A Song for Nettie Johnson

by Gloria Sawai

  “You might as well look the part,” he says.

  Eli removes his pants and shirt, lays them over the back of a chair, and puts on the black trousers and white shirt. When he has the coat on as well, he struts about the office, singing and directing with one hand, And the glory, the glory of the Lord.... With the other hand, he holds up the pants which are too big in the waist. The doctor stops Eli’s movement and kneels down beside him, an open safety pin held between his teeth. He clutches at the trousers, pinches the cloth together at the waistband, and jabs the pin into the fabric. When the cloth is secure, Eli continues directing the song, using both arms.

  When the singing and cavorting end, the doctor tells Eli that Nora has something for Nettie, a dress she bought for herself at Cutler’s Dry Goods, that never did fit right and now it’s too late to return it. It’s new, never been worn, he says. Maybe Nettie would accept it as a wedding present, wear it to the concert.

  He brings Eli the dress box. Eli removes the cover, lifts up a sheet of tissue paper, and sees the dress underneath. “Well,” Eli says. “Well, well.”

  Nettie is standing in front of the kitchen window, peering out. He said he’d be back early, but already the sun has gone down, and on the horizon jagged slabs of red and orange pile up and spread out. Her heart quickens its beat. Surely he’ll be coming soon.

  When she finally sees him appear over the crest of the hill, first his head, then his shoulders, she leaves the window, disappears into the bedroom, and sinks down on their small bed, covering her head with the blanket. She does not hear the song he sings as he approaches the trailer, holding the cardboard box against his chest and clumping through the snow. Here I raise my ebenezer, hither by thy help I’m come...

  When he reaches the step, he opens the door and sends the music booming into their house. And I hope by thy good pleasure safely to arrive at home. He closes the door and glances about the room. She’s not here. He sings louder still, And I hope by thy good pleasure safely to arrive at home. He sets the package on the table and stomps into the bedroom. Sees the familiar lump under the grey blanket. Her hiding place, her comfort in time of trouble.

  “I was singing for you,” he says. “Don’t you want to hear the song?”

  There’s a twisting movement under the quilts and a muffled sound. He goes to the bed and leans over the grey mound.

  And I hope by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home, he sings, more quietly now, his face close to the quilt. “And besides, I have something for you. Don’t you want to see what I have?”

  Nettie peaks out from beneath the quilt.

  “Come and see,” Eli says. “The robe of righteousness. The garment of salvation.”

  He sings again. Oh come, come, come, come...

  “Oh, be quiet,” she says. And seeing the black tails hanging from below his coat, she sits up in bed and stares down at them.

  “What is that hanging down there?” she asks.

  He turns away from her, bends over, reaches behind him with his arms, and flaps the coattails with both hands. Lift up your heads, o ye gates. And be ye lifted up, everlasting doors. Then he wriggles out of his winter coat, lets it fall to the floor, and stands up, facing her in his new clothes. And the king of glory shall come in!

  Nettie stares at him, curious. Now what? What is this man up to now? She gets out of bed, goes to him, and looks more closely at the suit. She examines the shirt, touches the cloth with her fingers. She slides her hand down his pant leg, turns him around and stares at the coattails.

  “Where did you ever get a hold of this?” she asks.

  “Do you like it?” Eli asks. “Do you think I’m gorgeous? Yes? Then dance with me.”

  He presses his arm against her back, his hand in the small softness of her armpit; his other hand holds her own. He swings her in small circles around the narrow room, her body stiff and awkward. They bump against the closet door, just miss the dresser, then whirl about in the centre of the room. He stops, pulls her close to him and breathes into her hair, and her body softens, becomes light again.

  Oh come, come, come, come..., he whispers in her ear. And they move slowly now in the space beside the bed.

  When they are finally still, he tells her he has something for her.

  “Stay where you are,” he says. “Close your eyes.”

  “Shall I count?” she says.

  “No, no. Just keep your eyes closed.”

  Nettie closes her left eye, squeezes it tight, and squints at Eli with the other.

  “You’re cheating,” he says. “Close them both.” He goes into the kitchen and lifts the dress out of its box. His right hand holds one sleeve, his left the other. He carries the dress into the bedroom, swinging it gently by his side as a matador swings his cape.

  Nettie opens her eyes and sees the dress. She sees it moving gracefully under Eli’s right arm, like a person, a friend. Like a pretty lady. A woman loved. Her breathing stops, then moves ever so lightly inside her, soft as dandelion fluff. And she feels sunlight all around her.

  “It’s yours,” Eli says. “It’s brand new. Nobody’s ever worn it.”

  She steps closer to the garment, reaches out her hand, touches the tiny white dots embossed on the blue voile, strokes the delicate lace of the collar.

  “Put it on,” he says.

  But she doesn’t hear him for gazing at the dress.

  He thrusts it toward her. “You can wear it to the concert. You can go to the Messiah. Sit in the front row.”

  And the sunlight begins to fade, to shrivel up, harden into a ball, clamp against her ribs. She backs away from the dress.

  “What’s wrong?” Eli says. “Try it on.”

  She sits on the bed, her eyes on the floor.

  “Put it away,” she says.

  “I’ll hang it in the closet then,” Eli says. “Until you’re ready.”

  “No. Hide it. Under the bed.”

  Eli sighs, “Oh, Nettie. Why can’t you just see how you’d look in it?”

  Nettie doesn’t answer him.

  Eli brings the box in from the kitchen and lays it on the bed. He folds the dress into the box, carefully, so the lace collar and the tiny dots fit smoothly between its thin cardboard walls. He shoves the box under the bed.

  Early in December, Stone Creek prepares for Christmas. Strings of green and red lights stretch across Main Street. Silver tinselled ropes loop the store windows. In the Red and White, golden cardboard bells sway in easy motion above the cabbages and turnips. And at Gilman’s Drug Store, night-blue bottles of Evening in Paris and silver-foiled boxes of chocolates line the shelves.

  In the parsonage, Christine Lund thinks of her mother in her home on Segoe Road, and she washes the windows, washes and starches the curtains, cleans the furniture with lemon oil. She bakes spritz and kringla, sugar cookies and date bars, sews a new dress for Elizabeth, pale green with a white collar, practises her solo for the Messiah.

  One day she sends the children downstairs to clean the basement. She has set a large box by the stairs to hold junk. “Throw those old cartons and empty cans into this box, wash the shelves in the fruit cellar, wipe the cobwebs off the pipes, sweep up the dust and grit.”

  “Basements are supposed to be dirty,” Peter complains.

  “Just do it,” Christine says.

  When she disappears upstairs and the basement door is closed, Peter lowers his voice and says, confidentially, “I have a solo in the Messiah. I guess you didn’t know that.”

  “Why do you always say dumb things?” Elizabeth says.

  “I’ll prove it. I’ll sing it.”

  He stands on the bottom step, turns his back to them, and swings his hips from side to side. Hallelujah, I’m a bum. Hallelujah, bum again... He bends over, slaps his rear end. Hallelujah, give us a handout. Revive us again.

  “You better watch out,” Elizabeth says. “Mama will hear you.”

  Peter grabs a piece of cardboard from the floor and hurls it into the box.
Andrew picks up the long pole with a rag tied to the end of it, and aims the rag at a pipe over the furnace. The pole sways to the left and to the right before it finally reaches its mark. Elizabeth starts sweeping the floor.

  “A whole lot of people are coming,” Andrew says. “Even a busload from Moose Jaw.”

  “They’ll come from Swift Current, you can pretty well count on that,” Peter says.

  “And Shaunavon, don’t forget,” says Elizabeth. She swishes the broom, too tall for her, over the crumbling concrete.

  “They’re coming from the United Church,” Andrew says.

  “Pentecostals too?” Elizabeth asks.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Peter says.

  “How about Catholics? Will they come?”

  “Not unless they want to go to Purgatory.”

  “Would any Communists come?”

  “Old Man Lippoway? Forget it.”

  “How about Abie Gilman?”

  “Jews have their own Messiah.”

  “You don’t know that for sure, Peter.”

  “Who do you think Hezekiah was?” Peter sneers.

  Elizabeth wants to argue with him, but he seems so certain.

  “Will the Chinaman be there?” she asks.

  “Will Crazy Nettie come?”

  At the quarry, Nettie waits for Eli to leave for choir practice. When she sees him disappear over the hill, she steps away from the kitchen window and goes into the bedroom. As she’s done every day since he brought the dress home, she kneels beside the bed, reaches under it with both arms and pulls out the cardboard box. Cautiously, she removes the lid and lifts up the sheet of tissue paper. The dress is still there.

  She examines it again, touches the collar, the Swiss dots, the hem. She could put it on, see how it looks, it wouldn’t hurt. But go to the concert? Leave the quarry? She thinks of the pit. Deep. It can pull you down to the bottom just like that. And it’s always watching you, waiting for you to take one wrong step, spell one word wrong. She folds the tissue paper over the dress, replaces the lid, and shoves the box back under the bed. You have to be so careful.

  In town, the choir is in its last rehearsal, this time with four musicians from Moose Jaw. For weeks his singers have listened to Eli plead, scold, beg, praise. “Take it from the top...once more...and don’t forget to count...there are four beats in that measure, not three, not three and a half...try again...soloists, stand tall...lift up those notes, don’t let them slide...think up...up... that’s better...now crescendo, give it all you‘ve got... punch it! Blessing...honour...glory...and power...excellent...not bad...not bad at all.

  And then the day arrives.

  In St. John’s church, boughs of evergreen arch the windows, frame the pulpit, bank the table of the altar. Large red bows are tacked to the ends of pews. In the corner a tall spruce tree glitters with many coloured lights, gold balls, long strands of silver tinsel. Wooden risers have been installed in front of the altar to hold the singers. And facing the risers, the podium where Eli will stand.

  At the trailer, Eli is dressing. He has put on the black trousers, pinned the waistband so the pants won’t slip down, tucked in the white shirt, straightened the bow tie. Now he’s examining himself in the mirror above the kitchen sink, trying to smooth the unruly strands of hair with his two hands, sprinkling the hair with water, patting it down again.

  From the bedroom doorway, Nettie watches him. Eli with smooth face, slick hair, shiny pants. She sees him squat in front of the sink, reach under it, and remove a rag from an old pail. He wets the rag in the wash basin, bends down and wipes his shoes, the same brown shoes, worn and cracked, but now clean, even shiny in a few spots. He puts the rag back and goes into the bedroom. When he returns he’s wearing the black coat with tails. He struts in front of Nettie, bobbing his head from side to side.

  Now what? she thinks. What’s all this about? He’s going to town to direct his choir. So what? Why would a man rub his shoes with a rag and slap down his hair with water for that?

  Eli looks at her slyly. Maybe he’ll try one more time. “Put your dress on,” he says. “I have to go early to set things up.” Nettie doesn’t move from the doorway. “Come on,” Eli says. “Put it on. See what a pair we’ll make.”

  And Eli, in four long strides, is in the bedroom, pulling out the box from under the bed. When he comes back, he’s again holding the dress under his arm, waving it at Nettie.

  What does he think he’s doing? Tricks and more tricks. She hurries to the sink, grabs the dish towel from the rack, and flaps it at him.

  “Forget it,” she says. “I’m not moving.”

  And for the first time, Eli is angry with her. He throws the dress over a chair, grabs his coat from its hook by the door, and digs his arms into the sleeves. He’s buttoning up the coat when the words come out, words he hasn’t even thought of before. They tumble out of his mouth, one after another.

  “That old Swede was right, you know, about the blessing. A blessing as big as a boulder...as big as this hill...as big as the whole damn prairie...and it comes to you...over and over...but you just don’t see it, Nettie... your eyes are stuck shut, and you miss it.”

  Nettie marches closer to Eli. She holds the towel in both hands and shakes it up and down in front of him. Her face is red, her breathing heavy.

  Eli pushes past her into the bedroom where he picks up his music. When he returns to the kitchen, he flaps the Messiah at her, its pages ragged.

  “So hide, Nettie. Or the blessing might find you. And it’s big. It will knock you off your feet if you don’t watch out.” He moves to the door, turns, and looks at her. “Open your eyes, Nettie. Wake up.” He pushes the door open and walks out into the night.

  Nettie shoves her feet into her overshoes, grabs her coat and pulls it on. She rushes out after him. Sees him trudging past the rocking chair.

  “Open your own eyes!” she shouts.

  She scrapes at the snow with her foot until she can see the dirt beneath the snow, and the stones, and dead and frozen thistles. She bends down and tears at the stones with her hands, but they’re frozen into the earth. She stands up, kicks at them with her foot, and some dislodge from their icy niche. She picks one up and throws it at Eli. Then another, and hurls it at him. And another.

  “And get out of my yard!” she yells.

  Eli calls back to her from the other side of the quarry. “Nettie, go inside. It’s cold out here.” But she doesn’t move.

  She watches him finally disappear over the hill. Then she kicks more stones loose, picks them up, and shoves them into her pocket. She makes her way to the edge of the quarry, to the wide white hole of the pit. And she pulls a stone out of her pocket and hurls it into the hole.

  “This is for you, Daddy!”

  She throws another and another until there is only one stone left.

  “And I’m not saying thank you!”

  When she returns to the house she sees the dress.

  “Oh my,” she says. She picks it up and folds it over her outstretched hands as if it were an offering, and repeats, “Oh. Oh.”

  She lays the dress back in the box and covers it with the tissue paper. Then she digs her hand into her pocket and pulls out the last stone. She holds it close to her face, turns it this way and that, examining its shape, each sharp edge, each small indentation.

  “I nearly did a very bad thing to you.” She presses it against her chest and pats it with her hand. “Hey, don’t cry, I’ll take you home.”

  A light snow is falling, sifting over the place where the stone had been. But Nettie finds a place, a hollow bowl in a small drift, and rising out of it, a frozen thistle, its stem broken. She brushes the snow aside and lays the stone down beside the thistle. “This is your house,” she says, “and this is your yard. When summer comes, the little beetles can stop here and sit with you for awhile, and rest.”

  She moves through the snow to the edge of the quarry and looks down into the pit. “I remember now how it was. I
forgot but now I remember. You said I was your new bride, that’s what you said. And there were marks on my legs, little cuts from the rock, some of them you could hardly see they were so small.”

  She plods back to the house, muttering to herself.

  “I guess what happened is your heart turned to dust one day and spilled out and blew away. Past Winnipeg. And then there was a hole there.”

  On Main Street, cars are slowly driving north, from farms south of town and some from farther away, Shaunavon and Swift Current. A Plymouth, a Chevrolet, two Fords, a Dodge truck. They’re turning right at the corner of Wong’s Café to find parking on the street and in the vacant lot beside the church. From the north they come as well, from Robson and Chumsland’s Coulee, driving past Donnellys’ and into town, turning left at the café. Town people are walking. Past the hotel and post office and up the street to the town hall, then across the street and onto the sidewalk leading to the church. It’s not such a cold evening. A pleasant walk, really. A small wind, light snow.

  Inside the church, the pews are beginning to fill. The middle section is already full, the back pews saved for latecomers. And the front? Well, who sits there if there are seats anywhere else? The preacher’s kids of course. And old Mrs. Heggestad, who can’t hear.

  In the church basement the choir members are gathered, checking their robes, making sure they’re fastened properly and hanging straight. They’re reading over their scores, humming phrases, making light-hearted comments, “Well, Eli, don’t faint on us up there, or Sigurd will have to take over.” There is discreet whispering among the women, “I guess we better use the ladies’ room now; it’s going to be a long evening. I hope Jenny will be able to hold back her coughing.”

  In the trailer Nettie is lying on the bed, next to the box with the dress inside it. Throwing stones has made her very tired. But now she thinks about Eli. She remembers the dress under his arm and how he swung it back and forth. Remembers his song, “Oh come, come, come, come...” and his hide-and-seek games. Remembers the bags of food he carries up the hill to the quarry. And his thin body – his neck and wrists, his bony knees. And she stands up and says to the empty space in front of her, “I will go into town. I will go to the Messiah after all. I’ll put this brand new dress on and go.”