“So what are you suggesting?” Gilda said, forgetting all the words it had taken for Effie to convince her to come north.
“All is relative, ain’t that what Sorel says? Long is only long if you think it’s long. I say fold your tent. Get in the wind. Forward all your calls.”
Gilda remained silent.
“Listen, you’re the one who taught me that safety, stasis, ain’t the natural way of living things. You could do anything. How about joining Bird? She’s working in Central America on land reclamation. Or how about Iowa?” Julius continued. “Who was that old dude you used to quote, about the tightrope?”
“Papa Wallenda. ‘Life exists only on the high wire. Everything else is just waiting.’ “
“Right on!”
Gilda almost spoke, then stopped. Julius was silent for a while and simply watched the thoughts shifting like shadows across her dark face. Gilda tried to grab hold of the images in her mind. Bird, who had traveled relentlessly for decades, was rarely happy until the next journey was on the horizon. And she herself had loved learning each new town, seeing how black people were manifest around the world. Why was it here, in this small enclave, that they found themselves rooted? Potbound, Julius might say.
Gilda rang off and retreated to the small sitting room to build a fire. She laid each log carefully, letting her mind be absorbed by the task. Absently she held a match to the twigs at the bottom and sat back to enjoy the flames as they blossomed and began to consume. Sitting in the old chair she was comforted by the feel of the knots in the quilt at her back. The heat and light of the fire were so much like the rays of the sun that she closed her eyes and thought of the wondrous visit with Eleanor to Mt. Tamalpais. Part of her regretted not ever returning to that spot and looking out at the setting sun. She wondered if such a spot still existed, or if it was all impossibly overgrown, or worse—paved over, rat infested. She had heard on several news shows that California had suffered very badly in the past decade. Overpopulation had created economic collapse. She had not been back there since leaving Sorel’s salon, and it was difficult to imagine it any way other than what she’d known. Gilda had drifted deeply into the snapshots of the past when the ringing of the videophone startled her.
She bolted from the chair but stood paralyzed by the phone unable to pick it up, fearing it might be a reporter. Gilda waited, and the ringing stopped as the recorder started. As soon as she heard Effie’s voice she pressed the interrupt and full-view buttons. Effie stood before her in a phone facility with a look of concern on her face.
“Ah, wonderful, you’re there,” Effie said, relieved that Gilda was still at the house. “I hate leaving messages on these things. I can see that you’ve heard about the show.”
“I’ve heard, I’ve seen.”
“And?” Effie asked, expecting Gilda to have distilled some plan by now.
“Julius suggests I disappear for a while. But there’s so much I care about here. I’m afraid that if Abby Bird begins running she’ll never be able to stop. And I’ve been happy here.”
“If you’ve been happy in Hampton Falls you can be happy somewhere else.”
“But this is the home you’ve made—”
“Made and can remake. Remember when you first came to the cottage? You looked at the hillside and the building and the trees and said, ‘How perfectly ordinary!’ You had the delight of a child, for something there represented the life you wanted. Well, Hampton Falls can’t do that anymore. And it is, after all, only a representation of the life. The nation around it is dissolving. I think you should see it through your own eyes, not just others’.”
“But I haven’t had the chance to really know this place, the ocean, the trees, you.”
“You, Bird, all of us are part of a network that is naturally outside the daily workings of this universe. Finding the balance between participation and withdrawal—how to sing and not be a superstar, how to write and not become a public figure—is difficult. You’ve understood that balance for some time. Don’t forget what you already know. Sorel and Anthony have made many homes. This was my first on this continent; I’ve certainly always expected to have others.”
They were both quiet, trying to really see each other past the electronic gadgetry that linked them.
Gilda knew how much Effie disliked speaking on video so felt uncomfortable with her own indecision and stubbornness. “Perhaps I might visit…Missouri, or Julius is in Iowa—”
“Those are fine ideas.” Effie stopped as she saw the clouds clear from Gilda’s face, replaced by a broad smile. Her dark skin was glowing again.
“Listen, Effie, I have to go. There are a million things to do now. There’ll be a message.”
She faded the screen out and set about getting organized. It all seemed so simple suddenly.
She worked furiously for two days, preparing her papers and shipping away things for storage she might want in the future. Once again she opened the old trunk she’d had since Woodard’s and let her gaze caress some of the objects. Folded inside was a newspaper clipping that barely held together. Gilda didn’t unfold it. She simply looked at it, knowing the words inside. It was an obituary for Aurelia Freeman of Rosebud, Missouri, who had warranted a lengthy encomium because of her respected position in the black communities of many surrounding towns.
Her work with the poor and the uneducated had been noted and rewarded by numerous citizens and civil rights organizations before her death in 1966. Gilda sat down for a moment to feel the hard beating of her heart at these memories. Over the years she had listened for Aurelia many times, enjoying her successes vicariously. By slipping into her thoughts she was able to sense Aurelia’s inner peace and the small part of herself she maintained should Gilda ever return. Only once did Gilda make contact. Through a dream she had tried to communicate the joy she felt at the goodness that filled both of their lives. She had also listened for the lives of Aurelia’s daughter and granddaughter, from wherever her travels had taken her. It was not until she received the first letter from Nadine that Gilda actually communicated. It was as if she had willed the girl to write to her.
Gilda folded her colorful quilt on top of her things and closed the trunk with a new leather strap in preparation for shipping. She pulled a file from the back of her desk drawer that held a short letter to her agent and publisher and a large check for the foundling home in town. She made quick adjustments on her will and had it authorized by video after looking up the address for the main offices of the GrassRoots Coalition. She made certain that Abby Bird’s other legal papers were in a prominent place in the house. She finally sifted through the few letters she kept, reading many of Nadine’s to herself before feeding them into the woodburning stove. She opened one of the last envelopes to glance briefly at the pages before tossing it, when a paragraph Nadine had written about a year before caught her eye:
They think because I’m deaf, I’m stupid. They think they love me because they don’t make fun of my deafness. They don’t see that this is not enough to be called love. Doing nothing can never be called love. My mother said her gran’ma taught her that. Did I ever tell you every one of us got Nadine in our name somewhere? She said gran’ma named her for a special gift someone had given her years ago….
The letter went on with other stories. Gilda folded the pages and slipped them into the small pack she would take with her.
Carrying a few items, she went outside. She deposited the letters in the postbox at the end of her lane and walked down the road against a brisk wind toward the cliffs that dropped down behind their land into the Atlantic. She folded a shirt, a pair of slacks, and socks into a neat pile on a precipice overlooking the tumultuous water below. Its constant motion tugged at her, as the many rivers she’d known had done, yet the sound of surf against rocks was a comforting roar. It seemed a fitting demise for the legendary Abby Bird. Gilda’s pulse quickened at the idea of moving about the world again. She took an easy stroll in the deepening dusk through the woods near
her house. She tried not to go over her lists of things to do, wanting simply to listen to the sound of the ocean and the trees. She enjoyed the leaves crunching under her boots and the feel of branches slapping her back as she made her way toward what was no longer her home.
Once inside the dark cottage, Gilda sensed danger. She walked steadily to her bedroom without turning on the living room light and unlocked one of the two bolts that held her sleeping room safe. Then she moved toward the kitchen, measuring her casual stride with deliberation.
As soon as she turned her back, the man who was hidden in the shadows tried to slip into her bedroom. Gilda leapt silently for him, seizing his collar and lifting him from the floor. She held him pinned against the door and looked over her shoulder toward the light switch. The lamp lit itself, revealing a young man dangling like a marionette from her left hand, a camera at his feet. Her voice spit words that burned. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I want the story on Abby Bird. They’re paying me for the story!” The young man realized he had risked his life for an obscure byline, but it was too late. The cynical young reporter believed in a cliché for the first time: his life, in fact, did pass before his eyes.
“There is no story to be told,” Gilda hissed.
The young man struggled not to kick his heels against the wall. He felt foolish enough already. He’d always thought it a stupid idea—skulking around some pop writer’s house looking for love letters or whatever else editors thought bought viewers. Especially silly as other real news darkened around them. He tried to maintain a look of staunch professionalism from his precarious position while he estimated his chances of survival and breathed at the same time.
“But then, again, perhaps there is a story,” Gilda said, loosening her grip so that his feet reached the floor. She smiled pleasantly, as if Abby Bird had just offered him tea, then hummed a soft, lulling tune. Her eyes held his while she moved into his mind, edging it into unconsciousness. She sliced neatly into his vein with a much-practiced gesture and drank the blood quickly. Gilda drew from him only enough to sustain herself, and in exchange for the life he shared with her she left him his story.
Abby Bird, noted novelist and respected naturalist, died today by her own hand in protest against the destruction of the environment by ordinary people. She left her entire estate, including projected royalties and her extensive mailing list, to GrassRoots, an internationally known activist Organization.
Gilda smiled at the epitaph she had composed for the illustrious Abby Bird. She felt as proud of that as she did of the books the author had penned. She sealed the wound gently and held his pulse until it returned to a more normal rate. She easily carried the man outside. Moving through the woods, she found his car parked two miles from the house. He would awaken shortly with the satisfaction of having scooped a top-of-the-show story for his network. She hurried back to her house and pushed the shutters closed, securing them from inside. She turned on the video monitor one last time and switched to the general message board. Welcome Home, she typed, and it appeared in big letters on the screen. Gilda locked the message in, then coded outgoing messages to family members to be stored until they tried to contact her.
She walked around the house as she had done with every home she’d abandoned over the years. She looked at things being left behind, touched surfaces as if memories might be absorbed through her fingertips. She would miss the wonderfully huge wood stove and the sound of Sorel’s laughter when they sat around it sipping champagne. Something about the way the snow lay in winter on the hill sloping down from the house reminded her of the old farm on the road out of New Orleans past Woodard’s. Bird had noticed that, too. When she came to visit she spent much time seated atop the hill simply staring out as if she could see Louisiana.
And there was a pristine, purposeful quality about the whole place that made her think of Bernice. She let all the memories find their way to the top of her thoughts. Although the loss made her wistful, there was little sadness this time—having made one home she could make another.
Once more she left her house, this time carrying a pallet filled with Mississippi soil, a backpack, and a small ribbon-tied bundle of letters. She looked down the road remembering what it had been like to travel alone from place to place, listening to people in person rather than electronically. In the back of her mind the dangers of that first journey sat in hulking shadows. She had to peer at them closely to make herself remember that each journey was different; the fears she’d had so long ago needn’t beset her now.
Gilda hesitated a moment to decide on her direction—north toward what had once been called Canada, or south? She turned southward thinking Arkansas might be nice this time of year. She moved slowly, afraid of her destination. What would such a meeting hold? She would not be able to explain who she was to Nadine. Yet seeing Aurelia’s great-granddaughter filled Gilda with excitement and impatience. Touching this part of her past, even briefly, would help her go forward. She was eager to hear more of the GrassRoots Movement, to know what she and the others might do. Feeling discontent but doing nothing was no longer enough.
She began to pick up her speed, passing from the highway into the wooded margins that surrounded the many towns now close to collapse or abandoned entirely. Gilda was eager to meet the girl whose name meant Hope. Her tent was folded, the wind was high, and all calls had been forwarded.
Chapter Eight
Land of Enchantment: 2050
Gilda stood barely breathing, her gaze resting on the green-and-purple glow of the grotto that opened beyond the entrance to her cavern. Its warming phosphorescence reminded her of the blinking lights circling the sign that marked the town limits of the sad little place where she had found Nadine. By the time Gilda arrived, those lights were all that was left working, and Nadine faithfully replaced bulbs and checked the electrical line. The pulsing, theatrical bulbs were Nadine’s joy, the symbol she had taken as a reason for pushing the town to hang on. Gilda saw, during her stay with Nadine, that almost everyone else had given up, abandoning hope of food, work, relief of any kind. Townspeople scoffed at Nadine and other members of GrassRoots who persisted in their demands that people turn around the way they lived. Nadine signed furiously to everyone and laughed in her muffled chortle when they refused to understand her. Then she began again, certain that they would catch up. As Nadine toiled over handbills instructing people how to live without comforts but not feel degraded, Gilda saw the bend of Aurelia’s head and the strength of Aurelia’s resolve in every motion. The lights were the one luxury Nadine felt they all needed.
Gilda took the same route out of town when she left for the last time just so she could see Nadine’s sign once more. Each time she returned to this cavern, the memory of Nadine and Aurelia returned with her.
Soon the guards would be in place and she could retreat behind the bolted door of her chamber far from the light of day and from the Hunters. She would be able to lay down to rest. Gilda had little faith in her highly paid guards, not at the prices the Hunters were offering, so once behind that door she would let herself out of a hidden panel and into the maze of rock-strewn corridors that surrounded her underground adytum. She would then wander randomly until she found a niche that felt safe, undo her canvas bedroll soft with Mississippi soil, lay her lean body down, and wait for night. The caverns and mine shafts of the Southwest were numerous, convoluted, and still intriguing to her, but their air was oppressive and made her feel as much a prisoner as any cell. The grotto’s dampness caused all of her clothes to mildew; everything had to be scrubbed daily to make existence bearable. She yearned for the peace and comforts of her coastal cottage, now gone.
If she stayed much longer she was certain the Hunters would find her and bribe one of the guards. Sometimes, wandering the dank, rough corridors, she thought it might be worth it to give herself up to them. There were many rumors: the life being offered was service, not servitude or destruction. It was said that only those who resisted sh
aring their blood were dealt with harshly. Gilda knew better. In light of the ruthless way the decline of the planet had been shepherded, she listened to no rumors—only the bits of information that Julius passed on to her and the others.
Thoughts of the Hunters, armed with drugs and other weapons to ensnare her and her family, caused Gilda to shiver with the memory of her escape from the plantation. In unsuspecting moments she felt the bounty hunter’s hand on her childishly thin ankle as he dragged her from beneath the hay. Those who came now were more silent, more expert, but essentially the same. Their approach filled her with a familiar terror.
Living along the tree-thick coast of the Atlantic, it had been easy to miss the air of disposability that threatened all living things–trees, oceans, people. It was on her journey to visit Nadine that Gilda saw the wasteland the country had become and understood how far back it had been thrown by the fever of desperation and solipsism infecting so many. There was little pleasure in remembering.
The things she held sacred became fewer: her mother’s broad Fulani face; the sound of Anthony’s and Sorel’s voices as they argued over wine; Bird’s voice inside her head; the ease with which she had learned to live with Effie; and sharing the blood with Julius. It had been life freely given, not the travesty being demanded of them now. This horror was slavery come again.
The Gilda Stories Page 28