My Name Is a Knife

by Alix Hawley

  —Ma.

  And so I go on with the story: Now, on Madoc’s crossing, a young man was lost to a shipwreck. No one could save him.

  No one could save—

  And then a monster came with a poison that sent nearly all the grown men and women into a deep sleep. They could not wake up. And Madoc went mad in a quiet way, sitting staring at the sun on the ship’s deck until they reached the new shore.

  —How did they know he was mad?

  —How do you think, Jesse?

  Morgan shoves him, and Jesse knits his brows together, as he always does. He is a thinker, if not the quickest one. I rub his head with the edge of my knee. Polly says:

  —Maybe he was not mad at all. Maybe he never was.

  She bounces faster. Jesse turns to watch.

  —Damn it!

  Part of Israel’s gun clatters to the floor and gouges a piece from the board there. Jesse jumps up to scramble for it with Morgan. I say:

  —Israel, watch your mouth, and put that away now. Time we had some quiet.

  He goes on working at the parts with a rag, rubbing them smoother. Watching me press the soles of my feet together, he sends me a smile and says:

  —Feet cold, Ma?

  —They are.

  —I will get you the softest doeskin for new shoes. And a rabbit to line them with. Two young rabbits, with the whitest fur.

  —Very queenly.

  Jesse says:

  —Like Madoc’s mother, the queen. And his wife, the other queen.

  Polly puffs out her cheeks and says:

  —Nobody knows anything about her.

  I tell her:

  —Maybe she prefers that.

  She plays with her lower lip:

  —He ought to have married someone else. Someone pretty.

  Someone like you, a know-nothing, an infant stumbling about in the dark—she was very likely pretty to begin with, we all are.

  I do not say this. I stroke Jesse’s hair, which is far too long, hanging over his forehead. He will never keep it tied back. Israel grins sideways at Polly. He says:

  —Well Ma, I will go long-hunting soon, once I have this gun working right.

  He looks down the barrel. His voice is so like his father’s. I say:

  —You are not long-hunting, Israel.

  He stands. He is no child, he is nineteen years old. I know he will tell me so again. He sets his jaw:

  —Why not? I could go as far as Kentucky, see how they are at the fort—

  —No.

  I want no part of whatever remains there. He raises his voice:

  —Ma. I would come back.

  —I said no.

  —I would see Daddy.

  —Your daddy is dead, as you well know.

  He knows. I have told all of them. We have all done our weeping. The younger ones are silent, watching us. Polly’s eyes are fixed on me. But Israel will not let up:

  —I would check in on Jemima.

  —She is all right.

  Is she? I cannot believe she is anything other than all right. She would not come back here with me. She would not believe Daniel is dead.

  Israel sees my face, and tries again:

  —We need—

  —We need nothing.

  —Not true, Ma.

  —We need nothing here. We have everything here.

  —I will get pelts, get us some money.

  —We have enough. We need no further food this year. We are well set for winter. We are safe. Leave it alone.

  —It is not enough—

  —You think it is not enough to be safe? It is enough! You think there will never be enough of anything. But there is more than enough here if you look, and stop thinking all the time of somewhere else.

  I stop myself. Jesse is stirring by my knee, turning to stare up at me. The rest have gone quiet. Israel tries again:

  —Ma, are we going to be here forever? I do not want to stay.

  —You are not going anywhere now.

  —Ma. I want—

  —Enough.

  —I want—

  —I said enough.

  Israel slams out of the house into the dark with the pieces of his gun in his fists. His shot-pouch drops behind him and sends pellets bouncing everywhere. We all hear him crossing the yard and garden and going off who knows where. Polly gives me a sweet smile. See how agreeable I can be when I am right and you are wrong. She sets to gathering up Israel’s shot as though it were pearls.

  * * *

  I look out at the stars for a moment after I put out the lamp. The embers rustle in the hearth. No more talking from upstairs. Everyone in bed but Israel.

  I know my son. He will make a camp or sleep in the stable rather than come in tonight. Polly had no more to say, one mercy.

  Tiny sparks burst in the fire. With no one speaking, thoughts come to me, and I am too tired to send them off. Jamesie, very little, perhaps not yet two, in a yellow dress of my mother’s, the skirt round his neck. He looked like a flower with a face at its centre. He stumbled and caught his foot, tearing that poor worn dress into strips. And he halted himself, always serious, looking up at me to see if I was cross. My heart ached to see the ruin of all I had left of my mother, but he was never a child who needed scolding—he scolded himself for any small wrong. A little beauty with the sunny yellow round his face.

  I listen to the fire. I think of quiet. I think—

  At first of nothing—

  But then you walk into my mind of your own will. Your feet, your knees, your legs—

  Long bones. Black hair. Like Daniel’s. But softer under my hands. Your chin not shaved since early morning, but still soft. It was night then, nearly. The dark barn seemed somewhere outside the world. A smell of hay, animal warmth. And of you. Something leafy, something mossy. A happiness.

  I never let myself think of it. I never let myself want. It is only the birth, or my tiredness, or the way Israel was looking at Polly. That look girls and women can feel, like a bird landing on them.

  You looked at me that way that one day. You came to see how we were, my little ones and me, with Daniel gone on a long-hunt for more than a year, no one knowing where he was. You brought venison and I was sorry for your trouble. You said the deer had come right to your door, an easy shot. I told you that was how Daniel courted me, dragging a dead deer to my granddaddy’s house. He also threw his knife at my apron. He did not know how I grieved and raged for that ruined thing. I tied it up in knots and threw it away into the yard, only Martha found it before the goats did. She used a strip of lace from it on a cap. I tore that cap up one night when she slept. There is the history of that poor apron. So I told you, finding myself full of words.

  You smiled, and you stayed to eat with us, which you had not done before. Perhaps Martha had been bad to you that day, going silent or taking herself off on a long tearful walk. I did not ask.

  Once the children were asleep, we sat talking of nothing. When you stood to go, I stood too. I went outside with you and we walked to the barn. Your horse was there but you did nothing to ready it. You said I was too much alone. And you did not go.

  Your smell. Rocks in a shallow creek. Or wet ferns. I pressed a fern once under a heavy pot. The smell did not keep.

  I wanted something of you. I had your daughter, my daughter, but she is gone now, in Kentucky with her own husband. And too young to be married. Jemima was never mine, always pulling away, walking off as soon as she was able to stand. She does not know about you being her father. Not from me.

  You are there with her, if you are living. Look out for her. When I left, you waved us off with the rest, but you went no farther than the fort gates. Some nights here I have wondered if you would come. If there were any chance of it. But all I see clearly is your back turned to me at the gates.

  After the first night in the barn, I wanted to tell you to stay. Not beg, not even ask. To tell you—to show you.

  You wanted to look at every part of me. You said I was like
honey—

  I wanted you to see, do you know? All of me. And more, to see in my heart, how I was afraid—all the time. I wonder if you and I will have any more time, Neddy.

  One of the children wakes and gets out of bed, and I am up the stairs, leaving you down in the dark.

  ISRAEL DOES NOT come back. In the morning I am slow and footsore. I get up and have the bread started before it is light. A sour smell of dough and smoke. The embers do not want to catch.

  The children come down. They are quieter without Israel at home, and no hope of pigs set loose to chase in the yard. Everyone eats dully, then sets to work and lessons. I send my uncle’s older boys to see if my brothers need help in their fields.

  At the table, Jesse is fitful, groaning and lying face down on his slate, as Morgan is doing. Polly is meant to be minding the younger ones, keeping them at their work, but she is restless too, strolling back and forth between the door and the window and plucking at her lip.

  —Polly.

  —What is it, Ma?

  She has her sweet voice on. I say:

  —Go and fetch the eggs if you do not want to help indoors today.

  At once her voice shifts. She says:

  —I do not want to do either.

  I poke the broom into a corner where a cobweb hangs in thin rags. I cannot see a spider. Polly begins to sing:

  Then the spider she

  Daily waits on me.

  She is reminding me, of course, how she listened to everything at Anna’s birthing. I hold out the broom to her:

  —What do you want then? The broom? Here you are.

  She comes very close, with a flake of porridge on her chin. I hold myself back from brushing it away. Her eyes are flat. She says:

  —I want to go. Like Israel.

  —You will never catch him. He will be back soon enough.

  Again, my voice has gone harder than I meant it to. Hers hardens further:

  —He does not wish to be trapped here either.

  —Go then.

  Off Polly flounces, throwing her cap off and shaking down her hair. Jesse and Morgan sit up to watch. I send them outside. They are roaring the minute they are out in the air.

  I look again at the ceiling for the spider. Polly’s ways make me think of Martha when we were children, with something to fight about every day. I was happy enough as a girl—Martha, perhaps not. Every so often in our bed at Granddaddy’s she would breathe it out. You killed our ma when you were born—you should give me that dress of hers, I am the one who can remember her. She knew our mother’s name and would never tell me. So I said no. I called her a witch and she would cry, always ready to do so.

  So far as I know she is still with Neddy at the fort. At her wedding she held on to Ned as tight as could be. It was my wedding too, when I married Daniel, and he could not take his eyes away from me. Ned and Martha were in the room across the way that night at Granddaddy’s big house. I did not think then, I did not know—

  I had not truly looked at Neddy until I thought Daniel was gone from this world, the first time. As he is now. And Neddy in Kentucky.

  I sweep the broom over the ceiling planks. Dust showers down. Always dust, in every house. The beginning of a headache is in my eyes. Perhaps a thunderstorm is coming. I usually know it.

  * * *

  The weather does turn. The skies are heavy, and Israel is gone three more days. He is a good woodsman, as I know, and he will do well even without a gun, but the nights are cold and wet. The fourth morning, we have a frost. The children run about crunching down the stiff white stubble in the field, and puffing clouds into the air.

  Israel can fish. He can make snares. Daniel showed all the children how to make them when they were very little.

  My Jesse comes into the dairy shed blowing on his cold hands, and asks when Israel will return.

  —I do not know.

  —I wish he would come back. I wish I could go hunting.

  —If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

  Jesse pokes at a ripening cheese and leaves a hole in it. I swat at him. He flops to the ground with a great sigh:

  —There is nothing to do here but letters.

  —Write me a letter O in the dust there outside the door. Write twenty of them.

  This is one of the letters I know how to write, so I watch him. He crawls over and begins making marks with a stick, but he does not last long at it. I set him to churning instead. There will be time enough for him to learn letters. I have hopes. The future will be a flat, clean place, like a green lawn. I will plant a patch of grass this spring, not for growing anything else on. In some of the dreams I have, the children walk and play on it.

  Jesse looks up, tired of churning already, and asks:

  —What can I do now?

  I smile at him:

  —Keep yourself busy, Jesse. That is all there is.

  * * *

  The morning I go to look in on Anna, the clouds are low and grey but the air is dry. Susy sees me passing and runs out to say she and her little girl will come too, but I tell her to keep home and rest.

  —You will be feeling your own new one quicken soon enough. Then you will have no sleep.

  She laughs and runs her hands down her stays. She says:

  —Then I will not need these. I remember, Ma.

  I remember too. A baby in its dark world in me, only I felt as if it were somewhere very distant. And no sleep ever again, it seems. I kiss Susy’s round little Lizzy, who lived through being born in the fort, and who is still here. She fills me with fierce love and hope. Her life will be healthy, a good life. I smile and pat her fat cheeks. I tell her:

  —Be a good girl and look after your mother, now.

  She laughs just as Susy does, the same bubbling sound. Susy waves and dances off with her behind the house into the garden. It is the way we all are when happy about another baby, happy to be opened and turned inside out again.

  Lying in bed with her bawling boy, Anna is very happy. Her face still shines. Her milk has come in now but it is not quick enough for this one. He stops his sucking to scream with rage, then he bangs his small fist against her breast with all his power, until he exhausts himself and falls into a sleep. Anna cannot take her eyes from him.

  —He is a big boy yet, Anna. He has lost no fat.

  The baby’s head rolls. His mouth works furiously in his sleep. Anna says:

  —Danny is my biggest, I think. My poor parsley patch knows it.

  She winces as she shifts her hips. I do not like her silly words. But I check between her legs, and I tell her:

  —Your parsley patch will be all right. You are not torn.

  Her bleeding is clean. She did not rip open, by some mercy, in spite of my hand and this great child in her. Her skin is cool, she has no fever. I send one of her girls out to the garden to fetch cabbage leaves for her swollen breasts. The milk will move faster soon, with that big child sucking.

  Jemima used to swat at my breast like this one does to Anna. I wondered if I might be carrying a boy. But she came out a screaming girl, with none of Ned’s gentleness. Granddaddy’s old Silvy used to say that quiet men make girls. She said eating apples did the same thing, though.

  Neddy brought apples, the second time. He came late in the wagon with food for me and my children, and he and I went without speaking to the barn. He saw my belly, and he knew. He kissed it, and me—and before he went, he shook himself and his clothes straight and told me Martha was with child again. He did not say also. He looked slightly sad. He did not come again.

  Martha delivered me of a daughter, not long after her own was born. A girl also. I would rather have had any other midwife. I do not know what she thought, or what she knew. We never spoke of it. I never told her, even in a spiteful moment, though we have had plenty. You killed our ma. When she said it aloud outside in daylight instead of in bed, swinging her feet from the fence where we sat picking slivers, I hit her. My palm showed up scarlet on her cheek. She stared ahead
with her big eyes full of tears. We stayed where we were.

  Anna’s baby wakes and at once searches for his mother’s dark nipple, but the cabbage leaf I set on her impedes him. He is soon arching and bellowing. Full of pride, she takes the leaf away and pushes his face to her:

  —There now.

  Smiling at him, she tells me:

  —You will have others, Rebecca. There is time.

  —Other children? No.

  She gives me a pitying look:

  —There are other men.

  I know what she is thinking. I know what has been said of me. I stand to clean my hands in the bowl, and before I can stop myself I say:

  —I am near forty, Anna. I am all right. I have enough children. I do not need any more to lose.

  THE SUN BREAKS UP the cloud, but the air is not warm. A clear night chills it further. Wash day again already. Before dawn I am out getting the fires lit, but still Israel does not return. I dreamed of him making a rough coat from a bearskin, leaving the head on to cover his own. If he had the means to kill a bear. I dreamed too of Jemima meeting him at whatever is left of the fort, her skirts more tattered than my mother’s old yellow dress. I’d kept one small piece of it, but I must have left it in Kentucky. We left as quickly as we could.

  You cannot help dreams. This one follows me all morning.

  I am boiling up more water when I hear Polly’s voice. She and Reba and my Becky and Levina are meant to be beating some of the sheets at the creek. A gale of shrieking comes. When I go down to the water to look, there is Polly in just her shift, splashing about in the shallows, displaying herself to the rest. A sheet drifts round her legs and she squats down, screaming when her bottom touches the cold creek. The shift is wet, her body shows through it. The younger girls are laughing behind their hands. Becky pulls up her own skirts and steps in. Levina stands staring on the bank, her long feet planted apart.

  Polly with hips, small pointed breasts, a small dark point between her legs.

  —Get your things on and do your work. You will catch cold.