During the Reign of the Queen of Persia

by Joan Chase

  “And I’ll have anyone I want,” she said.

  We squatted in the yard and chewed on oat grass, the way we saw the men do, chewed and spit, long-legged, bony, the daughters of our family, like Grandad, waiting for him. He came then with two sacks of grain mash loaded on his shoulders. One of the laughing men leaned out the doorway, swaggering, and called after him in a slurred voice, “My woman goes to the bank, she just better keep on a-going, she knows what’s good for her.” Then he ducked inside. Grandad didn’t pause even, but we could see he was furious—so quickly, as though he had been astonished to have the men, loud and drunk, laugh together like that. His face was dark but he went on throwing the sacks into the back and then headed for the cab, leaving us again, and we had to spring onto the slats and scramble in, even as the engine sputtered and the truck began to lurch across the uneven dirt. His face was visible in the rearview mirror. Though the crazed glass faded him, we could see the muscle beside his mouth twitch and pop. We recalled how Gram said he’d sold his soul to perdition. And this day she had sold land.

  And from the way he drove we were certain he had been taken by a power, going like something suddenly pushed over a dam, carried by a force beyond himself and mere machinery. The truck swayed and bumped. We tumbled about and stared at the road flying beneath us, sickened almost, and on into the gray opening the road made through the corn and scattered grasses and flowers that disguised the steep pitch of the roadside ditch.

  We were looking back toward the retreating and lost distance when the truck settled down to a more even ride. So it was all the more startling when the truck suddenly swerved. We half tipped over and then we heard the horse, its squeals like our own screams. Beside us then, nearly under us, the Amish buggy was fighting to stay upright on the road. The horse, blinded to the sides, threw back its head, trampled into the roadside weeds, stumbled and lunged for balance, the man now pulling on the reins, heaving backwards, trying to steady and slow him. We watched then as we moved away, the horse losing its battle, overwhelmed by the earth giving way, so that he went sliding into the ditch and fell sideways, the entire buggy tipping over. Scenes we’d watched in the movies at the dime theater came to us as we gazed back, watching the two figures in black moving around the downed buggy. We couldn’t tell what had happened to the horse. We could see his legs, though, thrashing as if he still intended to travel. We never heard a single word or oath from the man or boy, even as we’d passed and they were struggling with the horse, trying to avoid Grandad’s truck, the unprovoked assault. Their faces weren’t anything other than intent.

  After they had disappeared we clung to the rails, not looking even at each other. We felt the rude shifting of the boards beneath us and sometimes our bodies hit against the slats.

  It was only when we reached the final turn into the drive at home that we stood up. Again the truck picked up sudden speed. We were flung against the cab. There was a streak of fresh blood on Celia’s cheek. Now Grandad was making a final lurching run toward the barn, and we spurted past the haven of home we now yearned for, followed down the drive, past the house, by the three grown women, mothers and aunts, who came first onto the porch and then on the lawn, furiously following behind us to the barn, where the truck slammed to a stop like the sudden cessation of a scream. But it was we who screamed then, crying while scrambling again over the rails. We sobbed, disconsolate, shamed before the women who reached us at last and held us in their arms, crooning. Grandad was gone somewhere into the depths of the barn, or into the woods, or off into the arms of faithless women. We’d heard Gram’s disdain.

  “Even today,” Aunt Libby said. And then we remembered this was the day they had taken Aunt Grace to the Cleveland Clinic.

  “Where’s Mother?” Katie asked.

  Before anyone could answer, Gram came straggling along, her gray tangle of curls damp on her hot face and the low sun shadowing through her loose hair, wrinkling her face absolutely. Breathing painfully, she stood before the empty cab. The door dragged off its hinge, desolate. She jerked her head toward the dark barn, shook her fist and yelled, “And that’s only the first part, mister.” From the near pasture a cow began to low, the sun setting down the wood’s line. “Well, he’ll not neglect them. That I know,” she said, all her resignation at what she considered his myriad other neglects in her tone.

  “Where’s Mother?” Katie repeated, singsong, until someone would pay attention. Aunt Rachel was staring toward the darkening barn. Then she put her arm around Katie’s shoulder. “She’s stopped off at Aunt May’s and we came on to fix supper. She’ll be here soon.”

  Anne called down from the tiptop of the sour cherry tree. In the evening light with the sun striking there, her hair was brighter than the cherries; with the leaves twined and shadowed about her face it seemed the spirit of the tree had materialized out of the gold-spun air. The tree was swaying from Anne’s being so near the top.

  “Goddamn it. Git down from there,” Gram yelled, the way she always yelled at Anne. “You’ll tumble. Then we’ll see who’s the smarty pants.” She was so angry it was like a curse. Anne swung down. We could see her white arms winding against the black form of the tree.

  Gram started up the drive. She called back to us while we still gazed at the barn: “Don’t look up a dead horse’s behind,” and went marching on. She had her good dress on under her apron.

  “Hey, old woman,” Aunt Rachel called in her loving mocking way. “Where’s the fire? She’s just too fast for us,” she reminded us, her pride strong.

  “You younguns dawdle all you like.” Gram marched on. “I got things to do.”

  “You’re not going to go!” Aunt Libby snapped in disbelief. Her eyes flashed at Aunt Rachel, who shrugged.

  “I am. It’s an early party and I’ll be back before she will. I know what you’re thinking, but I can’t help it. I’ve got to go.” She stopped by the house yard, catching her breath, eyeing her daughters straight on.

  We followed up the back steps onto the porch and then into the house. Already it was dark in there, and muffled too, as if nobody was saying what they were thinking. Almost out of a dream we heard Grandad’s call: “Sucky, sucky.” He was going to milk.

  “Work me clear to death,” Gram said, her recent fury at him dissolved, absorbed into the usual unremitting discontent. “There’s two gallon already standing,” she muttered. Now that Grandad was old and good for nothing, as Gram told him and us, his cows gave up their milk so lavishly that Gram, curdling with resentment but country bred, still skimmed the blooms of yellowed cream from the sideboard crocks and churned butter by the back door in the late mornings; the rhythm of the paddle hitting the wooden bottom seemed to calm her for a time. When the butter came she felt it and washed it, slapping it into a crockery bowl, washed the churn and banged the whole assembly into the corner. All her hours at home were restless ones, tasks to rush through. Others would have done them for her, but too slowly to suit her, the family a relentless nuisance to be coped with, so that time would roll by and take her away.

  Aunt Libby asked, “Why does Dad have to be like this? Of all times.”

  “I quit asking that long before. There’s never any right time for it, I reckon. It’s drink every time, one way or another. Should’ve pitched him out.”

  “Don’t any of you kids tell Dan what happened,” Aunt Libby told us. “He’d want to kill him.” Uncle Dan had all the equipment for killing in the way of tools, but we couldn’t imagine his doing it.

  But Gram said, “Since I ain’t done it already, there’s none that’s likely to.” She said it in braggadocio, exactly the way she described Grandad as the handsomest man in Marland County when she married him. Now she maintained he couldn’t be beat for his meanness either, or herself for long-suffering. “He’ll sleep it off. Then maybe won’t even recollect. Wisht I could sleep that good.”

  Aunt Rachel was on the phone, calling all over for Rossie. Nobody had seen him. She said she couldn’t eat and went of
f to find him.

  Anne and Katie ate with Gram. She put a big plate of food in the oven for Grandad. She had made fried cabbage with cream and dumped on pepper to suit her—her own tastes the ones that mattered. Katie wouldn’t eat it. Anne moved hers around with her fork. Gram merely raised up her chin and ate as fast as she’d cooked, smacking her lips. Eat it or starve, her manner said. That’s all there’ll be. She carried her dish to the sink, swallowing off the remainder of her coffee as she went, and hung up her apron. “In my next house I’ll have electric,” she said, as if that would make all the difference.

  Aunt Libby went toward her. “We need you,” she said.

  “You! Shut up! I told you I need to go.” The webbing of veins on her cheeks popped red. “Probably I’ll beat her home anyways.” Before she left the room she told Aunt Libby, “They count on me,” meaning the women she went out with at night.

  “So do we,” Aunt Libby said, but Gram had already turned away.

  “You feel lucky?” we asked her when she was waiting by the front door, holding her lightweight coat, her neck craned up the drive, her pocketbook at the ready in her lap like a shotgun. She didn’t answer, her thoughts withdrawn, owing us nothing. Sometimes she seemed as unapproachable as Grandad.

  He came in the kitchen with the milk pails clattering. “You gals show him his supper,” Gram said over her shoulder as she saw a car turn into the drive.

  Aunt Libby went into the kitchen with us. She whispered, “Now forget it. There’s to be no trouble tonight.” Grandad was straining milk through the cheesecloth he kept washed and drying over the cleaned pails. Some bits of straw and a dead fly came out in the mesh. He poured himself a glass of the milk warm from the cows. The back counter was lined with crocks of milk and there was more overfilling the refrigerator. “Confounded lazy women,” he muttered. “Too busy putting on paint and powder.”

  “There’s your supper,” we said.

  “Where’s she at?” He was still looking at the milk. Behind his spectacles, when he glanced at us, we saw his eyes. They were the brown eyes of his children, except Aunt Rachel, and they were the eyes of a real person.

  We couldn’t answer. Gram was just out. She always went out. Aunt Libby answered, though. “She stayed over with May. She’ll be home later.” Then we knew he had meant Aunt Grace. Where was she, his daughter? We’d never known before that he noticed her, or any of us, just as we’d hardly noticed him, unless he was nearly killing someone or something, as he had that day.

  The supper Gram had fixed he ate with the same hungry indifference with which he ate what he fixed for himself in the morning. There was one of Gram’s pies for dessert. They were her crowning achievement, the pastry tender with dissolving layers, the filling both tart and sweet. Grandad plopped his piece into his bowl of coffee and spooned it up as though it were his usual Ritz crackers.

  Nearly in darkness, we played croquet beside the spruce trees. Uncle Dan came out and sat on the back steps. The hollow sound the balls made knocking together or against the mallets was lonely, and with Uncle Dan just sitting there, not wisecracking for once how darkness improved our game, we lost interest ourselves and quarreled over whether the balls were in or out of the wickets. Grandad had gone, the kitchen light snapped off. He would sit up against the radio with the cards laid out and fall asleep. We started hide-and-seek. But we stayed in the yard this evening.

  Aunt Rachel came home with Rossie. She marched him straight past us into the house. She said he had to practice his piano lesson. Right then. Before he could eat. We saw the light go on in the parlor. Their shadows streaked the driveway and Rossie’s yelps and whines reached our hiding places. We quit the game and went onto the front porch to watch him get it.

  “Thick-headed dunderhead.” Aunt Rachel sat on the bench beside him. She held the wooden ruler, tapped out the time. And when he blundered, she rapped him, tweaked his ear. Rossie scowled into the book. His fingers were dirty and stubby against the white keys. The ruler cracked against his knuckles. “Two-four”: Aunt Rachel beat the accent on her palm. She hit him again because he looked out the window. We moved further into the shadow.

  Rossie shrieked and rubbed his hand. “What’d you do that for? I did it right.” He was sobbing a little. We giggled. Aunt Rachel only pursued the measured beat, arching her eyebrows toward the score.

  We made faces into the window and Rossie caught us once, almost as if he’d felt them land on him. He stuck out his tongue. We did it back. Aunt Rachel hit him again. “Play,” she commanded. Rossie took a last glance at us and then sat up straight, collecting himself, and began “Stepping Stones.” We’d all learned it.

  “There now,” Aunt Rachel said when she was finished with him for the night. “That wasn’t so bad. Before long you’ll be another José Iturbi.” She brushed his fine hair out of his face, while her tilted mocking eyes lingered on him lovingly, as if she doubted herself that he’d ever amount to anything. As he left the room, Rossie shook his fist, and then he went to the kitchen for supper.

  We were all waiting in the night, not thinking for what. Then a car was once again steering the turn off the highway, its lights spiraling the dark, washing over the trees. Aunt Grace was coming home. Aunt Rachel and Aunt Libby came out under the carport. We all called out together, against the silence, against the dread we felt. Aunt Rachel opened the car door and helped Aunt Grace, holding her arm and supporting her, as if she had become very ill since going away to Cleveland. We stood back a little, watching. All their faces, lit by the parlor light, seemed briefly to glow. Aunt Grace hugged us as together we went crowding into the narrow hallway. “Sh,” we said. “Grandad.”

  But right away we heard another car on the drive, the formal lumbering swing and crawl of the sedan bringing Gram home. The hall was ghostly, lit by the replica of a lighthouse in pink-veiled marble which cast a steady beam onto the marble rocks sculpted at its base. Rossie had appeared from somewhere, and Grandad rose from his sleep, adjusting his spectacles as he came. He looked solemn and uneasy with all the family around him, and rubbed his gnarled hands together in mute supplication, as though he were sorry—for sleeping, for everything. Aunt Grace went over to him and put her arms around him. “Somebody will have to call Neil,” she said. “And Elinor.”

  On the stone steps we heard the little scratching sounds of Gram’s feet and then the opening of the screen. She stood before us, her pocketbook dragging from bone handles, her woolen coat sagging with her shoulders. In one hand she held a silver-painted candy dish which was mounted on a pedestal base.

  Grandad lifted one hand toward her without any particular directive force but in appeal to her—as if in losing land he felt a part of himself was going too. Gram took offense, said, “Leave me alone, old man.” Then her face softened as if she remembered why we were all waiting for her. “Phooey anyways. You’ll scarcely notice any of it’s gone. I can’t see why all the fuss over a little scrap of meadow.”

  Then Anne shrieked out, “Oh, I hate it, I hate it,” clutching her stomach, and we thought she meant selling the land or something else that was terrible which we didn’t know yet. But then we saw a mouse dive down into the dark space under the sliding parlor doors.

  “For crying out loud,” Aunt Rachel said, laughing a little. We all did, relieved by Anne’s well-known terror, its insignificance. “That child has the Saint Vitus’ dance.”

  But Gram wasn’t paying attention. She had her hand on Anne’s arm, gentle this once. “There, there,” she crooned. “There’s worse than that to cry over, girl.” Her hand continued to stroke Anne while everyone hushed and looked with her at Aunt Grace.

  “Well, you’re back,” Gram said.

  Aunt Grace nodded. “Yes. It’s all done. I called up there from May’s. The tests were ready. Not good, I’m afraid.” It seemed that her hair, so black that in sunlight it shimmered blue, was folded in two glistening wings that held her face, protecting her slender throat. We saw how her chest heaved so that
the embroidered birds in flight over the bodice of her dress seemed to vibrate, although underneath was the unyielding rubber cup she wore to simulate the live flesh which had been cut away in an operation three years earlier. We wondered how she could still look so alive with all that gone.

  But Aunt Grace wasn’t looking afraid or sorry now. She looked steadily more amused, with some mock horror showing too as she reached for the silver-painted candy dish. “I do believe, Momma, that this is very nearly the worst thing you have ever won. I guess if we have to keep it we’ll think of it as a kind of trophy won in the wars and handed down to us for what we have to go through.” In the light which trailed over the sculpted marble rocks, Aunt Grace’s oval fingernails shone transparent, and the half-moons at their base seemed mystical and unearthly. Beyond that bit of light our eyes dilated to form one dark place. Gram kept stroking Anne’s arm. The tears running from her eyes immediately filled the crevices of her ancient face the way rain first puddles clay seams.

  PART THREE: GRACE AND NEIL

  OUR mothers and aunts were all proficient swimmers, although neither Gram nor Grandad had set foot in open water, if they could help it, since they were children. It was not a skill common to country people. Aunt May had been taught by a college student who boarded with the family one summer and she taught Aunt Elinor, who passed it on to Aunt Grace, who worked with the two younger girls. Even as grown women, they liked to go to a lake or swimming hole, just to be doing together what they had always enjoyed so much. Usually they didn’t want men around, just each other. Perhaps it was that exclusiveness that had prompted Neil to follow them once when they’d gone to the pond at Taylor’s farm. This was a remote place and as usual they took off their clothes and swam naked. Although we were told, over the years, only the bare bones of the story, we made up the details and fleshed it out. We seemed to imagine even the thoughts of these women. And we could see them, young, well-formed, water-licked and dazzling.