All the Truth That's in Me (16 page)

XVIII.

All morning I watch my hands, which lie folded in my lap. This doesn’t protect me from seeing the eyes of the entire classroom riveted on me, despite Mr. Gillis leaping around the room, writing out arithmetic problems on each child’s slate. When I hear them all scratching away at their work, I venture to look up. Several older girls and boys from the back row stare at me with unblinking, expressionless eyes. Here I sit by the teacher’s desk, on display, as if I’m being punished.

To divert myself I look over Mr. Gillis’s desk. There is little to see. A stack of primers, an ink pot and quill, a ruler, a book of maps. His possessions are as nondescript as his person.

And then, he slides into the chair beside me and favors me with a small smile.
“There now,” he whispers, and leans toward me. “Shall we get started?”
Eyebrows rise throughout the classroom.
“The first step is to assess what you already know. This may prove challenging since you can’t, er, tell me. But we’ll figure it out as we go.”
I feel mortified. This is scandalous, and the twenty students watching him whisper to me know it. His breath blows sour in my face. My ambition to read grows shakier by the moment.
“There.” He draws an
A
on his slate. His fingernails are stained with lead. “Do you know what that is?”
I nod my head. On the way to school that morning I’d considered revealing that I could speak. What better place than school? But the schoolmaster repulses me. I won’t entrust my secret to him.
Somehow I endure the morning. He quizzes me on my letters and, with an extra slate, he sets me to work copying them out. After that, he gives me the most elementary primer and asks me to sound out the first lesson’s words in my head.
It. At. If. Is. Up. On. As. An.
I can already do this, and much more, but that is all right with me. I am content to start at the very beginning. Reading is worth learning in the proper way. I can be patient.
He dismisses the class for lunch, and the students get their pails. I’m grateful for the chance to leave my seat and sit by Darrel while we share our meal. He’s uncomfortable, I can see. His wound still pains him. At home he’d lie down by this point in the day and take some rest.
While the others are busy with their food, I lean over and whisper in his ear, “We cahn go home. You can shleep. We cahn come back thomorrow.” I lean back and watch Darrel’s face. He looks torn and tempted.
“Want to?” he whispers.
I nod.
“Fetch Mr. Gillis?”
It isn’t hard to convey to the schoolmaster that my brother wishes to speak to him. He bends over and listens to Darrel, then nods his head.
“Certainly,” I hear him murmur. “You must ease your way back until you’re more able. Let’s give you a reading assignment for this afternoon . . . there. These pages will do nicely.”
I gather our coats and help Darrel into his. By this time the other students are getting their coats to go outside and walk about and throw snowballs, so our departure is not remarkable. Mr. Gillis holds the door open for us as I help Darrel descend the icy steps. He jumps down after us and helps situate Darrel in the sled.
“Good to have you back, Master Finch.” He seizes my hand between both of his and fixes me with his gaze. “I’m honored,” he says, “to have you as my newest pupil.”
Out of sight to anyone watching, under the cover of his upper hand, he caresses a slow circle on my palm with a fingertip.

XIX.

The colonel did things like that. Run his hand down my arm. Stroke the sides of my neck with his thumb and forefinger, just under my jawbone. Trace his nail down the sole of my stockinged foot as I lay on my cot.

XX.

I can’t pull Darrel home fast enough. Twice he complains of my jostling him. The sun is hard at work melting the snow, but last night’s ice has proved impenetrable. Now the ice remains with a slick of water over its surface. I am stumbling and sliding with every other step, barely able to pull the sled without traction under my feet. Darrel takes a spill from the sled and gets wet and chilled all over. This will only be fat in Mother’s fire.

How I dread going back tomorrow. I won’t do it. I don’t have to.
And that would be a whole pig’s worth of fat in the fire.
I heave Darrel back onto the sled and set off once more.

XXI.

I thought if I could read and write, I could get my hands on some books and paper before I set out for the cabin in the spring. Then I could fill my days, whatever hours weren’t spent surviving, on learning and thinking. I thought there could be solace in words.Solace, I begin to think, is only a fantasy.

XXII.

Mother makes no mention of our having gone to school, but there is triumph in her eyes. She thinks we came home early because the school experiment failed. Neither Darrel nor I want to give her that victory. So, tired though he is, Darrel sits by the fire all afternoon and scrapes dried corn off the ears with his thumb, and picks through beans ready for soaking.

I sit opposite him and knit a pair of heavy stockings out of coarse gray wool. The steady flow of yarn through my fingers subdues me. I have already presented him, secretly, with his book bag. He was pleased. Now that Mother knows of our schooling plans, there seemed no more need to hide it.

“It was good to be back in class,” Darrel announces loudly. “Doesn’t appear I’ve fallen far behind.”
Mother wrings wash water out of one of Darrel’s shirts.
“Awfully good of Judith to take me,” he goes on. “I’m in her debt. And what do you suppose? Mr. Gillis has her sitting right beside him so he can tutor her closely.”
At this, Mother looks up at me.
“You see to it you’re cordial to the schoolmaster.” She wags the wet shirt at me.
I show no more emotion than my ball of yarn.
“He just may fancy you, God willing. So do as he tells you.” She drowns another shirt in her bucket.
Darrel’s mouth hangs open. “Mother, Gillis doesn’t have designs on Judith.”
“Much you’d know if he did,” Mother says, elbow deep in suds. “She’s got her own future to think of, and she’d best think wisely.”

XXIII.

I lie in bed torn and unable to sleep. I dread sitting next to Rupert Gillis for even another hour. I dread my mother attempting to form a match for me.

But I also dread her exulting in our failure to return to school. And I dread disappointing Darrel, the great pest, in spite of everything he does to aggravate me.

One more day. I have endured worse than Rupert Gillis for years on end. I can endure one more day.

XXIV.

“How long have you been speaking, Judith?” Darrel asks me on the way into town the next morning.

I halt the sled and scowl at him. I silently rehearse the sounds I’ll need in advance. Yes. “Before you were bornh,” I say with all the aggravation I can muster.

Darrel laughs. “I know
that.
I mean, since. You know. All this time you say nothing, and now all of a sudden, you’re talking. Why is that?”

I consider how to answer his question, or if I even want to. Is Maria the reason? Were you, at first? Off in my lonely cabin, with whom do I plan to speak?

“Shick of it,” I finally say. “Ahways shtuck. People think I’m shtupidh. Or I’m noth there.”
Darrel nods solemnly. “That’s how they think about me, too.”
I heave the sled along once more. No it isn’t, you selfish baby. There’s no comparison. Nobody thinks you’re stupid. No one ever could. But empathy is dear in my world, so I’ll take it.
We arrive at school just as the schoolmaster appears at the doorway to beckon the students inside. Not a moment sooner.
Darrel seems more at ease greeting his schoolmates today. A couple of them grab him under the arms and carry him in. He laughs and protests. He’s no sooner through the door than a large, wet snowball plasters itself across my back. I do not turn to look. I hurry up the stairs, shake my coat off in the rear of the room, hang it, and sit at the schoolmaster’s desk, taking care to move my chair as far from his as I can.
After calling the class to attention, Mr. Gillis spreads before me a large sheet of rough paper and hands me a lead pencil. “Copy these three times each,” he says, opening a book to a page of letters. I am pleased; his manner is straightforward, almost brusque. Some tension slides off me. He is a schoolteacher, and he intends to teach. That is all. Very well, that is why I came.
I set to work copying the letters carefully. My fingers are nearly as clumsy as my mouth, but I write smaller and find room to copy each letter not three but five times. Midway through the alphabet, I can tell that I’m improving. Even at this beginner level, there’s a thrill to grasping the smooth pencil between my finger and thumb, smelling the paper, blowing away the little flecks of gray dust that trail after the marks I’ve made. I envy the schoolmaster. Even as green as I am at this, I can easily see that I would rather spend my days with words than with chickens and mothers and brothers.
Rupert Gillis slides noiselessly into his chair. He peers over my work.
“You have exquisite hands.” He is so quiet, not even the six-year-olds in front can hear.
The lead snaps off the tip of my pencil. He is not referring to my penmanship.
“Let me show you how to slant your letters.” He envelops my hand in his and guides the pencil stump in forming a
T
. As soon as he pauses, I pull my hand away.
“Now you see how it goes,” he says, and slides back to his regular place.

XXV.

Later in the morning, he sets the class to reading in pairs. Their murmurs make a timid if polite chorus that obscures his voice when he talks to me. This cover encourages him to talk more. I rather miss the silence.

I open the primer he loaned me yesterday and begin wallowing through the second lesson. I haven’t gotten far when he places his long-fingered hand over the pages.

“Someone of your maturity must find these elementary primers dull,” he says. “I wonder if you would be more interested in the classics? A bit of Roman poetry? I’ve made a particular study of it myself. Let me read to you.”

Roman poetry, on my second day of school?
“Don’t worry.” He laughs softly. “It’s not in Latin.” He opens the bottom drawer of his desk and removes a

box. With a key from his vest pocket, he unlocks the box and pulls out a canvas-covered volume.
O, V, I, D
, I read on the front.

“These are tales of the pagan gods,” he whispers with a glance toward the little ones in the front row. “They predate Christianity. Reverend Frye might not endorse them, but I find them quite diverting.” He thumbs through the pages.

“Ah,” he says. “Here’s something you’ll enjoy. It’s the story of Io. She was forced by Jove, the king of the gods.”
It takes me a second to comprehend his meaning of “forced.” Rupert Gillis seems to find this amusing.
“Jove turned her into a lovely white cow,” he said, “to hide his deed from Juno, his wife. Juno tormented Io, until finally Jove appeased Juno and she relented. Here we are.”

And Juno, satisfied, gave Io back
The shape to which she had been born. Rough, hairy cow’s hide sloughed away From off her body and her breast,
Leaving tender flesh behind.
Her horns shrank back into a head
More delicately sized, with eyes
And mouth of womanly proportion.
And where hooves and cattle legs had been, Came graceful shoulders, round arms, hands— Slender hands with fingers five, each tipped With nails like polished gems.

Gillis bestows another meaningful glance upon my hands, and I hide them under the desk.
Gone, all trace of the cow she’d been, Save the snowy whiteness of her skin.

I never heard a man speak so boldly, so rudely to a woman. I never knew words could act like fingers, touching where they ought not, grasping their pleasure at the victim’s expense.

On two uncertain feet she stood
And feared her long unpracticed throat, If tested, might, instead of speech,
Keep the mournful lowing she had known. So hushed, and secretly she parted lips,

Gillis turns to look at me.
And trembling, spoke in her lost voice.

“So,” he says, looking pleased with himself, “you and Io could understand each other, couldn’t you? Yet you might say, if you could, that Io was the lucky one.”

Because her voice came back.
Whatever pleasure Rupert Gillis intended to taste by exposing me to these words, I will not give up willingly. My face is flat, my soul elsewhere, my expression as numb as my feelings.
Not his. He puts away the Latin book and wipes the surface of his desk, as if crumbs of filth might have fallen from its pages. He folds his hands leisurely and surveys his pupils with a placid air of contentment.
Io was the lucky one.
It is tempting to try my hand at some words a Christian young lady ought not to know. They are part of the colonel’s legacy to me. But speech feels like intimacy now. Like a sacrament, a consummation. My words are not for Rupert Gillis. So instead I let my body speak.
I rise from my seat, gathering my slate and stylus, and move toward the third row of desks, where Eunice’s twin younger sisters, a pair of plump, fair-haired girls of around twelve have room enough to admit me to join their bench. They don’t like me being there, but they say nothing.
I return the schoolmaster’s gaze and see pink spots form on his cheeks. He digs for a kerchief in his jacket pocket and wipes his forehead, then rings the bell for dinner.

XXVI.

He submits the class in the afternoon to oral spelling, arithmetic, and grammar examinations with cold-blooded determination. He even quizzes me, and when I won’t answer, he brings his ruler down on my outstretched hand. Three times he summons me to the front of the room, demanding that I spell “funerary” and “pristine” and “obsidian.” I say nothing and take his strokes, then return to my seat where the blonde girls regard me with either admiration or terror. Elizabeth Frye doesn’t dare meet my eye.

I listen as the other students recite their answers. A few make mistakes and receive strokes, but not, I think, as fierce as mine. Darrel answers all his questions quickly and well, and in spite of my stinging hand, or perhaps because of it, I am proud of my clever brother.