“You plan to tell me why you brung me here?”
“To be my maid.”
“Is that right.”
“Yes.”
The widow’s voice was high and reedy when she got excited, but in her calmer moments, it was as gentle as a girl’s. Madge suspected it was the kind of voice that would not deepen with age, unlike her own, which had already gained its force. She stared at the widow’s reflection in the mirror. Ringlets framed her face. Sometimes she appeared much younger than Madge, but other times she reminded Madge of someone wise and old.
“Since you asked, I’ll tell you. I saw you putting your hand in that fire and I thought you were a believer.”
“A believer in what?”
“I thought you’d understand me.”
This the girl side of her, thought Madge. Most days, I don’t even understand my own self, let alone you.
“Now I want to ask you something.”
Madge held on to the bowl: I done lived among women my whole life, and I still don’t understand nem.
“I want you to help me.”
Here it was. The truth.
“Take their shawls, that sort of thing. I asked Olga, but she refused.”
“Deliver me.”
“I’m not asking, Madge.”
“Yea though I walk.”
She could hear the lowing, the sound of a cow dragging its feet as it was roped into a death pen, neck pinched. And as sure as she recognized she was that cow, the lowing sound in her own head, she knew she would do it: take capes in winter, store parasols in summer, cover the windows, pull back the portière to reveal a portrait and a table covered in black cloth. She would do it out of fear the widow would turn her out if she didn’t.
Dead slaves had a tendency to come back hankering after unfinished business. Maybe white spirits were different, but Madge suspected many of those men who’d died on the battlefields had not left the earth singing hymns.
“I don’t know why you came to Chicago, but I suspect you ran away from something. I know you were free down there, but something happened, didn’t it?”
Free freedom, Madge wanted to say.
“You and I have something in common.”
The woman was crazy. They had nothing in common. Madge placed her beliefs beside the widow’s. To Madge, the spirits were in the flick of a flame. The ancestors inhabited whatever space they chose. The wrinkled bark of a tree. The bright anther of a flower. Core of a cabbage head. A baby’s wormy tongue. When a pig was slaughtered, every part from tail to snout was filled with spirit. The Lord King was inseparable from the spirit world. Why, the widow did not even pray! How could this woman talk to spirits without recognizing the holiness of everything, the carefully and ingeniously drawn earth? If the two were not one, then where did bowels-of-Christ leaves and Adam-and-Eve root come from? It was true that Madge believed in the widow’s abilities, fully believed, as only a fellow person who respected life’s mysteries could. What Madge did not agree with was the woman’s understanding of it.
Madge wanted to turn and leave without answering. She didn’t trust Sadie with her hurt. That’s what the sisters had taught her, but alone in this new city, she did not know how she would keep it all bottled inside. She tried to think of what she could say that would make the widow understand.
“You ever wonder what heaven look like? You ever think it might be just ’round that corner only you can’t see it none ’cause your steps too short to make it that far?”
“I’m afraid I’m not very religious,” answered Sadie. “I think heaven is right here in this room.”
“It ain’t what I was running from. It’s what I was running to. We all trying to get to the same place, Mrs. Walker.”
“Where’s that?”
“Blessed deliverance.”
Sadie thought of her mother. Perhaps that was what she had been looking for in that hospital.
Madge paused. “Truth was, I didn’t have no freedom with them women.”
“What women?”
Madge rubbed her nose with her forearm, gesturing toward Sadie’s shoulder with the bowl as she turned to leave the room. “You best stay out tight dresses till that thang heal.”
“YOU’VE GONE AND GOTTEN RICH, have you? Funny thing. I thought you worked here same as me.” Olga poked her head out of the back door, breathless. “She’s calling for you again.”
Madge did not hurry as she rose from her sitting position on the back step and made her way up the stairs to the widow’s room. The boil had dried to a blemish, but the woman still insisted on a fresh poultice every other day.
“We can’t be long because I have people coming this afternoon.”
Madge slid the dress down. The good news was that when there weren’t customers visiting the parlor, the widow let Madge be, preferring books over walking, talking company. On the second floor of the house a room was filled with them, the shelves packed with only the occasional slit of space like a missing tooth. Because she could not read, the room frightened Madge more than the darkened parlor ever had, and she imagined they contained a knowledge far more harmful than recipes for tonics and teas passed down through three reclusive sisters.
But she had done as she was told, because although she had never worked in someone’s house, she found the work tolerable, relished the freedom allowed by the widow’s distraction, and on those evenings when there were no visitors scheduled, Madge ceased her chores, sat on the back step, and chewed tobacco, streaming brown juice into the grass.
Every now and again, when the widow spoke at length in that strange accent, Madge struggled to understand as Sadie retold the story of a mother who died rescuing some nurse in a soldiers’ hospital and a father, yet living, who had sold her off to a man she barely knew. Madge had the passing thought more than once that the widow might not be altogether right in the head. After all, a spirit guide was a far-fetched notion, no matter how sincere, and even the death of an unloved husband could do strange things to a woman.
“Madge,” Sadie said after a few minutes, “don’t you have anyone you’d like me to contact on the other side? Surely you do.”
“No, ma’am.” Madge dabbed at the mark with a wet cloth.
“Well, what about a letter to your people? Shall I send something for you? I hear the battles down in Tennessee were terrible. You should at least check on them.”
“I don’t write and they don’t read.”
Concern radiated from the widow, but Madge did not know what to do with it. She did not know how to receive what this white woman had to give. She could not forge something out of thin air where before none had existed. It had been hard enough to grow accustomed to the widow’s odd indulgences: a sack of oranges, a scratched brooch for a gift. Madge frequently used the lessons she had been taught early on, staying low in the bushes, watching the widow from a height, seeing her in light of the things she owned: a fine house, a crepe-trimmed dress, ribboned shoes, strands of pearls. The things this white woman owned made it difficult for Madge to accept her kindnesses. But even more than that, if the sisters could not bring themselves to love her, then this woman surely couldn’t either.
“Sometimes the healing is with the living,” the widow murmured.
“You still got a daddy, don’t you.”
The widow looked at her intently, and Madge knew she’d spoken too much. She concentrated on her work, rubbing the darkened sore until the paste disappeared. Madge’s hands were anointed, but healing took leaves and roots. Without God’s bounty, she could do no more than place a warm palm against a forehead. It was the same with this affection Sadie dangled before her. Where was the plant, the tree, the bush that bound them? Such ties had not existed in Tennessee, and Madge doubted she could make them here, no matter how magical the city.
So as Sadie looked into Madge’s face, clearly seeking the return of whatever warmth she was hoping for, Madge turned to leave.
7
BECAUSE HEMP KNEW RIGHTEOUSNES
S WAS SOMETHING to be earned by the worthy, he sat in the same pew every Sunday morning. He had never heard a preacher like Daniel Martin. When the man thumbed the pages of his Bible, Hemp was certain he could read. Before freedom, Hemp worshipped under a tree. Now he crept along the boundary of a cleft, the new life perched on one side, the old one on the other, keeping in mind that the trick was to keep from falling in the gap, losing both old and new, for in that darkness lay something irretrievable, and when images and sounds landed on both sides, like the times he woke to the ring of a farm bell from somewhere inside his head, or saw Annie walking sure-footed through a crowded street, he slowed his step. Even now, as words tipped out of the reverend’s mouth, words Hemp could not repeat even if God commanded it, he sat transfixed, feeling as though the words did not rightfully belong to him, stolen goods sliding from the man’s mouth into Hemp’s ears.
His loyal presence in the second row, the eagerness with which he pointed his finger to the ceiling, yelling “Yas, sir! Yas, sir!” when the spirit called, earned the preacher’s respect, and Hemp became a deacon in a matter of weeks, ascended to that honored position just below the reverend who was just below the divine. He joined three other deacons, all refugees. The building that housed the churchgoers was not much of a building at all—the ceiling leaked in heavy rains, and every winter, ice damaged the roof. It was the offspring of a larger church, founded to meet the needs of newly arrived freedmen and -women, and like a new bud shooting from a stem, it was still seeking its direction. But the women wore respectable hand-me-down dresses and the preacher owned a robe adorned with the letter M sewn beneath his left shoulder. Hemp believed he had found something like a family in the city of strangers, and this comforted him even more than the sermons, for all his life Hemp had been creating a family where there was none. The deacons readily accepted him as one of them, and he did whatever was asked, so certain was he that this quiet work lay on the path to righteousness, this church the ship that would deliver him to glory.
But on the day they questioned him about Annie, he had his first doubts about joining the church so quickly. The men were patching a hole in the roof, taking turns holding the boards in place while another hammered. When the idle chatter turned to Hemp—You ain’t heard no news about your wife?—he hammered more loudly. One of them stood looking, waiting. Hemp squinted, sunlight shooting memories into his eyes.
“Naw, nothing.”
“You check with that colored association?”
“Yeah.”
“Nothing from that notice we put in the paper?”
“Said I ain’t heard nothing.”
Reverend Martin climbed the ladder, a pail of water in his hand. “It’s some mighty pretty ladies in our congregation, Deacon Harrison. Several of ’em asked about you, too.”
The men took turns plunging a dipper into the water.
“Friend of mine took up a new wife,” said one of the deacons.
Hemp raised his hammer.
“You heard? Word is colored folks getting rightfully married all over the country.”
In the sweep of a question, Hemp was alone again, learning to accept the charitable understanding of strangers, trying to open his shoulders. These were his friends, and they only wanted to help. These men care about me.
“I aims to find me a wife,” Hemp said softly.
“Plenty of them ’round. Yes, sir, it is.”
“No, I mean I still aims to find my wife.”
“You and a million other freed niggers,” said one of the deacons.
Hemp threw the tool, and it bounced off the roof, landing on the dirt with a thud.
“Son, don’t,” said the reverend. “He ain’t mean no harm.”
Hemp rolled the nail between his fingers. In the pause, the reverend gave Hemp a tender look that made him think of the day he put a flower in Annie’s hair.
“You all right, son?”
Hemp shook his head, fought off a blue feeling. He remembered how, after word came of the recruitment camp for slaves looking to enlist, a few of the men vanished in the night. Others walked off the property in clear daylight. Hemp was the only husband who stayed behind, his face shocked and still. Annie, Annie, Annie, he’d prayed aloud. Once she heard news of freedom, surely she would come back. Harrison Hemp farm, south of Danville. Enough information for anyone. He was the one with no idea where to start. Two years after everyone else was gone, it dawned on Hemp that he would have to settle upon some other way of finding her. When he left the farm, he knew, even after traveling God knew how many miles, his love had not moved an inch.
The reverend gave a nod to the other deacons and led Hemp down the ladder propped beneath the hole in the middle of the sanctuary’s ceiling. He sat, motioning for Hemp to sit in the row in front of him. The reverend spoke from behind, and what he said next nearly shocked the shoes off Hemp.
“Son, you believe in spirits?”
“What’s that?”
“A spirit woman.”
Hemp could not believe his ears. “What kind of woman?”
“A widow woman. Her husband died in the war, I believe. If your wife is dead, least you’ll know.”
Hemp was just as troubled by the reverend’s suggestion they convene with spirits as he was that it involved a white woman.
“A time before, she sat right there in that back room and talked to us. Five colored folks paid good money to hear about their dead family.”
“You think my Annie dead?”
“I ain’t got the faintest idea, son. I wish I could tell you.”
“What if she ain’t. You reckon that widow can tell me where to find her?”
“Ain’t you tried everything else? She might be your best chance.”
Every day Hemp thought about the reverend’s proposition, and when he returned to the row of tenements in the evening, he thought even more about it. He had not met many possibilities in his lifetime and knew well enough that hope was a slippery fish. If Annie did contact him, she might not reveal much. The reverend said a spirit spoke through the widow. Annie had always been a woman with little to say, and Hemp did not know if she would trust a white woman medium. Surely Annie was the same dead as she had been alive.
He saved his money and finally gave the reverend his consent. On the night of the sitting, Hemp combed his hair. He wanted to look presentable for his wife. The preacher had grouped the chairs into three lines of four with a single chair facing the others, but the room overflowed. They sat. They stood. They crouched and leaned, fretting, a keening in their backs. The faint stink of unwashed bodies hung over them, the men still in work clothes. Hemp’s palms were so moist, they left damp spots on the fronts of his trousers. More people packed into the room. They ranged in age, but their cumulative years added up to more than a sum. He sensed a weariness among them. It was a room of believers and disbelievers. Yet they were all part of the same small flock. Their emotions had been hutted inside of them for too long. A deacon lit four candles and set them on a table. Someone accidentally knocked the cross off the wall. They shifted, fanning themselves, and their lace-ups, high buttons, russet-colored brogans, still covered in the dirt of the roads they had walked that day, scratched the floor as they prepared to harvest their memories and lay them out in untidy rows before the widow.
They all had names on their lips. Fanny. Jessie. Lydia. Herbert. Even the preacher claimed somebody on the other side. Behind Hemp, the grapevine worked:
Rhoda in Mississippi?
Naw. Harry on the Parker place down in Missouri?
Naw. Eleanora in Tennessee?
Eleanor or Eleanora, you say?
The room quieted and they turned. The widow’s blue eyes did not appear to blink as she walked to the front. She looked much younger than Hemp had expected. A colored woman stood in the shadows against the wall, holding the widow’s shawl. Hemp thought she might be a ghost.
The reverend moved her chair forward. “I appreciate you coming, Mrs. Walker.”
> The widow did not look at the people in the room. “The spirit comes and goes as it pleases,” she murmured. She had barely seated herself before she closed her eyes.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is James Heil and I was a soldier in the Fourth Illinois Cavalry of the United States Army. I died during a victorious battle at Shiloh led by General Grant, leaving behind all the sweet memories of my young life.
There is a girl. I am not sure who she belongs to. She says her sister is here.
A woman behind Hemp uttered, “Sweetness.”
She says she hovers over you. She wants you to know she’s peaceful over there. There’s no pain or hunger. She’s happy.
“Thank you, oh thank you, Jesus.”
There is a man.
The room fell silent.
He says to tell his brother he sits with the angels.
Someone rocked in a chair. Its feet clicked on the wooden floor. The woman next to Hemp who had busily asked about relatives before the sitting did not make a sound.
There is a girl standing behind you.
Hemp turned with the others and saw nothing.
She wants to tell you something.
Mama ain’t here . . . The voice wavered. I can’t find her. How come I can’t find her? I looked for you at the farm, but you was gone. I don’t believe Mama made it over here. Do you? She ain’t with you, is she?
Hemp had not known how much he needed to believe in this widow, how much her testimony would mean to him when it finally came. He fully believed he was hearing Herod’s voice, and what the girl was saying nearly knocked him out of his chair: Herod was dead, but Annie was alive. With little embarrassment that he was in a room full of people, he did what he had not done when he last saw Annie, what he had not done in the camp or while traveling through the countryside. Hemp cried. Annie was alive, and although this was the news he’d hoped for, it somehow made him sadder than not knowing at all.
THE WIDOW’S HOUSE was surrounded by shrubbery, the foliage beginning to shed with fall’s promise. But it was still a far cry from winter when everything was skinny and brown like her, so Madge did not see him until he was right in front of her. Her first thought was that she could all but smell the soil on him. Before he spoke a single word, she heard the music of his speech, knew how he would slide his letters together. When he announced himself as “Hemp” with a softer “Harrison” to follow, something grabbed her by the throat. He said he was looking for Richard, the widow’s driver, and she remembered. The séance in the back room of that ramshackle church. The grouping of folks looking for relief on the other side. A dozen women at least, several men, and a gray-haired preacher who could not stop talking.
Balm Page 5
