Orpheus Lost (13 page)

That was the third letter. The fourth letter went to the stake. After the fifth letter, Gideon worked on a busted tractor for many hours without a break.

When the seventh letter came, Maggie did not run from the Hamilton house to her drive.

“You hurt your leg bad?” Mr. Boykin asked.

“I just feel like walking, is all. Don’t tell Daddy you gave me a letter. Don’t spoil the surprise.”

“I didn’t give you,” he said. “You snatched. You want a ride back?”

“No,” Maggie said. She inspected the date carefully and pondered it as she walked. This one was safe. It had been mailed on the fourteenth of June.

“Daddy!” she said, handing it to him. “It’s her seventh letter and it was mailed on the fourteenth and that is a multiple of seven.”

Her father balanced the letter on the tips of the fingers of both hands, assessing its true weight and moral worth. He swayed back and forth on the porch swing, eyes closed and head bowed. He prayed for guidance. Maggie closed her eyes and prayed too. She prayed for sevens. She prayed for seventy times seven. The porch swing creaked as it moved.

“It has to be burned.”

“But it’s her seventh one, postmarked fourteenth,” Maggie protested. “That’s triple perfect.”

“It bears Satan’s mark.”

“Where? How?”

“God is a mathematician without error and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can discern the meaning of the messages he sends.”

“We
pray
for her,” Maggie pointed out. “If we pray, we have to have faith. Satan can’t touch her.”

“Look at this date, Mary-Magdalene Lee. When you add up all the digits, month, day, and year, what do you get?”

Maggie’s lips moved. She marked off sub-totals with her fingers. “Twenty-four,” she said.

“No. The whole year, the whole year. You have to add on two for two thousand.”

“Twenty-six.”

“Which is double thirteen, the Devil’s number.”

“I’ll be thirteen next birthday,” Maggie dared to protest. She put her hands on her hips. “Does that make me bad?”

“It makes me worried,” he said. “It makes me afraid for you.”

“Oh Daddy, you don’t have to worry.”

“I’m worried but I also trust in the Lord. Leela-May cannot outrun the grace of God and nor can you, though Satan will do his best.”

“Daddy,” Maggie pointed out, touched with the sudden bright fire of the Spirit, “look at her zipcode. It’s Cambridge, Mass., 02138. That adds up to fourteen, a double seven.”

The porch swing rocked back and forth, back and forth. The late afternoon turned dark. There was a deafening percussion of cicadas. The letter, pale as communion bread, lay on the fraying white wicker of the swing. Under the weight of Gideon’s right hand, it glowed—or so it seemed to Maggie—giving off radioactive light. She could see the bones in her father’s hand.

Mentally, she rehearsed asking
Daddy?—
trying out various tones—but the risk was too great. She counted junebugs instead. She thought that Leela-May would know the equation for measuring the onset of dark:
x
fence posts by
y
minutes equals
z
twilight shadows. Leela-May could have told them: in seventeen minutes, the pines along the drive will disappear. Stars began to
be visible and Maggie marked them off in groups of seven in case this meant something, because Leela-May had told her that the seven sisters in the Pleiades had guided ships in the ancient world. There are really
hundreds
of stars in the Pleiades cluster, Leela-May had explained, but the naked eye can only see seven because the naked eye wants to see patterns it already knows.

These were the patterns Maggie knew: that God whispered numbers, in code, in her father’s ear, and that Leela-May followed algebraic clues and math symbols along quite different trails, picking up numerical crumbs and magic as she went, pressing on toward the heart of the labyrinth and the radiant answer to some vast riddle.

Maggie was allergic to numbers. She did not trust them.

She thought her father had fallen asleep. She imagined how she might slide the letter from under his fingers and steam it open and read it and slide it safely back under again.

She took two quiet steps toward the swing and reached for the letter but Gideon stirred and opened his eyes. “What are you doing, Mary-Magdalene Lee?”

“You fell asleep, Daddy. You should go to bed.”

“Yes,” he said. “I should go to bed.”

At the screen door, he paused and said: “Sometimes the Lord speaks different ways to different folks.”

The screen door banged shut. The letter lay on the swing.

Maggie’s finger was shaking as she wormed it under the flap and tore the envelope.

Dear Daddy and Maggie-Lee:

I’m in seventh heaven because the Honors students have met for some Early Bird seminars, pre Labor Day. It’s like math summer camp. Afterwards, we sit around talking and arguing and making up problem sets for one
another. We call ourselves the Pythagoras Club and our motto is All is Number, which was the motto of the secret society of the students of Pythagoras himself. I thought you’d find it interesting, Daddy, that a mathematician born on the Isle of Samos in 580 BC or so agrees with you on this point. This is what he believed: that the clues to all the mysteries of the world are encrypted in numbers. Also that we should bring body and soul into alignment—into perfect mathematical alignment—with the movements of the planets and stars. We need, he believed, to be in tune with the music of the spheres. He believed the planets sing as they move, and this is what blows my mind: since the Hubble telescope has been recording the humming from Deep Space, physicists have known that he was right.

The screen door creaked. “Mary-Magdalene Lee?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“You do not need to tell me what she says.”

“She says you are right about numbers.”

“She had to go away to college at the end of the world to learn that? Lock the door when you come in.”

“She says the stars sing. She says there’s some telescope—”

“
Who is this
,” Gideon demanded, “
that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge
? The Book of Job, chapter 38.
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth…when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy
?”

“And what about the
daughters
of God?” demanded the voice of Leela-May so abruptly and loudly that Maggie had to press the letter against her mouth.

Gideon flinched, as though hit by a small sharp stone from a sling. “Did you say something, Mary-Magdalene Lee?”

“Daddy, if you stand there with the screen door open, the bugs will get in.”

Gideon stepped out on the porch and let the door swing shut. He swayed a little in the dark but then righted himself and felt his way toward the column at the top of the steps. The wood was soft to the touch in several places and he let his hand explore gingerly until it found a length of railing where he could lean. Beyond the dark massy crowns of the pines, the black dome was spangled with glitter. “
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades
,” he murmured, “
or loose the bands of Orion?
”

“Leela-May says there are really hundreds of stars in the Pleiades,” Maggie offered, “but mostly we can only see seven because we want to see the patterns—”

“When I was little,” her father said, “I used to lie awake and watch the stars from my bedroom window. I was in love with the Milky Way. I tried to count the stars I could see.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “But we can’t get there. There are more than any numbers we can reach.” Maggie joined him at the railing and slipped her hand into his. The back of his hand was wet. “Your mother used to stand here, Mary-Magdalene. On this very spot. Your mother and I. We used to count the stars and count our blessings.”

“Daddy,” Maggie said. She pressed her cheek to the back of his hand.

“Where were
we
?” he asked his daughter. “Where were
we
when the morning stars sang?”

A pale disk of moon mounded up at the edge of a cloud and suddenly Maggie could see the shape of the barn and the hulking shadows of mowers waiting to be fixed. She could see the truck crouching in the dark. She could almost see the silver snail-trail
of the sign:
The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon.
One by one, she touched the hard little row of calluses on Gideon’s palm. What does five mean? she wondered. Her father squeezed her hand so hard that it hurt. He said gruffly, “There are more mysteries and more blessings in this life than there are stars, Mary-Magdalene Lee.”

Maggie thought there was a kind of sadness that almost made you happy. You could drown in it the way you could drown in the moon. It was just right for Gideon and daughters, she thought.

E
VEN BEFORE
M
R.
B
OYKIN
answered the phone, Maggie imagined she could hear the joyful hubbub that always swirled through his house. There were always children: nieces, nephews, grandchildren, second cousins, the friends of second cousins. There was always laughter. There was always someone singing Gospel at the top of her lungs.

There were always, at any one time, at least three people eating, two cooking, four peeling or shucking or chopping. The sink was always crammed full of collard greens draining, and on the stove was a cauldron of grits. Small invasions of family and friends were always imminent. And Mr. Boykin was always praising the Lord. He no more ran out of reasons than did Gideon Moore, though Maggie learned very young that God was in a more lighthearted mood at the Boykin house than he was at hers. Mr. Boykin and God were on teasing terms. They joshed one another. They shared the same jokes.

The relationship between Maggie’s father and God was more austere.

Maggie had never forgotten the night—she was four and Leela was ten—when someone shot holes in the Boykin house. The windows were shattered. The hot-water tank was a pincushion fountain and the main water pipe from the well to the house became a geyser. Benedict, who was Leela-May’s age,
had arrived breathless on the Moore’s front porch. “Leela-May,” he had gasped, “can you ask your dad to come quick?” He could barely speak for crying. He was shivering in spite of the heat. “We’ve been shot at. Daddy says we need a fixit man real fast for the plumbing or we’re gonna be drowned and then dry.”

And when the four of them—Gideon, Leela-May, Mary-Magdalene and Benedict Boykin—had jolted up the Boykin drive in the dented old Sword of the Lord and of Gideon, they saw a spectacular jet of water, and they saw a dozen children in nothing but shorts, or in nothing, hollering and laughing and running into the waterspout.

“Bet you ain’t never seen a fountain like this, Gideon,” Mr. Boykin said. He was laughing too, watching the children, though at first Maggie thought he was sobbing, the sounds coming from his throat were so strange.

It’s the way you laugh so you won’t cry
, Leela told her years later.
He didn’t want the children to see him break down.

I thought he was crying
, Maggie said,
but Benedict thought he was laughing, I remember that.

How could you remember that? You were four years old.

I remember being frightened when Benedict banged on our door.

We were all frightened.

And I remember the waterspout and the children dancing and Benedict running away. Tell me what else
, and there were many retellings, so many that Maggie could see herself watching the Boykin children, she could hear Mr. Boykin say, “Ain’t this a sight, Gideon?”

And Maggie’s father had said: “This ain’t right, Esau, that someone would do this to you. This don’t sit right with the Lord. What you going to do about this?”

“Well, first thing,” Mr. Boykin said, “what I already did, I gave thanks to the Lord that no one was hit. And second thing, I prayed about it, for the Lord to show me the silver lining, which he is showing me. Will you look at those kids? And third thing, I sent Benedict over for you and I gave thanks that I have a good neighbor I can trust. And fourth thing, I’m gonna ask you to fix my plumbing and my windows and ask if we can pay you by Latisha coming over every weekend to clean your house.”

“Deal,” Gideon said. “But Esau, how come these things never get you down? How come I don’t never ever see you down?”

And Maggie remembered the way Mr. Boykin’s eyebrows shot up—yes, she could replay the scene exactly—she remembered how he looked puzzled. “Well,” he said, frowning a little, “that’s a strange kind of question from you, Gideon. We got the same God and there is not a sparrow falls to the ground. Things get me down. Those gunshots sure got me down. I just never had any reason for
staying
down. Not once I look to the Lord. Not so far, anyways.”

Maggie also remembered the way Benedict had clenched his fists and glowered at his father. “It ain’t right not to be angry,” he had shouted, and he had pummeled his father with his fists, and then he had run off and hid.

Gideon Moore had laid a gentle hand on Esau’s arm.

“That’s the worst of it,” Esau said sadly. “What it does to our kids.”

Times had changed since that night. Black families were no longer shot at in Promised Land. Benedict had been in harm’s way in the Middle East and Leela could have been killed in a bombing on the subway in Boston.

“Mr. Boykin?” Maggie said when he answered the phone. “I finally got hold of Leela-May, and she’s okay.”

“Praise the Lord,” Mr. Boykin said. “We been praying. I heard forty-some dead on the news. Could have been a lot worse, they said.”

“She could have been on that train but she walked home instead. She doesn’t really know why she walked home.”

“This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. Same way he keeps Benedict safe in Iraq.”

“Can I come and talk to you, Mr. Boykin?”

“Any time you want to drop by, Maggie-Lee.”

Mown grass was what Maggie could smell, and the profligate scent of jasmine run amok. The Boykin house was only a couple of miles from the house of Gideon Moore. Maggie borrowed her father’s pickup and had the window down so that her hair was whipped about her face. The car tracks were unpaved and the jolts were sometimes extreme. It was always both a shock and a pleasure to emerge from the long and winding driveway and see the front porch and the porch swing and Mrs. Boykin’s flower garden and the children on the tire swing and the dogs and the chickens and the sense of unbridled joy. The minute Maggie braked and stepped from the pickup, dogs and children hurled themselves at her legs. “Hey, guys,” she said, laughing, “let up!”

Latisha Boykin came out to the porch and hugged Maggie.

“You gonna be teaching three of my grans at DeLaine Elementary, I hear. You got the blessings of the Lord on your head, Mary-Magdalene Lee, and you better believe you got mine. You want some sweet tea?”

“Thanks, Mrs. Boykin.”

“We are all planning to drive up to Columbia for your graduation,” Latisha said. “Be your cheering squad when you come up on stage.”

“Latisha’s gonna conduct,” Esau said. “She’s winding us up in rehearsals. We are gonna hoot and holler to bring down the roof of the University of South Carolina.”

As though on cue, the children shouted in unison:
You go, girl! You go, Mary-Magdalene Lee!

Maggie laughed. “You’ll have me thrown out.”

Latisha said, carefully, “Leela-May coming down?”

Maggie sighed. “I hope so. But you know Leela-May. I have to keep working at it. I was planning to ask Benedict for his help.”

“He’s been shipped back to Iraq already.”

“Oh.” Maggie sipped her tea. “Did he say much about his meeting with Leela-May?”

“He said he’d seen her, that’s all,” Letisha said. “He didn’t get down here, you know. Said there wasn’t enough time. He doesn’t tell us too much these days.”

Esau said nothing.

Maggie thought about Leela-May and Benedict: the swimming hole, the Hamilton house, the flag demonstrations. She said: “I still remember when your house got shot up.”

“Yeah,” Esau Boykin said. “Things sure have changed.”

“Hmm,” Latisha said. “
Some
things have changed.”

“Confederate flag’s come down off the State House,” Esau said.

“One time Leela-May showed me the drawings that got pasted on her locker,” Maggie said. “When she and Benedict were going on those flag protests. She took them down but she kept them in a folder.”

“Ugly stuff. Hate’s ugly.”

“Very ugly. But Leela-May never got scared.”

Esau smiled. “Benedict used to say: Leela-May’s so strong you would swear she was black.”

“That girl is as fearless as they come,” Latisha said. “Just like your daddy.”

“She
is
like Daddy in a funny way, isn’t she? She gets angry when I tell her that.”

“I remember when our church was burned down,” Esau said. “Back before you or your sister were born. Your daddy showed up at the Rebuilding Bee. He was the only white man who came. I said to him: ‘How come you’re here and not wearing a white hood, Gideon? There’s people whose mowers you fix who did this.’ And your daddy just said: ‘I know it, Esau, and I don’t understand it, but
inasmuch as they have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, they have done it unto me.
’”

“That’s Daddy. He knows the Bible by heart.”

“He’s a strange man, your father. And Leela-May got the fearless gene from him. Ain’t nothing or no one can frighten that girl.”

Maggie turned and turned her glass of sweet tea as though she were winding up a clock. She fidgeted with the gingham tablecloth. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk about,” she said. “There’s something wrong. Leela’s scared.”

“It’s that bombing.”

“I suppose so. But it seemed like that hardly registered with her. She seemed very strange, very jumpy, but she wouldn’t explain, and it scares me because I’m not used to Leela-May being scared.”

Maggie thought back to that night, fifteen years ago, the first night after Leela-May had left home. Maggie and her father sat side by side on the porch swing, not saying a word. They sat there for most of the night. Maggie was wide awake, too frightened to switch the porch light off. At some point, faint snoring disturbed her and she eased herself off the swing and
went inside for a quilt. She covered her father gently, but the movement and the sound of the screen door woke him.

For several minutes she stood over him with the quilt and he stared back from the swing. “Well,” he said at last, “we’ll just have to fend for ourselves, Mary-Magdalene Lee.”

“Yes sir,” she said.

“We’ll have to look out for each other.”

“Yes sir.”

“The Lord will provide,” he said. “We better get inside and get some sleep.”

“You got the fearless gene too, Maggie-Lee,” Esau Boykin said.

“No,” she said. “I don’t. But Leela-May does, and when
she’s
scared…”

“But don’t you think it’s the bombing?”

“I think it’s got something to do with Cobb Slaughter. She’s just seen him again.”

Esau shifted uneasily. “Benedict never much liked Cobb Slaughter. Never trusted him either.”

“What really happened with Cobb’s mother?” Maggie wanted to know.

Neither Esau nor Latisha seemed to want to discuss this issue.

“People blame ol’ Calhoun,” Esau said at last, “but it’s not that simple. Like most of us, he came back
different.
He never drank like that before
.
He never got violent. I guess it wore her down and one day she just couldn’t take any more.”

“What did Cobb’s father actually do in Vietnam?”

“Not much I can tell you about that,” Esau said. “Everyone fights his own war and they’re all different.”

Latisha brought another pitcher of sweet tea. “Leela-May and Cobb were always kind of close, weren’t they?”

“More than that,” Maggie said.

Esau and Latisha raised eyebrows.

“I saw them sometimes,” Maggie said sheepishly, “on the Hamilton house veranda. I used to spy on Leela-May. I used to watch her with boys.”

With Benedict too, she did not say.

“Hmm,” Latisha said. “Benedict always thought Cobb looked daggers at him. He thought it was because of politics. Because of the flag. I always thought it was because of Leela-May, but I never said anything. I didn’t want to put the thought in his head. I was afraid of trouble.”

“Leela-May would never be frightened of Cobb Slaughter,” Esau offered categorically.

“She’s scared of
something
,” Maggie said.

“I’ve seen a look in Cobb Slaughter’s eye a time or two,” Latisha said, “when he was watching Benedict shooting hoops in a high school game. I didn’t like that look one little bit.”