River, cross my heart

by Clarke, Breena

  "Pearl found this little cat that somebody set afire," Johnnie Mae answered. "Can you fix him, Miss Ella?"

  "Lord have mercy! The things that people will do!" Aunt Ina exclaimed.

  "Come to the back," Miss Ella said. She opened her front door wide, turned, and walked away. The house's interior black dark. Johnnie Mae thought that Miss Ella must have been upstairs in bed because there seemed to be no lamp lit on the first floor. She couldn't remember it she'd seen any lamplight coming through the upstairs windows. Had Miss Ella been in the cellar stirring potions? Miss Ella lit a candle, and as she walked through the house she lit several other candles from the one she carried. Johnnie Mae followed her from candle to candle, pausing as Miss Ella did. As each candle illuminated the foyer, a corner oi the parlor, another corner, then the hallway, then the kitchen, an ambiguous series ot rooms was revealed. Pearl followed Johnnie Mae with the bundled-up, mewling cat. And Aunt Ina, drawing her wrapper close around her body, came over from next door.

  Johnnie Mae wondered if the head cloth that Miss Ella had tied on her head was her Halloween costume, the usual thing she wore to bed, or some necessarv uniform for her broom making and root doctoring. The shelves and window-sills in the kitchen were stocked with jars and tin cans, and Miss Ella moved quickly about the kitchen assembling her paraphernalia. She reached her hand in several tins and pulled out a portion of leaves or powder and shook these ingredients together in a bowl. Miss Ella's lips moved as she worked, though neither Pearl, Aunt Ina, nor Johnnie Mae could hear what she was saving. She quickly got a tire stirred up in the stove and put a pot oi water on to boil.

  In truth, the pitiful animal Pearl held under her wrapper appeared not to have much chance ot survival. Miss Ella directed Pearl to uncover the animal and place him in

  the center of her kitchen table. Large patches of fur were completely burned away from the creature's back and head. The kitten trembled in the center of the table and didn't cease crying. Miss Ella daubed the burned places with wads of cotton dipped in tinctures from several bottles on her shelves. She took a box — one of many of various sizes that were stacked near her back door—filled it with cloths, and placed the animal in it. He continued making noises until she covered his small nose with cotton saturated with some substance from a small blue bottle. Miss Ella then made a poultice from her herbs and swaddled the poor thing in bandages soaked in the mixture.

  The two girls and Ina watched Miss Ella work. Johnnie Mae stood at her right elbow and Pearl stood at her left. Aunt Ina, too, drew in close and peered over the woman's shoulder. Miss Ella didn't seem to have any oil lamps in her house so the only light in the room was from the still bright moonlight coming through the windows and the eight or ten candles she had lit and put about in corners. These candles threw up shadows against the walls, and the movement o( Miss Ella's arms and the silhouette o{ her head cloth made her shadow look like a large bird's.

  After she wrapped up the cat, Miss Ella put away her medicines. "It goes against common sense to prolong the suffering of a pitiful injured creature," she said. "God's creatures have their job to do and then they pass on. It's against God's plan for us to try to wring more out of them so they can be of service to us." Miss Ella looked sternly at Pearl's tear-streaked face and Johnnie Mae's dry-eyed, inquiring visage. "How-somever, a cat is a peculiar creature. A cat's got nine lives, and

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  a root doctor has got a special charge to try to save a cat. Because a cat will take up youi bond if it should ever come to that. And the old people say that a person would do well to save a cat's life when they're young 'cause a cat won't forget and it'll remember your good deed. Because it's always good for your soul and for your people if a cat walks across your final resting place, and double good luck if that cat stops to paw at the dirt covering you, and triple good luck if the animal makes water over your head." Miss Ella smiled at the two girls.

  Pearl smiled wanly back at Miss Ella. And despite its ten-tativeness, this smile was more than she gave Johnnie Mae. Pearl still looked nervously at her classmate out of the corner of her eye.

  Observing the furtive expression on Pearl's face, Johnnie Mae got to thinking that maybe Miss Ella would know whether Pearl was a haint. That was it! Miss Ella would certainly know about a thing like that, being that she was a witch. She'd know if Pearl was a ghost or a haint or a spirit walker or some such.

  Miss Ella turned her funny-colored eyes on the kitten and smiled. Johnnie Mae thought that since Pearl had been the one to rescue the cat, she would no doubt be lucky enough to have this cat or some of his descendants peeing on her final resting place. Perhaps Johnnie Mae would be able to join in this good luck. After all, she'd had a part in helping the animal. Perhaps some cat or other would walk across her grave or paw the ground covering her. Maybe when Miss Ella's potions and poultices had worked on him, she and Pearl should take this cat up to Mount Zion and coax him across Clara's grave.

  Papa stood in the doorway when she got back home.

  "Where you been, girl? Don't you know your mama is worrying? What make you walk off from the other children? What make you wear them doll-baby clothes? What happening to us, I want to know." He stood in the middle of the parlor floor with his hands on his hips. Questioning was his way of conversing since Clara'd been gone; all his words seemed to be asking. Johnnie Mae chafed under his nagging questions. She never had an answer, but he never seemed to actually want one. He just kept asking.

  Johnnie Mae stood before Papa with her eyes down at her shoes, yet she flickered her lids upward to glimpse him. She wanted to laugh at the way he was flapping like a rooster, but she kept herself still.

  Her mama had always been the disciplinarian, and it was her method to use her voice to cudgel obedience from Clara and Johnnie Mae. Her papa now tried to fill the void in this difficult time, but he was unused to demanding obedience.

  Johnnie Mae cornered Pearl in the recess yard during the mid-morning break on a razor-cold day in November.

  "Clara," she called to the sadly composed face of Pearl. "Clara, when nobody's around you can speak up. Clara, answer me back, girl," she said, looking directly into Pearl's eyes.

  Drawing her brows together and spoiling the blank expanse of her forehead, Pearl asked softly, "Why you callin' me Clara? My name's not Clara."

  "Clara."

  "Who's Clara?"

  "You're Clara. You're just like her except for looks. You're Clara really, you know. Except you won't speak up. Clara's my

  sister that drowned, but I know you're her come again. Why don't you speak up?"

  Pearl's facial expressions changed so quickly from incredulity to shock to something approaching horror that Johnnie Mae stepped back and took the measure of her own words.

  "Don't be scared of me. I know who you are. I mean to tell you that I want you to come back. It's all right. I won't tell anybody about you."

  Pearl slapped her hands up to her face to cover her eyes and stood there like a stump. She said nothing. Why was this girl torturing her so? After a moment Pearl started to sniffle and rub away tears with her fists. Johnnie Mae's train of talk ran out of steam. There was nothing to say—she could only mumble comforting words begging Pearl to stop crying. When the recess bell rang, Johnnie Mae reached down to the shorter girl's shoulders and led her, with her face still covered, into the girls' line.

  Miss Boston noticed Pearl's state as they filed past her into the classroom. "Pearl Miller, what is the matter with you now?" There was a tiresome quality to Pearl Miller's demeanor. The solemn, often tearful eyes and the well-behaved, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth manner were truly exasperating after a while. Even Miss Boston, who thought all children should be quiet and deferential to adults, was puzzled by Pearl.

  Mildred Gloe chimed in with Lula Lavery to say in unison, "She's a crybaby, Miss Boston."

  Nervous about maintaining order, Elizabeth Boston was ever prepared to rein in her students. "Young ladies, I wa
nt no name-calling and I did not direct my question to you, Mildred, or you, Lula. Pearl, why are you crying now?"

  Fearing that Miss Boston's tone would further frighten

  Pearl and possibly push the timid spirit of Clara deeper down inside, Johnnie Mae spoke up. "She hit her head outside, Miss Boston. She hurt herself."

  "Johnnie Mae, are you speaking for Pearl again? You better go to your desk and attend to your own business."

  Johnnie Mae reluctantly released Pearl's shoulders, afraid the girl would collapse to the floor or dissolve into a wisp of smoke. But Pearl was secure on her feet; in fact, she seemed to have turned to stone beside Miss Boston's desk.

  "Are you hurt? Are you bleeding?" The girl did not answer. "Well, then, go back to your seat and try to compose yourself."

  Finally removing her hands from her face, Pearl walked down the aisle. Miss Boston's eyelids fluttered toward the ceiling as she looked at Pearl Miller's back. The students knew this expression well. It was a softly pitying look that expressed Miss Boston's inability, despite fervent desire, to tackle the overwhelming problems of their economic, intellectual, or behavioral shortcomings.

  Elizabeth Boston decided that afternoon that she would pay a call. Come Sunday after church, she would seek out Mrs. Miller and ask to discuss Pearl's troublesome behavior. It wasn't healthy for the girl to be so reticent—so fearful of her teacher and classmates that she hardly spoke. Perhaps the mother could help her draw the girl out and perhaps she'd learn whether Pearl knew anything at all of her schoolwork.

  Pearl slid into her seat, folded her arms on the desktop, and lay her head down. She turned her face to the left and stuck out her tongue at Johnnie Mae with the angry expression oi a terrier.

  Johnnie Mae was startled that her attempt to draw Pearl

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  out had tailed so miserably. What to do next! All she wanted was to he friendly — to put the girl at ease. Then maybe the haint would come out.

  A person like Clara certainly ought to be allowed back. Her lite had been so short and uneventful. It was as if all the events oi her life were reduced to the one or two moments it took for her head to go under the water and not bob up again. Clara's whole life fit so neatly inside the boundaries of Johnnie Mae's memory now. And except for the first few moments, she had witnessed the whole of it. Now the whole of it seemed so small it fit in the palm of her hand, which she closed tight until tiny drops oi sweat leached out oi the skin and her palm smelled like Clara.

  Her first sight of Clara — a little brown nut in white swaddles—had been from between the hips of Aunt Ina and Ma Dear. Aunt Ina pushed Johnnie Mae forward and she pulled back into Aunt Ina's stomach and was pushed forward again to kiss Clara's little hand, a hand her weary-looking mother uncovered and presented to her lips. Her mama was a mound oi white sheets and Ma Dear's blankets, with only her head and arms visible. The mystery oi how Clara had come out oi her stomach remained shrouded beneath the layers of cloths. Her mama didn't stir from the shoulders down. Johnnie Mae had a pinprick oi worry about whether her mama would ever walk again. Johnnie Mae's face came down toward the hand and brushed her mama's cheek. Her mama held Johnnie Mae close for a moment, then gently eased her back to Aunt Ina. Clara's hand was so soft it felt like cotton on her lips.

  Smelling her palm and recalling Clara, Johnnie Mae thought about sitting in the dark in the Blue Mouse Theater

  all the whole of Saturday afternoon. They loved the Blue Mouse Theater. Johnnie Mae generally paid Clara's way into the matinee because, though Clara had her own pennies, she did not have many.

  On Saturday afternoon in Georgetown, few children were anywhere but at the Blue Mouse Theater watching the moving pictures. Most of the children raced through their morn-ing chores and odd jobs, and the pennies and nickels and dimes they earned poured into the Blue Mouse's coffers. Chewing on whatever they had gotten in paper bags—penny candies and hard things to suck on — was a pleasure for the Bynum sisters. Each ate a hot dog in the theater. Johnnie Mae helped Clara handle her slopped-with-mustard dog, taking it up to her mouth to lick the sliding mustard off the sides. Responsible for keeping Clara clean, Johnnie Mae was all the afternoon chiding Clara and often resorted to licking sticky messes off her baby sister's fingers.

  Clara sat forward in her seat with her short legs dangling above the gooey messes on the theater floor. Her eyes were glued to the screen. Halfway through the first picture, Clara would slump back in her seat, asleep. Her hands would fall away from her bag of candy. Her hands and the bag would be moist with spittle and sugar.

  It had been in the Blue Mouse Theater that Johnnie Mae and Clara saw newsreels of the great swimmer Gertrude Ederle doing the Australian crawl all the way across the English Channel. Slathered with grease to coat her in the freezing water, she looked like no other woman Johnnie Mae had ever seen. She was a marvel! Johnnie Mae told Clara that she was going to swim the English Channel just like Gertrude Ederle. Clara laughed. She said Johnnie Mae was silly.

  Every Sunday since coming to Georgetown, Hattie Miller had waited for a delegation o{ church ladies to call on her. "Surely it's the custom here to welcome decent Christian families to the church?" she remarked to her daughter, Pearl. All these eight weeks, she held on to the hope that the women o( Georgetown would judge her and Pearl worthy of their churches and send someone to call on them. In the meantime, she and Pearl prayed in the parlor.

  In preparation for the call, each Sunday morning Hattie Miller dressed in her finest, most Christian dress and shoes. Her face was prunelike and very dark, with small gold hoop earrings adding the only glint of color around her face. She sat rigidly with her Bible in her lap in the tiny front room of her house on Dent Place. The high-necked silk crepe dress she wore was well made but past the fashion, and her ankles were completely covered by the dress's full skirt. The high-topped shoes that peeked from beneath her hem were soft with wear but held a lustrous shine.

  After services at Mount Zion, Miss Elizabeth Boston

  asked Mrs. Alice Bynum and Johnnie Mae if they wouldn't accompany her around to the narrow house on Dent Place where Hattie Miller and her daughter lived. She took it as her duty to become acquainted with her students' families and she was curious to know more about the unusually quiet and retiring Miller girl.

  When they reached the Miller house, Elizabeth Boston rapped on the door. Hattie pulled open the door before Miss Boston's hand had returned to her side and smiled broadly, but not easily. The ladies were surprised. Mrs. Miller seemed to be expecting someone; she acted as though she were waiting for them.

  "How do you do," Miss Boston chirped.

  "How do," Hattie Miller replied.

  "Mrs. Miller?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "I'm Elizabeth Boston, your daughter's teacher."

  "How do."

  Miss Boston gestured toward Mrs. Bynum and said, "This is Mrs. Alice Bynum and her daughter, Johnnie Mae. Johnnie Mae sits next to your Pearl in class."

  Pearl's hand pushed aside a panel of the beige filet-crochet curtains on the front-facing window and peered out at Miss Boston standing on the stoop with a woman she didn't know and Johnnie Mae Bynum. Pearl's mind ticked through a list of possible reasons for Miss Boston's visit. She'd been ever so quiet in class. There couldn't be a complaint. Maybe Johnnie Mae had made a complaint against her? What on earth could the teacher want on a Sunday? Maybe Miss Boston was making the long-awaited formal church call? Pearl's chest got to pounding with emotion that traveled off her mama and

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  settled on everything in the room. At long hist Pearl and her mama were going to he welcomed — would he taken in — by one of the churches.

  "Oh, how do you do. Please step in." Pearl's mother could barely contain her excitement. "Pearl, your school friend is here to call," she sang out. "How do you do, little lady."

  "I hope we haven't come at a bad time, Mrs. Miller." Johnnie Mae's mother spoke in a
formal but very friendly voice.

  "No, ma'am. Please step in and take a seat, won't you?" Hattie Miller opened the door wide and directed the visitors into a room filled with very large, carved furniture oi the same dark brown color as she. The path through the chifforobe, vanity, several chairs, end table, and oval dining table was narrow and winding.

  Pearl hopped to her feet and arranged her dress when the visitors entered the room. As on every school day, her hair was neatly done and her skin glossy with oil. Her mama had told her to smile when company came and this she tried to do when Johnnie Mae, her mother, and Miss Boston entered the parlor. But the expression that passed for smiling with the Millers was so bland a thing as would cause a stranger to call them both dour.

  Johnnie Mae's smile too was tight with politeness and nothing else. She hadn't wanted to come along, but Mama had made her. Mama said they had a duty to welcome folks and make them feel at home. It was especially important for newcomers to feel that the church welcomed them. And Miss Boston thought it was a good idea for Pearl and Johnnie Mae to get to know each other. Johnnie Mae thought Pearl was a bump on a log and as dull as dust.

  Hattie had baked, brewed strong, flavorful coffee, and

  washed the four matching china cups and saucers in anticipation of this visit as she had done each Sunday morning since they'd arrived in Georgetown. Her only fear had been that more than four ladies would come.

  "Miss Boston, Miz Bynum, won't you take a cup of coffee?" Hattie Miller trilled in her most proper, company-come-to-call voice. Short of stature, she moved about the room like a spinning top. Pearl sat back into a chair by the front window and resumed reading her Bible, peering intermittently over the book at Johnnie Mae, who sat on a chair next to her mother. Neither girl spoke to the other.

  "Yes, thank you, Mrs. Miller. I'd love a cup of coffee if it won't be too much trouble," Miss Boston said.