Sophie and the Rising Sun

by Augusta Trobaugh

  My dear Sophie! If only you could have come to me on this night, I would never have let you go again.

  Sophie went straight home from the riverfront soon after Big Sally left, and when she was once more back in her own bedroom, she shed her clothes, glanced briefly in the mirror at herself, slipped on a cool, cotton wrapper and sat down at the dresser to decide exactly how to do what was to be done.

  Beside her brush was the completely withered sprig of bougainvillea. She picked it up and studied it, turning the stem in her fingers until the movement of the sprig, reflected in the mirror, caught her eye.

  She gazed at herself, as if her image would speak to her in silence. Say whatever it was she needed to hear. But the moment she saw her own face, she realized that what was gazing back at her was someone she hadn’t known before. Her face, but no longer familiar.

  No longer grieving for... what?... Henry? Her own youth? The lost years?

  No. This face bore no trace of sadness and very little of age, in fact. This face was vital and alive and with the heightened color of round cheeks glowing between deep green eyes and the white V of her skin at the neckline of the blue wrapper.

  The slow, silent dance of the faded bougainvillea in the mirror, and watching in strange detachment as her hand came up slowly toward the neckline of the wrapper and hesitated only briefly before slipping it from the rounded shoulders. So that her pale body was, at last, revealed to her in the glass.

  The breasts somewhat pendulous, and the neck slightly lined. But the face more alive and vibrant than it had ever been, even in her youth. The eyes smoldering with something unknown. She raised her arms, then crossed them behind her head, and gazed at herself for a very long time. Until her image lost its meaning, fragmented into a meaningless montage of brows and mouth and breasts and arms.

  And it was taking very little for her to see the delicate feathers and the purple eyes of the great crane, right there in her mirror.

  And what in it that happens between a man and a woman? she wondered. What secret things will I learn from loving a man who is real?

  When the dusk was deepening rapidly and the wind steadily rising, she finished packing the small suitcase—even though she knew that she would wait for full dark before she left. And as soon as she had closed the lid and snapped it shut, there was only one thing left for her to do before she would be free, at last. She went straight to the pantry, to where the familiar box sat alone on the bottom shelf, and she didn’t need to lift the lid to see the eyeless, mummified feather-creatures inside.

  Silently, she carried the box—as light as if it were empty—out onto the back porch, where the increasing wind flung open the screen door, as if holding it open for her to pass through. Out into the yard to where the wind was blowing wildly—wind that ripped off the box lid, just as she tossed the mummified bodies into the air—wind that swept them away, as if they still could fly.

  And at that very moment, there was a sudden flurry of live wings in the twilight backyard, where a flock of mourning doves lifted in one enormous and swift movement out of the swaying crepe myrtle tree, strong, white wings bearing them straight up and into the last light.

  Beneath the sudden whirring of their wings, Sophie stood and watched where spirit-children shrieked and chased each other and took turns in the tire swing, laughing and pushing each other higher and higher into the twilight sky.

  Grove! Wait for me! I’m coming!

  In the small room behind Miss Anne’s kitchen, Big Sally had gone to bed early. Lying awake and listening to the whine of the rising wind, she was startled a little when she heard the fronds of a cabbage-palm near her window flap-flapping against the glass.

  Sophie?

  No.

  No one there.

  Finally, in spite of the wind and the intermittent flapping of the palm fronds on the window, Big Sally felt herself drifting into that half-world between sleeping and waking.

  Where she was a child again, wearing the red rag wrapped around her head. And Mama said, “You take good care of the little ones, Sally. You hear?”

  “Yes’m, Mama.”

  And little Sophie there, too, in her dream. In a white pinafore, darting around the yard, laughing and squealing. The bright green eyes and the white arms. Like a little white egret.

  It was Sophie’s turn to swing in the tire swing and Sally’s turn to push her. Higher and higher, up against the blue sky and the green leaves.

  Fly, little white bird! Fly!

  And the white wings reaching for the blue air and the strong downbeat flapping against the red rag wrapped around Sally’s head.

  Flap-flap!

  TAP-TAP.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Miss Anne said:

  Big Sally went to bed early that night, but before she did, she brought me a cup of tea and my book and plumped up my pillows and smoothed my sheets. I thought of asking her once again to tell me how she’d “taken care of things,” but something about the broadness of her shoulders stopped the words before I could utter them.

  And after all, I really didn’t have to ask. Quite obviously, she’d found Sophie, admonished her not to go to the cabin again, and explained to her about Ruth’s snooping.

  Nothing so complicated about that. So I said good night to Sally, drank my tea, and then read myself to sleep.

  I don’t know how long I’d been asleep when that old devil wind waked me. It was blowing so hard that it shook the whole house, and the curtains at my window whipped and fluttered out into the room like ghosts.

  “Sally?” I called out. No answer. But with all that wind blowing like that, it would be hard for her to hear me, all the way in that little room behind the kitchen. And so I pulled the sheet up over my head and listened to the wind. A hurricane. It had to be a hurricane.

  In only an hour or so the wind had gotten much worse, and I heard the back door bang open and slam hard against the wall. Scared me to death, it did. I reached over to turn on the lamp, but the electricity was out, and the house just as black as that black night outside.

  “Sally?” I yelled into the darkness. “See to the back door, will you? Wind’s blown it open!”

  “It’s me, Miss Anne.” A man’s voice from the hallway. “Sheriff.”

  What on earth?

  A flashlight beam snaking along the hallway and the sound of shuffling feet. A grunting sound in the darkness and then the beam of light coming into my room and behind it, the big figure of the sheriff and him wearing a black rain slicker and puddling water all over my floor.

  “Don’t be alarmed, Miss Anne,” he said. “We found Big Sally out on the edge of town, and she’s got a broken arm and a cut on her head. Must have gotten hit by a falling branch or something. Me and the doctor are going to put her to bed, and I’ll come back in a few minutes with somebody to take care of you all.”

  Big Sally? Out in this storm? But why?

  “What on earth was she doing outside in this?” I asked, but the sheriff was already heading back out of my bedroom door.

  “Don’t know. Maybe trying to see if her mama’s old house down by the bridge was okay,” he said over his shoulder. “But right now I got folks down there still, needing help. It’s awful bad.”

  “It’s a hurricane?” I asked.

  “Yes’m, it’s a hurricane, all right.”

  And with that, he was gone, leaving me all alone and knowing that Big Sally was hurt and in the bed in my back room and me not even able to get to her to help her. Or to find out why she’d gone out in such a terrible storm.

  So I had to lie there just like a stick and listen to all that wind buffeting the house and wonder about it all. Lots of trouble down at the end of town, the sheriff had said.

  And what about my papa’s cabin, farther out? Was that where she’d gone? To find Mr. Oto and take him somewhere else to hide him? Because of Ruth?

  About thirty minutes passed—seemed like much longer, of course, with me lying there in the dark, just as
helpless as a baby.

  Then I heard the back door opening again and slamming back and hitting the wall hard. Heavy footsteps coming back down the hall.

  “Miss Anne?” the sheriff called to me. “It’s me again. I’ve brought somebody to help take care of you... and Sally.”

  And no sooner were the words out of his mouth than—of all things—Ruth’s mean face peered around my door. Her just as mad as a wet hen and with rainwater dripping out of her hair.

  “The very idea of such a thing!” she hissed at me. “Why, he practically kidnapped me! Make me take care of a colored woman, will he? Well, we’ll see about that!”

  Oh, Lord.

  Well, life sure hands us some unexpected things, sure enough. Like that hurricane so very late in the year. And Ruth having to play nursemaid to me... and to Big Sally. Well, I tell you, I was mighty glad that I had to stay in bed in my own room, because there were sure going to be plenty of sparks flying around the rest of my house that night. Until the storm would be over and then I expected Eulalie would come and take over for Ruth.

  Because it was common knowledge that Eulalie was terrified of hurricanes, and whenever one came, she took right to her bed and stayed there until it was past. Wouldn’t come out for anything. But I sure wished that weren’t so. Because there couldn’t have been anyone worse for the job than Ruth. It just made everything more miserable than it already was.

  At first, of course, I was just intent on seeing if my house would hold up in the wind. But Ruth was plenty mad, as I’d expected she would be. Said the sheriff had shanghaied her—that’s what she called it—and there was just no settling her down. Why, she made more noise than the hurricane!

  “I’ll take care of you,” she yelled above the howling wind. “Even if you did insult me and hurt me right to the quick! But Doc is one big fool if he thinks I’m going to take care of... colored!” Ruth waggled her head toward the back of the house, where Big Sally was.

  “Ruth, she’s a human being and needs taking care of,” I yelled back. “Besides—I’ve listened to you talking and talking for your whole life about what you call Christian charity—now I want you to show it to me!”

  “Some one you are,” she sputtered back at me. “To talk about Christian anything—you haven’t been to church in a month of Sundays!”

  Well, I knew then that there was no getting it across to Ruth that being in church every Sunday and being a good Christian didn’t necessarily mean one and the same thing. And I was vexed with her. I had plenty to worry about, without trying to persuade her to take care of Big Sally.

  “I’ll take care of her myself,” I yelled, tossing back the sheet and trying to swing my feet to the floor. But Ruth saw my swollen and discolored leg above the ankle that was encased in plaster, and she relented.

  “No. I’ll do it—but on one condition.”

  “What’s that?” I asked wearily. I might have known she’d drive a bargain. A hard one. But she had to take care of Big Sally, because there was no one else to do it. And besides, she hadn’t said another thing to me about the cabin, and I guess I was grateful for that.

  “I’ll wait on Big Sally...” She shuddered a little, in revulsion. “And you’ll come to church.”

  I hesitated only a moment before I agreed. Because I had something in mind that I was sure going to enjoy.

  “It’s a deal!” I yelled back at her. And I think she was more than a little surprised, although she did a good job of covering it up. After all, she was the one who had suggested it. And of course, she kept her word.

  Soon afterward, she took a tray in to Big Sally in the back bedroom, but she slammed the tray down so hard on the dresser back there that I could hear the dishes rattling all the way in my room, even over the sound of the wind.

  And Big Sally laughing hard enough to rattle all the hinges on the doors.

  Me alone in my room, listening to the two of them and wondering what was happening to Mr. Oto. And why Big Sally had been so far down at the other end of town in that terrible storm. And where on earth Mr. Oto really was.

  That was certainly a long, long night, but when it was over, the storm went away with the darkness. And just as I expected, Eulalie came just as soon as the wind had stopped and took over from Ruth, who left right away—but only after she stuck her head into my room and said, “You needn’t worry yourself about your... friend... back there.” Again, she waggled her head toward the back room. “Strong as a bull. Mean as a snake. And I’ll never forgive you, Anne. Making me wait on her. Just like a servant! So don’t you forget your part of the bargain!” And with that, Ruth was gone, at last.

  And it was ever so much better, having Eulalie there, because I knew she would be just as just as tender and loving with Big Sally as she had been with all her stray cats. And with Mr. Oto. And with anyone who needed help—black or white.

  One thing, though—I asked Eulalie right away if she’d please go see if my papa’s old fishing cabin was still there. Said it lightly, so it would seem that I was merely interested in knowing whether it survived the storm. Because if the cabin was still there and if Mr. Oto was still in it, if Eulalie saw him—then I could let her in on the secret about our hiding him. Eulalie would have understood. Whether she could have kept her mouth shut about it was something else, but I had to risk it.

  But she said right off that there was no need for her to go down there at all. That everything from that end of town and on down the coast was gone. Or so the sheriff said. And after all, Eulalie reminded me, it was just an old shack, so I shouldn’t worry myself about it. And with that, she went right back to the kitchen, from which the most wonderful aromas were wafting down the hallway. But when she brought a tray into my room—and it laden with fried chicken and mashed potatoes and English peas and fresh, buttered biscuits—I couldn’t eat a bite.

  All I could do was wonder about Mr. Oto. And was he all right?

  Oh, it was terrible.

  When Eulalie came back in for the tray, she never fussed at me the least little bit, but she looked at all the untouched food still there with real grief in her eyes. And I guess she thought she had figured out what was wrong with me, because in a little while, she brought Big Sally—leaning on her quite hard—down the hallway and helped her to sit down in the chair next to my bed.

  “I figured you all needed a little visit together,” Eulalie said. “Doc said it was okay.” And she went out of the room, smiling and looking back at us, firmly convinced that I was just a little bit lonely and that bringing Big Sally to “visit” with me would solve everything. How I wished that were true!

  Of course, I was certainly glad to see Big Sally—certainly had a lot of questions for her. One of her arms was in a cast and a sling, and she had a plaster bandage over her left eyebrow. But otherwise, she looked just as big and strong as she ever was. I waited until Eulalie closed the door all the way before I dared to speak.

  “What were you doing out in that storm?” I whispered right away.

  But the doctor must have had Big Sally on some kind of strong pain medicine, because her eyes were funny-looking—with the pupils gone all wide. Either that, or getting hit on the head like that had hurt her more than it looked like on the surface. That little plaster bandage.

  “Doing?” she asked, most sincerely, as if it were a word she had never heard before.

  “Yes—what were you doing out in that storm? Did you go to the cabin?”

  “Sheriff found me,” she said.

  “Yes. I know all about that, but what were you doing out in it? Where were you going?”

  But Big Sally just blinked at me, as if she didn’t understand a thing I was saying.

  “You went out in that storm,” I said. “But why? Sheriff said you may have gone to see if your mama’s old house was all right.”

  “That’s it,” she said happily.

  “That was it?” I pressed.

  “What was it?” Big Sally asked, drawing her eyebrows together and crinkli
ng the plaster patch.

  “Listen to me,” I pleaded with her, and I felt close to tears. “Did you go down to the cabin?”

  She just looked at me, and her face was as blank as a baby’s. “Cabin?”

  Dear Lord!

  Clearly, she wasn’t able to answer my questions. She’d forgotten everything about Mr. Oto hiding in my papa’s old cabin. And I still didn’t know what had happened to him. My throat got so tight, I could hardly breathe. And I couldn’t tell whether I was going to cry harder than I’d ever cried in my life or whether I was going to leap out of bed—broken ankle and all—and grab her and choke the answer out of her!

  “I do better than you,” Big Sally said, right out of the blue. And she sure didn’t look so blank anymore.

  “Better than me?”

  “Better than you at not saying things that shouldn’t be said,” she replied. “But you listen to me—and you listen real good, because I’m only going to say this once: Don’t you worry about anything. I took care of it all.”

  I certainly did search her face, then. What was she trying to tell me, without telling me?

  And could I trust that she even knew what she was saying? Because of her being so confused?

  “And another thing...” A strange smile was on her face, and I was remembering how I could hear her laughing at Ruth all the way in my room and in spite of that howling wind. “From now on, my name is Queen Sally.”

  I wondered if she was completely out of her mind. And how could I believe a thing she said?

  While I was sitting there, studying her face and trying to decide, she closed her eyes and fell asleep. So that all I could hear was her snoring. And that made about as much sense as anything else that had come out of her mouth.

  A little while later, Eulalie came back. “I hope you all had a nice little visit,” she said, and waked Big Sally by touching that massive shoulder so gently and then led her back down the hallway, just like a sleepy little child.