Call Me Athena
Page 14
Jeanne
Saint-Malo, France
1918
They tell me he’s survived
a large blast
and he can’t hear or see.
His head is bandaged.
I want this wounded boy
to know he’s not alone.
I run my hand along the side
of the bedsheets
and then along his shoulder
and then down his hand.
He clamps onto my arm
and his body spasms
with intensity and fear.
He looks like he is running
from a wolf.
I call him
le loup, the wolf,
to remind him
of what
he has survived.
I tell him
we can be
le loup et
le petit oiseau.
The wolf
and the little bird.
Unlikely friends.
We can
work together.
To endure
even the harshest
winter.
The next day
I visit le loup
again.
I talk to him and tell him
someday
he will be well.
I tell him that his mother
loves him.
There are people
waiting for him.
He does not say a word,
but I hear his shallow breath,
and sometimes
he squeezes my hand.
His skin is darker than mine.
Even with a bandage
covering his face,
I can see
he is beautiful.
He is not willowy or thin
like most of the British
or French soldiers.
His chest is wide
and he has the large hands
and muscles
of a fisherman.
I feel embarrassed
when I look at him.
I fumble objects
and crash into carts.
He’s the only soldier
that make my cheeks flush
and chest hurt.
He makes me check
my pulse.
I walk the hospital grounds
after work.
I stand on the rock wall
on my tiptoes
and look into
the dark-blue water
and the rocky shore.
Run my hand
along the stone tombs
in the graveyard
where les corsaires
are buried.
Privateers who stole
from foreign ships
and swore an oath
to give half
to their king.
I think about men
and their wars.
Alliances.
It makes me want to spit
on the ground.
Now
l’hospital du Rosais
is filled with soldiers
from many nations,
even Germans
who have been taken
as prisoners.
No matter which side
they are on,
they all believe
it is the right side.
Mary
Detroit, Michigan
1933
Letter #15
November 4, 1918
My dearest,
I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I thought we had more time.
Loup
After two weeks, I go back to school
Marguerite stays in our bed
wrapped in Mama’s
thickest quilt.
Every day,
I come home
and tell her stories.
Some days,
she recognizes me,
and some days
she’s in a dream.
I make a nest
of blankets and pillows
beside our mattress.
I can be near her at night,
but not disturb her.
It’s cold on the ground.
I can hear the wind
howling through
the floorboards.
Gus hands me a note
I found this stuck
in the door.
Thought you might want it.
I open the envelope.
M–
When can we see each other again?
I can’t stop thinking about you.
–B
How can I tell Billy
about the pain
we have caused?
The guilt I feel.
I fold the note,
hold it over the candle
on the table.
Open a window
and toss the letter out.
Watch
the burning bundle
fall
into the snow.
The temperature drops
My brothers and I
collect dry sticks and wood
on our walk home
from school.
As soon as we enter,
my mother makes
a roaring fire in the stove.
We all gather
around it
thaw our frozen fingers
still stinging
from the wind.
The X has worn off.
Marguerite is still sick.
The doctor says
her fever
has become rheumatic.
My mother fills
a hot water bottle.
I bring it up to our room.
Marguerite’s thin,
but she’s sitting up,
supported
by pillows.
I pray this dreadful
illness will go away.
I want my sister back.
I tuck the water bottle
under her legs
so she can’t feel the bite
of the cold.
The doctor is here
for Mama,
heavy
with her sixth child.
He looks at me.
She cannot
get sick
with the fever.
It’s bad for the baby.
She must do less
around the house.
By this
he means
all the women’s work
that he would never
ask my brothers
or my father
to do.
My father puts two cots
in the cellar
for wandering folks
who have lost their jobs
and need a place to stay.
He says we must
help people in need.
Mama hates it.
I have children here!
These are rough men.
Baba insists.
White men.
Black men.
All are welcome.
Even though
we don’t have very much,
we still have more than
some.
The men join us for dinner
I l
isten to them talk to each other
as I make a big pot of broth
with the remaining
onions
and carrots
and potatoes
from our fall garden.
They are angry
and shouting.
There’s no unemployment insurance,
no national relief
for the poor!
Half the people
in Detroit
are unemployed!
Henry Ford’s
still making
thirty million dollars
a year!
One of the wanderers is named James
He nods his head
while the other men are talking
and says,
My father was a slave.
He was freed as a boy.
I grew up thinking
my country was offering me freedom.
A chance to work and learn.
Now I hear you, there’s no good jobs.
There’s even less for Black men.
James takes a sip of his soup
and continues,
They won’t even let us rent or buy houses
in good neighborhoods. 25
They put on the lease:
No negroes.
No foreign born.
No undesirables.
He tells us
they’re planning to build a wall
on Pembroke Avenue.
To separate
the Black and brown neighborhoods
from the white ones. 26
Foreign born
Why did my parents come to America?
It feels
like we have nothing.
No land.
No family.
We are drifting
in a world of strangers
who are as lost
as we are.
After dinner
one of the wanderers pulls
a violin from his sack.
Puts the instrument
to his chin
and jerks his bow
over the strings
in the hopping rhythm
of a jig.
For the first time
in months,
people are smiling
at the table.
Baba even carries Marguerite
downstairs
and holds her on his lap,
swaying to the music.
The fiddler
stands in the middle
of our kitchen.
Pounding his foot
into the floor.
Marguerite lifts herself to her feet
and begins to dance.
We all gasp.
Baba jumps up
to join her.
He twists and twirls her
to the music.
James asks Mama
to dance.
My brothers and I
join too.
I close my eyes
and feel the rhythm
of the music
enter my heart.
Hope.
In the middle of the night
I hear Marguerite
talking in her sleep beside me.
I jostle her,
but she won’t wake up.
I feel her forehead.
She’s burning.
I run to tell Mama
to call for the doctor.
He examines Marguerite.
The fever
is affecting her
lungs and heart.
In the morning
I lie next to Marguerite
and tell her
a story
about two sisters
who love
each other
so much
they build a sailboat
out of their
aprons
and use
their mother’s broom
to paddle through
the air.
Marguerite opens
her eyes
and then closes
them again.
How will it end?
she asks,
her voice as meek
as a church mouse.
I grab her hand
and squeeze it.
I’ll tell you when I get home.
All day I think about
how the story will end.
When I return home,
she and my mother
are gone.
I ask our neighbor, Mrs. O’Malley.
They couldn’t wait, love.
They had to go.
The hospital.
No one
in our family
has ever been
to the hospital.
I start to cry.
My father and brothers and I
stay up all night.
We sit at the kitchen table
and say nothing.
In the early morning light,
my mother comes home.
She’s alone.
She drops to her knees.
My father runs to her.
She is not weeping.
She looks at him
with eyes like stones
that have been dropped
into cold, dark water
and says,
I couldn’t save her.
I run out the door
down the street
keep running
lungs heaving
for breath.
I run until I reach
the apple orchard
filled with the
gray bones
of winter trees.
I scream.
Until all the air
has left my body
and my lungs
begin to rattle and moan.
I fall into the snow
and stay there.
My body shakes
on the frozen ground.
The sky is
filled with gray
storm clouds
that look like they will burst
at any moment.
I can’t stand up.
A branch breaks
next to me.
An arm’s distance away
stands a fox.
Her shining red coat
bright against the white
of the snow.
She looks at me.
Her amber eyes
hold me
until she darts
into the rows
and rows
of trees.
I am alone.
I am alone.
Giorgos (Gio)
U.S. Army, Northwestern France
1918
Through the ringing
I hear a woman
whispering to me.
Her voice sounds
like a forest
alive with green vines
and flowers.
She smells
of perfumed earth.
The weight
of her hand,
a river stone
rolled smooth.
She places her cheek
on my palm.
Sing me to sleep.
Sing me home.
Everything hurts
Lift my hands.
Squeeze my hands.
Lift my arms.
Run my hands
over my belly
and chest.
Check for holes.
Rotate my foot.