Speak Through the Wind

by Allison K. Pittman

  She wished her mother could see her now, nestled in a clean bed, a father and a Clara at her side. Occasionally there was even a doctor who stopped by to lift the bandage from her eyes, cautioning her not to open them as he swabbed the discharge and gently patted her skin, making little encouraging noises that she wasn’t badly damaged. She was going to heal just fine.

  Finally the day came when Kassandra was allowed to see all that she had been hearing. She heard the booming, friendly voice of the doctor downstairs. Clara offered him coffee, but he was in a hurry today. Only had enough time to make a quick check on their little patient, take those bandages off and have a look at those eyes. Footsteps followed. Up the stairs, a creaking on the fourth one, Clara’s breath coming heavier as she reached the top. No sound of Reverend Joseph. Must be out calling on a member of his congregation.

  Then there was a weight on the edge of her bed and a hand patting her leg.

  “Good morning, little girl,” Doctor said. “We’re going to have a look at those eyes of yours.”

  Kassandra felt his breath on her face—he’d recently eaten some kind of fish—and then his fingers at the side of her head.

  “Close those curtains,” he said to Clara. Then to her, “Now, I’m going to remove the bandage, but you must keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them. Do you understand me?”

  “Oh, she understands you all right,” Clara said. “She hasn’t made a sound since she-got here, but she knows everything that’s going on.”

  “Mm hmm,” Doctor said, patting his fingers gently along her face.

  “Reverend Joseph, he talks that German to her, but she don’ fool me. She understan’ English just as good as us do. She just don’ talk.”

  “Perhaps she simply doesn’t talk to you, Clara,” Doctor said, and Kassandra forced herself not to smile at Clara’s annoyed hmph! as she stomped across the room.

  “Lift your head for me?” Doctor said, and Kassandra obeyed, bringing her head just inches off the pillow. The layer of gauze was being unwound, and with each passing of it, her heart pounded between hope and fear. There had been talk at the beginning about blindness if her eyes had been badly burned. Doctor had decided to gauge the healing of her eyes by the healing of her face—keep them closed, covered, protected and assume that when the blisters on her cheeks and forehead healed, the eyes would have healed themselves as well. He used to ask her questions about pain: if it was bad, if it was worse, if it was better. But Kassandra hadn’t known how to answer. How could she complain about the burning of her eyes when her body was nestled in such softness? And soon enough, anyway, the burning sensation dulled to a minor discomfort, caused more by the stickiness of the ointment and the irritation of the gauze wrapped around her head.

  She’d been tempted several times to test her vision, but the weight of the ointment and the bandage made opening her eyes impossible. And each time the bandage had been changed, there’d been a finger pinning her lashes to her cheek.

  Now she stood on the threshold of knowing. Perhaps the last thing she’d ever see would be the little globule of fat from the top of Mr. Maroni’s soup flying into her face. She knew what her life would be like, back on the streets, blind. She would have to give up her daily wanderings, relegated to a single corner, a doorway, at the mercy of charity and kindness in a world where threadbare lives made such things impossible. She’d seen what happened to those people who couldn’t survive. They simply didn’t. She’d stepped over them herself, though she hadn’t stooped to checking their pockets like some of the older boys did.

  These were the images that filled her head as the final layer of gauze was removed. The bandage lifted from her eyes. A soft cloth dabbed at her closed lids.

  “Now, little one, it’s time,” Doctor said. “Open your eyes.”

  It wasn’t easy. Her lids felt heavy with disuse, and she found herself merely raising her brows.

  “Come on now, girl. Open them up.”

  Clara’s direction would not be ignored. Kassandra took a deep breath, stiffened the back of her neck, and forced her eyes to open.

  Her first thought was that Doctor was a truly ugly man. Hairs grew in odd spurts over the top of his head, with inches of scabby baldness between them. As Kassandra scanned his face, she must have registered some horrified expression, because he broke into a victorious smile, revealing stained teeth with gaps between them that mirrored the sparseness of his hair. His face was flanked with whiskers growing down below his ears and seemingly straight out of his face, but his chin was bare, save for sparse stubble.

  An unfamiliar sound came from just over Doctor’s shoulder, and it took a moment for Kassandra to realize that it must be the sound of Clara. Laughing.

  “Well now, Doc, seems to me that you mighta given the child something more pleasant to open her eyes to besides yo’ ugly mug.”

  Doctor himself laughed at that, spraying Kassandra once again with his fishy breath. Kassandra leaned to her left, getting her first look at Clara. She was expecting to see a huge woman capable of producing the stomps and squeaks that heralded her every step. But she was small. Round, yes, but her head was barely visible behind the seated doctor who she now shooed from his perch on the side of the bed so she could lean in for a closer look.

  “Now, girl, let me look at you,” Clara said, holding Kassandra’s chin in her hand and bringing her face up close.

  But it was Kassandra who was looking, taking in Clara’s wide-set deep brown eyes and round face. She had always suspected that Clara was a Negro, and she was right. Clara’s skin was a seamless brown—no freckle or imperfection marred it from her jutting chin, across her round cheeks, and up to the wide forehead that promised a high hairline beneath the dark kerchief tied around it. Something told Kassandra that she would not win a smile from Clara as easily as she had from Doctor.

  “Well, she still looks pretty sad, Doc. Reckon I can clean her up a bit before Reverend Joseph comes home?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Doctor said. He was splashing his hands in the basin of water on a stand over by the window.

  “Good.” Clara released Kassandra’s chin and put both hands on her wide hips. “Just watchin’ her head crawl makes my hair itch. I’m gonna hafta burn the sheets.”

  A large galvanized tub sat in the middle of the kitchen. On the stove were four pots of boiling water emitting an uncomfortable steam into the room. Kassandra had been led here, her hand firmly clutched in Clara’s, at such a speed that she had barely noticed the other rooms in the house. She was vaguely aware of chairs and carpets and books, but this was the first room besides her own that she’d been able to study. And it was wonderful. Even with her mother, Kassandra had never lived in a real house, but rather in dank, windowless rooms in back tenements and basements—often having only a few feet of floor to claim as their own. The only kitchens she had seen were those in the back of pubs and restaurants where she was often granted a scrap of food if she got her hungry look just right.

  But here—what a kitchen! It was big, with a counter running all along one wall, a stove that looked big enough to roast a goose in, and a pastry shelf along the back wall. In one corner was a water pump, and in the middle a table on which sat half a loaf of bread, a dish of butter, and a crockery pitcher with grapevines painted on the handle.

  Everything was meticulously, spotlessly clean, and Kassandra was more aware than ever of her own filthy state as Clara dragged her over to the tub. She looked down and saw about six inches of water, but Clara hauled one steaming kettle over and dumped it in, squatted to test the temperature, frowned, and went back for a second kettle.

  “I can see where you’d be a bit shy of steamin’ water,” she said seemingly to herself, “but I needs it warm enough to clean you up.”

  By the time the fourth kettle was dumped in, the tub was about half full. Kassandra watched the entire process with a fascination that quickly turned to horror as Clara made her next announcement.

  “Al
l right, girl. Strip.”

  Kassandra looked at her blankly. She understood English perfectly, but Clara’s command may as well have been in another language.

  “You heard me, girl. And I know you understan’ me. Now take off that gown and get in the tub.”

  Kassandra grabbed a handful of the white cotton nightshirt and clutched it to her skin. She wasn’t about to strip naked and get in that tub of water. Not with winter so close. Not with the chill in the air just outside this steamy room.

  “Now listen here,” Clara said, backing Kassandra against a wall, “I din’ say nothing when Reverend Joseph brings your filthy self into this house. And I held my tongue whiles he carried you upstairs and plops you down on my clean sheets. And I fetched you a doctor, and I fetched you your food, and when he said so I fetched you that very shirt you’ve been sleepin’ in all these days. And as long as I live in this house I’ll fetch and do for Reverend Joseph all he wants ’cuz this is his house. But this,” Clara flung her arms in a wide, sweeping gesture, “this here is my kitchen. And so help me, no little guttersnipe is gon’ come in my kitchen and tell me what she will and what she won’ do. Now, take off that gown.”

  Kassandra felt the kitchen wall against her back. “Nein! Ich werde krank! Ich sterber!”

  “And don’ you talk that talk with me. I’s born here in America and it’s what I speak! This is for your own good, girl.”

  Clara tried to pry open Kassandra’s clutch on the nightshirt. When that didn’t work, she reached down, grabbed the hem, and brought the whole garment up over the girl’s head.

  “Bitte! Nein! Clara, bitte!”

  Tears stung Kassandra’s eyes as she stood, naked, still clutching the nightshirt in two great fistfuls in front of her. Clara had stepped back and was looking at her with an expression of near kindness.

  “So,” Clara said, “you know my name, do you? Well, that’s a start. How about you tell me yours?”

  Kassandra brought the wad of material up to wipe the tears now streaming down her face.

  “I know you thinkin’ that getting in that tub’s gonna make you get sick,” Clara said. “But let me tell you ain’t nobody ever died from taking a bath.” She reached out, gently this time, and took the nightshirt from Kassandra who, defeated, relinquished her grip. “But you got to think of it this way. This here, coming to this house, might be a whole new life for you. Starting a whole new life and all, don’ you want to start it off nice and clean?”

  Kassandra allowed herself to be led over to the tub. Then, holding Clara’s arm for balance, she lifted one foot over the edge. Then the other. The water was deliciously warm and, looking down, she saw its immediate effects as it began to cloud with the grime floating off her feet.

  “Now, set yourself down in it,” Clara said, pushing Kassandra’s shoulders until she had folded herself within the tub. “You just Set yourself a minute whiles I heat up some more water.”

  Behind her, Kassandra heard the pump working and the stream of water hitting the kettle. Clara was humming a song—something Kassandra had heard her do often throughout the house. When she’d set the kettle on the stove, Clara walked back over to the tub and, grunting, settled herself on a small stool. She had a washcloth in one hand, and she dunked it into the water, wrung it out, then ran it across a cake of soap in a small wooden bowl she held in the other hand. Once coated, she dunked it back into the water, worked it into a lather, lifted one of Kassandra’s arms, and began to scrub.

  “Good heavens, girl,” she said, “you han’ got nothing on you but skin. Once we finish this up, I’ll fix you up somethin’ nice to eat. That sound good?”

  Kassandra nodded. She allowed her body to respond to Clara’s direction, lifting her arms while Clara ran the soapy rag in the hollows. She stood while Clara scrubbed her back, her legs, then sat back down and lifted first one foot then the other. As the water blackened around her, Clara made her stand again, step into a second tub where she stood, shivering, until Clara brought the fresh, tepid Water from the stove to pour over her.

  The new cleanliness only intensified Kassandra’s awareness of the crawling sensation on her scalp. Periodically throughout Clara’s ministrations she’d brought her hand up to her hair only to have it swatted away.

  “We’ll fix that flint in a minute, girl.”

  When Kassandra had been thoroughly rinsed and stood ankle-deep in relatively clean water, Clara once again ordered her to sit. Oval-shaped, the tub was large enough to allow Kassandra to scooch on her bottom until she could lean back, her head resting on a folded towel Clara had placed on its ridge.

  “Now I’m going to try to get a comb through this mess, but it don’ look like anyone’s tried to do that for a long time. Am I right?”

  Kassandra just closed her eyes and gave a small nod.

  “And then I gots to go through it with this.” She poked at Kassandra’s shoulder, forcing the girl to open her eyes and see the small, fine-toothed comb that Clara brandished like some kind of cosmetic dagger. “This is to scrape out the bugs. And the nits. And believe me when I tell you that it’s gonna hurt. Like Satan hisself dragging his pitchfork up and down your head. Burnin’ and scrapin’. ’Cuz then I gots to pour kerosene on your scalp—”

  At the word kerosene, Kassandra sat straight up, fixing terrified eyes on the too amused Clara.

  “—and that’s gonna burn like anything what with your head being all cut up from the combin’.”

  Kassandra shot out her hand and grabbed Clara’s wrist, stopping the advance of the deadly comb.

  “What’s this?” Clara’s voice was full of mock surprise. “You had enough burnin’ for one lifetime?”

  Kassandra nodded her head.

  “Well, we gots one more option. But I don’t know if you’ll like it any better.”

  Kassandra continued to look pleadingly into the woman’s brown eyes that were now nearly dancing with amusement.

  “We could shave it.”

  “Wie der Doktor?”

  “Like the doctor?” Clara laughed. “Yes, girl, like the doctor. Only a little bit cleaner.”

  She reached over to the table and opened a leather pouch. From it she withdrew a shining, straight razor. She held it in one hand and the comb in the other.

  “So what’s it gonna be?”

  Kassandra gave a small nod in the direction of the razor. Clara scooted the stool over to where Kassandra’s head draped once again over the edge of the tub. She began humming again—the same song from the water pump, the same song from all her daily chores—and Kassandra felt handfuls of her hair being gathered together and snipped with a pair of shears until a hand brought gingerly to her head revealed that the tangled mass was gone, replaced by a close-cropped covering of matted hair. Then another bucket was set on the ground next to the tub, and yet another kettle full of warm water was poured over Kassandra’s head. Clara continued to hum as she worked up a foamy concoction in the wooden soap bowl, which she then massaged all over Kassandra’s head.

  The first scrape of the razor was cool and quick. The second, too. And after some time Kassandra quit trying to count the number of times the blade passed over her scalp, focusing only on the idea of being clean. Like the bedding upstairs. Like her skin. Like this house. She listened to Clara humming, decided that once she was able to speak, she would ask Clara what song she sang. Maybe even learn to sing it herself.

  If she were allowed to stay

  The water she was sitting in grew colder, and she shivered despite the warmth of the kitchen.

  “There, there,” Clara said, her voice more gentle than it had ever been, “we’re done. You can stand up now.”

  Clara went over to the stove, brought one more kettle full of warm water and, starting at the top of Kassandra’s head, poured it over her.

  “Now you just the way you was the day you was born. Naked, wet, and bald.” Clara laughed again, and this time Kassandra joined her. “And on the day you was born, I know your mama gave
you a name. I ain’t your mama, but if you don’ tell me your name I’m just gonna make up one for you myself.”

  Clara held out her hand and Kassandra took it, stepping gingerly out of the tub and into the warm, soft blanket that Clara wrapped around her.

  “Kassandra,” she said, and fell into the softness of Clara’s arms.

  Later, as Clara busied herself dumping the wash water into the alley, Kassandra sat at the kitchen table. In front of her was a white china plate, its edge painted with a delicate pink pattern of vines and roses. In its center was a baked sweet potato Clara had pulled from the embers of the kitchen’s oven. Kassandra had watched with wide-eyed wonder as Clara cut a slit in the potato’s skin and filled the new cavity with slivers of butter and brown sugar.

  “Now you best be eatin’ that down ’fo Reverend Joseph gets back,” Clara said on her way to return the empty washtub to the mudroom behind the kitchen, “or he’s likely to snatch it right off your plate. I promised him baked yams for his own dinner …”

  Clara’s voice disappeared, mumbling something about never quite knowing when that man would show up for a meal, never being able to plan nothing, not keeping no schedule.

  But despite her admonition, Kassandra continued to stare at the potato on the plate. She’d never had such a treat before. The aroma alone filled her. She dreaded the first bite, knowing it would inevitably lead to the last.

  It wasn’t until Clara planted both of her massive black hands on the table—rattling the plate on impact—and threatened to throw the whole mess out with the wash water if she didn’t eat, that Kassandra picked up her fork, dug around in the orange, warm mass and brought a heaping fork full just to her lips where she tested it, then opened her mouth wide to its sweet, buttery flavor.