The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt

by Andrea Bobotis

  “I like how you’ve carried the note of citrus through all the courses.”

  Olva smiled. “And for dessert, one of your favorites. Orange Supreme!”

  She certainly knew how to spoil me. Orange Supreme was a concoction of oranges, crushed pineapple, cottage cheese, and whipped cream, and she had been making it for me since we were children.

  Rosemarie emerged from the kitchen, and as she did, we heard the side door in the sunroom opening.

  “Daddy!” Amaryllis cried, and she shot out of the room.

  Moments later, she rounded the corner with Marcus. His face was grave. He exchanged glances with Olva.

  “You all right?” she asked, not wanting to say anything around Amaryllis.

  “Amaryllis,” Marcus said, leaning down. “Please go wash your hands.”

  The child, pouting, left the room.

  “I parked on the north side of the property and walked through the forest. One of Rick’s friends was tailing me on my paper route.”

  Amaryllis sped back into the dining room. No one had a chance to respond to Marcus. Rosemarie and I seated ourselves across from each other at the heads of the table, and in the middle, Olva sat on one side, with Marcus and Amaryllis on the other. We said our grace.

  The music of forks and knives clinking carried through the air, and as we passed dishes to one another, our gestures loosened, the threat of Rick and his friends an impossibility at the table Olva had made for us. Amaryllis was especially enjoying the formality of it all. Olva leveled her chin out over the table, and a slow smile grew on her face. She was preparing to speak. But then my sister’s voice rose up from one end of the table, interrupting the air that Olva had momentarily reserved for her words. Rosemarie did not seem to notice.

  “Oh!” Rosemarie said. “We should have used the zucchini May Irving gave me a few days ago instead of buying the asparagus. I was helping her harvest some vegetables from her garden. We found one zucchini nearly as long as a baseball bat!” She speared one of the mandarin oranges, which trembled on the tines before she slung it into her mouth. She turned to me. “May Irving is related to Randall Clark.”

  “I know that,” I replied. “You are not the expert on Bound now that you have been home not even two months.”

  “Randall Clark’s wife was the one who never left her house,” Rosemarie continued, looking past me. “What a sad case. She must have been very lonely.”

  “Who are you to know what Mrs. Clark felt?” I said, my voice rising. “Perhaps she was comforted by her home. Perhaps she took pleasure in all the things around her.”

  Rosemarie raised one eyebrow. Then she kept talking as if the world had started turning again just because she had decided it would. “When I first met my husband,” she continued, “we had a giant garden. Our zucchini was so monstrous, and I made such a volume of zucchini bread that neither of us could stomach the idea of that vegetable for years afterward.”

  I took a giant swig of water, which went down the wrong pipe, causing me to cough loudly.

  “Are you all right?” Olva asked.

  I turned to Rosemarie, my voice thinned out from the coughing attack. “I have never known you to make any kind of bread, let alone zucchini bread.”

  What I really wanted to say was: I had no idea you had a husband, you fool.

  “Where is your husband?” Amaryllis asked. Children were very useful creatures.

  “He is dead now. Been dead forty-five years. Half a lifetime.” She paused, seeming surprised by the bluntness of her own words. “His name was Carl. He was a cotton mill worker his whole life. He was a card hand.” She shook her head. “Hard work. Bone hard. Card hands like Carl worked in the picker room.” Rosemarie turned to Amaryllis. “The picker room was the first room where bales of ginned cotton were unloaded. The cotton lappers—that’s what they were called—cleaned as many leaves and stalks and seeds as they could from the cotton. Then Carl would feed the fibers into the carding machine, which combed out any other debris and formed the cotton into coils of rope called card sliver. Twelve hours a day he would do that. I worked alongside him a few years. I was a secretary in that same mill. The manager hired me on the spot after looking me up and down. My job was much easier than my husband’s.” She smiled wanly.

  Olva was watching my sister gently. Rosemarie returned her gaze, and here was another moment, all too frequent since her return, in which the two of them communicated in silence in a way that made my presence seem cumbersome and unwelcome.

  “I met Carl in Rock Hill, right after I left Bound,” Rosemarie went on.

  This news surprised me. Rock Hill was nearby, and I had assumed my sister had flown as far away as she could those years ago.

  “He worked for a long while in the Rock Hill Cotton Factory. It was the first mill in South Carolina to use steam power—did you all know that? It’s on the South Carolina historical registry now. It closed in the sixties.” Here was Rosemarie, knowing something about something. I was, despite myself, impressed. “The mill’s closing was an end to an era. Carl had an uncle on his mama’s side who used to work there when it was called Belvedere Mills. Just like his uncle, Carl called it working on the mill hill. He was very proud of his labor.”

  Rosemarie’s face darkened. She shook her head. “Carl and the other workers weren’t compensated what they deserved. The cotton dust? Choking! That’s how you got brown lung. Some people tried to do something about it—half the textile workers in South Carolina went on strike in 1944. Carl joined them. I was twenty-eight years old when I went down to Honea Path to watch him marching in the picket lines. The police shot him, along with six other textile workers. They called it one of the most violent suppressions of the labor movement. I ran out to Carl on the street when he went down.”

  Amaryllis took in a quick breath. Her eyes widened.

  Rosemarie, noticing her rapt audience, leaned in toward the child. “I was nearly shot myself!”

  Amaryllis’s mouth fell open. My sister nodded her head solemnly, and I detected the whiff of self-congratulation, which deflated my sympathies. Here was Rosemarie, like always, planting herself in the center of whatever story she told.

  She waved her hand to indicate she was moving on. Facing me, she said, “Judith, do you remember how badly Daddy Kratt wanted a mill? He was disappointed that Bound was merely a gin town. He wanted to govern the whole process, from the picked cotton to the production of cloth. Do you remember when we used to go down to the gin together—Daddy Kratt’s biggest one? You used to walk several paces in front of me. You always did have a purposeful way about you. We each had our favorite spots in the gin, too. You on the second floor, among the bales of ginned cotton, where you could claim a vantage of the whole operation. And me down among the workers, angling to get a better look at the way they fed the cotton into the stands and following the fiber as the saw teeth took it up and combed it free of seeds. How hard they worked and for such little compensation! When we walked home, you would rhapsodize on how efficient the process was.”

  Rosemarie made a face to indicate her disapproval. Then, as abruptly as she had started talking, she stopped. She had uncorked her memories for a few moments but had shoved the plug back in.

  Olva looked at her softly. “Now, Rosemarie, pass me your plate, and I will get you a slice of pork.” My sister handed her plate over, and she nodded when Olva suggested a second slice with a tilt of her head. Olva got up and traveled around the table to pick up the gravy boat. She approached Rosemarie deferentially from the side. “Let me put a little gravy on your pork,” Olva said.

  “Olva, sit down!” Rosemarie cried, snatching the serving boat, causing gravy to capsize onto the white table linen. “You don’t have to serve me like that!”

  Olva let her eyes rest a few moments on the dollops of gravy that were settling on the tablecloth. “Oh,” she said, and I could tell she was
embarrassed.

  Marcus shifted in his seat, and Amaryllis remained quiet, watching the scene. Olva returned to her seat more quickly than she had left it.

  Rosemarie set the gravy boat down without pouring any. “I apologize, Olva,” my sister said. “It’s just that I don’t want you to feel as if you need to serve us.”

  Olva didn’t respond. I felt something needed to be said.

  “Wasn’t it nice of you, Olva, to get out all of Grandmother DeLour’s good china? What I mean is that we rarely get to see her things laid out so finely. Can you imagine that Grandmother used to set the table like this every evening?”

  “I’m sure she wasn’t the one who set it,” Rosemarie interjected. “You are nostalgic for the wrong things, Judith.”

  I felt the old heat between us. Turning to look at my sister squarely, I said, “You come here with all your high and mighty ideas, Rosemarie, when you have no clue as to the arrangements that have suited us for years.”

  “Arrangements?” my sister said slowly, as if sorting out the meaning of the word.

  I opened my mouth to reply but decided against it when I saw a slight grimace on Olva’s face. I have sent Olva on hundreds of errands in our lifetime. But since Rosemarie’s return, Olva can merely look like she might think about doing something for me, and my sister launches an interrogation. All day long, I hear Rosemarie insisting “I’ll get that for you, Olva” or “Oh no, Olva, that’s not your job” or “Why don’t we clean those dishes together, Olva?” and generally making a great fuss over the simplest of household tasks. To my mind, such scrutiny is more condescending than asking Olva to do a few things here and there.

  Rosemarie coughed, indicating she was done with me. She turned to Marcus. “I knew Charlie.” Nodding at Amaryllis, she said, “Your great-great-grandfather.”

  “That’s a lot of greats,” Amaryllis said.

  “It certainly is. And here’s the thing.” Rosemarie leaned in toward the child. “Charlie was as near a perfect gentleman as I ever met.” She looked at Olva. “And Olva is just as perfect.” My sister winked at Amaryllis.

  “Now, Rosemarie,” Olva said with a small smile.

  “It’s true,” Rosemarie went on. “I never met anyone like you. Willing to care for another person so completely.”

  The air seemed to shift at the table, and it seemed to be shifting in my favor. Olva’s face was serene, but I could tell she was displeased by my sister’s comments. I brought my napkin to my lips. Suddenly, I thought of our old dead uncle Sally, our great-uncle on the DeLour side, who dined with us on special occasions when we were children.

  “I have something to share,” I said to the table, aiming to steer the conversation in another direction. No one said anything. As there seemed to be no protest, I went on.

  Daddy Kratt was a social man, I explained to them. He was social, not in the merry sense of that term, but he was forthcoming enough to allow others to join our supper table. As a matter of fact, we rubbed elbows with all manner of people—far-flung relatives sat alongside newcomers to town whom our father wanted to size up. Once, he invited one of his store employees, a poor fellow, for Thanksgiving supper, and the boy ate with such ravenous intensity that the rest of us lost our appetites.

  Rosemarie let out a heavy breath.

  I placed my hands in my lap, closed my eyes, and continued my story.

  Most often, I said, it was Great-Uncle Sally, one of Mama’s uncles. He could always be counted on to show up unannounced for holiday meals. He was an itinerant Presbyterian preacher, and from the looks of his belly, which rode high and firm on his waist, he got around a fair bit to supper tables. Sally had no facial hair (he would have benefited from some), and the thick white hair on his head was parted right down the center and held in place by some kind of pomade. I had decided, from its smell, that it was probably pork lard.

  Uncle Sally made an appearance at Easter; the year was 1926, the one when Rosemarie had worn my white dress and I had salted and poisoned all her precious slugs. Here I heard Rosemarie’s breath catch. My eyes were still closed, and I pointed my face at her. “That I killed your cat,” I said to her, “was an unfortunate and unintended consequence.” Rosemarie’s chair scraped along the floor, but she did not get up, at least not that my ears could detect. I continued.

  When we gathered for that Easter supper, Rosemarie’s slugs had already been salted, and if ever a table was set for battle between my sister and me, this was the one. In addition to Rosemarie’s hostility, another current of insurrection coursed through the gathering. Aunt Dee had boycotted the meal for reasons the adults would not tell the children, but I had gleaned, from a few gruff and troubled words that had escaped Dee’s lips, that she and Mama were having a disagreement over something of consequence. So there it was: more battle lines, drawn by the grown-ups, which we were not to cross. We bristled under the injunction.

  Uncle Sally sat at one end of the table. The other was reserved for Daddy Kratt, who would make a fleeting appearance, as he always did, around the time of the main course to consume the contents of his plate while the rest of us picked at our food until he left. We were fine with this arrangement, because had he remained for the entire meal, the supper table would have been a silent and uncomfortable place for us. Even Mama was more animated during family meals when she was alone with us. But Uncle Sally was playing the role of the adult on this occasion, and we went back to having conversations with our eyes. Rosemarie and I were already locked in silent war. I kept reaching my fingers into my crystal saltcellar and catching her eyes as I sprinkled more and more salt on my thickly cut slices of Easter ham. The ham, as I recall, had already been aggressively seasoned before its arrival at the table.

  Uncle Sally turned to me and said, “My, Judith”—I was gulping down water—“you are unusually thirsty this day. But a seed must be watered, and it is a blessing to see you children grow before my eyes.” This was the way Uncle Sally spoke. Another water pitcher was brought out, mostly for me, and I managed to sneak a smile at Olva as she placed it on the table and returned to the kitchen. Uncle Sally’s eyes lingered on her. I didn’t think much of it until he announced, as we were finishing our main courses, that he wanted her to join us for dessert. When Sally said this, Quincy’s throat let off a little hoot of interest.

  Mama’s mouth dropped open. “Now, Uncle Sally,” she said, and it was the trace of protest in her voice that got everyone’s attention. “Olva is quite busy.”

  Sally seemed genuinely put off by Mama speaking. I was curious.

  But anything further was cut short when Sally ordered Mama to leave the table. She did, as if she were a child, giving Olva a look that I’m sure was intended to comfort, but how could it have meant anything when Mama had diminished what little authority she held by walking away without another word?

  Olva stood frozen in the doorway to the kitchen. She was thirteen years old.

  Sally said, “Let’s see,” as he surveyed the seating arrangement. The only available chair was Daddy Kratt’s empty one at the other head of the table, and you could tell he had already made up his mind that Olva would not be sitting there. “Quincy,” he finally said. “Do your uncle Sally a favor and let the young lady have your seat.” He motioned for Quincy to take Daddy Kratt’s empty chair, and the elation that shot through my brother’s eyes did not go unnoticed by the rest of us.

  Olva had edged back toward the kitchen, but Sally noticed and boomed, “Young lady, what did I say now?”

  She hurried to Quincy’s unoccupied seat, avoiding eye contact with us.

  As Olva took her seat, Sally folded his arms over his belly. “I have something bothering me today,” he said. “I recently received a letter from a fellow scholar. And this ridiculous gentleman believes that our dear Darwin did not in fact coin the phrase survival of the fittest.” Sally’s belly moved up and down as he laughed noiselessly.
You see, Sally was an ardent admirer of Charles Darwin, and Sally spoke about Darwin’s adventures on the HMS Beagle with the devotion and giddiness of a young boy.

  We settled into our chairs for a lecture from Uncle Sally. But then Quincy piped up. “Who said it, then?” my brother asked. “Who said ‘survival of the fittest’?”

  Sally cleared his throat and turned away from Quincy as he said, “This fellow scholar of mine—well, I can’t stomach calling him a scholar any longer—believes it was Herbert Spencer or some other chap. It hardly matters. Everyone knows it’s Darwin’s phrase, and the idea is his crowning glory of scholarship.” Here, Sally threw his arms open in an ecstatic gesture and cried, “The survival of the fittest!”

  It was a phrase Sally was fond of repeating, always with the same amount of enthusiasm. This time, it proved too much for Quincy, who could not suppress his laughter. I shot my brother a stern look, but it only seemed to encourage him.

  Quincy turned to Sally. “You say that so frequently, Uncle Sally, I think you ought to put it on your tombstone!” Another chuckle moved through my brother, which graduated to an onslaught of laughter. He was considering, I suppose, how the power of the phrase might be diminished on a grave marker.

  Here, I paused my story, and though my eyes were still closed, I could feel everyone around the table listening. I did not tell them I remembered feeling sorry for Sally. He was a bore, of course, but a loyal bore. For him, Darwin’s beliefs structured the world, and I could understand that craving for orderliness. There it was, deep in my bones, too.

  Quincy’s laughter died down, and Sally’s eyes flickered a little, not quite a blink, as if he were resetting the scene in front of him. “Perhaps,” Sally said calmly, “we should revisit one of our earlier lessons about Darwin.” He then launched into a typical sermon about the undesirables and God’s chosen and productive attrition. His voice took on a tone somewhere between scholarly and threatening, which was meant to stifle further interruptions.