Worlds Seen in Passing

by Irene Gallo

  On that morning of bright skies, Pa headed out to pick more leaves and Easter wanted to come along. He said, “Let’s ask your mama.”

  “But he said, Wilbur.” Ma’am looked surprised. “He told us, You ain’t to take the baby out there, no time, no way.”

  Pa hefted Easter up in his arms, and kissed her cheek, saying, “Well, it’s going on three years now since he ain’t been here to say Bet not or say Yep, go ’head. So I wonder how long we suppose to go on doing everything just the way he said, way back when. Forever? And the baby wants to go…” Pa set her down and she grabbed a handful of his pants leg and leaned against him. “But, darling, if you say not to, then we won’t. Just that simple.”

  Most men hardly paid their wives much mind at all, but Pa would listen to any little thing Ma’am said. She, though, hated to tell a man what he could and couldn’t do—some woman just snapping her fingers, and the man running lickety-split here and there. Ma’am said that wasn’t right. So she crossed her arms and hugged herself, frowning unhappily. “Well…” Ma’am said. “Can you just wait a hot minute there with the mule, Wilbur? Let me say something to the baby.” Ma’am unfolded her arms and reached out a hand. “Come here, girl.”

  Easter came up the porch steps and took the hand—swept along in Ma’am’s powerful grip, through the open door, into the house. “Set.” Ma’am pointed to a chair. Easter climbed and sat down. Ma’am knelt on the floor. They were eye to eye. She grasped Easter’s chin and pulled her close. “Tell me, Easter—what you do, if some lady in a red silk dress come trying to talk to you?”

  “I shake my head no, Ma’am, and turn my back on her. Then the lady have to go away.”

  “That’s right! But what if that strange lady in the red dress say, Want me to open up St. Peter’s door, and show you heaven? What if she say to you, See them birds flying there? Do me one itsy-bitsy favor, and you could be in the sky flying too. What then, Easter? Tell me what you do.”

  “Same thing, Ma’am.” She knew her mother wasn’t angry with her, but Ma’am’s hot glare—the hard grip on her chin—made tears prick Easter’s eyes. “I turn my back, Ma’am. She have to go, if I just turn my back away.”

  “Yes! And will you promise, Easter? Christ is your Savior, will you swear to turn your back, if that lady in the pretty red dress come talking to you?”

  Easter swore up and down, and she meant every word too. Ma’am let her go back out to her father, and he set her up on the mule. They went round the house and down the other way, on the trail through woods behind Ma’am’s back garden that led to the tobacco fields. Pa answered every question Easter asked about the work he had to do there.

  That woman in the red dress was a sneaky liar. She was “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world…” Warned by Ma’am, Easter guarded night and day against a glimpse of any such person. In her whole life, though, Easter never did see that lady dressed all in red silk. Easter knew nothing about her. She only knew about the angels.

  She didn’t see them, either, just felt touches like feathers in the air—two or three angels, rarely more—or heard sounds like birds taking off, a flutter of wings. The angels spoke to her, once in a while, in whispering soft harmony. They never said anything bad, just helpful little things. Watch out, Easter—gon’ rain cats and dogs once that cloud there starts looking purplish. Your folks sure would appreciate a little while by theyself in the house. Why not be nice? Ma’am’s worried sick about Pa over in Greenville, with those white folks, so you’d do best to keep your voice down, and tiptoe extra quiet, else you ’bout to get slapped into tomorrow. And, Easter, don’t tell nobody, all right? Let’s us just be secret friends.

  All right, Easter said. The angels were nice, anyway, and it felt good keeping them to herself, having a secret. No need to tell anybody. Or just Brother, when he came out the woods to play with her in the front yard, or when Ma’am let her go walking in the deep woods with him. But in those days Brother used to wander far and wide, and was gone from home far more often than he was around.

  The tobacco fields were full of angels.

  Ever run, some time, straight through a flock of grounded birds, and ten thousand wings just rushed up flapping into the air all around you? In the tobacco fields it was like that. And every angel there stayed busy, so the tobacco leaves grew huge and whole, untroubled by flea-beetles or cutworms, weeds or weather. But the angels didn’t do all the work.

  Pa and a friend of his from St. Louis days, Señor, dug up the whole south field every spring, mounding up little knee-high hills all over it. Then they had to transplant each and every little tabacky plant from the flat dirt in the north field to a hill down south. It was backbreaking work, all May long, from sunup to sundown. Afterwards, Pa and Señor had only small jobs, until now—time to cut the leaves, hang and cure them in the barn. Señor had taught Pa everything there was to know about choosing which leaf when, and how to roll the excellent criollito tabacky into the world’s best cigars. What they got out of one field sold plenty well enough to white folks over in Greenville to keep two families in good clothes, ample food, and some comforts.

  A grandfather oaktree grew between the fields, south and north. Pa agreed with Easter. “That big ole thing is in the way, ain’t it? But your brother always used to say, Don’t you never, never cut down that tree, Wilbur. And it do make a nice shady spot to rest, anyway. Why don’t you go set over there for a while, baby child?”

  Easter knew Pa thought she must be worn out and sorry she’d come, just watching him stoop for leaves, whack them off the plant with his knife, and lay them out in the sun. But Easter loved watching him work, loved to follow and listen to him wisely going on about why this, why that.

  Pa, though, put a hand on her back and kind of scootched her on her way over toward the tree, so Easter went. Pa and Señor began to chant some work song in Spanish. Iyá oñió oñí abbé …

  Once in the oaktree’s deep shade, there was a fascinating discovery round the north side of the big trunk. Not to see, or to touch—or know in any way Easter had a name for—but she could feel the exact shape of what hovered in the air. And this whirligig thing’um, right here, was exactly what kept all the angels hereabouts leashed, year after year, to chase away pests, bring up water from deep underground when too little rain fell, or dry the extra drops in thin air when it rained too much. And she could tell somebody had jiggered this thing together who hardly knew what they were doing. It wasn’t but a blown breath or rough touch from being knocked down.

  Seeing how rickety the little angel-engine was, Easter wondered if she couldn’t do better. Pa and Señor did work awful hard every May shoveling dirt to make those hills, and now in August they had to come every day to cut whichever leaves had grown big enough. Seemed like the angels could just do everything …

  “You all right over there, baby girl?” Pa called. Dripping sweat in the glare, he wiped a sleeve across his brow. “Need me to take you back to the house?”

  “I’m all right,” Easter shouted back. “I want to stay, Pa!” She waved, and he stooped down again, cutting leaves. See there? Working so hard! She could help if she just knocked this rickety old thing down, and put it back together better. Right on the point of doing so, she got one sharp pinch from her conscience.

  Every time Easter got ready to do something bad there was a moment beforehand when a little bitty voice—one lonely angel, maybe—would whisper to her. Aw, Easter. You know good and well you shouldn’t. Nearly always she listened to this voice. After today and much too late, she always would.

  But sometimes you just do bad, anyhow.

  Easter picked a scab off her knee and one fat drop welled from the pale tender scar underneath. She dabbed a finger in it, and touched the bloody tip to the ground.

  The angel-engine fell to pieces. Screaming and wild, the angels scattered every which way. Easter called and begged, but she could no more get the angels back in order than she could have grab
bed hold of a mighty river’s gush.

  And the tobacco field…!

  Ice frosted the ground, the leaves, the plants, and then melted under sun beating down hotter than summer’s worst. The blazing blue sky went cloudy and dark, and boiling low clouds spat frozen pellets, some so big they drew blood and raised knots. Millions of little noises, little motions, each by itself too small to see or hear, clumped into one thick sound like God’s two hands rubbing together, and just as gusts of wind stroke the green forest top, making the leaves of the trees all flip and tremble, there was a unified rippling from one end of the tobacco field to the other. Not caused by hands, though, nor by the wind—by busy worms, a billion hungry worms. Grayish, from maggot-size to stubby snakes, these worms ate the tobacco leaves with savage appetite. While the worms feasted, dusty cloud after dusty cloud of moths fluttered up from the disappearing leaves, all hail-torn and frost-blackened, half and then wholly eaten.

  In the twinkling of an eye, the lush north field was stripped bare. Nothing was left but naked leaf veins poking spinily from upright woody stems—not a shred of green leaf anywhere. But one year’s crop was nothing to the angels’ hunger. They were owed much more for so many years’ hard labor. Amidst the starving angels, Pa and Señor stood dazed in the sudden wasteland of their tobacco field. All the sweet living blood of either this man or the other would just about top off the angels’ thirsty cup.

  Easter screamed. She called for some help to come—any help at all.

  And help did come. A second of time split in half and someone came walking up the break.

  * * *

  Like the way you and Soubrette work on all that book learning together. Same as that. You gotta know your letters, gotta know your numbers, for some things, or you just can’t rightly take part. Say, for instance, you had some rich colored man, and say this fellow was very rich indeed. But let’s say he didn’t know his numbers at all. Couldn’t even count his own fingers up to five. Now, he ain’t a bad man, Easter, and he ain’t stupid either, really. It’s just that nobody ever taught numbering to him. So, one day this rich man takes a notion to head over to the bank, and put his money into markets and bonds, and what have you. Now let me ask you, Easter. What you think gon’ happen to this colored man’s big ole stack of money, once he walks up in that white man’s bank, and gets to talking with the grinning fellow behind the counter? You tell me. I wanna hear what you say.

  Ma’am. The white man’s gonna see that colored man can’t count, Ma’am, and cheat him out of all his money.

  That’s right he is, Easter! And I promise you it ain’t no other outcome! Walk up in that bank just as rich as you please—but you gon’ walk out with no shoes, and owing the shirt on your back! Old Africa magic’s the same way, but worse, Easter, cause it ain’t money we got, me and you—all my babies had—and my own mama, and the grandfather they brung over on the slave ship. It’s life. It’s life and death, not money. Not play-stuff. But, listen here—we don’t know our numbers no more, Easter. See what I’m saying? That oldtime wisdom from over there, what we used to know in the Africa land, is all gone now. And, Easter, you just can’t walk up into the spirits’ bank not knowing your numbers. You rich, girl. You got gold in your pockets, and I know it’s burning a hole. I know cause it burnt me, it burnt your brother. But I pray you listen to me, baby child, when I say—you walk up in that bank, they gon’ take a heap whole lot more than just your money.

  * * *

  Nothing moved. Pa and Señor stood frozen, the angels hovering just before the pounce. Birds in the sky hung there, mid-wingbeat, and even a blade of grass in the breath of the wind leaned motionless, without shivering. Nothing moved. Or just one thing did—a man some long way off, come walking this way toward Easter. He was miles off, or much farther than that, but every step of his approach crossed a strange distance. He bestrode the stillness of the world and stood before her in no time.

  In the kindest voice, he said, “You need some help, baby child?”

  Trembling, Easter nodded her head.

  He sat right down. “Let us just set here for a while, then”—the man patted the ground beside him—“and make us a deal.”

  He was a white man tanned reddish from too much sun, or he could’ve had something in him maybe—been mixed up with colored or indian. Hair would’ve told the story, but that hid under the gray kepi of a Johnny Reb. He wore that whole uniform in fact, a filthy kerchief of Old Dixie tied around his neck.

  Easter sat. “Can you help my Pa and Señor, Mister? The angels about to eat ’em up!”

  “Oh, don’t you worry none about that!” the man cried, warmly reassuring. “I can help you, Easter, I most certainly can. But”—he turned up a long forefinger, in gentle warning—“not for free.”

  Easter opened her mouth.

  “Ot!” The man interrupted, waving the finger. “Easter, Easter, Easter…” He shook his head sadly. “Now why you wanna hurt my feelings and say you ain’t got no money? Girl, you know I don’t want no trifling little money. You know just what I want.”

  Easter closed her mouth. He wanted blood. He wanted life. And not a little drop or two, either—or the life of some chicken, mule, or cow. She glanced at the field of hovering angels. They were owed the precious life of one man, woman, or child. How much would he want to stop them?

  The man held up two fingers. “That’s all. And you get to pick the two. It don’t have to be your Pa and Señor at all. It could be any old body.” He waved a hand outwards to the world at large. “Couple folk you ain’t even met, Easter, somewhere far away. That’d be just fine with me.”

  Easter hardly fixed her mouth to answer before that still small voice spoke up. You can’t do that. Everybody is somebody’s friend, somebody’s Pa, somebody’s baby. It’d be plain dead wrong, Easter. This voice never said one word she didn’t already know, and never said anything but the God’s honest truth. No matter what, Easter wasn’t going against it, ever again.

  The man made a sour little face to himself. “Tell you what then,” he said. “Here’s what we’ll do. Right now, today, I’ll call off the angels, how about that? And then you can pay me what you owe by and by. Do you know what the word currency means, Easter?”

  Easter shook her head.

  “It means the way you pay. Now, the amount, which is the worth of two lives, stays exactly the same. But you don’t have to pay in blood, in life, if you just change the currency, see? There’s a lot you don’t know right now, Easter, but with some time, you might could learn something useful. So let me help out Señor and your Pa today, and then me and you, we’ll settle up later on after while. Now when you wanna do the settling up?”

  Mostly, Easter had understood the word “later”—a sweet word! She really wouldn’t have minded some advice concerning the rest of what he’d said, but the little voice inside couldn’t tell her things she didn’t already know. Easter was six years old, and double that would make twelve. Surely that was an eternal postponement, nearabout. So far away it could hardly be expected to arrive. “When I’m twelve,” Easter said, feeling tricky and sly.

  “All right,” the man said. He nodded once, sharply, as folks do when the deal is hard but fair. “Let’s shake on it.”

  Though she was just a little girl, and the man all grown up, they shook hands. And the angels mellowed in the field, becoming like those she’d always known, mild and toothless, needing permission even to sweep a dusty floor, much less eat a man alive.

  “I’ll be going now, Easter.” The man waved toward the field, where time stood still. “They’ll all wake up just as soon as I’m gone.” He began to get up.

  Easter grabbed the man’s sleeve. “Wait!” She pointed at the ruins of two families’ livelihood. “What about the tabacky? We need it to live on!”

  The man looked where Easter gestured, the field with no green whatsoever, and thoughtfully pursed his lips. “Well, as you can see, this year’s tabacky is all dead and gone now. ’Tain’t nothing to do
about that. But I reckon I could set the angels back where they was, so as next year—and on after that—the tabacky will grow up fine. Want me to do that, Easter?”

  “Yes!”

  The man cocked his head and widened his eyes, taking an attitude of the greatest concern. “Now you show, Easter?” he asked. “Cause that’s extry on what you already owe.”

  So cautioning was his tone, even a wildly desperate little girl must think twice. Easter chewed on her bottom lip. “How much extra?” she said at last.

  The man’s expression went flat and mean. “Triple,” he said. “And triple that again, and might as well take that whole thing right there, and triple it about ten more times.” Now the very nice face came back. “But what you gon’ do, baby girl? You messed up your Pa’s tabacky field. Gotta fix it.” He shrugged in deepest sympathy. “You know how to do that?”

  Easter had to shake her head.

  “Want me to then?”

  Easter hesitated … and then nodded. They shook on it.

  The man snapped his fingers. From all directions came the sounds and sensations of angels flocking back to their old positions. The man stood and brushed off the seat of his gray wool trousers.

  Easter looked up at him. “Who are you, Mister? Your name, I mean.”

  The man smiled down. “How ’bout you just call me the banker,” he said. “Cause—whew, baby girl—you owe me a lot! Now I’ll be seeing you after while, you hear?” The man became his own shadow, and in just the way that a lamp turned up bright makes the darkness sharpen and flee, his shadow thinned out along the ground, raced away, and vanished.

  “¡Madre de Díos!” Señor said, looking around at the field that had been all lush and full-grown a moment ago. He and Pa awakened to a desolation, without one remnant of the season’s crop. With winces, they felt at their heads, all cut and bruised from hailstones. Pa spun around then, to look at Easter, and she burst into tears.