The Healing (35 page)

T
he mistress was sitting in a parlor chair, sipping tea from a china cup. She acted as if Granada had not entered the room and was not standing before her on the carpet, trembling and soaked.

The girl had not known she was coming here, only that she had had to run hard and keep running through the driving rain. Without thinking, she had returned to a place where she had once belonged.

But as Granada stood waiting for Mistress Amanda to notice her, the girl felt the old wavering in her legs. She didn’t know whether to step closer, sit, curtsy, leave, or just run. The fine woods and delicate fabrics and gleaming crystal made her feel as uncertain as she had been the day Polly arrived.

A flash of lightning lit up the room, followed by a quick thunderclap that shook the floor, sending a shudder through Granada’s body.

The mistress finally set her teacup on the silver service tray and lifted her gaze. “Why are you here? I didn’t send for you.”

Daniel Webster, perched on the back of her chair, chittered.

“I want to come back,” Granada said, her voice trembling. “I want to be here with you and Little Lord.”

The mistress dabbed the corner of her mouth with a snowy napkin. “You shouldn’t be in here,” she said. “Go back to the old woman.” She rang the little silver bell and Granada knew Pomp would arrive at any moment to drag her away, maybe banish her to the swamps.

Granada blurted, “Polly did a real bad thing, Mistress Amanda. She killed Rubina’s baby.”

At the mention of Rubina’s name, the light seemed to shift in the room and the air vibrated. The mistress’s eyes flared at Granada like blue flames. She saw the woman’s hand grip the rosewood arm of her chair, whitening her knuckles.

“Ah, yes, Rubina,” the mistress said coolly.

Pomp entered through the parlor double doors, swinging them back with a confident flourish. But his face went slack when he saw the girl there. She had slipped into the house right under his eyes. Pomp reached for Granada and began to drag her across the floor, but the mistress spoke evenly. “Pomp, let her go, and wait outside. I need to speak with Granada. And pull the doors to.”

He snapped his head back, his face darkening, but then he quickly recovered his stiff-shouldered posture. “Yes, Mistress Amanda,” he said. He aimed another daggered look at the girl and left the room.

The mistress and Granada were alone once more.

“Go on,” the mistress said, looking directly at the girl. “You were saying?”

Granada was held in place by the mistress’s expectant stare.

“Mistress,” she began, “Mr. Bridger come with Rubina and said she had hurt herself and was scared she was going to lose her baby.”

Granada realized she wasn’t breathing and when she inhaled, it felt as if her heart might explode from her chest.

She gasped a lungful of air and quickly continued. “Then Rubina told Polly she didn’t want that baby. She said you was going to take that baby girl away from her. Like you done her others.”

Granada waited for the mistress to say something, to at least nod in agreement, to acknowledge that this was true. There was nothing forthcoming but the icy half smile.

Granada, less sure of herself, continued without prompting, stumbling over her words. “And then Polly told me to sleep outside and the next morning she say there wasn’t never no baby. But I know there was, Mistress. A baby. There was a baby and they killed it!”

Again Granada waited for the mistress to respond, to show her gratitude for Granada’s loyalty, to take the sting out of the betrayal. But the mistress did not speak, or even move, and for a moment Granada wondered if the mistress thought the entire story a lie.

Finally the woman rose and noiselessly crossed the rich carpet on beaded silk slippers. She offered Granada a piece of fig toast from the china plate before proceeding to the door and turning the gleaming brass handle. She told Pomp to fetch her coachman at once.

Granada remained standing for a long while, holding the uneaten toast in her hand, waiting silently with the mistress, but not sure at all what she was waiting for. The trees beyond the yard swayed hard on the wind, and sudden gusts rattled the windows in their frames. All around them the storm sighed and gasped, like a woman giving birth.

Granada’s head swam with a woozy sunstruck feeling. It had been so much easier than she had ever imagined, like kicking a pebble. But the pebble, once kicked, kept moving, like it had a plan of its own.

Chester rushed into the room wearing his brass-buttoned jacket, the woolen shoulders darkened by the rain. When he saw Granada, he gave a grin and then seemed to remember himself. He solemnly strode up to the mistress and half bowed.

Very sweetly, very politely, she said, “Be so kind as to ride out to Hanging Moss and find a Negro called Rubina. Do you know her?”

“Rubina,” Chester repeated, warily. “Yes, ma’am, I know her. Lizzie’s girl.”

“I have a message I want you to relate. Are you ready?”

Chester answered with a bow, but he seemed somehow off-balance now.

“Tell her I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of her child,” she instructed. “Say those exact words. Do you understand?”

“Her child? Rubina lost—”

“There’s nothing you need to know but the words. To recite them, not interpret them. Now repeat my message.”

Chester’s face darkened. “Mistress is sorry about the loss of your child.”

“No, say ‘daughter’ instead. And tell her this,” the mistress added, her voice tightening, “tell her I promise to let the master know all about it over supper. I’m sure he shall consider it his loss, as well. And not a word more, do you understand?”

After being made to repeat that as well, he walked toward the door, his shoulders heavy. His face was beaded with sweat. Before leaving the room, he looked directly at Granada, his expression confused.

“Mistress,” Granada said in a voice that sounded so small she was not sure it carried. “Can I stay in the kitchen tonight?”

“No,” the woman answered, looking almost surprised to see the girl still standing there. “Not tonight. You are to go back to the old woman and not breathe one word of what you have seen or heard. Do you understand? She’ll find out soon enough. Then we’ll see about moving you back into the kitchen.”

Granada stole away to the spinning house, empty now of workers, and spent the long day there, hugging her knees in the corner behind a loom, listening for any sounds that would incriminate her. The thunder rolled again overhead and Granada watched through the gaps between the shutter boards as the rain curtained the plantation, turning the yard into a lake, raising the creek dangerously close to the tops of the levees. Tomorrow there would be snakes swimming on porches.

When night finally came Granada braved the deluge and ran splashing through darkness and ankle-high water to the hospital. She was soaked through to the skin when she stepped into the cold, dark room. The fireplace was dead and Polly stood at the open window, peering out into the storm. For a moment, Granada remained where she was, shivering, the water puddling on the plank floor around her feet.

The wind blew hard through the window, and water trickled down Polly’s face, drenching her ginghamed chest, but she stood rooted, her arms crossed, unspeaking, peering into the heart of the storm.

She didn’t ask Granada where she had been. Polly had frequently been mean and angry, but even in her punishing silence, she had never
for a minute been distant. Polly Shine’s presence always loomed large. But Granada sensed tonight, if she were to lay her hand on Polly, it would pass through her like a specter.

“What you looking at?” Granada asked, shattering the quiet like a rock through glass.

Polly turned toward Granada and studied her, the old eyes straining at the dark. Then she turned back to the window and stared vaguely into the night. “Something is bad wrong, but I can’t see it. Won’t come to me.” She turned back to Granada. “You feel it?”

Granada’s chest seized up. She was unable to speak.

Polly’s gaze returned to the window. “They come and got the hounds awhile back. Master went with them. Out on this kind of night. Something evil is afoot. I know it in my bones, but Lord help me, I can’t see.”

Polly heaved a sigh and then closed the shutters to the storm. She wiped her face on her apron and lifted the globe to light the lantern that sat on the table. When she turned the metal knob and the flame flared, Polly’s and Granada’s shadows were cast colossal on opposite walls.

“Granada, come here to me.”

Granada wrapped her arms around her body, trying to stop her shivering, unable to move her legs. Could Polly now, in the lit room, see what she had done? Granada could only stand where she was, afraid even to raise her eyes.

“You need to know something about today,” Polly began.

Granada sucked in her breath and held it. Her teeth clenched.

The old woman crossed over to her. “When I speak of the people,” she said barely above a whisper, her voice all weariness and grief, “I ain’t just talking about the flesh, the blood. It’s their voices. Their yes’s and no’s. That’s what holds muscle to bone. The biggest thing the white man takes from us ain’t our bodies. He takes our voices, too. He swallows up our yes’s and no’s like biscuits. But one day our yes’s and no’s will be so loud and strong they will lodge in his throat. He
will have to spit them out to keep from choking. He will starve. There won’t be nothing left of him except the shadows he casts on the deadest night.”

Polly lifted Granada’s chin with her finger.

“Every slave here got to tell the master ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir’ just to stay alive. There ain’t no shame in that, as long as we don’t let him kill the voice inside. Sometimes you got to lie on the outside to keep your voice loud on the inside. We don’t owe the master the truth. He owes us. Nothing comes from the master. He is the thief in the night. He steals it all. And every time we have to say ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir,’ he steals some more. But we can survive it, if we stay loud in here,” she said, throwing a fist hard against her breast.

There were tears in Polly’s voice. Granada wanted to hold the old woman in her arms, but knew she had given up the right.

“Baby, I’m telling you all this for a reason,” Polly said, hush-breathed. “Rubina said
no
. In ever which away she could, she say
no!
With all her woman’s voice. She weren’t lukewarm about it. As much as a person could, she said
no
. That’s got to count for something. At lease once, it’s got to count for something. A momma got to say yes to her baby or she ain’t no momma. She ain’t nothing but a field animal.”

A fear as potent as the storm outside swallowed up Granada. She wanted to reach out to Polly and have the old woman hold her and tell her she was just a little girl and couldn’t be blamed for the careless thing she had done. But Granada remained frozen.

Once Silas had talked about how he could straighten out a winding river by pinching off the place where it began to meander and tangle back on itself. You would be left with what he called a false river, a body of water with no inlet or outlet, just sitting off by itself while the old river passed on by in a new bed, more direct to the sea. That’s how it was with Granada now. She no longer belonged to the river of life. She was no longer just downstream from God.

So Granada did not reach out, and her arms hung useless by her sides. The distance was now too great to be bridged by a reach as diminished as hers.

G
ranada was wrenched from her sleep by a frightful scream, and her first thought was that a panther had got into the yard again. After the second scream, she knew it was human. She didn’t dare move or breathe, not wanting to discover its source, afraid it was Polly.

The rain had slacked some and a weak, watery dawn was breaking. The girl peered through the shadows of the room and saw that Polly’s bed was empty. The next scream was louder still.

Granada bolted from her cot and reached for her dress. While she was bringing the shift over her head, she heard the creak of the door hinge. At the sight of Polly her heart gave a leap. The woman was wet and muddy, but she was safe. She was toting her herb sack and the bottom sagged from whatever it was she had gathered during the night.

Granada’s relief yielded to a sharp stab of loneliness. She knew they would never go gathering in the woods again.

The wailing outside was constant now. Whoever it was was scraping her throat raw, unleashing a torrent of outrage and loss. Polly stepped up to the window that opened to the yard. She unhooked the board shutter and flung it back. After a moment she turned to Granada, her face grim. “Come see.”

Granada walked to Polly’s side and looked out across the muddy expanse. A woman was kneeling in the mud, her arms thrown up to the gray morning sky still heavy with rain. Aunt Sylvie hovered over
the woman, trying to pull her up from the mire. Then Granada made out the figure.

“Somebody must told Lizzie about her girl,” Polly said, her tone flat. “Don’t you reckon?”