by Zakes Mda
“And to think after Orpah I prayed to the Lord to give me a boy,” she says. “I want a boy, Lord, I said; give us a cion who’ll carry our name to the future. Now see what I got?”
“You can’t complain, Mama,” says Obed. “I’m trying to find myself but you don’t let me.” He turns to me to explain himself and perhaps solicit my support: “My mama, she thinks I don’t do nothing. But every time I do something she say it’s a rotten scheme.”
“He’s tall like a poplar, but he’s useless. And with such pretty hair too,” says Ruth. She obviously loves her boy despite his shortcomings. She reaches for Obed’s head and runs her fingers through his hair. Obed pulls away and moans: “Don’t do that, Mama. You know I hate it when you do that.”
“Poplars are pretty and tall,” says Ruth. “They got flowers but raise no fruit. Just like this boy, they don’t raise nothing to eat.”
To his embarrassment Ruth does not stop there. She cared for this boy even when he was in her womb. She went out of her way to eat healthily even when things were difficult and there was no food to go around, which is why the boy is so beautiful and strong. Obed feels he must disagree on something if only to spite the woman. He says boastfully: “It has nothing to do with that, Mama. It’s because I take after Harry Corbett; that’s the only reason I’m big and strong.”
“You seen how the children look here? They walk funny with rickets on their knees. Like your Aunt Madge’s kids. They talk funny too. It’s because their mama didn’t have much to eat when she was pregnant.”
But, as I can well see, her Obed is not like that. And do I know why her Obed is not like that? It’s because she took care of her Obed. Not that the boy was strong and healthy all his life. There was a period when he was a sickly child. But she always managed to nurse him back to health. She remembers when she used to wrap camphor in a piece of cloth which she then tied with a safety pin on the baby’s shirt. Obed breathed in the camphor to ward off colds and the deadly spirits of Kilvert. That’s how he survived vicious winters. Through camphor.
I follow Ruth to the living room where she continues her relentless war on the bugs. Obed decides he has had enough of her nagging and saunters away. I help her move the chairs and the car seats and the metal table with the sewing machine on it. With a feather duster I dislodge those bugs that thought they had found a safe haven in the cracks between the ceiling and the walls. They would be flying away if it were not so cold. Instead they fall on the floor, she sweeps them on to the newspaper and we both stamp on them. She has a firm grip on my shoulder for support since her cane is on the floor. We stamp with a vengeance, continuing our dance long after the creatures have been pulverized. We find this quite funny and we break into peals of silly laughter.
Orpah appears at the door, hesitates, then walks into the room, all the while glaring at Ruth. She has been crying. Her eyes are red. She is still sniveling, in fact. In all the four days I have been here it is the first time I am able to take a good look at her. On two occasions, I think, I saw glimpses of her: once through the window as her plaited head fleeted by and again when I saw her disappear into the bathroom and she stayed there for a long time. I don’t know when she finally came out because Ruth called me to her bedroom to help her with her old quilt box, which she wanted moved to her living room workstation, and to tell me how she had inherited the wonderful chest from her grandmother who had in turn inherited it from her great-grandmother before the Civil War. I have heard her sitar a lot though, and every time it creates in me those strange feelings of nostalgia that I have already told you about.
And here she is, giving me an angry once-over. She must be in her early forties. She has a well-nourished olive skin. I wonder what mysteries are preserved in that teary moonface. She is slightly overweight, with a great potential for obesity—which surprises me quite a bit because she has skipped the three dinners I have eaten with this family. She certainly doesn’t look like someone who will “blow away” any time soon. She is barefoot in her tight blue jeans and white top that hangs loosely on her ample breasts. On her neck hangs a yellow, green and orange gewgaw. On her wrists she wears bangles of gleaming ormolu.
“Orpah, you haven’t met the man from Africa,” says Ruth by way of introduction.
I take a step toward her with my arm stretched out and I say: “My name is Toloki, miss. It is my pleasure to meet you. I am a fan of your beautiful music.”
She recoils, moving backward toward the door, ignoring my hand. She actually pulls her hand away when I try to reach for it. It seems she finds me repulsive and wants to avoid me at all costs. I am wondering what could be the reason for such resentment as she reverses out of the room.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about our Orpah,” says Ruth. “She’s got issues. And no one can do nothing about that.”
Through the window I can see Orpah out there on the swing. She has her head on Mahlon Quigley’s shoulder and is weeping uncontrollably. Mahlon is staring into nothingness and is caressing her arm to the rhythm of the slow-swaying swing.
As usual Orpah is not at the dinner table. And I have not heard her music today. Somehow I miss it. The silence leaves a hole in me. Don’t ask me why. I am sitting with Ruth, Obed and Mahlon Quigley, yet all of a sudden I feel lonely, as if someone very important in my life has suddenly taken leave of me.
Today’s speciality is hot dogs with carrot and cilantro relish. The carrots and the cilantro are from Ruth’s backyard garden. She leaves the carrots in the garden, waiting for the ground to get cold, because the colder the ground the sweeter the carrot. In the morning when we were leaving for Athens I saw her digging them out and now she has made the sweetest of relishes from them. The cilantro, on the other hand, went to seed in the summer and she says she picked it quite early in the fall in order to keep it fresh. She laments that she had to buy tomatoes because she no longer has them in her garden. It is against her principles to buy tomatoes or any kind of vegetable because her people have always raised their own food. Did I know that her people—“them Indian people,” that is—gave the world tomatoes? And corn? And potatoes? I congratulate her on it, and she turns to Obed and orders: “Take some hot dogs to your sister.”
“It won’t help, Ma,” says Obed gleefully, as he takes two buns and puts hot dogs in each of them. “Maybe you should tell her you’re sorry.”
“I ain’t sorry for nothing,” says Ruth adamantly.
Obed takes the hot dogs, ketchup, mustard and relish to Orpah’s room. I don’t know why today Ruth is concerned that Orpah should eat. Usually when she has not turned up for dinner she only exclaims that “the girl will blow away” and then we continue with our meal as if nothing has happened. For some reason today she sends Obed to take her food to her room, as if it is some peace offering.
Ruth wants to hear about my day in Athens. Did I manage to fix my papers? I avoid answering that particular question because I don’t want to lie to her. As it is I am burdened enough already trying to keep Obed’s secret from her—both his misadventure at the sorority house and the mediation. I find the load too heavy to bear and I am unhappy with myself for promising him, after he begged me again and again on our way back from the mediation, that I would keep the secret.
Instead I tell her about the sad demonstration we saw on Court Street.
“Uh-uh, now you gonna get her started, man,” says Obed, dreading another one of his mother’s political lectures.
But there is no stopping Ruth when she is provoked into analyzing the ills of politicians. She believes that you cannot totally trust politicians because politicians crucified Jesus Christ. George W. Bush is an exception. He talks to God. And God talks to him. Very much like the prophets of the Old Testament.
As for Kerry, God would never have allowed him to ruin America because America is a chosen nation. Did we know that Kerry asked the United Nations to rule America? She heard him with her own ears saying so on television.
“How can he ask oth
er nations to rule America when America is a super-nation?” she asks in dismay.
There is no end to Kerry’s wickedness. He supports abortion, which is against the laws of God. He supports marriage between man and man; and between woman and woman. Again, she heard Kerry with her own ears saying this. When Obed argues that Kerry never said such a thing but has insisted that issues pertaining to marriage should be addressed by the states rather than through a constitutional amendment, and that Kerry himself believes in marriage between man and woman, Ruth dismisses him as an ignoramus who never watches the news. It will be a disaster if anyone changes God’s laws of marriage. Some men—and they are already doing it here in Kilvert—will have harems of women, make them all pregnant and collect welfare. The taxpayer will be paying for all this, all because of the likes of Kerry.
She pages through the Bible, which she keeps handy on a sideboard next to the dining room table. She reads from Leviticus 18:22: You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. And to corroborate that point she goes to a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans 1:26–27: For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. She is about to read from another letter that the same Paul wrote to the Corinthians I 6:9–10, but Obed has had enough. He declares that Paul was obsessed with homosexuality. He must have been a closet homosexual as is the case with many homophobes. Ruth is scandalized by this blasphemy, especially because it is uttered in the presence of a visitor. Obed needs to pray to save his soul from eternal damnation.
She feels very sorry for me after I make the mistake of telling her that in South Africa gay rights are no longer an issue since they are protected by the constitution. In that country the courts have pronounced that the common law stipulation that marriage is between man and woman is unconstitutional, and have given the government two years for parliament to amend the law to allow for gay marriages.
“Todoloo! Your country is Sodom and Gomorrah,” she proclaims. “I’m glad you came to the good ol’ U. S. of A. to escape the death and pestilence that the Lord is surely gonna visit on Africa.”
“On South Africa, to be exact,” I correct her, hoping that narrowing God’s wrath to only one country will comfort her a bit. “The rest of Africa doesn’t have such laws. I think the rest of Africa would rather agree with you.”
But Ruth hasn’t finished with John Kerry yet. He is a traitor, she says. He even speaks French, a fact he tried to hide but that was exposed by the vigilant Fox News. He is so wishy-washy he is likely to be a drinker of French wine and an eater of French toast when all good people the world over are boycotting everything French. Didn’t we all see him on television? He looked ridiculous creeping around in the wilderness shooting geese in order to prove that he was not a liberal.
She breaks out laughing at the strange image of a camouflaged and gun-toting Mr. Kerry bumbling in the woods, which obviously is still quite vivid in her mind. I can see what Ruth is talking about. The man tried to play to a jingoistic gallery but it did not applaud. It knew he was a fake. He only wanted to win their favor and as soon as he got it he would surely lead the country down a ruinous path of personal freedoms.
No one interrupts Ruth when she is on her political platform, except an occasional snide remark from Obed, who obviously does not share his mama’s politics but would rather not prolong the agony of sitting through another harangue by debating with her. Mahlon Quigley, on the other hand, just sits there and smiles. I have caught Ruth stealing a glance at him and breaking into a soft smile of her own, even in the middle of her fulminations against Kerry. He returns a sly look and the smile on his lips creeps to his eyes. It is obvious to me that the two are still very much in love.
At first I found Mahlon Quigley’s silence unnerving. I am getting used to it now although I still find it uncomfortable that no one attempts to draw him into any conversation. I wonder what thoughts are brewing in his head. What memories. Ruth told me the other day that there are things her Mr. Quigley remembers and there are things he has chosen to forget. One of the things he has tried to forget but that stubbornly continues to haunt his memory is the fact that his mother was unjustly confined to the mental hospital at The Ridges and no one in the family saw her again. She is one of the numbers on the headstones in the cemetery. Could that smile be hiding a quietly seething anger? Of course this is mere speculation on my part. Perhaps I am desperately searching for a motive for his aloofness. Those unsmiling but soft and compassionate eyes do not seem to be capable of any anger.
“It must be fun spending some time at the Center with your mates, Mr. Quigley, talking about the good old days,” I say, trying my best to draw him out of his private world into the communion of his family.
“As you can see,” he says without looking at me, “I’m old and decrepit. That’s a crime in this country.”
Ruth jumps to his defense: “Mr. Quigley is just feeling sorry for himself. He ain’t old at all.” And she smiles reassuringly at him.
The phone rings and Obed reaches for it. It is for me.
“You getting calls already?” Ruth wonders.
It is Beth Eddy. She withdrew the complaint, but with great difficulty. The police were at first adamant that they would not go along with her messing up an open-and-shut case that they had built against the perpetrator. They said they were still going to charge Obed with breaking and entering. She had to claim that she was drunk and didn’t quite remember what exactly happened: she must have opened for him, so he didn’t break into the building. I am amazed that she should go so far as to lie to the police to protect Obed. When it became clear to the police that she, the only witness to Obed’s crime, would not be a reliable witness they reluctantly withdrew the case.
It was more difficult to convince her sisters at the sorority because they were making a very good point. We live in a society with high rates of violence against women. Rapists are lurking in every corner and a new sexual assault is reported at least every month. Many incidents of sexual abuse and rape go unreported because of the intimate nature of the crime. It is part of the program of women’s organizations in Athens to encourage victims to come forward. After a long debate the sisters agreed to give Obed a chance. Again I am surprised that she went out of her way to give such a spirited defense of the scoundrel. But I keep that observation to myself.
She is the sorority’s judicial board head and sisterhood co-chair, she adds, and was therefore well placed to convince them to let Obed paint the building, which does need a coat or two.
“So, your friend can paint the house if he wants to,” she says.
“Not if he wants to, Beth. He has to, whether he likes it or not.”
As soon as I return to the table Obed asks anxiously: “What’s up, man?”
“Don’t worry, everything is fine,” I assure him.
“What have you two been up to?” Ruth wants to know.
“Never mind, Mama, it’s man’s talk,” says Obed. He is obviously gloating over the fact that there is something that is only between us men, to which his mother is not privy. He displays a self-satisfied grin. But Ruth is not impressed.
“You know how to work magic, man,” says an excited Obed. “I wanna be a professional mourner like you one day.”
He may be joking, but this is not the first time he has indicated that he is attracted to my vocation and to my austere ways. He has told me that I was chosen and placed on his path that night of the parade of creatures by the spirits of his ancestors…which, of course, is ridiculous. It was when he was happy with me. He regrets why he ever brought me here when he thinks I side with Ruth against him. Which I never do. I only tell the truth the way I see it, and most times it is against him because he is in the wrong.
“That’s a silly ambit
ion, boy,” says Ruth, and then in a lowered voice she asks: “How’s Orpah? Did she eat?”
“You want me to say she’s fine, Mama, don’t you? So she’s fine.”
“She’ll get over it soon enough,” says Ruth, as if to convince herself.
She must have done something to Orpah, but I am afraid to ask what. I do not want to seem to be prying into the family’s affairs, though I must admit I am intrigued by this Orpah. I have gathered already that she enjoys indulging herself in solitude. She imposes it on herself for she identifies closely with the tales of female confinement of classic Gothic narratives that she devours relentlessly when she is not playing the sitar or drawing quilt designs that never get translated into quilts. She is not exactly the “mad woman of the attic” though. She is very brilliant and her hands know how to create beautiful things. She sees herself as a tortured soul that will one day be released by the return of a stranger mentioned in some Native American tales.
“Maybe it’s because of the mark of the Irishman,” said Obed the other day, in a vain attempt to make sense of Orpah’s behavior. Ruth shushed him immediately. Whatever this mark of the Irishman is, it is not something that should be mentioned in the company of strangers. Certainly there is a lot of secretiveness about it.
Ruth, on the other hand, curses the sitar. Before the sitar the “girl” was outgoing, even though she still made her “fancy drawings” and read her “ghost stories.” She taught herself the instrument and started playing bluegrass on it. At first to everyone’s annoyance. But ultimately they all learned to live with it. Ruth remembers the first day she came with the sitar.
“I got it from an Indian family that runs the motel,” Orpah said.
“Real Indians from India,” Obed interjected.
“Which motel?” Ruth asked. “All motels are run by Indians.”