Our eternal curse II

by Simon Rumney

  There was a very long, very highly-polished wooden cupboard thing standing on ornate legs with many shiny rounded things on top of it, but there were absolutely none of the “kitchen room” things. Julii looked closer at the shiny round things. They had small fires burning beneath them. 'How incredible it was to see fire burning on top of a wooden surface yet completely under control.'

  She knew these things that burn were called “stoves”, but not stoves like the ones in Robert's mother's kitchen room or the tall hotel building's kitchen room.

  Turning to Count Anton, Julii spoke softly. "This is not a kitchen room?"

  It was a statement but also a question, and Count Anton smiled. It was the smile he gave when Julii said something that impressed him. She like how that smile made her feel.

  When he gave his reply, his words also made her feel happy and confident and intelligent. "You are a truly remarkable woman, Julii. Your abilities, when it comes to learning and assimilation, are more extraordinary than I have ever seen."

  Count Anton walked to open the door as he spoke over his shoulder. "Today I intend to thoroughly test those abilities."

  Looking out of the door, he said in a respectful tone, "May we have the..."

  Stopping in mid-sentence, he smiled as Tilly, Samantha and the brown man who had opened the red door entered carrying large flat shiny things laden with bowls. The bowls were laid out on the table in front of Julii. It was more food than she had ever seen at one time; it was also more different types of food than she had ever seen. Now she understood how it was possible to be as big as Count Anton.

  Julii looked sheepishly up at Count Anton. She felt ungrateful as she spoke in a respectful voice, "I do not think I will be able to eat all of this food."

  Count Anton laughed as he took up position behind Julii. His voice was warm and friendly. "Do not worry, my dear. This food will all be eaten, but now I want you to experience as many flavors as possible."

  Reaching his arms around, he took hold of her hands. With one of his hands he guided her hand to a shiny thing and said, "Knife".

  Julii repeated the word. "Knife."

  Count Anton guided Julii's other hand and said, "Fork".

  Julii repeated. "Fork."

  Count Anton said, "Now take the fork and steady the meat while you cut it with the knife."

  Julii cut the strip of meat as Count Anton added, "Now use the fork to place the small pieces of meat into your mouth."

  Using the fork, Julii did what she was told and placed a bite-size piece into her mouth. Count Anton smiled and pointed to Julii's plate. "Did you enjoy the bacon?"

  Julii realized that the delicious thing she was chewing on must be called “bacon”. She wanted to reply, but memories of being chastised by Robert’s nanny prevented her from speaking with her mouth full. She nodded her head 'yes' instead.

  Pointing at everything in turn, Count Anton went on. "We have fruit. That is an orange and that is juice made from oranges. That is a grapefruit. You pour a little of this sugar on that. These are strawberries, apples, grapes and bananas. We also have bread, butter and jam. You eat those later."

  Walking to a round silver thing with fire underneath, he lifted each lid in turn and added, "These are tomatoes, those are mushrooms, this is beef steak, those are called sausages, these are kidneys, bacon you already know, the eggs are poached, fried, scrambled and, of course, boiled."

  Returning to his seat, Count Anton smiled. "Please take your time and try everything, my dear. Today we will find out what is and is not to your liking."

  As Count Anton went back to studying the flimsy white and black thing, Julii did as she was told and tried a little of everything. She liked almost everything, even the additional things that arrived after Count Anton's explanation. One was called “cheese” and another “ham” and yet another “porridge”.

  When she added “sugar” to the thing called “grapefruit”, Julii could not believe how wonderful it made the slightly bitter yellow fruit taste. As she enjoyed that wonderful new flavor, Count Anton spoke about a series of seemingly disjointed things for, what seemed to Julii, no apparent reason.

  While still looking at his big white and black thing that had General Hardee's face on the front, he said, "General Hardee has been placed in charge of Georgia's defenses."

  Then he said, “President Jefferson Davies was visiting the troops at the front."

  A few moments later he added, "A minor skirmish had taken place in Virginia."

  None of the things he said were making a great deal of sense to Julii, and she wondered why Count Anton was telling her these things in regular intervals. 'Was she supposed to reply?' 'How could she?' 'She didn't know what he was talking about.'

  While looking at Count Anton for answers, Julii noticed something that made her very curious. He was motioning to the white and black thing as though it was providing the information. 'How could that be?' 'This was too exciting!' 'Something new.' 'A whole new thing that she would have to learn about.'

  After a while, Count Anton looked over his big, flimsy white and black thing to look at Julii. His expression was that of a proud father and the tone of his words were the same. "When you have eaten your fill, I will take you shopping."

  Transformation of body and mind

  Leaving through the red front door in daylight was far more confronting than entering through it in the darkness. Julii had to fight the urges that told her to 'Just stay within the safety of Count Anton's house for the rest of her life.'

  Much to her horror, the people outside in the street reacted to the sight of her in the same way as the white people in Atlanta. It reminded Julii of the way the people of her village reacted to one of those horrible wild pigs running between the tipis.

  Holding her firmly by the hand, Count Anton did not linger. He knew how destructive these encounters must be for Julii. He even placed an arm lovingly around her shoulder and stared shamefully into the eyes of as many people as he could, but her faltering body language told him it was all too much for Julii.

  Returning to his house, Count Anton escorted Julii back through the red front door and gave a series of instructions to his staff. After a brief and silent delay, the carriage driver opened the red front door from the outside and escorted them both to his waiting carriage. The carriage did not have to travel very far. The horses only had to walk for two of the things Count Anton called “blocks” along the street he lived on.

  Julii understood that she could have walked the short distance in less than the time it took to reach her waterhole, but she also understood what Count Anton was doing. 'In the carriage she was anonymous, on the street she was a cause for derision.'

  Julii's voice conveyed her gratitude. "Thank you." Count Anton smiled his appreciation of her understanding.

  Julii noticed that the building they had stopped outside had a glass front. It was like the tobacco shop that Count Anton had saved her from in Atlanta, but this one did not have a wooden chief outside or tobacco things in the glass window. This one had people wearing fancy clothes inside the window. 'No!' 'They were not real people.' 'They looked like white women, but they were carved like the shiny chief outside the tobacco store.' 'Only their fancy clothes were real.'

  Leaving the carriage, Count Anton rapidly escorted Julii into the building. Even in the short moment of time it took to cross the sidewalk, the white people close-by stopped walking to stare and sneer at Julii.

  The tall glass door made a pleasant dinging sound as it opened and closed, and Julii was glad to be off the street. She was looking to see how the welcoming dinging sound was made when a big angry white woman ran from the back of the building. She was shouting: "Get that Injun the hell out of my store!"

  Julii obediently turned to leave, but Count Anton stopped her. One arm held her rigidly in place, while the other took out his folding hide thing. Flicking open the folding hide thing, Count Anton showed the white woman many of the small flimsy cloth things and said: "How much
money will it cost me to arrange a private fitting?"

  Just like the man in the front of the tall building called “hotel”, the angry woman's mood suddenly changed. She walked to the door and snapped a bolt loudly home. She pulled down something that had been rolled up above the top of the door. Now no one could see in, and Julii felt as safe as she had in Count Anton's home.

  The big angry woman was no longer angry. The big woman was smiling and Julii realized, 'The cloth things that Count Anton had just called “money” had changed the man in the hotel and now they changed the angry woman.' 'The things called “money” had led to her being fed with eggs and bread. Now money was leading to something else.' 'Something new and exciting.' 'She must find some of this money for herself.’ 'It can't be that hard to find.’ 'It doesn't weigh much and lots of it fits inside a small thing the count was now calling “wallet”.'

  The big smiling woman beckoned Julii towards the back of her building. "I have many beautiful dresses, and you have the most wonderful figure. Come, let us see how you look in French silk."

  This was the first time a white stranger had said anything to compliment Julii. She knew what a figure was because Robert had taught her all about numbers. She had no idea what number the white woman was referring to in this situation but, whatever it was, she had a “wonderful one” and that felt warm and nice in her mind.

  The big smiling lady held up a dress. It was not deer hide. It was like the full soft dresses that white women in Atlanta wore; like the one that touched her cheek when the women bent down in the building called “court martial”. The color and the feel of the cloth were wonderful, bright yellow like the sun, and soft too.

  The cloth shone when moved in the light. The big lady pointed to a flimsy wall she called a “screen” and Julii walked obediently behind it. She wondered what the screen thing was for because there was nothing behind it. 'Was it because she was an Injun?' 'Did they not want to see her naked?'

  The big lady appeared on Julii's side of the screen holding more beautiful bright soft dresses. Hanging the dresses over the screen, she motioned impatiently for Julii to take off her soft hide dress. Once that was done, she replaced it with soft white things she called “underwear” before covering that with the yellow dress. It felt so smooth, so wonderful, so feminine.

  The big smiling lady gestured for Julii to walk from behind the screen and look into a tall glass mirror. Julii knew it was called a “glass mirror” because Robert's horrible nanny had told her never to look into her “glass mirror”.

  She liked how she looked in the glass mirror and, over her shoulder, she could see that Count Anton also approved of how she looked. Over her other shoulder, Julii could see the big woman in the glass mirror. She was also smiling, but hers was not a smile of approval. 'What was it?' When the big woman noticed Julii looking at her, she was embarrassed and the mystery was solved. 'It was jealousy and envy.'

  The big woman saw the moment Julii grasped her inner thoughts. She had exposed herself. She turned away as though looking for more dresses, and a spiteful feeling of pleasure coursed through Julii. 'At least one white person was envious about something she had.'

  As a man, Count Anton was totally oblivious to the complex yet completely silent feminine conversation going on between Julii and the big lady. He was busy trying to find something else within the many pockets of the thing he called “jacket”.

  Pulling out a second, even thicker, wallet, he said, "We will take that one and as many more as you have. Julii must have a complete wardrobe."

  At the end of Julii's wonderful shopping spree, the brown carriage driver fastened Julii's clean white dress boxes surrounded by colored ribbons to the roof of the carriage.

  They set off on the next leg of her adventure. He did the same thing at the building called “shoe shop”, but the boxes were much smaller so he had to make fewer trips to load the multicolored shoeboxes on top of the carriage.

  Unlike the “dress shop” and the “shoe shop”, the pretty woman in the place Count Anton called “the beatification shop” did not close the “blinds” at the sight of Count Anton's money. She shouted, "Get that Injun whore out of my shop!"

  And she kept on shouting until he and Julii did as she ordered.

  All of the peculiar-looking women sitting in chairs in the beatification shop applauded as Julii exited, but the pretty woman did not seem happy. With her back to all the other ladies, the pretty woman stared at Count Anton's departing wallet with a strange and mournful expression of longing and desire.

  Returning to the safety of the carriage, Count Anton comforted Julii. Deep in thought, he seemed beaten until he suddenly looked up and spoke in a thoughtful voice: "Injun whore? That's it!"

  Banging on the ceiling of the carriage, he shouted to the driver: "The saloon!"

  When the carriage pulled up outside the building called “saloon”, Julii could hear music coming from inside. Not music like her tribe made; this music was not made by drums and human voices. It sounded wonderful and happy, but it was a sound Julii had never heard before. She could not even guess how it was made.

  Count Anton led Julii from the carriage, across the sidewalk, and through two small swinging doors. They were not really doors like the doors in the other shop buildings or Count Anton's house building. There was no “glass” in these doors, just rows of wooden slats. These doors would not have stopped rain or wind and a person could see over the top or underneath. Julii could not see the point of going to all the trouble of building such strange doors.

  After passing through the silly doors, she could see a man hitting a row of black and white teeth. Each time he hit a tooth, the wooden thing surrounding the teeth made a wonderful noise.

  Julii also saw men in various places around the large room. Some of them sat at small tables holding flimsy white things with little dots or pictures of people on them. Some were talking as they leaned against a long wooden thing with a vast mirror and bottles behind it. Some spoke to fancy women while they sipped dark colored water from tiny glasses, but none of them bothered to look at her.

  Julii was not used to being ignored by men and, for a fleeting moment, she wondered if this was worse than the looks of scorn in Atlanta. Oblivious to Julii's uniquely-feminine dilemma, Count Anton guided her gently through the room towards the stairs that led to the top of the building called “saloon”.

  At the top of the stairs stood three more fancy white ladies in very fine dresses. These dresses exposed much more of their chests than Julii's new dresses; they were also trimmed with much more frilly white material. Count Anton returned the three ladies’ warm smiles and said, "I wish to speak with whoever is in charge here."

  The three white ladies’ warm smiles all disappeared in the same moment. They looked at Julii as though she were some kind of competitor. One of the fancy women snarled, "You can get her the hell out of here, mister! We don't need no..."

  The three warm smiles reappeared as Count Anton opened his wallet. Once again, Julii saw the incredible power of money. She watched Count Anton hand what he called a “bank note” to one of the fancy white ladies who walked to a door, knocked, then entered.

  The fancy white lady returned with an older, harder-looking, tired fancy white lady. The older fancy white lady looked Julii up and down and said, "Stop distracting my girls and get the hell out of here. I ain't buying."

  Count Anton sounded angry. "You people should be ashamed of yourselves. You treat this woman like an outcast but she is your fellow human being."

  The older fancy white lady did not bend in the face of the count's anger. She moved her face aggressively closer to Count Anton's. "You wanna preach to me about being an outcast?"

  The older fancy lady turned to walk away. Then, on second thoughts, she turned back to Count Anton and sounded really fed up as she pointed at Julii and said, "And before you get your fat ass out of my place of business, do you want to tell me how selling this girl into whoring's gonna help her as 'a fe
llow human being'?"

  Count Anton laughter came spontaneously and Julii wondered how she had missed the joke. Nothing had appeared funny to her. The mood had seemed more violent than funny.

  Still laughing, Count Anton opened his wallet and said. "I am not here to ask you for money. I am here to give you money. Lots of money."

  He handed a bundle of money to the older white woman. The older lady snatched the money in a rapid, greedy motion saying, "What's the catch?"

  "No catch."

  Count Anton pointed to Julii. "I want you to make Julii look like you. Well, not you exactly. Like a white Savannah lady."

  "You saying I ain't white?"

  Counting the notes, the older fancy white lady did not wait for an answer. She continued walking and Julii saw Count Anton embarrassed for the first time. He fumbled his words. "Of course I did not mean to say... My dear lady, please forgive my..."

  The older fancy white lady held up the money by way of silencing Count Anton. "Calm yourself, honey. I've been called a lot worse for a lot less than this."

  As she walked through her doorway, the older fancy white lady mumbled, "What're you waiting for? Let's get started."

  Count Anton guided Julii cautiously into the older white lady's room to find the older white lady half-heatedly attempting to tidy the mess of frilly clothes and shoes.

  Julii was ordered to take a seat in front of a glass mirror. She did what she was told because the tired older fancy lady was very scary.

  Looking into the mirror, the tired older fancy lady's eyes connected with Julii's. She gave an off-hand nod of her head towards Count Anton and asked, "So, what's his lordship asking price for making you look like a sexy white girl?"

  Julii did not understand. She looked to Count Anton's reflection in the glass mirror for clarity, but he looked embarrassed and extremely uncomfortable. Red in the face, Count Anton left the room as he mumbled to no one in particular, "I think it's best I wait outside."