My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (57 page)

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Authors: KATE BERNHEIMER

BOOK: My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me
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But I’m not very good, I said. Like at all. You can’t die. You should ask Esther, or Hans—
You, she said, and with a little curt nod, she went into her house, and shut the door.
The Duke’s son loved his shoes so much he sent us a drawing, by the court illustrator, of him, in them, floating, it appeared, on a pile of rocks. I love them, he said, in swirly handwriting, I love them, I love them! And then he added a small cash bonus, including horse rides, and a feast at the dukedom. We all attended, in all our finery, and it was a great time. It was the last time I saw the Color Master dancing, in her pearl-gray gown, and I knew it was the last, even as I watched it, her hair swirling out as she glided through the group. The Duke kept tapping his toe on the side, holding the Duchess’s hand, her free one grasping a handbag the perfect pink of a rose, so vivid and fresh it seemed to carry over a sweet scent, even across the ballroom.
 
Two weeks later, almost everyone was away when the King’s courtier came riding over with the request: a dress the color of the moon. The Color Master was not feeling well, and had asked not to be disturbed; Esther’s father was ill, so she was off taking care of him; Hans’s wife was giving birth to twins, so he was off with her; the two others ahead of me had caught whooping cough, and someone else was on a travel trip to find a new shade of orange. So the request, written on a scroll, went to me, the apprentice. Just as the Color Master had hoped.
I unrolled the scroll and read it quietly by the window.
A dress the color of the moon?
It was impossible.
First of all, the moon is not a color. It is a reflection of a color. Second, it is not even the reflection of a color. It is the reflection of what appears to be a color, but is really in fact a bunch of bursting hydrogen atoms, far far away. Third, the moon shines. A dress cannot shine like the moon, unless the dress is also reflecting something, and reflective materials are generally tacky-looking, or too industrial. Our only options were silk and cotton and leather. The moon? It is white, it is silver, it is silver-white, it is not an easy color to dye. A dress the color of the moon? The whole thing made me irritable.
But this was not a small order. This was, after all, the King’s daughter. The Princess. And, since the Queen had died a few months before, of pneumonia, this was now a dress for the most important woman in the kingdom.
I paced several times around the studio, and I went against policy and tried knocking on the door of the Color Master’s cabin, but she called out, in a strong voice, from a window, Just do it! Are you okay? I asked, and she said, Come back once you’ve started!
I walked back, kicking twigs and acorns.
I ate a few oranges off the tree out back, until I felt a little better.
Since I was in charge, due to the pecking-order issue, I gathered together everyone who was left in the studio, and asked for a seminar on reflection, to reflect upon reflection. In particular for Cheryl, who really used the seminars well. Those of us who were there gathered in a circle in the side room, and we talked about mirrors, and still water, and wells, and feeling understood, and opals, and then we did a creative writing exercise about our first memory of the moon, and how it affected us, and the moment when we realized it followed us (Sandy had a charming story about going on a walk as a child and trying to lose it but not being able to), and then we wrote haiku. Mine was this: Moon, you silver thing/Floating in the sky like that/Make me a dress. Please.
After a few tears over Edwin’s story of realizing his father in the army was seeing the same moon he saw, from home, we drifted out of the seminar room and began dying the silk. It had to be silk, of course, and we selected a very very fine weave, a really elegant one from the loom studio that had a touch of shimmer in the fabric already. I let Cheryl start the dying with shades of white, on the silk, because I could see a kind of shining light in her eyes, from the seminar. She is so receptive that way. When we did our series on bugs, I could practically spot the fighting ants in her pupils. Today, reflective light, in the irises, and even a luminosity to her skin. While she began that first layer, I went to see the Color Master again. She was in bed. It was shocking, how quickly she was going downhill. No one usually went over there but I let myself in, got her brother a glass of water and an apple/cheese snack—Angel, he called me—and then I settled next to the bed where she lay resting, her hair spread over the pillows in rays of silver. She was not very old, the Color Master, but she had gone silver early. Wait, can we use your hair? I said.
Sure. She didn’t seem bothered by my presence, and pulled out a few strands and handed them over. This’ll help, I said, looking at the glint. If we try to make this into particles?
Good, she said. Good thinking.
How are you doing? I asked.
Moon today, sun soon, she said. I heard word.
What?
Sun soon. How goes moon?
It’s hard, I said. I mean, hard. And, with your hair, that’ll help, but to reflect?
Use blue, she said.
What kind?
Several kinds, she said. Her voice was weaker, but I could hear the steel behind it, as she walked through the bins in her mind.
The pale blue, but don’t be afraid of the darker blue. Never be afraid of the darker colors.
I’m a terrible color mixer, I said. Are you in pain?
No, she said. Just weak. The moon is easier than you think, she said. Blue, and then black, to provide shading.
On the dress? Black?
A tiny bit, she said. She pulled out a few more strands of hair. Here, she said. And, she said, shavings of opal, do we have those?
Too expensive, I said.
Go to the mine, she said. There are always shavings there. Get opals, shave ’em, add to the mix, a new bin. An opalescent bin. Do you know the king wants to marry his daughter? Her eyes flashed, for a second, with anger.
What?
Put that in the dress, too, she said. She dropped her voice to a whisper, every word sharp and clear. Anger, she said. Put anger in the dress. The moon, as our guide. A daughter should not be ordered to marry her father, she said.
Put anger in the dress?
When you mix, she said. Got it? When you’re putting the opal shavings in? The dress is supposed to be a dowry gift, but give the daughter the strength to leave instead. All right?
Her eyes were shining at me, so bright I wanted to put them in the dress, too. Okay, I said, faltering. I’m not sure—
You have it in you, she said. I see it. Truly. Or I would never have given you the job.
Then she fell back on her pillows and was asleep in seconds, exhausted.
On the walk back, through the scrubby oak grove, I felt as I usually felt, both moved and shitty. Because what she saw in me could just as easily have been the result of some kind of fever. Was she hallucinating? Didn’t she realize I had gotten the job only because I’d complimented Esther on her scarf at the faire, plus I always took out the trash on time? Who’s to say that there was anything to it? To me, really?
Anger in the dress?
 
I didn’t feel angry, just defeated and bad about myself, but I didn’t put that in the dress, it didn’t seem fair to anyone. Instead I went to the mine and befriended the head miner, Manny, who I knew a little from my cousin who had worked there awhile back to make some extra cash, and Manny gave me a handful of opals that were too small for any jewelry and would work well as shavings. I spent the afternoon with the sharpest picks and awls I could find, breaking open opals and making a new bin for the dust. Cheryl had done wonders with the white, and the dress was like a gleaming pearl—almost moonlike but not enough, yet. I added the opals and we re-dyed, and then you could see a hint of rainbow, hovering below the surface. Not so moonlike, but still somehow good, like the sun was shimmering in there, too, and that was addressing the reflective issue. When it came time to color-mix I felt like I was going to throw up, but I did what she’d asked, and went for blue, then black, and I was incredibly slow, like incredibly slow, but for one moment, I felt something, as I hovered over the bins of blue. I just felt a tug of guidance from the white of the dress, and it led my hand to the middle blue. It felt, for a second, like harmonizing in a choir, the moment where the voice sinks into the chord structure and the sound becomes larger, more layered and full than it had been before. So that was the right choice. Wasn’t so on the mark for the black, which was slightly too light, and seemed to make the moon more like the moon when it’s just setting, when the light of day has already started to rise and encroach, which isn’t the moon they wanted—they wanted black-of-night moon, of course. But when we held it up, in the middle of the room, there it was, moonlike—not as good as anything the CM had done, maybe one one-hundredth as good, but there was something in it that would pass the test of the assignment. Like, the King and Princess wouldn’t collapse in awe, but they would be pleased, maybe even a little stirred. Color is nothing unless next to other colors, the Color Master told us, all the time. Color does not exist alone. And I got it, for a second, with that blue, I did.
Cheryl and I packed the dress carefully in a box, and sent off the pigeon with the invoice, and waited for the King’s courtiers to come by, and they did, with a carriage for the dress only, and we laid it carefully on the velvet backseat, and they gave us a hunk of chocolate as a bonus, which Cheryl and I ate together in the side room, exhausted. Relieved. I went home and slept for twenty hours. I had put no anger in the dress; I remembered that when I woke up. Who can put anger in a dress when so focused on just making an acceptable moon feeling for the assignment? They didn’t ask for anger, I said, showering, eating a few apples for breakfast. They asked for the moon, and I gave them something vaguely moonlike, I said, spitting toothpaste into the sink.
That afternoon, I went to see the Color Master to tell her all about it. I left out the absence of the anger, and she didn’t ask. I told her I’d messed up on the black, and she laughed and laughed, from her bed. She liked hearing it. I told her about the moon being more of a morning moon. I told her what I’d felt at the blue, the feeling of the chord, and she picked up my hand. Squeezed it lightly, and smiled at me.
Death is glowing, she said. I can see it.
I felt a heaviness rustle in my chest. How long? I said.
A few weeks, I think, she said. The sun will come in soon. The Princess still has not left the castle.
But we need you, I said, and with effort, she squeezed my hand again. It is dark and glowing, she said, her eyes sliding over to lock onto mine. It is like loam, she said.
The sun? I said.
Tomorrow, she said. She closed her eyes.
At the studio, the absentees were returning, slowly, from their various tangents, but I’d received such good marks on the moon dress that I was assigned to the King’s next order, because everyone felt a little jittery about the Color Master’s absence and wanted to go with what/whoever seemed to work. And sure enough, when I got to work the next day, there was an elaborate thank-you note from the castle with a lot of praise for the moon dress, in this over-the-top fancy calligraphy, and a bonus bolt of fuchsia silk, and then the new assignment, for a dress the color of the sun. Esther told me congratulations. I did a few deep knee bends and got to work.
 
I liked that guy at the mine a little bit, the Manny guy, so I went back to ask about tourmaline, for the sun, even though it didn’t really fit, color-wise, and I knew I wouldn’t use any shavings. But we had a nice roast turkey lunch together in the sunspot outside the rocky opening of the cave, and I told him about the dress I was making for the Princess. Sun, he said, shaking his head. What color
is
the sun? Beats me, I said. We’re not supposed to look at it, right? All kids make it yellow, I said, but I think that’s not quite right.
Ivory? he said.
Sort of burned white, I said. But with a halo?
That’s hard work, he said, folding up his sandwich paper. He had a nice face to him, something chunky in his nose that I could get behind; it made him into the kind of guy you’d want to call on in an emergency.
Yours, too, I said. His hands were rough from pulling at the walls for years.
Want to go to the faire sometime? he asked. The outdoor faire happened on the weekends, in the main square, where everything was sold.
Sure, I said.
Maybe there’s some sun stuff there, he said.
I’d love to, I said.
 
We began the first round of dying at the end of the week, focusing initially on the pale yellows. Cheryl was very careful not to overly yellow the dye—yellow is always more powerful than it appears in the bin. It is a stealth dominator, and can take days and days to undo. She did that all Saturday, while I went to the faire. It was a clear warm afternoon, and the faire offered all sorts of goodies and a delicious meat pie. Nothing looked helpful for the dress, but Manny and I laughed about the latest tapestry unicorn craze and shared a nice kiss at the end, near the scrubby oaks. Everything was feeling a little more alive than usual. We held another seminar at the studio, and Cheryl did a session on warmth, and seasons, and how we all revolved around the sun. Central, she said. The theme of the sun is central. The center of us, she said. Core. Fire.

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