A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [113]
She looked up and down the street and grew uneasy when she didn’t see Francie among the children. Then she remembered that Francie went further to school and came home a bit later. Once in the flat, Katie decided to heat the coffee and have a cupful. By that time, Francie should be home, and her mind would be at peace. She went into the bedroom to see if the gun was still under the pillow. Of course it was and she felt foolish for looking. She drank the coffee, took her bar of yellow soap and started back for work.
Francie got home at her usual time. She opened the hall door, stared up and down the long narrow hall, saw nothing and closed the solid wood door behind her. Now the hall was darkened. She walked the short length of hall towards the stairs. As she put her foot on the first step, she saw him.
He stepped out from a small recess under the stairs that had an entrance to the cellar. He walked softly but with lunging steps. He was thin and undersized and wore a shabby dark suit with a collarless and tieless shirt. His thick bushy hair grew down on his forehead almost to his eyebrows. He had a beaked nose and his mouth was a thin crooked line. Even in the semi-darkness, Francie was aware of his wet-looking eyes. She took another step, then, as she got a better look at him, her legs turned into cement. She couldn’t lift them to take the next step! Her hands clutched two banister spokes and she clung to them. What hypnotized her into being unable to move was the fact that the man was coming towards her with his lower garments opened. Francie stared at the exposed part of his body in paralyzed horror. It was wormy white contrasted with the ugly dark sallowness of his face and hands. She felt the same kind of nausea she had once felt when she saw a swarm of fat white maggots crawling over the putrid carcass of a rat. She tried to scream “Mama” but her throat closed over and only air came out. It was like a horrible dream where you tried to scream but no sound came. She couldn’t move! She couldn’t move! Her hands hurt from gripping the banister spokes. Irrelevantly, she wondered why they didn’t snap off in her tight grasp. And now he was coming towards her and she couldn’t run! She couldn’t run! Please God, she prayed, let some tenant come along.
At this moment, Katie was walking down the stairs quietly with the bar of yellow soap in her hand. When she came to the top of the last flight, she looked down and saw the man coming at Francie and saw that Francie was frozen to the banister spokes. Katie made no sound. Neither one saw her. She turned quietly and ran up the two flights to her flat. Her hand was steady as she took the key from under the mat and opened the door. She took precious time, not aware of what she was doing, to set the cake of yellow soap on the washtub cover. She got the gun from under the pillow, aimed it, and keeping it aimed, put it under her apron. Now her hand was trembling. She put her other hand under her apron and steadied the gun with her two hands. Holding the gun in this way, she ran down the stairs.
The murderer reached the foot of the stairs, rounded it, leaped up the two steps, and, quick as a cat, threw one arm about Francie’s neck and pressed his palm to her mouth to prevent her screaming. He put his other arm around her waist and started to pull her away. He slipped and the exposed part of his body touched her bare leg. The leg jerked as though a live flame had been put to it. Her legs came out of the paralysis then and she kicked