She ran her fingers over the dress front, barely touching the lightweight fabric, which was tightly woven, fine, and smooth. She checked the bone-white buttons and the intricately sewn hemline, finished with the tiniest stitches she’d ever seen. She brought the dress up to her nose and inhaled. That scent again. Lavender and vanilla. She loved the dress. She also loved the idea that the nice young woman might teach her more about drawing. But doubt still plagued her.
This community of bartenders, junkmen, and house servants had hidden her well. At least that was what Reena, Harry, and old Madu said. No one had shown any great interest in her whereabouts for a while, but now the pretty young woman was interested enough to enter her shed and look through her things and then return without being invited.
A chill moved through her. The girl felt exposed, as if she were walking out on a plank with nothing, not even water underneath her. She didn’t know what the young lady called Grace wanted. The girl remembered the woman’s face, soft yet determined, and knew without a doubt that Grace would come back and want more. The girl couldn’t stay here now that her home had been entered against her will, even though then she wouldn’t get her drawing supplies.
She didn’t waste any time. She gathered up her belongings—her washtub, candles, pieces of paper, her collection of salvaged scraps from her family’s destroyed house that she kept in a cigar box, a pair of ripped stockings, all her old boys’ clothes, along with the new dress—and she bundled them together and left the shed. She climbed up the three peeling steps to Madu’s door. The paint on the tiny house, a two-room dwelling that faced the alley, was so long gone she couldn’t tell what color it had once been. She rapped once, waited, and then rapped again.
When the screen door creaked open and Madu appeared in the doorway, she could see that he’d been sleeping. His eyes were foggy, and his skin drawn. The old man had his days and nights mixed up. Most nights he stayed up late talking to himself and making his magic, putting colored powders into little jars, and then he made up for lost sleep during the day.
Looking annoyed, he asked, “What you want?” as he shuffled his way out onto the porch.
She held her things up in front of her as explanation.
“What happened?”
She shook her head and pointed in the direction of the shed. She must have appeared miserable, because Madu’s face fell. “I knows. I done heard her fiddling about. She helped herself to the inside of your shed.”
The girl wanted to ask him why he hadn’t stopped her, but she knew the reason. It was best—safer at least—for the Negroes to leave white folks be.
Madu moved his lips about in the odd way that was his alone. “Now where you gonna go?”
The girl lifted her shoulders and then let them fall.
Shaking his head, the old man tried to look angry with her. “You too much trouble, that’s what. You been in my yard for too long anyhow. Go on now. Find yourself another place to hide.”
She pointed in the direction of Reena’s house. She’d stayed there before, in an old chicken shed with a tin roof that had only about four feet of room inside. But she’d been much smaller back then, and Madu’s full-size shed had been a welcome relief when she’d figured out she could have it. In fact, Madu’s shed had been her best home since the storm, and here sometimes her grief lifted, as if on wings.
On the other side of Twenty-Fifth Street were the best alley houses, their yards full of wild plum, pomegranate, and pecan trees, but the girl didn’t know anyone who lived there. Class distinctions existed even in the alleys. Going back to Reena’s was her only option.
“You gonna go with that Bible banger again, is you?”
Madu and Reena had never been friends. Reena considered Madu’s black magic evil, and he considered her veneration of Jesus Christ as nothing but brainwashing by white folk. The alleys and the girl were about the only things they had in common. “Well, good luck to you, then.”
Before turning to leave, the girl nodded and waved good-bye.
Old Madu was still standing in front of his doorway, twisting his hands together in front of him, no longer sleepy. She let herself out of the rusty gate that enclosed his small overgrown yard, and then she stopped and looked back. He was still there, watching. She walked on, stopped again, and turned back one last time, as if to ask, What is it?
“You go on now,” he shouted in a cracking voice. “I don’t care nothing about you anyhow.”
The girl turned on her heel and walked away, smiling. A block and a half away, she found Reena outside scrubbing clothes on a washboard over a large tub of sudsy water. Reena looked up, noted all the things in the girl’s arms, and quickly went back to her work.
“You pulling up roots again, I see.” Reena stopped scrubbing, wiped a fleshy hand across her brow, and said, “Well, let me see. Lester thinks he’s all grown up and is gone off to Houston to get a job. We has plenty of room for you in the house.”
Reena had made the same offer in the past. When the girl had stayed close to Reena before, on rainy nights, or when winter storms had made it too cold to sleep in the old chicken house, the girl had slipped inside a time or two. She’d coiled up like a snail in the bed with Reena’s youngest boys, enjoying their warmth and boyish smells. But after a while the girl had started having trouble sleeping.
She kept seeing all those twisted lumps of debris that had been houses before the storm, and she began to feel boxed in. She preferred a simple shelter, one that she could escape in a blink, even if the weather sometimes made it uncomfortable. At least there she could close her eyes and sleep. And on warm summer nights she’d take the open night sky, lying on a bed of wild sunflowers or beach morning glory, any time.
Reena said, “You ain’t staying in that chicken coop again.” She shook her head. “No, ma’am, you ain’t gonna do it. The man of the house kept him some ducks in there a while back, and now it’s no place for a person. No, this time you gonna have to come into my house and stay in there.”
Narrowing her gaze on Reena, the girl slowly worked up to a little shrug.
“Well, go on, then,” said Reena. “What you waiting for?”
The girl took her time walking up the steps to the backhouse and went inside the dark two-room structure, which smelled of cooking grease and some kind of meat—pork, she thought—the floorboards creaking under even her light weight. She put her bundle of things in the single bedroom, where the entire family slept in narrow beds pushed up against the walls, and told herself she could do it now, that she could sleep in such confinement.
Later when the sun came out, she helped Reena wring out and hang the clean clothes, sort through some potatoes, tossing out the rotten ones, and then start the cooking on the back porch of the main house, where it was cooler. After dusk, the girl crawled into one of the beds with Reena’s ten-year-old son, Maurice. She felt his warmth and remembered at once how soft a real mattress was, how compliant, how it fit the body resting on it.
But later she dropped into the soft underbelly of that mattress too deeply, the same way her feet used to sink when she stood too long on the damp sand at water’s edge. Hours later, she was still shifting and tossing in the bed, tangling herself in the covers and disturbing Maurice, all in an effort to free herself.
Finally she figured out what the problem was. The mattress wasn’t firm enough to support her bones, which had become used to the ground. Everything inside her was collapsing into the other body parts, and her air was getting lost somewhere inside. She could not breathe in such a soft bed.
She had to get up and lie down on the floor, where she belonged.
Chapter Sixteen
GRACE
After two weeks of working with Ira, I started asking Seamus to come for me later in the day. At first, I asked him to give me an additional hour, then two, then three. The days were long and my tardiness for dinner had become routine, but I always returned before nightfall so Mother would not worry.
Each day I walk
ed the various alleys with Ira, where we distributed all the goods we had received, giving priority to any food items that could spoil in the heat, as we had no icehouse at our disposal. By then I wore only plain dark dresses and the simplest hats I could find to shield my face from the sun.
Later in his office, Ira asked me why I had changed my appearance so drastically.
I answered, “It’s simpler this way.”
“I see.”
He moved around the small room and then stopped.
I smiled wryly and said, “Well, that’s not altogether true. Again, I do things for selfish purposes. I grew uncomfortable wearing my finery down here.”
“I see,” he said again.
Ira shared jokes with the men and helped them find jobs. We talked to the women, even some I suspected were prostitutes, and Ira tried to find them more suitable employment if they were so willing. We played with the children.
My feet were heavy as I walked alongside him. I still regretted that I had been initially forced into this duty. Although now I came on my own volition, I would never be as gifted as Ira was. I never saw him lift an eyebrow or raise his voice, although he was aware of everything that went on around him. His concentration and watchfulness were so powerful that whenever his eyes fell on me, his gaze was palpable, like a touch.
He could sit and talk for hours with anyone on any subject, from the best way to piece, flour, and fry a chicken to the most difficult of spiritual issues, such as the nature of discipleship. He had the gift of circuitous conversation, yet he could reduce the most complicated matter to a simple thought.
Once he was counseling a woman who had been spurned and left by her husband. She ranted about his betrayal and spoke of her desire for revenge. “I’m gonna stand up in church this Sunday and tell it all before God, I am.”
“She shore is,” said the woman’s friend, who was sitting behind Ira, adding her encouragement every now and then.
“What purpose would that serve?” Ira asked in his quiet way.
The woman straightened her back, her face trembling with hurt. “It would pain him.”
“And you want to hurt him,” said Ira, more a statement than a question.
“I do. I’m cut down to the core, I am.”
“She shore is,” said the other woman.
The woman looked confused, lost in all she was feeling, but her voice was low and forceful and spoke of determination. “I’m a-hurting, and I’m aiming to hurt him back. What else should I do?”
Ira looked over her wavering face. He asked softly, “What do you think of forgiveness?”
“For him?” the woman scoffed. “I ain’t never gonna forgive that sorry excuse for a man.”
He waited for a long moment. “Give it time,” said Ira.
Blissfully calm, he didn’t tell her what or what not to do. But he had made her think about it. His kindness and restraint were amazing. Often I had to tell myself he was only a man.
I found out that the boy I’d first met on the beach, Joseph, was a strong reader, that in fact he was one of the best students in his school. I went into the library at home one night and pulled out some favorite childhood books that my mother was keeping for sentimental value. They had no practical use, so I crated them and brought them down to Ira’s office, where I cleared a spot on a shelf for storage. I decided I would loan the books out to Joseph and any other children who were interested, and that if I could manage it nothing would give me more pleasure than eventually opening a library down here.
Later I learned that if I walked around with a book or two in my hands, before long a child would ask me to read or show him or her the pictures. Soon I would have a little group of children gathered around me in a circle. It became a favored time, this unplanned reading.
Sometimes people would walk by and say such things as “Good for you, miss. Keep ’em out of trouble.”
As I read, time ceased to pass. The children and I journeyed over mountains and into the minds of animals. Sometimes I reminded myself to take a moment of pause, to watch as bliss poured from pages to faces.
Ira soon told me that he thought fostering a love of books was a fine thing to do as part of our mission, and therefore he decided to formalize my readings by posting storytelling times on a board outside the office, where he also posted his hours of work and means to get in touch with him in case of emergency. The people passed around news of our activities like precious collectibles. Only later did I realize that Ira was divining qualities in me I’d never known I had.
My personal life and experiences had never felt so small and trivial, as I now knew how diverse this tiny island was. Before, I’d awakened every day with myself as my primary concern. I’d never had to take care of another soul on this planet. I could paint, but otherwise I had been useless. Until now.
When we weren’t out in the alleys, we were writing letters, working with children, collecting donations from churches and estates left to charity, and purchasing goods using the monetary contributions we had received. Ira kept meticulous records so there could be no doubt as to our integrity.
The days were long and hard, but I found that time passed effortlessly while I worked. Productivity was such an odd but rewarding feeling. I completed every task that Ira requested and started to take on other projects. I remained on alert for the girl, but I saw only occasional glimpses of her. She had moved out of the shed on the old voodoo man’s property. Apparently she had always moved around often, but I was assured by those who would hesitantly speak of her that she was still around. I was not overly concerned about losing her. Eventually I would get the time with her I sought. I had a satchel full of art supplies to give her, so I handed them over to the voodoo man, as I was sure he would be seeing her again.
A few days later, when I asked him if he had managed to get the supplies to her, at first he didn’t answer. He was one of those who had little use for Ira and me. Never rude, he kept his distance nonetheless, and after I asked the question, he gazed at me warily as he sat on his stoop and smoked an odd-looking pipe.
“I mean the girl no harm,” I said softly. “She was drawing the last time I saw her . . . and I believe she’d love to have those supplies.”
“They ain’t here no more, is they?” the old man said.
“Does she have them?”
“I ain’t no thief. Of course she done has them.”
“Thank you,” I said, turning to leave. Then I swirled around and faced him again. “I sincerely thank you.”
He nodded once and stared at me as if with a poison arrow.
Ira was already scolding me about my long days. “You should go home earlier. I’m afraid you might be straining yourself. It’s almost the dinner hour,” he said one evening.
After organizing the donations we’d received that afternoon, I was trying to decide where best they should go, where they would be most beneficial. “You’re still here,” I said to him.
“I need to be.”
“So do I.”
“But you’re not accustomed to this work.”
I shoved a box into the corner, then shifted some others so that we might move about easier inside the small room. “I’ve wondered something about you.”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“Why are you not a minister in a church? Why do this instead?”
“Ah, that is a question I am frequently asked.”
“I would imagine.”
“I’m associated with a group of missionary ministers who feel much the same as I do; I feel closer to our Savior when I’m here, or in a similar place. Someday I may find myself before a church congregation, and often I’m a guest minister for a Sunday service, but for now these people are my congregation, even if they don’t realize it. I find that most people in churches are not in need of such essential help. They are already saved.”
Puzzled, I said, “But if I may be so bold, you don’t seem to be in the business of saving souls here, Ira.”
“Some
of these people are fine Christians already, and as for the rest, they must be fed, clothed, and cared for first. I find that given time, some of those without faith will ask me about mine. And then they are more receptive to the doctrine of the church. It isn’t forced upon them then, you see.”
It did seem that things worked better if we let people come to us. Maybe they gave up less of themselves that way. “Where did you study?”
“Boston.”
“There’s a good art museum there. I took a course in oils there once.”
“So, you are an artist,” said Ira, looking pleased. “I should have known.”
“Oh, and how so?”
“I see it in the way you move, the way you walk. You’re always studying things around you.”
“Perhaps I’m too removed.”
“No, I don’t see you as removed.”
There followed an awkward moment, during which neither of us knew what to say.
Finally Ira spoke. “I’m often asked why I went into the ministry at all.” He cleared his throat and went on. “I always loved the church, even when I didn’t know why. When I was about fourteen, my father and I were on a journey outside Boston. We stopped for water at a well in a small country town, a place surrounded by poverty. While my father pumped the water, I wandered into a tiny church that held only a few plain wooden pews and a simple altar covered with a tablecloth, a hardwood cross above it that was polished to a luster. I looked at that cross and something happened.”
“Did you receive a vision?”
He shook his head. “Nothing as grand as that. I was simply filled with the knowledge of what I should do. I’ve had no personal message from God.” He stopped and smiled, obviously remembering something amusing. The light shone on his cheeks. “But once I did become faint during a church service and had to sit down. My grandmother thought I had been stricken or ‘called,’ as she put it, but I was simply taken ill. All I had accomplished was to ruin the church service.”
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