by Tillie Olsen
Fillin the kid’s head with fool ideas, he thought wrathfully. But she could become a teacher. Aloud—“Sure you are. You’ll go to college and read books and marry a—” his stomach revolted at the thought of a mine boss—“a doctor. And,” he finished, “eat on white tablecloths.”
She trotted along. Somehow the question she had meant to have answered could not be clamped into words. They reached the one street. Her dad went into the company store to buy her a sucker. Afterward when he went into the saloon, she slipped out to the culm bank that rose like an enormous black mountain at the edge of the street. One side was on fire and weird; gorgeous colors flamed from it. The colors swirled against the night, reds and blues, oranges and yellows. “Like babies’ tongues reachin out to you. Like what happens to the back of your eyes when you close ’em after seein the sun, only that hurts. Like all the world come a-colored,” she whispered softly to herself. “Mazie Holbrook is a-watchin you,” she whispered, “purty tongues.” And gently, gently, the hard swollen lump of tears melted into a swell of wonder and awe.
It was cold and damp. Mazie shivered a little, but the shiver was pleasant. The wind came from the north, flinging fine bits of the coal dust from the culm against her face. They stung. Somehow it reminded her of the rough hand of her father when he caressed her, hurting her, but not knowing it, hurting with a pleasant hurt. “I am a-watching you, purty tongues.”
Sheen McEvoy, lurching out of the saloon, saw a fluttering patch of white against the black culm. “Ghosts,” he whispered to himself. His throat became dry. A lost ghost, sent out of the mine, and white. “God.” The wind shivered against him. “Against the culm he saw letters of fire dancing a devil’s dance. For a paralyzing instant they danced together, writing a mine blowup. They seared Sheen McEvoy’s eyes almost with the terrifying pain of the gas explosion that had blown his face off and taken his mind. The culm made a long finger of shadow toward him—the stars pointed, pointed. “No, no,” he moaned, “don’t make me have to save ’em.”
In Sheen McEvoy’s mind insanity dwelled, like a caged wind. Sometimes it was a hurricane, whistling crazily, tearing, making whirlpools of thought, driving his body to distorted movements. Sometimes an old forlorn wind, with the tired voice of dead people, barely touching him, creeping along the sensitive surface. Sometimes the wind spoke or laughed in him. Then awful prophecies came to his tongue. To him, the mine was alive—a thousand-armed creature, with ghosts hanging from the crossbeams, ghosts living in the coal swearing revenge when their homes were broken into. Once fire had risen from earth to sky, clutched at his face, borne it away. Looking in the mirror at himself, he thought now some ghost in the coal was wearing it, laughing.
The wind began its whining. He ran unsteadily for the white flutterflutter. Dazed, he saw it was a small child, with unholy eyes, green. A voice spoke in him, “A little child, pure of heart.” That was it. The mine was hungry for a child; she was reaching her thousand arms for it. “She only takes men ’cause she aint got kids. All women want kids.” Thoughts whirled in colors—licking to flame; exultation leaped up in him.
Sheen McEvoy will fill you, ol’ lady. His laugh, horrible as the cracked thin laughter of old breastless women watching youth, sent the night unsteady. Mazie looked up. Sheen McEvoy was standing above her, laughing. Her heart congealed. The red mass of jelly that was his face was writhing, like a heart torn suddenly out of the breast, and he laughed and laughed. Mazie wanted to run; her mind fainted on the thought of her father, strong and tall, so far away. She turned to go.
He held her. His body was hot and putrid. Stinking. “You’re the mine’s baby now,” he said, holding her tight. “The mine’ll hold ya like that, pretty baby.” Screams tore at Mazie’s throat, caged there. Sweat poured over her. She closed her eyes. He strode toward the shaft. He kissed her with his shapeless face. In Mazie her heart fainted, and fainted, but her head stayed clear. “Make it a dream, Momma, Poppa, come here, make it a dream.” But no words would come.
Instead another voice, thundering. “What are you doing with that kid, McEvoy?” No words would come. But he—his breath stinking, the jelly opening in the middle. “Stand out of my way. The mine is calling for her baby. Men’ll die—but they’ll live if she gets the baby. Stand back.”
The night watchman’s mouth came open. “Put her down.”
Sheen McEvoy strode on, oblivious. Angels were singing in his head, men were singing—glad praise, saved men. Her body was soft and warm. “Lift my arms and throw her down the shaft and the mine’ll forget about men.”
“Put her down.”
“Give her a sweet baby, and she’ll want no more.” Angels singing, men, strong-bodied men, marching and singing, saved. Her body, soft, trembled against him. Ecstasy sang. Now the shaft, hungry mouth.
“I am giving you your baby.” He lifted his arms. Mazie saw down, but there was no bottom. Her scream sounded now, answered by his laughter: shrill, cracked, horrible.
Darkness came like lightning. His arms loosened. Mazie rolled, barely missing the shaft. Rising, she crawled, toward what she did not know. The tipple rose like a tree, without leaves, above her. Words came, drunken. Fear. “Poppa.” Behind a figure rose, menacing; swung. A miner’s pickax. Blindness on two men, fighting. The ax swings, misses. A gun spurts, one, two, three; lovely lire colored like on the culm, colored like the thoughts in McEvoy’s head. One instant angels singing, men marching and singing, saved men; the mine yawning, hungry; soft body trembling to him. Blackness now. Black as the day in the mine. Over and over a body lurches, dips into a shaft, thuds thuds against the sides. The clouds, throwing their shadow, give for an instant a smile, inscrutable, to the mouth of the mine.
Into the saloon, like some apparition, came the nightman, bloody of face and clothes, carrying a child. The men looking up from their drink, laughter and oaths cut off, stared astounded. Breathing heavily, he walked to the center of the room and asked fiercely, “Whose kid is this?”
The whiskey making giddiness of his veins, Holbrook turned. The oath, so like a laugh, died on his lips. The kid was Mazie. “It’s my kid,” he answered gruffly. “What the hell are you doin with her?”
“You oughta thank your damn guts I am doin something with her. Why didn’t you watch her, if she’s your kid?”
The whiskey made a lovely golden fog in his head. Not understanding, he lurched to the nightman, taking the kid away. “What you been doin?” he asked sharply. “What did you run away for?” Her eyes opened for an instant. Questioning and impersonal like a wounded animal’s, they stared at him. Uncomprehending, meaning to roar some oath, he looked toward the nightman. The tense, accusing face came like a wind, blowing the fog with cold sharp wings. “What happened?” he asked tersely, still shaking Mazie.
“Stop shaking the kid, she can’t answer you, she’s sick. And who wouldn’t be? That bastard McEvoy went on another loony spree. Picked her up somewhere and gets the idea the mine wants a baby, as if it don’t get enough grownups. Comes to the shaft laughing and singing about the men he’s going to ‘deliver.’ When I looked for the kid she was crawlin like some blind animal. Scared to death.”
“The sonofabitch,”roared Holbrook, “I’ll kill him. Where is he?”
“Keel him, leench him,” one man muttered angrily.
“The mine done the job for you. He fell down the shaft he was aimin to throw her down.”
Holbrook felt as if he were drowning. He felt weak, like a child. My baby, this happened too, he thought. He shook her again, but gently. The stirring of her body against him was insufferably sweet anguish.
“Geev her a sweeg dees,” one of the Greeks offered roughly. “That waken her up.”
“No, Nick, I’m taking her home. Anna’ll fix her up. Got a coat, anybody?”
Tenderly he wrapped her in one, letting no one else touch her. Walking home, he still felt as if he were drowning. Once when she opened her eyes and in a dream-voice murmured, “Poppa, you came,” tears stung h
is eyes.
“My baby, this had to happen too.” A monstrous thought gripped him. Frightened, he shook her roughly. “What did he do to you, Mazie, Big-eyes, what did he do to you?” He ran for the yellow light that made a neat block on the road.
Anna was still by the window sewing, in the attitude of a woman weeping. But her eyes were tearless—they shone at him like hard bright steel. “You’re home early. Get homesick?”
Remorse added to terror and shame. “Anna,” he said, so broken, so tender, her heart leaped.
“Jim?”
“The kid. She. Maybe …” He could not speak.
“Mazie?” cried Anna, shrill. “What happened? What’ve you done to her?” She snatched the child, spoke to her, took her to the light. There was a small bruise on her forehead, scratches on her face.
“You beat up on her, you dirty bastard.”
“No, listen, Anna.” He told her the story, tremblingly told his fear. He was like a child. Terrified, he heard Anna’s hysterical laughter—then her calm.
“She hasn’t been touched. She’d have been all bloody if he had. But God only knows how hurt she is. Put on hot water, you, and bring some whiskey into the bedroom.” She carried Mazie onto their cot and tumbled hot whiskey and tea down her throat.
Jim sat and held the lamp. His wavering shadow looked at him from the wall. Feeling Mazie’s burning head, her body moist with sweat, he asked, “Shouldn’t I get a doctor?”
“Forget where you are? You know there’s only the company doc—and a vets better’n him. She’ll be all right. Looks like she might’ve hurt her head fallin, or maybe she’s just scared. Poor baby, poor baby, I’ll give her more hot whiskey.”
The wind, starting up outside, shook against the house, and Mazie in the quiet of the bedroom began crying, tossing, calling out fragments of sentences, incoherent words. Will, waking, saw how his father sat so still and terrible. Still in his sleep, he began to whimper—“Dont hit me, Poppa, dont. I didn’t mean nothing.”Unsteadily Jim stood up. The waters seemed closing over his head again: a grimy face turned up to him, pleading, “A story, Pop,” and a hand that had crashed down over it. Almost timidly he rubbed that hand against the soft head. “You’re dreaming, Will boy,” he whispered. “Sleep agin. Try to sleep.”
He turned down the light. The new-made, concealing darkness came welcome to them both. “Listen.” He gripped her shoulders. “We’re clearin out in spring, you hear? We’ll save every cent. We’ll go to Dakota. Spring’s the time to begin a new life, aint it? I’ll farm. That’s a good job—I could do it, tried my hand at everything else. Or maybe we’ll go to Denver—get on at the slaughterhouse. No—it’ll be farmin, workin with ground, not rock. Ground smells sweet. And it’s good for the kids, right, Anna? We’ll make it a new life in the spring?”
In her delirium Mazie laughed—terrible laughter, mocking, derisive, not her own. Anna and Jim, hearing it mix with their words, shuddered.
TWO
A new life in the spring. But now fatback and cornmeal to eat. Newspapers stuffed in the shoes so that new ones need not be bought, and the washing done without soap. Somehow to skimp off of everything that had long ago been skimped on, somehow to find more necessities the body can do easiest without. The old quilt will make coats for Mazie and Ben; Will can wear Mazie’s old one. This poverty’s arithmetic for Anna, and for Jim—hunger for the gayness whiskey gives the world, battling fear that before spring the mine will engulf him.
A new life … in the spring. Once Anna tried to tell the children. Illumining her drab words with her glowing face, Anna told them of living among trees, having Daddy work where they all could see him, of a good school—not a Catholic one—and milk from cows. Will, watching her face with burning eyes, said, “That a fairy story, Mom?” but Mazie hardly seemed to listen; crept out of the house, restless, before Anna was through.
The children were changed. Even their “Aint there nothing else to eat, Mom?” was apathetic. The peace at home, their father so awkwardly gentle, sitting home nights now, frightened them. Always they were expecting something else. Mazie sat still the evenings staring into the stove, and when Jim tried to woo her to smiles, she gave him such objective ones, they froze him.
In the coal town too there lived a subtle fear. The new fire boss was the super’s nephew, too scared, too lazy, it was said, to go stumbling through the foggy workings alone, testing to find out if gas had collected. In everyone’s heart coiled the fear of a blowup. Nights the saloon jetted with fiery laughter, reckless song, hard evil fights. On the women’s faces lived the look of listening. And the autumn days, shaken with rain and restless wind, brought always the sound of fear, undefinable, into the air.
One November day the sky was packed so thick with clouds, heavy, gray, Marie Kvaternick said it had the look of an eyelid shut in death. Leaves dashed against the houses, giving a dry nervous undertone to everything, and the maniac wind shrieked and shrieked.
Anna’s face that day had the look of a mask, racked listening hidden underneath. It drove the children restless. Even the baby, sensing the tension, whimpered. “Shut that kid up,” Anna demanded of Mazie. “I dont care how.” Mazie gathered him up, with a bread crust for him to suck on, and a diaper, and slipped out. Will came alongside.
Above colors were gathering in the sky. Sunset colors, though it was early afternoon. Mazie remembered the colors in the culm and shuddered. There was a grove away from the town—a long way—but they went there. Will played with his stocking ball, and she lay down in the rustling autumn leaves, one hand over her eyes, shielding them from what she did not know. The baby lay warm in her other arm, there where it ached from carrying him.
High up the wind was whirring, but here there was only a gentle shadow of it. “All that be here is the end of its skirt,” Mazie whispered. And in the darkness of her arm, the tightness that had been around her heart slackened, eased, was no more.
Will came over. Lay down, his head snuggled on her stomach. “Five years. I’m five years old. What be it to be five years?”
“Five years you’ve lived, Will.”
“Five years. I’m wearin your old coat, a girl’s coat.
For why?”
“For that’s all there is. Shush now, let baby sleep. Shush, and hear the wind cryin.”
“The wind? What’s wind?”
“It’s people cryin and talkin.”
“People?”
“Yes, people in the sky.”
“Sky? What be sky?”
“Shush. That’s something I’m not knowin.”
“Sky be a winder?”
“A window.”
“You can’t see through it, ’cause its dirty?”
“No, your breath’s blowin up on it, everybody’s breath—open your eyes and you see it go up, and it makes it cloudy.”
“Breath? Not rags. Looks like rags stuck in the window, a-flappin.”
“Shush, Will, not rags. Listen to the leaves. Sounds like people walkin quiet, quick—walkin past on tiptoe.”
“Fatback tastes in my mouf.”
“Eyes closed and you hear better.”
“Fatback sour in my mouth. Wish I had a apple.”
“Poppa comes home and stays.” Something stirred in her breast faint like the leaves about her. Dont think of poppa. Hear the leaves.
“Ask momma for a apple. She says no.”
“He never hits no more. Looks at me like he got something good, but he never gives it to me, only looks.”
“Johnny tole me what you eat grows in your belly. I gonna grow fatback.”
“And momma … bein mad, then bein sorry … momma always lookin as if she expects to hear somethin …”
“Grow fatback and be dead. Mazie, what’s dead?”
“Momma listenin, always listenin.” The tightness had come alive again; it strangled around her heart. She leaped to her feet with a cry, waking the baby. Some terror crept upon her.
“Mazie, whatsa matter?”
She pointed. Above the sky were ears. In all their different shapes they coiled, blurred ears, listening. And looking down, she saw that the wind was pitting the grasses and leaves, making little whirlpools, kitten-shaped ears, listening, listening. The face of her mother, the face of Mis’ Connors, the face of Mis’ Tikas came like a mist before her eyes—listening, everywhere, everywhere.
“Willie, lets go home, Willie. I’ll race you, baby and all. Lets go. Put your hands in your ears and you dont hear nothin, lets go, run.”
The wind was icy on her running body; the baby dragged. But everywhere the sky and earth were listening. And the whistle—yes, it was the whistle that was shrieking—not the finger in her ear, not the wind. At the tipple there would be … thinking of the tipple, her heart plunged, she wanted to fall, to stuff the leaves into her ears. “Willie, lets run, Willie.” He moaned, “Momma be runnin, everyone runnin and screamin, Mazie.”
“Lets run away, Will.” A thought hung with bulldog teeth to her mind—“It’ll be daddy this time.”
“Lets run away,” but their feet were flying—flying to the tipple.
The women were there already. Tearless faces, watching. But no one brought up limp and sagging. Instead, frightened men, and the rest sealed in an open grave. A big explosion. It might take days to dig them up. Anna with bloodless lips formed “a new life,” but Will and Mazie were pulling at her skirt, her baby was moving in her arms, and Marie Kvaternick hurting her shoulder. “You see, Anna. They be up. These big ones—they save; nothing happen. Only little accidents they die. But if Andy stay—” she pushed out fierce—“if Andy stay, better for Andy. Wots matter, Anna? You see, Jim’ll be back, they be up. Only … Chris …”
And could you not make a cameo of this and pin it onto your aesthetic hearts? So sharp it is, so clear, so classic. The shattered dusk, the mountain of culm, the tipple; clean lines, bare beauty—and carved against them, dwarfed by the vastness of night and the towering tipple, these black figures with bowed heads, waiting, waiting.