Kathy Little Bird (33 page)

They moved silently, efficiently about me and around the house. It was time to ask myself who they were. I started with Pam. She was part of this group. They did the chores that needed doing. I was kept clean, wiped, washed, dried, and fed. The linen under and over me was constantly changed and spotless. Medication was measured out and given. And they took turns reading scripture to me. Now I placed them: the Mennonite ladies from the church. They were very kind. I was doubly ashamed, ashamed they had ever figured in my nightmare.

During the afternoon Abram carried me to the couch in the living room. I looked forward to different wallpaper and traced its design endlessly, seeing how far I could get before it repeated. There was a window through which I could see the lower branches of a tree. One day there was a small speck of white on the railing below the tree. I speculated as to what this could be. Then suddenly I knew; there must be a nest in the part of the tree I couldn’t see. One of the eggs had been pushed out, and the little white spot was a broken piece of shell. Or maybe a button off one of Abram’s shirts.

Abram kept talking to me. Sometimes I would understand better than others.

Every day I tried to ask what had happened, what was wrong with me. I knew my words were jumbled and not words at all. But he replied. Every day he told me again, at length and in great detail. Little by little it sifted through to me.

The initial injury had been when I was knocked down at the concert. At the time it seemed I had recovered completely. Apparently this was not the case.

“Remember your headaches? That was the clue. There was a lesion from the original concussion, an aneurysm, and leakage into the brain. The doctors are hopeful that given rest and care, it will heal.”

The next day I asked him to repeat what he had told me. Even though I didn’t like bringing back the breakup of the concert, I thought I should get it all straight…the shot into the air. The panic. The surge toward the stage. More shots. No one knew for sure if it was the rioters or the police.

The crowd pushed and shoved to get away.

People went down. People were trampled. The frenzy of the stampede increased; they kept coming on top of the bodies of those who had fallen.

The tide broke over me, smashed me…trampled me.

I tried to articulate some of this. Abram guessed. “Is it the other musicians you are worried about? I’ve told you, but in case you don’t remember…They escaped, pretty much without a scratch.”

The other concern that Abram satisfied was of course, Gentle. “Poor guy, he was in the prison hospital for a week before anyone recognized him as the impresario. He’s okay now, more than okay. The concert that almost killed you made him famous. He is in great demand, I understand, back in New York. And yes, he’s called several times.

“And what you may not know is that your father has telephoned every week. He keeps close tabs on you, Kathy.”

Jim had survived, and I—barely. And Erich had called me. I was his daughter.

What was wrong with me? I tried to ask, will I get better? How much better? This question was behind the sounds I made and the anguish got through to Abram.

He stroked me and kissed me. “Recover? Is that what you want to know? Of course you will recover.”

Another sign that I was coming back was that I was able at times to forget myself and covertly watch Abram. He seemed very troubled. Partly it was over me, but I think there was something else troubling him. I think I remembered, but I wasn’t sure, that he had laid his head on the bed beside me and cried.

When he knew I was looking at him, he kept up a cheerful, reassuring front. And with our visitors and helpers he was the same calm, capable, courteous Abram.

There were times, though, when he thought himself hidden behind a book or some routine task, that his expression would darken, his shoulders hunch, and he would seem to shrink. I couldn’t bear this, Abram shrinking. A look of utter hopelessness twisted his lips and shrouded his eyes. At the last minute, when the book was about to slip through his hands, he’d rouse himself, straighten his shoulders, and put on the public Abram face.

Something was destroying Abram.

I wished I could help. But I was the cause. If he was grieving over me, so was I.

L
UCINDA
and John Wertheimer were among the good souls who cared daily for me and the house. I remembered they had come to my bed early on and kissed me. They prayed over me too, with a laying on of hands. It must have been hard to see me in Laura’s place. But they never let on, neither of them. How did you get to be good and loving like that, I wondered. They were at our door now as part of a delegation of elders.

Abram invited everyone in. They wiped their boots, took off their wide-brimmed hats, and stood awkwardly. Abram motioned them to chairs. They sat stiffly, as though they preferred to stand.

The men spoke of the approaching winter, of snowbound highways, iced-in shipping, loss of business, overstocked inventories due to storm damage. Brother Gildercrest, on the other hand, listened in a sort of smug silence. He sold salt to the province to de-ice streets.

Abram listened politely. He knew why the men were here and so did I. He knew that John and Lucinda did not want to be here, that they came from a sense of duty because Abram had stopped going to church. He had not gone last Sunday. I don’t think he went the Sunday before, and I wondered how many Sundays he had missed before that.

The women they sent to tend me were on rotation, so that someone was always here. Abram could have gone. They had expected him. They told him this. They said it saddened them that in a time of crisis he did not turn to God.

Abram heard them out courteously. “I thank you for coming, brethren. I thank you for your concern, both for how we get on physically and our spiritual well-being. If it hadn’t been for the help, the baking, the cooking, the washing, the chores that were done…You looked after Kathy as though she were a sister. It was generous, caring…”

“…it was only Christian.” Jakob, the spokesman of the group, completed the sentence.

“Yes,” Abram nodded.

Then John, his friend, spoke. “We have missed you at services, Abram.”

There was hurt in Abram’s face, as though with those mild words his friend drove in nails. He got up from his place and faced them, saying, “I won’t be coming again. It would be hypocritical. I don’t believe anymore.”

The elders looked at each other in consternation. John Wertheimer’s arm fell on Abram’s shoulder, and his sister repressed a small cry. The entire company slid from the chairs to their knees. They began to pray for Abram.

The women in the bedroom and kitchen knelt where they were and prayed also. They requested Abram to add his voice. He shook his head in stubborn refusal. He would not kneel.

God was called upon to redeem the soul and open the eyes of this lost sheep, who, bowed by grief and anguish, had given way to despair.

Abram, white and strained, waited it out. As long as the prayers continued, he listened. I recognized that he was in the same place I had been, hearing words but unable to relate to them, having no sense of what they meant. The
strict Mennonite passages, ingrained in him since childhood, glided over him, so much meaningless cant. He stood before the barrage of counsel, love and fellowship, with clenched hands.

It was an hour before they left. Reluctantly, with protestations of love, they withdrew their support, taking with them the women who had nursed me. Last to leave were John and Lucinda, who took Pam with them. The girl gave an anguished backward look.

Then they were gone. We were alone with no cooks, no housekeepers, no one.

Abram looked at me and gave a hopeless shrug. “I’m sorry, Kathy. I’m sorry. I couldn’t go on taking their charity under false pretenses. I had to be honest.”

I was glad I had no speech; I wouldn’t have known what to say to him. He looked so desperate, so alone. This is what I had done to Abram.

He made an effort to pull himself together, to reassure me. “We’ll be fine. We’ll manage. They were wonderful, we couldn’t have gotten by without them. But,” he muttered, “the price was too high.”

He said nothing more for a long time, but sat quietly beside me. When he spoke it was to himself. He didn’t believe for a second that I comprehended, which permitted him to say what otherwise he wouldn’t.

“All my life I’ve tried to understand God’s ways and how we can best live up to them. I came to take you back, but too late. I was afraid of coming between you and music, and I thought you were too successful to need me. I let pride get in
my way when I should have been there. I should have looked after you instead of rows of books.
I
was wrong.
You
were punished. Why?”

He raised his head and gave me a tortured look. “I got that far in my thinking, when I realized it made perfect sense once I removed God from the equation. God must be just or He is not God. That’s it, Kathy. No just and loving God could punish you like this. Me, okay. But that’s not what happened. It was you. So I reached the only logical conclusion possible. There is no God.”

I saw that Abram was as wounded as I. For him, a world without God was a dark and desolate place.

I
N
the morning Abram carried our tea to the dormer window so I could see the first, dazzling snowfall, and explained what
aphasic
meant. He had gotten breakfast, bacon and eggs, and burned toast, which he scraped diligently. He was doing his best.

“Aristotle,” he said, “believed the mind was located in the heart. The brain is only a three-pound organ the consistency of Jell-O, but it has a wonderful ability. It can rewire itself, send its signals along new axons.”

As he talked I became aware that Abram was imitating Abram. He didn’t want me to know how frightened he was, or how despairing. I was only able to penetrate to the periphery of his shadow, pretending with him as he pretended with me.

“We’re going to be able to cope, Kathy, for the time being anyway.” And he told me he had a surprise for me. “Last night after I put you to bed, I made some phone calls. You know who I called? Your father, who’s back in New York. Then I phoned Jas, and then Elk Woman. The main office on the res has a phone and I routed out someone who went to fetch her. Do you remember—I invited them to come visit for Thanksgiving or Christmas. But they’re coming now. All of them, and we’ll call it Thanksgiving. Every one of them is coming; they want to pitch in and give us a hand. Get us over this hump. What do you say to that?”

I tried to speak, but ended simply squeezing his hand.

T
HEY
arrived.

Elk Woman came first. She blew in the front door like a gust of wind, undoing layers of shawls with red, unbiddable fingers. She looked me over head to toe, hung a little deerskin pouch of herbs around my neck, chased Abram from the kitchen, and began opening packets secreted in her skirt.

By the aroma that floated to me, I detected…wild grasses…wheat tassels…dried berries…and something that smelled like mustard. In the old days she had prepared her mixtures by pounding in the fat of bear. I wondered if that was what she was about in my kitchen. I thought it just as well the Mennonite ladies were not here.

She came in with a cloth soaked with her concoction and wrapped it about my head. It felt warm and comforting.

“Skayo Little Bird,” she said, using my res name, “they wounded you in the big cities.”

She had a gift for Abram. “Bottled last spring, blackberries put up with sugar and fermented.” She poured Abram and herself a glass. “A batch I made at the same time went off like Fourth of July rockets. So I know it’s ready. Only not for you, Kathy, you have to get much stronger.”

Abram, who was not used to any kind of liquor, tried to disguise the fact that he was coughing.

Later, Elk Woman said to me, “Your man does not need drink to make him wise. He prays different prayers, but the Creator pays attention.”

Next to arrive was my father, stamping his feet and unwinding a cashmere muffler. I was very glad to see him, although I felt his shock at seeing me. He attempted to hide it, of course. But I knew. The fact that I didn’t speak upset him, and at the first opportunity he took Abram aside to question him. I was glad for Abram to have a chance to really know my handsome, aristocratic father. He carried himself, still, like the naval officer he had been.