by David Payne
The first scream registers surprise and grief. It’s the second that will wake Addie late at night in her remaining years. There are no screams after that. By the time the cemetery gate swings to, the creaking of the rusty hinge is all there is to interrupt the morning’s silence. Paloma is lying faceup in the grass. Except for her left eyelid—which has drooped three-quarters closed and is twitching—the old woman seems composed, staring almost thoughtfully up into the dappled light that filters through the beard of the old cypress.
“Paloma?” Addie slips a hand beneath her head. “Paloma, can you hear me?”
“Escuche, niña. Los periquitos…¿Usted los oye?”
“Paloma, I’m sorry. It’s Addie, I can’t understand you.”
“Han venido para mí.”
Paloma smiles with one side of her mouth, and Addie thinks, decisively, A stroke. She can’t be sure if Paloma recognizes her. The old woman’s face is like a mask, half of comedy, half tragedy, and her eye beneath the fallen lid has taken on a terrible opacity, like that of a poached fish, as though some hot explosion in her head has cooked it from within. Like a gunshot, then, the slamming door at Jarry’s house breaks the stillness, and only now does Addie see the green cloud rise above the dike and drift uneasily back down into the fields. “Periquitos”—the word comes clear. Half shouldered on, his coat flutters as he runs—like a flag, it strikes her, the black flag of an army charging toward defeat. She feels a futile impulse to cry out, to tell him not to run, and stifles it.
“What’s happened? What is this? Is she…?” Falling heavily to his knees in summer grass that looks suddenly, cruelly lush, he looks to her.
“I found her only now.”
He leans and whispers, “Mama? Mama, what is it? Talk to me.”
“¿Percival, eres tú?”
“No, Mama, it’s me, Jarry,” he answers with a stricken look.
“You sound so like him. Tienes la voz igual que tu papá.”
“What is it, Mama? Are you ill?” He strokes her hair. “Where does it hurt? ¿Dónde le duele?”
“You should go for the doctor,” Addie says, willing measure into her tone. “I think you should ride straightaway for Dr. Sims.”
He looks at her, his reddened eyes filled with a brief flight of indecision and despair, and she is sick for him. To lose his mother now…Let it pass, Lord, Addie thinks, and if that be not possible, give him strength to bear.
“No te preocupes por el doctor,” says Paloma. “Ya es demasiado tarde.”
“No, Mamá.” With a reckless desuetude, he collapses and lifts her head into his lap. “You’re going to be all right.” He’s weeping now, yet Addie notes the way he keeps his voice in a clear, tender register and gently strokes her hair. There’s a softness in his jawline as he gazes down, as if Paloma were a child or some unweaned, defenseless animal he’s determined to protect. When he looks at Addie, his eyes are full of naked pain and questioning, and she holds his stare as long as necessary, taking what she can, sharing what it’s possible to share.
Paloma, who seems far more unconcerned than they, tries to lift her arm. Palm up in the grass, the fingers uncurl slightly, further letting go. With the other, then, she weakly cups his cheek. “¿Tú ves lo que ha hecho tu hermana?”
“What, Mama?” he answers. “What has she done?”
“Mira, niño.” Paloma’s expression has now clarified. In it, there is some unspeakable surmise. Jarry glances soberly at Addie, then at what she’s long since seen…. Beside the stone, its name still sharp from the chisel, lies a mound of tumbled yellow earth, abandoned when daylight caught the diggers at their work, rifling the grave of Percival DeLay.
“Ve a traerla,” Paloma says.
“Let us get you in the house first, Mama.”
“Bring her, now!”
“No hace falta.”
At the voice, they turn and find Clarisse, staring impassively through the bars at them like animals in a cage. From her headscarf to her skirts, she’s dressed in white homespun, clean, pressed, and virginal, almost blinding in the light. Her feet are bare and there are strings of colored beads around her neck. She’s carrying a staff of varnished wood with a leopard’s head with staring eyes of somber jet.
“¿Quién es?¿Clarisse, eres tú?”
“Sí, Mamá. Estoy aquí,” she answers. Her face is sober, watchful, keen, the look of someone stepping into an ambush she expects and does not fear in the least. Her lack of surprise is what strikes Addie, that and the fact that Clarisse does not seem especially troubled—merely thoughtful—over her mother’s plight. And Addie can’t help noticing her vividness, which is like the grass, radiant with cruel summer health. Her skin has the gauzy freshness of one who’s risen from a pleasant bath, and her expression is as languid as a queen’s at a review, all except her yellow eyes, which seek Addie’s pointedly and first, and, finding them, smolder with hatred that briefly flares into the fire of an exultant and offensive confidence. If I hate her back, she wins, thinks Addie, falling back upon the platitudes of youth. But she, who’s never truly hated anyone before, is miles deep in that dark country now.
“¿Qué has hecho muchacha?” Paloma cries out, struggling to rise. “What in God’s name have you done?”
“Nada malo, Mama. No he hecho nada malo,” she answers, coming through the gate. “Sólo busco la justicia. Only justice,” she says, inside now, lapsing into English, making sure that Addie understands. Clarisse’s eyes have ceased to gloat, and their sobriety is more impressive and frightening by far than all her taunting glee.
“¿Justicia?” Paloma says. “¡Ésto no es justicia, niña! Ayúdame a incorporarme.”
“Lie still, Mama,” Jarry says. “You must rest.”
“Help me up, I said!”
Reluctantly, he supports her elbows as she sits.
“They told me you were sick, niña.” Clarisse address Addie like an acquaintance at a social tea. “You are better, I hope?”
“Much,” she answers, clipped.
“Bueno, china.” And then, to Jarry, in a dark, commanding tone, “Déjenos. Llévese a la blanca de aquí. She has no business here.”
“Who did this?” he says, ignoring her and pointing to the grave.
“Éso no es asunto suyo.”
“He was my father. How is it not my business?”
“Era mi padre, también, hermano. Él y yo lo convenimos.”
“¿Qué?” he says. “What was agreed between you?”
“If you don’t know, ask Mama. She knows the answer, don’t you? Ella sabe muy bien.”
“I won’t allow it!” shouts Paloma. “¡Yo no lo permitiré! ¿Me oyes?”
“I hear you, Mama,” Clarisse replies, “but this is not your business either.”
“Él no sabía lo que hacía.”
“He knew more than you think. Who do you think taught me the secret?”
“Muchacha,” Paloma wails, “muchacha, what have you done? Ven aquí. Come here to me.” She reaches out her one good hand, but Clarisse stays where she is, unmoved. “What has happened to you, child? Have you forgotten Demetrio? ¿Se te ha olvidado lo que él te enseñó?¿Qué, no recuerdas nada?”
“I’ve forgotten nothing, Mamá. No se me ha olvidado nada. I remember things that you know nothing of. You have no right to judge me. Ninguno de ustedes tiene el derecho de juzgarme.”
“And regla, child? What of regla?”
“What of it, Mama? There is no regla here. No hay nadie que nos diga qué hacer. Todo está roto, Mama. Everything is broken. We must make regla for ourselves, like Binah did. Binah hizo lo que ella quería. Haré lo que yo quiera, también.”
“Regla doesn’t come from your padrino, niña. Viene de los muertos. Los ojos invisibles te están mirando. Verán y sabrán.”
“Let them see, then. Let them know. What is it to me?”
“You will suffer, niña. Los dos sufrirán los dolores del infierno.”
“¿Los dolores del infierno?” Clarisse laughs bitterly.
“What further terrors do you think hell holds for me? Los sufro ya.”
Paloma now begins to weep. “Hija, le pido que no hagas esto. Por favor. I beg of you.”
“It’s too late, Mama. The pact is made. No puede ser deshecho.”
“You will deny me my last wish?”
“Sí, Mamá, si éste es su último deseo, entonces mi respuesta debe ser no.”
“Go away! ¡Vete!” Paloma collapses against Jarry’s chest, and Clarisse, before she goes, turns to the side and rests her hand on her belly in a soft, proprietary way, making sure that Addie sees the slight but unmistakable new bulge. “I, too, niña, have been unwell,” she says, “but I’m better now, like you.” The outrage Addie feels, the fury and shock, wash over her in an incapacitating wave—and, strange, but no less deep, a pang of shame and grief.
And there they are, the wounded left abandoned in the field, as Clarisse returns the way she came.
“We should get her inside, Jarry, out of this heat,” says Addie.
“No, niña, let me be,” Paloma says. “I want to die outside, Jarry. Deseo morir debajo del cielo.”
“You aren’t going to die, Mama.”
“Sí, niño, estoy muriendo.” His mother looks at him with tender pity now. “I cannot spare you.”
“Not now, Mama. Hoy no. No te vayas.”
“Sí, niño, me voy,” she answers softly. “No puedo esperar. Déjame ir.”
Jarry merely nods his head and weeps. “All right, Mama. All right, then.”
“Pobre muchacho, don’t be sad for me. I’m tired, Jarry. Estoy tan cansada de vivir. No tengo miedo de morir. I welcome it.”
“Go then, Mama.”
“Listen, niño. Los periquitos—¿Los oyes? Remember when you were a little boy? Te conté la historia de los periquitos.”
“Sí, Mamá, the story of the parakeets. I haven’t forgotten.”
Paloma’s features suddenly contract into a rending wince of pain. “Who was there to tell stories to Clarisse? Clarisse nunca tenía a nadie, Jarry, nadie.” She grasps his collar with fearful energy and pulls him down into her face. “Ella es una bruja, Jarry. ¿Entiendes? Your sister is a witch. Encuéntralo y destrúyelo. You must find it and destroy it. Do you understand?”
“¿Sí, Mamá, entiendo, ¿pero cómo? Destroy it how?”
“Las hormigas, niño. Las hormigas harán el trabajo.”
With this, she sinks back, exhausted. The pulse in her neck is fitful. It reminds Addie of the wounded parakeet in Jarry’s hand, the rapid, frantic respiration that so suddenly and absolutely ceased, as this now ceases, too. One minute, Paloma’s brow is fretfully contracted, like someone listening to a dark, demanding overture that only she can hear; the next, an overspreading peace widens there—forehead, cheeks, jaw, lips—moving like a ring from a dropped stone that sinks away to emptiness. A soft breeze rises in the park, rippling the black pond, turning its gleam matte and rustling through the canopies of the old trees. When it passes, everything is still, and Addie now becomes aware of cicadas chirring and, farther off, the splash of water through the gate on the far shore.
“Vaya, Mamá,” Jarry whispers. “Vuele con ellos. You’re free.” He kisses her brow tenderly and covers her eyes with his whole hand, as though shielding them, and when he moves it, they are closed.
“How I wish I could spare you this,” says Addie now, with burning eyes.
“That’s what she said. She couldn’t, nor can you.”
“Do you know what I believe? Character is how we stand the pain of life, nothing more than that. I’ve never admired two people more than I do you and her.”
Jarry doesn’t answer, but Addie sees he’s moved by it, and she stands up and sweeps her skirts unhurriedly. Unhurriedly, she gazes up into the canopies of the old trees and to the sky beyond, which is blue and where astonishing white clouds move with a majestic slowness that has some aspect of eternity. There is, for once, no hurry, no hurry about anything.
“There’s such peace here. Do you feel it?”
His participating silence is all the answer Jarry gives. Allowing him his privacy, Addie gazes at the river sliding by. From the far shore, she can hear the brooding chitter of the flocks.
“She used to say they come from Guinea,” he says, after a time.
Addie looks at him. “Guinea?”
“Africa. Mama’s mother and before her…The old people there believed that when we die, we cross an ocean, so when they were brought here, when they were captured and put into the ships, they thought, some did, that they’d been brought to hell. They thought this was the land of the dead…. And when the birds came, Mother’s mother told her they came from Guinea, all that way across the ocean. She said they were God’s messengers, sent to us as friends, and that they came to eat the Pharaoh’s rice. She said they stand for what was before the plantation and will be after the plantation ends…. Because here, you see, we are in hell. We are in torment and subjugation, but the birds come to remind us of our true home, across the ocean, tan lejos…so far away….”
“That’s why you put the feather in my book,” she says to him, with shining eyes.
“That’s why I put the feather in your book, because you came with the birds, and like them, you reminded me that past hell, past the end of days, there is a world of life, and someday I will be delivered unto it. We both will be. For I now see it is the same for you.”
“Yes,” she says, “it is the same for me. Thank you for seeing that.”
“That’s what her story meant. She told it to me for the same reason her mother told her, to give me something to believe in and to hope for. And that’s why I put the feather in your book, to say, take heart, though you suffer, there is still beauty and beauty is something…to say, take heart, there is still life, and life is something. And someday you will return to your true home.”
Jarry looks at her. His eyes are still questioning, but they’ve opened past the pain and grief. They’re like windows into something deep, and in that deep place, there’s a relaxed, sad strength, heavy with the weight of life, bemused by it, but wondering, too—not in flight from it, not rejecting, not rebelling, not afraid.
“There’s something I must tell you, Jarry.” She kneels beside him on the ground, and they are face-to-face. “You’re free.”
He merely blinks. “With you, you mean….”
“No,” she says. “I mean your father freed you in his will. He gave it to me, Jarry. Harlan took it and destroyed it. He swore me to silence, and I…It was against my conscience, but I allowed him to prevail.”
He holds her stare for a long beat. Addie sees he’s unprepared for this, but his openness to her remains. And then he starts to weigh. A reckoning sets in; the opening begins to narrow. His eyes glaze, and Jarry finally looks away. “I expected something of the sort,” he says eventually, in a level tone that makes her start to panic. “Mother said you were involved. She said she’d seen it in your face. I didn’t believe her.”
“Please forgive me—can’t you?”
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t look at her, and at his silence, his refusal to meet her gaze, Addie feels opened up and gutted, the way a hunter guts a doe.
“Jarry, please, say something.” She reaches toward him. “Don’t leave me comfortless.”
“As you left me?” he says, gazing down at her white hand on his black arm. “As you left her?”
Addie receives this like a slap. Stunned by it, she can’t think what to say. And as she watches, speechless, Jarry picks Paloma’s body up and starts out of the plot.
She runs after him and stops him by the gate. “I should have spoken, Jarry. If I didn’t, it was from fear and weakness. It was because I was confused. I am at fault, and I apologize with all my heart.”
Jarry simply looks at her for a long beat, and then, carrying his mother, he turns and walks away.
FORTY
Ransom knelt with them on Meeting Street before the big black door. Sweeping Hope’s hai
r from one blue eye, he straightened Charlie’s collar, then licked his fingers and took a swipe at the ice cream on his son’s cheek. The smell—saliva mixed with chocolate—conjured up a ghostly image of some woman doing this to him. Was it his mom? Another memory to add to the impoverished album Ran possessed, which consisted, really, of just one page, just one clear shot: her sliding down the kitchen wall with blood streaming from her nose, as Mel stood astraddle, drunk and bellowing, “It ain’t never enough, is it, bitch? No matter what I do or don’t, it ain’t never fucking good enough.” The kids began to squirm, and Ransom gave the ice cream project up.
“Listen, guys,” he said, “Mommy’s right upstairs. I’m going to call her, and she’s coming down.”
“Are you coming in?” Hope asked.
“No, Pete, I have to leave.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
“Forever?”
He touched her cheek in sympathy. “No, sweetie. Only for a little while.”
“How long?” she asked.
“Where you going, Doddy?”
“I’ll be back soon,” said Ran, who didn’t have the answers to their questions. “Now you wait here,” he said, terminating the interview. “She’ll be right down.”
“Okay, Doddy.”
Hope, pointedly, made no reply, and Ran once more bit back the impulse to apologize.
Walking north, he flipped his phone and scanned facades, then chose the church. Stepping into the shadows of the portico of St. Michael’s, he hit number 2 and held.
Claire answered halfway through the ring. “Hello?”
“They’re right downstairs.”
“You left them on the street?”
Never fucking good enough…
“I have my eye on them. I’m right nearby.” He closed the phone.
The street door opened almost instantly. Claire knelt and kissed them; she hugged them to her, hard; she held them at arm’s length and peered into their eyes for signs of hidden trauma. Ransom, now, could no longer confidently aver that she found none. When the ritual was done, Claire ushered them inside, then lingered, peering into the shadows.