Rapture of Canaan (23 page)

“Me and Imogene got tired of talking and working on our embroidery which we’d tooken along. There was a man who came around selling things, and Imogene bought a pack of playing cards from him.”

“No she didn’t,” I laughed. We weren’t allowed to play cards at Fire and Brimstone—or even touch them if children took them to school. Cards meant gambling, and that was one of the Devil’s favorite pastimes. We’d been taught all our lives that touching cards was a quick ticket to Hell.

“Oh yes.” Nanna smiled. “Imogene bought us a deck of cards, and we opened them up just giggling. We weren’t Fire and Brimstone yet—nobody was. But the Baptists didn’t allow cards neither, and young women
especially
weren’t allowed to have them. It had to be one of the biggest freedoms I’d ever known, touching them things. Course we didn’t know how to play them. So we divided them up by colors and then by numbers, and we studied the pictures of the King and the Queen and the Jack, and I made up a story for Imogene about how we were going to London to meet them.”

“I reckon I’ve sinned in a lot of ways,” I teased Nanna. “But I ain’t
never
touched no playing cards.”

She laughed. “Well, when we got to Pennsylvania, it was a Friday, and Herman was at the station waiting for us, wearing his uniform and hat. He’d shaved his beard off, and I didn’t hardly recognize him, but he didn’t hardly recognize me either, with my belly so big. Before he’d left, I’d still wore my hair down even though I was married, but after he went off, I started putting my hair up, so I looked different to him too, with my belly big and my hair pinned. He said if it hadn’t been for Imogene, he’d have walked right past me.”

“What’d you do there?” I asked her.

“He got us a room in somebody’s house. Somebody who rented out rooms by the night. And we walked down the streets, all three of us holding hands, but I was in the middle. And Herman had a bag over his shoulder, and Imogene had a bag over hers. It was a big city, Philadelphia, I reckon, or something like that, and there were more people than I’d ever seen, horses everywhere and cars too. We sat on a bench for a long time and watched the people and waved to the soldiers who came by. Seemed like everybody was out shopping even though it weren’t Saturday yet. And Pennsylvania had a different smell to it than anywhere else I’d been. Smelled like textiles.”

“You didn’t tell Grandpa Herman about the playing cards, did you?” I asked.

“Oh child, that’s all we did the whole weekend. We sat in that room, me and Herman and Imogene and one of Herman’s friends—I’ve forgot his name, but he was a young married man like Herman who was far from his home—and we played cards all weekend long. Herman had learned some games in the army. One of them was called ‘Set-Back,’ I believe, and we gambled with pennies from the time we got there until we left. Course we gave everybody their pennies back when the game was over.”

My mouth was open by that time, imagining Grandpa Herman happily gambling.

“There weren’t but one bed in that room, so me and Imogene slept in it. Herman slept on the floor with his friend. And the next morning Herman woke up early and came and knelt beside the bed and put his hand on my belly, and the youngen moved for him. I remember looking at his face, so surprised and happy, and I could tell he wanted to holler out, but he didn’t want to wake up Imogene. He held his hand there for a long time, waiting for it to happen again, and each time, I’d get so tickled, just watching him, that I’d shake the bed a little and make Imogene roll over in her sleep.

“It was one of the sweetest times I remember,” Nanna said. “Cause we couldn’t even talk for fear of waking them up, so we had to do it with our mouths and our expressions and our hands. I put my hands on his face, at the place where his beard used to be, and I just stroked his face and hoped he knew what I was thinking.”

“How long did you stay?” I interrupted. I didn’t want to hear what she was going to say next. It made me ache down low for something I wouldn’t ever have. Not before the rapture anyway, and I knew that if the rapture hadn’t happened yet, it might be a long time coming.

“Oh, we had to leave the next day. Climbed right back on the train and went south. Herman got shipped out that very next week. But that’s enough of a story for today. You done made me tired,” Nanna said. “I got to get started on supper.”

After she left, I imagined riding on a train, moving fast through fields and woods and over big rivers with rocks. I imagined me and Pammy in Philadelphia, sitting on a bench and throwing peanuts at birds, even though I didn’t know if they had peanuts or birds either one on the streets of Philadelphia.

But when I imagined us there, James never showed up. We waited at the train for him, we waited in the rented room, we played cards while we waited, and he didn’t come.

I kept thinking of that train as Jesus’ backbone, wondering if I could just crawl on it, where it would take me. I wished so hard.

 

 

 

T
he tips of my fingers felt minced from so much sewing. At
some point, I took the little outfits out of their stacks and spread them across the bed, all along the dresser top, then out in the sitting room on the backs of chairs. There were so many, all in different sizes. Some had taken whole days and others had taken half an hour; some had patchwork figures quilted on them, and some were plain, the way the family’d prefer them to be.

I got tired of sewing, so tired that even early in the morning, I’d do negligent things like lose my focus as I slipped the fabric beneath the presser foot and seam right through the armhole of a garment. Then I’d have to turn it into a tank top just to salvage it, and I knew that nobody was allowed to show their shoulders at Fire and Brimstone. Not even babies.

I decided I didn’t want to sew anymore, but I had all those scraps, whole bags of scraps, brown and green and black and even some velvet that must have come from making an altar cloth because nobody wore velvet. I tried to think of what to do with all the scraps that wouldn’t hurt my fingers so much.

One day I was laying back on my bed, and I noticed the rug on the floor. I started studying it, looking at how the pieces were woven together and how when the rug-maker had run out of one piece of cloth, she’d just started in with another one, and how it didn’t really matter when the fabric knotted up. I thought I could do that if I put together a loom. All I’d need was some pieces of wood and some nails.

I started sketching out how a loom would have to look on pieces of notebook paper, holding up the rug, measuring it with my tape measure.

When Daddy came to visit, I said, “When you get a chance, could you bring me some nails and a hammer and some scrap wood from the barn.”

He laughed at me.

“What you making?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

But he brought it to me, and one morning when Grandpa Herman was gone, I built a little loom.

Nanna came in when she heard the racket I was making, and I told her about my idea.

“Well, you won’t be able to use just regular thread on it,” she said.

“What can I use?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nanna, can you get me some tobacco twine?” I asked her.

She brought me back the twine and fishing line too. And some old burlap tobacco sheets that she washed out for me.

So I started weaving. Because my loom was so little, my rugs were little too. At first I couldn’t keep the scraps of fabric rolled up tight enough, but after some practice, I got better. I showed one to Daddy, and he said, “Well, that’s great, Baby. Cept where you gonna use them little rugs?”

“I’m going to hook them all together later,” I told him.

The next time he came, he brought me a bigger loom that he’d built, and it held together better than the one I’d made.

Nanna took the rugs and put them all over her house. By Christmastime, I had made a rug for every house at Fire and Brimstone, and even though we didn’t usually give presents, I had one for everybody. Nanna gave them out for me because I missed the family Christmas.

 

 

 

B
y January, I’d gotten brave again. One Sunday morning
when I felt big as the side of the house, when I felt like I’d die if I didn’t step outside, I peeked out the window while everybody filed into church. I waited until church had been started for ten minutes or so, and then I left.

I hadn’t been out since the day of my dunking. I hadn’t seen anybody at all, except for Daddy and Nanna and Grandpa, who visited regularly. I watched Mamma sometimes from the window, and when it was time for the bus, I waved goodbye to Pammy and Mustard. But all they saw was my face.

Just smelling the coldness, the winter smell of firewood smoldering out chimneys and the sound of pine needles half frozen and tinkling in the wind was enough to wake me up.

And all that land, all those fields and trees and all that dirt. It was a happy remembering.

I walked down the road to the chicken coop, wandered inside and spoke to the hens on their nests. Some of them came running towards me, thinking I was going to feed them, and since I didn’t want to trick them, I tossed out a handful of scratch for them to snack on.

I went into the stable, sniffing hard at the horseness, stopping at each stall to rub their heads and watch the puffs of their warm breathing clouding up the air as it passed through their nostrils.

I even visited with the pigs. I’d never really understood the pigs and I only stayed there for a minute.

Walking back towards the house, I got carried away by the beauty of the place, the closeness of everybody. I missed being able to walk from house to house, sit down by a fire and be treated like I belonged there.

I remembered the winter before when it had snowed. James had backed out the tractor, and Barley’d tied a rope to the back of it, hooked an old one-man boat to the rope, and we’d all climbed in, everybody except James, who was driving. He’d pulled us through the snow in that boat, and we’d spun wide circles in the middle of the field, laughing and singing Christmas carols even though Christmas was over, bumping into each other every time he turned.

I remembered how later, we all sat on the floor at Grandpa Herman and Nanna’s, and Grandpa Herman was in one of his better moods, and he thanked God for the snow and for allowing us to enjoy it so much. Nanna’d made cider, and everybody, children and grown-ups alike, had a cup, and we sung hymns together. Uncle Ernest and Aunt Kate brought out the guitar and banjo, and even though they never got them tuned the same, we didn’t mind. Daddy played his harmonica and passed it to David, who blew in it for a while, and passed it to me, and I put it right up to my mouth, not even caring much that it had other people’s spit on it, and I played it too until Mustard took it from me.

I got so carried away, remembering all the things I loved about Fire and Brimstone, that I walked right to Mamma and Daddy’s house without thinking about it, without remembering that I was pregnant and didn’t live there anymore.

When I opened the door, everybody jumped. Olin and Mustard and Daddy, sitting at the table playing cards on a Sunday morning.

“Ninah!” Mustard hollered, and ran up and hugged me before he remembered how old he was and backed away.

Daddy was picking up the cards quick, trying to stuff them back into their little card holder, but some dropped onto the floor.

“Hello, girl,” Olin said, and walked up to me and hugged me too. “How have you been?”

He didn’t even look at my stomach.

“Good, I guess,” I stammered. “I hope it’s all right.... I didn’t mean to interrupt you.... I forgot where I lived, I guess.”

Then Daddy walked over, shyly, sliding the deck of cards into his back pocket and grinning like he knew he’d been caught.

“Does anybody know you’re out?”

“No, sir,” I said. “I just needed some air. I thought everybody’ d be in church. Why didn’t you go?”

“I was feeling a little peak-ed this morning,” and he smiled. “You won’t tell them what you seen, will you?”

I laughed outright, and they all laughed too. “Long as you don’t tell nobody you saw
me.
”

“Sit down awhile,” Mustard said.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Twenty minutes till twelve.”

“I can only stay for a second,” I claimed. “God only knows what they’ll do to me if they find out I slipped away.”

“You’re looking good,” Olin said, and then he blushed. “We’ll be glad when you’re back with us, running around with the rest of the children.”

It surprised me to hear him say that. I hadn’t thought about what would happen when the baby was born. But one thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t feel like a child anymore. I couldn’t imagine myself running around with anybody.

“You gassed the tobacco beds yet?” I asked Daddy. We were all a little nervous, and I thought farm talk might be just the thing to ease the mood.

“Did that before Christmas,” Daddy told me. “Olin mixed the seeds yesterday.”

“Nope. Didn’t get around to it. We’ll have to do that this afternoon.”

“All right,” Daddy added.

“If you’ll let me stay home from school tomorrow, I’ll help you sew them,” Mustard promised.

“You going to school,” Olin and Daddy both said.

“Supposed to rain around the middle of the next week,” I piped in. “At least that’s what Grandpa said.”

“That’s what we’re hoping,” Daddy claimed. “Beat the seeds in the ground and we can get the beds covered.” Then he glimpsed at his watch, said, “Honey, it’s good to see you out, but you got to go. I don’t think I can stand to watch you get punished again. All right?”

“Okay,” I told him, “but I need to get something first.” I hurried to my room, dug around in my closet, and pulled out the rope that had held James to the tree. I wrapped it quickly around my middle and belted the blanket I was wearing as a coat.