Balm

by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

  The old man emerged first, his hat badly crumpled as if he had spent part of the journey sitting on it. A long face, eyes topped by a pair of trimmed silver eyebrows, a grid of lines around the eyes. Despite the hat and worn expression, the face was shaven, shoes brushed. He wore a long duster over his clothing, and he unfastened the top button of it as he pointed her out to the porter sent to retrieve his things. She started forward, then stopped, unable to close the distance between them, knowing that with each moment she stood rooted, her reception to her father’s arrival cooled.

  Though she had tried to forgive him, she could not forget. After the war had begun and his business began to falter, he’d sent her out of the bindery to begin the tedious work of embroidery—sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths—all the things she would need in her new household. The bindery had emptied of customers at around the same time that rumors of a Confederate plan to enter the Susquehanna valley reached them, so when the soldier arrived asking about a suitable dining establishment in town, her father did not hesitate to invite the man to his home for supper. She remembered her first impression of Samuel, how old he’d looked. Her mother began work on a new dress for Sadie after his second visit. And at nineteen years old, without issuing a word of objection, Sadie became a wife, marrying in the small Presbyterian church where she first received the sacrament.

  The bookbinder strode across the platform. She read on his face a willingness to overlook her ill manners, to pretend she had not failed to welcome him or show even the slightest relief at his safe arrival.

  “Father,” she said, the closest she could come to a daughter’s greeting, “is that all you have?”

  “That is all,” he said, but the conductor blew the whistle and she had to read his lips.

  Richard signaled that the carriage was loaded. Sadie took her father’s arm, felt the bones beneath the coat. “Are you hungry? You must be.”

  “I am fine.”

  The last time they’d stood together on a train platform, she’d watched her mother’s eyes redden and her father press his hat against his chest as if saluting a flag. Do you remember the peonies I brought back from Philadelphia? he’d asked. She did. They’d smelled like newly turned earth and had been cinched together in a damp sack like a scrotum. For years, they have been a great comfort to me, he said. Eventually, the plant grew so big and the roots so tangled, I decided to split it. I dug it up, carefully picking around the roots before I planted one a ways off from the others. All of them grew in their own right, brought more joy than a single one ever could. He paused, and she waited for the final setting of lips. Yes, sir, she said. From the train’s window, she’d watched her parents walk away, neither touching the other.

  Now, as she and her father walked to the carriage, they struggled once more to make small talk. “How was your trip?”

  He coughed violently. “Do you live far from here?”

  “Just north.” He might encourage her to move from the house, take over her life by stepping into the shoes of a dead husband. It would not surprise her if he tried.

  He removed his duster before climbing into the carriage, and she saw how thin he’d become, as thin as a woman.

  “So this is the great city of the West,” he observed as they wound through the city.

  “What do you think of it?”

  “What I can see of it does not surprise.”

  She tried to view the city through his eyes. Two grain elevators hunched like bison in the sky. A man swept mud off a walkway. Sadie did not instruct Richard to take a more scenic route. The river’s odor surged as they crossed the bridge.

  “Good God,” he said, covering his mouth.

  “You will get used to it. By the way, who will tend Mother’s grave?”

  “The Youngs have agreed to look after the house, the grave, and everything else while I am away.”

  She looked back at the single trunk he’d brought. “I’d hoped that you would stay and live here.”

  He turned to the window. “That may be. And perhaps I may even stay here and die, but should that be the case, I shall return to York to rest beside her.”

  “Don’t speak so grimly, Father.”

  “We are a nation of death, Sadie. Surely you understand that by now.”

  Richard slowed the carriage in front of the house. As they entered the front door, her father fingered the large bird Samuel had chosen as a knocker. He stepped into the drawing room, observed the chairs, the tables loaded with books, the twin urns on the mantel. In front of them, the stairs led to the second floor. Straight ahead, the kitchen. His eyes swung left to the drawn portière.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  She pulled back the drape. Better the sight of the table, the eerie portrait, the shielded windows than her fumbling words. There was no planchette, no hooded cabinet to signal the kinds of things that went on there. Just the table and two chairs sitting opposite one another in the dark. He stepped inside and looked up at the portrait.

  “Pity,” he whispered.

  “Yes, pity.”

  “Do you come in here much?”

  “I do.”

  “It was intended for your husband.”

  “It was.”

  Clearly, her father was making the same assumption as everyone else, that grief motivated her to devote her husband’s parlor to a shrine. Even though he knew better than anyone how little she had known the man, he still saw a house of mourning. She watched his eyes take possession of the room: the gentleman’s amusements he could reinstate. A table for cards. A cabinet for liquor. A wall of shelving for books. The plans glittered in his eyes, and she had a distasteful thought.

  “How do you occupy yourself?” he asked.

  “I am a medium.”

  “It’s dark.”

  “I work in here.”

  “Better to let in a little light.”

  “A spiritualist.”

  “It is unfortunate to be widowed so young.”

  “I speak with the dead.”

  “It has been three years, yet you still wear black. It is better to let in a little light.” His voice was soft.

  “I have a spirit guide. His name is James Heil.”

  “I hope you have found a meaningful pastime.” He looked around.

  “I have, Father. I’m a medium.”

  “A medium.”

  “I told you of this voice once before when I visited York. It hasn’t gone away. Do you know of Spiritualism?”

  “Do I know of it.”

  “I am one.”

  His eyes connected with hers. “So you rap on tables, blow trumpets and other such nonsense in here?”

  She shook her head. She’d hoped to wait until after dinner, insert this news into a stack of frivolous conversation. But here they were.

  “A spirit speaks through me. A man.”

  “A man.”

  Yes, she should have waited until after dinner. He had not eaten, and surely his hunger affected his temper. As she struggled to stay quiet, her suspicions grew. He had not come to Chicago to spend time with her but to marry her off again. He still thought it improper for her to live alone. Always, it came back to this. It was what a good father did: marry off his daughter. A woman needed protection. It was what a good daughter did: marry a suitable man. He’d only brought one trunk because his task was plain. And as quickly as she knew why he’d come, she understood why she’d welcomed him. Loneliness suffocated. The adoration of the crowds had proven insufficient.

  As they walked into her drawing room, she remembered the conversations in which they’d parried like master and pupil. When she was a girl, he had taught her to press pages in the lying press. Carrying bundles of paper—sheet music, periodicals, sermons—she moved easily between the press and the sewing frame, neatly threading the signatures. Often, she did more than what was expected: gluing spines, trimming edges, attaching linings. All that remained for him was to stamp and tool. In those days, when her hips were still narrow and ch
est flat, he’d treated her like a son. She had looked forward to his Chicago visit because she missed those days before the war upset her life. She did not want her father to die and leave James behind to relay his messages. She wanted to hear what her father had to say from his own mouth. Spirits, contrary to some beliefs, were not cleansed by their transitions. Many held on to grievances, vendettas. The spirit readily admitted how often he uttered false platitudes of devotion to the living. She did not want to become one of those people the spirits lied to.

  Olga entered the drawing room to announce dinner.

  He gave the cook a hard stare as she turned to leave the room. “You have good help, I take it?”

  The question surprised Sadie. Her family had never employed household help, and she wondered exactly how much he knew of Samuel’s wealth. She remembered how unprepared she had been for the four waiting servants.

  “That is my cook. She takes good care of me.”

  “Does she?” He cleared his throat. “I don’t understand why you partake of this medium business. You don’t need the money.”

  “I don’t do it for the money.”

  “So why?”

  For a moment, she pitied him. “To give comfort.”

  “To a bunch of fools, doubtless.”

  She looked straight at him. “Many people are fools, I agree. But it is not differences of opinion that make us fools, Father.”

  21

  IN THE MONTHS SINCE HIS ARRIVAL, HE HAD REFUSED to enter the darkened parlor. Now he sat at the table, waiting.

  “What’s wrong?” She removed her bonnet and pulled back the curtain. A damp breeze blew through the open window.

  “I want to talk to your mother,” he said.

  “It isn’t so easy, Father.”

  “You do it for strangers. Surely you can do it for your own father. Have you ever even spoken to your mother?”

  Her forehead burned. She called for Olga to bring something cool to drink, but the woman did not answer. Now that Madge was gone, the house carried the silence of abandonment.

  “I would think that if you really have this ability, as you say you do, you would speak with your mother’s spirit, not sell yourself like some strumpet on the street.”

  “Strumpet?”

  “Tell me about this Heil. He is corrupting you, is he not?”

  She sat in the other chair.

  “Are you some kind of witch?”

  “Good heavens.”

  “Did you call me to Chicago to assist you in a fraud?”

  “Call you to Chicago? I—”

  “Don’t you realize this city is crime-ridden?” he interrupted. “I’ve been reading the papers here since I arrived. I’m afraid for your safety.”

  Sadie had heard that women who sold their bodies to paying men were called “war widows” whether they had actually been widowed or not. The moniker disturbed her.

  “Are you beyond salvation?”

  “I just want you to accept me.” Her voice diminished, and she could feel herself growing younger. Soon, she would be a child again, a baby, retreating into that space before words. Difficult to argue with the dutiful, difficult to argue with the child that went along uncomplainingly. All she had to do was renounce the spirit, marry, return to York. All would be forgiven, and life would be as it was before.

  “Are you a mesmerist as well? Will you change me with your touch? I hardly need help, you know. I’m perfectly balanced.”

  She wanted to explain the loneliness, how the gifts alienated her. She had brought Madge home because anyone who would stick a hand in fire for money had to be a believer. Now she had even lost her. Sadie was torn: he was her family, but she needed to escape him.

  “Your mother would turn in her grave.”

  “My mother nursed a young woman back to health and gave her own in return. That was a sign of her character.”

  “She provided hope and rest, not lies.”

  “I, too, provide hope.” She thought of Michael, the spilled tea. She had not wanted him to reject her proposal, not yet. So she’d put him off. And now she feared she had lost him, too. Everything was wrong. Nothing added up any longer. Perhaps James did corrupt her. She had visited Michael’s home and asked him to marry her. What kind of woman did that?

  “Tell me about this Heil.”

  “He was a soldier.”

  “An officer?”

  “No.”

  “A wife? Children?”

  “No.”

  “Carry on.” He waved a hand, turning his body to the side, one foot beneath the table, the other pointed in the direction of the doorway. She found herself unconsciously mimicking his position.

  Her father was so single-minded that she wondered if, for him, fatherhood was just another book to bind and shelve. She wanted to reclaim what he’d taken from her, but here he was again: directing, ordering. Olga had not answered, so Sadie drew the curtain herself. Even with her back turned, she felt the hardness of her father’s eye resting upon her like judgment. She sat opposite him, placed both palms on the table. He looked down, as if he half-expected the table to rise into the air. She closed her eyes, ready to be done with it. She was tired of this spirit. Warmth seeped through the crown of her head. Come on, James. Hurry. After a few minutes, she was certain her mother would come.

  The spirit’s voice began as if in the middle of a thought.

  The trains arrived, running with the blood of the dying and wounded. They lay like dolls, their mouths frozen open, necks twisted. Many would not have been recognized by their own mothers. They were young and old, but they were mostly young. They were married and unmarried. Fathers, brothers, nephews, cousins, uncles. They cried like children, begged for God’s mercy. And while I nursed them, I became as they—a soul holding on to the hope that my sacrifice had meant something.

  There comes a time when we must rise up and meet our humanity, when our personal beliefs no longer matter and the instinct of self-preservation must disappear. At these moments, every narrow debate becomes irrelevant. The moment is bigger than us. There is a higher truth, you see. That’s why I went to that hospital. There was no thinking, no decision making involved. It was the right thing to do. Northerners or Southerners, Unionists or Rebels, I would have gone. But it is still a painful kind of heartbreak to realize that your arms are not long enough to wrap around the entire earth. How small we all are. How insignificant, my dear Andrew.

  The voice drifted off. Sadie, who had been motionless, stirred. She opened her eyes and sat quietly. This time, James had not served as conduit. It had been direct contact with her mother’s spirit. She was certain of it. She could even smell her mother’s natural body scent, as if the woman had just worn her dress. Could she access all of the spirits without him? What did this mean?

  “So this is what you do for people,” he said, taking what seemed to be his first breath in minutes. “You take their money and consort with this spirit, give people a gospel of false prophecy. They march in here like ants, sit at this table under the image of your good husband while you defile his name and home. Your mother was a holy woman, and when you were born we gave you the name of your grandmother, an honor to see you through life. I came here to break bread under God’s roof; instead, I find you consorting with demons.”

  He spoke so low, so quickly, that even if someone had been standing in the hall listening, they would only have heard the sound of s’s slipping through his teeth.

  “It was her. It was actually her, not the spirit. I—”

  “You shame me. You dishonor your mother.”

  Sadie sweated beneath her dress. Her mouth moistened. They both stood, but she stepped back from the table.

  “This is not,” he said, “what your mother would have wanted.”

  Seldom was she given an opportunity to witness what people did with their belief once they left her house. Powerful enough to heal or destroy, the séance claimed a part of a person, and she had learned that sometimes ignorance was a s
afer space. Now the veil between her new life and old one had been irrevocably lifted. And Sadie could see by the look on her father’s face that he believed. Entirely.

  “She went to that hospital so she could be of use. I, too, am trying to be useful.”

  “How dare you compare yourself to her. She was a woman.”

  His eyes were black orbs, and nothing, not the flicker of candle, not the sparkle of her necklace, not even his rage reflected in them.

  “You have to understand.”

  He thrust a gnarled hand out. “This spirit induces you to do his work. But what comes of speaking to the dead except more grief?”

  He turned, his words clipping the air in front of him. She pursued him out of the parlor into the front hall. He threw his coat over his shoulders, took up his cane, and flung open the door. He turned, standing in the frame. Behind him, the fog obscured everything, hung over the street like smoke.

  “But I am trying to tell you something. It wasn’t him this time. Please come back inside.”

  “We were good Presbyterians. Good people. We did not follow the faithful into church as often as we should have, but you were taught. You were taught, Sadie.”

  It had rained earlier and everything was damp and slick. She could barely see five feet ahead. A pedestrian emerged behind him, ghostlike, and disappeared again, leaving behind the echo of his boots striking the cobbled walk.

  “You are one of the good widows, Sadie,” he said. “You are one of the faithful—Naomi, Ruth, Abigail. Not Jezebel or Tamar.”

  Wet strings licked his forehead. When he spoke he tipped his head back, aiming his mouth at her. She could see the peel of lip skin, the crooked tie.

  “When Naomi lost her husband, she left Moab, returned to Bethlehem. The land of her people,” he said.

  He was drawing her out, the way he had done when she was young. “Yes, that’s right,” Sadie replied, remembering the story. “She went back to Bethlehem to start a new life, but—”

  “She did not dishonor the memory of her husband.”

  “I have very few memories of Samuel, Father, and you have fewer.”