cyclists pass close enough to brush my arm. I pay no attention, there being only room in my brain for two thoughts. First, I’m going to be late for the fourth appointment with our shithead of a therapist. Victoria kept the first three, hoping the good doctor would let us off the hook with a cursory inspection. Not happening. He expects to meet all of us at some point. Especially Eleni, our main offender.
So, there’s that bullshit to handle. But there’s also a burning rage because my free-spirit sister has done it again. In the past, Serena regularly hijacked our body as we headed off to work. She liked to take us on spiritual journeys certain to get us fired. The girl believes herself to be an artist and a poet and a pilgrim. In fact, she’s a fucking moron.
I dodge pedestrians all the way to the foot of the bridge, then run alongside city hall to the Brooklyn Bridge subway station. I get lucky for once and a 6 Train pulls into the station as I pass through the turnstile. There are no seats, but I don’t care. I stand in the center of the car, one hand clutching a pole that runs floor to ceiling. I’m wearing a white peasant blouse and a brown, wraparound skirt speckled with gold rabbits. This is Serena’s favorite summertime outfit, but it doesn’t work for a self-proclaimed drudge. Nor does the loosened hair that cascades to my shoulders, or the almost- black lipstick, or the peacock-blue eye shadow.
In fact, I look like an idiot, a complete asshole, a total phony. Like Serena with her beads and her artificial flowers pretending she’s an artist. If we’re ever to have control of our lives, Victoria and I, we need to kick Serena to the curb. Eleni, too. We need to dump the both of them.
But that’s not going to happen anytime soon. And it won’t happen fast, either. The others went only after a long crusade. We froze them out, abandoned them, the parting not without pain, yet ultimately satisfying. Like pulling an infected tooth.
We’d been taking us for granted before unity was even a goal. Then we met Dr. Charlotte Harmon, the first therapist to fully understand our dilemma. We’d created us out of necessity she insisted. Which was fine. Carolyn had to escape and creating identities with no memory of the nightmare she’d endured was a brilliant solution. Her response was that of a sane child dealing with an insane environment. But circumstances change over time and us was not a strategy suitable to our present or future, no matter how well adapted it might have been to our past. We needed a plan B.
Dr. Harmon reached us (most of us, anyway) precisely because she didn’t think we were crazy.
*
I stand in the corridor outside Halberstam’s office for several minutes before I turn the knob. I need to ease off the gas and I tell myself that we’ve been here. I mean subject to a man with power. Be mostly honest. Don’t lose your temper.
Victoria’s with me this morning as I turn the doorknob and I sense an almost-hidden presence behind her. Kirk, our little boy-girl. Like Eleni, like Serena, Kirk’s a must-go.