Was

by Geoff Ryman

  “You could plant an extra crop,” said Aunty Em, one night.

  Uncle Henry was baffled by exhaustion. “What crop?”

  “Spring wheat, corn, I don’t know.”

  “Most of this land is hillside turf, Em, or it’s covered in woods. What you reckon on clearing it?”

  “We could keep hogs in the woods.”

  “We got any spare cash to buy hogs with?”

  “We would have with what fifty acres of river-bottom prime would earn anyone else.”

  “It’s not prime land, Em. Your father didn’t do too much with it either.”

  The pot slammed down as if on a head. “My father was writing the newspaper at the same time, instead of sitting around here with his boots off.”

  “So we’re back to wheat. Every year since I come, people say it’s going to be eight-row wheat, and then ’long comes the drought or the hail or the wind or the bust. This year, last year it was locusts.”

  “Such a good excuse for you, weren’t they?” said Aunty Em, talking over him.

  “Or the herd laws means somebody’s cows trample it. Worst thing of all is when you have a good year and the price just dries up till you get nothing for nothing.”

  “Well, I don’t see the Aikens or the McCormacks or the Allens in poverty.”

  “They got sons, they got brothers.”

  “Well, hire yourself a hand.”

  “We don’t have any money,” said Henry, his voice muffled by the hand that rubbed his eyes.

  “Well, we got to do something!” shouted Aunty Em, and the stove hissed and steamed with spilled water. “We got that child to feed now and send to school soon as she’s old enough. Poor little creature.”

  Uncle Henry hung his head. Aunty Em’s back was toward him. He said, very slowly, “We could sell some of the land.”

  “That’s the only thing you can think of to do with it! My father settled this land.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “And you aren’t going to be the one to sell any of it!”

  “Won’t have to,” said Henry Gulch. “Mr. Purcell at the bank is going to get it all anyway.”

  Mr. Purcell was the enemy. He ran the bank and he wanted to take away their land and give it to people Back East. How would that be possible, if Aunty Em didn’t want him to have it?

  “Him too,” said Aunty Em, throwing food onto a plate.

  Reading, ciphering, and hogs and banks. Dorothy admired Uncle Henry and Aunty Em. They knew so much, all kinds of things, but everything rode on them; if anything went wrong they would be alone. And they never rested, never let up on themselves. Dorothy was grateful, but she didn’t ever want to be an adult.

  Aunty Em sat down to eat and began to rail against the people of Manhattan. Aunty Em never went to Zeandale village. It was always to Manhattan that they went for church, for stores, for company. It was Manhattan Aunty Em talked about, but not with love.

  She talked about Mr. Purcell, and also Mrs. Purcell, who was always organizing things and neglecting to invite Emma Gulch. There was L. R. Elliott. He had bought the Manhattan Independent from Reverend Pillsbury and then fired Grandfather Matthew.

  “Killed him, killed him just as surely as if he shot him!” Aunty Em said. “Him and his talk of real news. He bought the paper and then killed both it and my father and waltzed off to be a land agent, if you please. And railroad agent. And anything else he could lay his hands on.” Stew roiled forgotten in her mouth.

  “The Higinbothams, and Stingley and Huntress. They’re all in it together, all those people. They come here and take the town over from the people who built it up. And the good Dr. Lyman with his friendly little reminders—‘You owe the good Doctor money.’” Aunty Em let her fork drop, and covered her eyes.

  Later, she piled the tin plates one on top of the other. Aunty Em could produce a fine clatter of rage, and she plunged her raw hands into the water, which was near to boiling. She passed down the steaming plates for Dorothy to dry.

  Then she said, “Dorothy, it’s your bedtime. Say your prayers.” Aunty Em would stand by the blanket that hung across the room. She would listen to what Dorothy had to say to God. Dorothy prayed for God to bless everyone and then crawled into bed to be kissed on the forehead. Then Dorothy would listen. She listened to the whispering.

  “You ask me it wasn’t the Dip my sister died of, but shame. That man used her and then left. An actor, if you please, with I am told another wife and children Back East. And he was about as Irish as I am. Anthony Gael indeed. More like Angelo or Chico if you want to know the truth!”

  “You’re fretting, Em.”

  “Well, don’t I have enough to fret about?” A pan rang like a gong as it was hung on a hook. “Every time I look at Dorothy I can see that man’s face. It’s bad blood, Henry, and it will come out.”

  Uncle Henry would begin to snore, too exhausted to find the bed. Aunty Em would begin to recite. Aunty Em wrote verse. She would declaim it as she paced, the thumping of her boots punctuating the rhythm of the words. Throughout that winter, it had been the same poem, over and over:

  By day across those billows brown

  Across the summits sere

  The fierce wind blows; the sunlight streams

  From blue skies cold and clear.

  It was a poem about the beauties of Manhattan when it was first settled. The Congregationalist Church was about to have its twentieth anniversary after the New Year. With her whole being, Aunty Em wanted to recite her poem at the banquet. The pastor’s wife had also written a poem. It too was about the beauties of early Manhattan, and it was certain to be read at the banquet.

  By night along those meadows broad,

  In gleaming tower and spire

  O’er rolling hill, o’er rocky crest

  Creep crooked lines of fire!

  Her voice would be fierce and whispering. Sometimes Aunty Em would change the words; sometimes she changed the way she said them. Sometimes the words came shuddering out of her, full of meanings for her that they would have for no one else. Sometimes she wept, reciting to the stove, the empty room, her husband’s crushed and empty boots. Dorothy would pull the pillow down over her head and hide.

  Aunty Em was always in Manhattan, working for the Church. She set up social or church suppers; she chaperoned dances or sat on ladies’ committees or organized drives. She decorated the church for Easter (Christmas was not much celebrated). She took baskets to the poor, though Dorothy heard people say Emma Gulch was poor enough herself.

  “We are people of note in this community,” she told Dorothy once. “And we continue to be, despite straitened circumstances, which should be no bar in any civilized society.”

  And she and Dorothy would take the long road to Manhattan. Aunty Em inserted them both into the homes of women she considered to be her social if not economic equals. All through the autumn, into the first hot weeks of that strange December, Dorothy would find herself in the corner of Manhattan parlors, mollified by muffins or drinking chocolate.

  Aunty Em visited Mrs. Parker, the Reverend’s wife. She visited Harriet Smythe, who also threatened to give readings. She visited Miss Eusebia Mudge, daughter of the famous Professor Mudge. Miss Mudge was to provide the musical program by playing the organ.

  “And how is your dear father?” Aunty Em asked. “Is he still occupied with his pterodactyls?”

  “Oh, yes indeed,” said Miss Mudge. “He will be returning to Wallace this spring. He hopes to send a complete pterodactyl to the university in Topeka.”

  Aunty Em turned to Dorothy. “Dorothy. A pterodactyl is a giant flying lizard. The Professor discovered them in Wallace.”

  “They are extinct now, Dorothy,” explained Miss Mudge.

  “They have been, for millions of years. Just think of it!”

  After so many conversations about buffalo, Dorothy certainly knew the meaning of the word “extinct.” But she didn’t know how you could discover something that had been dead for mill
ions of years, or how you could send one to Topeka. She thought it best not to ask. Aunty Em might think it was insolent.

  “The Professor also discovered a missing link in the evolutionary chain, am I right, Miss Mudge?” said Aunty Em. “A bird with teeth.”

  Dorothy wasn’t too sure that all birds didn’t have teeth. She tried to remember if their hens had teeth and decided that they did. By the time Dorothy resurfaced, the conversation had moved on.

  “Well, we simply have to get Brother Pillsbury and Reverend Jones to speak, though at opposite ends of the program for reasons we can both imagine,” said Aunty Em. Brother Pillsbury was a spiritualist as well as a Christian.

  “Certainly both should be acknowledged,” said Miss Mudge with caution.

  “Not to mention Mrs. Blood,” said Aunty Em, smiling, in one of her flights of efficiency. “She’s still alive, I hear, and there is time still to get a message to her in Illinois, so she can send something to us. I’m sure she would be most pleased.”

  Eusebia agreed. Aunty Em kept flying. She reminisced about the first Congregationalist services held in a tent or in Dr. Hunting’s house. She rehearsed the story of how a tornado tore the roof off the church just after it was built—it seemed to be the fate of most churches in the county. She talked about Dr. Cordley, who had ridden all the way from Lawrence to give the dedicatory sermon. Did Miss Mudge know that his famous horse Jesse was lost during Quantrill’s raid? Dorothy began to swing her legs. Eusebia Mudge bided her time.

  “Evergreen branches, I think,” said Aunty Em, talking of the decorations. “So in keeping with the season.” She talked about food. “I can certainly make a lemon jelly, if you, Miss Mudge, would oblige with your famous angel cake.”

  “Speaking of cake,” said Miss Mudge, whose time had come. “What are we to do with Mr. Sue?”

  There was a Chinaman in Manhattan. He had come with the building of the railroad. To everyone’s consternation, he was a member of the Congregationalist Church. He donated unsuitable cakes. They had unsuitable writing in icing.

  “God made the world,” the icing said. “Tzu made this cake.”

  Everyone called him Mr. Sue. Using a woman’s name made people smile, while preserving their old abolitionist consciences. When they smiled, Mr. Tzu thought they were smiling with pleasure at seeing him. Or at least, he smiled back. He had suddenly imported a wife, whom no one had seen. She was said to live in the rooms behind his store.

  “And you’ve heard of his invitation, perhaps?” inquired Miss Mudge.

  “Why, no,” said Emma Gulch.

  “He has sent a card to every church saying that his wife will be at home to receive visitors on New Year’s Day.”

  If anyone was so lost in good works as to go, it would be Emma Gulch.

  “How splendid of him,” said Aunty Em. “I’m sure we will all be happy to visit.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” Miss Mudge replied and permitted herself a smile.

  On New Year’s Day, Calliope the mule was hauled out, snorting with cold, and was hitched to the wagon. Inside the house, Toto was barking over and over to be let out, to go with them.

  “Couldn’t we bring Toto with us?” Dorothy asked.

  “What, bring a dog into Mrs. Purcell’s parlor?” said Aunty Em. “She can just about bring herself to let us in, let alone Toto.”

  All the way down the lane, the sound of Toto’s barking followed them.

  “That’s how much he misses us. But just think how snug he is next to the stove.”

  Even from the lane, Dorothy could see Blue Mont, on the other side of the river, four and a half miles away. It took two hours, and the mountain never seemed to get any closer. The sound of Toto followed them across the valley. They rode beside the woods, the trees as bare as burned black skeletons. Branches passed by overhead. Dorothy broke off a piece of ice and looked at the perfect imprint of the twig. “Don’t suck it, Dorothy,” said Aunty Em, “or you’ll perforate your stomach.” Dorothy began to hum to herself. Aunty Em sang hymns. With each turn of the road, Dorothy hoped for the rise and fall of the road that would signal their sudden decline toward the river.

  Finally, finally they got to Manhattan, frozen stiff as always. The church ladies were gathering in Mrs. Purcell’s house on South Juliette. There was an alleyway with stables behind. A boy took hold of Calliope, and Aunty Em rather grandly pressed a penny into his hand. She inspected Dorothy’s dress, tugged and thumped it, and then took her hand to walk around the front of the house, to be admitted as guests.

  The door was opened by a maid. There were gas lamps everywhere, frosted glass globes, and the tops of the chairs were dark and polished and carved into the shapes of leaves. From somewhere behind all the front rooms, there came a chorus of baby cries. The ladies, buttoned in black, sat in a circle amid a forest of tea tables.

  Mrs. Elliott was there for the Methodists, the wife of the man who had brought Grandfather Matthew’s career to an end. Mrs. Parker was there from Aunty Em’s own church, as if Aunty Em were not sufficient in herself to represent the Congregationalists.

  The Purcells were Presbyterian and owned the bank that had sold the mortgage to Emma Gulch’s farm.

  Dorothy knew of these people. She was interested to see them. She wondered how it was that Aunty Em could bear to smile at them. Dorothy looked at the frosted lamps, at the line of fuel within them like water under ice. She pretended to herself that the lamps had grown naturally frozen out of the Zeandale marshes.

  Mrs. Purcell, no longer young, but very brisk and pleasant, came in with baby John. He had just been born a few months before. He was passed around the ladies, who complimented him and talked to him. Baby John beamed like an ancient old man. “Happy New Year! Happy New Year!” the ladies piped.

  “His little hand!” cooed Aunty Em.

  Dorothy peered into his soft, unformed face. Intelligence in his eyes met hers.

  “Bah bah,” he said. “Mo ta woe?”

  It was how babies talked.

  “Oh yes? Oh yes?” said Mrs. Parker too brightly, as if she understood. Maybe she did. The baby was passed to a maid to be taken upstairs. Tea and cakes were served, and the adults talked about Chinese people.

  “Apparently they fry all their food in very hot oils,” said Mrs. Elliott. “My cousin visited such a home once, and her fur collar smelled peculiar for weeks. They couldn’t think what the odor was; it was so unpleasant, but not at all identifiable. Finally someone said it was burned sesame seed oil.”

  Mrs. Parker produced a nosegay from her purse and silently held it out. “I shall endeavor not to resort to this, since I’m sure Mrs. Sue will do her utmost to be polite.”

  “It’s not the oil, it’s the incense that will choke me,” said Mrs. Lyman. She was the doctor’s wife and she was beautiful and young, with red hair. Aunty Em made a point of chuckling. Mrs. Lyman was from St. George, just across the river from the Gulch farm. Aunty Em always made a point of saying how enchanting she found her. “Just a good, plain-speaking Kansas beauty,” Aunty Em would say, again and again.

  “Well,” said a woman whose name Dorothy did not know. “My tablecloth came back cleaner than the gravel by the river.”

  Dorothy did not know much about the Chinaman herself, but she could see that the adults were frightened of him.

  The seven ladies, Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, Lutheran, wrapped themselves in scarves and pinned on hats and were helped into coats that nearly reached the ground. They walked unsteadily on the boardwalk of South Juliette, north towards Poyntz, the main avenue. They walked past one Methodist church and Mrs. Elliott’s house. They walked across Houston, past the Bowers’ and the Buells’. On the corner of Poyntz and Juliette was Aunty Em’s own church, white limestone, small. They turned right and swept down the broad main avenue.

  Poyntz was lined with wooden-frame buildings, with wooden awnings that stretched out over the wooden sidewalks. The ladies passed another Methodist church, wi
th a tall, graceful spire, and an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian. They passed the Manhattan Institute, which was a hospital built of brick. There was Huntress’s Dry Goods, a two-story building of stone. On Poyntz Avenue alone, there were four banks, three land offices, three drugstores, a lumberyard, several general stores, clothing stores, hotels and two county offices. There were many businesses, with many owners, but amid those many names, a favored few kept reappearing: Higinbotham, Stingley, Elliott, Purcell.

  The street was shuttered and closed, peaceful and safe. An old black man everyone called Uncle was sweeping the ice that covered the boardwalk. Someone Mrs. Elliott knew passed them, tipping his hat, breathing out vapor into the sunlight, nodding “Good morning, ladies,” as he passed.

  Mr. Sue’s shop stood near the corner of Humboldt and Second, opposite the Wagon Shop.

  There was a wide space around it, a market garden that was the town’s only source of sorrel and green peppers. The laundry hissed out back, white stream rising up even on New Year’s Day. Dorothy took hold of Aunty Em’s hand, afraid.

  The store was dark. Mrs. Purcell took it on herself to try the door. It opened with a clinking of bits of metal hung across the doorway. They peered inside, into scented shadow.

  “Mr. Sue?” called Mrs. Purcell. Dorothy began to wish she hadn’t come.

  Mr. Sue emerged from some inner recess, smiling, smiling.

  “Good morning, ladies. So kind to come. I hope you are not cold. Thank you, thank you.”

  He looked funny. Dorothy wasn’t sure how. He was small and quick, wearing perfectly normal clothes and a bowler hat. Dorothy was miffed. Didn’t he know it was impolite to wear a hat indoors? Then she saw him take it off, over and over, once for each of the ladies.

  Inside the store, the air smelled a bit like soap, nice soap, and there were things in pretty boxes, nice colors, very pale and gentle. There were bolts of shiny cloth and little cups and teapots. There were china people, white with pink cheeks, frozen forever, looking shy and a bit afraid.