Requiem by Fire

by Wayne Caldwell

  “Thomas,” said Aunt Mary, “keep that tea coming. Folks, here goes.”

  Dear Aunt Mary,

  Yrs of the 29th in hand, for which thanks. It doesn’t seem two years since we left our beloved Cataloochee. I like it here except for summer, which is too blooming hot. A sizeable number of Yankees work for the government; you wouldn’t think the State of North Carolina would have that many in the first place, then turn around and put them to doing “official” work to boot, but…

  We are getting ready for politics, as I am sure you are in Cataloochee. Do you still vote before the other precincts? As a girl I was so proud when our votes (all Democratic) were counted a few minutes after midnight and couriered to Waynesville to be certified at six A.M. Fayetteville Street is awash in gay red, white, and blue banners and patriotic posters. Oliver is running for mayor. He says anyone demonstrating physical responsibility in this day and age will be elected. Then he’d love to be governor if things work out right.

  “I’d like to see him mayor of a big city,” said Silas, “even if he did work for them varmints.”

  “Can you imagine if he made a governor?” asked Manson.

  “Mayor’s one thing. Governor’s a whole ’nother,” said Levi Marion, glancing toward his children, two of whom suddenly seemed too sleepy to sit on a porch railing. “They’ve been few and far between from the mountains.”

  “Let’s see,” said Silas. “Swain was before my time, but he was from Asheville. Vance during the war. Locke Craig about twenty years ago. Anybody else?”

  “Wasn’t there a Caldwell right after the war?” asked Manson.

  “Hell,” snorted Silas, “he was a no-count Republican.” He tamped his pipe and laughed softly. “You know, it’s funny, but we all plumb forgot Oliver’s a sandlapper. He just married a mountaineer. And I think Mary wants our attention. Beg pardon, Mary.”

  Thomas refilled her glass as she cleared her throat and started her namesake’s photo around the porch.

  Our little Mary just turned one, and a sweeter dispositioned child you’d never want to meet. She slept nights from two months. Brown curls and blue eyes (her eyelashes are longer than mine!) guarantee she will make friends everywhere. I will never cease to pray she will survive to adulthood. So many babies in Cataloochee never did.

  Aunt Mary, I remember you saying when you go to heaven you want to rock the little babies that die. If there ever was comfort in such a death it would be to know women like you stand by at the celestial gates. Still, I hope it will be years and years before you join them.

  “I give that a hearty Amen,” said Thomas. The crowd echoed that and raised their glasses to Aunt Mary. Ruth Elizabeth jerked awake on the railing and glanced sheepishly to see if anyone noticed she’d been asleep.

  “Thank you, you all,” said Aunt Mary. “I ain’t planning to leave here anytime soon.”

  I bet it’s different there these days, isn’t it? I know the Bankses are gone. I keep up with Mattie, and they seem settled in Saunook. Mattie and Hannah and Rachel sell quilts to tourists, not a living exactly, but it puts “butter and egg money” in their pockets. Seems not all that long ago we were such a cozy little community. Then the park shattered the calm.

  Then the crash. There are people here who lost everything. As Oliver says, we didn’t have much to lose, so we haven’t suffered extremely. He thinks things will be normal next year at the latest, especially if the Democrats regain the White House.

  I know Cataloochee folks are at least eating well. It isn’t like down here, where you need money every time you turn around. Up there you could go forever without spending much of it. I’ve told Oliver that if times get really hard, we’ll move home, make a garden, and raise some hogs. I miss the homeplace, such a scene of good times, something fierce. I’d love to see Mama’s daffodils bloom once more.

  “Wouldn’t Oliver Babcock raising hogs be a sight?” asked Silas, lighting his pipe.

  Levi Marion laughed. “The boy nearly fell into my hog pen one time, shiny shoes, suit, and all. For a fact, I’d like to see him plow behind a mule.”

  “Necessity drives us,” said Mary. “I’d not make fun if I were you. No telling what God will visit on us in His good time.”

  “But, Aunt Mary, admit it—Oliver laying a furrow would be worth standing in line to watch,” said Silas.

  “It’s a fact, but I bet he could if he put his mind to it.”

  “He’d need some down-east plow stock. A homegrown Haywood County mule couldn’t understand him,” Manson said, and laughed.

  Ruth Elizabeth had fallen back asleep, and her brother had followed suit. Aunt Mary crinkled the letter by way of reclaiming the adults’ attention.

  Is anybody left on Little Cataloochee? I heard Uncle Cash Davis moved in with his niece in Dellwood and died not a month after. I never knew man or woman who loved Cataloochee more than him, except maybe my mother, and the same thing happened to her. The doctor said it was a stroke, but I know it was a broken heart. Stay as long as you can, Aunt Mary.

  Mary coughed and nearly choked on a swig of tea.

  Manson had been dozing but sprang toward her rocker. “You all right, Mama?”

  “Of course, Son. I just had a frog in my throat. Now let me finish.”

  Do you still sew with your old Burdick? Hannah uses hers every day. I’d hate to see how many miles of thread has wound through those shuttles. Who is left on Big Cataloochee? Does Uncle Silas still live at “the head of the holler”? Give my love to him (and everybody else).

  Did Mr. Harrogate come back? Last I heard he was in Tennessee. A mystery, that man was, coming and going like a streetcar. He’d stop and say howdy on his way to and from Cosby, first with that big chow dog, then by himself. I blush to say he flirted with me once, but I figured a woman couldn’t trust him.

  Valerie yelled “Ruth Elizabeth” as her eight-year-old fell backward into a boxwood. The girl hit like a stiff rag doll, breaking a limb off the evergreen. “Baby, are you all right?”

  Thomas leapt the railing and picked Ruth Elizabeth up. She rubbed dirt from her elbow but suffered more from embarrassment than trauma. “Cousin Manson, I’m dandy,” she said as he set her on her feet.

  He picked sticks and leaves from her cotton pinafore. “Honey, it’s a fact, you are dandy, and you smell like Christmas, too,” he said.

  “She looks like the dickens,” said Valerie. “Honey, sit with Mama. I don’t want you falling again. Sorry about your bushes, Aunt Mary.”

  “These things happen, child. I’m just glad she didn’t break anything of hers.” She winked at Ruth Elizabeth, who settled between her parents. “Least you didn’t name her Eutychus. You’d have needed Saint Paul instead of my Thomas.”

  “Who’s that, Aunt Mary?” asked Ruth Elizabeth.

  “A boy who fell out a third-story window when Paul was preaching. Liked to have killed him, but you’re in good shape, dear. Now, then, back to the letter.”

  Oh, I was going to tell you something of our life here. When we left, I hadn’t any idea what to expect, just a Cataloochee girl, hardly ever out of Mother’s sight. Imagine my big-eyed wonder at this area. Nearly three hundred thousand people live within thirty or forty miles. Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill all have universities—Mr. Duke’s is brand-new and kind of raw-looking, the other two are old and stately—and libraries and concert halls. You could go to a play, a concert, or an art exhibition every weekend.

  “Bet they don’t have turkey shoots,” said Levi Marion.

  “Is that where Rass wants to go?” piped Ruth Elizabeth. Her hair curled, promising rain soon.

  “Yes, dear,” said Valerie, picking a boxwood leaf from her daughter’s hair. “He plans to go to the university in Chapel Hill after he finishes high school. He could eat with Oliver and Velda every now and then. Keep him from being homesick,” said Valerie.

  “Not to mention starving to death,” said Levi Marion.

  “I don’t want Rass to die,” said Ruth El
izabeth.

  “Honey, Daddy didn’t mean it like that. It’s a figure of speech.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Child, hush and let Aunt Mary finish,” said Valerie.

  The best is the state fair in October. Lordy, what a place! They moved it to a brand-new fairground in 1928, so modern and beautiful. There’s every kind of chicken you could imagine, jams and jellies, cattle and horses, tractors and combines, rides like the Tilt-A-Whirl and Ferris wheel and merry-go-round. If you ate just a bite of everything they sell, you’d have the bellyache for a week. The Raleigh churches, too, all have “eating booths,” where you can find the most divine things, all homemade and so good. Toward the end of the midway are some risky shows that Oliver and I wouldn’t go to for love nor money. (Least I best not catch him slipping in there!)

  “Mama, what does Cousin Velda mean by risky?” asked Ruth Elizabeth.

  Valerie smoothed the left side of Ruth Elizabeth’s hair. “It means—well, it means some shows aren’t nice.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Tell her about the hootchy-kootchy, Mama.” Levi Marion chuckled. “There’s figures there, by Nellie, but maybe not figures of speech.”

  “I’ll do no such thing,” she said, and slapped her husband’s shoulder. “Ruth Elizabeth, you ask too many questions. Aunt Velda is talking about women dancing on a stage, that’s all.”

  “Then they’re not Baptists,” the girl said, nodding her head with conviction.

  “Who?”

  “The women. If they’re dancing, they’re not Baptists!”

  “I reckon you could say that,” Levi Marion said, laughing. “Now let Aunt Mary finish. I’d like to hear the rest before milking time.”

  Mary glanced at Ruth Elizabeth. “See, child, it never hurts to ask questions.”

  We don’t go out much—he’s too busy with his law practice and politics—but we always go to the fair.

  We live in a nice apartment between State College and the fairgrounds, just off Hillsborough Street, not country but not city, either. When the market crashed, Oliver thought we might lose the apartment, but lawyers seem to do all right no matter what. My wringer washing machine almost makes it fun to do diapers—sure beats boiling them in a kettle outside—and our radio picks up the farthest stations at night. We both like WWVA in West Virginia. Do you have electricity in Cataloochee yet? When you do, get a plug-in radio—it’s the most comfort on a lonesome night, and you don’t worry about nursing a battery.

  I suppose you will think me spoiled, but a woman cleans our apartment every two weeks. Bessie is such a dear. Negroes here aren’t like those in the mountains, at least any I ever heard about—not that I ever knew any. When money got tight, Oliver wanted to let her go, but I said Bessie was so fine we simply couldn’t. It’s a struggle, but she has four children and a layabout husband. She might be black as the ace of spades but we’re both women in God’s eyes, and I refuse to be a party to making children hungry.

  Aunt Mary looked over the tops of her eyeglasses at her audience. “Well,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “It’s a different world, isn’t it?”

  Silas relit his pipe. “Lots of things is. Everybody’s got problems, black and white. Just because there ain’t niggers here don’t mean they ain’t people, like some want you to believe.”

  “Why, Silas, you sound like the Yankees that used to board here,” said Aunt Mary.

  He peered through a halo of tobacco smoke. “I ain’t no damn Yankee. It’s just that hard times make you realize people is people. One was to come through here, I’d share my table with him, and you all would, too. But that don’t mean I want him marrying my daughter.”

  “Amen, brother,” said Levi Marion. “Read on, Aunt Mary.”

  Oliver says politicians need to be either Presbyterians or Baptists, and loads more Baptists vote, so we joined the big Baptist church downtown. It has the prettiest steeple, and you could put everybody in both Cataloochees in the front corner and still have room to seat a circus.

  I miss the church at Ola, though. You always knew everybody, and Preacher Noland was on the same level with you. Down here the pulpit is in a tower. I remember Preacher Noland’s sermon the Sunday after Ezra was buried, about transplanting people to new ground. He said some would thrive—but some wouldn’t survive—(remember how he used to rhyme when he’d get going?) and he was right. Mama’s soul did not take root in this red clay ground. I miss her daily.

  She’s been gone a year now. Doesn’t seem possible. Take a good whiff of mountain air, Aunt Mary. Mama would sigh in this heat and say she’d give a fortune for one breath of cool Cataloochee air.

  Oliver used to be a string bean, but he’s getting some meat on his bones. If I could just tame that hoi toide accent—sometimes even I can’t understand him when he gets worked up about something. He’s right now excited about the Carolina football team. Last year they lost but one game, and he has high hopes for an undefeated season this year. No matter what folks say, he says Carolina means football and always will. The basketball team—they don’t even call them Tar Heels, but “White Phantoms”—look silly running around in their little shorts.

  Come see us in October, Aunt Mary. We’ll take you to the fair. I can see you oohing and aahing over every chicken. I’m serious. We’ll meet you at the train station and put you up—we have a small but lovely guest room—and show you the town!

  Give my love to all. And wish Oliver luck in the election!

  “Can we go to the fair?” asked Ruth Elizabeth.

  “Honey, we don’t have the money,” said Valerie. “Besides, it’s a long way.”

  “But Cousin Velda wants us to,” she protested.

  “Maybe someday,” her mother said. “Meantime it’s getting toward suppertime. Thank Aunt Mary for reading to us.”

  Ruth Elizabeth hugged Aunt Mary. “Thank you,” she said. “I ’specially liked the part about the hootchy-kootch.”

  Aunt Mary handed her four hard candies wrapped in cellophane. “There’s one for each of you. Save these until after supper, young lady. Promise me.”

  Ruth Elizabeth put them into her apron pocket and raised her hand like a Boy Scout. “I promise, Aunt Mary. I love you.” She ran to catch up with her family.

  “Bless her little heart,” said Aunt Mary. “I hate for the young ones to learn about life. But I reckon they have to. Manson, what’s for supper?”

  CHAPTER 14

  Vast Outdoor Playground

  Cataloochans who moved were generally of two kinds—older folks who bought farms with their settlement money, and younger people who purchased modest homes and worked at the paper mill in Canton, or learned a trade. The farmers tried to replicate the old life, and were as successful as soil and energy would allow. The others missed farming enough to grow enormous kitchen gardens at the back of the house and to fool with a few head of cattle on a leased pasture.

  Some, like Zeb Banks and Jake Carter, started in one direction and finished in another. They had gone together to buy an orchard west of Hazelwood, near Saunook, a settlement with electric lights, telephones, and stores. It was sold to them as an “established” concern, but its former owners had fallen on hard times even before the nation had, and the orchard needed a lot of work. The fall of 1929 and the following spring the Bankses and Carters worked hard, grafting, fertilizing, and budding the old trees, and actually made a decent crop in the fall of 1930.

  Zeb had settled with the commission before Oliver had left for Raleigh—in fact, his money made the down payment on the orchard, while Jake guaranteed the balance with a note, while he held out for a better offer. To Jake’s mind, his gravity system, with its reservoir of sweet water, had made his property worth an extra ten dollars an acre. But Horace Wakefield had shown him the evaluation form, where, on the line marked “water,” he could only check yes or no. He’d sent Jake a postcard from the Asheville office in mid-November saying his settlement was ready. Jake had written that
he would pick it up Friday the twentieth.

  Zeb’s mother, Hannah, had inherited Ezra Banks’s Model T Ford when Ezra was killed, and had tried to give the car to Zeb, who would have none of it. So she gave it to Jake. He figured to trade it on a new automobile after his settlement, but until then it was walk, catch the bus, ride a horse, or drive the old flivver. Jake and Zeb decided on one last road trip to Asheville.

  They left Saunook about four Friday morning. Patched a tire in Hazelwood, and took on some store-bought coffee to go with their bag of fried apple pies. The rest of their journey was, except for seven stray hogs in the road at Turnpike, uneventful. They crossed the French Broad about eight, drove up Clingman Avenue, and chugged to the middle of town via Patton Avenue, marveling at the changes.

  They drove on the right, careful not to encroach on the bricked middle, where streetcar tracks ran like arrows. They passed Efird’s, and the Man Store at the corner of Lexington, across the street from the shiny new Kress building, five overblown stories faced with gleaming terracotta. Streetcars clanked and buzzed their way to and from the square, disgorging and gobbling passengers like noisy robots. People scurried everywhere. Jake thought himself lucky not to have to put on collar and tie every morning and go to town and count whatever these poor devils were paid to count.

  At the square they turned left in front of the Vance Monument, bouncing over streetcar tracks onto Broadway, and parked in front of a furniture store just past the six-story Langren Hotel. Zeb emerged from the car and stamped his foot. “Dern thing went to sleep on me.”

  “Looks like furniture row,” Jake said, surveying the block. Stores named Susquehanna, Sluder’s, Kincaid-Swain, Donald & Donald, and—behind brand-new terra-cotta—J. L. Smathers & Sons promised everything a man could need for a home. He pointed to Tingle’s Café. “I wouldn’t mind tingling a little.”