Signs in the Blood (25 page)

“I don't much like that one,” said Mary Cleophas. “Hit don't seem right to be standin' there nekkid like that. But Daddy said hit was in fulfillment of God's Word, so I done it. God talks to Daddy and tells him things,” she added matter-of-factly.

As Laurel was moving paintings around in order to get each one into the best light for photographing, Elizabeth had a sudden thought. “Mary Cleophas, did a man called Cletus come up this way recently? It would have been a few weeks ago. He was in his forties and had—”

“I know Cletus,” said Mary Cleophas, a slow smile illuminating her features. “He's awful nice.” Her brow furrowed. “But I can't remember when hit was he come here. Seems like hit weren't too long ago but I can't rightly say.”

A thin cry, like the mewing of a cat, interrupted Elizabeth's next question. Mary Cleophas looked toward the door of the other room, then down at the front of her dress. Two damp patches were spreading around her breasts. “Funny, ain't it, how the milk lets down when they cry?”

She turned to enter the dim room and Elizabeth followed her. Laurel, absorbed in her photography, didn't look up. In the room were two cots covered by faded quilts, a table with two straight-backed chairs, two kerosene lamps, and a large Bible. Several cardboard boxes stacked in the unused fireplace held canned food, loaves of bread in plastic wrappers, and bags of dried fruit. Dangling from threads fixed to the ceiling were dozens of folded paper cranes, pink, blue, green, and yellow. Beside the cot under one of the two windows was a wicker laundry basket lined with blankets. Mary Cleophas leaned over it and picked up a whimpering swaddled form.

“Mary Cleophas,” said Elizabeth, shocked at the bare poverty of this little room, “are you all alone up here, just you and your father? Isn't there some woman to help—Where's your mother?”

“I never knowed my momma. Hit's always been just me and Daddy.” The girl hugged the fretting baby to her with one arm and began to undo the buttons of her dress. “Since he got the call, him and me, we travel around in the camper, and Daddy preaches revivals everwhere he can. Use to, I would play the organ and sing, but when my belly got to growin', Daddy he was feared for what people would say and he brung me up here by night. Said I had best keep me close to the cabin and away from the eye of man. He said hit was in the Word.”

Her face took on a look, almost of slyness. “But you and yore girl ain't men, so I reckon it ain't against the Word. And I do get awful lonely.”

Elizabeth looked around the little room again. “How . . . didn't you go to the hospital . . . I mean, when you had the baby?”

The girl shook her head. “Daddy didn't let me see no one, not a doctor nor even a granny woman to help me when the pains came on. Him and me, we birthed this baby together. Daddy said I would bring forth a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.” Her voice faltered. “But when he saw how hit was . . .” and her thin hand partly pulled back the tattered quilt swaddling the baby.

The child of Mary Cleophas looked at Elizabeth with milky blue eyes. Its mouth opened as if to cry but there was no sound. The infant turned toward its mother, rootling for the breast, and as it did so Elizabeth gasped. At first she had thought that some strange rag doll was wrapped up with the child, but then Mary Cleophas laid her baby on the cot and removed the quilt entirely. “He's got a little brother just a-growin' out of his belly.” The withered trunk and limbs of the child's incompletely separated twin dangled limply against his body.

The baby squirmed impatiently, and its little partial twin moved with it. A feeling of revulsion swept over Elizabeth at first, but as she saw how tenderly the mother handled the infant and how the light of unquestioning love shone in the girl's eyes, she realized,
It's just a baby, Elizabeth. These things happen. A parasitic twin, I think it's called. Just a simple surgery and that poor baby would be normal.

Mary Cleophas continued on unperturbed, rewrapping her child, then opening the front of her dress and guiding the baby to her nipple. “Daddy says hit's a Sign, but he ain't yet sure what it means. He's a-prayin' on it and waitin' for guidance. Daddy said I'd have to stay in the wilderness, like it says in the Book, for one thousand, two hundred, and threescore days.”

She nodded toward the origami cranes dangling in the air. “I learnt how to make them birds when I was little, back in fifth grade. I been makin' one every day so I kin keep account and know when my time is up. Daddy gives me his leftover flyers to fold into birds and they's always such purty colors.”

Elizabeth stared at the cranes. “And you gave one to Cletus when he was here . . .”

“Yessum, Cletus he thought they was real purty so I made him one. He said he'd shoot me some squirrels and cook 'em for me too. I get awful tired of cold bread and such. Daddy brings me food when he can, but it ain't every day he can get out here. That Cletus, when he come along and saw how things was, he said he'd get me some meat.”

“He had a shotgun with him?” exclaimed Elizabeth. “Oh, please, Mary Cleophas, try to remember
when
he was here! I really need to know!”

The girl was smiling down at her baby and rocking gently back and forth. She lifted her pale eyes and gazed dreamily at the rough ceiling. “Hit might of been that day I broke the oil lamp. Daddy was awful ill with me when he got home and said I'd have to learn to do without. He locked me in here for a time till I'd repented proper.” She shifted the swaddled infant to the other breast and continued, “That Cletus is a good somebody; I think he knows about bein' lonesome too. Hit seemed good just to have him to set with and talk to.”

She looked toward the door. “He said he'd come back soon as he got some squirrels but I ain't seen him yet. I told him not to come iffen my Daddy was here; Daddy says no man must see the baby till he's sure about what the Sign means.” She gave Elizabeth a faint smile. “I done went against Daddy about that Cletus and likely I'll have to be punished. But you and yore daughter . . . well, you ain't men. But still, I believe hit'd be best iffen Daddy didn't know about you uns comin' here.”

“Mary Cleophas,” Elizabeth asked carefully, “where's the father of your baby, your boyfriend? Doesn't he . . .”

Slowly the pale blue eyes raised to look at her interrogator. Mary Cleophas's smile was gentle and weary. “I ain't never had no boyfriend. This here baby is God's child. My daddy said hit was like when God the Father give Jesus to Mary.”

IX-A
PRIL
1902

I woke up in the dark with a pain in my belly like as if I'd been eatin green apples. Mister Tomlin was a-snorin like one thing but I eased out of bed so as not to waken him for he hadn't took his medicine the night before. I made for the door, thinkin to do my business outside. Hit was dark yet but to the east the sky was pale and the risin quarter moon lay on her back just a-restin on the tops of the far mountains. She glowed as orange as new rust and you could see the dark part just as plain, like a big swollen belly. I wisht that hit was Levy and not Mister Tomlin layin there in the bed for then I'd waken him and call him to me and we'd watch the moon together and he'd say as how she looked like me and we'd laugh and then we'd get back in the bed together.

I stood and watched the moon liftin up and just then a gush of water run down my legs. My belly cramped again so hard I had to hold to the door frame and I let out a cry. Mister Tomlin sat up and called out, Who is it? I told him that I was a-painin bad and that I thought the baby was comin. He got outten the bed and lit a lamp. Then he just stood there, his skinny old legs hangin out from under his shirttail, and watched me.

You'll pay for your sinning now, Little Sylvie, he says with an ugly laugh. Ever since Eve and her sin, women must bear their children in pain. He comes over to me and jabs at my poor swoled up belly with his hateful old finger. Lots of women die, he says, and the words is like rank poison drippin out his old mouth. Like your own mother, he says, and jabs my belly again.

Mister Tomlin, I says, I know what I done was wrong. And I have offered to leave. But right now I have to birth this baby and I'd take hit kindly was you to fetch Romarie for me.

He goes back and stretches out on the bed with his hands behind his head and says, You'll not leave till I'm ready for you to leave, Little Sylvie, and I'll not fetch your sister till it suits me. For all I care you can crawl under the cabin and whelp your brat in the dirt like any other bitch. And he closed his eyes and made like he was a-sleepin.

I went and got me another shift and pulled off the wet one. I dried off my legs and put on the clean shift. Then I set down to wait. The pains came and went and between them I thought about Levy. I put my hand around the little gold heart that hung there between my big old titties and thought, Wherever you are, Levy, yore child's a-comin into the world. I miss you awful bad, Levy, and I need you now.

I stood up and begun to pace back and forth. Hit helped me to bear the pain and while I paced I sang the words to Little Mathey Groves in my head. At last, just as the sun was risin, Mister Tomlin spoke up. Well, says he, I can see I'll get no sleep with you carrying on like that. You might as well fix me some breakfast while I go after your sister.

Thank you, Mister Tomlin, I said.

Like I have said, Rom had helped Aetha and a sight of others in birthin their babes and I knowed that she was reckoned to be near as good as any doctor, but I hated the thought of her sharp tongue. O Mommy, I said out loud, now's when I need you the worst of all.

The pains let up just when Mister Tomlin rode off and I went to mixin up some cornbread for breakfast. I was kindly scared and kindly excited and hit seemed like I wanted to do a hundred things all to once. I'll turn this in the pan and set it to cookin, I thought as I stirred, then I'll sweep out the cabin afore Romarie gets here.

Just then the pain came back like a hot knife stabbin in my belly and the tears ran down my face into the batter. I steadied myself against the table and took deep breaths. When the pain let up I looked at the batter and thought, Let hit be. Tears ain't nasty and they'll do for salt.

The cornbread was ready when they come back and Mister Tomlin got him a big piece. Romarie asked me how close the miseries was comin and when I told her she sniffed and said there'd be a ways to go yet. You might as well go on about your business, she said to Mister Tomlin. Hit'll be this evenin or later afore hit's born. Besides, menfolk ain't no use at a time like this.

Mister Tomlin said that he'd go on down to where they was buildin the mill. Take good care of my little wife, sister-in-law, he said. She's—and he brung his big old handkerchief up to his face like as if he was about to bust out cryin. He wiped his eyes and just shook his head like he couldn't talk and went out the door.

Romarie looked atter him as he went and said, Now that's a fine man, Little Sylvie. I hope that you deserve him. But a lovin husband ain't no good around a laborin woman. And most of them can't stand the blood and the noise of the birthin nohow. He's best out of the way.

Just about then another of them big pains like to doubled me over and Rom said, Let's get you in the bed. No need to wear yourself out; you got to save yore strength.

She was as gentle as my mommy might have been, helpin me into bed. She even brushed out my hair, sayin that knots or tangles could hold the baby back. She took a knife out of the basket she brung with her and put hit under the bedstead to cut the pain. Then she busied herself with makin some tea from dried raspberry leaves for she said that would help to make the birthin go easier.

The day passed like a dream that was part nightmare. Some of the time I was painin bad and some of the time I would doze off. But all through it, Romarie was there, holdin my hand, givin me sips of tea, helpin me to squat over the chamber, and tellin me that hit wouldn't be much longer. Hit almost seemed that for this one day I had my mommy back. It was the sweetest feeling.

Finally, the pains was all one big pain, red and roarin all over my body. I wanted to call out for Levy but knowed I mustn't speak his name. I begun to weep and Rom had me to lay back. I got to see what's what, she said, just as gentle, and she washed and oiled her hands good and felt up inside me. Hit'll not be long now, she says, for I can feel the head. Then she took some sweet oil and began to grease up the way for the baby to come. In a minute, she says, you're going to have to push this baby right out, Little Sylvie, for hit's ready to come into this world.

Rom helped me to sit up against the pillows and I started to grab aholt of the postes of the headboard to have something to pull against whilst I pushed but Rom grabbed my hands. Take aholt of me, Little Sylvie, she said, for was you to put yore hands above yore head hit could cause the cord to wrap around the baby's neck and strangle hit. My knees was up and far apart and Rom was holdin my hands. Bear down, Little Sylvie, she kept sayin, and I pulled on her hands and bore down. I could hear someone makin deep gruntin sounds. I almost looked around to see who was hit, then I knowed that hit was me. I bore down and pushed and bore down some more till I thought I would split in two. Rom kept tight hold of my hands all the time. Now push hard, she hollered, and I done like she said. All to once I could feel the baby startin to move and I cried out, Hit's a-comin! Rom turned loose my hands and reached down between my legs. I pushed like one thing and bellered like any heifer too as Rom helped the baby to slide out like a bloody little fish.

Romarie brought my baby to me and set hit at my breast. She's a beautiful little girl, Rom said, but she's got a birthmark—a little red streak down the side of her face.

They say that comes on account of something the mother seen while she was carryin the babe—reckon you must have seen a snake or some such, Little Sylvie, Rom said. Reckon so, I said, or some such, and I was thinkin of Mister Tomlin's hateful old belt.