In spite of herself, Tish looked haunted. It was the salad, no doubt.
She said nothing, but she looked round the untidy rooms, where
everything that would hold it had a linen cover with a Cluny-lace
edge--all of them soiled and wrinkled. She watched Tufik, chanting about
the plains of Lebanon and shoving the carpet-sweeper with a bang against
her best furniture; and, with Hannah's salad in mind, she sniffed a
warning odor from the kitchen that told of more Syrian experiments with
her digestion. Tish surrendered: that morning she wrote to Hannah that
Tufik was going back to Syria, and to come and bring the salad recipe
with her.
That was, I think, on a Monday. Tufik's steamer sailed on Thursday. On
Tuesday Aggie and I went shopping; and in a spirit of repentance--for we
felt we were not solving Tufik's question but getting rid of him--we
bought him a complete new outfit. He almost disgraced us by kissing
our hands in the store, and while we were buying him some ties he
disappeared--to come back later with the rims of his eyes red from
weeping. His gentle soul was touched with gratitude. Aggie had to tell
him firmly that if he kissed any more hands he would get his ears boxed.
The clerks in the store were all interested, and two or three cash-boys
followed us round and stood, open-mouthed, staring at us. Neither Aggie
nor I knew anything about masculine attire, and Tufik's idea was a suit,
with nothing underneath, a shirt-front and collar of celluloid, and a
green necktie already tied and hooking on to his collar-button. He was
dazed when we bought him a steamer trunk and a rug, and disappeared
again, returning in a few moments with a small paper bag full of
gumdrops. We were quite touched.
That, as I say, was on Tuesday. Tufik had been sleeping in Tish's
guest-room since his desperate attempt at suicide, and we sent his
things to Tish's apartment. That evening Tufik asked permission to spend
the night with a friend in the restaurant business--a Damascan. Tish let
him go against my advice.
"He'll eat a lot of that Syrian food," I objected, "and get sick and
miss his boat, and we'll have the whole thing over again!"
But Tish was adamant. "It's his last night," she said, "and he has
promised not to smoke any cigarettes and I've given him two pepsin
tablets. This is the land of the free, Lizzie."
We were to meet Tufik at the station next morning and we arranged a
lunch for him to eat on the train, Aggie bringing fried chicken and I
sandwiches and cake. Tish's domestic arrangements being upset, she
supplied fruit, figs and dates mostly, to make him think of home.
The train left early, and none of us felt very cheerful at having to be
about. Aggie sat in the station and sneezed; Tish had a pain above her
eye and sat by a heater. We had the luncheon in a large shoebox, wrapped
in oiled paper to keep it moist.
He never appeared! The train was called, filled up, and left. People
took to staring at us as we sat there. Aggie sneezed and Tish held her
eye. And no Tufik! In a sort of helpless, breakfastless rage we called a
taxicab and went to Tish's. No one said much. We were all thinking.
We were hungry; so we spread out the shoebox lunch on one of the
Cluny-lace covers and ate it, mostly in silence. The steamer trunk and
the rug had gone. We let them go. They might go to Jerusalem, as far as
we were concerned! After we had eaten,--about eleven o'clock, I
think,--Tish got up and surveyed the apartment. Then, with a savage
gleam in her eye, she whisked off all the fancy linens, the Cluny laces,
the hemstitched bedspreads, and piled them in a heap on the floor. Aggie
and I watched her in silence. She said nothing, but kicked the whole lot
into the bottom of a cupboard. When she had slammed the door, she turned
and faced us grimly.
"That roll of fiddle-de-dees has cost me about five hundred dollars,"
she said. "It's been worth it if it teaches me that I'm an old fool and
that you are two others! If that boy shows his face here again, I'll
hand him over to the police."
However, as it happened, she did nothing of the sort. At four o'clock
that afternoon there was a timid ring at the doorbell and I answered it.
Outside was Tufik, forlorn and drooping, and held up by main force by a
tall, dark-skinned man with a heavy mustache.
"I bring your boy!" said the mustached person, smiling. "He has great
trouble--sorrow; he faint with grief."
I took a good look at Tufik then. He was pale and shaky, and his new
suit looked as if he had slept in it. His collar was bent and wilted,
and the green necktie had been taken off and exchanged for a ragged
black one.
"Miss Liz!" he said huskily. "I die; the heart is gone! My parent--"
He broke down again; and leaning against the door jamb he buried his
face in a handkerchief that I could not believe was one of the lot we
had bought only yesterday. I hardly knew what to do. Tish had said she
was through with the boy. I decided to close them out in the hallway
until we had held a council; but Tufik's foot was on the sill, and the
more I asked him to move it, the harder he wept.
The mustached person said it was quite true. Tufik's father had died of
the plague; the letter had come early that morning. Beirut was full of
the plague. He waved the letter at me; but I ordered him to burn it
immediately--on account of germs. I brought him a shovel to burn it on;
and when that was over Tufik had worked out his own salvation. He was at
the door of Tish's room, pouring out to Aggie and Tish his grief, and
offering the black necktie as proof.
We were just where we had started, but minus one hundred and twenty
dollars; for, the black-mustached gentleman having gone after trying to
sell Tish another silk kimono, I demanded Tufik's ticket--to be
redeemed--and was met with two empty hands, outstretched.
"Oh, my friends,--my Miss Tish, my Miss Liz, my Miss Ag,--what must I
say? I have not the ticket! I have been wikkid--but for my sister--only
for my sister! She must not die--she so young, so little girl!"
"Tufik," said Tish sternly, "I want you to tell us everything this
minute, and get it over."
"She ees so little!" he said wistfully. "And the body of my
parent--could I let it lie and rot in the so hot sun? Ah, no; Miss Tish,
Miss Liz, Miss Ag,--not so. To-day I take back my ticket, get the
money, and send it to my sister. She will bury my parent, and then--she
comes to this so great America, the land of my good friends!"
There was a moment's silence. Then Aggie sneezed!