Cion

by Zakes Mda

  Ruth knew what was happening in Orpah’s room, but gave up on her Mr. Quigley. “One day God is gonna make him stop,” she said. God hasn’t made him stop yet. She never got to know that the pictures she relentlessly destroyed were inspired by the storytelling sessions. She still thinks Orpah draws them when she locks herself in her room all day long.

  After piecing all this together from Obed and also from Orpah—who is reluctant to talk about it or even to acknowledge that I was present at one such session the other night—I decide I must make it up to Mahlon for having thought evil thoughts about him. Whether he knows or not that I hated him is not important. I know. And it gnaws at me. I think it is only proper that I assuage my guilt by doing something for him. Perhaps make an offering of a whole bunch of gnomes. Or better still, find his mother’s grave. That will have greater impact, I think. Ruth once told me that there will be peace in him only if he finds his mother’s grave and does what is right by her. She said even his fortunes would change. I had marveled at the time that these people’s beliefs about appeasing the dead were very much similar to ours. Yes, I am going to help Mahlon find that grave. I do not know yet how I will go about it. But I certainly will.

  When I was at The Ridges on the night of the parade of creatures about ten months ago I noted that three or four of the graves had tombstones with inscriptions on them. Some of the relatives were able to locate and identify the exact graves where their loved ones were sleeping. I must find out how that was done and proceed to locate the grave. It may take a lot of detective work, but it is the least I can do for Mahlon, and for Ruth. It may not mean anything to Orpah and Obed. Especially to Obed, who seemed to find the discussion embarrassing at that first dinner with the family.

  I pay Ruth a surprise visit to suggest the idea of searching for the grave. She is at the clothesline near her vegetable patch airing her pre–Civil War quilts. I can see the Turin-like image of the first Quigley on one of them. The one the “kids” claim is nothing but a urine stain.

  “We don’t see you no more,” she says by way of returning my greeting.

  She is right. Throughout the summer months I have only had a few glimpses of her from a distance—one of the dark figures on the luxuriant green of Kilvert.

  “But I hear you come like a thief at night for Mr. Quigley’s silly memories,” she adds.

  This is not quite accurate, but I don’t say that to her. I did come, yes, but only that one time Mahlon caught me eavesdropping at the window. The night he invited me in despite Orpah’s protestations. That was weeks ago. And that performance had bombed as soon as I got seated on her bed. It was no longer carefree and smooth-flowing as before. It lacked the abandon I had seen through the window. Mahlon seemed to be self-conscious. He tried to glide as I saw him do, but his movements were wooden. He kept giving me a sideways glance. When he introduced a song to the story of how the sun shed one big tear that rolled downhill and broke into many tears that in turn became children, his voice was hesitant. When he came to the part where the sun farted out a giraffe and a character called Divided, Orpah’s response to Mahlon’s chants tried to be as spirited as before, but soon she gave up in exasperation because Mahlon’s calls had gone limp. Her hand did not move with ease on the page. She was not happy with the result and tore the pictures in frustration. Then she glared at me accusingly. Mahlon ushered me out mumbling: “You son of a bitch, you messed up our memories.” I stood outside for a moment and listened while Orpah accused her father of allowing me into their secret world of memories. Then Mahlon made an unceremonious exit. Though he saw me standing there he ignored me and marched like a defeated soldier—sword sheathed—into the house using the kitchen door.

  Orpah came to my RV the next morning and behaved as if nothing had happened. Instead she gave me a new picture, presumably created the previous night before I spoiled the performances. It was truly an inspired piece and in my view would be even more beautiful if reinterpreted into a quilt. To my surprise Orpah did not object to the idea. If there was anyone who could make this into a quilt it would be me since I was the only one, to her knowledge, who had ever expressed an appreciation of her work. Ruth destroyed it and Obed ignored it. Mahlon did sympathize with her but never came out openly to challenge Ruth. Even though he was part of its creation since it was inspired by the memories he performed, he thought that the destruction did not matter that much because Orpah would always produce new work as long as the stories continued. For him the destruction meant the continuation of the performances. I was the only one who had defended this work publicly and had even challenged her mother about its destruction. Now that I have learned how to quilt she would allow me to render her work in fabric and found objects, provided I thought I had acquired enough skill to do so.

  “Maybe now you won’t mind if I attend more of Mahlon’s performances,” I said. “That may help me understand the inspiration of your work.”

  “No,” she screamed, as if I had suggested we engage in some abominable act. Her face was mapped with disgust. “They’re our memories…me and Daddy’s.”

  “They must be shared, Orpah,” I pleaded. “They are too beautiful not to be shared.”

  “They are our memories. They belong to me and Daddy…and to Obed when he still loved them. They don’t belong to no stranger.”

  As far as she was concerned that was the end of it. But I continued to raise the matter occasionally. She was adamant that she did not want me to “mess with” their memories. I gave up, and after every few days I accepted new works from her. At least now I know where they come from and what inspires their creation.

  Ruth, however, thinks I am a regular at the storytelling sessions.

  “You’ve been washing the quilts?” I ask.

  “I don’t wash them no more,” she says. “I just air them.”

  She tells me that she used to wash the quilts using buttermilk as bleach. But now the fabrics have become too delicate. It is best to hang them on the clothesline occasionally to cut down moisture so as to preserve them for her grandchildren, which she doubts she will ever have since her children don’t seem to be prepared to settle down and be responsible family people. The children will surely be the death of her, she adds.

  She stands back to admire the quilts.

  “Them old-timers knew what they was doing,” she says.

  Unlike the quilts that Orpah tried to make from her silly sketches, these have profound meaning. They speak a secret language. I do not want to upset her by defending Orpah’s work. I do not tell her that though I may not understand what Orpah is trying to tell the world her work is powerful enough to invoke in me strong emotions. For me that is enough.

  Of course the quilts on the clothesline move me too. In a different way. Whether or not one believes that the geography of freedom is mapped on the quilts, one cannot but be moved by them, especially when they are spread out like this in the sun. Even if the Drunkard’s Path did not—according to skeptics—map out a specific zigzag path, there is no reason it would not serve as a general reminder to the escapees of the wisdom of indirect and circuitous routes. It does not matter if the codes did or did not contain specific instructions to be followed to the letter for specific escapes, and if they did not conceal actual signposts marking actual routes. It should be enough even for people like Brother Michael that these wonderful patterns, designs, stitches and knots were at one time used as celebration of escapes, or even as records of stories of escape. They were a source of inspiration for future escapes. After all, memory is what you make of it. If Ruth believes this is how it happened, then it is how it happened. Whether there is historical evidence or not that the likes of Abdenego and Nicodemus used the quilts to escape from slavery is not important. What matters is that their descendants believe that they did, and therefore they did. We all construct our past as we go along.

  As for the image of the first Quigley, Lord have mercy on him, it remained intact even when she used buttermilk to wash the quilt. Even
when the “old-timers” used lye soap the first Quigley stubbornly stayed where he belonged. Doesn’t that convince me that the first Quigley, Lord have mercy on him, was a man of God? He was a great prophet who used to read the future from a red scroll. He was able to decipher figures and symbols that revealed the lives of future generations. The life of the family as it unfolded was all written in the Quigley scroll. Unfortunately the scroll was buried with him.

  “And no one knew a darn thing about nothing since then,” she says.

  “But since we discovered his grave surely we can dig the scroll out,” I say. Of course, I am just bullshitting the dear heart.

  She is greatly alarmed by my suggested sacrilege. It is unheard of to disturb the dead from their rest or to rob their graves. Her people do not behave like what she refers to as my people, the Egyptians, who have allowed wholesale robberies of the dead pharaohs. Digging out the scroll would enrage the first Quigley. He is not totally happy with the family, as it is.

  “Like now he ain’t too pleased I don’t go to church no more,” she adds ruefully. “But he understands. The first Quigley, Lord have mercy on him, understands.”

  “Maybe you should forgive Brother Michael and go to church,” I say. “You’re not going there for him, after all. He doesn’t own the church.”

  She says she is determined to stand her ground. Brother Michael would think he has won if she went to that church. In the meantime her soul is nourished by televangelists. There are so many wonderful programs screened these days no soul needs to starve. Her favorite is one Pat Robertson. She has followed his sermons for years, even when she was still a regular at the chocolate church. What she likes most about the holy man is that he looks after the good people of America. A few days ago the holy man spoke of the wrath of God against a man called Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. She is not quite sure what this Chávez has done but Mr. Robertson has declared that he must be killed.

  “He done something,” says Ruth. “Pat Robertson is a man of God. He don’t wanna kill you if you don’t do nothing bad.”

  I chuckle a bit, but stop myself when Ruth looks at me disapprovingly. I don’t want her to think I am beyond redemption, but her story reminds me of a fatwa that was once issued by a powerful ayatollah for the death of a writer whose novel he did not like. Ruth’s land is the land of powerful Christian ayatollahs. Old Testament fundamentalists who serve a wrathful and vengeful God. And like all ayatollahs of the world they get their instructions directly from Him. I do not know though if anyone will carry out Mr. Robertson’s fatwa since he can’t dangle seventy-two virgins in front of the eyes of prospective executioners. His religion lacks such juicy incentives. But at a secular level oil is juicy enough.

  Ruth contemplates Quigley’s image on the quilt and says, “Oh, yeah, he was a man of God. Them children are full-blooded Quigleys ’cause both me and Mr. Quigley are descendants of the first Quigley, Lord have mercy on him. But God only knows why they don’t have none of his strength, his faith, his goodness. And they don’t have none of the strength and goodness of me and Mr. Quigley neither.”

  This is my opportunity to tell her of my plan to look for Mahlon’s mother’s grave. What did she think of the idea? Would she give me her blessing?

  “What for?” she asks, looking at me with suspicion.

  I follow her back to the porch.

  “Because I won’t do it if you don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Why you wanna look for the grave?”

  She sits on the swing but does not invite me to sit next to her as she used to.

  “I like you and Mahlon and your son and daughter. I want to help. You once told me it would make all the difference in Mahlon’s life if the grave was located and a tombstone was erected on it.”

  “Mr. Quigley don’t have no time for you…you know that. He’s gonna kill you one of them days.”

  I laugh and say, “Mahlon Quigley can’t kill anybody.”

  “He’s a good man,” she says, looking at me pityingly, “but if you piss him off too much you never know what he’s gonna do.”

  It is an empty threat and she knows I know it. I can see it in her expression that even as she makes it she is aware that I don’t believe her. The nighttime performances have shown me how much of a gentle soul Mahlon Quigley is.

  “No one who tells such wonderful stories can kill anybody,” Isay.

  “How you gonna find the grave? You come all the way from Africa and you think you can find graves here in the good ol’ U. S. of A.?”

  “I have a grave-radar,” I say jokingly. “Remember, I found Niall Quigley’s African grave under a tree in the woods.”

  Of course she remembers. Was she not the one who decreed that it must not be disturbed but must be left as it was? Didn’t she overrule Obed, who wanted to turn it into a shrine for his heathen practices or even a tourist attraction to be advertised in the Athens News so that people could come and pay money to see it? How would the first Quigley, Lord have mercy on him, rest in peace with all those crude eyes ogling his resting place?

  “You stealing my kids away and now you say you wanna help find their grandma’s grave?”

  I don’t see the connection, but Ruth will always be Ruth.

  “They’re not children, Ruth. They’re adults. You don’t steal adults away.”

  “I hear Orpah is always in your RV. God knows what you do there. And Obed, we don’t see him no more ’cause your meddling got him together with that Beth Eddy or whatever. He says she’s gotten him a job or something. And now they shack together, which is a sin against the Bible.”

  Throughout my stay here Ruth has been complaining that Obed doesn’t want to make anything of his life. Yet she wants to maintain a strong hold on him and doesn’t want to let him go. The specter of his independence scares her.

  Mahlon arrives with tackle and a lunch box. His boots and jeans are muddy. I think he has come from an unsuccessful fishing expedition at a nearby pond.

  “Hi, Mahlon,” I say displaying a broad smile to emphasize the fact that I am desperate to be friends with him. “They didn’t bite today, did they?”

  He merely looks at me with his smile. I can detect contempt in it. Somehow one is able to read different moods in the unchanging smile when one gets to know the man enough. He pretends that I don’t exist and walks into the house.

  “I told you he hates you,” says Ruth gleefully. “He thinks you taking Orpah away from him.”

  “You think so too, don’t you? You just said I am stealing your children away.”

  “I think so too. But I’m a Christian woman; I don’t hate nobody.”

  “I don’t understand this, Ruth. You always complained that Orpah did not get out enough…that she was not independent enough…that she sat in her room all day long playing the sitar and drawing pictures.”

  She takes out bits of red slate from one of the pockets of her sweats and chews furiously. In no time her teeth are red like blood.

  “She ain’t independent when she’s with you,” she says.

  “You want her to be with Nathan?”

  “’Cause he’s gonna make her a good husband.”

  “And he won’t take her away?”

  “Damn right he won’t. Orpah’s ours. No one must take her away.”

  In August the different shades of green that dominate the Kilvert summer now sport patches of yellow. The leaves become smaller; you can see further into the woods. And Orpah and Mahlon don’t talk anymore. Although Ruth thinks it is my fault, I learn from Orpah after pleading with her to tell me what the problem is that I have nothing to do with it.

  Mahlon discovered her deception about ghost orchids. He learned that she was creating them from found objects and sticking them on the sycamores for him to discover. And he was presenting them to her as gifts from the memories. They ended up in her collages. I don’t know what devil got into Orpah to confess that she was the creator of the ghost orchids in the first place. She expected Mahlon
to take the whole thing as the big joke it was meant to be and was astonished when he exploded and accused her of betrayal. Not only had she betrayed him she had also pissed on the sanctity of the memories. He added that she would never have betrayed him if it were not for my evil presence in their lives.

  I must admit that I am a bit skeptical about Mahlon’s anger here. How could a man who knows so much about trees not have known in the first place that ghost orchids don’t grow around these parts and the ones he discovered were artificial? Was he play-acting or did his memories close his eyes and his mind to the fact?

  But his anger has lasted for a few days. At first Orpah did not take it seriously and thought that her father would come around and they would have their midnight memories again. On the third day she began to worry. She missed Mahlon. She missed the memories. She begged for his forgiveness but he ignored her. He goes about his life without even looking at her when they chance upon each other in the house.

  I know how it is when Mahlon decides you don’t exist.

  Orpah spends even more time in my RV than ever before. But she never brings the sitar with her even when I beg her to. I am just wondering what that sitar would do to my body if she played it in my RV. Would it have the same effect that it had on me when the sound leaked from her room or would it just be beautiful music as it was at the bluegrass festival in Huntington, West Virginia? It did not have any adverse physical effect on me that night. I guess I have no way of knowing as long as she won’t play it here.

  But what has happened over the days, even without the aid of the sitar, is that we have eased each other into intimacy. The first night she spent at the RV was difficult. She was all bravado, claiming great experience, and I was a whimpering fool. But soon she became the whimpering one. I have a tongue that knows its way around the strategic parts of bodies, thanks to Noria’s lessons. And her memory did intrude just at that time. Noria. She won’t rest until she is mourned.