“Wasn’t neither,” said Algeria, “but you got your mind made up, don’t do no good arguin’ with somebody stubborn like you.” Her tone had changed, though, and I could detect the shift to bantering.
“And the funny thing about it,” Birdie resumed, taking up Algeria’s playful tone, “was that I could almost declare that you pulled that pan of potatoes in toward yourself on purpose, like you were trying to protect me. Oh yes, there’s no doubt in my mind that I was the culprit from start to finish. It’s awfully nice of you to try to take part of the blame, but I just won’t let you do it.”
“You don’t make no sense,” Algeria said. “How come you doin’ it?”
“Doing what?” Birdie said.
“Bein’ so nice like that all the time. Like everybody else so good and nice you can’t think nothin’ bad ’bout ’em. People mean, ’n you know it. You always talkin’ nice—how Francine so funny ’n Margaret so smart ’n somebody else so purty. And you always goin’ ’round givin’ people stuff.” (Birdie had brought Algeria a tin of homemade divinity that very morning.) “People mean, girl,” she repeated.
“Oh well, I know we’re not all saints and angels,” said Birdie. “I know I’m not, that’s for sure. But God’s been so good to me, and the way I see it, Algeria, I’m not going to be here on earth very long. Nobody is. So I can either make up my mind to be happy and kind and show the love of Jesus, or I can be a negative sort of person and miss out on…well, on everything.”
“You crazy, girl, plum crazy,” Algeria said, and as I saw her exiting the pantry, I put my pen to the chart and recorded beside the date the numeral 40, though to be honest, I had not yet looked at the thermometer inside the refrigerator.
After overhearing the conversation between Birdie and Algeria, I returned to my desk in a state of agitation and prepared to leave, these being the thoughts that filled my mind: First, Birdie’s moralistic sermonizing concerning one’s years on earth brought to my mind a similar statement by Sarah, or “Sadie,” Delany in the aforementioned book Having Our Say, the book I was, in fact, currently reading at home. At the end of chapter eighteen, Sadie proclaims, “Life is short, and it’s up to you to make it sweet.”
I have no reason, I suppose, to doubt the sincerity of either Birdie or Sadie, but I admit to feeling a flush of impatience toward them both. What narrow, tidy, untroubled lives they must have lived to be able to cling to such a philosophy, I thought. I would like to have presented them with a variety of scenarios and asked them both how they would propose making such a life “sweet” or “happy.”
I would like to have invited them both for a private reading of selected chapters from some of the books I had read. Gal: A True Story by Ruthie Bolton could have served well. After reading several chapters to them, I would have asked, “Would the mere act of making up her mind to be happy have transformed Gal’s life into a good, sweet one?” Although Gal’s grandfather did not approach my own in the degree of his moral degradation, happiness and sweetness were out of the realm of possibility for her, given the indisputable reality of her circumstances.
Though I meant at this time never again to share my own dark memories with anyone else, after having unintentionally divulged the truth to Joan, I could not help wondering how Birdie Freeman and Sadie Delany—one a white woman and the other black—would have stretched their shared ideology, pat and rosy, to accommodate a past such as mine.
I did not think only of myself, however. Knowing very little of Algeria’s personal life, I nevertheless felt reasonably confident from her general saturnine demeanor and occasional verbal flares that she had been allotted a generous portion of sorrow. As I left the kitchen, walked through the lunchroom, and approached my car in the minutes that followed, I indulged in a few moments of speculation concerning Algeria.
Was she presently ruminating, as was I? Was she privately arguing with the idealistic preachments of Birdie Freeman, a woman whose life had apparently borne no blemish of shame or cruelty? These thoughts perhaps marked for me a turning point of sorts, for until this time I had rarely wondered about the lives of real individuals within my circle of acquaintance. If asked to name those whom I knew most intimately, my list would have been composed largely of the names of characters in books.
Had Birdie’s world been destroyed as mine had been following my thirteenth birthday, would she have grown up to be happy and kind? Had she, or I, been born black and underprivileged—two conditions not invariably paired, of course, as illustrated in the case of the Delany sisters, though Algeria would surely argue otherwise—would we have achieved lives of sweetness and joy? After a life breaks apart like a tree ripped asunder by a violent storm, can it take root again? After one’s heart crumbles, can one gather up the fragments that remain and make them whole again? Can debris be reassembled into beauty? It was the last Monday of September when I posed these questions to myself in that order, and I answered each of them without hesitation: No.
It is now more than nine months later, however, and I am reinvestigating the matter. In the process of laying out on paper the past months, I mean to discover the clue to another riddle song, that of Birdie Freeman. Of a certainty there is something in one’s soul, in the heartwood of his being, that is imperishable. When one leaves the wildwood, does he not carry with him something from oak and pine that is indestructible, that remembers the promise of spring?
Part Two
To Be Forever Mine
11
The Handwriting of Ordinances
Birdie was a formidable opponent. One can see what I was up against. As the weeks wore on, she made herself indispensable at Emma Weldy by virtue of her tireless generosity. I cannot begin to chronicle the sum of her dealings with others, each interaction giving evidence of her fundamental and unceasing kindness. I realize as my chapters mount that I cannot tell it all, that by the end I must be prepared to admit, as the Queen of Sheba, that the half has not been told. I must therefore carefully choose the events to include, those that will best define the essence of Birdie Freeman.
From the beginning she rarely appeared at work without a gift for someone, and I believe it is accurate to say that before six weeks had passed, that is by the first of October, everyone at the school knew Birdie by name and everyone loved her, though for my part I continued to behave outwardly as if I could scarcely tolerate her presence. Her ministrations extended beyond the kitchen walls. By October she had volunteered to help the music teacher, Miss Grissom, with the Emma Weldy Singers on Monday and Thursday afternoons.
While waiting for Mickey to pick her up after school one day, Birdie had sat in the back of the music room during one of Miss Grissom’s rehearsals, after which she had inquired of Miss Grissom concerning the possibility of putting her time to use by helping to pass out books, file music, prepare bulletin board materials, and so forth. When Miss Grissom discovered that Birdie played the piano, she had asked whether she would consent to serve as accompanist so that Miss Grissom could devote her full attention to conducting the group. Heretofore Miss Grissom’s conducting technique had consisted primarily of bobbing her head and shouting instructions as she herself played the piano score for each number.
Moreover, by October Birdie had further endeared herself to the entire school by offering to type up what she called “our very own school newspaper with samples of all the little children’s stories.” The inception of the idea had taken place one afternoon near dismissal time when she had gone to Mrs. Tina Lowry’s second-grade classroom to return a child’s lunch box that had been left on one of the cafeteria tables. As Birdie told it, the pupils were reading stories they had written about autumn, and she reported, “They were just the cutest things!”
I heard her talking to Algeria and Francine about the experience in the days that followed. “You know, it’s too bad all the other children and teachers couldn’t hear those stories” and “I wonder if the children in other grades are writing stories like that, too” and “To see that lit
tle ragamuffin of a boy looking so proud and cheerful reading that story of his about the little twirly-pods, he called them, blowing down from the trees. Why, it just reminded me of how simple and precious little children are.” I could imagine Birdie standing in the back of Miss Lowry’s classroom, her hands laid to her cheeks, her mouth opened wide, her eyes sparkling as she listened.
The following week she asked Mr. Solomon, the principal, if he would allow her to solicit from the teachers samples of their students’ stories so that she could compile a collection and type a master copy to be duplicated for distribution to all the children. Before talking with Mr. Solomon, Birdie had calculated the exact cost of the paper and staples needed and made it clear that she would donate her time to do the typing, duplicating, and collating. At that first meeting with Mr. Solomon, she had even suggested a few names for the “newspaper,” as she called it, which I felt to be a misnomer.
As the mascot of the school was a sheep—purportedly designated by the first principal of Emma Weldy in 1940, who pointed out that the school’s initials spelled EWES, though I felt the choice to be an unfortunate one, for the sheep is not a bright animal—Birdie proposed the name EWES-ful News and suggested that an art contest be held among the students for an appropriate picture to serve as the newspaper mascot: a sheep reading a newspaper, perhaps. As other choices, she offered the titles The Ram’s Horn, featuring a picture of a sheep blowing a horn, Bo-Peep’s Treasures, and Sheep Tales, the last being Algeria’s contribution.
The plan was approved, presented to the teachers at one of their weekly meetings, and set into motion in mid-October. From that time forth, as the teachers escorted their students through the lunch line, they spoke to Birdie as to a personal friend, frequently handing her sets of papers, which she put into a large canvas bag to read at home. It was Birdie’s desire to surprise the children with each issue of Sheep Tales, which was the title subsequently selected by a schoolwide vote. She did not want them to know beforehand whose stories would appear in print. I overheard her explaining to Francine that she was “keeping a written record with tally marks by each child’s name so that lots of different children can have their stories in the paper.”
Our piano lessons continued on Tuesdays and Fridays, and as I have said, on Mondays and Thursdays Birdie assisted Miss Grissom with the choir. This left her with but one weekday afternoon, Wednesday, to fill as she waited for Mickey’s arrival at about three-thirty from his job in Spartanburg. Because I generally made my departure an hour before she left, my desk was unoccupied during her wait.
The Tuesday after Mr. Solomon granted his permission for the school paper, Birdie walked with me to my car following my piano lesson at her home. I was progressing “like a house on fire,” according to Birdie, and she had just told me before we exited the house that I “ought to think about giving a little recital in a month or two for a few friends,” to which I replied that I had absolutely no intention of ever doing such a thing.
“Margaret,” she said hesitantly as we neared the car, and I steeled myself to resist what I expected to be a listing of gentle arguments in favor of a piano recital. But her mind was on a different subject now. “Margaret, I’ve been wondering,” she said, “if you’d let me use your desk at work on Wednesday afternoons for about an hour after you leave.” This was characteristic of Birdie, at times, to drop a matter without remonstrance yet immediately take up another.
I disapproved of the idea at once. I suppose I am in many ways a territorial person, and the thought of someone else sitting at my desk was disagreeable to me. “I leave my desk in order at the end of the day, and I want to find it undisturbed when I return each morning,” I said. By this I meant to communicate a negative response to her request. I opened the car door and seated myself behind the steering wheel.
Smiling, she closed the door and gestured with a swiveling of her wrist for me to lower my window. “Well, I can sure promise you I won’t touch a thing,” she said with grateful mien. “Why, you won’t find so much as a paper clip out of place!” I understood then that she had interpreted my words to be the stipulation for her using my desk rather than a clear statement of opposition.
I tried again. “I do not want others to work at my desk.”
Again she misunderstood. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be the only one. I won’t open your office up for general use! Nobody else even has to know about it. And I’ll keep your desk so neat you’ll never even know I was there.”
She placed both hands over the top of the car window, bent down—though she was so small she did not have far to bend—and smiled joyously at me. I knew that in order to make her understand I would have to be brutally direct. “No, Birdie,” I would have to say, “you may not seat yourself at my desk, not on Wednesday afternoon or any other afternoon. The answer again is no.”
However, glancing at her guileless face, I knew that the time for refusal was past. I could not correct her misconception. I believe that I could have done so two weeks, or perhaps even one week, earlier, but I could not do it now. Because she herself was so genuinely magnanimous and selfless, she found it easy, I suppose, to assume the same of others. More than once she took my words and translated them into saintly utterances.
“Thank you, Margaret,” she said now. “I won’t be a bit of trouble, I promise. I thought I could read some of the children’s stories or maybe write letters and notes while I wait for Mickey. I sure appreciate it, and you can count on me to keep it nice the way you like it.”
I inserted the key into the ignition and began rolling up the window. “Margaret,” she said, raising her voice over the sound of the engine, “I wish you wouldn’t keep leaving that money on the piano after every lesson. It sure makes me feel bad that you won’t let me do it without pay. That was my offer, remember?”
Through the half-closed window I replied, “I will not accept the lessons free of charge. I have told you this before. It can be no other way.”
“You’re just really something else, Margaret,” she said. I suppose she had picked up the expression from Francine. “It’s so hard for you to take—” but she stopped and appeared to give a small sigh. She tipped her head to one side and smiled at me again.
“I know you’ve got to know this already,” she said, “but I’m going to say it anyway. You’re an awfully pretty woman, Margaret. You carry yourself so tall and dignified, and you’re just…well, pretty.” I felt myself stiffen as she continued. “You’ve got such a pretty complexion and such pretty eyes. And your beautiful curly hair and your hands—but I guess people must tell you this all the time. It’s one thing to be smart like you are, but when you’re smart and pretty—well, that’s just a real special combination.”
The top half of Birdie’s face was framed by the narrow open rectangle above the car window. Her eyes, the color of strong tea, shone with simple goodness. She was wrong, of course. People did not tell me such things all the time, although in high school someone had once said that I looked like the girl in National Velvet. Before we were married, Thomas had told me that I was a “looker,” and, of course, I will not pretend to be blind to what my own eyes tell me when I stand before a mirror. As a girl, however, I viewed pulchritude as a handicap, my mind continuously playing back the dreaded sound of my grandfather’s sonorous nighttime murmurings: Be still, Marg, shhh…you’re such a beautiful girl…a beautiful girl, always spoken menacingly as if it were a curse. Perhaps if I were ugly, I had often thought, I would be free from his horrible acts.
I shifted my gaze past Birdie’s face to the fence some distance behind her, the fence that apparently marked the boundary between her yard and the Shepherd’s Valley Cemetery. “Fences taut as the lines on sheet music.” Annie Proulx had described such a fence in her novel Postcards, which I had recently finished reading, a book full of startling descriptions in a hardy, spare, energetic style. Miss Proulx’s Shipping News is also a marvel of brilliant, laconic prose. Beyond the cemetery fence I saw the rows of headst
ones and bright clusters of artificial flowers. A green Mortland Funeral Home tent stood at the site of a new grave.
“Well, good day,” I said, glancing briefly at Birdie and then shifting my car into reverse gear. Though I felt in that moment a peculiar void that I knew could most likely be filled only by verbalizing some measure of gratitude to Birdie, I could not form the words. What could I say? “Your praise of my physical attributes is most kind”? “Your piano instruction is most helpful”? “Your employment at Emma Weldy is proving beneficial in ways which I had not anticipated”? All of these were true, of course, but I could not say such things. It did not occur to me simply to say, “Thank you.”
Birdie stepped back from the car and waved. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow!” she called. “Thank you again for saying I can use your desk!”
Perpendicular to the driveway was a gravel extension suitable for the turning around of a vehicle. This I did. As I drove slowly down Birdie’s narrow driveway, I saw her through the rearview mirror. She stood in the same place and continued waving, not a great flapping of the hand but rather a small circular gesture like the wiping of a smudged pane.
As I drove home that day and as I went about my housekeeping duties, I recall musing over what manner of woman I might have been had my mother not died and left me in the hands of my ignoble grandfather. Not that it was my mother’s wish that I be consigned, upon her death, to the home of my grandparents. Indeed, she would have moved heaven and earth to prohibit such an arrangement had she foreseen her untimely death.
I do not know by what means my grandparents were identified and contacted following the death of my mother. I only remember that a neighbor in Dayton, Ohio—a large, friendly woman, soft and loose of flesh, named Mrs. Gault—knocked on our apartment door one afternoon in mid-June and called to me, “Margaret! Margaret, are you there? Come to the door! It’s about your mother!” Mrs. Gault was the only neighbor whom Mother had ever invited into our home. The two of them frequently played Scrabble and drank hot tea together on Saturdays, and I had been allowed to join them upon a few occasions.
Some Wildflower In My Heart Page 14
