Cion (10 page)

After Beth Eddy has expressed her own feelings about the incident—how she felt soiled and violated by it and how she thought her life was in danger—the mediators ask the parties what they think the solution should be. To my surprise Obed expresses his remorse and asks to be forgiven for his foolish and thoughtless behavior. He vows that never again will he play such dirty tricks on anyone as long as he lives, and he is willing to put that in writing, provided Beth puts it in writing that she will withdraw all the charges she has laid against him at the police station. Beth is ready to forgive him unconditionally when I butt in. Surely the young man must not get off so lightly. I remind Beth: “When I spoke with you yesterday you said there should be some restitution before you withdraw the case.”

“He has shown remorse,” says Beth.

“Obed and I think that is not enough,” I insist, looking at Obed for confirmation. “We think there should be some kind of restitution.”

“We don’t think no such thing,” says an indignant Obed.

“Oh, yes, we do!” I stand my ground.

“Hey, you ain’t even supposed to be here,” he screams at me.

“Perhaps he can paint your sorority house,” I suggest. “Why don’t you discuss it with your sisters? I’ll help him if he needs an assistant.”

The woman mediator does not think it’s a good idea to let Obed loose anywhere near the sorority house. Who will guarantee the girls’ safety?

Once again Beth surprises me.

“I think it is a good idea,” she says. “I’ll call you after talking with my housemates.”

The mediators incorporate that in the agreement and both parties sign. The mediators are happy. Especially the man. The mediation has been a great success. We all shake hands. Beth and the female mediator are the first to leave while the man asks me about my origins and what I think of their beautiful city and the fine weather that was quite foggy in the morning. As we walk out of the office Obed glares at me and mutters: “I thought you was my friend, man. I thought you was my freakin’ friend.”

“I think I
am
your freaking friend, Obed,” I say, chuckling to myself.

The man stands at the door and calls after Obed: “Hope you’ve learned your lesson, Mr. Quigley.”

“I sure have. No more playing with them girls’ breasts.”

“And no more dumping bottles at Kroger,” says the man, wagging his finger at him.

Obed is slightly taken aback. He didn’t think the man had recognized him. He didn’t imagine he remembered after all these years.

“Come on, man,” he says. “I was only a kid.”

Out on Court Street it is after midday and the sun has become the sun again. Yet its rays do not reflect any joy on the people’s faces. Men and women are walking in a daze, shoulders drooping and faces crestfallen. Their gait is that of mourners. Ohio has once again given America to George W. Bush and Athens’s world has come crashing down. Athens, the only county in the state to give John Kerry a landslide vote. And now, on this beautiful November 3, Kerry has conceded defeat and gloom has fallen on the Athenians’ lives. Ruth must be celebrating back in Kilvert.

Crowds have gathered on the steps of the courthouse, spilling to the sidewalks. Some are milling across the street in front of the bank. There are those who cannot contain their emotions and are weeping openly, while others are resorting to group hugs as some form of consolation.

It beats me how a rally has been organized so fast. The elections were only yesterday. The Democratic Party candidate conceded only a few hours ago. Yet here we have multitudes gathered and equipped so well for the mourning of their hero’s defeat. This has turned into an anti-war demonstration judging from the slogans on the posters and banners, none of which even mention Kerry’s name. Some read in red:
Vengeance Is Not Justice
; while others are printed in bold black:
A Call for Humane Treatment of All Detainees.
I can see the group of young women I first spotted at the parade of creatures, the Billionaires for Bush. They are the only people who are all dressed up in fur coats and extravagant-looking—but obviously fake—jewelery. They are not chanting slogans as they did at the parade, but are quietly listening to a speaker who is leaning against the pillar on the topmost step making a speech. Only the banner they are holding above their heads speaks for them:
How did our oil get under their sand?

One agitated person after another climbs the podium, grabs the megaphone and makes a speech. They all berate Bush in measured tones and pained voices. It is like we are on the set of a tragic play, which is completed by a big backdrop with photographs of American soldiers who perished in the war and bold black letters that read:
1,110 Soldiers Dead, 8,030 Wounded, 100,000 Civilian Iraqis Dead—Support Our Troops, Bring Them Back Home
.

As we walk away to the city parking garage behind the bank I can hear the demonstrators sing Holly Near’s “We Are a Gentle Angry People” in sad and subdued voices.

If I thought I would find Ruth celebrating I was deluding myself. She has taken Mr. Bush’s victory in her stride, in a matter-of-fact manner, for she knew all along that he would win. God told her so right from the beginning, even as she was casting her vote.

So, today she is spring-cleaning. That is what she calls it, even though it is not spring but fall. She does it once every few weeks, especially in fall when homes are invaded by Asian lady beetles—so called because they were first imported to these parts from China to eat aphids that destroyed trees and other agricultural crops. Now the tan little buggers with faint black spots have become a nuisance at this time of the year. A silent menace that leaves the feeding sites with the end of summer and swarms into buildings to hibernate for the winter.

They multiply at alarming rates annually because they have no natural enemies in these parts, except for Ruth and her fellow humans who are not keen to share their abodes with the pests. She seeks them out in crevices and cracks around window and door frames with a broom and sweeps them on to an old copy of the
Athens News
. After covering them with the newspaper she stamps on them with her heavy feet shod in worn-out sneakers. They emit an acrid odor and stain the paper with a yellowish secretion.

“I wouldn’t be killing them that way if I was you, Mama,” says Obed.

“You ain’t me, so shush and get working on the spring cleaning,” she says and continues to search for the enemy. She is leaning on the cane with the left hand as the right hand operates the broom, reaching for the remotest nooks in the furniture.

“They always think they are smarter than God,” she complains to no one in particular as she discovers more lady bugs hiding behind the portrait of Jesus the Shepherd on the wall. “Them crazy scientist people, I mean. They brought them bugs to our good ol’ U. S. of A. ’cause they think God didn’t know what he was doing when he created them in China.”

“Better spray them with House Defense Insect Killer, Mama,” says Obed, watching his mother with amusement, his hands in his pockets. “That way they won’t stink to heaven.”

“If the spray killed them dead the last time I used it why do I still see them here?”

“You didn’t spray the insect killer before the first freeze, Mama, that’s why. You gotta do it before the first freeze for it to work.”

Ruth turns to me and says that all Obed can do is give orders on how things should be done. That’s what he knows best. He never does anything with his own hands. He always finds the slightest excuse to shirk work. He thinks things will just fall into his lap. Like manna from heaven. He has no ambition. Just like his sister, Orpah, has no ambition. She was brilliant at school, but had no interest in furthering her education even when her classmates from the high school in Stewart went to Hocking College and at least one to the university in Athens. She had the potential to be the first university graduate in the family. Ruth nagged her no end about her lack of ambition but Mr. Quigley said she must be left alone. Mr. Quigley has always been soft with the children. Only God knows what she has done to be cursed with lazy children like this.

From the first day I landed in this country I have admired the American work ethic. Americans take pride in their work. To them service is not servitude. And they don’t “class” work. I think that’s how they got to where they are today. I wonder why Obed is so different. And Orpah. If, of course, their mother is right about them. And so far there is nothing that has shown me she could be wrong. At their age, both of them are still living with their parents. And neither of them seems to be engaged in any gainful employment.

“And to think after Orpah I prayed to the Lord to give me a boy,” she says. “I want a boy, Lord, I said; give us a cion who’ll carry our name to the future. Now see what I got?”

“You can’t complain, Mama,” says Obed. “I’m trying to find myself but you don’t let me.” He turns to me to explain himself and perhaps solicit my support: “My mama, she thinks I don’t do nothing. But every time I do something she say it’s a rotten scheme.”

“He’s tall like a poplar, but he’s useless. And with such pretty hair too,” says Ruth. She obviously loves her boy despite his shortcomings. She reaches for Obed’s head and runs her fingers through his hair. Obed pulls away and moans: “Don’t do that, Mama. You know I hate it when you do that.”

“Poplars are pretty and tall,” says Ruth. “They got flowers but raise no fruit. Just like this boy, they don’t raise nothing to eat.”

To his embarrassment Ruth does not stop there. She cared for this boy even when he was in her womb. She went out of her way to eat healthily even when things were difficult and there was no food to go around, which is why the boy is so beautiful and strong. Obed feels he must disagree on something if only to spite the woman. He says boastfully: “It has nothing to do with that, Mama. It’s because I take after Harry Corbett; that’s the only reason I’m big and strong.”

“You seen how the children look here? They walk funny with rickets on their knees. Like your Aunt Madge’s kids. They talk funny too. It’s because their mama didn’t have much to eat when she was pregnant.”

But, as I can well see, her Obed is not like that. And do I know why her Obed is not like that? It’s because she took care of her Obed. Not that the boy was strong and healthy all his life. There was a period when he was a sickly child. But she always managed to nurse him back to health. She remembers when she used to wrap camphor in a piece of cloth which she then tied with a safety pin on the baby’s shirt. Obed breathed in the camphor to ward off colds and the deadly spirits of Kilvert. That’s how he survived vicious winters. Through camphor.

I follow Ruth to the living room where she continues her relentless war on the bugs. Obed decides he has had enough of her nagging and saunters away. I help her move the chairs and the car seats and the metal table with the sewing machine on it. With a feather duster I dislodge those bugs that thought they had found a safe haven in the cracks between the ceiling and the walls. They would be flying away if it were not so cold. Instead they fall on the floor, she sweeps them on to the newspaper and we both stamp on them. She has a firm grip on my shoulder for support since her cane is on the floor. We stamp with a vengeance, continuing our dance long after the creatures have been pulverized. We find this quite funny and we break into peals of silly laughter.

Orpah appears at the door, hesitates, then walks into the room, all the while glaring at Ruth. She has been crying. Her eyes are red. She is still sniveling, in fact. In all the four days I have been here it is the first time I am able to take a good look at her. On two occasions, I think, I saw glimpses of her: once through the window as her plaited head fleeted by and again when I saw her disappear into the bathroom and she stayed there for a long time. I don’t know when she finally came out because Ruth called me to her bedroom to help her with her old quilt box, which she wanted moved to her living room workstation, and to tell me how she had inherited the wonderful chest from her grandmother who had in turn inherited it from her great-grandmother before the Civil War. I have heard her sitar a lot though, and every time it creates in me those strange feelings of nostalgia that I have already told you about.

And here she is, giving me an angry once-over. She must be in her early forties. She has a well-nourished olive skin. I wonder what mysteries are preserved in that teary moonface. She is slightly overweight, with a great potential for obesity—which surprises me quite a bit because she has skipped the three dinners I have eaten with this family. She certainly doesn’t look like someone who will “blow away” any time soon. She is barefoot in her tight blue jeans and white top that hangs loosely on her ample breasts. On her neck hangs a yellow, green and orange gewgaw. On her wrists she wears bangles of gleaming ormolu.

“Orpah, you haven’t met the man from Africa,” says Ruth by way of introduction.

I take a step toward her with my arm stretched out and I say: “My name is Toloki, miss. It is my pleasure to meet you. I am a fan of your beautiful music.”