When he was sleeping, she went to the kitchen and stood there for a long time with a knife in her hand, looking at the ceiling. Finally, she shoved the knife back in the drawer and gathered up as many suitcases as she could find. By morning, she and Franny were packed.
He came down the stairs like he was in some war-torn European country, wary and tense. She was waiting for him. In measured tones, Sarah informed Jim that she was taking Franny home to Gethsemane, to the Big House, the house she grew up in, to help take care of her mother, dying of lupus and beginning to suffer from dementia.
There was no mention of the bruises on her face. She felt like a coward for not confronting him, but the only thing that kept her coherent was the thought of what Franny might think of her, of Jim, of herself.
Sarah’s eyes remained dry as she told him they were leaving, and Franny looked back and forth between her parents trying to discern what was actually being said. Jim cursed her, picked up his paper, and opened it with a pop. He remained sitting, and slowly drank his coffee as Sarah gathered up their bags, loaded Franny into the car, and drove away.
She couldn’t understand why their marriage took this sorry course; it seemed so wonderful and bright when he’d first come back from overseas—wounded, yes, but alive and the whole world celebrating victory. Sarah held that victory close to her heart and took ownership of it, as if it were her own. And in some ways it was her victory. She’d stayed chaste and worked at the local radio factory, assembling pieces of communications equipment, radios, receivers, speakers. There were always men wanting to sleep with her—and some she wanted in return—but she remained firmly and obviously married, as steadfast as Penelope. She’d written to her husband every day, filling her letters with happiness and the minutia of life at home, at the radio factory, ending each letter with a smear of lipstick and a spray of perfume.
At Jim’s homecoming there was happiness and love and warm nights spent sweating in bed, his body over hers, arms pinioning her to the mattress, waist to waist, and she’d never felt anything like it before. She’d loved that; his body, how he moved with such freedom on top of her. He inspired her, he changed her. She found she could discard the matronly inhibitions that the world—her society and relations—exacted upon her, and in the bedroom be free, free of thought and speech, everything distilled down to the slap of flesh on flesh, sweat pouring, lips finding lips.
But the war took its toll on Jim too, the silvery scars on his chest and legs, his nightmares and hollow-eyed days. And as those days passed, then the months, Jim’s drinking grew deeper and his work, running the printing company his father founded, made demands on him that became harder for both him and Sarah to bear—the lonely nights, the horrible aftermath mornings. When he was home, he drank, and demanded things of her she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do. Then one morning—Jim seething in his hangover, angry at her, angry at the world—Sarah stood up, bolted to the bathroom, and retched over the toilet. He looked simultaneously surprised and chagrined. For that day, he felt like a man again, now that the baby was testament to his virility. But the next night he didn’t come home until the early morning, stinking of gin and cigarettes. The baby saved Sarah. But nothing could save Jim.
From the moment she laid eyes on her daughter, Sarah marveled at the beauty that had come from her own body. When Sarah looked into the mirror, she saw tired eyes and a crooked nose, the scar on her eyelid and the gray at her temples. Not so gray, and my figure is still good. And Franny, now small for her age, had flaxen hair that was almost white, thin delicate features, slim forearms, and a long neck traced by bluish veins that ran to her temples—translucent and filled with so much light that it suffused her underneath her skin. Sarah felt as though she could see Fran’s insides, the hard skeleton framing the foam-like flesh, letting the light through. That child was her care and her heart.
“Look, Mommy, a cow!” Franny cried, and then, “We’re going to Mimi’s!” She had said that over and over. “Mimi’s!”
“Yes, baby. Mimi’s sick.”
“She’s turning into a wolf, daddy says, like in Little Red Riding Hood.”
Damn him.
“No, baby, she’s not turning into a wolf. She’s just sick, and she’s been sick for a while. And the sickness Mimi’s got makes her skin look funny. We’re going to help her get better.”
They drove in silence until Franny said, “Ooh, look, Mommy! A cow and a dog!”
They left Little Rock that morning, and now, three hours later, they neared Gethsemane. Sarah pulled the sedan off Highway 31 and took the small dirt road through the orchard, the road lined with pecan trees littering the ground with their seed, the fields half obscured by the diagonal rows of trees.
They called the Rheinhart estate the Big House. The field hands and laborers who worked the land, ministered the tractors and ushered the grain into silos—to them all, it was the Big House. As Fran and Sarah approached the old beauty, with its high dormered windows, deep shadows among the galleries behind tall columns, the Big House stood half in darkness and half in the fierce light of noon.
How many summer afternoons did I spend on that porch? With Daddy and Baird and Uncle Gregor, books and lemonade and then boys and later Jim before he was sent off to the war? On that porch he courted me, and Daddy brought out the courting candle and set it to burn a long time because Jim was going into OCS. But Jim was hours away now, surely drinking at his office or at the nearby bar, and tonight she wouldn’t have to sleep with Franny for fear of marital obligations or of strange midnight rants on the iniquities of men and women. The Big House was home, and Sarah felt welcomed and surrounded by it, driving down the pecan-lined lane.
Now closer, Sarah observed the decay of the old family estate, the scaling paint, the wisteria eating at a column on the front porch, crumbling the molding and slumping the porch downward. That wasn’t there the last time I was here, but wisteria grows fast.
As the sedan rumbled up in the graveled drive, Alice came out the front door and waved, smiling big, her apron white against her dark skin. Sarah had known Alice as long as she had lived. When she was five, Sarah, laughing, gave Alice one of her china dolls, the Negro one from Germany that she’d received from Uncle Gregor that Christmas. With that act, she won Alice’s love and they became friends, the daughters of servant and landowner. They had grown up together under Alice’s mother’s watchful eye, until the day that Alice had grown old enough to assist her mother and Maggie needed to go home to Memphis to attend her parents.
Sarah exited the car. Alice ran down the steps, and they hugged fiercely, holding each other for a long while. Alice said, “Ooh, girl. It’s been too long since you been back. Come on inside, I’ve made your favorite. And who might this be?”
Alice broke from Sarah and turned toward the car; Fran stood frozen on the white gravel of the drive, a hesitant smile curling her lips.
“Alice, let me introduce you to my daughter, Franny.” Sarah nodded from woman to child and said, “And Franny, this here’s Alice, who I told you about.”
“Mommy says you talk in your sleep.”
The women laughed, and Alice said to her while looking at Sarah, “Only when your momma ain’t here to kick me. But, Lord, girl, are you fair.” Alice reached out and touched Franny’s shining hair. “Child, you look like you swallowed a hundred-watt bulb.” Alice squatted on her knees and whispered, mock theatrical, “Franny, can I tell you a secret?”
Franny nodded, her eyes big.
“There’s some kids hiding on that side of the house,” Alice said, flipping her head toward the corner. “And they’ve been waiting to show you the peafowl.”
Squeals and laughter came from the side of the house, children caught hiding. Then, with yelps and high-pitched whoops, two children rounded the corner of the old house and barreled toward the driveway, jumping and waving their arms. Franny ran to meet them, squealing too. When she neared the two older children, she stopped short, like a puppy encountering a larger, u
nfamiliar dog.
The girl put her hands on her hips proudly, while the boy did a nervous dance, hopping from one foot to the other.
“My name’s Fisk, and she’s—”
“Fool! I can introduce myself. My name’s—”
“Lenora,” Fisk said, beaming. “She’s my sister.”
“And he’s my idiot brother, Fisk.”
Fisk turned on his older sister. “It gonna be real funny when Fran watches me knock you on your butt.”
Lenora stepped away, and looked at Fisk, down her nose. “Yeah. Go on and try it, lil man. Fran here’ll be laughing when I put you on your back.”
Lenora raised a fist as though she was going to hit her brother in the face; Fisk stared at her, unblinking.
“You gonna do it?” he asked. Lenora turned away, shaking her head. Franny turned to glance at Sarah with a look that said, “What am I supposed to do here?”
The children, caught in a patch of sunlight, took turns shaking Franny’s small hand, grinning big. They matched, somehow, the dark-skinned brother and sister and the bright, luminous little girl.
Fisk jittered, moving left and right, hopping.
“We got some peafowl,” he said, sticking out his chest.
“We ain’t got no peafowl, Fisk. Her gramma do, and we just take care of ’em.”
“Well, there’s some peafowl here. You’re gonna love ’em, though don’t mess with the big boy, Ole Phemus. Only got one eye, and he’s meaner than the Devil.”
Franny asked, “Peafowl?”
“Yeah, you know. Peacocks? Big fan tail, all green and blue and pink. Come on, we’ll show you.”
Franny looked at her mother again. Sarah mouthed the word “go,” giving a shooing motion with her hands. The children dashed off, running back around the house, flapping arms, singing, laughing.
Alice called, “Stay by the Big House, y’all! And there’s a yellow jacket nest by the shed! Make sure Franny don’t get near them! You hear me Fisk? Lenora!”
Sarah followed Alice up onto the porch, into the house, walking through the quiet rooms, footfalls soft on the ancient weathered rugs. She’d heard those soft sounds a million times before but now they seemed new. She looked at her old home as if she’d never seen it before. And in a way, she hadn’t. There was a lot of water under that particular bridge.
Alice led Sarah into the kitchen and said, “Your momma’s having a bad day today. Chest hurting and short of breath. You can go up there in a little bit. First, come over here and let me look at you.”
Alice drew Sarah by her hands and turned her to face the light spilling into the kitchen from the window above the sink. “Girl, you look tired here.” Alice touched Sarah’s temple lightly. “And here.” Touched her heart, above her breast. “I see he’s been rough with you.” Her hand went to the bruise at Sarah’s cheek.
“Alice…” Sarah didn’t know what to say.
“All men unman themselves, eventually. They don’t even need us to help them. They’ll do it on their own. But when they’re limp, when they’re powerless, they’re the most dangerous.”
“Alice… I don’t—”
“Sssh. Don’t worry. He won’t ever touch you again. You’re home now, and I’m gonna take care of you, just like I always did. You’re my girl. Always was. Always will be.” Alice smiled, then hugged Sarah fiercely. Sarah remembered.
When she was younger, Alice watched after her, a glorified babysitter, a companion, vigilant and ever-watchful for dangers to body and soul and virtue. Once, when the Alexander boy asked to go walking with Sarah in the grove, and Sarah’s father nodded once in response, the boy took her hand and they walked into the trees, the smell of burning fields filling the autumn air. Out of sight of the Big House, they kissed, even though Sarah had been a little too young to understand the demands of a young man’s body. He held her close, pressing his body tightly to hers, his mouth heavy. He had tasted of peppermints and tobacco, not altogether unpleasant, and Sarah hadn’t really minded the kissing, the tight embrace. But then his hands moved on her back and she felt a little uncomfortable, then more uncomfortable when he pressed his pelvis tight to her waist. She pushed him away, just a little too hard, and he fell on his back, face clouding with anger, then surprise, his eyes locked on something behind her. Sarah almost knew, when she turned, what she would see. Alice, standing quietly by a pecan tree not ten feet away, staring at the Alexander boy, a heavy branch clasped in her fist, her calico dress ruffling slightly with the breeze. There was no doubt in Sarah’s mind what she’d have done with the branch if he’d gone too far. The boy had run away.
Best of friends, Sarah heard them say, the folks in the town’s main street, as she walked by, that Rheinhart girl and her colored servant. Like she got herself a slave. Which hurt Sarah more than anything. She had never asked Alice for anything—protection, service—nothing except love and that was all she offered in return. Indeed, Sarah thought, if anyone owns anyone in this relationship, she owns me. I’m her girl, always returning to her, coming back to the home she provides.
Now, in the kitchen, Alice gripped her tight and said, “You know, I ain’t gone let nothing happen to my girl. And that Franny! Whoo-ee. You sure make a pretty baby.” She shook her head. “Jim weren’t always so hard, was he? It’d kill me if all this time you spent away from me was… I don’t know… wasted.”
“He’s… all right. He works hard.” She tried to keep the tears back. “I love him, but… no more. He’s not the man I married. Something in him was broken. Over there. In the war.”
“Drinks too much as well, I hear.”
“How can you hear that? You’re three hours away.”
“Shoot, girl, you know I got my doodlebugs.” An old joke between them; Alice, since she was a child, claimed she had the gris-gris, the hoodoo charms that her grandmother and mother passed down to her. And the doodlebugs were, as far as Sarah could understand, the invisible familiars that Alice used to discover things. Sarah imagined them as little floating points of light that wafted out into the world and took in information, then returned to Alice and reported, like sentient will-o-wisps.
Sarah, suddenly glad to be home and with Jim behind her, laughed.
Alice joined her, laughing. “Well, you know I gotta check in on you every once in a while, since you run away from me… Shoot, girl, I understood why, though. That Jim, ain’t been a better lookin’ man round these parts in an age. Hard to believe he’d go so sour.”
Sarah blushed; yes, Jim had been gorgeous, but less so every day.
“He’s fair seeming.”
“Easy to seem fair.” Alice sucked her teeth. “If I ever see him again, he’ll find a knife in his damned belly.”
Sarah was caught between worry and gratitude; she had no doubt Alice would do what she said.
“So, you ever hear from… Calvin?” Sarah hoped that was the right name.
“Shoot, he ran off with some other woman, I guess. I shouldn’t never have fallen in love with no blues man. Always on the road. Every night, a different town, different juke joint, lots of ladies to choose from. He vanished a couple of years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said.
“Only person who’s sorry should be Calvin.”
“But what about the kids, don’t they miss him?”
“He weren’t ever around here enough for them to give a damn. Occasionally Fisk asks after him, takes out the guitar Calvin left and picks a little bit, but he’s the youngest and didn’t have his heart broken as much as Lenora.”
Alice paused, then moved to the counter.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“No. I better go see my mother.”
“Ain’t no easy way to say this, but she looks horrible. Her skin has got all dark, you know, how the disease works. Doc Polk said this might happen. Anywho, it’s tight and hard, her voice is all ripped up, and well… she’s dying, ain’t no secret. She’s been drinking plenty too. To ease the pain, you know?”
Alice brushed her apron and looked down. “I guess maybe ’bout… oh… maybe a bottle of port every couple of days.” Alice wouldn’t meet Sarah’s eyes.
Sarah nodded. A strange numbness came on her; her mother was dying and a drunk now as well. “She due for another dose, Alice? And why doesn’t the doctor prescribe something for her, to ease the pain?”
“Doc Polk did, but it made her vomit and he ain’t been back since. Might’ve been that your momma might’ve acted like your momma.”
“What, haughty and imperious?” Sarah said.
“What? No, just bossy and rude, you know, like she always been.” Alice smiled.
Sarah laughed. “Yes. Well, show me where the port is and I’ll take it up there. If you could check on Franny, I’d really appreciate it.”
Alice touched Sarah’s hand, resting on the block. “It’s gonna be all right. You be strong, and when you come back down, I’ll have you a nice piece of minced meat pie and a pot of some strong hot coffee. How’s that sound?”
Sarah smiled, and put her other hand on top of Alice’s and squeezed. “Alice… I’m so glad to be home. With you.”
Alice winked at her and said, “Go on, now. It’s a hard thing you have to do, so you better go on and do it. The port’s in the library, where it’s always been. There’s a tray there, clean glasses and the bottle. There’s extra bottles below the dry bar.”
Sarah walked down the hall, away from the kitchen, toward the library. The library doors stood shut like she remembered from childhood. How many times had she walked this hall with dread? Waiting for her father or, when she was even younger, her grandfather? Or her Uncle Geeg? Happy Gregor.
She slid the doors back, into the pockets in the walls. The library was still, filled with light slanting in from the big bay windows facing the south fields. On the northern wall stood books—hundreds, thousands of books from floor to ceiling—their dark bindings gathering weight and gloom in the otherwise bright room. A desk, solid cherry wood with lion’s paws for feet, sat in the center of the room with a small green shaded light and leather chair.
Southern Gods Page 4