Why Mattie Called Her Junk Room, Bluebeard's Room

      

            Marian’s quiet voice from my answering machine woke me from a Saturday afternoon nap, “Marina, Marina, pick up please. Are you there? It’s about Mattie. She’s had a stroke. You need to get to the hospital.”

I grabbed up the phone and we talked, but I don’t remember much of what she said, other than I needed to get there quickly. I wrote the room number on my hand with a green pen, while I ran to my car. I didn’t even take time to brush my hair or straighten my napped-in bed. Mama would have been disappointed in me. She did not believe in naps, and never let us outside with messy hair and wrinkled clothes.

I tried to whisper prayers on the way to the hospital, “Please don’t let Mattie die before I get there. I need to see her one more time. I love her.” But mostly I remembered how she used to tell me, “You have to make people treat you right, Doll Baby. I won’t always be here to take care of you.”

This was in the mid-90s, so I must have been almost 40 years old, but I could not imagine life without Mattie. She was my favorite aunt and godmother, and I used to stay with her often as a child, when Mama was in the hospital having another baby or back surgery. Mattie was gruff with most people, especially if they called her Miss Mattie or Aunt Mattie (just Mattie is fine, she would growl, loudly if she had to tell you twice). She carried a small, shiny pistol in a Kleenex box under the front seat of her car. But Mattie was gentle with me. She would take me to What-A-Burger or Morrison’s Cafeteria, and let me order whatever I wanted, even two desserts. She had a real slot machine and let me keep all the quarters I won when we played it.

I always wanted to be like Mattie, strong, independent, and seemingly unbreakable. The only time I ever saw her cry was just after her husband died. Uncle Bob was gaunt, gentle and soft-spoken, and much older than Mattie, who was outspoken and large. They made a perfect couple. She always called him, “Sweetie Pie.”

At the hospital, I mashed the elevator button over and over, willing it to hurry so I could get to Mattie. The door finally squealed open and there was Marian, my oldest sister. The one who worries about everyone. I rushed to her, “How is Mattie?  What’s going on? Did you leave her by herself?”

“She’s all right, Marina. Come in here so we can talk.” We moved to an empty waiting room. Marian looked pretty, in plaid pants and a green sweater. “It was a mild stroke and she’s already better. But she’s really worried about something and won’t take her sleeping pills until she sees you. She could have another stroke.” Marian looked at me as if it were somehow my fault.

“Thanks for explaining it to me.” I kissed her cheek. The elegant scent of her Happy perfume comforted me. “I’ll go see what she wants."

Then she looked briefly hurt. “And I didn’t leave her by herself. Sister Adele is up there with her. Mattie kept telling me I should go get some coffee. Like she wanted to get rid of me.”

"She probably just wanted to talk to Sister. They’re old friends. How long will you be here? I’ll find you after I see her.”

Marian smiled and tried to arrange my hair with her hands. “I’ll wait in the chapel till you come back down.” She probably wondered why my hair needed brushing. “The girls” in my family were always neat and well dressed.

Mattie was alone when I got to her room. She looked up when I came in. Her left hand had an IV drip needle taped in it, hooked to tubes and a blinking, beeping machine. She had on one of those tacky hospital gowns that looked like Daddy’s boxer shorts. So much gray in her short hair.

“Where is Sister?” I asked.

“They called her to the nurses’ station for some emergency. Here, sit down, Marina. I need you to do something for me, please.” Mattie sounded almost desperate, and afraid. I’d never seen her like that and it upset me. She didn’t believe in worrying. Her standard advice for anyone who did so (except for Grandma and me) was, “Aw, Fete-p-tan (her version of a French curse), stop fretting and let God handle it. You’re going to make yourself crazy.”

“Mattie, try to calm down. Marian said you had a stroke. You’re going to make yourself worse. What’s the matter?” I sat on the edge of her bed and kissed her cheek. She smelled like a sick person, and not like cigarette smoke.

“Aw, Marian was about to worry me to death, fussing over me and wanting me to pray with her. I told her to go get some coffee. Listen now, Marina, this is important.” She frowned at me, something else I’d never seen.

“What is it?”

“You need to get to my house, before your two cousins do.”

I couldn’t imagine what my two cousins had to do with anything, but I didn’t want to upset Mattie any more. “What do you need me to do? And why are they going to your house?”

“When they find out I’m here, they’ll try to get inside and go through my things.”

“Do they have a key?”

“No, but they might go to Margie’s house with some story about wanting to clean up for me. She’s so foolish she might let them in with her key.” Mattie leaned back and closed her eyes.

I whispered in her ear, “Just tell me what to do.”

“Get me some water and help me sit up. You need to understand all this.” Mattie glared at me as if daring me to do anything but listen. I was afraid she was losing her mind, like Grandma, or might have another stroke, so I did as she asked, and then waited.

“I need you to go in that middle bedroom at my house. You know, my Bluebeard’s Room.”

I did know her Bluebeard’s Room, but couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to steal anything from her junk room. It was as bad as the one at Grandma’s house, with piles of old magazines and newspapers, empty cigar boxes, broken furniture and old clothes and toys.

Mattie often knew what I was thinking, and she almost smiled. “Your grandmother taught me the best place to hide something was in the middle of a mess.”

“What did she hide?” I couldn’t imagine my sweet, pretty grandmother having anything to hide.

“Money, mostly, from your grandfather.” She stopped and looked disgusted, as she always did when awful old Grandpa was mentioned. “To stop him from giving it all to the priests at Church, or buying more cattle he couldn’t take care of.”

She shook her head to get back on track with her request, “Anyway, I need you to look for some envelopes for me in Bluebeard’s Room. Do you have a piece of paper? You need to write this down.” She stopped talking and glared at me again, until I got an old check stub and green ink pen from my purse, and held the pen over the back of the check stub, ready to write.

When you go in the room, you’ll see five stacks of newspapers against the back wall. You need to go to the fourth stack of papers from the left, the Town Talk… Are you writing this down, Marina?” Mattie sounded almost angry.

“Yes, I have it. Go on.” She might have been confused, but at least she was alive.

“Count down 23 papers from the top and you’ll see an envelope with my name on it, my name before I married Bob. And don’t read it, whatever you do. Just bring it to me please.” She seemed about to cry.

Her voice became sharp again, “Then go to the stack of Cattleman magazines, to the right of all the newspapers. Count down 17 magazines. You should find a brown envelope with my name on it, my old name, like on the other one. It looks a little torn up and probably isn’t sealed. But don’t look inside. Just bring it back here with the other one.”

She sounded almost frantic, and it upset me, so I said what she needed to hear, “Please stop worrying, Mattie. I’ll bring them both back to you and I won’t look at anything. I promise.”

Mattie sagged into herself as if exhausted, or relieved that she’d finally given me her urgent instructions. “Remember, Doll Baby, no one can see those envelopes. And if Marian is still downstairs, send her home and don’t tell her anything. She doesn’t know about any of this. No one does now, except me, and it needs to stay that way. It’s something even you don’t need to know.” She stopped, then puffed, “Do you still have that key to my house?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

Mattie hugged me hard as I lowered the head of her bed. She pulled the white spread over her gaudy hospital gown and closed her eyes. “Thank you, Doll Baby, I love you.”

“I love you too, Mattie, and I’m glad you’re all right. I’ll hurry back with those envelopes. An no one will ever know.”

In less than a half hour, I was driving down Mattie’s quiet street, of small, neat brick homes and the occasional loose pet dog or cat. I had oldies rock music on the radio, loud, but was too worried about Mattie to really hear the words. The weather was dreary, cool, and overcast, winter in South Louisiana. Mattie’s friend, Margie, in a pink jogging suit, ran out of her house and waved for me to stop as I passed. She was tiny, with brown and gray curls, pleasant and interesting.

“How is Mattie?” She called as I rolled down the window. “I went over there when I saw the ambulance this morning, but she was already unconscious. No one would tell me anything. I picked up the dishes and chair she knocked over when she fell, and locked up her house after they left. I’ve been worrying about Mattie all day.” She looked about to cry. Miss Margie was such a good friend to Mattie, probably better than Mattie was to her. But she loved Mattie, just as I did.

“She’s fine, Miss Margie, don’t worry. It was just a small stroke, and she’s already her old self, ordering everyone around.” We both laughed.

“That sounds like Mattie.” She shook her head, still smiling.

  “Miss Margie, Mattie wants me to get some things for her. And she’s been worrying that someone might have been in her house. I think the stroke left her anxious. No one has been there today, have they?”

“No, I would have seen them. I’ve been watching all day, hoping for news.”

 “Good, I’ll tell her that, and I’ll tell her you were worrying about her. I better get her things and get back to the hospital. She was still anxious and fretful when I left. I promise to call you from the hospital later with news.”

 At the door to Bluebeard’s Room, Mattie’s middle bedroom, I stopped, wondering what I would find in there. Even when I lived with Mattie years ago when I lost Free, my baby, and was so sad I couldn’t eat and washed my hands all the time, I mostly stayed out of Bluebeard’s Room. So many strange sights and smells in there.

Mattie had been so secretive and nervous at the hospital. What if she had brain damage from the stroke and was talking out of her head? I was afraid she would get like my sweet, pretty grandmother, when she had “hardening of the arteries” and wandered around with her blue crystal rosary, staring at the levee. I knew no matter what happened I would always take care of Mattie.

Finally I pushed open the door to Bluebeard’s Room. It was musty, as I expected, and had even more junk than I remembered. I breathed through my mouth and tried to ignore the smell. Mattie needed me to help her. That was all that mattered. There were five stacks of newspapers, the ones I was to dig through, against the far wall. To one side was Grandma’s old mahogany desk, where she used to do paperwork and pay bills before she got sick. It was dusty and missing a leg, but Mattie had three old encyclopedias where the leg should be. The rest of the encyclopedias were next to the stacks of newspapers. The desk was covered with empty King Edward cigar boxes. (I remembered those boxes from when I was a child.) I wondered if Mattie had anything hidden in those cigar boxes, like her coin collection, from my two cousins.

The Cattleman magazines, stacked neatly, were to the right of the newspapers, just as Mattie had said. There was even a faded silk flower arrangement from a funeral in one corner, next to a broken step ladder and the faded plastic Big Wheel my younger brothers used to ride when they visited.

 I took a deep breath and stopped stalling. It was time to look for those envelopes. I couldn’t imagine what secret Mattie had that would make her so anxious and nervous. She never had patience with worriers, except for Grandma and me, of course.

 (Mattie had to drive poor Miss Margie to the hospital when her husband, Piggy, had prostate surgery. Mattie told me later, “I thought Margie was going to have a stroke on the way to the hospital, asking me if I thought he was going to be all right and couldn’t I drive faster. I finally told her to stop fretting and let the Lord take care of Piggy.”)

The fourth stack of newspapers was taller than the rest, but I turned and started with the Cattleman magazines instead. They were smelly and old, from the 1950s, with cover pictures of farmers in big white hats, reddish cows eating hay, and platters of pink-centered grilled steaks. Why had Mattie kept awful old Grandpa’s magazines. She always seemed so angry at him, as if she truly hated him.

 I counted down 17 magazines from the top and there it was. Mattie wasn’t confused at all. An ordinary brown, manilla envelope, old looking, with only Mattie’s name written across it. The handwriting was firm and slanted, probably a man’s. What struck me was how the envelope had been torn apart into four pieces and taped together again, with tape now yellow and loose. I had to know what was in the envelope, to make Mattie tear it up that way. I never should have looked inside, and I’ve been sorry ever since. But the flap was loose, so I ignored my promise to Mattie and slipped out the paper from inside.

 It was an 8x10, black and white photo, of Mattie and some man I didn’t quite recognize, dressed in evening wear and facing one another.  The picture was torn, like the envelope, and taped back together.  Mattie was young and even then a large woman. She looked pretty, in a frilly, lacy white dress, instead of the pantsuits I had seen her wear all my life. Her short, dark hair waved around her face, not slicked back with VO-5. She gazed up at the man with such love, I almost closed my eyes. I’d never seen her look at anyone like that. Not even at Uncle Bob when she offered him extra ham and called him Sweetie Pie. Not even on their wedding day. Who was this man, I wondered, looking like Captain von Trapp in the Sound of Music, one of Mattie’s favorite movies? He looked at Mattie with love as well, his hand on her shoulder. Who was this man and why had Mattie torn up his picture? And then kept it?

 Seeing Mattie look like that at a man I didn’t know, a man who was not Uncle Bob, upset me. It was like looking at a stranger. I put the picture in the envelope, on top of the Cattleman magazines. Maybe the stack of old newspapers would explain. I couldn’t ask Mattie. She didn’t want me knowing what was in the envelopes. Why? I wished I had never seen it, but now I had to know more about this man I couldn’t quite place.

 The newspapers were not stacked as neatly as the magazines. At the fourth stack, I counted down. The papers were old and smelled musty. As Mattie had said, most of them were the Town Talk, the newspaper from Alexandria, Louisiana, Uncle Bob’s hometown. I counted down 23 papers, and there it was. An ordinary cream-colored envelope, addressed to Mattie, at Grandma and Grandpa’s old place, out past Carville, Louisiana, in that same firm handwriting. This one had a return address though. The name was Feldman Ellis. That’s who was in the picture with Mattie! I hadn’t recognized him in the photo, young, and wearing a long-tailed tux, instead of khaki work clothes, and driving a tractor, tending his cows. When I was a child, Mattie and I visited Mr. Feldman and his wife, Miss Cecelia, at least once a month, for supper. Mattie always said he was a friend of the family, and you held onto old friends. She would complain all the way home about Miss Cecelia, “I don’t know why Cecelia needs a cook and a maid. And why she has to say ‘dinner’ and not ‘supper,” and use that fancy china. That’s what comes of growing up with that rich daddy of hers giving her everything she wanted. You know she made Feldman build her that big house with columns on the veranda.”

I didn’t want to know what was in the envelope anymore. It was still sealed and looked as if it had never been opened. Did Mr. Feldman write to Mattie, like a coward, to tell her he was marrying Miss Cecelia? Mattie always said she hated a coward. Maybe she already knew and didn’t want to read the words. I was so sad for Mattie I wanted to drive to Mr. Feldman’s farm in Plaquemine Point and kick him in the knee. But he was already dead.  I rode to see him with Mattie, when she heard about his heart attack. She drove 90 all the way there, and ran her big yellow Cordoba into the Ligustrum bushes in front of Miss Cecelia’s big house. (It was painted yellow that year.) Mattie jumped out and ran up the stairs to the front screen door. Doctor Brucie, another family friend, stepped out and stopped her…

Mattie’s junk room was indeed like the locked room in the old story, Bluebeard. You should not want to know what ugly secrets were inside. If you were foolish enough to pry, you regretted it. I hurried back to the hospital that day, so Mattie wouldn’t worry. On the way, I stopped at K&B Drugstore to buy a pair of dark sunglasses, and left them on, telling Mattie I had a migraine.

 When I get to Heaven, I’m going to find Mattie. Death doesn’t frighten me. It’s simply an extension of life, like in the poem, Death is Nothing at All. So many loved ones there, waiting for me. Mama and Nanny Gee will meet me at the entrance, to make sure I get in. But I’ll have to look for Mattie. She was always on the go, never one for waiting around. I’ll probably find her at the slot machines (without Uncle Bob or Mr. Feldman), fun-loving and independent, just as I always needed her to be. She’ll have on a navy blue pantsuit and those green-tinted glasses, her short hair held back with VO-5, and a Salem cigarette in her left hand. Her right hand pulling down that lever.

 She’ll wave me over. “Come on, Doll Baby, take some of these quarters and get on this machine next to me. With both of us playing, we’ll have a better chance of winning.” She’ll smile over at me, “I’ve missed you.” 

Maybe I’ll finally stop being a coward and tell her I looked in the envelope and knew about her and the fickle Mr. Feldman. But somehow I think she knew all along. Turns out, Mattie was quite the actress. Pretending all those years to be tough and beyond human frailty, when sadly, she was vulnerable and breakable, just like the rest of us.