By the Light of My Father's Smile (20 page)

Everyone thinks so, of course, said Susannah.

There was a silence as a bird, just outside the windows, trilled a sweet note.

Pauline laughed.

Susannah looked at her.

I am just thinking, she said, that all over America black folks are having this same conversation, while they are toking away.

Susannah shrugged. It's a natural conversation that grows out of toking.

Yes, I think so, said Irene. I had to give up cigarettes because
they were giving me cancer, but I can still toke. Actually, you know, I learned how to toke from the little people. Everywhere they live, every single camp, has its own ganja garden. It grows wild everywhere in the forest, but because the Forest People make camp in clearings where there is sun, that is where you always find the healthiest marijuana.

No shit! said Pauline. And are they always stoned out of their minds?

Irene took another puff. Of course not, she said, exhaling. As with everything else, they use just enough. To them it is a sacred plant, perhaps the most sacred.

Why is that? asked Susannah. If all their plants, the trees, the whole forest, are considered sacred.

Pauline had turned on her stomach and was raptly following the struggle of a large beetle that had flown in the window. Hitting the wall, it had fallen to the floor and now lay on its back, waving its half-dozen orange legs.

A creature as handsome as you must have a mate waiting somewhere, she said to the beetle, turning it over with a finger and urging it to fly off.

It is considered the most sacred because it is the plant that permits humans and trees, nature, to talk. It is the translator, so to speak.

Wow, said Susannah. I always felt that, you know.

Here they claim it leads to crack cocaine addiction, mayhem and murder, said Pauline. But that's probably only if it's grown by peasant slaves in Honduras or Colombia, and all their tears and blood get mixed in with the fear and pesticide.

The perfect ganja, in my experience, said Susannah, is always grown by women. It is always grown with love. It is a plant that responds to feelings.

How do you know? asked Pauline.

Susannah winked. Writers experiment.

I see, said Pauline, dropping the butt as it burned to her fingers.

So your government floods your communities with drugs, horrible ones, said Irene, dreamily, like the British did with opium in China, and then it comes in and arrests the young men for having them.

That's about it, said Susannah.

And then the people with money to invest, invest it in the building of prisons. They've been kicked out of South Africa and other places where their profits kept them in power for hundreds of years. And so all your young men are imprisoned.

Do we really want to go there? said Pauline, sourly, thinking of Richard, her son, and of her grandsons, Bratman and Will.

But Susannah and Irene laughed. You know how you can't get off the stream of consciousness you're on when you're stoned! said Susannah, poking at her arm.

All right, then, said Pauline. Let's fucking play it out.

But having said that she seemed to forget what the conversation was about, as did Susannah and Irene.

They shifted their bodies on their cushions, leaned against the wall of the room, closing their eyes against the setting sun, and drifted into separate reveries.

Irene had arrived two days before. She'd docked her boat at the city marina and arrived by limousine at Susannah's door.

Susannah was standing in the doorway of a small gray-shingle cottage, overgrown with roses and night-flowering jasmine.

Although she was expecting a visit from Irene, she was still astonished to see the enormous black car pull up to her gate. Two huge men got out and stood at attention as tiny Irene was helped from the backseat by a third.

Are those bodyguards? Susannah whispered, after she and Irene had briefly hugged.

Yes, Irene said. What a drag it is to have them. But I was warned your neighborhood is not safe.

Not as safe as your church, said Susannah, a bit stung.

Don't be upset, said Irene. I go everywhere with them. She shrugged. I inherited them from my father. They come with the boat. Their fathers used to be bodyguards for him. He was such a reprobate he needed to be guarded.

And you are so tiny, Susannah finished the thought in her mind, that you need to be protected.

Irene was indeed small. Smaller than when Susannah had visited her in her church in Greece. She seemed much older, too, though only five years or so had passed. Her hair was white-orchid white. The lines were deep in her face. Such a good face! Inquisitive and open. Susannah felt her heart warm as she ushered her into her house.

Pauline had been dying to meet her.

I've never met a dwarf before, she'd said. What do I do, bow?

This had made Susannah laugh.

You'll have to bow, just to shake her hand, she'd said. But it's not a big deal. Her small size is not the most important thing about Irene.

What is it, then? Pauline had asked.

Susannah pondered the question. After a moment she said: It is her intelligence, her will. It is also her courage. She has managed to live by herself,
with
herself, for two-thirds of a century without losing her mind.

Oh, I could do that! said Pauline, jokingly.

You could not, said Susannah. And neither could I.

And now, as the light faded, Pauline stirred.

In the prisons they force them to work for nothing, she said.

What? asked Irene.

In the prisons where the young men are kept—and young women too, lest we forget—they are forced to work; to make clothing, baseballs, batteries, what have you, for peanuts.

They are a huge pool of exploitable labor, said Susannah.

Why, said Irene, it reminds me of something. Something from television, something from American films.

It's a plantation, said Susannah. The prisons are a contemporary plantation, and what is produced is produced by slave labor.

Our children are in there forever, said Pauline.

Not Richard, said Susannah, warmly. And not Bratman and Will.

Maybe I shouldn't offer joints to their mother, said Pauline, suddenly sober, as Susannah smiled. Seriously. I don't want to be a menace to them. Teach them bad habits.

I believe in the essential goodness of marijuana, said Susannah, even if all the world turns against her. The occasional toke is not a bad habit. Except for idiots.

As I was saying, said Pauline, maybe I shouldn't tamper with my grandsons' mother.

Irene, Susannah, and Pauline laughed.

The only bad thing is that it makes you want to eat, said Irene. But, she said, reaching deep into a bulging string bag that rested on the floor beside her, for every little sickness there is a little cure. Saying this, she pulled from the bag an exquisitely wrapped box of Perugina chocolates. Upon which the three women ravenously fell.

I like Pauline [Paul-een-nay], said Irene next day. To get over their hangover she and Susannah walked slowly through the community rose garden, stopping frequently to sniff a fragrant rose.

Although, Irene continued thoughtfully, she is unfortunately named for a man who, through the church, caused extensive oppression of women, although most people are taught that he was all about charity and love.

Who is that? asked Susannah, stopping by a trellis on which a white rose draped its profuse flowers in scented drifts.

St. Paul, of course. The one who hated women so much he demanded their silence in the church and obedience to their husbands forever.

Gosh, said Susannah, and I thought she was named for her father. His name's Paul.

Your Indians here are right to let their children's names come to them long after they are born, said Irene. I learned this is what they do from reading. Everyone's name should be special to them. If you're not careful you can be hauling around a name that insults you every time it's used.

Oh, Susannah, oh don't you cry for me! Susannah began to sing.

Yes, said Irene, I know that song. For I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee!

Hearing the familiar song in Irene's accent made Susannah smile.

My father used to sing that song to me all the time when I was little. He was dark and dark-eyed. He had a beautiful warm smile. He'd sing it with great enthusiasm, and always while down on one knee.

What a sweet image, said Irene. And the Alabama Indians, did they play the banjo?

Were there Alabama Indians? asked Susannah. And if there were Alabama Indians, I don't think so. How do you know so much more about America than I do?

But of course there were Alabama Indians, said Irene. Mississippi Indians. But not Indians named Georgia, I don't think. Florida ones, though, I believe.

All those names of people, tribes, that no longer exist. People using them and never realizing it. It's chilling.

They were seated now in a bower out of the sun. Irene's breath was short and she was beginning to perspire.

Well, said Susannah, at least Pauline's first name is Lily.

Is it? asked Irene, clapping her hands.

Why, is that good? asked Susannah.

It is the best, said Irene. The lily is the flower of Lilith, the first mother. The rough one who was bored by Adam and went off to have adventures elsewhere. The one before Eve.

Really? asked Susannah.

Yes. It is really, the lily, an ancient symbol for the yoni. People used to think that with just a lily and her yoni a woman could impregnate herself.

You can't be serious!

Yes, and when the Goddess Hathor squeezed milk from her breasts to form the Milky Way, the drops that fell to earth became calla lilies.

So Lily is a powerful name. Perhaps it is the Lily that controls Paul.

Susannah laughed.

It has been the most amazing experience, being with her, she said. She is exactly like some kind of ghetto goddess, in the best possible sense. Someone who's created her own life and lives it to the hilt. However, I think now that our time together is running out.

I am sorry to hear that, said Irene.

Lily Paul wants to get married. I do not. I am already married to a life of experimentation, change. I feel I must try all of life—at least, all of life that interests me—before I can truly understand that all of life suits me. If I marry I'm afraid I'll turn to stone.

That would sound fine in a philosophy course, said Irene, but what is, as you say here, the nitty-gritty? (Neaty-greety.)

Although her own life is perfectly amazing, said Susannah, she wants mine.

What do you mean?

She wants the life she thinks I had. The “idyllic” childhood. The educated parents. The rides in the car. The experience of Mexico. Although we travel everywhere, as the grown women we both are now, and have the opportunity to enjoy it. But it isn't enough for her. She keeps trying to give the experiences she dreamed of as a child to the woman she is now. It doesn't work, and when it doesn't she becomes angry with me. She looks at me and I feel her saying: You had everything in childhood, and now you also have this. It isn't fair!

Did you tell her how you also suffered?

Susannah was surprised by Irene's comment. She frowned, slightly. By comparison with Pauline she did not think she had suffered very much. How do you know I suffered? she asked.

Irene shrugged, a gesture that involved her whole small body and that she had perfected.

Everyone has suffered, she said. In childhood, I would say, everyone has suffered. It is self-evident.

How, self-evident? asked Susannah.

Irene sighed. Look at the world, she said.

Oh, said Susannah.

The other thing is, she said, as they slowly continued their walk, which was now downhill and somewhat easier for Irene, I am metamorphosing into something different, I don't know what yet. But it feels strongly solitary.

I noticed your dress, said Irene.

My dress? said Susannah.