"Good morning, Margaret."
She started, then quickly turned and smiled shyly. "Oh! Good morning, Mr. Frederickson! I didn't hear you come in."
"I'm sorry if I startled you. I knocked, but there was no answer. I wanted to make certain you were all right."
"Oh, I'm fine, thanks to you." She paused, glanced up at the underwear hanging above her head, reddened slightly. "I apologize for having my dainties on display. I washed them out, and they're not dry yet. I didn't want you to think I was a dirty person-I mean, the real me."
For some reason, her words touched me. Suddenly I found I had a lump in my throat, and I turned away as I felt my eyes fill with tears. "If I'd ever entertained such a notion, Margaret, you've certainly disabused me of it. My God, you've cleaned the whole place. You must have been up before dawn."
She nodded eagerly. "I wanted to get off to an early start.. I have to try to earn my keep. You'll see I'm a good cleaner."
"I already see that."
"It's been an awfully long time since I felt all right in my head, but I remember that I liked to clean when I did. I'll clean your apartment too. I'll keep the whole house clean."
"That isn't necessary, Margaret."
"But I really want to, Mr. Frederickson. And I'm going to start looking for a job first thing tomorrow morning."
"Every time you call me 'Mr. Frederickson,' I have to stop myself from turning around to see who you're talking to. Why don't you just call me Mongo. Nearly everybody else does." I held out the paper bag to her. "Here. I brought you coffee and a bagel. I hope you like cream cheese."
Her eyes went wide and filled with tears, and her hands trembled as she reached out for the bag. "Oh, thank you," she said in a quavering voice. "I am hungry, but I didn't dare ask …"
"Well, if you're still hungry after you eat that, I'll take you out for a proper breakfast. But if you can hold out, you might want to save your appetite. I'd like you to join me for Thanksgiving dinner at my favorite restaurant."
"Oh, my," she said in a small voice, looking down at the floor. She wiped her hands on the front of her frayed sweater as more tears came to her eyes, rolled down her leathery cheeks. "I can't go into a restaurant with you dressed like this."
"You're dressed just fine. The owner's a friend of mine. He won't object; if I thought he would, he wouldn't be a friend of mine, and that wouldn't be my favorite restaurant. I'll lend you some money, and tomorrow you can go out and buy some different clothes. For today, what you're wearing now is perfectly okay."
"Oh, Mr.-Mongo. It's too much! I've already said I'm going to pay you for letting me stay here. I can't take anything more from you."
"We want you to look good when you go job hunting, right? You can add it to your bill and pay me back in installments when you start working."
She choked back a sob, nodded, then wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up into my face. "Does this mean I'm. . doing all right? You'll let me stay here a little while longer, until I get my job and apartment?"
"Let's take one day at a time, Margaret. Up to now, I'd say you're doing wonderfully. I'll be back to pick you up at two."
The Gentle Peacock was on Restaurant Row on 46th Street, not far from the Manhattan Chess Club. The sight of a middle-aged woman in bag-lady clothes accompanied by a middle-aged dwarf would have turned heads in most expensive restaurants around the country, but this was New York City, and people barely glanced in our direction as Peter Dak, the owner, escorted us to our seats at a table by the window and personally took our drink orders. I ordered a scotch on the rocks, and Margaret asked for iced tea.
"Oooh," Margaret sighed, closing her eyes and breathing deeply through her nose. "There are so many wonderful smells in here!"
"This is a Thai restaurant, the best, and Thai cooking is all about spices. Their special Thanksgiving dinner isn't exactly the traditional turkey and stuffing with all the trimmings, but I think you'll enjoy it."
"Oh, I know I will. I've never eaten Thai food before, at least not that I can remember. I can't remember too much, but I think I'd know if I'd ever eaten food that smelled this good."
"What kinds of food do you remember eating, Margaret? Where do you originally come from?"
She stared out the window for a few moments, as if searching for her past in the ghostly reflections in the glass, then turned back to me and said, "Down South. Atlanta. My parents died, and I think that's when I came to New York City. . Lord, it must have been twenty or twenty-five years ago. Then I got sick. This kind of thing runs in my family. The state couldn't find any of my relatives, so they put me in a hospital. The doctors there put me on some kind of medication that helped me to get my thoughts straight, and then they let me go. But the medication made me sick to my stomach, and my mouth was dry all the time, so I stopped taking it. The rest of my life during all those years is just kind of a blurry soup with bright spots of color and sounds floating around in it. I remember terrible things happening to me in the shelters, and I remember feeling this awful rage in me all of the time. I remember living on that grate, and cursing at people. . and, of course, I remember you. But it's impossible for me to describe how I felt, other than angry all the time, or how I saw things that were going on around me. Most of the time I couldn't tell whether what I saw was real or imagined. I'm still not sure what was real and what was imagined. I heard voices. Now I know the voices were only in my mind, because they're not there any longer, but they certainly seemed real at the time."
"I understand."
"I guess maybe I don't really want to remember, because most of what I do remember makes me hurt and feel ashamed."
"Then we won't talk about it. You said the state couldn't find any of your relatives; that doesn't mean you don't have any. Do you think you might still have some family living?"
"I suppose so, back down South."
"Maybe they can help you now."
"I don't think so. I went to live with an aunt and uncle right after my folks died, but we didn't get along. They were the ones who suggested I move away in the first place. I've probably got cousins, or whatever, but I don't see how they'd want to help me after all these years. Besides, I don't think I want to ask. I'll be all right, Mr. Mongo."
"Just Mongo, Margaret."
"All I need is a little time to get myself started. I know I can be a very capable person when I'm not out of my head."
"I believe that. You're also a remarkable person. I've spent some time around mentally ill people-my brother, Garth, once suffered a psychotic episode, and he was put in a hospital. With most outpatients, you can tell they're on some kind of medication, but you don't show any of the usual side-"
"Oh, I'm not on any medication," Margaret Dutton said quickly- perhaps, I thought, too quickly.
"You're not? Your doctor. .?"
"I'm not seeing any doctor," she interrupted tersely, averting her gaze. Suddenly she seemed tense and uncomfortable.
"Margaret, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. I'm just not seeing any doctor or taking any medication."
"How could that be, Margaret?" I pressed gently. "How else would you be able to function like you are? You've been living on a grate, dressed in rags, for the better part of the past two years. Now, suddenly, here you are, cleaned up and attractive, conversing with me in a perfectly rational manner. I've never heard of a person suffering the kinds of symptoms you showed making such a remarkable recovery without medication, and it's even more remarkable that it happened in such a short time. How do you explain it?"
I waited. Finally she looked back up at me, and in her pale violet eyes there was a kind of naked plea. And fear. "I can't explain it, Mongo," she said very softly, in a frightened child's voice. "I woke up yesterday morning and I. . just felt better. The voices had stopped, and I just suddenly seemed to be able to think clearly. I knew I had to get up off the sidewalk, go someplace to get cleaned up, and start taking care of myself. That's all. The rest is like I told you. I went to the Salvation Army, and they let me take a shower and gave me these clothes. Then I left, not really knowing where I would go or what I planned to do; the only thing I knew for certain was that I didn't want to go to any shelter. Then night came, and I got cold and afraid. The only person I could think of who might help me was you. Your lights weren't on, so I sat on your stoop and waited for you to come home."