Requiem by Fire

by Wayne Caldwell

  After his eyes were used to dark again, he looked to the zenith, but saw only evidence of the unceasing revolution of the heavens. No billboards. No guideposts. No comfort save that life would continue. He stood unsteadily in the yard a long, long time.

  CHAPTER 31

  Say It Isn’t So

  Twelve years out of high school, Nell Hawkins was stumped by a subjunctive. She should not have been. After what had seemed months of her teacher’s drill and lecture, Nell had understood the rules surrounding the contrary-to-fact statement. Her colleagues, however, scratched their heads and wondered, Why not say “If it was,” instead of “If it were”? Why did a simple “if” demand a plural verb follow a singular subject?

  Mrs. Kramer, a tall woman with hair like a hornet’s nest, demanded both exemplary conduct and impeccable grammar. Her best example of proper subjunctive was biblical. “In the good book,” she said, clasping a grammar to her breast like a shield against interloping sin, “in the fourteenth chapter of John, Jesus told His disciples He was going to prepare a place for them. His very words, His ipsissima verba: ‘If it were not so, I would have told you.’ Jesus, dear students, was perfect. He could not say ‘If it was not so.’ We must emulate the Savior in all ways, including grammar.”

  Nell had been a good grammarian and had even loved to diagram sentences. She never split infinitives, dangled participles, or spliced sentences with commas. But, a dozen years past high school and eight into the rocky rapids of marriage, she was no longer sure about rules. “If you weren’t so stubborn” sounds better than “if you wasn’t,” but I’ve listened to these people so long I swear I don’t remember which is proper.

  For weeks she had been composing a letter to Jim. She figured she would need paper to anchor her thoughts, but so far the effort had failed. She’d write a page or two, then put them in her drawer and stew about what she had scribbled. Throw them into the fireplace and start anew. After wearing out two nibs, she started drafts in pencil, figuring to make a fair copy in pen when it was perfect.

  Jim had taken the children to Silas’s house to help clean out a shed, so she had time to herself. She wrote a few minutes, consigned another page to the fire, and went to the window. Leaves blew through the yard like wraiths bound for a rendezvous. The cold creekside wash pot reminded her that Monday, like a drunken relative, would soon come reeling home from the weekend. She hugged herself and sighed.

  Why can’t I simply tell him? Sit down like civilized people in the front room, then be done with it, get up, walk out, go home. Home, that has electricity and telephones and doctors. Home, where there are motion picture shows and soda fountains. Home, where my children and I belong.

  A long time since we sang about the big rock candy mountain. It was going to be such a picnic here, but he never told me how much work it would be.

  He never said how much work it would be to love him, either. Oh, at first it was heavenly, the loving, I mean, the physical kind. I blush to think how many times and ways we’ve made whoopie.

  That kind of loving is the easiest thing in the world, and those first months flew by, days with sunshine, nights with too many stars to begin to count. We’d lie on a blanket in the hay field, little Mack asleep on one corner, Jim snuggling me. He’d tell me names of constellations and show me planets and stars and rub my tightening tummy and tell me everything was going to be great. A summer to remember.

  But the other kind of loving—the being in love, not the making of love—is tested when things aren’t going right. Especially when one party doesn’t see that’s the case. Jim’s so stubborn. He really thinks he’s living in some Garden of Eden, Shangri-La, fairy-tale country. He can’t see through his rose-colored glasses what this godforsaken place does to me. I feel myself getting older every day. He tells me, “Honey, give it a chance. You’ll see.” I have. And I never will.

  I stayed the first night because I felt I was doing my duty. The right thing. After all, Jim was my husband, and we were set on making a good life together. I’d never seen such a desolate place nor such a ramshackle house except in the poorest parts. But I really thought I could stand anything so long as I was with him. When you’re first in love, you don’t have the sense God gave a goose, Mother says.

  I mean, look at me. Never built a fire. Never cooked a whole meal by myself. Hadn’t used an outhouse in years. Home held a wringer washer, telephone, central heat, an icebox. Here I was young, pregnant, the soul of optimism. I thought I had strength and savvy to, initially, live here and be Jim’s wife forever. When I despaired of that, I had to make him see we must leave.

  That night, God, I remember like it was yesterday, the first time I really defied Mother, which, to tell the truth, felt pretty good. Somehow the combination of being itchy crazy for a man and wanting to live on my own, away from Mother’s special lunacy, was powerful. I felt like a heroine on the moor, a rebel, free, being someone.

  That was before I knew the difference between potato plants and poke-weed. I admit I have learned much in the last few years, thanks to Jim and Aunt Mary. When to plant beans, where to find guinea eggs, how to make bread. The difference between green locust and dry poplar, poison oak and creeper, garter snakes and copperheads, trout and hornyheads.

  What a great big deal. I also know how to lie awake and grind my teeth. How to be lonesome when people are around. How to hide it from the children. And the ache in my heart! I miss nearly everything. Even Mother. Especially her. I see now how deeply I hurt her. For that I am sorry. Mother is, as she says, “too delicate for the slings and arrows of this world.” Sure, that’s her big Elizabeth-an drama, but she is china doll fragile. I should not have wronged her.

  Jim says I’m just like her sometimes—not only my looks but how I talk, the way I walk. One time he said he should have run the other way the first time he saw us together. Maybe he should have…. I’m between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, I am scared, because I don’t want to inherit her nervous breakdowns. But she is my mother, and deep down she has nothing but good intentions for us. Bless her heart. She will forgive me for hurting her.

  I have told Jim how I feel. Pled with him to find another job. He’s selective in his hearing, and I’m like a radio he can turn down, or off. He’ll not suddenly understand, come to his senses, and take us away. I’m going to have to leave. It will hurt him. Perhaps given enough time he can forgive me.

  Wait. What about my hurt, my anger? I mean, he will not bring me safe and sound to a place where I can be comfortable and loved. He will not see he owes me that to save his soul. So I suppose forgiving’s for us both.

  I wonder what “forgive” means. Not “forget,” for I will never forget these lonely days of mindless work, nor, for that matter, our good times. Something like “to pardon.” Just say “It’s okay” and never bring it up again. Or as Preacher Smith said a few weeks ago, losing your anger in the pardoning of the wrong.

  Mrs. Kramer’s highest authorities were Pope, Shakespeare, and Jesus. Let’s see. Pope said, “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” So maybe it’s not for me to do.

  I memorized King Lear’s last speech to Cordelia:

  When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,

  And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,

  And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

  At gilded butterflies…

  Rats, I have forgotten the rest. Poetry is pretty, but I don’t know it helps, except to say all will be well if we both ask. I’ve asked the right questions until I’m blue in the face. He hasn’t. It’s enough to make you scream.

  Jesus is a whole ’nother kind of authority. Best I remember, He didn’t say much about forgiving, but sure did a lot of it, even for the soldiers and thieves. I know one thing, I’m not Jesus.

  She laid another stick of wood in the range and sat at the table. Had she seen the mouse run the baseboard behind the wood box, she would have shrieked. Removing a sheaf of folded paper from her apron pocket, sh
e smoothed it on the tabletop. The paper sounded as soft as vellum, but in the silent house even that was too much racket. She wanted the chatter of company to drown her thoughts.

  A year ago Jim had bought a record player, a Sears contraption standing on squat cabriole legs. She went to the front room and lifted its lid. Jim had left “Papa’s Billy Goat” on the turntable, but Nell had never warmed to that. She decided to play instead “I’m Looking over a Four-Leaf Clover.”

  When tinny clarinets and saxophones blared from the cabinet, she tried to dance, but fox-trot by herself was no fun. Searching through her odd collection of records, she saw she was in no mood for Cole Porter or the Carter family. In the distance she heard a crow. She decided to try Rudy Vallee.

  She cranked the phonograph and set the needle on the seventy-eight. An oscillating scratch led into a song that made her shake her head and smile at the same time. Hugging herself and swaying, she tried not to pay attention to the lyrics.

  People say that you found somebody new

  and it won’t be long before you leave me.

  Say it isn’t true.

  Suddenly she wept as if she might turn inside out. Before she found her lace-trimmed handkerchief, tears wet her dress front. Blowing her nose and wiping her eyes, she walked back to the kitchen and put her hand on the counter as if it might sweep her to a place free from pain.

  As her vision cleared, she noticed something stood as still as a stone beside the barn. Nell strained to focus on a doe staring intently at the house, as if trying to decide whether to cross the yard or head back up the mountain. Neither sleek nor fat, she carried her head as high and as proud as a lion.

  A smaller, spindly, spotted version of its mother, not nearly as still as its parent, appeared. Nell thought she saw the doe snort disapproval. He’s so cute! And she’s—“regal” is a word I never would have associated with deer, but there is a noble cast to her countenance. I wonder—there’s a bag of field corn in the shed. I wonder if I dare see if they’ll come to me? Maybe if I go out front, I can reach the shed without spooking them.

  She tiptoed through the house, afraid every squeak would frighten them. The front door hinge for once did not squeal, but the screen door spring stretched loud enough to wake the dead. She shut the door as slowly and quietly as she knew how.

  It took her what she thought was forever to descend the steps without racket. When her feet hit the ground, she hurried to the corner of the house and peered toward the barn. The animals still stood.

  When Nell stepped toward the shed, the creatures looked at her for what seemed two or three seconds, then turned and with flashes of white made for the top of the mountain as if pursued by a bear.

  In the shed she found four ears of corn. She laid them in what she surmised to be the animals’ path to the creek. If I’m going to stay a few more days, I want to see those beautiful animals again.

  She ambled back and looked toward the mountaintop. They’re so camouflaged I could stare for hours and never see them. They know how. I don’t. I’ve always stuck out here, like a sore thumb. She walked to the porch and turned toward the mountainside, hugging the thin porch column. She sighed. They’re coming home. And, you know, so am I. She brightened as if lit by a phosphorous match. So am I. Those creatures are a sign. So am I.

  Inside, her letter lay on the kitchen table like an accusation. She read it in silence, occasionally biting her lower lip. Sighing, she laid it down and poured a glass of water. She twisted her wedding band with her right hand, then sat and absently curled a strand of hair. I think it’s finished. In fact, I know it is. Question is, am I going to leave it for him? It likely won’t do any good. He’ll read “when I go home” in that first paragraph and go off like a Roman candle. Home. I’m going to take my precious angels home in a few days. Make the arrangements with Mother and let them take us all in.

  She stacked the paper, threw it into the firebox, replaced the eye, and carried in enough stove wood to finish supper. In fifteen minutes she was startled by Mack and Little Elizabeth running into the kitchen.

  “Mommy, Mommy, lookit what Uncle Silas gave us!” shouted Mack. Her son held a piece of a singletree, and her daughter shyly carried a red tomato-shaped pincushion. Jim arrived behind them with a narrow smile.

  “That’s nice, Mack,” she said. “What is it?” She knelt to examine the broken implement, a piece of chain dangling from one end.

  “Uncle Silas says it’s a bonker,” said Mack. “I can bonk things with it.”

  “Not Mommy or Daddy or Sister. Little Elizabeth, that’s a pretty pincushion. Did Uncle Silas take out the sharp pins and needles?”

  Little Elizabeth nodded and handed it to Nell, who rubbed it to make sure.

  “What’s with the corn?” asked Jim.

  “I saw a doe and a fawn. I thought they might come back.”

  Jim laughed quietly. “Only thing that’ll come back for that is a possum or a coon. I’ll put it back after awhile.”

  “Jim, I’d really love to see those deer again.”

  “About the only time you see them is when they want you to. I’ve hunted for days without seeing one, although I knew they were all around me. What’s for supper?”

  “Chicken, potatoes. I think there’s beans. You all need to help me get it ready. Children, wash your hands and faces. Little Elizabeth, you look like the Little Match Girl. Jim, hand me some potatoes to peel and build up the fire.”

  When Jim lifted the stove lid, he saw ghosts of penciled words in the center of a charred stack of paper. “Home,” in capital letters, underlined. Likely another plea from Elizabeth for Nell to leave. He said nothing, but hoped Nell was standing up to her mother again.

  CHAPTER 32

  Holocaust

  Jim had not seen hide nor hair of McPeters in a month. No fires, no footprints, nothing. When Nell ventured outside, she kept the .32 in her apron pocket, so Mack and Little Elizabeth played under the eye of an armed guard. Stray noises spooked the children, and Mack had several times awakened screaming about a mean old booger man with a gun. Even the dogs seemed jumpy.

  When Jim left the place, he felt antsy, uneasy. For that matter, he felt that way at home. A testy peace had settled there, but he had about as much use for it as a lace doily. Nell had grown moody and irritable, and he had begun almost to wish she would do whatever she needed to do.

  One afternoon he rode home and put the horse in the barn. He walked out to see Nell, suitcase in hand, step off the dogtrot toward the car. Something caught in his throat. “Well, hell, it’s finally here,” he said. Leaning against the barn entrance, he watched Nell carry another satchel to the Ford. He spat in the dirt and shook his head. “No sense in putting it off, I reckon,” he said, and started a slow stride toward the house. Nell emerged with another bag. “Where you going, sweetheart?” he asked.

  Her green eyes broadcast a humor halfway between choler and melancholy. “Home.”

  “Daddy’s here,” yelled Mack as he ran out the front room door and leapt off the step.

  “Little Mack Truck,” shouted Jim, who caught and swung his son around. “Man, you’re growing. Soon I won’t even be able to pick you up.” He looked at Nell. “Home,” he said flatly.

  Her gaze fell. “Don’t, Jim. Please, not now.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. Just not now.”

  Jim set Mack on the porch. “Tell you what, little man. Where’s your sister?”

  Mack frowned. “She’s inside playing house or something stupid.”

  Jim smiled at his son. “Why don’t you help your sister so me and Mama can talk?”

  “Okay, Daddy,” he sighed. They ritually touched hands like prizefighters before a bout. “Twenty-three skiddoo.”

  Jim stood as Mack closed the door. A mockingbird trilled somewhere behind him. He looked at his wife, who, despite seeming to have been asleep when he went to bed the night before, looked like she had not rested at all. His voice was calm. “Not where,
then. When?”

  “First thing in the morning.”

  “Okay. Now I know when and where. One thing still troubles me.”

  She looked toward the road and twisted a curl at the back of her neck with her left hand, a mannerism that still drove him wild. “What?”

  “Why?”

  She stared at him. “Jim, we’ve been down this road a thousand times. Why can’t you accept it? I don’t belong here. Neither do the kids.”

  He stepped toward her. “Don’t you love me anymore?”

  She exhaled sharply. “Don’t, Jim. It isn’t fair.”

  He took off his hat and scratched his forehead. “Fair. Like it’s fair to haul off and leave?”

  “Like it’s fair to make me stay here without anybody to talk to except little old ladies so buggy they think their dead husbands follow them around? Like it’s fair to tend a sick kid half a day from a doctor? Or fair for us to dread that monster out there somewhere?”

  “What about our vows, Nell?” He reached for her hands, but she hid them behind her back as quick as lightning. “Something about richer and poorer—sickness and health—from this day forward, till death do us part. That don’t mean from this day eight years. It means forever.”

  She looked at the door behind which she imagined the children listening intently. “Come over here,” she said softly, covering her chest with her arms and walking toward the kitchen door, head lowered. She leaned on the door frame and looked him in the eye. “Jim, I’m not going to say this again. That language you use, about death? I die every day I’m here. Not just a day’s worth at a time, either. More like a year for every day.” Jim opened his mouth, but she laid a finger against his lips. “Let me finish. I love you. I used to love you like I couldn’t ever get enough of you. Now I love you different. Differently, I mean. See, I’m beginning to talk like you. Them.

  “Anyway, my love’s for my children, too, and I want them to have a future. A future, Jim, that doesn’t include living in this rat hole, carrying water, cowering from feebs, chopping kindling wood. Things that are making me old before my time. Look at these hands, Jim Hawkins. I’m ashamed of them. I look like I’m fifty.