I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots

by Susan Straight

  Nate and Calvin were identical twins. They looked exactly the same to everyone else, but she saw in their faces the ways they had inherited from her and Sinbad. They were completely different. Nate had tiny creases no deeper than thumbnail presses against skin beside his mouth from his smiling, boasting in syllables, moving his face. He loved to hear himself, like his father, and he raised his eyebrows in anticipation of anything.

  But Calvin walked first, planting each foot as hard as if he could hammer nails into the ground. He ran away from Nate, who screamed and dragged his knees after him. Calvin’s lips stayed pressed together in concentration, and he could carry a water-filled tomato can from the bucket to the peach tree. He wouldn’t pour the water, but he would look at the tree while Marietta laughed.

  They were one year old. At the stands, though, they were “them two.” Everyone along the highway, in the store, at the dock where they pointed to the boats, said, “Them two in my way, now,” and “Them two stubborn as they mama, heh?”

  “What time them two sleep?” Rosie asked from the doorway of the stand. Marietta sat weaving coasters, and Nate and Calvin poured sand through the slats. Marietta shrugged. “Depend.”

  Rosie raised her hands to the roof to stretch. “Huh. Children need for sleep early. Have for put em in there six, seven o’clock.”

  Now that they could walk and point and say “dog” and “duck-duck” and “Mama,” she let them wander in the yard after dinner. They held peaches with both hands, and the juice ran down their chests, streaking trails of skin through the dust they had collected. Bits of collard green, fallen from their fingers, stuck to their stomachs like stamps. She waited to give them baths until their far-ranging loops turned to smaller and smaller circles, and they practically stumbled over each other. Then, each body dunked in the washtub and gleaming black in the lamplight on the porch, she let the still-hot air dry them, brushing sparkly beads of water from their tight hair. Calvin swayed against her, Nate in her lap, both dressed for bed, and yet she didn’t carry them in.

  When they finally lay snoring in the bedroom, she sat on the porch waiting for the moon, hearing branches move and maybe thunder over the water. Sometimes she heard nothing, and she thought of the music at Frank’s, the constant chatter and singing. The only music here was the clapping and singing at the praise house, where she still wouldn’t go. She listened to the faint rustles in the trees, waiting to see the moon red or yellow, full or slivered, chalky white above the dark trees. Just like the old people where she’d hated to follow her mother for visits. She had kicked the porch boards, sullen, while they talked about the size or color of the moon, the smell of rain, the way someone had heard an alligator roar a storm warning in the swamp last night. And now, her feet hot and pounding from the day and work, she sat here, too, watching for a veil on the moon or a ring of haze.

  Aint Sister came, late. “Them two gone?” Marietta nodded. Aint Sister sat and lit her pipe. “Smoke keep skita way.”

  Marietta smiled. “Skita don’t want me. I hear you say it when I small-small. ‘Skita cluster round white folks, never light on somebody Marietta color.’ I ain’t get bit one time.”

  “You beena listen, huh?”

  “Always talk about so black. But I see now.”

  “You beena hear with child ear. Folks talk everything, talk he black, she light, he skinny, she fat. Something fe pass time.”

  Now I pass time, too, Marietta thought. She breathed the sharp match smoke.

  “Rosie hear owl call puntopa tree by she house. I too sorry that sign come.”

  “Nobody sick.”

  Aint Sister sucked her pipe. “Don matter.” The breeze touched Marietta’s neck, and smoke twisted above them. “You got bone fe cook tomorrow?”

  “Mmm-hmm, thank you,” Marietta said. “Got tomato. You want some?”

  “I like only one. Seem my stomach only crave pea and bone from the pot.”

  They sat for a long time. Marietta heard only the pop of Aint’s lips pulling in smoke from the pipestem.

  “I eighteen today. Eleven August.”

  “I know. I know all day people born.”

  “Eighteen grown. Adult.” Marietta watched the pipe glow pulse.

  “Grown what? You birthday don mean nothing. Them day you son born what you recall now.”

  “Law say eighteen grown. Just thinking.”

  Aint Sister squinted at Marietta. “You been grown two hour after you born them two. The first time you beena feed em, you grown. Adult mean you feed somebody cept yourself.” Marietta thought she was finished, but Aint said, “Ki! White man come pass by Pearl today look fe you.”

  “Who look?”

  “Man buy the land. He come by want people fe work at Pine Garden like old time, grow rice and thing fe tourist come look.”

  “He know I live here? Know me?” Marietta remembered the surprise at her belly, the little boy and his gun.

  Aint Sister shook her head. “Look fe anybody. He come get we all day-clean, talk bout pay and work.” She stood up, reached into her apron pocket. “You keep these. Belong fe my mama—you great-gran sister. October. I save them. Now belong to you.” She put two gold hoops into Marietta’s hand, circles the size of quarters. The two hoops Aint Sister wore had been in her ears so long that her lobes were pulled long and thin. “You have hole and thread when you been small-small, like Nate and Calvin. Thread fe keep hole open. If you poke, find them now.” She turned on her flashlight and swept down the lane, singing to keep away the spirits.

  Marietta poked the wires of the earrings again and again at her earlobes, and they tickled like Sinbad’s lips were there. She stopped, went into the house for a needle, and put a sweet potato behind the lobe. The needle plunged through, numbing the soft skin.

  The water sat on the dirt only a moment before it sparkled into the looseness, and Marietta poured one more bucketful around the beans. She knew if the earth glittered, like pluff mud did when a wash of ocean receded, the soil drank in the water straight to the roots of the beans. She ran back to the house to dress the boys. The white man, Mr. Ray, would be at the store soon.

  They rode in the back of his truck, as if they were going to the fields, but she and Aint Sister held the boys. Mr. Ray, his hair combed back slick so grooves showed between the strands, hadn’t recognized her at all, she could tell. He smiled widely at Nate and Calvin. Down the highway a little more than a mile, he turned into the forest.

  “Where he go?” Mary said, and they saw the old moss-greened gate that said PINE GARDENS. Rough earth was piled near it, from the new road that had been cut into the forest, and the pines pressed in tight. The truck turned in to a parking area, where a tractor stood. The road led along the creek to the old rice fields, sunken green and swampy.

  Mr. Ray got out and let down the gate, and they stepped into the cleared area—Laha’s Jerry, Willie, Big and Little Johnny, Rosie and Pinkie and Mary. Nate and Calvin began to run toward the tractor, and Marietta grabbed their arms. They whined until she picked Nate up and held Calvin’s neck in a half-circle of fingers.

  “Well, I want to start out saying I hope y’all trust me,” Mr. Ray said, facing them. “I know some of y’all were raised on this place and don’t want to see it hurt. I plan to restore the whole plantation, having working rice fields and a barnyard, put the house in order and then watch the visitors come. Now I got a historian to make everything perfect—in fact, I got photos, got one of you, Eva, when you was just a lil gal.” He smiled at Aint Sister. “But I think you’d get tuckered out too quick in the field nowadays. What I’d like is two able-body men and three of the younger women for the field, to plant, harvest, bag the rice. I’ma sell the rice at the house—call it Old Carolina Gold.” He paused. “But the main thing is to let people see how a plantation works. Now I’ma stop right here and see what you all are thinkin.”

  Big Johnny put out his cigarette on the ground. No one looked at him, because they knew he would talk. “Well, sir, I got p
eople look for my fish every day, so I too sorry say me and my boy can’t help out. But what my wife probly like to know is the pay.” Rosie ain’t get in no field, Marietta thought. Big Johnny ax for we.

  “I talked to Mr. Tally, Mr. Briggs, about the going rate and all. I pay fifteen dollars for a six-day week.” Marietta knew that what flashed in her mind raced in the others’, too—tie tomato four-dollar day, pick bean more. But he spoke again. “I know that’s only two-fifty a day, but think six days every week. Winter, too, now, cause people come and hunt. They’ll come down from New York and like so.”

  Laha’s Jerry turned to look at the road leading to the rice fields. “You use tractor for rice, sir?”

  “Naw, tractor sink in that mud. This one stuck here now. Need men to dig out them irrigation ditches, plow and do what the historian say to grow the crop right. Mr. William Thomas is the historian, drives up from Charleston every morning.” He watched Nate slide his way down Marietta’s front. “Look at him, rarin to go, huh? Well, like I said, I need two men and three gals. You, you, you,” he said, pointing at Mary, Pinkie, and Marietta. “Y’all interested?”

  “We like to discuss, sir,” Laha’s Jerry said.

  Mr. Ray smiled again. “I’m a go make a fuss bout this tractor. And my generator giving me trouble, too.” He walked up the long path toward the House.

  Big Johnny said, “Rosie, you make more fe sell basket?”

  “Rosie got you, get fish on slow day,” Pinkie said.

  “This six day a week, winter, too,” Aint Sister said.

  “Man smile too much, sweetmouth and crack he teeth,” Big Johnny said. “He gon work people hard.”

  “But somebody go work fe that buckra, yeah, somebody,” Aint Sister said harshly. “He ain hear no if people say that word. He custom fe hear yes every time.”

  “Who go in Mr. Tally and Briggs field?” Mary asked. “They come fe pick we up and get mad.”

  Laha’s Jerry said, “Uh-uh. Laha say Mr. Ray already come fe talk, and Mr. Briggs want fe use them Florida people. They talk bout them people come for season, pick tomato and thing. Keep em in that shack by the field—they stay in a hole, you tell em.”

  “Winter,” Aint Sister said. “Have money every week.”

  Marietta caught Calvin, but Nate ran to the tractor. Mr. Ray’s face made her nervous, but she thought, tie tomato, pick potato, crate em: grits, milk, sugar, laundry soap. T-shirt. Shoe for all-two. She said, “I do it. But how you watch Nate and Calvin?”

  “They sits in the stand I tell em. Bring toy. You go do it, heh?”

  Mary said, “Laha mama keep my baby like same and I go, too.”

  “My mother-in-law ain go nowhere,” Jerry said, laughing.

  “My mama tell me bout rice field,” Pinkie said. “Say that some hard work. Hard.”

  “Cain be no more hard fe winter,” Aint Sister said. “Winter don starve now.”

  They walked up the old lane, and Marietta thought her trees hadn’t seen so many people in years. A gaping hole was left by the moved gate. A man in a suit and tie, an older man with his face small under his hat, watched them come up to the House. He carried a notebook and didn’t smile like Mr. Ray.

  “Good morning,” he said, and his voice was Charleston; Marietta remembered that voice from the gated streets. “My name is Mr. Thomas, and I’d like you to pay close attention to what I have to say from now on. This will be a complicated and exacting procedure, but it needn’t be impossible if you listen carefully.” When he turned for them to follow, Mary looked at Marietta and three lines appeared in her forehead. “You are Jerry, correct?” Mr. Thomas said over his shoulder, and Jerry caught up with him.

  He looked at the notebook, got another book from the House, and as they walked around the grounds, he told them they would start on the gardens. “The rice fields cannot be planted until April, and work will begin on them in the winter. But first the azalea garden must be restored for the spring blooming season, when numerous visitors will come. February. And at that time, you’ll be finished here and you will move to the fields to prepare them.”

  The rice fields were near the wide creek. The water was slow and brown here, and when they came around the bend and saw the fields stretched out for acres, squares hazily outlined by heavy brush and trees, Mr. Thomas seemed to watch their faces. “You haven’t been here, all of you, correct?”

  Jerry shook his head. “No, sir.”

  Marietta knew everyone was thinking of the haints that roamed the land. A band of forest protected the flatland from the salt and wind of the waterway, Mr. Thomas explained, and these fields were far too extensive for Mr. Ray’s needs. “He would like only the first three rice fields cultivated, so that the visitors can look at the system. The rest of the fields are perfect for hunting, with numerous ducks and wild animals for our guests, but this means that during the ricebird season,” he looked at his notebook again, “in August and early September, you will all be engaged in shooing away the birds that might ruin the crop.”

  His voice rolled along smooth as a marble on a floor, Marietta thought, and his words, long and gently peaked in places, wound around them as they walked. She didn’t understand some of the words, but it didn’t matter. He stayed close to them at each step, pointing and bending slightly, repeating himself and consulting his pages. His gray eyes flickered like dragonflies fighting, and to hear that voice sliding-even as the creek and see the eyes moving hurriedly over them made her dizzy.

  “In former times,” Mr. Thomas said, “the task system was used on a successful basis. I believe that is what you use for the farmers in this area, correct? You are allotted a specific task to complete, in a specific time? Well, you will not be asked to work as hard as people did under that system. We would rather you worked at a slightly more leisurely pace, because it will be necessary that you arrive at eight and stay until six, when late supper is served. Our guests would like to see you working, even eating and resting, but we ask then that you remain here for lunch.”

  Marietta and Mary and Pinkie dug holes and planted a hundred azaleas around the edges of the house and paths, and Marietta watched the newly glassed windows, the two white men in work clothes who came and went inside the house, hammering and painting. Mr. Ray shouted about the lack of electrical lines and the cost of the generator. Mr. Thomas hovered over Jerry and Willie, who were building a new landing and preparing lawns for seeding.

  When Marietta walked back down the lane each night, she was silent and listening for the boys’ cries and shouts when the others paused in their talking. Aint Sister had Marietta’s doorway smelling of cowpeas and bone, and Calvin presented her with the peach pit he had carried for days, excavated from the yard and buried again. Nate touched her and ran toward the pump, chattering, “Wawa. Wawa.”

  On Sundays, she did heavy wash and cut down her own crops, leaving the field to the frost. She went to the store with the bills Mr. Ray put in her palm each Saturday evening, and after she had paid off most of her old credit with Pearl, she bought cans of beans and sardines for her lunch, crackers, and then bags of grits, flour, sugar, rice. Aint Sister said the boys ate all the time, and Marietta watched them with piles of greens, chunks of fish; they put shrimp in their mouths playfully, pretending they would chomp down on their fingers and smiling with lips closed tight around knuckles and food. Their shirts hung high on their bellies, and she bought jackets for winter.

  Mr. Thomas asked the women to wear dresses; he even brought two dresses for each woman, long-skirted and full, which he said were “historically proper, yet of more lightweight material than that commonly used during the antebellum years.” Marietta told him, “I wear a dress, but I keep my boot. Make me work better—I cain wear no shoe.” He frowned, but didn’t say anything else.

  He was right. When the first group of people arrived at the plantation in March, the azalea banks were pink and red everywhere, and the women visitors wandered about in narrow dresses and matching shoes, talking and takin
g pictures. “Look at the piazzas!” Marietta heard them say. “And the workers—did you see those hoes? This is so unique.” They looked at her boots, then smiled, smiled at her when she and the other workers walked past the house toward the rice fields, hoe handles on their shoulders. Marietta and the others made sure to smile back and nod.

  Jerry and Willie had been redigging the ditches for weeks, with Mr. Thomas standing on the banks and talking about the system of trunks. The creek wound far from the waterway by the time it reached the rice fields, but the incoming tide still pushed fresh water in to flood the fields when the trunks were opened; when they were shut, the wooden gates kept the water on the ground. Opened again, they would drain the fields. Mr. Thomas stared out over the fields for hours, but Mr. Ray only came now and then. Mostly he drove around with the men visitors, Marietta saw, showing them the fields on his way somewhere else. Jerry said they went fishing and boating on the waterway. If it was still warm when Marietta and the others stopped for Laha, they saw the visitors sitting on the lower piazza with drinks.

  Laha came to take care of the cooking and cleaning now. Mr. Ray had hired her away from Mrs. Briggs; Laha laughed and said he paid her three dollars more a week, but she felt sorry for Mrs. Briggs, and she took her daughter Willamae to Mrs. Briggs’s house and taught her how to do most of the work. On the way home, Laha told them about the rooms upstairs, the wooden floors and rugs, the kitchen. She said, “Mr. Ray like me make them old-time dish, she-crab soup and that shrimp all the time. Mrs. Ray always want salad on the table. And drink—them men be drink till sun red fe down.”

  Mr. Thomas met them one day in the yard and said, “Mr. Ray has purchased a team of oxen, at my suggestion. It will not only be more efficient for the men to plow with them, as the fields are so boggy, but it will be historically accurate. Afterwards, they will be used with a cart we’ve found to drive guests for short distances around the property.” He turned to the women. “Before I leave with the men, I will show you your duties for the next few days. You’ll be cleaning out the dependencies.”