by Dianne Day
Meiling had gone to Stanford with the goal of studying geology, or, as she herself had called it, ‘‘the science of the earth.’’ But after receiving the gift of her grandmother’s chest, her eyes had been opened to much, much more. Meiling now claimed to understand more about the earth than science alone could teach. She talked of chi, the life force that runs through all living things, and through the earth and sky as well. She talked of maintaining a healthful balance, of the ways good energy moves, and of things that block the movement of energy. Her wind chimes and the colored banners outside the tiny house in Palo Alto had something to do with all this. So did the colors that accented her clothing, and so many other things it made Michael’s head spin.
Also in that chest, Meiling’s grandmother had left a very old book, full of secret teachings and recipes for magic, a kind of Chinese grimoire. Bells, incense, combs and mirrors, silk ribbons and satin ropes, bones and beads and shells—all that and more came from the chest. With the book and her recollection of lessons from childhood, Meiling was teaching herself to be a Chinese magician.
This would have been fine with Michael if not for two things. First, she had abandoned her studies at Stanford in order to follow this questionable pursuit; and second, Meiling had begun to talk of demons and malevolent spirits. Michael did not believe in demons and malevolent spirits, he believed that man was evil enough already and did not require any help from the spirit world.
From away in the darkness the train’s locomotive gave its haunting whistle. Michael stopped pacing to stand near the edge of the platform and look down the tracks. He could see the lamps on either side of the engine glowing like eyes in the dark. His imagination, fired by thoughts of Meiling and her magic, could easily turn the train into a dragon belching steam.
Dragons are good luck to the Chinese, he thought, forcing the corners of his mouth into a grim smile. And Meiling and I will need all the good luck we can gather for the time ahead.
6
WHEN I LET my legs take most of my weight, something both quite remarkable and perfectly awful happened: My body simply would not support me. With a painful protest, it gave way all at once. Being woefully without medical knowledge, I could not have said whether it was the musculature of the legs that would not perform, whether the bones beneath those muscles were fractured, whether my blood had simply grown too thin, or what. Add to that the shortness of breath that had me gasping once I’d collapsed back into the chair, and altogether it made for a genuinely bad experience. As I have seldom been sick in my life, I did not know what to think of this—other than to try not to let it make me feel too much worse than I already did.
I was thinking how much I should like the doctor to come back and see me again, now that I was in my right mind and could question him, when Tabitha returned with her sister Sarah. Once again I did not hear them approach—it was Tabitha’s light knock followed by the opening of the latch that alerted me to their imminent appearance.
‘‘Come in, please,’’ I called out, very glad of the distraction.
‘‘I’m back,’’ Tabitha announced excitedly and unnecessarily. ‘‘Here’s Sarah too, and we’ve brought some of our things to show you!’’
The sisters did indeed look much alike, though seeing them side by side I thought Sarah seemed more than just the three years older that Tabitha had mentioned. Sarah’s dress was blue-gray rather than brown, and her collar and cuffs bore delicate cutwork instead of lace. There were other differences as well: Sarah lacked her younger sister’s gentleness. In fact, it was very interesting to see how their similar features had been influenced, molded one was tempted to say, by their individual personalities.
Sarah was just a little taller, a bit thinner. Her hair was the same light brown, and she wore it the same way, parted in the middle and pulled back into a bun shaped like a figure eight turned sideways. Also, from the tiny new hairs she had above her ears as we all do, I could tell that Sarah’s hair had that charming tendency to curl—a tendency I always notice and envy in others, on account of mine being so utterly straight. But Sarah’s hair was not escaping from its arrangement, no indeed; she had pulled it back so tightly that the corners of her eyes turned up. I winced inwardly to look at her.
Yet, hard as Sarah seemed (if that hairdo was any indication) to be on herself, she was easy with others. The smile she bestowed on me had the same sweetness as her sister Tabitha’s, and that went a long, long way.
‘‘Carrie,’’ Sarah said, ‘‘I’m so glad Tabitha suggested I come along to see you. I’ve brought some of the things she and I are currently working on. I thought we could talk while we sew. Tabitha and I, I mean; we don’t expect you to sew! We have a quota to meet but we can certainly talk at the same time. That is, if you aren’t too tired.’’
‘‘Not at all,’’ I agreed heartily, ‘‘but what is this about a quota? I certainly wouldn’t want to distract you from meeting it.’’
The two sisters glanced at each other, as if deciding which one of them should answer. Tabitha spoke up: ‘‘We sew for the family, of course, but we also make things for sale. These are, well, rather special. We promise delivery times and so on.’’
‘‘I cannot wait to see! But before we proceed, either we shall need an additional chair from the next room, or I must get back in bed so that one of you may have this one.’’
Sarah put down the large basket she was carrying. ‘‘Since there is no ‘next room,’ I expect we’d best help you back to bed.’’
‘‘By all means,’’ I agreed, after a slight hesitation due to the fact that I knew I’d soon need to relieve myself, and so was thinking of asking for their help. But no, I would not; the procedure under my present circumstances was so laborious—and rather humiliating—that I preferred to postpone it as long as I could. I smiled at each of the sisters in turn and said, ‘‘I’m ready when you are.’’
Tabitha and Sarah each draped one of my arms over their shoulders and linked their hands behind my back. ‘‘I’ll count three,’’ Tabitha said. ‘‘One, two, three!’’
On ‘‘three’’ they lifted me by their linked hands until my toes barely skimmed the floor, and the first thing I knew I was back in bed. I thanked them both, and submitted to a lot of quilt-smoothing and pillow-plumping before they pronounced themselves satisfied that I could be as comfortable as I claimed.
‘‘Now then,’’ I said, glancing from one to the other of their similar yet different faces, ‘‘which one of you will tell me what you meant when you said there was no room next door. For surely in a household this size, there must be more rooms on one side or the other?’’
Sarah did not look up from her unpacking of the basket, which she balanced on one knee while her lap received its contents. I did not pay much attention, being far more interested in this opportunity to learn what, exactly, lay beyond my always-closed door. It was again Tabitha who answered me.
‘‘I suppose no one has told you. We forget you haven’t had the freedom to look around. Um, er—’’ she darted a sidewise glance at her sister, whose head was studiously bent over the basket, as if she had discovered some new species in there. Not gaining any help from that quarter, Tabitha bit her bottom lip briefly and then said, ‘‘Father is the only one who lives in the Big House. And actually, the truth is it really isn’t all that big, not compared to some I’ve seen. In Provo, for instance.’’
‘‘Mmm, that’s true,’’ Sarah commented. She steadied the basket on her knee with one hand while the other rested atop a small pile of folded cloth, most of it bleached white, but some left a natural ivory color. ‘‘Still, for here it’s large.’’
I frowned, the questions in my mind showing, I should imagine, on my face.
Tabitha said, ‘‘Each wife has her own cabin. This one that you are in is for guests. When you’re well, Father will build you one of your own. You’ll get to choose your own furnishings, what color curtains, and so on. You might even get a rug. Oh, and best of all, a rid
e to town to pick them out yourself!’’
‘‘Really,’’ I said dryly. I thought, How extraordinary!
‘‘We do not spend all that much time in our cabins, which is why they’re so small,’’ Sarah said somewhat apologetically. She set the basket carefully on the floor and resettled the pile of cloth in her lap with her hands on both sides, holding it like some sort of precious gift. ‘‘Our cabins are primarily for sleeping. That is, when we sleep alone.’’
Tabitha chimed in hastily, ‘‘There are lovely rooms in the main house for all of us to use during the day, and of course there’s the big dining room.’’
Um-hm, I thought, I am beginning to perceive the order of things.
‘‘Who does the cooking?’’ I inquired, interested in the arrangement. I could actually rather see the point, division of labor, many hands make light work, and all that.
‘‘Verla and Norma take turns. They’re teaching Selene, but she’s not a very apt pupil,’’ Tabitha replied.
‘‘Too dreamy,’’ Sarah commented.
Her sister nodded. ‘‘She forgets things all the time. And she’s always in a hurry. Her creamed potatoes and mashed turnips always have lumps.’’
I reflected that my creamed potatoes and mashed turnips would have lumps too if I were forced into this duty, and feeling like a kindred soul, I leapt to the youngest wife’s defense. ‘‘Selene is still a child. I’m sure she’ll learn.’’
At the same time the sisters both said the same thing: ‘‘Perhaps.’’ Then they looked at each other and laughed. Laughing, they blushed, and I had an impression that would later prove to be accurate: Laughter was not a common occurrence in the Pratt household.
As if to make up for the frivolity and merriment, Sarah straightened both her face and her backbone, and proceeded to show me one by one the articles she had folded on her lap. After she had displayed each one and told me about it, Tabitha—who by now had also sobered up—took each in turn and carefully refolded it, then placed it back in the basket, which now sat on the floor between their chairs. They handled these clothes reverently, as I supposed was befitting since they called them ‘‘temple garments.’’ The final two temple garments were not yet completed, and so remained on the sisters’ laps while they threaded their needles, adjusted their chairs so as to make maximum use of the light from the window, and set themselves to sewing.
‘‘I don’t like to betray my ignorance,’’ I admitted, ‘‘but I have never seen, or heard of, a temple garment before. I suppose from the name there is some religious significance?’’
‘‘Your instruction has not gone that far yet?’’ Sarah asked. She cocked her head to one side, in the same motion I’d seen from her sister an hour or so earlier.
‘‘If you mean the instruction Father, I mean Mr. Pratt, has been giving me’’—they both nodded, paying rapt attention to my every word without missing a stitch—‘‘so far he has been telling me the extraordinary story of how Joseph Smith was given the Tablets of Gold by the Angel Moroni, and how the tablets were all covered with writing purported to be hieroglyphics. How Mr. Smith could not read them, because the hieroglyphics were not in any known system of language decipherable by any means, including the Rosetta Stone. And so on.’’ I dismissed the rest with a wave of my hand that I hoped was not too cavalier.
But Tabitha said, greatly excited, ‘‘Did you get to the part yet about Urim and Thummim?’’
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Only the previous evening, Melancthon Pratt had told me a story I’d thought preposterous, about how, along with the Tablets of Gold, the Angel Moroni had given Joseph Smith two magical stones called the Urim and the Thummim. Hebrew words, supposedly. And supposedly these stones had enabled Smith to translate the tablets— which after the translation the angel most conveniently took away again, so that the truth of all this could never be either proved or disproved. I wondered what had become of the stones, for Pratt had not said that the angel took them away too . . . but I certainly was not going to ask him. Nor these two sisters.
Cautiously I replied, ‘‘He told me last night about the magical stones.’’
Not looking at me, concentrating on the symbol she was embroidering with thread that exactly matched the cloth, Sarah muttered a significant remark: ‘‘I wonder if it could possibly be that Carrie finds that whole business about Joseph Smith doing his translations with his face in his hat as ridiculous as I do.’’
Hmm, I thought. Another observation to file for later.
But Tabitha did not ignore it. ‘‘Sarah!’’ she chided. ‘‘It’s just as well for you to say such things to me, since I’ve known you my whole life, you are my big sister, and I’d die for you. But what will Carrie think?’’
‘‘I think,’’ I said, smiling, ‘‘that a good deal of the Christian Bible seems equally ridiculous to me. A prophet is a prophet, no matter how he arrives at his prophecies, whether that may be on top of a mountain or with his—what was that you said, Sarah?’’
She looked at me levelly, with clear, calm eyes. ‘‘His face in a hat.’’
‘‘Mr. Pratt’s recounting did not go into that detail,’’ I said.
‘‘Well, I think Carrie has just exactly the right attitude,’’ Tabitha said, nodding her head decisively and taking up her own sewing. ‘‘She understands that you just have to take it on faith. And really, Sarah, even if you are my sister and I’d never tell on you, I do think you could have more faith!’’
I smiled across at Sarah. ‘‘I won’t tell on you either.’’
‘‘If I’d thought you would, I’d have kept my thoughts to myself,’’ Sarah said, returning my smile. I felt like a conspirator, and so decided to return to a safer subject.
‘‘I’d still like to know about these temple garments. Are they worn in the Temple?’’ I was getting a very odd mental picture of men and women walking around in rather scanty outfits. Perhaps they performed their worship around a large fire. That would fit with another thing Pratt had told me: that the Mormons of today and the American Indians had common ancestors who had been the brothers Nephi and Lamaan. These brothers fought; Nephi was the ‘‘good’’ one and Lamaan was the ‘‘bad’’ one. In addition to being somewhat unscrupulous, Lamaan was a better fighter, so he won and wiped out the Nephites. The last survivor of the Nephites was Moroni—yes, that very same Moroni who came as an angel to Joseph Smith—whose last act had been to bury the golden tablets on which the good Nephites had recorded their beliefs. Today’s Indians were supposed to be descended from the Lamaanites.
Sarah and Tabitha both giggled. Tabitha said, ‘‘Yes, temple garments are worn in the Temple. Also for shopping, and for travel—not that we get to do much traveling—for gardening, for . . . hmm, for sleeping—’’
‘‘And don’t forget bathing,’’ Sarah interrupted. Then they both broke out in polite peals of laughter.
‘‘You mean—’’ I began, but suddenly I too was laughing, though it was not really quite so funny as all that.
‘‘Yes,’’ Tabitha gasped between peals, ‘‘we never take them off. Never!’’
‘‘Not even, not even—’’ Sarah began, but she was laughing too hard to finish.
She didn’t have to. I knew what she was going to say, so I said it aloud myself: ‘‘For sex.’’
‘‘Carrieeeee!’’ Tabitha squealed, beside herself with laughter. Sarah and I were not much better.
At that inopportune moment the door was pushed inward with such force that it hit the wall, and I feared for the safety of the hinges. Then Melancthon Pratt’s glowering face appeared, and I feared for the safety of us three.
I am not much concerned about what people think,’’ Meiling said. ‘‘If we need to speak privately, then it makes no difference to me whether we do so in your space or in mine.’’
That was what Michael had expected her to say, but somehow being alone with Meiling in her train compartment seemed much different from being alone with her in h
er small house. Different too from being with her in the apartment house where she had lived when she’d first moved from San Francisco to Palo Alto. He was uncomfortable, and supposed the train’s compactness had something to do with his discomfort. So he did not venture farther into the little room, nor did he close the door. Instead he stood leaning in the entry, knee and hip holding the door open, and said, ‘‘If we hold our discussion in my compartment, you’ll have the assurance of knowing you can leave any time you like. Whereas if I stay here and you become uncomfortable, you’ll have to ask me to leave. You might be concerned that I would refuse.’’
Meiling’s long, straight hair swayed with the motion of the train. The clackety-clack of the wheels on the track was both soothing and a constant reminder of where they were, what they had to do.
With that perfect seriousness Chinese and Japanese people seem able to achieve, while Europeans can only hope for something approximate, Meiling said, ‘‘There will be no reason for me to ask you to leave. You are wasting time. I know there is much you have not yet told me, so come in and sit down, and let us begin.’’
Michael took a deep breath, stepped forward into the compartment, and allowed the door to close behind him. She had burned a stick of incense; the air had that clean, spicy fragrance he remembered from her house a couple of days earlier.
‘‘Do sit down,’’ Meiling said. She was smiling slightly. Perhaps his nervousness amused her. That wouldn’t be too surprising, considering that he had known her since her infancy; Meiling’s father, before he was killed in the Tong Wars, had been Michael’s good friend.
‘‘Thank you.’’ Michael sat on the bench seat opposite Meiling. He looked for a moment through the small window, set off by sharply pleated curtains of starched lace. Intrigued, he reached out a finger and touched one of the pleats, as if to see whether or not its sharp edge might cut his fingertip.