During the Reign of the Queen of Persia

by Joan Chase

  Neil stops lifting his eyebrows at us and looks at her, directing the attention of all of us. “It’s for certain no one ever said you couldn’t talk. No siree! Nobody ever said that.”

  “Now, Neil,” Aunt Grace says. “Ellie doesn’t talk any more than the rest of us.”

  “Uh?” He plays dumb. “I declare. That’s not exactly what you told me in bed last night.” Aunt Grace stops moving at the sink, and we can see the stain of red rise under her dark skin. Her expression darkens too as her eyes seem to sink further back into the hollows around them. Without answering, she goes on with the knife, quick, with Gram’s inbred speed, slivering celery on the diagonal, quartering green peppers and tomatoes.

  But Aunt Elinor is still genial and Neil looks toward us again, and winks; he knows we are going right along with him, knows what we think. Although we give no sign.

  “Now let’s get on back to this cooking thing. I’d like to get a few things straight, for once get you girls to admit what you really think. Instead of always this boring wishy-washy sweetness and light. You must have an opinion, May.” Neil says.

  Neil has told us that Aunt May is the only one of the sisters besides Aunt Grace who showed promise—that she wasn’t just an Ohio peasant putting on the dog. Now she gives a gurgle of self-effacing denial of her worth; but we think immediately that her food tastes the best, perhaps because her table is covered with a stiff ironed linen cloth and is set with polished silver and her rose-patterned china is complete with separate vegetable dishes, so spinach or broccoli floats in its own delectable butter sauce. She says only, “I guess we’re all good cooks. Must get it from Momma.”

  “Well, if your preference is for pepper and dough,” Neil says. He lets out a prolonged breath, which glides into a whistled rendition of “There’s a long, long trail a-winding.” It’s one of the songs he’s taught us, a song from the days when he used to sleep on bare ground under the stars on the lonesome prairie, when he was a vaquero, and learned to distinguish crow bait from bred stock. Sometimes on summer nights he lies beside us on the cooled grass and traces out the constellations, teaching us to find Cassiopeia and Pegasus, telling us of the endless reaches of light that separate us from the stars. We never know when the thing he tells us is true or made up. Now he stops his song for a second and says in rhythm, “Yes. Uh, uh! Guess you get your beauty from your Momma too.” Then he goes on whistling until he adds, “From the knees up.”

  With the cessation of the melody, the silence of the room is such that we can hear the oil scatter in the skillet. Their legs are one of the things we aren’t supposed to mention, like their ages. Secrets. Once we found letters to Aunt Rachel which a boyfriend had sent in 1935. She was seventeen then; we figured back and forth, came up with her age, accused her of it. “Sh,” she had said, her eyes with their peregrine tilt, conspiratorial. And immediately we forgot because she wanted us to and because we thought of all of them as beyond ordinary time or distance—like movie stars.

  “If only I had me a piano”: Neil baits them some more. That’s the way he describes the dense, heavy, although curved ankles that support their bodies. Again they are laughing, Aunt Elinor the most adventurous, risking the most, because of all the five sisters, she is the one who is somewhat plumpish, although solid-fleshed—a feature, Neil tells us secretly, which would have won her a sure reputation as a lady wrestler. This seems to us particularly funny though our snickers feel nasty, provoking an image of Aunt Elinor, squat and muscular, pinning her opponent. We must hide these jokes from her. Like the others. Aunt Libby Neil privately calls Penelope because he says he doesn’t know anyone else who takes so long to get things done, says he figures she’ll be there when the last die is cast. Gram is Hecuba—that’s when he says he is feeling kindly toward her.

  But this summer evening Gram has already flown away to pleasure herself and Grandad is down in the barn milking and Neil lets the feeling in the kitchen become peaceful; for a while he talks seriously to Aunt Elinor about the advertising world. Aunt Grace works hard over a complicated recipe for egg foo yong and we can see her enjoyment in displaying her competence. Neil says she is going through a lot of fuss for an omelet, though he looks proud too, and Aunt Elinor says it is highly regarded at the best restaurants in Chinatown, and Aunt Rachel says she’d stake money on it that we are the only people in Sherwood eating it this night. Which makes Neil say that he’s glad to be in such select company. He walks to pour another drink and when he passes Aunt Grace he suddenly gooses her, which makes her startle and glare at him. But he only laughs more determinedly and she puts on a smile for us to see, even while he says to everybody that sometimes he has to go out of his way to liven up old Grace or else she would shrivel into the awfulest old prude. Aunt Grace says, without paying much attention, that she guesses that would be a fate worse than death.

  We eat our dinner in stages while Aunt Grace stands at the stove and adjusts the heat under the oil, calculating exactly this final stage in the preparation of the exotic vegetable patties; she seems very pleased to be serving us, and her sisters are raving over this delicacy. When Grandad comes in with the milk, he refuses to try any, and then won’t even sit at the table to eat what Gram has left for him from her meal but stands at the sink in the pantry. Aunt Grace doesn’t fuss at him but pours coffee into the ironstone mug he prefers, takes it to him, and helps him scald the milk pails. He says then, padding toward the living room in his socks and grinning sheepishly, “Guess you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” and she smiles as if she agrees. Still he has learned at last to leave his barn boots on the porch, except for a few times when he goes ahead and stomps his path over the carpet to his corner chair, leaving the scattered chaff and smudges of barnyard waste —which Neil says is done to show that Grandad still has something running in him that makes him feel like a man.

  Neil and Grandad like each other well enough, at least we think so, because sometimes they get drunk together on the hard cider Grandad hides in the barn. Uncle Dan has joined them on occasion, but he gets so sick and desperate he prays to die, and since it is as much guilt as octane that gets him, that and Aunt Libby’s disapproval, he figures to let the stuff alone and save it for the big boys. But Neil says he can’t let old Jake catch all the hell there is around there, and he joins Grandad more than seldom, and then the two of them come up along the drive in the late dark, bellowing Neil’s western songs, their arms draped around each other, reeling and hugging. Complaining about the women. “Acting,” Aunt Grace says. “Just sheer playacting,” and she fastens the locks on the doors, the only times they are all secured, and turns out all the lights so the house is dark, and then she goes to bed while they pound and sing and get mad. Once Neil had sneaked up onto the porch roof and was climbing in Gram’s open window, when she, thinking someone had at last come for her pocketbook, which she kept under the mattress, threw the bedside clock at him. The clock smashed to bits and startled Neil so that he pitched backwards and was saved from sliding off the roof only by the venetian blind cords, which he had grabbed until he caught his balance. Everyone agreed that it was a wonder he hadn’t broken his neck. Which, he agreed, was no doubt the case, but it had been outrage alone that had saved him—when he realized that he wasn’t taking the old witch along with him. He said that if Gram had risked throwing her pocket-book at him she would have finished him for good, loaded as it must be with gold bullion, considering how closely she guarded it. “Missed your chance,” he reminded her from time to time, raising his brows and narrowing his eyes simultaneously.

  After we have all eaten the egg foo yong, the special hot and sour sauce, Aunt Grace is still going between the stove and the sink, stacking the dishes, wiping counters, while Neil is hand-wrestling with the rest of us, using his left arm and letting two of us at a time try to force his lean, hard-muscled arm to the tabletop. He says that none of us knows what hard work is: how many hours of a summer’s day have we spent on a haywagon? He challenges Aunt May, who at le
ast, he allows, has put out many a load of washing; after he has played around with her a few minutes he pins her arm abruptly, as though it’s no more than a stick. Around her thin wrist is a crimson chafe mark and we see a slight skim of tears fill her eyes. Aunt Grace has put her own plate on the table, getting ready to eat, and says to Neil, “You ought to be ashamed,” while he sweeps back his arms to shake hands with himself over his head, declaring his mock victory, and sends her plate and the egg foo yong spinning and crashing to the floor.

  Aunt Grace hops up as if she’s done it herself; while the rest of us stare, she kneels on the floor beside her ruined dinner, her hair hanging over her face. And then she just collapses into a heap amidst the mess and starts to heave in an odd tearless retching despair. We are still stricken. It’s as though she cannot breathe and we cannot move to save her. Aunt May says, “My God in the mountain,” as she hurries over to Aunt Grace, lifts her up to sit on the floor, straightens and smooths her hair, murmurs, “You must be so tired. Slaving all afternoon for us while we just sit here enjoying ourselves.” By this time all the sisters have come to life and are busy, sweeping the food together and drawing water into the scrub pail. They pull Aunt Grace up and over to the table. Aunt Elinor holds her hand. But Aunt Grace draws away and lays her head down on her folded arms, breaking into sobs again. When everything is cleared away they start the kettle for tea water. Aunt May says she will fix Aunt Grace a regular omelet since the other mixture is all gone, and she starts to beat the eggs. Aunt Grace says that she is too upset to eat, but she lets them bring her a cloth to cool her face and gradually she becomes calm and nibbles on some toast Aunt Libby brings her.

  “Oh, I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” Aunt Grace says, a tentative smile oddly combining with her swollen red eyes. The dimple in her chin is like a tiny keyhole. “I don’t know. It seemed so sad, the mess and everything. The waste. And after it was all so nice.” She looks at Neil for the first time. He hasn’t moved or spoken.

  His mouth is tight and his eyes are myopic, slitted, as though constricted into a single-minded comprehension. Then he speaks: “I wish to God you could just once get through a simple accident without turning into a martyr.” He is furious with her. She lays her head on the table again and we watch her shoulders shake. There is nothing we can ever do to help her. Aunt May strokes her hair and nobody is looking at Neil.

  “For God’s sake, Grace,” he says, “get hold of yourself. If you keep this up, one of the girls here is going to have to offer up a fur coat or something.” He rears back his head and drinks, looking down the pitch of his mobile thin nose, and it seems he is inwardly imitating a mirthless laughter for us to see. He glances around, ashamed of nothing, while each of us feels mortified, stripped naked before him and each other.

  “Momma gave me that coat because she’s giving you the down payment on your house,” Aunt Rachel says to Aunt Grace. “How greedy can you get!”

  “I don’t care about the coat,” Aunt Grace says, while her face is still covered by her disordered hair. “It’s not that.”

  “If it isn’t, you sure as hell ought to start getting your stories straight, sister. Makes me look like some kind of liar. Or jackass.” Neil says that as quiet as truth.

  The rivalry among us is contagious, in our blood, perhaps, as Neil says. Now he sits back to watch. The women forget all about the dishes.

  Aunt Grace shakes back her hair and her eyes flash so that we feel the heat, though she speaks to Aunt Rachel. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. The whole town knows. A married man! But when has that ever stopped you? Hot little dancing girl.” Aunt Grace hates Aunt Rachel suddenly, and her voice is clogged and nasal. “Same old thing all over again. Well, you won’t have to worry about me much longer. I’m sick, I tell you. Sick.” Her sobbing sounds like someone throwing up.

  Aunt Rachel hangs her head as though she deserves this abuse. We think of her hasty marriage. Rossie and her divorce. Ever so long ago. We do not understand. Now she teaches ballroom dancing at a local studio. What shame twists her hands in her lap?

  This time Aunt Libby flies in to protect Aunt Rachel. “I won’t hear it, goddamn it, I won’t. You don’t like the way things are, well, I won’t listen to your bellyaching. You turned Tom Buck down flat after you’d strung him along. Turns out you’re not so proud.” She looks at Neil—when roused, his rank match in scorn. “Neither of them’s worth shit, far as I can see.”

  Neil tips his hat to her, making a tsk-tsk sound, then slides the brim lower to enhance the wicked pleasure of getting just what he wants. He often wears a hat, playacting with it, sometimes one of Gram’s with a stiff netted veil, or a visor which makes him resemble the croupier at a gaming table. He can play all the parts. Aunt Grace gets up from the table and goes to stand at the back door, looking into the dark. In the quiet we hear the crickets.

  “Don’t be so hard,” Aunt May says. “Grace doesn’t really mean that. She’s tired and under a strain.”

  “We know that,” Aunt Elinor says. “All the same, it’s resentment and envy. Self-pity. You have such great blessings, Grace,” and she smiles at us, thinking to make everybody grateful with a reminder.

  Aunt Grace speaks then with her back turned, wistful and repentant. Sorrowful. “It’s not Tom. Or you, Rachel. Nothing you’ve done, or even money. It’s kind of a feeling of being left out and alone and sometimes it seems as if Momma’s turned against me. Half the time I’m living back here, doing most of the work. I don’t blame you girls; it’s always been that way. As if, if I didn’t work I couldn’t stay. And now I wonder if I’ll ever have a chance to live in that house now that we’ve got it, or enjoy any of the other things I’ve wanted.” With her half smile and her arms raised with empty hands, she turns to look at her sisters, shrugs and says, “I’m awfully nervous.”

  Then even Aunt Libby stays quiet, though she had seemed about to interrupt when the subject of housework came up, a quarrel between her and Aunt Grace we had often heard. Neil tells us privately, from the days when he had been a time and motion analyst for a large manufacturing company, that Aunt Libby performs motions below a level yet to be measurable, sophisticated calibration notwithstanding. Aunt Grace has finished speaking and returns to the table, staring at her folded arms, so thin that the knobs of her elbows seem almost to pierce the skin; her true-black hair, skin shadowed darker by her lowered head, the taut stretched eyelids, give her the stolid look of a half-breed, as if she is in fact only partly related to the rest of them. “I’m sorry, Rachel,” she says. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “By God, sister,” Neil says. “You ought to be able to do better than that. I thought that at least I’d picked the one of you that might not be altogether a sniveling momma’s baby.”

  “You bastard.” Aunt Rachel speaks for herself now. “Let her alone and shut up.” She continues to glare at Neil, a look set enough to last forever, which becomes clear to him and he does not take her dare but snorts, slaps his knee and changes his mood like a wizard. “Hot dog!” he says, and goes on doing the talking then, fast and not waiting for any responses, as though he’s on the stage or spinning yarns by a campfire. He says he doesn’t think there is anything in the world half so invigorating, or grotesque for that matter, as the female of the species in her native habitat. He is surely glad his little daughters can be there to observe and learn, though neither of them has a snowball’s chance in hell; already the air they breathe is treacherous, contaminated with greed, self-pity and the stench of a petty vanity. Puts him in mind of a mule skinner he’d known when he was out in the West, that fellow himself part weasel and part snake. “Once a dude come up to him and asked him for the meanest, sorriest nag on the string. ‘You cain’t have her right now,’ he said. ‘She’s a-washin’ the dishes.’ ” To Neil we are all horses, skittish, apt to catch our death in a draft.

  Neil goes on recounting his adventures in the West, how as a cowboy he learned early that if there was anything
more disappointing than humankind it was Equus caballus—that on a Saturday night the stench of horseflesh was pretty much just exchanged for another, only this time you had to pay. The sisters ignore him, bustle about, circling around each other in weaving patterns, almost a formal dance figure, their loose dresses and hair like streamers as they pile the dishes and wipe the table and counters. They make Aunt Grace sit still; they say again they have been horribly thoughtless, allowing her to carry the whole burden. Aunt Rachel refills Aunt Grace’s tea-cup, one of the fine rose china cups from the dining room buffet and Aunt Grace lays her hand, bony, with thick-corded veins, on Aunt Rachel’s rounded plump one. They sit that way, the trouble between them settled.

  Beyond the screen, across the drive, is the rustling orchard, the trees there bent close, entwined in the heavy scent and fester of ripening apples and furrowed earth where the horses tramp. Neil has stopped paying attention. Then he looks at Aunt Grace and takes one of the curls that hang by her throat and cones it over his finger, where it makes a netted veiling. With that touch she trembles and returns his look, her eyes sad. His are humorous, gentle even, as he asks her has she taken to dosing herself with belladonna—her pupils dilated like that. And that word and some love showing in his eyes affects her. Her face loses its despairing drained look and she smiles back a little, saying that there is poison enough as it is in the air we breathe. Then she sends us away, only now really aware that we have been there and seen and heard them—out into the yard, where, she says, in the fresh evening air we will be happy and can wish on stars. Although we are running down the porch steps, released, we can still hear Neil’s voice: “God forbid they should ever have to face things just the way they are.” Then his embittered laugh. “ ‘What is truth?”’ he asks. “You see, Ellie, you aren’t the only one who reads the Bible.” After that their voices fall low, soft and intimate, and only sometimes does something of their laughter reach us, penetrating the obliviousness which we find in the fantastic dark.