Belinda Chapter 5

I knew I should take her right upstairs to the attic and get this confession

over about painting her nude, along with all the promises that nobody would

ever see the pictures.(Right you are, Alex.)

But when she walked past me into the dusty living room, it was like

enchantment. A little light came in from the hall and from the back kitchen.

But other than that, it was dark, and the toys looked ghostly. And she was

witchy in the black lace stockings and glittering rhinestone heels with her

spiked hair and her face painted. She touched the roof of the dollhouse, and

then knelt down to move the train on the track. It was better than it had

been when she wore the nightgown.

She slipped off the awful fake leopard coat, and she climbed up on the

carousel horse. The old black flapper dress she wore was low cut, with only

straps over her shoulders. The layers of fringe and beads shivered slightly.

She gathered the fabric up in her lap as she crossed her ankles. And she

rested her head against the brass pole with her fingers curled around it

above her. She let her eyes move over the objects of the room just the way I

often did.

Same pose as the nightgown picture. The naked picture.

"Don't move," I said.

I hit the wall button for the little key light above the horse. Her eyes

followed me dreamily. "Don't move," I said again, watching the light on her

neck, the curve of her chin, the plump little cleavage of her breasts above

the scoop neck. The gold gleamed on her eyelids and eyelashes. Her eyes

looked blue as ever, fringed with gold mascara. I went to get the camera.

I shot her from two different angles. She was very still. Yet she never got

stiff. She just drifted into it as I took the pictures, her eyes following me

now and then just as I wanted them to do as I circled her. Then I stood still

looking at her. "Would you take the dress off?." I asked.

"I thought you'd never ask," she said. Little touch of sarcasm. "Nobody will

ever see these pictures, I swear it." She laughed. "Sure, I've heard that one

before."

"No, I mean it." I said.

She looked blankly at me for a moment. Then she said: "That would be an awful

waste, wouldn't it?" I didn't say anything.

She kicked off the shoes, slipped down to stand on the carpet, and pulled the

dress over her head. No slip, no bra, no panties. If I'd reached under the

dress, I would have felt moist secret pubic hair. Too much. Don't think about

it.

Just a black satin garter belt holding the black lace stockings. She

unsnapped it all around, slipped the stockings off. She climbed back up on

the horse, assumed the same sidesaddle position, legs closed demurely,

wrapping her right hand around the brass pole. She looked softly content-a

punk womanchild. She was almost smiling. And then she did smile.

Utterly unselfconscious.

For a moment I couldn't snap it. I was paralyzed looking at her.

A foreboding had come over me, a premonition of disaster that seemed stronger

than any dread I had known in years and years. I felt guilty looking at her.

I felt guilty being with her and taking these pictures of her. I thought of

what I'd said so defensively to Alex, that the talent for children's art was

the card I drew, that for me there wasn't anything better. Not true. The

pictures of her nude upstairs, they were better. A whole lot better...

And she was so innocently self-assured. So lovely.

Her smile was sweet. No more to it than that. And it was right to the point

of everything, her smile, the point of asking her to pose this way. Each

element was crucial: her sweetness, the decadent makeup she wore, the

carousel horse, her woman's body, even her little cheeks all plumped by the

smile.

"Come on, Jeremy," she said. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," I said. I started snapping the pictures. "Can I paint from these?"

I asked.

"Jeremy, really," she said. Then she worked her little mouth for a second and

popped the gum. "Sure you can."

I got into the shower with her. I soaped her all over, then washed her gently

with the sponge as she stood with her head back under the flowing water,

letting it come down over her closed eyes and her half-open mouth, her face

glossy with it.

Her hair got softer and softer. Then I worked the shampoo into it. I lathered

it and I heard her moan, as if it gave her deep pleasure. She pressed her

breasts against me. I wanted her so badly. I hadn't taken her upstairs yet,

but she had said it was OK to paint her nude. She had said OK. So that could

wait until later.

After I'd dried her with the towel, we sat on the side of the four-poster

together, and I brushed her hair very carefully. She had on one of my

starched cotton shirts. It was open down the front. She looked so small in

it.

"Would you braid your hair for me?" I asked. "I don't know how to do it."

She smiled. She said she would. I watched her work at it, amazed that fingers

could do something like that so quickly and easily. She made the braids start

up high, pulling the hair back from her temples. Very pretty. Lovely smooth

forehead. We bound the plaits with rubber bands. I didn't own any ribbon.

And when she finished, she looked like she was six years old all right. The

cotton shirt hid her breasts. I could just see the gentle swell of flesh

there, and the smoothness of her belly.

I should have photographed her this way. But that could wait till morning.

Right now it was driving me mad, the pigtails and her level gaze.

I kissed her forehead first, then her lips. And then it was all over for the

night because we were in bed together. No lights but those of the passing

cars, and the room very warm around us.

When she turned over later and sank her face into the pillow, I saw the part

in her hair down the back, the way the hair was divided so evenly for the two

braids, and that too looked utterly irresistible. Little Becky Thatcher. But

just on the edge of sleep I clapped my hand on her wrist.

"Don't you dare leave here without telling me," I said.

"Tie me to the posts and then I can't go," she whispered in my ear.

"Very funny."

Giggles.

"Promise!"

"I won't go. I want to see the pictures."

In the morning I cut off a pair of my old jeans for her. They were too big in

the waist, but she cinched it tight with one of my belts, and she tied the

tails of the shirt in front. In this getup, with the braids, she looked like

a Norman Rockwell tomboy. I was still in my robe and slippers when I decided

to take her upstairs.

I snapped her several times as we went up, and then I let her just wander

into the attic and discover the two nudes.

She didn't say anything for a long time. The sun was coming through the

windows, and she had to shade her eyes with her hand. The scant fleece on her

tanned arms and legs was golden.

"They're gorgeous, Jeremy," she said. "They're wonderful."

"But what you have to understand is, you're safe," I said. "I meant it when I

said no one would ever see them."

She frowned at me for a moment, tip jutting a little. "You mean, not right

away, while I'm on the run."

"No. Never," I said.

"But I'm not going to be sixteen forever!"

There it was. I guess even up till now I'd hoped for eighteen, even though I

knew it just wasn't possible.

She was glaring at me. "I mean, I won't be a minor forever, Jeremy. Then you

can show them to anyone you want!"

"No," I said calmly, a little alarmed by her tone of voice. "Then you'll be a

woman and damn sorry you ever posed for anyone in the nude-"

"Oh, stop it, you don't know what you're talking about!" She almost screamed

it. Her face went red, and her braids made her look like a fierce little girl

who might clench her fists and stomp her feet suddenly. "This isn't Playboy

for God's sakes," she said. "And I wouldn't care if it was. Don't you realize

that?"

"Belinda, all I'm trying to tell you is, even if you change your mind later

on, you're protected. I can't show these pictures, even if I want to."

"Why not?"

"Are you kidding? It would ruin my career to show them. It would hurt people.

I'm a kid's author, remember? I do books for little girls."

She was trembling she was so upset. I took a step towards her and she backed

away.

"Hey, look, I don't understand this," I said.

"Why the hell did you paint these pictures," she screamed, "if nobody can see

them? Why did you take the photographs of me downstairs?" I couldn't figure

this out. "Because I wanted to," I said.

"And never show all this to anybody? Never show them these canvases?
I can't stand it. I positively can't stand it!"

"You might not always feel that way!"

"Don't tell me that again, that's a cop-out and you know it!"

She pushed past me suddenly and pounded down the steps, slamming the door to

the attic behind her.

She had already stripped off the jeans and shirt when I came into the

bedroom. And she was putting on the black sequined dress again. The braids

made her look like a kid playing dress up.

"Why are you angry, explain this to me," I said.

"You mean you really don't know!" she said. She wasn't just angry, she was

miserable.

She pulled up the zipper easily enough, then snapped the black lace stockings

to her garter belt. She snatched up the leopard coat. "Where are my shoes!"

"In the living room. Will you stop? Will you talk to me? Belinda, I don't

understand, honestly."

"What do you think I am?" she flashed. "Something filthy? Something for you

to be ashamed of?. You come looking for me last night. You tell me you have

pictures to show me. They're these two big beautiful canvases of me, and you

tell me you'll never show them to anyone. They'd ruin your fucking career if

you did. Well, you can get the hell out of my way if that's the way you feel.

This trash is getting out of your life, move!"

She shot past me into the hall. I went to take her arm and she drew back

furious.

I followed her down to the living room where she found her rhinestone shoes

and put them on, her face still flushed, her eyes just blazing with anger.

"Look, don't leave like this!" I said. "You've got to stay here. We've got to

talk this over."

"Talk over what?" she demanded. "I'm bad for you, that's what you're saying.

I'm jailbait. I'm something illicit and dirty and-"

"No, no, this is all wrong. This is not true. This is just ... this is too

important... look, you have to stay."

"No, I don't."

She opened the front door.

"Don't leave like this, Belinda!"

I was amazed at how angry I sounded. Inside I was falling apart. I wanted to

beg her.

"I mean it, you walk out on me now like this, I'm through chasing after you,

or waiting for you. I'm just through. I mean it." Really convincing. I almost

believed it.

She turned and glared at me and then she burst into tears. Her face just

crumpled, and the tears spilled down. I couldn't bear it.

"I hate you, Jeremy Walker," she said. "I just hate you."

"Well, I don't hate you. I love you, you little brat!"

She backed away again when I reached out for her. She backed out on the

porch.

"But don't try to make me crawl on my hands and knees," I said. "Come back in

here."

She stared at me one moment through her tears.

"Fuck you!" she said.

Then she ran down the front steps and up towards Castro Street.

Three A.M. I was sitting in the attic, looking at the pictures, finishing off

her damned clove cigarettes. I couldn't work. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't do

anything. Somehow I'd done the darkroom work this afternoon on the punk

carousel set. At least until I couldn't stand it anymore.

I sat on the floor with my legs crossed, my back against the wall, just

staring at the pictures. Sometimes my mind painted the new carousel nude, the

punk nude. But my body didn't move. I was too unhappy.

When I pretended to think, I could see it from her point of view. She had no

guilt about it, lovemaking, posing, anything. And I told her the pictures

would ruin my career. Ah, how could I have been so stupid? I hadn't fallen

into the generation gap, I'd fallen into the guilt gap-assuming she'd want my

assurances. But God, she was such a puzzle.

Why did she get so hurt, so angry? Why did she storm off like that? And why

hadn't I taken a softer approach with her? So much for thought.

Behind it was just the pain. A pretty unfamiliar pain after all these years.

Like the pain you feel when you're very young, maybe as young as she is.

She might never come back, never, never. No, she had to come back. just

absolutely had to.

Then the phone rang. Three fifteen. Probably some drunk, some crazy. I got

up, went down to the bedroom, and picked it up. "Hello."

For a moment all I could hear was some strange little noise, like a gasp.

A little cough. Then I knew it was a sob. A woman or a girl crying. "Daddy-"

"Belinda?"

"Daddy, this is Linda!" Sobbing. But it was she, no doubt about it. "Linda-"

"Yes, Daddy, Linda. Wake up, Daddy, please, I need you." Crying. "You know I

told you about this guy and his lady in the back room here. Well, it

happened. It happened. He... he-"

"I understand, honey. Slow down. Just tell me-"

"He stabbed her, Daddy, and she's dead and the police are here. They don't

believe I'm eighteen." Sobbing. "I gave them my driver's license with my old

address, you know, and they still don't believe I'm eighteen. I told them

you'd come get me, Daddy, please come. They ran my driver's license through

the computer, but I don't have any traffic tickets. Daddy, come!"

"Where are you?"

"If I'm not on the corner of Page and Clayton, I'll be inside. Hurry, Daddy."

Page and Clayton, one block from Haight.

There were two prowl cars double-parked on Page when I got there. Every light

was on in the big shabby old house, quite impossible to miss, and they were

just bringing the dead body out on a gurney. Shattering sight no matter how

many times you see it on the evening news, the shiny chrome stretcher on

wheels, and the thing under the sheet bound with straps as if it were

suddenly going to wake up and start fighting. I watched them put it in the

back of the city ambulance.

A couple of reporters were there, too, though they didn't seem too excited by

the whole thing. I hoped and prayed it was nobody who had ever interviewed

me. Only the old-fashioned flashbulb newspaper cameras, no television

equipment.

"Please, I have to get in there," I said to the uniformed cop at the door. "I

have to pick up my daughter."

He looked like a waxwork of himself in the dismal light, billy club and gun

too shiny, too visible.

"Oh, that's your kid back there?" he said. Faint sneer. But Belinda had come

into the hall and she ran towards me, shrinking into my arms.

She was hysterical. Her face was all red and blotched, and her hair was loose

and in tangles. She had on the same leopard coat, black dress outfit down to

the rhinestone heels, but no stockings.

I held her for a second, vaguely conscious of people shoving past us in the

hall, and that this was a dirty place with cracked plaster and urine stink,

and that nobody was paying much attention to us. A pay phone hung on the

wall. Stack of old newspapers under it and a sack of garbage. The carpet on

the floor was like bandages.

"Come on, let's get your stuff," I said. I stroked her hair back out of her

eyes. No makeup, ghostly white. "Let's get out of here."

There was a crowd bottlenecked in the back room, a man on tiptoe trying to

see over the others. From the street, there came that awful crackling sound

of a police radio.

She clutched me so hard her fingers hurt my skin as she pulled me into her

room.

It was a perfect hole, loft bed at one end, a tiny window with wooden slats

nailed over it. Posters of film stars all over the walls, and a brown

suitcase on the bed with a plastic sack next to it. Videotapes sticking out

of the sack. The chair and lamp were junk shop. The woodwork was chipped and

filthy.

I went to get the sack and the suitcase as she clung to me.

"You Mr. Merit?" somebody said behind me.

"No!" she said shrilly. "Jack Merit's my husband. I'm divorced, I told you.

This is my Daddy. His name is different. I'm still Linda Merit on the

driver's license."

I turned and saw another policeman in the doorway. Much older than the other

one. Heavily wrinkled face, shapeless mouth. He was clearly exhausted but he

radiated disapproval.

For once in my life I was glad I was so dull, tweed coat and all. In this

setting I couldn't have been anybody but her father.

He had a small notebook in his hand, ballpoint pen. "Of course," I said. I

gave him my address.

"And she sure doesn't look eighteen to me," he said. He wrote my address down

in his little notebook. "And she had enough booze in here to run a barroom."

He gestured to the trash basket. Bottles of bourbon, Scotch. "The drinking

age is twenty-one, you know."

"I told him it was Jack's," she whispered, her voice hoarse, struggling.

"Jack still comes around, you know that, Daddy." She pulled a Kleenex from

the pocket of her coat and blew her nose. She looked like she was twelve. She

was terrified.

"Look, this has really been a nightmare for her, and I would like to just get

her home," I said, trying not to sound scared. I picked up the suitcase and

the sack.

"I know you from somewhere," the cop said. "I've seen you on TV. Did you say

Seventeenth Street or Seventeenth Avenue? Where have I seen you?"

"seventeenth Street," I said, trying to steady my voice.

Someone bumped into him from behind. They were carrying something out of the

back room. It looked like a couch. Flashbulbs were going off back there.

"And this is the address where she'll be if we need her?"

"I didn't know them," Belinda said, struggling not to cry. "I didn't hear

anything."

"Can I see some identification, please," the cop asked me, "with this address

on it?"

I took out my wallet and showed him my driver's license. My hand was shaking

badly. I could feel the sweat breaking out all over my face. I looked at her.

She was in a silent panic.

If he asks me her birth date, I am up shit creek, I thought. I haven't the

slightest idea what it really is, let alone what she told them. And this guy

is recording my identity in his little book. And I am standing here lying and

saying she's my daughter. My hand was sweating on the handle of the suitcase.

"I know who you are," the cop said suddenly, looking up. "You wrote 'Saturday

Morning Charlotte.' My kids are crazy about your books. My wife loves them."

"Thanks, I really appreciate it. You'll let me take her home now, won't you?"

He closed his notebook, and stared at me rather coldly for a moment. "Yeah, I

think that would be a damned good idea," he said contemptuously. He was

looking at me as if I were dirt. "Do you know what kind of a place your

daughter's been living in?"

"Terrible mistake, terrible-"

"That guy in the back, he knifed his girl, watched her die before he called

us. Says God told him to do it. Stoned out of his head when we got here.

Track marks on his legs and his arms. Doesn't even remember calling us, let

alone killing her. And you know what's across the hall-?"

"I just want to take her out of here-"

"Two hard-bitten little hustlers who work the queers on Polk Street. Want to

guess who lives upstairs? Dealers, man, the penny-ante juvenile brand we find

dead with a bullet in the back of the head after a rip-off."

Nothing to do but let him finish. I stood there, rigid, feeling the heat in.

my face.

"Mister, you may write terrific books, but when it comes to being a father to

this little girl, you need to read a few."

"You're right, absolutely right," I murmured. "Get her out of here."

"Yes, sir."

Belinda broke down completely when we got into the car. Through her sobs I

didn't catch all of what she said, but this much came clear. The killer was

the same guy who'd ripped off her radio, a real mean son of a bitch who had

hit on her all the time, beating and kicking the door of her room when she

wouldn't open it.

As for her Linda Merit driver's license, it was fake, but the police couldn't

prove anything. She'd scored it with the real birth certificate of a dead Los

Angeles girl whose name she'd gotten from old newspapers in the library.

But the police kept saying they didn't believe her. They made her stand there

while they checked the name through their computers. She kept praying the

dead girl never left an unpaid traffic ticket in San Francisco. Only when she

told them she had a father who'd come get her did they leave her alone.

I kept assuring her that was the right thing to do. And she was safe now. I

tried not to think about that cop writing down my name and address or

recognizing me. When we got home, I practically carried her inside. She was

still crying. I sat her down in the kitchen, wiped her face, and asked her if

she was hungry.

"Just hold on to me," she said.

She wouldn't even let me get her a glass of water.

In a little while she was quiet. It was almost five now. And the morning

light was just coming through the kitchen curtains. She looked stunned and

broken. She talked for a little while then about a drug bust, when the

narcotics agents had kicked in both the back and front doors of the flat

above her. Every piece of furniture in the place had been ripped to shreds.

She should have moved immediately.

"Let me fix you something to eat," I said.

She shook her head. She asked if she could have a drink.

I kissed her. "You don't really want that, do you?" I asked. She got up and

went past me and got the Chivas Regal and poured herself half a glassful. I

watched her drink it smoothly, just the way she always drank, as if it was

nothing to her. It hurt me to see it, the Scotch just going down her throat.

She wiped her mouth, set the bottle and the glass on the table, and sat down

again. She looked dreadful and vulnerable and lovely all at once.

When her blue eyes finally fixed on me, I found her irresistible. "I want you

to move in here," I said.

She didn't answer. She looked dazed. I watched her pour herself another glass

of Scotch.

"Don't get drunk," I said softly.

"I'm not getting drunk," she said coldly. "Why do you want me to move in? Why

do you want jailbait living with you?"

I studied her, trying to figure the angle of the rage. She took a pack of

Garams out of her pocket, stuck one on her lip. The book of matches she'd

left at breakfast was still there. I opened it, struck a match, and lighted

the cigarette for her.

She sat back, glass in one hand, cigarette in the other, hair all free and

messy, and the leopard coat still on, just a little womanshape and black

sequins showing between the lapels.

"Well, why do you want me here?" Her voice was raw. "You feel sorry for me?"

"No," I said.

"I can find someplace else to live," she said. Hard, woman's voice coming out

of the babymouth. Puff of smoke. Incense smell of the clove cigarette.

"I know that," I said. "I wanted you here after the first night we were

together. I wanted you here this morning when you took off. Sooner or later I

would have asked you. And whatever I feel about it all-guilt, you know, that

kind of thing-I'm sure of this. You're better off with me than living in a

place like that one."

"Oh, so you feel this whole mess lets you off the hook, is that it?"

I took a deep breath.

"Belinda," I said, "I'm a pretty square guy when you get right down to it.

Call it dull, call it unsophisticated, call it what you will, I think a kid

your age should be at home. I think somebody somewhere is crying over you.

looking for you-"

"Oh, if you only knew," she said, her tone low and bitter.

"But I can't know until you tell me."

"My family doesn't own me," she said harshly. "I own me. And I'm with you

because I want to be. And the old rule still holds. I'll walk out the door if

you ask me about my family."

"That's what I figured. You're saying you won't go home, not even after what

happened tonight."

"That's not even a possibility," she said.

She looked away for a moment, biting a little at her fingernail, a thing I'd

never seen her do before, the pupils of her eyes dancing as she looked around

the room. Then she said:

"Look, I bombed as an American kid."

"How do you mean?"

"It didn't work for me because I am not a kid. So I have to make it on my

own, either with you or without you. And I'm going to do it. I have to! If I

move in with you, it's not because I'm scared. It's because, it's because I

want to-"

"I know, honey, I know."

I reached across the table. I took her hand off the glass as she set it down,

and I held her hand tightly. I loved the smallness of it, the tenderness, the

way the fingers curled around mine. But it was pain to see her eyes squeeze

shut, to see the tears spill down her cheeks just the way they had before, at

the front door, when she was storming out.

"I love you too, you know," she said, still crying. "I mean, I wanted to be

an American kid, I really did. I wanted it. But you're like a dream, you

know, you're like some fantasy I made up that's better than that and, and-"

"So are you, little girl," I said.

Later, she'd gone to sleep in the four-poster, I put her suitcase and things

in the guest room. That could be her private place.

And I went upstairs to work on the punkchild carousel nude, the one of her

with the witchy hair, and I painted into the afternoon without stopping,

thinking the whole time about the strange things she had said. What a trio

this would be, these carousel pictures.

Now and then I thought of the policeman who had recognized me. I thought of

him writing down my name and address in his little notebook. I should have

been afraid. I should have been a nervous wreck over all that, in fact. I was

a man who had never gotten so much as a speeding ticket.

But it thrilled me. In some dark and secret way it thrilled me. She was here

with me now, and I knew it was OK for her, had to be, and I was painting with

a speed and power I hadn't known in years. Everything felt good to me.