Rubies from Burma

by Anne Lovett

  Ava and Duke invited the whole family out to the farm for an old-fashioned Fourth cookout—watermelons, boiled corn, barbecued ribs, potato salad, churned peach ice cream, Elzuma’s pound cake, pitchers of iced tea and lemonade, and of course, beer and cocktails.

  We gathered at a pavilion Duke had built not far from the barn on the edge of the small pond, cold from an artesian well. There was another pond the cows used for drinking and splashing in, but this one was for horses and fun.

  Duke was happy to see his daddy and his momma, Mis’ Norma, and especially his sister Talley. He didn’t seem so happy to see her husband, Colonel Wilkes Davis, who was now at Fort Benning. I wasn’t so happy to see the Davis boys, Harry and Chuck, four and seven, afraid I’d get stuck babysitting. Talley was unable to chase them, because she waddled about in a yellow maternity top and shorts, looking like a bathtub duck.

  Momma wasn’t happy to see the barrel of iced-down beer, the big shining bottle of gin, and the bowl of sliced limes and the tonic water.

  What’s wrong? I said.

  Maybe nothing, she said. But she didn’t lose the frown.

  The party started with a lot of laughs. People told stories of old times, fourths of July in the past, election-year barbecues, politics. Duke and Mr. Radford and Colonel Davis drank beer. Momma and I and Aunt Talley drank iced tea, and the kids had lemonade. Ava fixed herself gin-and-tonics.

  After I’d polished off a good square of cake and a dish of ice cream, I got antsy, bored with the talk about Korea. I had a feeling I was about to get shanghaied into entertaining the kids. I spotted Duke over at the ice chest getting another beer, so I walked over and asked if I could go riding.

  He slipped the can back into the ice. I’ll saddle Dandy for you, he said.

  I can do it, I said.

  I want to get away for a minute, he said. Come on. He started walking and I followed. When we got out of earshot of the others he said, A little of that jabber goes a long way with me.

  You didn’t agree with what Colonel Davis said about Korea, did you?

  He looked sideways at me. No need to antagonize my sister in her condition.

  He glanced back at her, a half-smile on his face. He was fond of his sister and even those holy terror nephews. But now the smile faded and he stiffened ever so slightly. I followed his gaze, and saw Ava standing over by the Colonel, handing him a drink. Her other hand rested gently on the back of his neck. She gave it a teasing stroke. No one else there saw it, and I winced to see the shadow cross Duke’s face.

  I wanted to tell him that Ava didn’t mean anything by it; it was just that she had to have any man this side of the grave under her spell. She suddenly glanced up at us, and her hand retreated from the Colonel’s neck.

  Where are you two headed? she called.

  Mae Lee wants to ride, said Duke. I’m going to help her saddle Dandy.

  Ava straightened and hurried over to us in that slinky way she had, bosoms swinging in her red halter top. She touched Duke’s arm. Why does she always take my horse? she said. Maybe you ought to let her take Nimrod for a change.

  Duke looked her steady in the eye. Nimrod’s hard to hold, you know that. Dandy needs exercise. You should ride her every day.

  Well, I always have so many chores, she said, pouting.

  Not so many, Duke said. He picked up her hand which had red nails again. He kissed it.

  Ava glanced back at Talley and the Colonel, who were looking at us as if they were waiting for the show to start. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. The boys want to shoot firecrackers now, she said. Roman candles when it gets a little dark.

  I would rather they didn’t, he said, and a little muscle began to twitch in his cheek.

  Ava waved her hand. What’s the Fourth without firecrackers? Their dad will take them out in a field. Can’t you go inside if you don’t like the noise?

  Ava, I—never mind. A darker look passed over Duke’s face and his jaw hardened. Go tell them they can do it. Out in the field. Go on, Ava. He walked away from her then, toward the barn. I hurried after him.

  He told me to get Dandy while he got the tack. I led her out of the stall and bridled her, then held her head while he threw on the blanket and saddle, then tightened the girth. I laid my cheek against the mare’s. This is heaven, I said. Ava is a fool.

  Don’t call your sister a fool, Mae Lee, Duke said, his voice stern. She may be restless now, but I think she’ll come to love the place like I do. It gets in your blood.

  Why?

  Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s that peaceful way the trees sound when the wind is blowing through ’em, or the birds calling on a spring morning. Out on the fields you can smell the rain coming in the grass, see a calf stand up on new legs, and look out at land going on and on without a blessed soul to see you. It feels safe here.

  She didn’t understand why you quit at the plant, I said.

  I tried to tell her, but she didn’t want to listen, he said. It’s hard to explain what I went through in the war. Some people, like my brother-in-law there, are born soldiers. Uncle Sam likes noise, and so do they. They’ve got the kinds of hearts that they can wall off from what they see. Some of us can’t.

  But you made it, I said. You came through.

  Only because I disobeyed orders, he said. He jammed his hand in his pockets.

  How?

  I wrote about it. In a diary. We weren’t supposed to. But when I was in the hospital, I would’ve gone nuts if I hadn’t had some way to make sense of it all.

  A memory tugged at me, a little leather-bound book I had looked at. Where is it, I said, the diary?

  He shrugged. Put it away. One day I might look at it again. Come on, you’d better get going. He cupped his strong hands to give me a boost, and I stepped into them and swung my leg over the saddle. He handed the reins to me. Have a good ride, he said.

  I headed out, watching him drag his bum leg back to the party. My heart ached for him. Oh Ava, Ava. Can’t you be kind to him? She would never leave him, I knew, and would go right on being like she was and he would go right on putting up with it, hoping one day she’d be different.

  I rode down to the Thompsons’ farm, which had been sold after the old man died because neither of his kids wanted to take it over. My friend Lindy Yarbrough was living there now, and she didn’t need much persuading to leave her own parents’ barbecue and come out with me on her Tennessee walking horse.

  That day, the July sun beating down on our heads, we idled in the sweetness of the ripening blackberries and plums, riding past farm after farm, cotton fields in bloom, corn tasseled out, cows taking the shade under huge oaks, colored folks barbecuing a pig in a pit.

  We talked and rode, rode and talked, until the sun had sunk low in the sky, splashing silver-edged clouds with orange and pink. I realized dark would be falling soon, and I could hear fireworks in the distance already. Momma would be wanting to get home. We turned and headed back.

  After I left Lindy at her gate and turned Dandy toward home, she broke into a gallop, eager for the barn and some hay. Loping over the rise to the pond, I saw Aunt Talley packing up the last of the picnic. Her hair was disheveled, she was damp with sweat, and her face was scrunched up like her head hurt. Harry and Chuck were sprawled on the grass, and the Colonel was busy folding up the chairs. I didn’t see the older Radfords.

  I slowed Dandy and trotted over. Where’s everybody?

  Talley turned a tired face to me and shrugged. You’d better put the horse up.

  I put her curt answer down to her tiredness and rode on to the barn, hoping Duke would be there, but no one was around. I slid down from the saddle, took off Dandy’s tack, pulled a rope halter over her head, and walked her. When she was cool and breathing easy, I let her have some water, and then led her into her stall. Nimrod wasn’t in the barn. I looked out into the paddock, but he wasn’t there either. I checked the tack room. Duke’s saddle was gone.

  I hurried up to the back yard of the bi
g house and found Elzuma rocking on the back porch, a wad of snuff in her cheek.

  Where’s Momma?

  She be to the house.

  Where’s Duke?

  You ain’t gone see Mr. Dulany tonight.

  What do you mean?

  At that minute my mother swung open the back door. Mae Lee, here you are. Let’s go home.

  But I was still looking at Elzuma. Tell me, Elzuma. Tell me what you mean.

  She just shifted the wad of snuff in her cheek. Momma took my arm. We have to go. We’ll talk about it later.

  Please tell me, Momma. What is it?

  The car, Mae Lee.

  We got in the car and Momma cranked the old engine and there was a smell of oil. I watched the road speed by through the hole in the floorboard before it got too dark to see. It was black all around except for the stars twinkling above and the headlights picking out fenceposts. I was frightened of this Momma who sat still and thin-lipped, driving straight ahead. Momma, tell me, I pleaded.

  I knew it, she muttered. I knew something wasn’t right with him.

  With Duke, you mean?

  When they started with those firecrackers he got on that horse and took off like a banshee and nobody has seen him since. Ava is in her room crying.

  I found out much later that Duke had spent the night with Nimrod down in the swamp. Down in the swamp he found shadows to shape the moonlight into visions. He found night sounds to drown out memories of the war.

  He found peace.

  Not long after my thirteenth birthday, a package came in the mail from Savannah. Mis’ Celia had just found out about Chap from someone who came to visit, and now she sent her condolences along with her old red and crystal rosary. She hoped the gift would remind me of the happy times we had spent together, and I would find comfort in prayers. I made the mistake of mentioning it to Ava, which, of course, I should not have done. She turned as white as the cotton in the fields.

  I put the rosary away and never looked at it again, not until the most horrible night of my life.

  Chapter Sixteen

  1950

  The day they admitted Momma to the hospital, it was late August and rain had not fallen for weeks, and the heat drew every drop from the earth, browning the grass and turning ponds into puddles. Magnolia leaves curled under and clattered to the ground, while paint cracked on the ancient Victorian mansions of Grandview Avenue. At night people slept on porches hoping for a stray night breeze, and by noon their clothes clung to their damp and shining bodies. Even Ava’s hair drooped in wilting tendrils of ebony.

  I led her through drab hallways that smelled of flowers and floor wax and starch and the smell I knew too well, the smell of chlorine bleach on blood. The skirt of her white sleeveless dress, pouffed out by crinolines, swayed as she walked. Her waist was cinched by an elastic belt the same shade as the red gladiolas she carried.

  For the first time in my life, I was looking down on Ava. Since last year, I’d grown a pair of long legs—coltish, Momma had told me. A doctor, balding and sandy-haired, came down the hall, stethoscope swinging. He gave us a polite nod, but he looked only at her. She was wearing the rubies from Burma, and I felt like an ostrich next to a bird of paradise.

  Momma lay behind the second curtain in her double room, next to the window. When we pushed it aside, she smiled at Ava. I’ve been waiting for you, honey.

  Ava set the vase of flowers on a side table and leaned to kiss her. How’s the farm, how’s Duke? Momma asked, and while she answered I turned away, my arms folded, looking out the window at the pecan trees in full leaf, their buds swelling green. It had taken Ava long enough to get here. I’d called her just after I called the ambulance, Momma insisting all the while there was nothing wrong with her. No, she’d just collapsed while she was trying to hang out the wash.

  I heard my name and turned back to them.

  You’ll stay with Ava until I get out of here, Momma said.

  I stared at them dumbfounded. Why? I’ll be sixteen in a month.

  You’re too young to be staying in that house alone. You never can tell.

  I won’t be able to walk to school from Ava’s, Momma. It’s just a week till it starts. The day after Labor Day, you know.

  I’ll be out by then, Momma said.

  How can I come to see you now? It wasn’t fair.

  I’ll drive you, Ava said. I want to see Momma too. She drew out an emery board and rasped it across her nails.

  Momma, please. Don’t make me. She doesn’t really want me.

  Wash your mouth out with soap, Mae Lee, said Ava. Looks like you’d want to be out there with your precious horse that happens to be mine.

  Girls, girls, Momma said. Don’t make me worry about you.

  I’m sorry, Momma, I said, my face reddening.

  I’m sorry, Momma, said Ava. She leaned over and smoothed the wispy hair.

  That’s better, she said. I was afraid she would tell us to kiss and make up and was relieved when a knock sounded at the door. The old lady behind the next curtain said come in, and then we heard a deep voice. Gwen?

  Momma’s eyes widened and she put her hands to her cheeks. Oh Lord, a man, and I don’t have on a speck of makeup. Go talk to him, Mae Lee. Get my lipstick and compact, Ava.

  I walked to the door and met Elmo Conable, John Deere hat in one hand and a canning jar of zinnias in the other. Lines tracked deep on his rugged old face. How is she, girl?

  Give her a minute, I said, and I walked out into the hall with him. How’s Mabel?

  Sorry she couldn’t come. She’s right poorly herself. He held up the bunch of neon-bright orange and pink zinnias. She wanted me to bring these, grew them herself. He cleared his throat. The boy says to tell you if there’s anything he can do just call him.

  I let that pass without comment. Starrett Conable, the pebble in my shoe.

  Ava called for us to come in. Momma was sitting up in bed, nose powdered, lips slicked with red, hair combed, shoulders wrapped in the quilted blue bed jacket Ava had given her for her birthday. She looked pretty. I took the vase with Ava’s glads and set it on the windowsill to make room for the zinnias.

  When I turned back around Mr. Conable was looking at Momma in a way that would tear you up. I thought about the time I’d seen them through the window, and thought of him secretly loving her for years. I felt sorry for him. Now, at their ages, it didn’t seem to matter. He was holding her small hand in his big one. When he saw me looking at them, he patted it and laid it gently down.

  Ava looked from Momma to Elmo and said, We’ll go and let you visit. I’ll take Mae Lee to pack her things, and we’ll be back tomorrow. Momma nodded, though Ava hadn’t really been there very long.

  Bless you, children, she said. We kissed her and then we left.

  We said nothing until we got outside. Ava fumbled in her bag and pulled out a pack of Chesterfields. She whapped the pack till one popped out, then she put it between her lips and lit it with a small gold lighter. I swear to God I think old Elmo’s got a thing for Momma.

  Oh come on, Ava, I said. They’re old. We were standing in front of the hospital and the sun was beating down on our heads, the sweet hay-smell of dry grass all around us. We walked around to the parking lot behind the building. I shrugged. You know he was Chap’s best friend his whole life. I still missed Chap, and I got a lump in my throat thinking if he was here Momma might try harder to get well.

  Ava trailed smoke, leading to her car parked under the pecan trees. Mabel’s a piece of work. Imagine, Momma and Elmo.

  Don’t be disgusting, Ava, I said. They would never do anything. Not like some people I know.

  Her eyes got hard. I don’t know what you’re talking about. She jerked the car door open. Get in.

  We drove across the railroad tracks. Ava waited on the porch of our house while I packed a week’s worth of clothes, including jeans for riding. I’d outgrown my boots, and thought saddle oxfords would be fine to ride in. I looked out the window at Ava paci
ng on the porch, remembering the first time Duke had driven up to our house in a cloud of dust. I reached into my jewelry box and drawer and slipped out the red and crystal rosary Celia Pritchard had sent me. I tucked it into my pocket. A few extra prayers wouldn’t hurt.

  At last we turned into the long dirt drive that led into Sweetbay, past fields where cows cropped grass and lazed in the sun. Ava had raced the whole way and she was still driving too fast, and the car bounced over the ruts. She pulled into the circular driveway in front of the house, skidding to a stop under a massive oak, its Spanish moss-beard trailing to the top of the car. The moss, the spreading live oaks, the square columns of the wraparound veranda—they meant Sweetbay, the house that had meant so much happiness to me, and so much pain.

  I lugged my suitcase up the five wooden steps. Ava opened the door for me. Inside I got a shock.

  The old chintz-covered settee and rockers and cane-bottomed chairs were gone from the living room, and in their place stood a new white sectional sofa, the latest style. It wrapped around on two sides, and in front of it Ava had placed a Danish modern coffee table holding some slick magazines and a vase of artificial flowers, just like something out of House & Garden.

  Holy cow, I said.

  How about them apples? Come on. She dragged me back to the bedroom. I blinked at the fancy bed and matching dressers and nightstands, finished in washed white.

  French provincial, she said.

  And a red carpet, I said. And a white satin bedspread. And one of those old-fashioned dolls with ruffled skirts on the bedspread. Ava, how can you stand those dolls with teeth? They give me the willies. Those staring eyes. Like a dead person.

  She snorted. You’re crazy, you know that?

  Ugh, I said. I looked away, across the hall. Sunlight poured into a small, empty room, where paint cans stood on a dropcloth. The room had been painted sky blue with white trim, unfurnished except for a single white iron bedstead without a mattress.