Speak Through the Wind

by Allison Pittman

  “I grew up with a wonderful father.” Kassandra looked up at the moon, a wide gray smear behind a haze of clouds.

  “He know you’re here?”

  “I don’t know.” He was on the other side of the country looking up at the same moon, wondering why she had left her newborn daughter in the arms of a relative stranger.

  “I bet he don’t,” Jewell said. “If he’s as good a daddy as you say, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself knowin’ you’re here.”

  “He was not exactly a daddy.”

  “Then what exactly was he?”

  “If I knew that, I don’t think I would be here.”

  Jewell chuckled. “I think we can pretty much all say that.”

  “How did you get here?”

  Jewell took another long drag on her cigarette, grimaced, picked a fleck of tobacco off her lip, and flicked it away before answering. “That’s too big a question to answer in any one night.”

  “You know,” Kassandra said after a few minutes of silence broken only by the creaking of the swing, “he might not want me.”

  “He wants you now ‘most every night.”

  “There is a big difference between being a mistress and a wife.”

  “Mistress?” Jewell tossed the remnant of her cigarette out into the street. “Don’t flatter yourself, missy.”

  “If he refuses me, will you still make me leave?”

  “I ain’t one for makin’ promises. When’re you plannin’ to spring the good news on him?”

  “I have not decided. Maybe to—”

  The word was lost as Kassandra became distracted by a pain that seemed to be knotting her very core.

  “Sadie? You all right?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Kassandra closed her eyes and held her breath, trying to relax. Her ears began to ring, and she felt her entire body grow cold and clammy. She shivered against the breeze, pulled the shawl even tighter against her, and tried to find a more comfortable position.

  That’s when she felt it. Wet and sticky between her legs.

  Please, God! No!

  “Sadie! What’s wrong, girl? You’re white as a ghost.”

  “I—I—”

  But she couldn’t bring herself to say a thing. Surely God wouldn’t take this child from her. Not when she had already lost so much. Given up so much. Not when she intended such a sacrifice of herself to provide for it. To surrender her life to a man she didn’t love to see that it was cared for.

  “Let’s get you upstairs.”

  Kassandra lurched with the swing as Jewell stood up. She opened her eyes and saw Jewell looming over her, taking her arm and helping her stand. The pain increased, keeping hçr from being able to stand upright, making her face level with Jewell’s—so close she could smell the stale tobacco and gin on the woman’s breath.

  “Oh, Sadie.”

  Kassandra looked down and saw three drops of blood fall between her bare feet. She felt her nightgown, wet and cold, slap against the back of her legs.

  “Jewell?” Kassandra grasped the woman’s hand. “What have I done? What have I done?”

  They bypassed the parlor and went directly into the kitchen, taking the back stairs up to Jewell’s room. The girls were rarely allowed in here—the gentlemen even less frequently. Compared to this chamber, the other rooms in the house, lush and lavish as they were, may as well have been convent cells. In here the carpet was thick, the walls were pink, the lampshades covered in lavender silk, the chairs upholstered in a red velvet that matched the voluminous drapes held back from the window by gilded tassels. On one wall was an enormous painting titled “Lovers’ Embrace” featuring a nude man and woman under a fruit tree. The bed was low to the ground and wide.

  “Can you stand there for just a second?” Jewell said.

  Kassandra nodded and held to the post for support as Jewell opened a trunk at the foot of the bed and took out a thick, dark quilt. In one large gesture, she swiped the silk coverings off the bed and spread out the quilt. Then, with a tenderness and concern that spoke to just how grave the circumstances must be, Jewell took the shawl from around Kassandra’s shoulders and helped her into bed.

  “How’re you feelin‘?” Jewell asked, wiping Kassandra’s brow with a soft cloth wrung in the silver washbowl.

  The pain was duller now. “Maybe it will be all right.”

  Jewell continued to stroke her brow. “It ain’t gonna be all right, girl. You know that.”

  “I know …”

  Kassandra’s eyes filled with tears that ran down her face. Jewell caught what she could with the cloth, but soon Kassandra’s entire body was heaving with pain and sobs. Jewell set the cloth beside Kassandra’s head and held her hand.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Make it stop,” Kassandra said.

  “I wish I could.”

  “That sounds like something a friend would say.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  Jewell gave Kassandra’s hand a few friendly pats before releasing it. She walked over to the washstand, knelt down, and opened the cabinet beneath. After a little rummaging, she came out with a black leather bag. She groaned a bit getting back to her feet, then returned to the bed and set the bag down at the foot of it.

  “What is in there?” Kassandra asked.

  “Somethin’ to help you.”

  Jewell took a small bottle full of a clear liquid, then walked over to her bureau to take a clean white handkerchief out of the top drawer. She placed the handkerchief over the bottle’s open mouth and quickly tipped it, holding both the bottle and the handkerchief away from her face as she reapplied the cap and set the bottle on the bureau.

  Kassandra watched all of this in wonder, but as Jewell came closer, the odor from the soaked handkerchief grew familiar, and she turned her head violently.

  “No!”

  “Let me help you through this, girl.”

  “Last time someone made me breathe that … they took my baby.”

  “This baby’s gone. Now, I don’t know why it’s happenin’, but it is. There’s no need for you to suffer any more’n you have to.”

  Kassandra reached up and knocked the hand that held the handkerchief away. “Get it away from me. You have no right—”

  Jewell dropped the handkerchief. Bitter fumes drifted up, burning Kassandra’s nose and eyes.

  “I want to keep this baby” she cried, clutching Jewell’s hand.

  “There’s nothin’ to keep,” Jewell said, squeezing back.

  “Because God is punishing me.”

  “Shucks to that. God’s got lots more important things to do.”

  “He knows—” She closed her eyes, crying out against the pain, and turned to her side facing Jewell, still clutching her hand. “He knows my sins, Jewell. He is punishing me, making me pay—”

  “Shh, shh now” Jewell stroked Kassandra’s hair, then settled on the bed beside her and reached a hand around to rub her back. “Now, I ain’t been in a church for quite some time, but I don’t remember it workin’ like that. God don’t have to punish us for our sins, girl. We do enough of that ourselves.”

  Kassandra continued to sob—deep, loud cries that seemed to be pulled from her very soul. Her body, from the moment she stood on the porch, was one continuous twist of pain, and at the same time, she felt almost nothing. She contracted her muscles, wanting to hold on—to hold the child in, keep it just a while longer—but when the cramping pain subsided, she relaxed and fell limp against the mattress.

  “Let me take a look,” Jewell said.

  She helped Kassandra roll to her back and positioned her legs, lifting Kassandra’s gown over her knees.

  “We got to be careful, or you’re gonna bleed to death.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Well, I do. No sense losin’ two lives here tonight.”

  Jewell reached over to the black leather bag and took out a long metal instrument. The handle appeared to be ivory; the lampl
ight flickered off the silver hook.

  “What is that?” Kassandra whispered, drawing her body up close again.

  “You ain’t the only one that has sins to answer for.”

  “But you can’t mean—”

  “It’s all we can do now.”

  “You don’t think there’s a chance …”

  Jewell shook her head slowly “The only question now is whether or not you’re goin’ to live through this. Why don’t you let me put you under? Ease up the pain a little. You can wake up—or not. Either way it’ll all be over.”

  “No,” Kassandra said, gritting her teeth. “I deserve to feel this. To remember this.”

  Jewell sighed. “Suit yourself.” She moved a pillow within Kassandra’s reach. “But if you got to scream, scream into this. Don’t need nobody thinkin’ I’m killin’ you in here.”

  he didn’t leave Jewell’s bed for nearly a month. A raging fever brought nearly daily visits from a doctor, who more often than not took his fee from the woman in the next room. In the early days, when Kassandra was aware of little more than the occasional voice and an insatiable thirst, it was Jewell who sat by her side, her pudgy hand on Kassandra’s, her cigarette smoke wafting through some ever-present darkness.

  Later, when she began to sit up and was able to talk, there was at least one girl from the house who came by and played a round of cards or brought in the latest fashion magazine. And even after she was feeling relatively fine, when she was able to walk across the room unassisted, when she could wake up in the morning and relieve herself without crying, she still crept back to the comfort of this bed, refusing to open the curtains, keeping the room dark and close.

  “Get up outta there,” Jewell would say, throwing back the covers, yanking open the curtains, and shoving the window open as far as she could reach. “There ain’t nothin’ you can do for yourself lyin’ in here all day.”

  “Tomorrow,” Kassandra would say, burrowing under the sheets, trying to lose herself in the thick feather ticking. “Tomorrow, I promise.”

  Then somebody would come upstairs with tea and toast. Kassandra wouldn’t eat. Another would come with a small plate of sandwiches and milk. Kassandra refused it. Finally, in the evening, someone would bring up a tray with a cooled bowl of soup, which Kassandra would slurp hungrily—to the last drop—before curling down into the darkness to try to get through another night.

  Jimmy came one more time. He stood outside Kassandra’s door, twirling a new summer boater hat in his hands, refusing to go away no matter how many times he was told that Kassandra just wasn’t fit to see him. Finally, after listening to hours of muffled conversations on the other side of the door, Kassandra sat herself upright, gathered her hair it into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and beckoned the man to come inside.

  He was smaller than she remembered, less grotesquely fat. He seemed sad, humble, and terrified of what he was facing.

  “Miss Sadie,” he muttered, trying to find some comfortable place for his eyes to land. He glanced at the washstand, saw the chamber pot, zipped over to the bed, saw Kassandra, roved over to the wall, saw the nude painting, and finally stared at the ceiling. “Miss Sadie, I’m glad to see you looking so—”

  She remained silent, feeling something between amusement at his ineptitude and annoyance at his intrusion.

  “Well … fine. You’re looking just fine.”

  “Thank you, Jimmy,” she said, surprised at the kindness in her voice. “I am feeling much better.”

  He crumpled a little then, smiling shyly. The room remained cast in shadows, but knowing Jimmy, he was blushing clear across the top of his bald head. He dropped his eyes to look at her, and she motioned to the chair near the foot of the bed, inviting him to sit down.

  “Jewell told me what you’ve been through,” he said. “Do you think … was it really my child?”

  Now it was she who looked away.

  “Because I would’ve married you, you know I would’ve been proud to have you as my wife.”

  “That is very sweet of you. You are a good man.”

  “I’d still take you, you know,” he said, fidgeting with the hat in his lap. “That is, I mean, if you’d let me.”

  “No, Jimmy”

  “I know I’m not the youngest one around, nor the most handsome—”

  “Jimmy—”

  “But I’d take good care of you, Sadie. Give you everything you ever wanted.”

  “There is nothing that I want.”

  There was nothing left to say. Jimmy stood, leaned over, and kissed Kassandra tenderly, fatherly, on the top of her head.

  “We’re gettin’ outta here,” Jewell said.

  “Tomorrow,” Kassandra said.

  It had become their routine, but this day there was a new sense of urgency. Usually Jewell would simply rip the covers off, but today she took hold of the sheet beneath Kassandra and effectively rolled her onto the floor.

  “Jewell!”

  “Ah, would you smell ’em?” Jewell said, wadding up the fabric, sniffing, and turning away with an offended face. “How can you sour up good silk like that? Do you have any idea what that cost me?” She yanked the curtains open, threw open the window, and leaned out over the sill. “Hey! Pin-Pin! Me throw! You wash!”

  While Kassandra was still on the floor, rubbing the sore rump she had landed on, Jewell took up the bundle of sheets and tossed them out the window.

  “Have you gone mad?”

  “I don’t like the Chinks roamin’ ’round my house.” Jewell yanked the cases off the feather pillows and tossed them out as well. “Now, take this off,” she said, grabbing at the sleeve of Kassandra’s gown.

  “No!” Kassandra clutched the fabric to her.

  “It stinks, girl. You’ve been wearin’ it a solid two weeks now. Take it off.”

  Kassandra lifted the gown over her head, exposing her naked body—thin and soft. Jewell was right; the gown did smell awful, as Kassandra concluded she must, too.

  “Maybe I will go and get a bath later,” she said, reaching for the silk dressing gown Jewell was holding out to her.

  “Not maybe,” Jewell said. “Go. Get yourself cleaned up. Drop that.”

  Kassandra walked over to the window and saw the little Chinese man below, dressed in brown pants and shirt, his long, thin pigtail falling down his back. Next to him was a large wicker basket overflowing with the bedding Jewell had tossed down. Seeing Kassandra, he lifted his hands high to catch whatever she might throw.

  “Now, really, Jewell,” she said over her shoulder, “haven’t you ever heard of the dangers of airing your dirty laundry?”

  “Since when have I had anythin’ to hide?” She shoved Kassandra aside, took the gown from her, and tossed it out the window. “You go washee now,” she yelled. “Me pay tomorrow.”

  Jewell was short of breath after the exertion, and she settled herself heavily on the corner of the bed. “I meant it,” she said, wheezing a little. “‘Bout gettin’ out of here.”

  “I know. And you are right. It’s time. I think maybe I will feel better if I get out a bit.”

  “I don’t mean you,” Jewell said. “I meant us. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Your house?”

  “This town.” Jewell came back over to the window and stood beside Kassandra. “You see that over there?” She pointed to a wooden platform being built. “You know what that is?”

  “No.”

  “There’s gonna be a big meetin’ there on Saturday Lots of speeches.”

  “So?”

  “Lookin’ for reform. Law and order. Close down the saloons and clean up the streets type of talk. Next thing that happens? All the men start shorin’ up wives. Wives don’t like women like us. So they tell their men to round us up. Put us in jail. Next thing you know, an honest workin’ woman is spendin’ half her life in the slammer, and half her money goes to payin’ off the people to keep her out of it the other half.”

  “You are gett
ing all of this from a platform?” Kassandra said.

  “It ain’t just the platform. They’ve got pamphlets, too. And givin’ little talks to anyone who’ll gather to listen.”

  Kassandra watched as Jewell made her way back to the bed, then went awkwardly to her knees to rummage for something underneath it. After much huffing and puffing, she finally produced a small leather-bound case, which she handed up to Kassandra.

  “Set that on the table for me, would you? Now help me up.”

  Kassandra reached down and gave her arm to Jewell and braced herself to help the woman back to her feet. Jewell reached down and dusted off the front of her skirt, then pulled the little stool out from underneath her dressing table and draped herself over it. After searching for a few minutes through a little dish of hairpins, she found a small key that she fit into the tiny lock on the case’s latch.

  “You finally trust me enough to let me see where you keep the money?” Kassandra asked.

  “Money, nothin’,” Jewell said, leafing through the papers in the case. “I keep my money stored up where it’s safe from the thievin’ mongrels around this place.”

  “Then what is all this?” Kassandra moved closer to look over Jewell’s shoulder.

  “It’s the deed to the house. Jimmy says he’s got a buyer.”

  “A what?”

  “I told you it was time to get outta here. What did you think I meant?”

  “Well, not this. Where are we going to go?”

  “We?” Jewell said, twisting her neck to look up at Kassandra. “You girls can fend for your own selves. Don’t know what the new owner wants to do with the place.”

  “Who is the new owner?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. It’s gettin’ me a fair price. What with the rest I’ve got, I’ll be able to start up fresh right away.”

  Jewell set a few papers aside, then snapped the lid on the leather case, dropped it on the floor, and sent it skidding back under the bed with a perfect kick.

  “Now I gotta find me somethin’ respectable to wear down to the bank. Maybe that black number with the fancy red jet beads on the sleeves.”

  She was up again, flinging open the doors of the giant armoire and rummaging through the dresses.