Balm

by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

  23

  MADGE HELPED THE SISTERS. STOCKED the pantry. Picked greens. Fattened the chickens. And, gradually, the sisters’ distrust of Sadie’s spirit work gave way to curiosity. They wanted to know what kinds of things this widow’s spirit talked about, and whether the white woman could make a dead body appear. Even though it was clear they expected answers, they still uttered the questions without an asking tone, as if they already knew the answer, and when Madge hesitated, they shot her a look that said, I knew it was all a lie. Three weeks turned into four, and, finally, the sisters cracked open the door, no longer sending Madge outside on chores while they talked to one another. They began to continue conversations after Madge entered the room, even asking her opinion about the beetles crawling on the fava leaves. Madge was reminded that in these woods she was one of them while in Chicago she was an uprooted bush planted in somebody else’s garden.

  As she returned home one day, she caught movement at the window of the house and knew one of the women was watching for her. A finger of smoke scratched at the sky. The fire was already lit. She had not told them she was bringing home meat, but they had known what kind of girl they raised. As she entered the three-room house, built by slaves who belonged to a white man whose life the girls’ mother had saved, she considered the sanctity of western Tennessee. A bona fide place. Not still forming like that city of noise she’d left behind. Inside, Baby Sister took the ham from her. Clearly, the sisters were working on what Madge wanted to believe was finally her homecoming feast. If her arrival had not excited them, the prospect of food did. Madge picked up a bowl of peas that needed snapping. Her mother pulled bugs off the leaves of a cabbage, then dunked it in a bowl of water.

  The four women sat down to eat, the smell of salted pork in the air, the sound of their teeth grinding the food. Here was the thing she had missed in Chicago. Even during those years when they had not accepted her, she had lived within shouting distance of this feeling. There was sanctity here.

  Once all of the women had their fill, they reclined in the rockers on the porch, the dark curtain of trees behind them. Madge brought out a fourth chair. The flame of a candle inside the house cast a dull light over the women’s faces as they quietly spat tobacco juice into the cans at their feet.

  “Read,” her mother said.

  “What?”

  “You heard her, girl. Read,” Berta said.

  None of the women knew their letters, so as far back as Madge could remember, they had made their own stories. The sisters watched Madge, waiting to hear what kind of story she could tell after two years of living away.

  Madge cleared her throat.

  One time, in a place far away, a king’s son was given fifty wives, but he didn’t love none one of ’em. The poor prince was so sad ’cause he just didn’t feel nothing for none of ’em. Then one day, he come up on the daughter of two old turtles. Now this turtle daughter wasn’t no ordinary girl. Fact was, she had two faces—one nice and the other evil. That nice face was so beautiful that the prince was struck down by love and he take her right away to the castle and marry her.

  Months go by, and the turtle princess start to kill off the other wives one by one with a poison stew. She kill ’em all until only one other wife left. That poor scared woman go to the prince to tell him about the evil side of the turtle princess, but he just can’t believe it. When he go to find the two-faced wife, he can’t find her, so he go to the turtle parents. Shamed by their daughter, they confess how she was born with two faces and how they hid it from him. The prince’s heart was broke right in two.

  He go looking for the turtle princess, and he find her in the woods busy cooking a stew to kill off the last wife. He want to tell her how he know all about her two faces, but he can’t because he get caught up in that pretty side again. Fact was, one of the faces so beautiful he can’t hardly stand it. The princess go off into the woods to remove her dress so he can take her right there on the forest floor. While the prince wait for her, he get hungry and sip from her stew. And it sure was good. He eat until he can’t eat no more. When the turtle princess get back, that prince dead on the ground. She lay down beside him crying, distraught over what she done.

  When the people of the kingdom find out, they chase the girl out of that place forever. That last wife, the one she never got to kill, marry the prince brother, and the two became king and queen and the turtle princess was never seen or heard from again.

  She stopped.

  “You ain’t planning to marry, is you?” her mother said.

  “Don’t she need somebody to marry first?”

  “Something happen up there in that city, girl? Something you want to share?”

  “Oh, Lord, she done killed somebody wife.”

  “Why you wear that mourning dress, anyway?”

  “Maybe she lost a baby.”

  “But she say she ain’t have no husband.”

  “Yea though I walk.”

  Madge interrupted. She had done it the way they always did it, spinning around a story she had heard as a child. This story had nothing to do with her life. She had done something bad, but she sure hadn’t killed anybody. “Now y’all stop it. I said, it’s just a dress.”

  She caught her breath. Maybe she did have a secret hankering to kill Hemp’s wife. It sure would save her a lot of trouble. She had no business wanting him, but she still did. It wasn’t fair. She was flesh and bone. Annie was nothing but a ghost memory. Madge wanted to take him over, his hands, his arms, but he was a man who had always been owned, and though she knew better than to conflate the ownership of love with the ownership of greed, she understood that, for Hemp, the first breath of freedom contained the joy of self-possession.

  Hemp’s body had been so willing when she lay with him. It made her resent Annie, hate her, even though Madge had never set eyes on the woman. Hemp was the one who proved the sisters wrong. He was a good man. She had to believe him when he said he had only kissed the girl. Still, Madge could not have him. Over and over, she’d considered how the very honor that disproved the sisters’ ideas about men was the same virtue that kept him from her. What the sisters had left out was that sometimes women were the ones to do the wounding.

  “You hear me talking, Madge? What happened up there?”

  Sarah did not wait for an answer. She rose and felt for the doorway to her room. Madge looked at her mother’s back and started to say, This story ain’t have nothing to do with me, but nothing came to her lips.

  THE BEGINNING OF JULY ARRIVED, the annual time for the sisters to forage for bark. They tied pouches around their waists and took out pickaxes from under the beds. Madge filled their canteens with water, shelled nuts for a midday meal, sharpened their blades, and the four marched through the yard, swatting at flies. Sarah held on to Madge’s elbow.

  To the sisters, the woods were a sanctuary, and God dwelled upon its grounds. As they walked, they preached to Madge, repeating old lessons: Wait till the sap done rose before pulling the bark. When you pull it, make sure you strip off the outer part, scrape at the tree’s underbelly. A tree bark like skin, so handle it gentle. Never skin a tree all the way ’round its trunk or you kill it. When you can, take bark from the branch and not the trunk. Gather roots in fall. If you pull roots in spring, get ready to wait for ’em to dry out real good. Make sure to wait for the plant’s seeds to age. If the plant still growing, let it alone. Pick leaves from plants just as they start to flower. Pick flowers at full bloom. Always pick leaves and flowers in the morning, but wait till the dew dry. Gather seeds when they ripe. You got to know your trees. Know the difference ’tween a beech and a oak, a mulberry and a magnolia. Once you take note of your trees, move on to the smaller stuff: bushes, shrubs, plants. The woods will teach you. In the right weather, on the right day, ain’t no other place. See that bark? It’s weak, so you need a lot of it. Put some in your pouch. Boil it long and slow, and that tea work a miracle. Headaches, stomachaches, diarrhea, piles. Toss it ’round in your throa
t when it’s sore. Pour it on rashes and burns. If you want a stronger bark, you got to find a white oak rather than a red oak. See that tree? Chew the bark and you get rid of a toothache. Boil it and the tea will empty you out. Here come a tree every healer need to know. This here is gum. You chew on this for all kind of ailments. Rub it in your sores and wounds. Boil it in milk and give it to a baby.

  They talked as they worked, played a game where Sarah tried to recognize trees by smell and touch, laughing when she got it right, teasing when she got it wrong. You done lost your touch, Say-ruh. Never needed no eyes before. They filled their pouches. A canopy of green protected them from the worst of the sun, and the rough brush stabbed at their ankles. Later, they lay out their discoveries on the table. Madge boiled a pot of water, then pulled a worm from her mother’s hair. Sarah Louise held a piece of bark to her nose, commented on its sweet odor, bit into it, and chewed thoughtfully.

  “Now come on, Say-ruh Lou. We ain’t done with you yet. Tell us what this is,” Baby Sister said, pushing a chip toward her older sister. Baby Sister’s chest caved inward, and she sat back as if she had not asked the question.

  Sarah rubbed it between her thumb and index finger, pressed it to her nose, and declared, “Child, you got to do better than that. That’s mamaroot.”

  “What about this one.”

  “I’m gone beat you with a stick.”

  “We got to keep you going,” Berta said.

  “You know I can still beat you with no eyes and two hands tied behind my back.”

  Madge dropped a piece of wood into the boiling water. When she sat down again, she said, “I be heading back soon.” The words came out before she’d had a chance to think. She had not known until that moment, listening to the sisters talk, that this was no longer her home.

  “Heading to what.” The laughter was gone from Berta’s voice.

  Madge felt something coming her way and blurted, “To a life,” when she’d meant to say “to my life.” What she had in Tennessee was a life, too, but it was not the one she had made. Occasionally, Baby Sister’s lips moved as if about to say something, but Madge could see the motion was involuntary.

  Madge tried to turn the mood. “Read to me. Read to me about the man with the short arm.” None of the sisters answered, and Madge knew there would be no more stories. They had shared with her all they could. What she knew already would have to suffice. She looked down at her tea, thinking of the life she would make. She would advertise herself as a “doctor,” but she planned to heal more than the body. She wanted to make amulets, healing balms, things that worked because people believed in them.

  Madge was clear on her vision for herself, so why did she still feel so bad? She looked over at the women. All their eyes were on her, even the glassy, unseeing eyes of her mother.

  THE NIGHT BEFORE SHE LEFT, Madge rubbed the balm onto her mother’s neck, shoulders, and arms. She massaged the joints, rubbing out the knots. The house was quiet, and the mother and daughter shared the moment undisturbed. When she was done, Madge lay beside her.

  “You know y’all got to heal again. You can’t eat if you don’t,” Madge whispered.

  “I lost my sight when nem mens came.”

  “Buzzards.”

  “Lord only knows why they come this way to take out they anger on us.”

  Madge’s dream had been unfinished: the sisters were alive, the house still standing. The untold scene was that her mother had lost her eyes. She wished with a sudden, deep longing that her hands had the power to do more than pronounce. She wished they could heal. She placed a hand over her mother’s eyes and prayed for something to flow through them.

  With Madge’s hands still closed over her face, Sarah continued talking: “They bust in here and they bust me, too. Struck me in my eye with a stick. I seen light and then dark.”

  Madge ran her other hand down the groove of Sarah’s neck.

  “Hit me right in the eye. Feel like it was knocked clean out of my head. Feel like somebody done set fire to it. The other eye still work, so I pick myself up and see about my sisters.”

  Madge could not help but think: What would have happened had she been there? Who would her mother have worried over more if forced to choose? Ridiculous—this jealous feeling of aunts. Nothing but the selfish thoughts of a child. Yet her doubt persisted. Had she been there, she knew what she would have done: taken the blow for her mother. Defended her without a second thought.

  “I found ’em both up under the bed. Too scared to come out even though the mens was long gone. Ain’t never seen my sisters in such a fright, ’specially Berta. She ain’t as tough as you think. Us don’t work no black magic. Mama said it ain’t right. But everybody know what the other thinking.”

  “What they take?”

  “Don’t matter. We make out fine in the wash. Excepting me. I lean on that one eye so hard them first few days, I reckon I lean too hard. Pretty soon it start to follow the other one, like neither one wanting to see the world no more. We so foolish thinking they come here to protect us. White folks round here ain’t never messed with us none. One of ’em was hurt when they walked up. We could’ve helped him. ’Fore long, we knowed they wasn’t up to no good.”

  “Why he hit you?”

  “He try to take this.” She reached under the mattress, held something in her fist, passed it over to Madge. A small picture in a frame hung on a chain that had turned green long ago. Madge remembered that summer; she had been barely fourteen years old when Sarah squeezed ointment in the eye of a man traveling through town with a camera. He had taken Madge’s picture in payment.

  “That boy yanked it clean off my neck. So I kicked him in the leg. Sure did. That’s when everything go dark.”

  “How you get it back?”

  “Now ain’t God funny. Nem mens took out from here so fast, they leave it behind. One of the sisters find it out there in the dirt. I got back my Madge, but I lost my sight. Now all I can do is hold it. Can’t ever look on your face no more, even when you laying right here beside me. So you might as well head on back up that way and take it with you. I don’t need it no more.”

  “Say-ruh?”

  “Hush now, take it.”

  “What I want with a picture of myself?”

  “You got one?”

  “No.”

  “Well, this here remind you what you look like, remind you who you is.”

  Madge could not speak.

  Sarah turned to face her. “What you aims to do with your God-given gift, girl?”

  It was the first time her mother had ever acknowledged her hands. Madge blew out through her lips. She opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t explain it, couldn’t translate the kinds of hopes the city gave her. “I aims to heal.”

  “Good. But I don’t understand why you got to live in that city. Plenty to heal right around these parts. Ain’t nothing up there that ain’t right here.”

  Yeah there is, Madge wanted to say. Trains and ships and palace hotels and gas streetlamps. Big churches full of respectable coloreds like Quinn Chapel and Olivet Baptist and the one Hemp belonged to.

  “Stay here. Stay here with me.”

  She was so busy thinking of Chicago that she did not see it sneaking up on her. The thing she’d always longed for. The childish gimme hand-delivered in her mother’s bed on a hot July night. At long last. The proof. The asking. First the profile and now this. These words being handed her, this heartache in the strain of Sarah Lou’s voice. It had been the absence of this very thing that had pushed her to leave Tennessee in the first place. That disgusted face over a tub of dirty underwear in a muddy front yard had been no kind of image for a daughter to carry.

  Now she had something more.

  But even with it nestled in her chest, stored where she could always remember it, she knew she would leave again. This time, there was no washing board to take the blame for Madge’s sorrow, no hanging dresses needing a hand. Instead, there were just these words, this string t
ying them together. They lay there—two free women weighing two futures, with and without the other.

  This time Madge would not leave because she did not receive a mother’s love. She would leave because she had.

  24

  UNABLE TO REACH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS HE craved, Hemp took the other direction. The theft began soon after Richard reported that Madge had left for Tennessee. His driver’s uniform and the stately rockaway lent him an official look, storeowners never suspecting him of wrongdoing. He stashed candies in his coat pocket, and while waiting for the doctor he unwrapped them and placed two on his tongue at a time. When he was done, he washed the sweetness down with a swallow of corn whiskey. He tried to convince himself that the less he thought of Madge, the easier it would be to erase the sin. He was wrong. He could not escape it. So he moved blindly through the days, convinced of his own depravity.

  At the end of the month, he went to see the reverend, taking care not to stand too close.

  “I hear you been sick,” the reverend said after they had settled into two large chairs in the front room of his house. His wife had offered them freshly made applejack and the room smelled cloyingly sweet.

  “Yas, sir. I just gone back to work.”

  “Mighty bad fever, I hear.”

  “Annie ain’t dead,” he said suddenly.

  The reverend leaned back into his chair. “Ain’t God something?”

  “But I don’t know where she at. Make me crazy.”

  The reverend sipped.

  “White man sin all over me. I ain’t got nothing.”

  “You got something, son. You got a choice now that you free. Time to make your own path.”

  “I got a wife out there might be waiting on me. Ain’t no choice in that.”

  The reverend stoked the fire from his chair, leaned the poker back against the wall. “These is better times, but they still hard times.”

  Hemp made excuses to leave. The reverend handed him his coat, and as Hemp left, he pocketed a quill. When he was outside, he faced home, then turned around and walked in the opposite direction.