“Your wife needs help,” Miss Gothel said.
Toby said nothing.
“I don’t mean to call her crazy; times have changed. Now it’s like having a limp, or a bad back. Medical. A deficiency, a handicap. Not a sin. Certainly not a sin.” Miss Gothel spoke to Toby the way county officials spoke to Toby, the way bosses spoke to Toby, the way policemen spoke to Toby; large, languid words drawled through hidden smiles.
Toby told Miss Gothel that they didn’t hold with doctors. It wasn’t entirely a lie; his grandfather had been Christian Scientist. But Toby did believe in the power of a good doctor intelligently employed, and the town’s colored doctor, Yates, was a customer at the garage and Toby thought maybe he’d come out when Lita’s time came. But Toby would never take Miss Gothel’s suspicions to anyone, not even Doctor Yates. Even Doctor Yates would say the same thing everyone always said about Lita’s mother.
She should be put away.
Lita was the one beautiful thing Toby had. Even unwashed and raving, even though hard and expensive to keep, like an orchid or an exotic bird, he didn’t want to give her up. More than anything, he didn’t want someone else telling him he had to give her up.
But that is what Miss Gothel did. She said if Toby didn’t agree, she would talk to the sheriff about the silver spoons. Things became heated. Toby left that night calling Miss Gothel a sour old bitch. He told her to keep off his land. He told her to mind her damn business and keep her big nose out of other peoples’. He slammed the white door of her house so hard he heard china rattle within.
That was over a year ago. Toby lived in anxiety for a few weeks, but nothing came of it. Fall and winter and spring came and went. Lita slid rapidly. She began to fear the touch of water on her skin. The bramble bushes choked the cyclone fence. Toby had other things to think about than Miss Gothel. He had to find distractions and steal sleep. He had rages to calm and terrors to soothe. He hoped that the meddling old woman would just tend her thorny white roses and leave Toby and Lita to their strange elliptical rhythms.
But now, Lita wants a sackful of ramps, has to have a sackful of ramps, or she will die.
On Sunday, Toby is waiting for Miss Gothel when she gets back from services at the Episcopal Church in town. She’s wearing a severely tailored suit covered with cabbage roses and a picture hat with yards of stiff white tulle twisted around its brim. Toby stands in the shadows by her front door, stained cap twisted between his gnarled fingers. He does not surprise the old woman, certainly does not scare her; she meets him with the maddening geniality of the rich, showing that she is the kind of person who can afford not to hold a grudge.
She puts out frosted white cookies on white doilies. She serves tea in thin cups.
“I need a sackful of your ramps,” Toby says. “I’m sorry to ask for it, but Lita needs them. She thinks she’ll die if I don’t get them.”
“I told you she needs help,” Miss Gothel says. “Humoring her isn’t going to help. It’ll only make things worse.”
Toby says nothing. Miss Gothel straightens her coffee cup so the printed flower on the front of the cup lines up with the printed flower on the saucer.
“She’s very sick, Toby. You don’t know what she does while you’re away at work all day. I see her doing things.”
Toby says nothing.
“She goes into the sun and stands there for hours, brushing her hair,” Miss Gothel says. “Naked.”
Toby imagines Lita standing in the sun, her hair tumbling down all around her, shining in the sunlight. He imagines Miss Gothel watching her. Jealousy starts at the bottom of his feet and rushes up his body in a burning wave.
Miss Gothel lays a plump soft hand over his.
“Do you even know if the baby is yours?”
He almost hits her right in her smug Kansas City face. But instead of lashing out, he lashes up, the legs of his chair scraping loudly on the hardwood floor.
“You wonder, don’t you?” Miss Gothel is not perturbed by his sudden movement, but watches him with clear steady eyes. “She doesn’t let you touch her. But you don’t want to touch her. She’s like a windchime; the sound is only beautiful if the wind stirs the bells, not if you slop your big, dirty, broken hands through them.”
She’s going in dangerous directions. Her talk is like a rope pulling a steer to the slaughterhouse.
“You know where the baby came from. You know that there are handsomer men, men who work in department stores, boys who play on football teams. Men who deliver things, mailmen. Even county sheriffs.”
Toby does not reply. His ugly scarred hands are clenched into fists. Miss Gothel’s eyes bore into him.
“You see that I can take her away from you,” Miss Gothel says.
“You going to give me that sackful of ramps?” he asks, sullenly.
Miss Gothel is silent for a long time.
“I’ll give you the ramps,” she says. “And you will give me the child when it is born.”
The shudder that vibrates his flesh is like the sound of screaming insects. Miss Gothel eyes him over her tea.
“The child will be born in a clean hospital, a county hospital. The sheets will smell like safety, like bleach and disinfectant and hot irons. The floors will shine like mirrors that reflect a better image of those who walk over them. The nurses will wear masks and gloves, changed three times an hour for fresh ones. Lita will be cleaned and medicated. The baby will never know filth. She will never become entangled in blackberry thorns, tear her dress on broken furniture, cut her hand on the jagged lid of a tin can, or step on rusty nail. She will wear white dresses trimmed with soft lace, and she will have a bath every night in water scented with roses, and her hair will be braided tightly until it shines. She will live here, and she will learn to drink tea, and she will eat delicious foods, and her friends will be the children of sheriffs and judges and priests.”
Her eyes glow as she speaks this, and the powerful seduction of the image almost makes Toby believe she is a witch.
“And what will we be to her?” Toby’s voice is small as featherdown. “Me and Lita?”
“What is there left of you,” the witch says scornfully, “that you could ever hope be anything to her at all?”
Toby sinks down into his chair. He feels as if the witch has pulled out his spine.
“I’ll give you the ramps,” Miss Gothel says. “Let us go gather them together. The afternoon is quite pleasant.”
“This will break her,” he says.
“And that is how you like it, isn’t it?” Miss Gothel sneers crisply. “It is not her beauty you treasure. You treasure her in shards. She is more broken and scarred and crippled and twisted than you. And even the pittance you eke out, and the hovel you barely maintain, are better than she could ever do for herself.”
“Stop it,” Toby says. “You are being cruel.”
“You could never love something that was not broken. You would break it instead.” She pauses, looks at him bird-cocked. “Who is the cruel one?”
Toby comes home late on Sunday night, and tosses down a burlap bag at Lita’s feet. She does not make any noise of surprise or pleasure, she just unties the top and begins to lay them out on the table, one by one.
“You’re going to have your baby in a beautiful hospital, Lita,” Toby says. “It’s clean and nice there. The sheets are clean, and the floors are like mirrors. You’ll go there, Lita, won’t you? You’ll go there?”
Lita says nothing. She goes to the kitchen and draws a great kettle full of cold water. She lugs it silently into the front room and puts it on the coffee table. She takes the ramps, one by one, and submerges them in the water.
“I love you, Lita,” Toby says. He feels desperate to make her understand. “I love you. Not your pieces. But all of you. I want to hold you together and make you better. That doesn’t make me cruel, does it, Lita?”
When Lita has put all the ramps into the cold water, she holds her hand over the cold water. There is a brief hesitation, but
then she slowly puts her hand into the water and begins cleaning the ramps in the water, stirring them around and around and around. The water turns muddy as she swirls the ramps around in it.
“Everyone wants to be so clean,” Lita murmurs thoughtfully, as she stirs. “No one wants to be dirty.”
She begins to take the ramps out of the water. She does this with no particular care; she simply hauls them out of the water and throws them on the floor. When she is finished, she looks into the water in the kettle as if it is a living thing looking back at her.
“You’ll never make me white,” she hisses at the water in the kettle. “Do you understand?”
She takes off her clothes. Piece by piece, leaving them heaped around her feet in a dirty pile. And then she lifts the kettle of water over her head and leans back, tipping the water down over her head. The water curves down around her bare belly, slithers down her legs, soaks the grimy carpet beneath her bare feet.
Toby finds that he is on his knees before her, his cheek pressed against her warm belly. The smell of soil and bedding sand clings to her.
He feels her sigh with triumph. “I am clean,” she says.
Closing his eyes, Toby wishes he could say the same.
Garden
Sarah Heller
Really it was only a matter of time
before I dreamt of the serpent,
this time with tender eyes, soulfully gazing.
An auspicious dream between the horns of a calf.
I was asleep.
I saw vertebrae the size of a slithering house,
a snake wall in motion,
within the trees.
And my gauzy boundaries: wouldn’t they receive even this?
Coiled shining in the base of my spine—
or across from me in branches waist high
ubiquitous, and me undone—
I awoke to eight conversations at eight parties.
A person will stand on two legs! and say, babies and dreams
and luck and psychics and time travel movies
and animal spirits and
truth. I shall think of this later, once or twice.
Enter me, gentle gliding zeitgeist.
The Mismeasure of Me and How I Saved the World
Carol Emshwiller
I’ve always wondered who I was. I took time off to find myself, but I could only afford a year and that wasn’t anywhere near long enough. Maybe later, after I accumulate more money, I can try again. But even now I do take little bits of time, every weekend or so, to think: Who am I?
That one year when I had the time and money to use some for finding me, I went up into the mountains. I sat at the tops of cliffs, looking down at the views of the valleys below and tried hard to think about myself. Every time I found a still pond, I’d look in it and study my face and wonder what it signifies, as: What does it mean to have striking blue eyes, a wide forehead, and naturally curly hair?
But as of two days ago, I particularly need to know a lot more about myself. Thing is, I met a man I like a lot and I want to present him with the real me.
When he asked me out, it scared me. I felt right away that I needed more substance. So I said, “No,” but I said,” Later.” I tried to look as if I wanted to go but was just too busy. I looked deep into his eyes, trying to convey that I liked him.
Since he wasn’t at all pleased at my postponing our date to a week later, I think he might actually be as interested in me as I am in him. All the more reason to go off, and in a hurry, to see if I can get any more information about myself. If I find out anything… even a little bit…in the long run it’ll be worth it.
On the other hand, regardless of who I might turn out to be, should I be mysterious? And then maybe I wouldn’t ever have to go to the bother of finding out who I am. Perhaps I can be mysterious even to myself.
(Maybe I shouldn’t have given him that long longing look right into his eyes. That can’t be mysterious.)
Should I refuse to answer any personal questions? Being born right outside of Detroit isn’t very glamorous.
Some day maybe he should come along. We could both look out at the spectacular views and think about me.
That year of finding myself, I had made sure I was cold and so tired I could hardly put one foot before the other. I starved myself. Though I sneaked a bite here and there when I got really hungry. I was hoping to find my totem or my real name. And I actually even saw a vision, but afterwards I was the same old me. Not a single new understanding that I could tell.
What I saw was nothing I could take for my totem. Before me, hovering over the valley as if atop a cloud, lay a city all made out of red rock with domes and towers and fortifications, but I wasn’t sure if it was really a city or just an odd formation of cliffs full of holes that looked like doors and windows. I don’t see how I can make that my symbol. I was hoping for an animal or a tree. Even the wind or water can be a totem. Though perhaps a cliff can be a totem, too.
So off I go again.
When I come back I suppose my hair will look a fright.
The first day out I find a big rock to sit on. As before, I empty my mind of all but the view and wait…. And wait…. And wonder….
I wonder what kinds of things this man likes in a woman. I already know most men like a quiet woman who agrees with them. They like somebody who picks up the things they drop.
And then I interrupt myself and bring my thoughts back to me. I wonder, how does one become mysterious. Isn’t that what a woman should always be? And one way is simple, don’t talk too much. What is hidden is always sexier than what is shown. What I don’t say will always be more important than what I do say.
I hike on, deeper into the mountains. I sit at the top of cliffs. I admire views. And then I come upon it…. I’m on a drop off across from a red cliff that looks kind of like a city full of doors and windows. It’s just like my vision on my other trip. Nobody could possibly live there without being able to fly. And I do see black creatures… perhaps ravens?… flying about it.
This cliff is so interesting it looks as if it might broaden one’s horizons just to be there.
The closer I get the larger the crows seem. They’re actually flying people. I’m dreaming of course. This is my totem vision at last. No need to be careful. None of this is real. Perhaps I, too, can fly.
I stand on a big boulder and try to take off.
But you can dream a fall, too. You can dream scratches and bruises and tears in your clothes. You can dream you can’t get up and you’re not even half way over towards the cliff. I shouldn’t have been so careless, running off as though I could fly. It evidently isn’t that sort of dream.
But there’s a sudden wind and a flapping sound. There’s dust blowing up. I dream beady black eyes, round as buttons. I dream a man thin as a crow. Nose like a beak, a little V shaped smile…. Sits beside me, all knees and elbows. His clothes, all black.
I dream him speaking a foreign language full of Ks and coos. I understand that he’s flown down to help. I know he’ll carry me off to his cave house in the cliffs.
Funny, though, he walks me down and over to the cliff houses. I was hoping he’d fly me. Dreams are so often full of flying I wonder that he doesn’t.
As we limp along he talks his Ks and coos. I have to guess what he’s saying. He’s much more interesting than the man back home that I’m out here finding myself for, though they both resemble crows.
Now that I’m close to the cliff, I dream they’re pretending not to know how to fly. No doubt because of me being there. They climb around with ropes and flimsy ladders. They don’t want me to know about their flying. That probably has some deep meaning that I won’t be able to figure out until I wake up.
His arms around me, he helps me climb the steep rope ladder to one of those holes in the cliff. Inside, he helps me to a sort of air mattress on the floor. I shut my eyes and try hard to fall into a deeper sleep because I hope, when I wake up, I’ll be back in the real wor
ld and won’t feel pain anymore.
Try as I might, I don’t sleep a deeper sleep. In a way I’m glad because I can experience this place and this man for a bit longer, though I wish I’d stop dreaming pain. Perhaps I’m actually in pain in real life.
I give up and pay attention to where I am. It’s as red on the inside as it is on the outside. The man in black sits on a red lump, silhouetted against the red walls. He hums an odd buzzing hum. I wonder that I’m dreaming such a sound. Perhaps I’m already home and the refrigerator is acting funny. Or is a bee flying around me as I sleep somewhere out on the ground in the mountains?
Perhaps this dream is all about that man I’m trying to find myself for in the first place… not about me at all.
I look at the man through half closed eyes so he won’t notice. A handsome profile with a nose worthy of consideration. A bird of some importance. A bird to be reckoned with.
He says…I think he says, “Relax,” but how does one relax when all banged up? To avoid the pain and get back into the real world, I tell him,“Wake me up.”
I’ve always liked sad skinny men with brooding dangerous looks. Even so I say again, louder, “Wake me up.”
But he doesn’t understand. Or maybe he knows he’d disappear right out of my life if he did.
I ask him, “Bird or man?” And when he looks puzzled, I ask, “Crow? Caw, caw?”
That makes the sad man laugh.
If it’s my dream, why can’t I have what I want in it? Well, I do have the right man for once. That’s one way I know it’s all a dream.
Though I guess I know who I am now…. The one with the swollen and scratched nose, lump on forehead, a limp, though I still have blue eyes and naturally curly hair. But maybe that doesn’t matter anymore. I’ll have to act a whole different way. Like bring the coffee kind of thing. But I’d do it for this man anyway. Except sometimes the more you do for them, the less they notice you.
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