Baglady

Daphne Gulver-Robinson is forced against her better judgement into a Far East shopping mall with the unsympathetic wives of her husband’s businesss colleagues.

This extremely short story by AS Byatt is, as with Cold, distinguished by vivid visual description. Whilst admiring the story for its aesthetic qualities I was nonetheless puzzled as I reached the end.

It was only as I was considering the fairy tale aspect of another short from the same book, A Lamia in the Cévennes, that some kind of clarity was achieved.  The following could conceivably be seen in the light of a SPOILER, so proceed with caution.

Expecting the fairy tale element, because that seems to be a common thread in the Elementals collection, I was surprised by its absence.  Until I realised that it was the classic rags to riches, but in reverse.   I must admit I derived a great deal of pleasure in recreating from the details of the story a kind of inverse Cinderella tale.

“She begins to run quite fast, so that huge holes spread in the soles of her stockings, which in the end split, and begin to work their way over her feet and up her legs in wrinkles like flaking skin.”

I was also reminded of the Vanity Fair of The Pilgrim’s Progress, although in this particular instance it is a harsh Vanity Fair which degrades indiscriminately, and apparently without justification. Yet, as dictated by the rules set out in The Pilgrim’s Progress (below), the protagonist had, indeed, transgressed.

Then I saw in my dream, that, when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity;[...]

Now, as I said, the way to the Celestial City lies just through this town where this lusty fair is kept; and he that would go to the city, and yet not go through this town, “must needs go out of the world” (Cor.5:10.2). The Prince of princes Himself, when here, went through this town to His own country, and that upon a fair day, too; yea, and as I think, it was Beelzebub, the chief lord of this fair, that invited Him to buy of his vanities; yea, would have made Him lord of the fair, would He but have done him reverence as He went through the town. Yea, because He was such a person of honor, Beelzebub had Him from street to street, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a little time, that he might, if possible, allure that Blessed One to cheapen and buy some of his vanities; but He had no mind to the merchandise, and therefore left the town without laying out so much as one farthing upon these vanities (Matt. 4:8-10; Luke 4:5-8). This fair, therefore, is an ancient thing of long standing, and a very great fair.

A tiny story packed full of content. A fable? I haven’t unpicked it that thoroughly: the bleakness beneath this story is, frankly, a depth which I do not wish to plumb.

I’ve touched upon this subject in a previous post regarding oddball characters on the Q46 bus. If you’ve been riding the bus for as long as I have you’ll notice certain oddball characters that commute during the same time as you.

You all have heard of a bag-lady, and the image of a haggard woman trudging along the streets carrying all sorts of bags filled with stuff conjures in your mind. Well, there is a male version of the bag-lady; the bag-man, and he takes the Q46 bus.

I’ve seen him both on the morning and evening commute. He is a white male and if you just looked at his face, he seems nice and looks “normal”. If you pan back, you’ll notice that he has a comb-over of thick dried wavy hair that is losing it’s color. Despite the effort he makes with his comb-over, he still looks like he just rolled out of bed. His clothes are nothing in particular. They’re in fair condition. The colors seem dull; not from frequent washing but the opposite. His clothes do not look dirty but they don’t look clean either.

He carries with him two bags filled with stuff. One is a multi-double bagged bag with an outer weathered Fairway plastic shopping bag, and the other is a filthy canvas tote bag with heavy soiling on one side.

I don’t know what’s inside those bags but he always has them with him. He carries them as though he were condemned to carry them for the rest of his life as punishment.

To my knowledge he is not a homeless man. He doesn’t reek of your typical homeless person whose body odor screams, “I haven’t bathed in weeks!”

He’s usually already on the bus by the time the bus reaches my stop along the route.  When I see him on the bus, I always avoid standing near him. I was always suspicious of hygiene habits.  And today, I confirmed my suspicions. He got on the bus at the same stop as me and took a seat next to me.  I was apprehensive at first when he sat down next to me and parked his filthy bags in front of his feet.  I wanted to get up and leave but stopped myself from making such an obvious move. And then there was an odd whiff of something in the air.  It was subtle but it was there.  It hovered around him and slowly reached out and began to wrap it’s dull odor of dried sweat and ashy skin over me.  He smelled like someone who did not maintain a daily hygiene regiment. I couldn’t take it anymore and decided that I would rather stand than be seated next to the bag-man; and I didn’t want his filthy bags to touch me either.

I went to the back of the bus, and some lady ended up sitting next to him.

Jag kollar klänningar för glatta livet. Till bröllopsfesten i sommar.

Den här skulle inte sitta fel. Fast problemet är väl att den skulle det ändå. Det är synd att jag har bröst eftersom det är en halterneck-variant. Halterneck är ofta lika samma som bh-lös. Och bh-löst fungerar bara inte… på mig

Ett armband från Baglady vill jag också ha. Inte för att jag behöver, men jag blev helt klart kär i detta… Ja ja jag får se hur viktigt det känns när ha-begäret släpper. Om några minuter eller så. Förmodligen inte viktigt alls.

Men sött är det i vilket fall.

I got back from Duluth exactly a week ago. What a wonderful trip. First, the drive up and back was beautiful. While the trees here had not turned yet, most of the leaves had already fallen in Minnesota. And that was fine with me because I am in love with birch and aspen trees. Oh yes, their leaves are nice too, but I just love their trunks and branches.

I have always liked birch trees, but I remember exactly the year I fell in love with aspens. Kathy Campbell and I were on a trip to Colorado in May or June. It was still like spring at that time. That spring green, almost glow-in-the-dark green, was covering the mountainsides as the grass was about 6” deep and looked like a most inviting carpet. Up from that carpet of life rose the contrasting bright white trunks of hundreds of aspen trees. It was breathtaking. They looked like a multitude of angels spreading their branches and wings to the sky in celebration of spring.

At my next class after the baglady intrusion, I entered the classroom to find the baglady teaching in front of about 15 students!  Apparently the room switch had gone through without my knowledge.

After poking around a bit I found the new classroom.  I immediately asked my teacher if she wanted me to go interrupt the baglady to reciprocate the intrusion.  She said yes.  So I went off, like incarnate justice in pursuit of the offender.  

Marching like a Sheriff to a jail door (o.k. the classroom door), I swung it open, immediately asking loud and clear, “Is Naomi in here?”  15 frightened Freshman stared at me in terror, as if a gunman.  The baglady rotated slowly from the board, “I haven’t seen any Naomi in here.”  She said it as if I were asking for a genus of Pelican, not a proper name.  I immediately went away, giggling with enough adrenaline for the rest of the day.

Luckily not my professor.  In the waining minutes of my Lyric Greek class, a head cracked open the door.  An intelligent looking woman in her mid-50’s looked around and offered, “Hi I teach English writing down the hall and we are looking for a bigger classroom to fit my 15 students.  I hope I am not bothering your class.”  She looked at my teacher with not even a blush of hesitation.  My teacher then erupted, with serious inflection, “You really are bothering us.”  At this point the English instructor invited herself in, and let the door close behind her.  I see she is wearing a Barack Obama badge.  I ask myself if it is possibly allowable within faculty policy to explicitly promote candidates in such a way.  Then she starts conversing with my teacher:

I need a classroom big enough for my 15 students, maybe we can switch.

I am teaching Greek right now. You need to take that up with them, but I am willing to trade rooms.

Them?

The school registrar- but I am willing to trade.

I heard there is a Greek class over there.

[Sensing a negative tone when the english teacher said "Greek"]  You need to leave.

O.K.  but we should swap rooms, and….[talking with her back to us, walking away]

Was that a baglady?

My mom had a heart for the disadvantaged. I’m sure her faith had something to do with it, but I think she just loved everyone. I recall two people my mom reached out to when we were children. Our grandmother commented once, “Your momma always loved strays and that can be people as well as animals.”

In the first instance, there was a woman we called German Lily. She was, of course, from Germany and spoke very little English. She looked like one of those pictures in a History channel special on the aftermath of World War II but she had immigrated to the U.S. She wore a long woolen midnight blue winter coat and a babuska. A babuska is a scarf that women wore over their head and tied under the chin. They were folded in half, which made them look like triangles with the long side over the forehead and hair and opposite point down the back of the neck. I don’t know this woman’s story other than she lived in a trailer with her daughter and our mom would go visit her. And for some reason, the woman and her daughter moved in with us on the farm. She brought a goat with her and a recipe for corn meal mush. The goat milk had a potent smell, but tasted good once you got used to it. But I hated the corn meal mush. After German Lily came to be with us, we had this mush every morning for breakfast. I tried to dress it up with jellies or brown sugar, but no matter what we did, it continued to taste horrible.

A more enduring recollection comes later when we lived on Middle Street in North Braddock. There was what we children referred to as a baglady by the name of Winnie that visited the neighborhood and whoever would feed her or give her money. As she came up the brick street, she carried a sturdy brown grocery bag with thin string-cord handles and all sorts of strange items in the bag. The items were usually things she purchased at the “dirty” store. This was the nickname given to Goodwill’s or Salvation Army stores that carried only used merchandise. Occasionally, she’d push a Kroger’s grocery cart with several bags of belongings. As far as appearance, she wore a colorful dress and a hat that predates Mary Poppins. I remember her stockings rolled down to just above her ankles and hairy legs that just grossed me out. Some older women have gray leg hairs when they get older, imagine that. She had a kind of wobble to her walk that was probably due to arthritis. It made me think of swashbuckler movies where one of the pirates has a pegleg and leans back and forth as he walks. But regardless of her gait and motion as she walked, she tried to be the picture of fashion.

When Winnie came for a visit, it was usually for two things, food and money. “Ruthie, you got anything to eat? That was the easier of the two requests for my mom to comply with. “Ruthie, can you spare a couple of shekels? I needs money, sweetheart.” What struck me with the second request was how respectful my mom was to this woman. We had just moved into this neighborhood after losing the farm. My dad was working part-time for minimum wage at a paint store in Braddock. We were receiving CARE packages of powdered eggs, powdered milk, peanut butter and lentils. This is before welfare and food-stamps as we commonly think of it now. So, giving away our food was a big enough deal let alone money. But mom always found a few nickels or dimes to give to Winnie. She used the scriptures saying, “if you’re going to give, give cheerfully.” Also, with mom having been born in the beginning of the economic Depression, she was aware that a person’s circumstance wasn’t always a result of their own poor choices. She’d also make the comment, “But for the grace of God, go I.”

The first couple of hours would go very well. My mom would brew a fresh pot of coffee, which delighted Winnie to no end. She’d ask for a second and third cup and my mom would happily oblige. There was peanut-butter toast for the main course and jam or jelly if we had any. Mom would just “love on” this woman.

Now there was only one problem. When Winnie paid my mom a visit, she’d come and it seemed like she’d never leave. So, the warmth, hospitality and patience my mom had in the first several hours began to wane around the four to five hour mark. Mom was always gracious and would gradually give Winnie hints that it was time for the visit to conclude. Mom would begin to stand rather than sit at the kitchen table and start cleaning up dishes or folding laundry. Most of the time, Winnie would get the hint. She’d ask for a last piece of toast or a last cup of coffee called “one for the road.” Sometimes, Winnie would try to stay longer and mom would have to be more direct. “Winnie, honey, its time to go. I’ve got children to look after here and dinner to make.” Once Winnie gave into the notion that their visit was ending, she and my mom would go through their goodbye ritual. The ritual included Winnie trying to find ways to prolong the visit, remembering important things she forgot to tell our mom or questions she wanted our mom to slowly ponder and answer. This would go on from the time Winnie stood up from the kitchen table, made her way to the doorway onto the porch and onto the sidewalk in front of the house. This was Winnie’s way of saying, “I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here longer.” Once in a while, my mom wasn’t up to Winnie visiting and would have one of us children answer the door and lie to Winnie. We’d ask, “Mom, what do you want us to say?” Mom replied, “Just tell her I’m at your grandmothers.” Winnie’d ask, “is your mom home?” One of us would reply, “No, she’s visiting our grandmother up in First Ward.” One time, our mom must not have got out of the living room where the door and picture window is located fast enough and Winnie knew we were lying. When we said mom was not home, Winnie retorted, “I knows she’s in there. I justs wants to see her for a minute. Just a minute.” But we were given explicit instructions not to acknowledge our mom was home and we continued to protect our mom from Winnie’s intrusion and unexpected visit.

What I remember most as a nine or ten-year old boy was my mom’s warmth extended to those who for whatever circumstances go without love. She shouldn’t have made us lie to Winnie, but her insufficiency doesn’t lessen the impact it had on her children.

Vi har tidligere poengtert at Marc Jacobs kom til å benytte Posh Spice til å fronte sin nye vår og sommer kampanje, og det har han til de grader gjort. Fru Beckham har blitt plassert i flere ikke spesielt glamorøse positurer i og uten for en stor Marc Jacobs pose. At mannen har humor og glimt i øyet skal ingen benekte. Den amerikanske februar utgaven av Vougue vil vise frem alle bildene. Fotograf er Juergen Teller.

Posh sier følgende om kampanjen;

“The images are humorous and ironic,” Victoria explains. “You can’t be afraid to experiment with fashion, especially when working with Marc and Juergen – you have to push the envelope and show a different side.
“Marc is a genius,” she added. “I completely trusted his vision and the opportunity to work with Juergen again after so many years was a privilege.”