Balm

by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

  “Fact is, she still living. I come up this way hoping to hear word of her.”

  “Annie, huh?”

  “Got a daughter go by the name Herod. We from Kentucky, south of Danville, worked on a hemp farm owned by a Mr. Harrison.”

  “Well, I don’t know nothing right off, but I sure will keep an ear on it. Everybody come through here looking for one person or another. Now. What’s your name?”

  “Hemp Harrison.”

  She paused, became serious. “I see. Now don’t go getting lost, Mr. Hemp Harrison. If you do, just ask around for the Jenkins house.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Hemp got work loading ships a week later and earned his first wages as a free man. He bought a sack, shoes, pants, but even his first paying job could not help him shake the sadness. He asked everyone he met, but no one knew of a woman fitting Annie’s description. He decided it would be better for him to stay in one place. It did not make sense for both him and Annie to be moving around.

  Before the month was out he knew that as nice as Mrs. Jenkins was, he could not go on sleeping in that tight, dark room. It reminded him too much of his cabin in the quarters. He began to think of where he could settle. He pooled his money with a group of men and they found a place. A two-room house with four men was sure better than a narrow sliver of a room with five.

  2

  FOR TWO YEARS SADIE TRIED TO PLAY the role of grieving widow. She was not familiar with the art, and without female friends to guide her she floundered. She skimmed an article on the subject, the pages of the magazine flat and smooth on her bedside table. Finally, she placed the burden in the hands of the finest couturier in the city.

  When the boy delivered a package found in the storehouse containing the train’s wreckage, she tore at the paper, expecting to see the likeness produced from the photograph taken on their wedding day. Instead, it was a portrait of her dead husband in a uniform.

  “Is there another one?” she asked the courier.

  “No, ma’am,” he replied.

  She peered at the space above the mantel and knew it was where Samuel had intended to hang his own image.

  All of the things he had bought for the house had been imported: the set of wingback chairs, the Queen Anne table, longcase clock, Oriental rugs. All from another world, even her. She sat beneath his portrait, knowing he’d desired a wife who would dwell amid his collection. She’d promised on their wedding day not to forsake him, so she left the house exactly as he’d furnished it, keeping the same coachman to tend the horses and the same cook to prepare the meals. She was still a wife.

  At night, lying alone in the bed where she’d expected to perform her marital duty, Sadie tried to imagine what life would have been like had he lived. She pictured a stage with her on it: moving among society, entertaining, offering the demure smile and downcast eye as coyly as a trained actress. Invitations arrived, but she refused them all in a politely worded hand. She had no doubt many of the social calls were misguided attempts at matchmaking. She wrote lie-filled letters to her mother, astonishing herself with elaborate stories about parties she had never attended.

  Had he lived, the city might have been more tolerable. But without him, the bitter cold was as unwelcoming as a house without walls. She was used to winter and the scratch of woolens, but this wind’s force surprised her. Sometimes, it shoved her so brutally that she skipped a step. It was like being birthed all over again. She feared walking the streets where men stared at her unabashedly. She was unsure how she would get along without a husband in this dangerous place, and she was besieged by a sudden apprehension of empty things: carriages, doorways, alleys, rooms. The silence of the house when the servants retired startled her, and for the first time she understood what it meant to truly be alone. Despite the taste for solitude she’d craved in her youth, she now longed for someone with whom she could share her impressions. And she knew that, though he had not at all been her choice, the scent of his breath enough to elicit a shiver, she missed him, or at least, his companionship.

  Each spring, she waited for the snow to melt, thinking over and over that once it was gone she would see the city anew. She could not go back to her parents, and, fortunately, the fortune left behind by Samuel afforded her a great deal of choice in that matter. Despite the brevity of the marriage, he had seen to it that a will was in place. A remote cousin in New York sent a threatening letter, but the lawyer, a faithful associate of the deceased, replied sternly enough to fend off the advances.

  She sought companionship in books. A bookseller visited the house weekly, and she ordered from him in every subject—astronomy, horticulture, social reform—developing an obsession with the periodicals of the day. She perused Harper’s, Putnam’s, and Graham’s, devouring news of the war. She imagined herself as part of a broad reading public, musing over the same ideas at the same time, and whenever she yearned for company, she thought of those other eyes, as eager as her own. She read until her back ached, took her meals in the upstairs library, napped in the chair with a book on her lap.

  But the disapproving frowns of Olga, the cook, finally got to her, and she tried to get out of the house more. It was summer, and the heat rose like a vengeful guest finally arrived. She tried to make sense of the city’s battery of noise—its squawking voices and the strident pealing of bells. Whores looked wall-eyed at her, and the sun hid behind a gown of dust that never cleared.

  She left the carriage behind, ventured out alone. The hungry hunkered down into rubble, squatting in alleys. She passed a window, caught a glimpse of herself. She was no different from them: war widows. Cast-off dogs. No one to take her arm. No one to warn her before she stepped into a pile of something soft, the fetor rising. She was both newcomer and old settler. She could not go back to York, nor could she stay in her current state. Within that endless grid of city, horror engulfed, and her memory of recoil at Samuel’s touch sifted into the benign. The death of her husband had freed her, but it had also imprisoned her within rows of up-slanted buildings that towered like iron bars.

  She felt something open within her, a chill encircling her chest despite the day’s heat. She turned to look for her carriage, whirling wildly. The noise rose, fell, sickened her. And she, lost, could not make it home, did not know north from south. A silly idea to tell the driver she would walk. This was, in the end, how Samuel had left her, alone in this teeming city. She stumbled, scanning the fronts of buildings for a safe place. A restaurant, perhaps. But she only saw warehouses, furniture stores, liveries. She fell off the sidewalk, caught herself before she hit the ground, wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her dress, and heard the soft rip of fine cotton. And then, amid it all, she heard him whisper, the sound of a man’s throaty tones so close that only she could hear, and she was certain, from the very onset, that this voice was not an illusion. She shook her head. There was no one nearby, yet she clearly heard it again.

  That way, he said. That way is home.

  “CALL A DOCTOR,” she told the cook.

  “Something wrong? Are you sick?”

  “Yes, yes, I am.”

  The doctor did not come until the next morning, and by that time Sadie’s distress was pitch high.

  “I’m Dr. Michael Heil,” he said, handing her his card.

  “There is a voice,” she said before he could put down his bag. “In my head.”

  “Please, be seated.” He pressed a palm to her forehead while Olga looked on.

  “He speaks to me. He says he is a dead man.”

  “How long have you heard these voices?”

  “There is just one. And I’ve been hearing him for two days now.”

  “The war has just ended, and many people are still recovering. You are without family? You lost someone in the war?” The doctor looked at her black dress, thinking of his own ghost.

  “I have never had a history of problems. At least, I don’t believe I have.”

  “Are you taking any medicines?”

 
“Can you make him stop talking to me?”

  “I can give you something to help you sleep at night.”

  “He speaks during the day.”

  “You must rest,” he said.

  “Do you believe in such things?”

  “Such things?”

  “Yes. The dead speaking.”

  Olga coughed.

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” he responded.

  “Of course not. You are a man of science. Surely you have no fears.”

  “We all have our fears.” He searched through his bag until he found a small glass bottle. He set it down beside her. “Put a drop in your tea when you are ready to sleep.”

  The doctor moved and she pinned his wrist with her thin fingers. He looked at her.

  “Help me,” she said.

  “There isn’t much I can do, I’m afraid.”

  Sadie turned as the doctor and Olga moved toward the door, their hushed whispers cornering her within certain madness. She heard him say: “Shall I visit in a week to see if there is anything more I can do?”

  I won’t hurt you. I told you so. It’s just that it has been so long since I talked.

  She sipped directly from the medicine bottle before rising to light all of the room’s lamps. The faint scent of gas tickled her nostrils.

  Listen.

  The curtains puffed, and she shut the window. When she turned, Olga stood watching her.

  I served in the Fourth Illinois Cavalry. We were mustered into service on the twenty-sixth of September in the year 1861. I died on April 6, 1862, after the battle at Shiloh.

  “What’s that, Mrs. Walker?”

  General Grant was most capable. He earned our respect.

  “That will be all, Olga.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  It was a most gruesome battle. You would not believe.

  “No. No, nothing.”

  “Well . . .”

  Sadie nodded nervously. Good God. Am I going mad?

  “Thank you, Olga.”

  The woman hesitated, then turned to leave.

  EACH DAY, HE SPOKE TO SADIE more often, sometimes so rapidly she could not think. It became difficult to be around people, and she avoided them altogether, sending Olga out for the simplest errands. One day he was not there and the next he was, and it was impossible to remember what true solitude had felt like. The cook suggested that a ride around the neighborhood might do her some good.

  The woman was right. When Sadie sank into the green cushions of the carriage, she could quiet him if she chose. He called her darling and she could have sworn he stroked her cheek. It was, in the end, easier if she did not fight. He did not silence her as her father had done or dismiss her as Samuel had. He listened patiently, delivering to her the rise of the mind she’d always craved.

  And he did not come to her with judgment, his voice like a minister’s call to the gospel, a merciful flood of acceptance. She had never been particularly religious, but her esteem for the spiritual increased. She fasted out of respect for this gift, refusing food for days. She caused the cook a great deal of worry when she appeared in the drawing room wearing only a chemise. Sadie had desired companionship, and it came in the form of this peculiar voice.

  She sat—listening, receiving, awakening to the pleasure of unrivaled attention.

  My wife passed a year ago. A heart condition. Now there are just my parents and a brother.

  What is your name? she finally asked.

  My name, he said, is Private James Heil.

  The driver quietly tapped on the window. She was startled to discover that she had been sleeping in the back of the carriage. Her skin was warm, and she felt moisture in her undergarments. When she looked over at the seat beside her, she half-expected to see it compressed with the shape of his body. She believed she had done something unseemly in her stupor, and the thought frightened her.

  3

  THE DAY MADGE SPIED THE FANCY WHITE WOMAN watching her from across the street, she thought she’d come to expose her. Acts such as hers might be more well-known to strangers in the city. The trick was a good one, well worth the risk, taught to Madge by an itinerant white man back home. A tramp, the sisters had called him. Madge had just had to find the camphor, aqua vitae, quicksilver, and myrrh once she arrived north. Each morning, she washed the mixture over her palms and the flats of her fingers, allowing it to dry. If you rub this here potion on your feet, the tramp had claimed, you can walk right over the top of hot coals. Her face steadied as her hand hovered over the heat. First, the people in the crowd appeared afraid, and finally, a surge of smiles, her act bringing cheer to faces worn down by years of war.

  The sisters had warned her about the dangers of the trick over and over, until finally Madge outlined the backwoods trail she would take if someone came after her, the quickest path between the feed store and their three-room house. Ever since the war began, the area around Brownsville had welcomed its share of don’t-belongs: pale-faced skedaddlers, the sick and wounded, the opportunistic. But Madge never once got into trouble. After she brought the trick north, the sisters’ warnings dimmed as she quickly found a paying audience.

  For months, she had been living in a rooming house in the second ward of the city, just south of the river, dreaming that someone would come along and rescue her, the idea of such an offer so fantastical that when the white woman finally did arrive, it was as if an angel had swept down and granted her wish.

  Across the street, Sadie followed the gathering crowd, leaving her driver behind. She pushed through the onlookers so she could better see the colored girl sitting in front of a fire coming out of a metal bucket resting on four feet. A dirty dress flared on the ground around her, its holes like spots on butterfly wings. The flames flicked up to a tidy point, their dark orange tips licking the air. The girl asked a volunteer to step closer, confirm the heat. Then she squared a hand over the fire, palm down, and began to lower it. Inch by inch, her hand descended into the fire until the flames hugged it, flaring out from its sides. She kept her hand there for five or six seconds, then lifted it, showing the crowd her unburned palm, even inviting the less timid to shake hands with her. They clapped, dropped coins into her basket, and Sadie caught a glimpse of a smile on the girl’s lips.

  Sadie squinted, wondered at the girl’s story. She did not know exactly what she would say, but she had handled her late husband’s money long enough to know the power it gave her. As the people dispersed, the widow drew closer.

  “Why you wear that dress?”

  “What?” Sadie could not hide her surprise. She had not expected the girl to speak first. The woman lifted a hand to draw a hair from her face. It was the same hand that had rested over the fire, not just on its orange tips, but deeper into its blue glow. No visible burn marks. Not even a tinge of pink.

  “No, I mean, your dress look awful hot.”

  A man in a tattered uniform walked by and gave the two women a curious look.

  “Tell me. Can you do other tricks?”

  The girl scratched her nose. Smooth, brown skin. The fire had not burned the skin, but it had singed the hair. Up close, Sadie could see she was older than she’d assumed, a young woman.

  “Tricks?”

  Sadie wanted to know more, but those steady eyes unnerved her.

  “I’d like you to work for me.”

  “Work?”

  “Yes. In my home. As a maid.”

  The woman shook her head, displaying an instinct to refuse before she had even processed the question. Sadie understood her suspicions. They were on a street corner, and Sadie had not asked for references. The proposition sounded odd, even to Sadie, but she’d been feeling unusually courageous since hearing the spirit’s voice.

  “I will pay you fairly,” Sadie added. She did not know what kinds of wages free coloreds made, but she assumed that sitting on a corner performing tricks for a coin or two was a sign of need. She told the woman about the house, the room she could take.

&nb
sp; “I got a name, you know.”

  Sadie nodded.

  “What is it?”

  “Madge.”

  “Very well. Come tomorrow, Madge. Ontario Street. There is a bird knocker on the door and an iron fence.”

  “You want to know how I did it, don’t you.”

  “Did what?”

  Madge held up her hands.

  “See you tomorrow,” Sadie said.

  The widow’s promise was just a beginning. She had not told Madge much of the position, only promised a fair wage, clean living quarters, an indoor toilet, a cookstove. So little to convince Madge: the black dress, a kind of eye-catching fancy she’d never known back home. The woman had appeared on that dust-soaked street like a ghost adrift in a column of smoke.

  Madge accepted the widow’s proposition, but she could not shake the feeling that she’d given up some of her independence by doing so. Two questions dogged her: How exactly does one go from being slightly free to being free free to being slightly free again? And what did these degrees of freedom have to do with this hurt that refused to pass?

  DESPITE THE GLORIOUS DAYS of sunshine, the widow rarely left the house. Something about the woman unsettled Madge, and she discovered the answer in the pillows. They gave Madge the impression that the house on Ontario Street was not the home of a grieving woman. Certainly, the house contained semblances of sorrow: low lighting, stacks of condolence letters, an armoire of black dresses, measured sunlight filtering through barely cracked drapery. But the energy of the home spoke of something different. There was little . . . saintliness . . . in Sadie Walker’s widowhood. Madge sensed, too, that the husband’s spirit lingered though he had been dead two years. She had been assured he had not died in the house, yet she could not shake the feeling. She did not traffic in ghosts, but she was not a disbeliever either, and the occasional slamming door made Madge think the dead husband still wandered the house he had built but never enjoyed.

  Ultimately, it was the pillows that convinced Madge the widow did not mourn her husband’s departure. The stitching was too upbeat, too bright, loopy flowers and vines dangling like the arms of a dancer. In the gloomy house, the pillows were a rare bright touch. Squares roosted on beds, rectangles lounged in seats of chairs, circles lay cozily on the bench in the hall, all of them drawn in a neat hand. Even in the small servant’s bedroom used by Madge there were two, an unexpected adornment in the otherwise plain space. Madge found them amusing, their beauty undeniable, and although others might have viewed their sheer quantity as a sign of the widow’s loneliness, Madge thought they signaled something more hopeful than the black widow’s garb, an unlikely contrast to the dead man’s portrait. From the very beginning, she saw through the veil, knew before the widow ever uttered an insensitive thought of him that the woman had never loved her husband. It was the kind of early maturity that came from living in a house of women.