Primitive People Read Free

welled up in her eyes when she realized that “caregiver” meant au pair. She said, “In Haiti I was chief assistant to the U.S. Cultural Attaché.” But it sounded less important than it had in the airport and failed to work the same magic it had worked on the INS man. Emile’s cousin’s eyes narrowed—with hatred, it seemed to Simone—and she brushed the air with the back of her hand, sweeping away Simone’s past, her education, her embassy job, anything that might have set her apart from any Haitian girl who would be lucky to get a job taking care of some rich woman’s children.
    Emile’s cousin put Simone in a cab to Grand Central Station and repeatedly reminded her to buy a ticket to Hudson Landing. At the last moment she opened the taxi door and kissed Simone goodbye on both cheeks. She said, “You are lucky to have a job and a place. Many Haitian people are freezing to death in camps on the Canadian border.”
    In the vast granite hive of Grand Central Station everyone was swarming, and Simone lifted her suitcase and ran, though she had plenty of time. She found the right track and the right train and a seat in an empty car, but doubted herself and grew faint with fright when the train pulled out, still empty.
    Simone watched the play of light on the wide, flat river, mentally pleading with it not to leave the side of the train. As long as they followed the Hudson, they weren’t hurtling out into space. She had seen pictures in magazines of American trees turned orange, but they were brighter and stronger than the whiskery saplings sprouting above the tracks. Some of the hills were barren rubble, like the mountains in Haiti. Every pretty town they passed seemed to be turning its back—on the train, Simone cautioned herself, it had nothing to do with her.
    It was a hot September afternoon. Mrs. Porter met Simone at the Hudson Landing station wearing a paint-spattered mouton fur coat, visibly chewed and balding, as if it were made from the pelts of creatures who died gnawing themselves out of traps. The coat was one reason Simone could have believed that Mrs. Porter might practice some strange religion. She was glad when their talk about the paintings in the attic clarified all that.
    “Believe it or not,” Mrs. Porter said, “I requested someone from Haiti. The children’s wretched public school can hardly manage English. And the dollar being what it is, you can forget the French mademoiselle. Right now, top priority is that I get some work done. When you become a sculptor at forty you’ve got to hustle to catch up.”
    Mrs. Porter pursed her lips and blew a thin stream of air up at her frizzy yellow bangs. “Of course when I started sculpting it drove Geoffrey straight up a wall. Three-dimensional things that were me —he could not endure it. I’ll spare you the details of the vicious ways he communicated that fact. It’s a trial separation, so called. But between us, the verdict’s in.
    “How tall are you?” Mrs. Porter looked up at Simone. “Wait. Don’t bother. Centimeters are useless. In any case, I couldn’t have hired you. Not with Don Juan in residence. Needless to say, it made it dicey for me to have any female friends. Why do I think I’ve seen you before? Your face is so familiar … Wait. I’m having quite the high-powered déjà vu.” She flapped one hand in front of her face. “It’s suffocating up here!”
    Mrs. Porter led Simone down the attic stairs and through the second-floor hall, then took the sweeping main staircase and stopped halfway down on a landing.
    “The scenic lookout!” she said. Together they surveyed the entrance hall and the huge living room beyond it, with its peeling gilded wallpaper and flaking dandruffy plaster. A patch of blue-green mildew crept toward some crispy hanging plants. Purple crayon was scribbled down the white keys of the piano. Everything that could be sat on was thatched with animal hair, although there didn’t seem to be any cats