Secret Lives

by Amoss, Berthe;

  “We will leave it exactly as she did,” said Aunt Eveline, with finality. “We will give her clothes to Nini for the church, but we will leave the room just as it is. Addie, why are you holding your nose in that ugly manner?”

  “The cloves,” I said nasally, breathing through my mouth. “Please, Aunt Eveline. Can’t we throw out the potpourri?”

  “Addie! Aunt Kate made that potpourri with her own hands! She dried the rose leaves and followed directions out of the Ladies’ Home Journal exactly.”

  “It stinks,” I said, “all the way into my room.”

  “Adelaide, if ever I hear you use that word again . . .”

  “What word?”

  “I can’t say it. And please remove your fingers from your nose.”

  “I can’t. I’ll throw up. You mean stinks?”

  “Adelaide!”

  “It stinks, and there is no other word.”

  “Adelaide, go to your room!”

  I did, but not without looking hard at Aunt Kate’s box of souvenirs on her chifforobe.

  I waited in my room until Aunt Eveline went downstairs, and then I sneaked back to Kate’s room and got the box. It was painted black and on the top were her initials, KWW, in gold letters. It was so full of things she had saved that when I opened it, they fell out: letters, holy medals, newspaper clippings, a pale golden curl tied with white ribbon in an envelope marked “Aspasie, ’06.” My mother would have been a baby.

  Mostly there were letters, but I saw only one envelope addressed to Aunt Kate in my mother’s handwriting. It was postmarked Belize and dated before I was born. Someone had painted a black border around the edge in imitation of a death announcement. The only thing in it was a New Orleans newspaper clipping from the society section that read:

  ASPASIE WOODS MARRIES GEORGE LATHROP AGNEW

  Then:

  The little edifice was decorated beautifully with palms and Easter lilies about the chancel, and with numerous candles and electric lights for the high noon wedding mass of Miss Aspasie Woods and Mr. George Lathrop Agnew. The bride was given away by her brother, Benjamin; her only attendant was her sister, Marie Louise (“Toosie” to her friends). The bride was striking in a lovely gown of duchess satin trimmed with duchess lace, and worn with a long veil of illusion and lace held with a crown of orange blossoms from which the bride’s own short curls escaped, framing her lovely face in the latest fashion.

  The strains of “Melody in F” and “The Lullaby from Jocelyn” were delicately played on the violin, as well as other appropriate melodies, as the handsome pair became man and wife. Mendelssohn’s Wedding March resounded on the organ as the bridal party left the church for a small reception at the bride’s home at Three Twenty Audubon Street. The bride’s sister, Miss Eveline Woods, was dressed in tan canton crepe trimmed in lace, as she received her guests in the artistically decorated house with quantities of pink roses.

  Miss Katherine Woods, another sister of the bride, assisted Miss Eveline.

  After the reception, the bridal pair left for a honeymoon cruise aboard the S.S. Managua, which will take them to Honduras and their new home.

  At the bottom of the clipping, handwritten by my mother in the same black ink used on the border of the envelope, was a mock announcement: “Here lies Aspasie Woods Agnew,” with a thick black arrow pointing to the word Honduras in the clipping.

  Poor Pasie! She’d been unhappy from the very beginning. But how could she have expected anything else when she hadn’t loved my father, and she hadn’t wanted to leave Three Twenty? She’d done it all to get even with the man she really loved. I was sure he was the one in the snapshot and that Aunt Eveline knew him, but I couldn’t show her the picture without admitting that Holly and I had helped ourselves to my mother’s things. I didn’t want Aunt Eveline to know any more bad things about me.

  I returned Aunt Kate’s box to its place on her dresser and went downstairs to the kitchen. After I’d apologized to Aunt Eveline for saying stink, I asked her if my mother had liked Honduras.

  “Even better than Florence!” Aunt Eveline said. “How she loved that glorious country! She wrote so often begging us to visit!”

  “Why didn’t you go, Aunt Eveline?”

  “Oh, well—I always intended to—I was terribly busy at the time. But some of their young friends visited them, and then, of course, they had many friends in Honduras. Your mother especially loved the two young natives who worked for her, Lola and Sussanah, their names were. What a delightful life she had in Honduras!”

  I couldn’t tell if Aunt Eveline had fooled herself or if my mother had succeeded in fooling her, but I was sure that if I could read the diary, I’d know.

  Tom returned the diary the next day at school. He’d wrapped it in a brown paper bag.

  “I couldn’t do it,” he said, handing it to me as the bell rang. “I don’t think you can either. It’s not a real system, you see. No one could figure it out.”

  “She said it was a code! My mother said so.”

  “Not really. It’s impossible to decipher by logical methods,” he said in a stuffy, irritating way.

  We had to hurry to get in line before we marched into the classroom. After the Pledge of Allegiance and morning prayers Sister Elizabeth Anne told us to open our geography books.

  I had known Tom didn’t want to decipher the code from the first. Of course it was logical. He just hadn’t tried. I looked at the diary again as I was slipping it under my geography book and noticed that three numbers, 1, 15, and 26, were repeated over and over; something I hadn’t seen before. I worked with them, trying out “who,” “the,” “and.” Then I noticed another group of numbers, 20-23-20-23, repeated twice on one page, and right in the middle of Sister Elizabeth Anne’s lesson on the products of Brazil, it dawned on me—if 20 was F, then 21 was G, 22 was H, and 23 was I! I’d broken the code! 20-23-20-23 made—“Fifi!” I shouted.

  The whole class turned around and laughed, except Sandra Lee, who said loud enough for me to hear, “Just like Aunt Kate!”

  Sister Elizabeth Anne rapped on her desk for order, and her one eye that did not look toward Heaven (I discovered right then and there it was her left) bored into me. “Adelaide,” she said, “we are not in need of a court jester. For your punishment you may write the Eight Beatitudes eight times each, while the rest of the class has recess.”

  The bell rang and everyone except Sister Elizabeth Anne and me hurried to the courtyard.

  “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” I began, and as I wrote, I thought: When I get home, I’ll figure out the whole entire diary! There can’t be anything wrong about reading someone else’s secrets as long as they’re dead. “Blessed are the meek,” I continued. And it’s my own mother, after all. She wouldn’t mind. It’s not as though Holly or someone not related to her was reading her secrets. “Blessed are they that mourn.” It would be nice, though, if Holly could do it with me. Not that I’d let her read anything really personal. But Holly’s worked hard digging into the past and—

  “Adelaide, continue writing, please.”

  “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice.” And it would only be just to share it with Holly. We could really have fun—she would make it better, in her Sagoma way.

  “Blessed are the clean of heart.” We could go to the attic for a little atmosphere.

  “Adelaide!”

  “Blessed are the merciful.” I owe it to her. I’ll invite Holly to help me decipher the code!

  “Adelaide, recess has ended!”

  “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven,” I scribbled for the eighth time.

  Chapter XVIII

  The minute school was over, I ran home with nothing on my mind but the diary. I tore into the kitchen, and there was Holly, drying the dishes Nini had washed. She didn’t turn her head or say hello when I came in.

  “You’ll rub the design off the plate,” I said in an offer of friendship
.

  No answer.

  “Holly? I’m sorry about what I said.”

  “Sagomas learn to bear with lack of faith.”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t believe, really. I was just upset. I hate not remembering my mother for myself.”

  “It’s funny you don’t remember before you were six. I do.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Everything. I remember my Daddy. And my Mama.”

  “What about them?”

  “Everything. The fights especially. They couldn’t think the same thing about anything, and they never shut up. And while they talked angry, the babies cried.”

  “What babies?”

  “There was always a baby. I have two little sisters and one little brother.”

  It was the most Holly had ever said about her life in Chicago. While she talked, she seemed like a different person. Now, she went back to being Holly: “If I weren’t a Sagoma, I’d go crazy. Maybe you’re lucky you don’t remember.”

  “My mother and father didn’t argue,” I said, suddenly remembering that. “I remember silence. Long silences when no one talked.” I remembered two people sitting at a table, the click of their forks as they ate and didn’t look at each other. I remembered fear because of the silence. “Sing! I’d cried to the woman. “Sing Lindy Lou and the mockin’ bird!” The man stared at me, and the woman who was Pasie, of course, jumped up from the table and ran away awkwardly because she had on very high heels and was absurdly dressed in something long and flowing. Absurd because the man, George, wore khakis and was dressed for the jungle, which was where they were.

  “Holly!” I said. “I do remember parts!”

  “Of course you do. You’ve only forgotten because you didn’t want to remember. It’s all there and you’ll remember more if you believe. I’ll put it all in the stories.”

  “Holly!” I said. “Guess what? I have the diary!”

  “What diary?” said the Sagoma, suddenly alert.

  I told her about the prayer book, so excited that I kept jumping ahead of my story. “We can decipher the code together!” I finished.

  “A Sagoma never refuses help to someone in need,” she said, laughing and hanging the dish towel on a hook. “Let’s see it.” Holly led the way to my room.

  I handed her the prayer book and she took it as though it were the Holy Grail.

  “It’s gorgeous,” she said, sighing and passing her finger over the carved mother-of-pearl. “Full of secrets!”

  I had a moment’s doubt. “Maybe I should start alone and then—”

  “No! We have to start right away. I feel it!”

  “Okay,” I said, back in the mood. “Let’s go to the attic for the right atmosphere!”

  “How about the cemetery?”

  “The cemetery! Why there?”

  “It’s where you found the gold heart, isn’t it? We’ll bring the prayer book and put it where the heart was, and Pasie’s spirit will be drawn to it and she will help us interpret the diary!” said Holly dramatically.

  It did sound better than the attic.

  We told Aunt Eveline the truth— almost. We said we were going to the cemetery to bring a dahlia in memory of all those who rested there. We had found a lone dahlia in the yard, still holding on to part of its late summer color.

  Aunt Eveline gave us about a dozen rules and regulations about getting to the cemetery, but she was so delighted that I was doing something for “darling Pasie” that we finally got away.

  I took two sharpened pencils and a notebook for the deciphering. We could start with a key matching the whole alphabet with numbers. We’d have the diary read in nothing flat.

  “Are you going in that?” I asked, when Holly appeared on the sidewalk. She had dressed in a long skirt with a new scarf wrapped around her head. She looked ridiculous, like a gypsy or a nut. Thank goodness Sandra Lee was at the dentist and didn’t see us.

  “If my native dress embarrasses you, you may walk behind me,” she said.

  “Oh, no, nothing like that,” I said, but I dropped back now and then to tie my shoelace.

  It was one of the three summer days that Aunt Eveline says always come in October. By the time we got to Saint Louis #2 on the streetcar, the temperature was in the high eighties, and thunderclouds were forming on the horizon. Holly walked slightly ahead of me. She has a nice walk. I tried to match the slow swing of her hips, but that’s very difficult if it’s not clear where your waist ends and your hips begin.

  We tramped through the weeds to the tomb, following the path in back of the main aisle. The tomb had a new rough cement covering over the hole Uncle Ben had recently reentered.

  “Put the prayer book exactly where you found the heart,” Holly said.

  “I can’t. It was sort of inside with the bones, and now the opening’s sealed.”

  “Close to the opening, then.” Holly pulled my mother’s scarf out of her pocket and wrapped the book in it.

  “Stop!” I was shivering. She put the little white package against the mouth of the tomb.

  “Don’t you want your mother near while we work on the diary?”

  “I guess so,” I said. It was a strange way to begin, but there was no way to stop Holly going through the usual ritual. In the background of my concentration I could hear the thunder growing louder. Clouds came over the sun and the sweat on my head turned cool.

  “Aspasie! Are you there?” called Holly. Her voice wobbled beautifully.

  Lightning flashed, timely and dramatic.

  “Oh, God,” I whispered.

  “Hush. Speak to us, Aspasie!”

  “What the dickens are you girls doing there?” The caretaker was scratching his head and staring at the Sagoma in her native dress. “Get inside my lodge. You won’t have time to go anywhere else before the rain hits. I feel a drop now!”

  It had to be one of the most mortifying moments in my life. I looked at Holly. She was not mortified, she was livid with rage. She grabbed my hand and mumbled, “Let’s get out of here!’’ We took off like jackrabbits, but not in time to beat the rain. Before we’d gone ten feet, it came in torrents, heavy and opaque, beating us with its fury.

  “Here!” Holly shouted, pulling me against a large tomb-house. We pressed ourselves against the front wall, away from the rain falling in sheets from the overhang. I pushed as far back as I could—and felt the wall give slightly! Holly had been leaning back, too. She stumbled as the marble entrance slab, large as a door, scraped open a crack!

  We looked at each other, wide-eyed. My heart sounded louder than the rain. Holly shoved, and the crack opened wider. We could see a gloomy, cobwebbed interior. Holly pushed until the opening was large enough to slip through.

  “Let’s go in,” Holly said in a low voice.

  “You first,” I whispered back. Lightning split the sky, with a loud clap of thunder right behind. “The prayer book!” I hollered, suddenly remembering, and without stopping to see if Holly understood, I raced back. The rain was coming to an end as quickly as it had begun, and was over by the time I reached our tomb.

  There in a puddle lay a soggy little bundle. I picked it up and the scarf fell apart in my hands. The mother-of-pearl sparkled like new as the sun came out, but inside, the painted pages were soaked sticky, and the numbers smeared to grey blobs.

  How could I possibly have forgotten it? I wanted to die! The most important thing in my life—destroyed! I moaned out loud, hugging the diary to my heart. Miserable and wretched, I wandered back to the tomb where I’d left Holly.

  “Holly!” I wailed. “Look at my book!”

  There was no answer.

  “Holly?”

  Silence.

  Was she in the tomb? I gathered my courage and looked through the crack. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dim interior. I saw a carved stone casket, the kind used to hold wooden coffins. Sitting bolt upright on the floor, hands rigid on the casket, eyes closed, was Holly, pretending to be in a trance. I had to ad
mire her nerve.

  “Enter!” commanded the Sagoma without opening her eyes. “You are invited to view a scene from the past! Enter!”

  The smell of the tomb-house was musty, the smell of death and decay. I stumbled into the vault, conking my head on the low ceiling.

  “Be seated! Place your hands on the casket! Close your eyes!” came the command.

  The stone floor was cold and moldy. A spiderweb brushed across my face and tangled in my fingers. When I opened my mouth to say something, I hiccuped.

  “Holly, the diary. It—”

  “Pa-sie!” called the Sagoma in a ringing voice. “Tell us what is troubling you! We have traveled back to meet you! We are spiraling into the past!”

  I felt dizzy. I heard the rustle of a skirt and a giggle.

  “Yes, Pasie!” Holly said excitedly. “I see it! I understand! I—”

  “You understand what?” My eyes were open, staring at Holly who was staring at me.

  “I understand everything now! Did you see it too?” she asked.

  “See what?”

  “A wooden coffin! The kind of wood they use in the tropics.”

  “No, I didn’t see a thing.”

  “Around the coffin stood three mourners, their faces in shadow. ‘Whose coffin is this, Pasie?’ I called.”

  “I didn’t hear you call anything.”

  Holly ignored me. “The answer came back as though played on an old phonograph—scratchy, echoing: ‘Mi-ine!’”

  “But she didn’t have a coffin! They didn’t find—”

  “Do you want to hear the rest?” Holly asked.

  “Of course,” I said hastily.

  “‘Who are the mourners?’ I called out. ‘Ba—en! Lou—iss! Ma—all—vern!’ she answered, stringing the l’s out into space as she left!” Holly paused and waited for me to say something.

  “How could you hear all that in that short time, and I didn’t hear any of it?”