Terraplane (29 page)

"That's life." She shrugged. "Nothing but damn birds anyway.
Gave 'em a place to live just the same. Killed off the buffaloes.
Killed off the Indians. They'd kill off all the colored folk, thought
they could get away with it. But they try to save those damn birds."
She shook her head. "Sounds like it's too late for them, too."

For a few minutes we watched waves folding in on themselves,
rising again, striking the beach with seaspittle. Coastlight lent all a
gentle gilt.

"You've seen the disease in progress previous?" I asked.

She nodded her head. "Ever'body's seen it in progress. Just not as
fast as it's happening with her. Two of my brothers died of it."

"Sorry," I said. "Quickly?"

"Don't know," she said. "I wasn't with 'em and my sister never
said much. They never left Georgia and I wouldn't go back there on
a bet."

"Doc pastspoke only yesterday," I said. "Related early life tales."

She nodded, again. "Your grandfolks must of told you some kind
of stories like that," she said. Father's father owned three mortuaries; mother's father was president of Citibank, until the Ebb.

"Some kind," I said. "He told me you were in Cuba. Didn't have
chance to lend color and detail-"

Wanda lit a cigarette after rolling it between lips, wetting its end.
"We weren't there long. Not as long as some."

"The description horrified."

"Being there was bad," she said. "Getting home nearly killed us.
That was the worst of it. "

"I asked Doc how you effected return, but he didn't elaborate."

Her smile suggested the remembrance of a lost one's beloved, if
fatal, quirks. "He wouldn't have. Norman always thought he got the short end of the stick in the long run and maybe he did. We
both had it hard getting back, but we made it hack. Helluva lot of
'em didn't. Almost like it happened to somebody else, now," she
said; drew in smoke as if to inflame memory's burned-out circuits.
"That last morning they woke us up at five like they always did,
lined us tip in front of the barracks like they always did. We'd get
our work assignments usually then and that'd be it. All they said
that morning was, `You're free.' Turned around and headed hack to
the office.

"Well. We all just stood there looking at each other like maybe
we was still asleep and still dreaming. Longer we stood there the
more we realized we weren't. What exactly they meant by what
they said worried us, though, and so in a little while me and
Norman and a few more went down to the office to find out just
what they did mean. We were young, remember."

"Did they explain?"

"Once we talked to 'em. Said that since Mister Roosevelt set us
free they didn't own us anymore. Said they didn't like it any better
than we did, but they didn't have no choice. Couple of the fools
asked if we could keep working for the company but they told us
company'd been took over by the government. Wanted to make an
example out of'em, they said; Lord knows they couldn't of picked a
better one. We said, well how do we get home? They didn't know
Said they was going to burn the barracks down so we'd better get
out before they did. We said, where were we going to live, what
were we going to eat? They didn't know Told us some feds be
coming down in a week or so to help smooth things out. See, Cuba
wasn't a state yet, just a territory, and they said because of that it'd
take longer than usual. What about in the meantime? I asked.
What were we supposed to do? They said more of us died now,
more room there'd be in the boat going home, once a boat went
home. Then they told us to leave. Shut the office door, locked it.
That was that."

"Then?"

"Some of us wanted to be done with it, leave all the shit behind.
Decided to walk down to Caibarien, that was the closest port, see if
we couldn't work something out getting a boat up to Florida. Took us two days to get there. Wasn't much of a road to speak of, just
kind of a narrow clearing. Didn't eat much on the way 'cause we
didn't see but a few trees or bushes growing anything we recognized. Folks living on the little farms we passed weren't much
better off than we were, most of'em didn't speak English and once
or twice we got shot at and had to hightail it before they aimed
right. Guess they figured we'd escaped and was hoping to get a cash
money reward.

"None of the peons in town wanted shit to do with us once we
got there, though. None of us had any money to pay 'em to take us
across, nobody wanted us to work for 'em to pay 'em that way, and
we didn't know what the hell we was going to do 'cause we sure
weren't going to try and swim across. This one fellow down by the
docks, name of Alfredo. Had the ugliest teeth I ever saw He talked
to Norman and some of the other men. They made a deal. Alfredo
wanted to hop the one other woman that came with us, her name
was Sophie. Big strapping girl, had forearms like a man but an ass
you could serve dinner on. Fine looking."

She paused, as if to retrieve breath.

"Sophie wouldn't hear of it first. She loved her man Robert so
much she couldn't even imagine going out on him, much less
whorin'. I couldn't say much good for it either except it'd get us
back to where we could at least walk where we wanted to go. Took a
while but I finally convinced her it was our only choice. Her only
choice. I never have forgiven myself for doing that.

`Alfredo owned a thirty-foot fishing boat, carried a crew of nine.
When we got set to sail, first thing they did was lock all the men up
down below for the duration. Sophie and me, we went to Alfredo's
quarters and waited. He came down, took his clothes off. Vilest,
filthiest man I ever saw He took her. She just lay there with her eyes
shut tight the whole time, she said. I don't know 'cause I couldn't
stand to look. I was supposed to be there, see, to keep her company,
and make sure she went through with it. He got up, unlocked the
cabin door. Gave a whistle.

"They was going to go in groups of three, I guess. I tried fighting
'em off but two of'em held me down while the other one was goin'
at it. They kept pushing her face down in the pillow like they was trying to smother her." She coughed. "Sophie nearly bit her lip
clean through, holding back." Without audible sob great tears
rolled down her dark face; brushing them up, she threw them away.
"They split that poor girl wide open. When they was done with her,
the bastards, they started in on me."

The shore seemed always so cold, whatever the season.

"Wish old Jake'd been on that boat with us," she said, laughing
with true pleasure at the joy of imagined revenge. "We finally got to
Florida. Came into port just north of Miami. Threw us all off.
Sophie's Robert knew one was going to get to it, but didn't know the
whole crew would, and he treated her like shit ever after that.
Started whipping her, talking to her like she was a dog. We'd just
reached the outskirts of Waycross one night, made camp. We had a
big pot of hominy boiling on the fire. Robert came over, started in
on her. Sophie didn't say a word, just took that pot, flung it over
him. Didn't have any skin left on his head or chest. Sophie ran off
that night." Wanda smiled; frowned. "Never saw Sophie again."

"Doc didn't act that way-" I said, rather than asked; knew the
answer already.

"Norman always was a good man. I told him what happened,
afterward. He didn't hold it against me, never even talked about it.
Thing that tore him up was that I lost the baby," she said. "Too
many uncles, I guess."

"You mean you were pregnant-"

"Six months," she said. "If we could've had another we would
have, but we couldn't."

?
"Why?"

"After he started that to-do in the Atlanta plant they gave him a
two-part punishment," she said. "Least thing they did was ship
him down to Cuba. Main thing they did was make sure he
couldn't have any children. Much as they needed new ones, they
didn't want any from bad stock, as they put it. Some of the owners
were from Kentucky and they were used to horse bloodlines. Son of
a bitch bastards, they didn't know I was already pregnant and I
wasn't going to tell 'em." She sighed, her voice deepening as she
spoke. "His voice had already changed but he never could grow a
beard after that. Bothered him he couldn't. He said it didn't hurt much as he thought it would but they shot him full of morphine to
do it and then kept him shot up for three weeks after just to be sure.
It was hell when they took him off it and he never did break loose
completely. Ever' Friday night he'd come home from the hospital
in East Orange, go in the bathroom and let fly. Never more than
once a week though. Just enough to help him keep going till the
next time. "

"So you came north-"

"Ever'body come north except the ones too beat down already.
Ever'body found out once they come north that if they was going to
work they'd be working for the same people used to own 'em, 'cept
now you had to pay for your own shack." Her eyes burned as they
stared over the ocean, from a home never owned to a home never
known. "Shit. Steal us to come over here. Work us to death. Kill
our babies. Finally set us loose on a long, long leash. Start gettin'
too far off, they pull on it till we choke. Day the market fell was the
happiest day of my life. Let it all fall down, I thought. Let it all
burn. See how they like it."

She lit another cigarette; shot smoke through her nostrils.

"You know the future, Luther. What am I going to miss?"

"This September Hitler invades Poland," I said, deciding for
folklore's sake to follow our world's chronology. "Starts World War
Two. Conquers most of Europe. Sets up death camps. Kills millions of Jews. Many know but none act-"

"Figures," she said. "Haven't there been enough dead already?"

In God's plan, I doubted that Hitler had ever had a cold.
"Fighting Hitler's like makes us forever more like the fought," I
continued. "We abyssgaze overlong. That's Europe. Another front
opens in the Pacific. Japan attacks Hawaii in late 1941 with planes
built"- I had to laugh, remembering now -"with scraps of the
Sixth Avenue el. A bomb-"

"Japs?" she asked. "Good."

"Good?"

"They're colored people," she said. "True?"

WE HEARD A SUDDEN CRY COMING FROM TIE HOUSE; TURNING
around on the rock, we eyed Jake, stepping out so far as into the
garden to give his call without direct interruption.

"He's moving," he called, his voice fading in the air. "She thinks
she has something."

"What's shown?" I asked, reaching him.

"Aiming northbound," he said. "On rubber, as evidenced.
Undoubtedly in the company of others."

"What's Oktobriana's word?" I asked as we stepped back in,
coming through the sun porch. I realized how strongly the house
smelled of mildew and must.

"Unclear," he said; morninglight showed wrinkles cut into his
face, new-pouched eyes and drawn cheeks. For once he almost
appeared as his age, ten years younger than I. "Let's ask-"

"Lord," said Wanda, seeing as we saw. Oktobriana's body, lying
on the couch, had arched upward, describing a circle, the top of
her head almost touching her heels. Her teeth sank into her lip; she
was unable to give voice to pain; her arms flailed uselessly to either
side of her self-made hoop.

"Her feet," I said. "Take hold and stretch them out." With my
hands gripping her head, enough to hold though not enough to
crush, I kept her positioned while Jake attempted to pull her
sofaways once again.

"She's like iron," he said, struggling. "Wanda. Force her stomach down-"

"Gently," I said. "Not overquick. She might shatter."

Jake pulled, Wanda pushed, I held; slowly, carefully, we flattened her out once more, keeping her down once she'd settled.
Bruises mottled her arms and ankles, showed at her neck, lent the
appearance of flowered bracelets running up her legs. Adrenaline
coursed through her body; her pulse raced like a marathoner's at
finish line's end. With sinking stomach I noted that to touch her
now was to mar her. I Ier eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings; as she
strove to give word, froth bubbled over her bleeding lips. Then,
from the depths of her lungs rose two sirenlike wails, echoing
through the empty house, bearing in their warning nothing but
full-body anguish.

"Calm," Jake chanted, again and again. "Calm. Calm, calm-"

"Lord," Wanda whispered, "please take her-"

"Not yet-" I said. As if limit had been reached, somewhere
within, Oktobriana did begin to calm; the veins in her neck rose as
she struggled to speak, and speak so that we might understand. Her
hands shook as if they might shake loose from her wrists.

"Paper on floor," she gasped out; I suspected that the muscular
contractions affected the lungs as well, and it seemed possible that
her attempts to breathe might suffocate her. "Some things I have
written down but let me tell." One of her knees shot up, driving
towards her chin; Wanda and I kept it from striking. "Instructions
worded so simple as possible. Get the machine if you can. Go to
fair. When coil is switched on massive power will be released. If
weather prediction holds true-" A sudden fit of hyperventilation
kept her from finishing; her reddened eyes bulged from her bluedotted face as she tried to force her aspiration again into normal
pace.