The Persian Pickle Club

by Dallas, Sandra

  “There’s a woman come along,” she said after what seemed like a long, long wait. “She was in a Model A. A skinny woman with a face like a lizard and no lips. She said to tell you to come a runnin’, Miz Bean. Her sister’s time’s come.”

  “What’s that?” Grover asked. None of what Zepha said made sense to him, but it did to me.

  “That was Agnes T. Ritter. Zepha means Rita’s gone into labor,” I told him. “She’s early.”

  Zepha nodded her head up and down. “She couldn’t find you at your place, so she come to the shack to ask if us’ns knew where you was. She sez it’s bad. I wondered if maybe that baby’s sideways. I knew of that happening to a woman onct. I can’t think who ‘twas. She got bloated up when the baby wouldn’t come and screamed for two days and went crazy from the pain. When that baby finally got borned, Granny Grace, who ketched it, she couldn’t save it. The woman died a-yellin’, and her old man went around the rest of his life with his hands over his ears to keep out the sound. Now, what was her name?”

  My stomach felt queasy, and I looked over at Grover, who was pale. “There was another woman,” Zepha started, but I shook my head and pointed to Grover. Zepha understood and didn’t tell the story, but she said fiercely, “Your man ought to hear about it. Men need to know the trouble they cause us’ns. They ought to have a baby just one time, and have it through their nose, too. That’d teach ‘em.”

  Zepha looked at Grover as if a woman’s trouble was all his fault. Then she turned to me. “You tell her be careful. I heard a bird peck at the window three times last night. That’s bad luck for sure.”

  I didn’t hold with such things, even though Nettie and Forest Ann swore they were true, but I shivered, anyway. Grover took the basket out of my hands and said, “Go on, Queenie. You can run to the Ritter place ‘cross fields faster than we can go home for the car. I’ll take the dinner basket on back to the house and be along as soon as I can. Tom’ll need somebody with him. Run, Queenie.” He gave me a little shove.

  “Tell ‘em to put a knife under the bed,” Zepha said as I started off. When I paused to ask what she meant, she called, “A sharp knife under the bed cuts the pain.” I hurried as fast as I could, stopping only to take off my shoes and stockings. Then I ran like a field hand all the way to the Ritter farm, while Zepha called, “Don’t you forget that knife!”

  Half the Persian Pickle Club was already there ahead of me. After she’d come for me, Agnes T. Ritter went back home and called Ada June’s, and all up and down the party line, women picked up the phone and listened in, including the members of the Persian Pickle, who knew they were needed.

  As I ran across the Putter’s barnyard, I saw Ada June’s Hudson and Forest Ann’s old Dodge truck. The dust in the air behind Mrs. Judd’s Packard hadn’t even settled yet. She stood next to the car with a paper sack in her hand, talking to Tom, and when I came up, I heard her say, “It’s not going to do you a bit of harm, and a little nip might relax you. I knew your dad wouldn’t have any, so I brought you a bottle of Prosper’s. You put it where Howard Ritter won’t see it and take a swallow when you feel the need. I don’t hold with drunkenness, being a good member of the WCTU. But the Lord has His reasons for everything He puts on this earth. Shut your mouth, Queenie Bean. I keep it around for fruitcake.”

  Tom looked relieved when he saw me. “I’m glad you’re here, Queenie. We tried to call you everywhere. Then Agnes thought your hired man might know where you were, so she drove down there.”

  I put my arms around Tom and hugged him. “Is she all right?”

  Tom’s eyes went wild for a minute, and he shook a little. Then he got ahold of himself and said, “I don’t know. The pain hit her all of a sudden. The doctor’s in there now, along with Mom and Agnes. She’s only seven months.”

  “Seven months,” Mrs. Judd said. “Seven months is plenty of time, boy. The fact is, a smaller baby means an easier birthing. Rita won’t get tore up so bad. Why, you’ve got nothing to worry about, Tom.”

  “Grover’s coming as fast as he can,” I said.

  “You share that bottle with him. Just don’t tell Howard where it came from, and you don’t need to mention it to Nettie and them, either, since Prosper won’t take his business to Tyrone. He says Tyrone’s tangleleg tastes like Esso gasoline. Queenie, you go on inside. Rita would rather see your pretty face than mine.” I started for the porch, then glanced back and saw Mrs. Judd with the bottle halfway to her mouth.

  The members of the Persian Pickle Club had taken over the Ritter kitchen, which still had the spicy smell of plum butter that Mrs. Ritter had been making the day before. Nettie’s butterscotch pie was on the table next to Ada June’s bread pudding, and Velma, Nettie’s daughter, was slicing tomatoes. Ada June built up the fire while Nettie filled the kettle. You’d have thought we were getting ready for a church supper if it hadn’t been for Mr. Ritter, who was walking back and forth, muttering and bumping into everyone.

  Finally, Nettie said, “Howard, would it trouble you too much to chop some wood for the stove? We might need us a whole tree by the time this is over.” He nodded, looking glad that somebody had given him a job to do. He went outside, and before anyone thought to stop him, he’d chopped enough wood to last until Christmas.

  “How’s Rita?” I asked, and Nettie and Forest Ann looked at each other and back at me, making me remember the time I had lost my own baby. The two of them had sat with me all one afternoon, patting my shoulder and rubbing my back and feeding me bites of food that I didn’t want. They’d told me all the superstitions they could think of about how I’d get pregnant again in no time. Of course, they were wrong, but the doctor hadn’t told me yet that he’d cut out so much of me, and they made me feel better. I hoped Rita would draw strength from the Persian Pickles, just as I had.

  “Queenie, you can do more good with Tom than you can in here,” Nettie said, tying a Boy Scout knot in the scarf around her goiter. She didn’t tell me old wives’ tales anymore because we both knew I would never get pregnant again. Maybe Nettie wanted me outside because she thought if I wasn’t in the same house with somebody in labor, I’d forget that I couldn’t have a baby myself—as if I could ever forget that.

  “I’ll stay,” I said, then glanced at Velma, who looked a little peaked. Who could blame her? It wasn’t right for a single woman to have to listen to childbirth sounds. So I told Velma to go out and keep Tom company. She’d be glad for a swallow of Prosper Judd’s liquor.

  “She’s to stay,” Nettie said sharply, but Velma went outdoors, anyway.

  Agnes T. Ritter stepped inside the kitchen just then, and I thought Zepha was right. She has no lips. Her eyes were little slits, and I couldn’t tell if she was scared for Rita or mad that Rita was causing so much trouble. I touched her hand and asked, “Is Rita all right?”

  Agnes T. Ritter shrugged. “How would I know? I never saw a baby born before. But I’ll tell you this, Rita being almost as small as a midget doesn’t help her any.”

  We heard a cry from upstairs, and I bit down so hard on my lip that I tasted blood. “Is she in pain?”

  “Well, of course she’s in pain,” Agnes T. Ritter said, as if I were as much of a dummy as Charlie McCarthy.

  “You forget about the pain,” Ada June said, to herself more than to Agnes T. Ritter, who wasn’t listening, anyway. “I don’t know why. You just do. Rita won’t remember it.”

  “Zepha, the hired man’s wife—” I said, then stopped. I’d sound as foolish as Nettie if I repeated what Zepha had said.

  “What?” Agnes T. Ritter asked. Her eyes were so narrow that I couldn’t see any white through the slits.

  I looked at the floor and said, “It’s just a superstition. She says if you put a sharp knife under the bed, it cuts the pain.”

  There was silence for a minute, then Nettie said, “I heard that.”

  “I heard it, too,” Ada June said. “Of course, I never knew of anybody who did it.”

  “It’s stupid,” A
gnes T. Ritter said. “Quack medicine. Just what you’d expect from a squatter.”

  I wanted to tell her it wouldn’t do any harm, but I never came out ahead arguing with Agnes T. Ritter. So I licked the blood off my lip and turned to the window to watch Grover, who was just getting out of the car. He slapped Tom on the back, and the two of them went across the yard. Then Mrs. Judd came in, dragging Velma back with her, and flopped down in Mrs. Ritter’s kitchen rocker.

  “I hope those two don’t forget what’s going on inside,” she said, looking at Velma, who was slouched on a kitchen chair. Everybody knew that when Nettie went into labor with her, Tyrone got so drunk, he passed out and forgot all about the baby until he climbed into bed and almost squashed little Velma.

  “I thought Velma might like to be outside,” I said. Velma was pouting, making it clear to everyone she didn’t want to be here at all. She was a real pretty girl, and she used to be a nice one, too, but lately she’d turned more sullen than Agnes T. Ritter. Maybe Tyrone took a strap to her. He always threatened to do that, and I didn’t think either Velma or Nettie could stand up to him.

  “I don’t know anything about babies,” Velma muttered.

  “Well, I wouldn’t brag about it,” Mrs. Judd said, twisting her head to look at Velma. “I never thought being dumb about a thing made any sense.” She turned to the rest of us. “It’s time she knew about the wages of sin.”

  “Septima!” said Nettie. “Velma’s my daughter. Anything she needs to learn about sin, she can learn from me.” Ada June’s eyes twinkled as she turned away, and I looked down at the table so Nettie wouldn’t see me smile. I rubbed my hand over the worn oilcloth, which had been scrubbed so many times, I could hardly see the pattern of tulips and Dutch girls. The cloth was cracked in places, and the backing showed through.

  “Did anybody brown the flour?” Mrs. Judd asked.

  “What for?” I asked.

  “To rub over the baby, of course.”

  I went to the stove, pried off the stove lid with the lifter, then popped in a few sticks of wood to build up the fire. When they caught, I took out the skillet and poured in enough flour for a loaf of bread. At just that minute, Opalina and Ceres came into the kitchen. Opalina set down a little jar of piccalilli. It was a joke with the members of the Persian Pickle Club. The only thing Opalina ever brought to any gathering was a little jar of piccalilli, but that was all right with us, because Opalina was a terrible cook. I wondered who on earth would want to eat piccalilli after having a baby.

  Ceres put a hamper on the table and took out a bottle of peaches and another of rose-hip jam. “Does Ella know?” she asked. Ella was the only one of us who didn’t have a phone.

  Mrs. Judd swatted the side of her head with the palm of her hand so hard that she must have felt like she’d been hit with a shovel. She hefted herself out of the rocker. “I must have left my brains on the car seat with my hat. I never thought to get her. I’ll go now. Ella’d never forgive me if she missed out.” Mrs. Judd went outside and fired up the Packard. Ella loved babies every bit as much as I did, and it was odd that the two of us who didn’t have them were the ones who wanted them the most.

  Since there wasn’t anything left to do but wait, we unpacked baby clothes from a box Mrs. Ritter had set out, and Ceres got the Ritter family cradle from the parlor and began scrubbing it. “Lookit there,” she said, turning it over. “It must have been made from an oats box. There’s that Quaker man with his hair as long as Jesus’.”

  “That’s a good sign, him looking like Jesus on the box,” Net-tie said.

  We all found something to do, except for Velma, and were working away when Dr. Sipes came down from Rita’s room on his way to the privy. “Afternoon, Forest Ann. Ladies,” he said. Forest Ann gave him a silly smile, until Nettie cleared her throat, and Forest Ann turned back to the sink.

  “The baby won’t be here just yet. You can take that flour off the stove, Queenie,” Dr. Sipes said. Outside, he stopped to exchange a few words with Tom and Grover, and when he came back, Forest Ann handed him a glass of lemonade. He took a swallow and said, “You womenfolks do all the work, and I get the credit.”

  “And send the bill,” Nettie said. We heard a cry from above, and Dr. Sipes handed Forest Ann the glass, then took the stairs two at a time.

  “I always liked that man,” Ada June said.

  “You always liked any man,” Nettie told her. Before Buck Zinn showed up in Kansas, Ada June had so many boyfriends that she’d had to beat them off with a stick.

  “That’s not true,” Ada June retorted. “There’s one man I could name that I hated from the first time I ever saw him.”

  Before any of us could reply, Mrs. Judd’s big Packard pulled up outside, and Ella jumped out, holding a box almost as big as she was and a bouquet of summer roses. I held the screen door open for her, and she rushed through and asked, “Is the baby here yet?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Rita could be in for a difficult time, but don’t you worry. Doc Sipes is real good,” Ceres told Ella.

  Ella filled a canning jar with water from the kitchen pump and arranged the roses in it. “She’ll be fine. She’s got us.”

  “She’s got too many of us,” Mrs. Judd said, coming through the door and letting the screen bang shut behind her. She looked at her father’s old pocket watch that hung from a ribbon around her neck. “Now I’m going home, and Nettie, you better take Velma back. Forest Ann, you go on, too, even though I guess you won’t be having any visitors this evening.” She looked up in the direction of the sickroom, where Dr. Sipes was with Rita, just in case Forest Ann didn’t get her meaning. Then she looked over at the rest of us, deciding who else should go home. “Opalina—”

  But Opalina wasn’t going to let Mrs. Judd order her around, and she said quickly, “If nobody minds, I’ll just run along and fix supper for Anson.”

  I wouldn’t let Mrs. Judd send me home, either, but she didn’t try. Instead, she told me, “If Lizzy Olive shows up with that slimy chocolate pudding of hers, you feed it to the pigs. Don’t let Reverend Olive pray over Rita. He’ll tell her that hog-wash about childbirth pain being her natural punishment on account of she’s a daughter of Eve.” Mrs. Judd shoved her big handbag under her arm and pushed at the screen door, letting it hit her behind so it wouldn’t bang.

  Before Mrs. Judd reached the porch stairs, Mrs. Ritter came into the kitchen and looked around like she didn’t know who we were. “It’s Queenie … and the Persian Pickle,” I said.

  “Yes, of course, dearie,” Mrs. Ritter replied. Then her eyes came into focus and she smiled a little. “I came for … My stars, my mind’s gone.” She looked around the room until she spotted the teakettle. “That’s it. The water. And a basin.”

  “Mrs. Ritter, the hired man’s wife said if you put a knife under the bed, it cuts the pain. I told Agnes T. Ritter, but she said it was stupid. You could try it. I don’t think it would hurt, anyway.”

  Mrs. Judd, who had stopped on the porch when Mrs. Ritter came into the kitchen, opened the screen and stuck her head in. I expected her to tell me I was a fool for holding with old wives’ tales. “It helped with Wilson.” I turned to stare, and she added, “If you keep leaving your mouth open, Queenie Bean, you’ll swallow a fly. Now, get out a knife and go on upstairs with Rita. You being closer to her than the rest of us, you ought to be there with Sabra and Agnes.”

  I did as she ordered, pausing to snatch up a sharp knife, and followed Mrs. Ritter up to the sickroom, standing next to the doctor at the foot of the bed. He was telling Agnes T. Ritter what to do, and for the first time in her life, Agnes T. Ritter was doing a thing without talking back. I wanted to tell that to Rita so she’d laugh, but I didn’t. When Agnes T. Ritter wasn’t looking, I slid the knife under the bed. Then I moved around so I could stand beside Rita. I squeezed her hand and brushed back her hair, which was frizzy and damp. Little prickles of sweat stood out all over her face, so I dipped a cloth in a basin and sp
onged her off.

  “The baby’s coming faster than I thought. It won’t be more than a few minutes,” Dr. Sipes said as Rita stiffened. I clutched her hand and made little clucking noises until the pain passed. “That’s good. That’s real good, Rita. You just grab on to Queen-ie when you need to,” Dr. Sipes said, as calm as if he was telling her how to spread chicken feed.

  A car drove up, and through the window, I saw Lizzy and Foster Olive get out and go to the front door, just like they were company. I guessed Lizzy Olive had been listening in on the party line when Agnes T. Ritter called the Persian Pickle. Nobody answered the front door, so the two of them went around to the kitchen, which is where friends go when they call. We heard Reverend Olive’s voice come up the stairs, although we couldn’t make out the words. Then Ella said, “No! You stay away from her. We’ll take care of her.” Ella never talked above a whisper, and her voice was so loud, I jumped.

  “Well, I’m glad for that,” the doctor said. “I can’t abide that man prattling around a sickroom.” The car started, and Dr. Sipes winked at me. He was a real nice man, and I wished for Forest Ann’s sake that he wasn’t married to that ill-tempered woman. Dr. Sipes and Forest Ann deserved to be together, but he was too good a man to leave his wife, so the two of them carried on, thinking nobody knew.

  Just then, Rita cried out, and Dr. Sipes told her to push hard. In our minds, all of us pushed right along with her, working up as much of a sweat as Rita did to get that baby born. I never knew how long it took, maybe five minutes, maybe thirty. All the time ran together. When it was over, the doctor was holding the tinest baby I’d ever seen, scrawny, like a new duck, and he said, “Why, Rita, you’ve got a little baby girl.” Now that her job was over, Rita closed her eyes. At first, the tension went out of her. Then her knees shook, and the shivering moved all over her body, although the room was as hot as the kitchen. Agnes T. Ritter put a blanket over her.

  “Oh, the flour,” I said. “I’ll get the flour,” and I hurried down the stairs.