Tish: The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions Part 10

"Ah, but my toes are in. See, my foot wishes to enter!" Then something soft, coaxing, infinitely wistful, in Arabian followed by a slap. The next moment Hannah, in tears, rushed back to the kitchen. There was no sound from the hallway. No smiling Tufik presented himself in the doorway.

Tish rose in the majesty of wrath. "I could strangle that woman!" she said, and we followed her into the hall.

Tufik was standing inside the door with his arms folded, staring ahead.

He took no notice of us.

"Tufik!" Aggie cried, running to him. "Did she--did she dare--Tish, look at his cheek!"

"She is a bad woman!" Tufik said somberly. "I make my little prayer to see Miss Tish, my mother, and she--I kill her!"

We had a hard time apologizing to him for Hanna. Tish got a basin of cold water so he might bathe his face; and Aggie brought a tablespoonful of blackberry cordial, which is soothing. When the poor boy was calmer we met in Tish's bedroom and Tish was quite firm on one point--Hannah must leave!

Now, this I must say in my own defense--I was sorry for Tufik; and it is quite true I bought him a suit and winter flannels and a pair of yellow shoes--he asked for yellow. He said he was homesick for a bit of suns.h.i.+ne, and our so somber garb made him heart-sad. But I would never have dismissed a cook like Hannah for him.

"I shall have to let her go," Tish said. "He is Oriental and pa.s.sionate.

He has said he will kill her--and he'll do it. They hold life very lightly."

"Humph!" I said. "Very well, Tish, that holding life lightly isn't a Christian trait. It's Mohammedan--every Mohammedan wants to die and go to his heaven, which is a sort of sublimated harem. The boy's probably a Christian by training, but he's a Mohammedan by blood."

Aggie thought my remark immoral and said so. And just then Hannah solved her own problem by stalking into the room with her things on and a suitcase in her hand.

"I'm leaving, Miss Tis.h.!.+" she said with her eye-rims red. "G.o.d knows I never expected to be put out of this place by a dirty dago! You'll find your woolen stockings on the stretchers, and you've got an appointment with the dentist tomorrow morning at ten. And when that little blackguard has sucked you dry, and you want him killed to get rid of him, you'll find me at my sister's."

She picked up her suitcase and Tish flung open the door. "You're a hard-hearted woman, Hannah Mackintyre!" Tish snapped. "Your sister can't keep you. You'll have to work."

Hannah turned in the doorway and sneered at the three of us.

"Oh, no!" she said. "I'm going to hunt up three soft-headed old maids and learn to kiss their hands and tell 'em I have n.o.body but them and G.o.d!"

She slammed out at that, leaving us in a state of natural irritation.

But our rage soon faded. Tufik was not in the parlor; and Tish, tiptoeing back, reported that he was in the kitchen and was mixing up something in a bowl.

"He's a dear boy!" she said. "He feels responsible for Hannah's leaving and he's getting luncheon! Hannah is a wicked and uncharitable woman!"

"Man's inhumanity to man, Makes countless thousands mourn!"

quoted Aggie softly. From the kitchen came the rhythmic beating of a wooden spoon against the side of a bowl; a melancholy chant--quite archaic, as Tish said--kept time with the spoon, and later a smell of baking flour and the clatter of dishes told us that our meal was progressing.

"'The Syrians,'" read Tish out of her book, "'are a peaceful and pastoral people. They have not changed materially in nineteen centuries, and the traveler in their country finds still the life of Biblical times.' Something's burning!"

Shortly after, Tufik, beaming with happiness and Hannah clearly forgotten, summoned us to the dining-room. Tufik was not a cook. We realized that at once. He had made coffee in the Oriental way--strong enough to float an egg, very sweet and full of grounds; and after a bite of the cakes he had made, Tish remembered the dentist the next day and refused solid food on account of a bad tooth. The cakes were made of lard and flour, without any baking-powder or flavoring, and the tops were sprinkled thick with granulated sugar. Little circles of grease melted out of them on to the plate, and Tufik, wide-eyed with triumph, sweetly wistful over Tish's tooth, humble and joyous in one minute, stood by the cake plate and fed them to us!

I caught Aggie's agonized eye, but there was nothing else to do. Were we not his friends? And had he not made this delicacy for us? On her third cake, however, Aggie luckily turned blue round the mouth and had to go and lie down. This broke up the meal and probably saved my life, though my stomach has never been the same since. Tish says the cakes are probably all right in the Orient, where it is hot and the grease does not get a chance to solidify. She thinks that Tufik is probably a good cook in his own country. But Aggie says that a good many things in the Bible that she never understood are made plain to her if that is what they ate in Biblical times--some of the things they saw in visions, and all that. She dropped asleep on Tish's lounge and distinctly saw Tufik murdering Hannah by forcing one of his cakes down her throat.

The next month was one of real effort. We had planned to go to Panama, and had our pa.s.sage engaged; but when we broke the news to Tufik he turned quite pale.

"You go--away?" he said wistfully.

"Only for a month," Tish hastened to apologize. "You see, we--we are all very tired, and the Panama Ca.n.a.l--"

"Ca.n.a.l? I know not a ca.n.a.l."

"It is for s.h.i.+ps--"

"You go there in a s.h.i.+p?"

"Yes. A ca.n.a.l is a--"

"You go far--in a s.h.i.+p--and I--I stay here?"

"Only for a month," Aggie broke in. "We will leave you enough money to live on; and perhaps when we come back you will have found something to do--"

"For a month," he said brokenly. "I have no friends, no Miss Tish, no Miss Liz, no Miss Pilk. I die!"

He got up and walked to the window. It was Aggie who realized the awful truth. The poor lonely boy was weeping--and Charlie Sands may say what he likes! He was really crying--when he turned, there were large tears on his cheeks. What made it worse was that he was trying to smile.

"I wish you much happiness on the ca.n.a.l," he said. "I am wicked; but my sad heart--it ache that my friends leave me. I am sad! If only my seester--"

That was the first we had known of Tufik's sister, back in Beirut, wearing a veil over her face and making lace for the bazaars. We were to know more.

Well, between getting ready to go to Panama and trying to find something Tufik could do, we were very busy for the next month. Tufik grew reconciled to our going, but he was never cheerful about it; and finding that it pained him we never spoke about it in his presence.

He was with us a great deal. In the morning he would go to Tish, who would give him a list of her friends to see. Then Tish would telephone and make appointments for him, and he would start off hopefully, with his pasteboard suitcase. But he never sold anything--except a s.h.i.+rt-waist pattern to Mrs. Ostermaier, the minister's wife. We took day about giving him his carfare, but this was pauperizing and we knew it.

Besides, he was very sensitive and insisted on putting down everything we gave him in a book, to be repaid later when he had made a success.

The allowance idea was mine and it worked well. We figured that, allowing for his was.h.i.+ng,--which was not much, as he seemed to prefer the celluloid collar,--he could live in a sort of way on nine dollars a week. We subscribed equally to this; and to save his pride we mailed it to him weekly by check.

His failure to sell his things hurt him to the soul. More than once we caught tears in his eyes. And he was not well--he could not walk any distance at all and he coughed. At last Tish got Charlie Sands to take him to a lung specialist, a stupid person, who said it was a cigarette cough. This was absurd, as Tufik did not smoke.

At last the time came for the Panama trip. Tish called me up the day she packed and asked me to come over.

"I can't. I'm busy, Tish," I said.

She was quite disagreeable. "This is your burden as well as mine," she snapped. "Come over and talk to that wretched boy while I pack my trunk.

He stands and watches everything I put in, and I haven't been able to pack a lot of things I need."

I went over that afternoon and found Tufik huddled on the top step of the stairs outside Tish's apartment, with his head in his hands.

"She has put me out!" he said, looking up at me with tragic eyes. "My mother has put me out! She does not love Tufik! No one loves Tufik! I am no good. I am a dirty dago!"

I was really shocked. I rang the bell and Tish let me in. She had had no maid since Hannah's departure and was taking her meals out. She saw Tufik and stiffened.

"I thought I sent you away!" she said, glaring at him.

He looked at her pitifully.

"Where must I--go?" he asked, and coughed.