That morning Titay came to her room just before dawn. She said to Martha, “He better. He ast ‘Where am I?’ and when I tole im he heah on Blue Isle, Lousana, he was sho muff surprised. Went right on back t’ sleep. I know he better.”
“Oh, that’s good, Granma. C’mon t’ bed now and git some rest.”
Noise at the front of the house awoke Martha.
“Titay, Titay, come out heah,” Cora shouted. “We know you harborin that stranger, tryin t’ stroy us all.”
Martha jumped from her bed. The sun was high. Cora continued her shouting. “Titay. You in there. Answer me.”
Martha was frightened. Had Cora convinced the people of danger? And suppose the stranger did bring a terrible sickness? But he was much better, Titay said so.
She dressed hurriedly and rushed to see if the stranger was able to show himself to Cora LaRue. “Granma!” she called. “He gone.”
Titay rushed into the room. “He can’t be.” She looked behind the door, under the bed. “He mus be heah. Look see in the kitchen.”
Martha ran to the kitchen. He was not there. Other islanders had arrived and Cora was shouting to them. “She got somethin t’ hide, yes. If not, whyn’t she come answer me? Whyn’t she let us see the stranger?”
What had happened to him, Martha wondered. Was Cora working evil tricks? The stranger couldn’t just disappear. Martha ran to her room again. He wasn’t there. What had happened? She ran to Titay. “Granma, he ain’t in this house.”
“I’ll face er.” Titay walked out the door with Martha close behind. Martha was surprised to see so many people standing about in their yard. They were all quiet, but looked afraid. Titay said nothing. She stood, waiting.
“Whyn’t yuh answer, old woman?” Cora shouted.
The people mumbled and Martha knew they did not like Cora talking to Titay in that way. But they too wanted proof that their lives were not endangered by the stranger.
Titay didn’t answer. She kept her head up, her eyes toward the Gulf. Suddenly a smile spread over her face. Martha looked. The stranger was coming down the path, walking slowly as if he was very tired. He had changed his clothes. He looked worn, but there was a smile on his face. Martha knew that he had been to see about his boat.
Cora might make the people harm him, Martha thought. Her heart beat wildly. “Talk t’ em, Granma, now!”
Titay remained silent, her eyes on the stranger. Finally she said, “He’s m’ answer. The Gulf brung this young man t’ us. Le’s be thankful fuh the gift.”
The stranger stayed on. His boat bobbled on the Gulf at the edge of the island. Martha worried about him. Even though he was better, he was not well. He stayed alone on his boat, and the people still did not trust him.
Each time Martha passed near the place where he was anchored, she wondered what his boat was like inside. What if the stranger needed something? Was he all right there alone?
Maybe she should go aboard and see. Never! Magine bein lone with a man, not to mention bein lone with a stranger on a boat. Oo-oo, what they’d do t’ me. She tried to turn her mind to other things.
Assignments from Miss Boudreaux were piling up. Titay now insisted that Martha gather certain herbs and seaweeds herself. She had to make the rounds with Titay and sometimes visit the sick alone—especially those convalescing. She helped Titay monitor Cam’s pregnancy, which was now well along. Besides, Martha was gradually assuming responsibility for the general run of the house, and for planning and preparing meals. More and more Titay retired to her communin.
One day, as Martha looked for shellfish along the shore, she wandered near a place where the water was deep, but calm. Suddenly she saw the stranger’s boat. When had he moved it to this place? He must be feeling much better, she thought.
The boat moved up and down slowly on the water. The ladder was over the side and Martha decided that the stranger must be on the island. What was it like on that boat? She stood still and imagined she could feel the slow rise and fall as the boat rocked up and down. What if she climbed that ladder? But what if the stranger was not on the island …? I’d be dead sho if Titay found out. She shuddered.
It was almost noon. All the people would be having the noonday meal. No one would be near the shore. She could climb the ladder and take a look.
Her hands trembled so she could hardly remove her heavy shoes. She didn’t know whether she shivered from the water or from fear as she swam to the ladder.
When she climbed up and looked over the sides she was surprised to see a space as big as any house on the island. She stepped over the side and tried to stand. Her shivering and the bobbing of the boat tipped her back and forth, and she almost fell. Then, with her feet almost shoulder distance apart, she felt anchored. She looked out at the solid brown of the Gulf and forgot how frightened she was as she felt the rhythm of the water. A warm glow spread through her as the wind and sun bathed her body.
Then she noticed a collection of bottles and jars of varying sizes. She moved quickly to look more closely. There were small shellfish, eels and plants, and other living things that she had never seen before. She remembered the jars and bottles in Cora LaRue’s house. Did the stranger work some evil magic too? Martha’s heart pounded with fear.
Suddenly she heard noise beneath her, then footsteps. In her excitement she had not noticed the stairway that led below. Before she could move, the stranger was up on the deck.
“Well, welcome!” he said.
She tried to speak, but no sound would come. Afraid to trust her legs, she crawled away from the stranger toward the ladder.
“I said welcome. Wait!”
Martha moved faster.
“Please, wait,” he begged. “I’m glad you’ve come.”
Martha saw the smile spread over his face and her heart quieted a little. “What’s in these bottles?”
“Oh, that’s my work. I’m collecting what we call marine specimens for study of sea life. I hope I’ll sell enough to be able to go back to school.”
She looked down at the deck and said, “I done a mean thing t’ come heah. The people will think you ast me. They’ll hate us both.”
“Why you say that? You’ve done no harm.”
“But I ain’t sposed t’ be lone wid a man cause I ain’t married.”
“Do you believe that?” he asked.
“Heah yuh jus don’t do that. That’s our way.”
They were quiet. Then Martha said shyly, “What name you have?”
“Harold. Harold Saunders.”
“You come from far?”
“Pretty far. From Ohio, down the Mississippi River into the Gulf looking for New Orleans.”
“Oh, I hear bout that place and the big Mardi Gras. Tis far, yes?”
“Not from here. I was almost there and would have made it, but I got sick. And there was so much fog. I was lucky to land near your island for more reasons than one.”
“Strangers we don’t see often, no.”
“You and your grandmother were kind to care for me.”
“Tis her way.” Then the fear returned and she said quickly, “I gotta go.”
“Not yet. Let me show you the Marraine.”
“Marraine?” How could his boat have that name? “Heah that mean godmother.”
“I know. An old sailor from these parts christened it the Marraine and that has been a good name for it. It’s thirty feet long, ten feet wide and where you’re standing now is called the deck.”
Martha relaxed a little, and Harold showed her how the boat could be driven by sails as well as by motor. He showed her how to operate the halyard, giving her a quick lesson in lowering sails. She handled the boom and the mast, as he showed her how the tiller controlled the rudder, which directed the boat. Martha was surprised that his boat had two anchors. She had only seen one in operation. One line attached to the front of Hal’s boat had an anchor in place.
“Now come below to see my home on water,” Harold said.
“No, no,”
Martha said. “I best go.”
Harold, seeing the fear she had shown at first, helped her over the side onto the ladder.
Martha paused and looked up into his face. “M’ granma call yuh Hal. You be Hal, yes?”
He laughed and said, “Yes, I’ll be Hal.”
Martha swam quickly back to shore.
EIGHT
The New Year would soon begin. The sun seemed far away in a high sky, and the air was shivering cold. Martha followed Titay on the trail that carried them deep into the woods. She felt no enthusiasm for this excursion. Her mind was on all the schoolwork Miss Boudreaux had planned for her.
She looked back toward the Gulf, and through the trees she could see Hal’s boat. The Marraine had become a part of the island. Even though the people did not visit Hal’s boat, or invite him into their homes, the women greeted him warmly, and the men welcomed him into their circle of talk. Her pulse quickened when she thought of how he, like others, sometimes stopped to talk briefly to Titay.
Presently they came to a wide opening near the marshland where the earth was soft. The trees on the edge of this place grew tall and strong, with moss-covered branches that hid the sun. The place was dark, cold and damp. Martha had never gone this deep into the woods to gather herbs and roots. She felt that this day in this new place marked the beginning of a ritual—an offering of a gift of some great knowledge. Martha felt uneasy about being the receiver.
Titay stopped at a strange bush. “See this?” she asked, pointing. “Look good now. Then come heah and see this one.”
“They like.”
“Yuh sho?”
“Look alike t’ me.”
Titay broke off twigs with leaves from the two bushes. “Now look,” she said.
“Oh, they not alike, no!”
“You mus be keen. One’s medicine; one’s poison. You’s gonna have t’ know, never guess.”
Martha’s doubts surfaced and she felt uneasy. “Granma, do I have t’ keep all this in m’ head? Can’t we write it down?”
“T’ do this work, girl, take mo’n knowin. Take bein gifted. Tis a way o’ livin. Yuh can’t do this work wid jus yo hands n mind. You mus have the spirit. If it’s writ down then anybody that read could think they know it. This is meant only fuh a few and you one o’ em. I’ll teach yuh and yo good works’ll tract the nex one fuh the mantle t’ fall on. You special, Mat.”
Martha wanted to cry out, What yuh mean, special? She could not keep all that Titay knew in her head. She had learned a lot from her grandmother, but there was just too much to store in her mind.
Her thoughts kept wandering back to her work at home and to Hal. Would he continue to live on the edge of the island, or would he leave soon? He wasn’t like them at all, with his strange clothes, his talk so different and his odd ways, moving up and down shore with his nets, bottles and papers. People wondered, but Martha was not about to explain what he was doing.
As she chopped roots and gathered leaves, she daydreamed about the time she had gone on the boat. There were so many things she should have asked then.… Did women where he came from marry at fifteen?
“Mat, girl, where yo mind?” Titay asked. “Fill yo basket.”
With the basket filled at last, Martha walked ahead of Titay down the trail back toward home.
Near the chinaberry tree Ocie was enjoying the sun on that cool day. She waited for the younger girls to come to her to take their lessons: to learn to plait hair, to make pillows from moss and to protect themselves and smaller ones from poisonous snakes and plants. Ocie would soon be ready to replace Gert, who had supervised Ocie’s training.
“Hey, Mat,” Ocie called, “got a minute?”
“I’m busy.”
“Gimme the basket and go see er,” Titay said.
As Martha walked over to Ocie she churned inside with worry. Seeing Ocie sharpened Martha’s guilt for wanting to leave the island. Ocie was satisfied here and the island was at ease with Ocie. And why not? Hadn’t she quilted, and married soon after? Hadn’t she, as had many women, made her gift to the Gulf?
“Girl, guess what’s happenin?” Ocie asked.
“What?” Martha found a warm spot on the grass.
“That stranger gonna stay on. Mebee fish.”
“The men won’t fish with im,” Martha said drily, as though she hadn’t given it a thought.
“They will, yes,” Ocie said with authority. “They might be usin his boat.”
“Who say sich?”
“Oh, tis round.”
“That’s no proof he’s stayin, no.”
“The men visit im evey day.”
Martha showed no sign of the excitement she felt.
Ocie went on. “The women all say he make a fine ketch of a husband. Mebbe Titay speak t’ im fuh you, yes?”
Martha looked up and the frown on her face and the look of anger in her eyes made Ocie say, “But yo hand’s out soon, yes?”
“I ain’t thinkin bout no gittin married,” Martha said quickly. She picked at the grass.
“You will after yuh show yo quiltin patten.”
Martha sensed that Ocie wanted to talk, to be friendly. And Martha wanted to talk too, if only to find out what the people thought about Hal. Did they know she had been on his boat? There were so many things she wanted to know, yet she was afraid to ask questions. She might reveal more than she wanted known.
Finally she said, “I gotta go.” She didn’t look at Ocie as she got up from the grass.
“Wait, you don’t,” Ocie pleaded.
Martha was tempted to stay awhile longer, but the thought of gossip frightened her. “Yeah, I gotta.”
She slipped into the house and went to her room. Now she was angry at herself for not being smarter. Maybe, if she had just listened Ocie would have talked.
In her small room she looked at the walls that were neither papered nor painted. Dots of resin oozing from the pine boards looked like wild honey. Two box crates sat under the little window. One served as a chair and the other was covered with a red cloth. There were seashells and a tiny ebony wood elephant on top of it. The elephant, though old, was still black and shiny. Titay said it was a gift from a man who had come on a boat from the faraway Indian Ocean. Martha looked at these things without seeing them. She was too concerned with herself and what she had to do and with what she wanted to do.
What were her choices? Maybe she could help Miss Boudreaux. Or she could make and mend fishing lines. She could join Beau and his family picking moss. She did not trust herself to prepare remedies from roots, leaves and herbs. She had too much fear and too many doubts.
She lay still and remembered being on the boat. Then she imagined the boat moving slowly, slowly over waves way out into the Gulf. For a moment she forgot the fear, guilt and the misery of her responsibility. Somehow she knew she would leave this place. She would find a way. She would! She went to work on her math problems.
Finishing that assignment made her happy. She went to find Titay. “Granma,” she called, “lemme know when yuh ready t’ make the rounds.”
Each day now, Martha gathered the herbs and made the rounds with Titay. As she bandaged wounds, sponged feverish bodies and learned to treat measles and whooping cough, none of the women would have guessed she worked with doubt of her capabilities.
There was always so much to do. Even now, as she walked to the commissary for kerosene, she felt rushed. The day was special when Ovide brought in new bolts of cloth and thread. Often on that day he gave a necklace, earrings or some other trinket to the first woman who made up her mind to buy a piece of cloth.
Today was one of those days. The women were already waiting outside the commissary when Martha came along. They were all talking at once. But when Martha appeared, the chatter ceased.
“Mornin,” Martha said, to break the silence. “Mr. Ovide must bring many surprises tday, yes? He be late.” Ovide came by pirogue, from the same little town where Miss Boudreaux lived, bringing mail and other commoditi
es each day. He went home the same way each night.
The women laughed in anticipation and Ocie said, “You pick yo dress t’ wear t’ nounce yo quiltin, ahn?”
Martha sensed meanness. That’s all they think bout—me gittin married.
“Oh, she’ll be makin a fine one, eh, Mat?” Gert said.
“And that she deserves,” Alicia said, “with all the fellows waitin t’ scramble fuh her hand.”
There was laughter, but Martha said nothing. She wished she had waited until later to come for the kerosene. She had too much on her mind for chatter about cloth, thread, quilting and dress patterns. She was about to go home when she saw Hal walking down the path from the Gulf.
He wore his shirt open at the neck and held a long stem of grass between his teeth. Martha had forgotten how tall he was. Now his glowing ebony complexion underlined his well-being. He seemed in no hurry and though he was too far to hear the sighs and stifled giggles of the women, he walked as though he knew he was being watched.
Martha pretended she was not even aware of Hal’s coming. But she quaked inside with the secret she and Hal shared. The women must never know she had been on his boat.
“Oh, that stranger. Ain’t he fine?” Alicia said, and winked. Even though Hal was now accepted by all, they still called him “the stranger.”
“A fine ketch if ever I seed one,” Gert said.
“Lucky fuh Martha she could have the season’s first quiltin.” Ocie teased.
“He’ll ask fuh her hand, yes,” Alicia said, and all the women laughed.
Hal came toward them and greeted them in his deep voice, which still sounded foreign. “How are things this morning?”
The women giggled and answered together. “Fine mornin.”
Then to Martha, Hal said, “And is your grandmother well?”
Martha dared not look at him when she answered, “She well.”
Just then Ovide came to open the commissary and the women rushed inside.
Ovide had brought three bolts of new cotton to choose from and, for the one who chose first, a small mirror, but Martha was not surprised when no one rushed to buy.
Trouble's Child Page 5
