Beyond Summer (29 page)

I watch her and think,
This woman owns a fine home, and a car, and flowers in her yard, and often I smell wonderful food cooking in her kitchen. What has she to be sad about?

But I, of all people, know that sadness is an easy path to walk, once you set your foot on it. It travels down, and down, and down, and people tramp it with their possessions on their backs like a pack, the weight pushing them along faster and faster and faster, until they cannot stop. They cannot look up. They do not know that the secret is to lay down the pack, turn off the path, and go a better way.

Father God says,
“
Do not worry,”
Michael tells the people under the bridge.
“Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

I remember these words from my childhood, when I sat with Grandfather in the mission church, filled with people, the heat crowding in around us.
Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
When those words were spoken at the mission church, the people lifted their hands and cheered, and then they sang. Even as they went away, carrying on their heads heavy pots of water dipped from the river, they sang.

In my memory, they are the happiest people, even though the paths in that place are difficult to walk. There is no choice for them but to trust in Father God. They know no other way. They know nothing other than to be happy for breath in their bodies and food in a bowl and a place for a family to sleep, and wake, and keep together. They do not expect even these things, and so each is a gift.

I know this word, too,
gift.
I have watched Elsie try to read it in a string with other words.
I see a birthday gift.
If I can find a place with a light tonight, I will look at these words again, to be certain I remember them. I must not go to the shed behind Root and Berry’s house again, and now the shed at the church is locked at night. Someone came in and stole a hoe, and a garden hose, and the Christmas lights. It was not me, but now Pastor Al checks the shed each night before he leaves, to be certain the door is locked. If I go to the reading class, it is too late to enter the mission. For a bed, you must arrive before supper and wait in the line. If you are late, the beds are full.

I have been sleeping behind the Book Basket. I have found a safe place there. MJ and the Indian chief do not know this. I am very clever at hiding my place so no one can find it.

The lights are on in the Indian chief’s painting place when I leave the church with my book of line pictures to read. I am thinking about the string of line pictures,
I see a birthday gift
. I am trying to remember how the lines look, and I am so lost in it that at first I do not see the Indian chief standing outside, smoking a cigarette.

He crushes the cigarette and waves as I come closer, and I am aware of him there in the shadows. His hair is unbound again today, falling long and dark around his shoulders.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he tells me.

“You were gone away,” I say. For five days since I have come back to the Summer Kitchen, I have been watching his part of the building, but the doors have been closed and the lights dark. “I have some things.”

“Some things you carved?” His eyes lift, and he smiles, as if he is pleased. This feels strange to me. I am accustomed to sad eyes, eyes that pity me. But the Indian chief looks at me with interest.

This concerns me, and I think,
Perhaps I should walk on, after all. It is not good to have others know your story. It is dangerous.

“Come on in.” The Indian chief—Terence, his name comes to me—opens the door, and the light spills onto the gravel. “I’ve been out of town for a few days. I’ve got to head out tomorrow for another art show, so I’m working late tonight. Need to catch up on some billing and get things crated for the next show.”

These people run so fast downhill
, I think.
They have so many things pushing them.
“The darkness is God’s way of telling a man to quiet himself,” I say as I pass through the door. “My grandfather told me this when I was very young.” Far back in my mind, I remember Grandfather setting away his carving tools to sit in the moonlight with me. Overhead were so many stars, and far away, I could hear the ocean as the sun touched it. It was a peaceful sound, but I did not feel at peace. I was worried that the soldiers would come and take the little house Grandfather had found for us, as they had taken my father’s big house. I was worried they would take Grandfather away, too. I told Grandfather this, and he only rested a hand on my head and said,
Ssshhh. Listen to the stars, how quietly they whisper. . . .
the

“It’s good advice,” the Indian chief agrees. “But it doesn’t pay the bills, unfortunately.”

Unfortunate.
I wonder how the lines look for this word. I imagine many lines, twisted together like chains. These fortunate people are unfortunate. Nights pass by, and they do not see the stars or hear the breezes whisper.

We enter the room, and the scent of paint surrounds us. The chief has started a new picture, only rough outlines in brown just now. I wonder what it will be. “Let me see what you’ve got for me.” He pushes some rolled papers aside to create space on a table.

I take the carvings from my pocket. Three large birds and some smaller ones. There are also little boats, but those are not for him, so I put them back in my pocket, but then I pull one out again and hold it up. “Do you know the word for this?” I ask.

The Indian chief scratches his neck, looking confused. “It’s a boat, isn’t it? A canoe?”

“No, the way the paper would say it. Its line picture. The letter that makes it.”

His lips part, and his teeth are not straight and white. “Oh, how to spell it, you mean?”

I do not know if he understands me. “How it is in a book. On a paper.”

“How to write it?”

I nod. “I am learning the line pictures. The words. At the church.”

“Oh, the reading class.” He takes a book of empty paper, and then makes the word with a thick pencil he uses for his drawings. I think of the name for each letter, to try to decode the word, but the
a
causes trouble. It hides when you say the word. But I know that the lines say
boat
. I want to carve this on the bottom of my boats before I give them to Root and Berry and the boys in the blue house.

Boat
is a small word, easy to make. I thought it would be larger.

Someday, perhaps, I will write the story of the boat that carried me here with Auntie.

I hold the paper book like something very precious. I look at the line picture.

The Indian chief laughs, a warm sound from deep in his throat. “You can have that art pad, if you like it so much. Here, take the pencil, too. As good as these carvings are, you might want to take up drawing.” He lifts one of my birds, one I carved in the shed behind Root and Berry’s house. He holds it lightly, as if it is real. He is careful with the wings. “You sure have an eye.” His voice is only a whisper.

“I have two.”

He laughs, and I do not know why. This is the difficult thing in people. They say things I do not understand.

“Sorry.” The chief notices that he is laughing alone. “You have an eye—it means you have a skill for seeing things the way they really are.”

“Everyone sees.” It does not seem like such a gift.

He smiles and shakes his head. He is a good man, I think. A kind man. “No, not really. Not many people know how the feathers look on a hummingbird’s wing. Most people go their whole lives and never even wonder about it.”

I understand his words now. “They walk so fast.” I wave a hand toward the street, then tuck the pencil and paper book into my pack. “The people always walk fast.”

“True, that.”

“The birds must have colors,” I tell him. I have not painted the birds, because the building has been closed, the palette locked inside it. I need many colors for these birds.

Terence holds the carving up again. “No, you know what—let’s just put a little wood stain on this one and see how it turns out.” He moves across the room to another table, opens a can, and presses smooth, brown oil into the wood, then rubs it with a cloth until it shines like a round rock in the bed of a stream. “Beautiful, huh?” he asks, and I nod. I know I am smiling and he will see my teeth, but he does not seem to mind.

He lays the bird on a table to dry. “You can stay and work on the rest for a while, if you want. I’m not going anywhere,” he says, and so I stay. He returns to his work and I color my carvings brown, and polish them until they shine. When those are finished, I color and polish some wooden things he is making—frames for his paintings, he tells me. We talk as he works and I work. He asks where I came from, and I tell him about the Broadberry Mission. “No,” he says, “I mean where did you come from when you were little? You’re not from here. I can tell by the way you talk.”

I wonder what is the good thing to say. I wonder, if I say what is true, will he call the police? At the cane farm, they tell you,
If anyone comes, you must not mention the boat. You must say, “I come from Miami. I work here legal.”
They teach you how to say the words
Mmm-eye-am-eee
and
lll-ee-gul
. You must know this, or the police will put you on the boat again.

“A far place from here. Near the water.” I tell the Indian chief. “Mmm-eye-am-ee.”

He laughs softly, as if something tickles his throat. “You didn’t get that accent in Miami.” Pausing as he wiggles a painting into a frame, he turns. “It’s all right. You can tell me. I’m not gonna call the police or anything. Listen, I know what it’s like to be on the run. I did some stupid things when I was young. Hurt some people I cared about, left behind a daughter I should’ve stayed to raise. I was in prison the whole time she was growing up, you know? I wanted to go hunt for her, but for a long while I just figured I didn’t have anything she needed.”

“Have you found her?” I look around us. It seems to me that the chief has much that could be given to a child, a daughter.

“She found me.” He sets a tool in the tray, and his legs bounce nervously on the stool. “We’ve talked some these last three years. I’ve sent her a couple paintings I did from old pictures of her and her mama. It’s a start. She’s getting out of college soon—Juilliard—and trying to figure out what she wants to do next. She asked me what I thought, but I’m not sure I’m the one to be giving out advice, you know? She’s got an adopted family, and I don’t want to get in the way. I don’t have any right to.”

I watch him, and I think for a moment about this man. I gaze into him. He is like the porters who carry heavy packs atop their heads. You cannot
see
his burden, but you can feel the shadow of it. He struggles beneath the weight of the past. I can trust this man, I think. I can tell him my story.

I take a breath, and I let my mind go back, so that I am in my father’s house again. For the first time in my life, I begin to tell what happened there. “When I am a young girl, I live in a big house with my father and my mother, and my grandfather and many brothers and sisters. My father is an important man in the city. He tells other men things to do, and when we walk with him on the street, men move out of his way. Even at a young age, I know he is a big man, a respected man.

“One day, while I am still young, the soldiers come to our house as everyone is sleeping. The noise awakens me, and I hear loud voices, and I run to hide. My mother finds me then, and she takes my hand and she whispers that I must not make a sound. We sneak away in the darkness, and she gives me to my grandfather, and we run in the shadow of the wall, where the soldiers cannot see. Behind, I hear terrible sounds, and I smell burning, and fire lights the sky, but Grandfather says I must not look, and so I do not.

I never see my mother, or my father, or my brothers and sisters again. My grandfather loves me very much, and we live in a small house then, but always, I watch the road, and I hope that one day my father and my mother and all the others will come walking home. I love Grandfather, and he teaches me to make carvings, but I do not stop looking for the others. My grandfather works very hard in the little house. He paints wooden beads, and the man comes to bring money to him, but the money is not enough. Some days there is no food, and then there is no house, and my grandfather walks with me across the burned country, all the way to the shore. He puts my hand into my auntie’s, and she goes on a boat with me. I never see him again.”

Terence’s head tilts to one side, and he blinks slowly, his eyes large and dark and warm, like my grandfather’s. “That’s quite a story.”

“It is my story,” I say. Never have I told this story, but now it seems important that I tell it to him. “Perhaps your daughter has been watching the road for a very long time, as well.”

He blinks again, surprised that my story has circled to touch his. “Maybe.” He scratches paint from his fingers and watches the pieces fall to the floor. I polish the wood again. “Where were the soldiers?” he asks finally. “Soldiers don’t come and take people away in Miami.”

“A long distance from here,” I say, and he laughs softly.

“Okay, I get it. You don’t want to tell. It’s all right. I wasn’t trying to pry.” He cleans his hands, and I take my pack, but I leave the birds, because the birds are for him.

“You know, you’re welcome to sleep here, if you don’t have a place,” he tells me. “There’s a bed and a bathroom in the office over there. I used to sleep here, before I got my loft.”

A snake curls inside me, squeezing, and I move toward the door, shaking my head.
You sleep in a bed, you owe for it
, the man whispers in my mind. “If you sleep in a bed, you owe for it,” I say.

The chief jerks away and eyes me. “Who told you that? The bed is free, just like the ones at the mission, all right? No strings.”