Chapter: Backward Haven
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On the day when Mexican blue takes over the sky and raw sienna colors the streets and Venice green is the sea I walk everywhere. I let my legs take me where they will.
The gypsies came two days ago and they make their home outside town. Brown-faced children splash naked on the beach. An old man plays an instrument that I have never seen before and sings in a language that sounds strange to my ears. Woman swathed in fabrics the color of Guatemalan orquideas and Chinese silks. Something is cooking over their fires and its scent is like spice and roasted things. The women look at me as if I am a Spanish conqueror and they are those primeval people that no one hears about anymore, those Aztecs.
They move when they wish, go where they want. They are happy while I am confined to a painted mask.
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Plagues of everything come to this town. Disease brought by sailors and slaves and women like us.
Today Jacqueline says that between her legs there are blisters like a flower of pink. Mama Kate has the sweating sickness and when I change her bedding it is wet as clothes left outside on the line for dew to claim.
There are awful people on the street. Faces enclosed in bulbous sores. Clawed hands and caved noses. They hobble like shackled animals and the crowd parts for them as smooth as water.
Those is the lepers, Caro says. Like from the bible. They're takin' them away.
I stand at the doorway and watch the sickness pass by in a sea of tumor-skin. People cringe and close their doors like anything could pass between bodies as easily as air. An ancient fear that I can't feel because this place dulls reason
Caro tells me to come inside but I just watch as gaping mouths that no one ever thought could smile do and missing toes don't prevent a steady march.
That is bravery if I ever saw it, I say, and Caro calls me an imbecile and drags me inside to shut the door like everyone else.
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Three children live here. They run this way and that and no one knows who they belong to. No one remembers who gave birth to them so we are all their mothers. Magdalene who is named after the woman who knew Jesus and has hair as pale and thin as straw. Henry with hands like cherubs and eyes that sparkle like he knows something none of us do. Veriga's father was Asian because her eyes slant like the untouched people in Mongolia who ride ponies across the cold desert.
There are countless ghost babies here, too. Unborn, wasted by a clumsy physician's tools or a makeshift metal stick that the mother made herself. Days old and sick, wailing feebly until Mama Kate takes them and we never hear them anymore.
But the three we have now, the reality, are happy children. They are free to roam the house like hungry puppies until the night comes and then Mama Kate tells them to go in the cellar and sleep in the little cots there because their mamas have work to do.
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Jack comes again tonight. There is a strange wind outside, cold like a shock of ice water when it hits you, but he comes and everyone forgets because of his stories. After he drinks his rum and says goodbye with a smile we go upstairs like every other night this week.
I wait for him to come to me, to unlace my dress and see how my skin glows in this candlelight, but he stays still like a deer before a lantern and looks out the window at the sad tree. I don't like the quiet.
I watered that tree and then said a prayer, I say. Maybe now it won't die.
He looks at me like I've spoken in some language that he does not know and then laughs, a noise that doesn't sound like it's his. You are the strangest woman I've yet met, love, he says. Who says a prayer when they water a tree?
I do, I say.
He doesn't speak again for a long time.
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You stood in this room once.
No one knew about us, did they? You remember, don't you, when it was only us in this room that was a backward haven then but now feels like a cage that holds me, a bird without its plume, without color.
You kept everything that was outside away and told me stories of your Italy and your music and every part of you. I never said much because there was nothing to tell. I have no history. My home is here. I hear only what music there is on the streets, none of your sweet violin. I will never taste your Italy.
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He doesn't touch me. We talk of nothing and he asks me a question, the first. It was always me before. What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?
Would you leave this place? He says. His artist hands move against the bristly hairs on his chin.
Yes.
Yes yes yes yes. YES.
Please.
I could take you, you know. We leave in a day.
Please.
He has eyes like a brackish swamp. He has artists' hands that move like frightened birds. He has skin the color of almonds. Jack Sparrow of the swaying walk. He looks like a savior. Like a prophet.
Take me away. I'm still waiting.
You could meet us at the docks tomorrow, he says. Where do you want to go?
Where do I want to go. I feel my heart like a heavy drum beating against my ribs like it wants to escape.
Escape.
Italy. I want to go to Italy.
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Before I leave I look outside and the sad tree has let loose an army of green. Tiny leaves that look as fragile as a newborn baby's hand and frail branches, spiraling like a mass of flame against the sky.
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A/N: I apologize for the delay. I've been sick all week and haven't had the energy or the inspiration to write.
I'm not entirely sure this chapter is up to par compared to the last three. Oh well. By the way, next chapter will be the last. I told you this would be short.