As she put her things away into her bag, she said, “Know what, Neelie? I’m going to bring you a fan the next time I come. And if there’s any breeze blowing at all, you’ll get some of it.”
Neelie looked doubtful. “Oh, I don’t think you should go to all that fuss, Miss Anderson. I don’t think the landlord would like me to use that extra electricity.”
Arleen said fiercely, “I don’t care what he likes, Neelie! I’ll say I prescribed it for you. And if that doesn’t take care of it, I’ll pay for the extra electricity myself!”
She bent over Neelie, squeezing the woman’s hand in her strong, young grip.
Neelie smiled up at her. “You’re a fine girl,” she said. “A real fine girl, Miss Anderson.”
Arleen met Al Ryan in the hall. He flashed her an angry glance, but did not speak.
Arleen walked down to the second-floor landing. She thought, “I’m not a fine girl. It’s only that I feel guilty because I have that big window fan in my apartment, and if it gets too hot I can go out to an air-conditioned movie or a restaurant. Neelie can’t do that. And I can’t rest in my own comfort unless I try and do something for her!”
As she neared the Luigui apartment, she could hear the unhappy sound of a baby crying.
CHAPTER 4
AS ALWAYS, the dirt, litter and abject misery of the Luigui apartment hit Arleen like a blow across the face.
She found Anna Luigui lying down, clad in a not too clean nightgown, her bare, dirty feet trailing over the side of the cot.
At the table, Rose Luigui was spreading peanut butter on bread for the Luigui children crowded around her. The youngest member of the Luigui clan reposed on a pillow on the table, beside the peanut butter jar. She was crying in fierce, heartbreaking wails.
Rose, unaware of anyone else in the room but the waiting, clutching children and the crying baby, said, an edge of hysteria in her voice, “Shut up! Shut up, will you? If you keep up that yelling I’ll. . . I’ll brain you!”
And then, as Arleen watched, she let the knife drop into the peanut butter jar while she reached down with fierce tenderness and picked up Carmella.
“I didn’t mean that. Rose didn’t mean that. . . .” Suddenly, feeling the strange presence in the room, she lifted her head and stared, flushed and sullen-eyed, at Arleen.
“What do you think you’re looking at?” she flung at her, as she let the baby drop back gently onto the pillow, making no further effort to quiet its cries.
She retrieved the knife and once again began spreading peanut butter on the bread, to the accompanying unmelodic wails of Carmella.
“Welcome to breakfast, Miss Anderson,” she told Arleen, in the familiar mocking voice. “Besides the peanut butter sandwiches the menu always has powdered milk to drink. Oh, it’s warm and it’s gaggy to taste, but it’s very good for you. Ask Miss Gibbons! She drinks it herself . . . to hear her tell it!”
Arleen walked over and picked up Carmella. “Perhaps she’ll stop crying if she’s held,” she said.
She was surprised to find that the baby was not only dry, but bathed and clean. Arleen felt quite certain Anna had had nothing to do with it.
She looked at Rose. “Has the baby had her formula?”
Rose nodded, without looking up. “Next one’s due at twelve o’clock.” She finished with the sandwiches and began pouring the powdered skim milk into an assorted array of cracked glasses and handleless cups.
Arleen said awkwardly, “I brought the children a little treat of candy. You can hand it out to them.”
Rose said, in a hard voice, “Hand it out yourself, nurse lady. You’re the one who brought it.”
Arleen flushed. She waited until the children had finished the milk, and then she carefully divided the candy among them. Their greedy, clutching hunger still appalled her.
Rose pushed the glasses and dirty cutlery to one side, not bothering to wash them. “We’re going to use them again,” she told Arleen lightly. “Why bother washing them?”
She watched the younger children devouring the candy. She’d scorned any for herself. “That’s your lunch, kids,” she told them. “After a big treat like that, who needs lunch?”
Arleen didn’t dare look at the girl, or speak, knowing that if she did, the anger would show not only in her face but in her voice.
She had never come up against such open antagonism in her life before. Ignoring Rose, she found a basin, filled it with cold water, and sponged off Carmella. The infant stopped its restless crying and was asleep in Arleen’s arms as she finished drying her.
She tried to find a cool place in the room in which to put the baby, but there was no cool spot in the entire apartment.
When she straightened from putting the infant in her basket, she wiped at the perspiration gathering on her forehead. She caught Rose’s eye. “What you need here,” Arleen said, “is a fan.”
The young girl’s arched brows went up a shade higher. “Oh?” she said. “Is it uncomfortable for you, nurse? I’m so sorry, but our air conditioner is out of order. The butler’s having it fixed. Maybe next time you come. . . .”
Arleen said levelly, “Rose, do you think hating me is going to change things?”
Rose shrugged, and said airily, “It keeps me occupied.”
Anna Luigui, engrossed in reading one of her inevitable comic books, had barely glanced up when Arleen entered the room. The baby’s crying had not seemed to affect her at all.
“Mrs. Luigui. . . .” Arleen moved toward her purposefully, but suddenly Pietro strained himself into her view. She frowned, and glanced at Rose. “That eruption on his skin could be ringworm or impetigo. It should be washed and looked at. Do you suppose he would let me near enough to him to take a look?”
Rose shrugged. “Search me. Pietro just don’t like people, especially women.” She gave a bitter glance at her mother. “Not that he hasn’t got reasons!”
Anna heard. She lifted her head and said sullenly, “Don’t go talking about your mama. I try to keep you decent. You just tell the nurse what time you come in this morning! Huh? Four o’clock in the morning she come in. What kind of time is that for a decent girl to come home, huh? Where she was? She don’t tell me. Ain’t none of my business, she tells me! Her own mama! None of my business!”
Arleen tried to sidestep the argument. She said sternly, “I’m sure Pietro wouldn’t be afraid, Rose, if you’d tell him that all I want to do is to wash his face and look at the breaking out on his skin.”
Rose merely shrugged, and Arleen said coldly, “Both impetigo and ringworm are contagious. If Pietro does have either of those, he could give it to the entire family.”
Rose said carefully, “Is dirt contagious, too, nurse lady? I know the answer to that one. It sure is.” She pointed to Anna’s feet hanging over the side of the cot. “Ma’s given her dirt to everybody else in the family. You got something to cure dirt, nurse lady? If you ain’t, you might just as well quit talking!”
Anna howled in indignation. “Listen to her. Listen to her! And me having to lay here and take that kind of talk from her. Too sick to get up on my feet and go at her!”
Arleen said quietly, “You don’t have to stay in bed, Mrs. Luigui. In fact, the doctor wants you up on your feet, doing your usual work. Women recover their strength much faster that way.”
Anna frowned and said belligerently, “That doctor ever have a baby? You ever have a baby? Well, then, don’t you go telling me what it’s