My Name Is a Knife

by Alix Hawley

  —I do not care.

  —You should care. Get dressed. You will be seen.

  —You do not care who sees you, or who knows about you! Jemima is your bastard, everyone knows. You are not my mother and I am glad.

  Levina sucks in a breath. Polly wades over the creek to the opposite bank and gets out. She is all gooseflesh, her limbs are trembling.

  —Polly, take care. Some things should not be said.

  —Some things should be said. They are already said! Why should I not say it?

  She is terribly white, nearly blue. The shift clings to her. I know what she is doing, twirling about before the dark trees there, hoping Israel is somewhere quietly looking. Showing herself to be separate from me, not mine and not me.

  —Polly. Your clothes are on this side, I remind you.

  —Ha ha ha ha!

  She dances on, but I know she can hear me:

  —Stop now or you will have no more to eat today.

  She laughs again and darts back and forth, trying to warm herself, laughing so I will hear. This rushing in the blood, why can one not stop it? Anger, love, they go wherever they wish. I turn and go back up to the house, leaving the girls behind to stare. The water in the great pot is boiling dry. When I bend to look into it, the steam is at the same heat as my face.

  I bang the pot with the washing pole. I do not care if Israel was looking at Polly from the trees. I want to know where he is. He ought to be home. A tension adds to the heaviness in my belly. Perhaps my monthly time is coming on, though it is not the week for it. I stir the washing and splash my arms with hot water. Jesse dashes up. Mama can I have some bread—

  —Soon, Jesse. Keep back from the fire.

  Granddaddy’s Silvy once told our fortunes. She said I would have many, many children. She said Martha would have sorrows and grow fat. Martha was thin as a post the last I saw her, half starved in the fort and watching me go. But not everything can be foreseen, no matter how you try.

  With Jesse I fetch more wood. If it is for Polly that Israel comes back, so be it. They will not be allowed to marry yet. She is a child still, I remind myself, and my son is young too. They can live here and wait, and grow tired of each other, and realize it before they are bound for life. And perhaps find others more suited.

  I pour in more water and set the big kettle boiling properly again. There is plenty of firewood, beautifully split. A lovely dry cidery smell from the exposed centres of the logs. Plenty of everything. I send Jesse indoors to wait for lunch, and I watch the bubbling in the pot.

  When the girls come back up from the creek with a basket of wet sheets, Polly is not with them.

  —Where did she go?

  Levina says:

  —She is at the creek, Ma. She says she is not coming up.

  —There she may stay then.

  The girls set the basket down and begin to pull out the wet twists of linen. They are quiet. They do not know what to say. I feel their expectations: Ma ought to go and scold Polly, Ma ought to beat her. What will happen now?

  Children like to see rules put on other children. They need rules. But I am not going to Polly now. She has unsettled me more than I like. The girls put the sheets into the pot and I send them for more water. They look back at me as they go towards the creek again with their pails. Are you coming, Ma? But I do not go. I feel their other questions: Jemima is what? What should not be spoken of? Ma. Ma. Ma.

  * * *

  With all the Ma-ing at me, I might as well be a sheep—

  A cow—

  What woman has not felt herself a cow? The pit of my belly aches again.

  The girls keep away from me, doing their work quietly the rest of the morning. After lunch they help me lay out the last of the wash on the grass. After dinner, they help fold things and hang some still-damp stockings before the fire.

  —Have you seen Polly since this morning?

  Becky looks at her sisters and swings her foot. She says:

  —I have not.

  Levina says eagerly:

  —I can go and look for her, Ma.

  —No.

  Levina sits back as if I have slapped her. She is easily hurt, and it shows all over her long face. I wonder sometimes whether it is my ma she looks like. Her hair is a great reddish tangle. I go to her and work a knot loose, and say more softly:

  —She will come when she is ready. Go and brush your hair.

  —No dinner for Polly.

  Jesse comes up to say this, stern as a preacher. The girls have been telling him tales. Perhaps most boys are born with stern blood, preacher blood, soldier blood.

  Once they are all quieter, knitting and talking, I take a lamp outside. It is close to dark, with the full moon coming up clear. I breathe the colder air. I walk the yard, looking behind the sheds. In the field, I walk the lines of dry cornstalks. Everything is all right here. The lamp makes odd shadows against the plants and the trees along the edge of the field.

  I see nothing.

  A smell of old smoke from the washing-pot fire, soap lingering in the cooled puddles. I lift the lamp higher and go down the path to the creek. The water is quiet, the creek is lower than last week. At the bank I stop to listen. A mockingbird rustles and cries in a tree upstream, but there is nothing else.

  I shine the lamp high around me. Nothing. My arm shakes, holding it up, and I think of Polly, wet and shaking somewhere beneath a tree.

  —Polly.

  I say it softly. No answer comes, not even from the bird. I hope the girl has the sense to make herself a shelter of some kind.

  I open my mouth to speak again but before I can say a word, my neck pricks, my thumbs prick. Someone is here.

  I turn slowly, keeping the lamp high, and I look into the dark as best I can.

  —Polly, where have you been?

  A low short laugh. A man’s laugh.

  —And so you are back. Have you seen Polly? And where have you been, Israel? The pair of you have given me enough worry. Come on to the house.

  He comes along the trees from up the creek. I cannot see him well. Only that he is leading an animal.

  —Where did you get a horse? What have you been doing?

  Israel laughs again. He is taking his time. The horse gives a puff. He stops to stroke its nose and murmur to it.

  The voice.

  The lines of the body.

  The hair on my head lifts. I step forward, I hardly know I am walking, I nearly drop the lamp. It hisses. I step again, again. He is walking slowly. I am closer. I breathe out the name:

  —Neddy.

  I cannot step again. I stand without moving. I am sure I am asleep. My whole back pricks now as though it is trying to wake me. I begin to cry, I cannot help myself—I say:

  —You are here.

  He comes closer, close enough for me to see his face in the light. He is not smiling. Not Neddy. He is Daniel—

  HIS FACE HARDENS as I watch.

  —No welcome, Rebecca? None?

  I am hardly breathing. I cannot move. He says:

  —No? Well.

  He looks at the ground, then fixes his eye on me and says:

  —I thought I might as well deliver this to you myself.

  He pulls a folded page from his pouch. It looks softened and worn, like old leather. He says:

  —Have you learned to read any better? No? What have you been doing?

  I step back, but he steps with me, into the light of my lamp, and begins to read out very loudly. Some of his words—pierce me.

  They all call you a whore

  God damn you, the children are mine

  It takes the breath from my body. When he is done I snatch the paper and tear it to pieces, I burn these with the lamp, but these words are still in my mind—they will never go. I stare at him—and he says, in his strange loud voice:

  —Did you really think I was dead this time?

  —Are you?

  He gives one of his short laughs. His hair is strange, cut short and comin
g in grey. His beard is long and full of grey hairs also. An unwashed smell, old sweat and smoke. He is breathing too fast.

  —Daniel—

  He brushes his hand over his face and says:

  —Well I hardly know. But here I am.

  I shake my head:

  —Where have you—what do you want?

  —What do you think I want? Are you not at all happy to see me?

  I step back. Do not touch me. Do not appear out of the air and kiss me again as though all these months have vanished, as though I can suddenly forget. Do not come back to life, do not do this to me again.

  We continue to stare until I am able to speak:

  —Why would you come for me now? You did not want us any longer. You liked your Indian life, we all heard it from Andy Johnson when he got back to the fort.

  —So you did not think me dead, and you left anyway.

  —I did not know what to think. I did not want to know. You were gone.

  —And you were undone.

  The whore undone. They all call you a whore. His letter is still in my ears. I never asked to be spoken of, to become a tale to amuse everyone, Polly or the people at that terrible fort. I tell him:

  —You can call me whatever you like, but the children are not yours.

  —This is no news to me, thank you. Though Jemima is mine now, did you not hear me? Did she not stay at the fort with me?

  The lamp throws weird shadows over his face and under his eyes. I ask:

  —How is she, Jemima?

  —She is well enough without her mother. And do you care nothing about the fort? Have you missed it? Or have you missed nothing at all?

  He is so angry, he has been saving it up. The old anger surges up in me also. I know it is stronger than his. I keep still, and I say:

  —Where have you been all this time?

  He turns on his heel, then back again. He looks fiercely at my face, trying to see through me. I keep still. His rage bursts out again, he is like one of the little boys when he says:

  —I thought you would be glad enough to see me. I thought to make you happy.

  —You have not made me happy.

  His face falls. He looks very old suddenly, and very thin and hungry.

  —Daniel—

  He tries one of his smiles. Deep lines show in his cheeks and around his hollow eyes. He says:

  —You may call me Danny again. I do not mind.

  He gives a little bow. When he is upright again he winces and shifts his shoulders and neck. My own breathing pains me. I cannot live through this again. I clasp my hands tightly:

  —What hurts you?

  He touches his shoulder and he says:

  —Well. You hurt me. I thought my wife would be welcoming to one six months a prisoner.

  —Six months? You have been gone nearly ten. Where else have you been, other than with your Indians? Who else imprisoned you? Or is that something else you will not bother to tell me.

  —Why should I tell you anything? You will believe whatever you like.

  —You told me plenty in that letter just now, Daniel. How long did it take you to write?

  I point to the ash scattered at my feet, the remains of his words. The wind shifts them along the ground. He says:

  —You wrote to me as well. You left me that letter to find at the fort, full of loving things, saying you were going without another thought. I do not care if you are dead, I will not wait for you—so you said. Who wrote it for you? One of your brothers? Or Ned?

  Neddy’s face is in my eyes for a moment. Daniel’s face, only soft and clean, full of tenderness. I never told—

  —How did—

  His face twists:

  —I know. Everyone knows. I was one of the later ones to know it, in fact. Did he write that letter using your arse for a desk, in my cabin, in my bed?

  I have bitten the inside of my cheek without knowing. A thin taste of blood. I say:

  —Daniel. Daniel. Why are you back now?

  —This is my home. My children need me, even if my wife does not.

  —You do not believe in home, you never did. They do not need you. They are safe and well, they are happy.

  —How can they be happy and safe and well without their father?

  —They think you—

  Are dead—

  But before I can say it a white shape crashes through the dark, breaking twigs and crying.

  Daniel’s horse rears and dances back. He lunges for its bridle and puts his hand over its nearest eye, pulling its head round and murmuring into its ear. I swing the lamp out to see what is in the trees. A few gasps, and the figure is on the ground a few yards from us.

  Daniel’s knife sends the light back to me as he wrenches it from its sheath. He is standing stiff as a startled animal. I say:

  —No.

  —Help me, I am so cold.

  The voice is pitiable in the darkness. Polly’s good-girl voice, soft as Martha’s can be when she likes. Daniel leaves the horse and strides towards her. His legs are shaking. I say:

  —Put the knife away, Daniel, Daniel—it is only Polly.

  —Daniel?

  Polly’s voice is louder. Daniel’s legs have given way and he is kneeling. He speaks in his usual way though he looks likely to faint:

  —Well. Miss Polly, is it? How do? And what are you doing out in only a shift? Damp too, you will catch cold.

  He takes off his shirt to put over her. His ribs show like a rake all down his side. He is scarred.

  I go over too and take off my apron. When I hold it out to Polly lying on the ground, I say:

  —Where have you been?

  But she is not looking at me. She is shivering, her eyes teary and squinting in my light. Her hair has dried loose every which way over her neck and shoulders. She reaches towards him unafraid, bold as can be:

  —You are—Daniel? Then you are my daddy now.

  Daniel’s eyes light on me, swift and full of old accusation. But he says softly to Polly:

  —Am I? If you say so.

  —She is one of my uncle’s children, Daniel. All mine now, living here. In my house.

  —I am Rebecca’s cousin.

  What is this talk from Polly? She has never called me by my name. Always Ma, Ma.

  Daniel reaches for her hand and says:

  —Well we had best get her into the house then.

  He does not say your house. He gets her to her feet though he is thin, so thin she nearly topples him. He loves to give pity. He loves to think himself a help.

  He puts my apron round her shoulders, over his own shirt. The sash catches under her foot as he tries to tuck it round her, and tears in two strips. Another apron of mine he has ruined. And again he is in my house.

  God damn you, the children are mine—

  HOW DO I SAY—Here is your daddy, he is not dead at all!

  I do not say it. They see him come in with an arm around Polly and they are all screaming with delight, mad with joy. They nearly knock him down, trying to touch him. Polly’s brothers and sisters are as bad as my own children, though they do not know him. Even my quiet fretful Levina is running round him smiling, and he is holding her face and saying she has just the look of his ma now. I stand outside the door, the horse cropping my garden herbs over the fence behind me. My little Jesse has both arms tight round Daniel’s waist.

  How do they know him, half naked, his hair gone, his beard so long and grey? He is laughing. His own smell begins to warm and cut through the smoky scent. He says:

  —Here I am again.

  It is all he has to say. They believe it. They would believe anything he told them.

  I turn back to look at the night. Israel—

  As if he has heard me, Daniel calls:

  —I do not see my son Israel.

  And in half a moment he is here, walking out of the dark field with great strides, looking towards the light of the open door and his father standing in it.

  He goes straight past me.
He is dirty too, smelling of over-smoked jerk and bear grease, his dark hair slick with it. At least he has had something to eat while he has been gone.

  —Daddy—

  Israel’s voice is full of tears. Daniel pulls him into his arms though Israel is far taller than he is now. They stand together, the younger ones circling like minnows. Israel says:

  —I thought you were—

  —I am not.

  —I thought—

  —Well here I am. Just look.

  They stare at each other and begin to laugh. Daniel holds Israel’s face in his hands. They are all laughing now, as though it were all some great joke. I have to walk out into the yard. My face is boiling with heat. The cold of the night is like a slap. My bowels will run away with me, I will be sick. I set out towards the privy, but I stop and pull the horse from where it is eating my garden. It grunts and tries to dance away. I yank the bridle and twist it round my fist so the horse cannot raise its head again. If I had a switch, I would whip its back to ribbons.

  * * *

  I stay outside the door far past the younger ones’ bedtime, where I can hear the questionings and Daniel’s proud talk. I cannot go in.

  —Where were you, Daddy?

  —With the Indians. They took us captive, but they liked the looks of me and adopted me. I have a Shawnee father and mother now.

  —Why did they not come here with you?

  —They did not like to leave their town.

  —Can we go to their town?

  —Perhaps one day. You would like it there. Live in a wigwam and be merry all day.

  —What do they eat? I might not like it.

  —You would like it. All of it delicious. Fish as big as your leg. Big as all your legs together.

  They laugh, even when there is nothing to laugh at. He tells them that he was washed in the river before the Indian chief would have him as his son. They were all washed, he says, but he was the cleanest of all.

  Here he stops for a moment, and I know he is thinking of that place and the people there. Polly says she is still cold and asks him to stoke up the fire, and he leaps to do it. He heaps too much wood on, but no one says anything, though they will be struck by burning drops of pitch. The floor will singe.