Speak Through the Wind (4 page)

If she were allowed to stay

The water she was sitting in grew colder, and she shivered despite the warmth of the kitchen.

“There, there,” Clara said, her voice more gentle than it had ever been, “we’re done. You can stand up now.”

Clara went over to the stove, brought one more kettle full of warm water and, starting at the top of Kassandra’s head, poured it over her.

“Now you just the way you was the day you was born. Naked, wet, and bald.” Clara laughed again, and this time Kassandra joined her. “And on the day you was born, I know your mama gave you a name. I ain’t your mama, but if you don’ tell me your name I’m just gonna make up one for you myself.”

Clara held out her hand and Kassandra took it, stepping gingerly out of the tub and into the warm, soft blanket that Clara wrapped around her.

“Kassandra,” she said, and fell into the softness of Clara’s arms.

Later, as Clara busied herself dumping the wash water into the alley, Kassandra sat at the kitchen table. In front of her was a white china plate, its edge painted with a delicate pink pattern of vines and roses. In its center was a baked sweet potato Clara had pulled from the embers of the kitchen’s oven. Kassandra had watched with wide-eyed wonder as Clara cut a slit in the potato’s skin and filled the new cavity with slivers of butter and brown sugar.

“Now you best be eatin’ that down ’fo Reverend Joseph gets back,” Clara said on her way to return the empty washtub to the mudroom behind the kitchen, “or he’s likely to snatch it right off your plate. I promised him baked yams for his own dinner …”

Clara’s voice disappeared, mumbling something about never quite knowing when that man would show up for a meal, never being able to plan nothing, not keeping no schedule.

But despite her admonition, Kassandra continued to stare at the potato on the plate. She’d never had such a treat before. The aroma alone filled her. She dreaded the first bite, knowing it would inevitably lead to the last.

It wasn’t until Clara planted both of her massive black hands on the table—rattling the plate on impact—and threatened to throw the whole mess out with the wash water if she didn’t eat, that Kassandra picked up her fork, dug around in the orange, warm mass and brought a heaping fork full just to her lips where she tested it, then opened her mouth wide to its sweet, buttery flavor.

Clara was still holding her imposing pose across the table, and when Kassandra took the first bite both faces exploded in great, satisfied smiles.

“That’s a good girl,” Clara said. “You eat up now whiles I go upstairs and put some clean linens on your bed.”

Your bed.

The words brought an even bigger smile to Kassandra’s face as she attacked the rest of the sweet potato. She was safe for at least one more night.

No sooner was Clara’s heavy step clomping above her than a voice boomed from the front of the house, “Clara! Clara! I’m starved!”

The door separating the parlor from the kitchen swung open and, for the first time, Kassandra got a good look at the man who had saved her. Remembering the feel of being swept up in his arms, carried to his carriage, carried up his stairs, she imagined arms the width of tree trunks suspended from shoulders at least six feet off the ground. And while his height did not disappoint (he fairly towered in the doorway, leaving a scant six inches between it and the top of his head), the arm that held the door open was long and thin, completely encased in the long black sleeves of his coat. And at its tip was a hand that seemed ghostly white against the brown wood of the door. Her eyes traveled up, up a thin torso and a skinny white neck that looked a little like those of the unfortunate fowls that often hung in Mr. Maroni’s window on Tuesday afternoons.

But it was his face that held her gaze. Framed on either side by dark blond hair that fell clear to his chin, it was perfectly oval, perfectly smooth and beautiful. His eyes were warm and brown, his nose thin, his lips parted in a surprised smile to reveal a slight gap between his two front teeth.

“What is this delightful creature God has left me in my kitchen?” he said, letting one impossibly long leg bring him, in a single stride, from the doorway to the table. “What have I done to deserve such a present?”

reakfast was always a great feat of precision and timing. Reverend Joseph liked his eggs boiled for exactly four minutes, so Kassandra kept a close eye on the timer, ready to retrieve them with the long-handled slotted spoon just as the last grain of sand dropped. In the meantime, one drizzle of molasses was stirred into the porridge, tea was steeped to the color of dark oak, and bread was sliced in order to be popped into the oven and toasted the minute Clara gave the alarm that the reverend was on his way down.

Kassandra had begun helping with the breakfast preparation as soon as she was tall enough to cook without needing to stand on the kitchen stool. She took over completely after the morning Clara responded to Reverend Joseph’s complaint about his scrambled eggs by dumping the whole lot on his head.

This morning, the table was set and the bread toasting when the kitchen door swung open and Reverend Joseph stood on the threshold. “Good morning!” he said after planting a fatherly kiss on top of Kassandra’s head.

“Good morning, Reverend Joseph,” Kassandra replied, all traces of her native German tongue nearly erased, save for a slight, harsh tick on the consonants.

The egg cooled in its cup, and she ladled the porridge into the bowl at Reverend Joseph’s place. Turning back to the stove, she used her apron to guard against the heat as she popped open the oven door just long enough to jab inside with the long toast fork to retrieve four slices of bread. Two for Reverend Joseph, two for herself. Then she settled in the seat opposite him and folded her hands for the morning blessing.

“Our Father in heaven,” Reverend Joseph began in a somber voice devoid of the lightness and humor it so often held, “thank You for granting us another day to live in Your creation. Guide our steps and guard our lives as we try to live this day as a testament to Your love and power and grace.”

There was a tiny pause, just long enough for Kassandra to know his prayer was over, and it was her turn. “And Father,” she prayed, “again I thank You for the blessings and the family You have given me here. And for the love of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

“Amen,” echoed Reverend Joseph.

Over the past seven years, Kassandra and Reverend Joseph had perfected their breakfast routine, and now they ate in companionable silence, listening to Clara’s heavy footsteps overhead as she moved about the rooms making up the beds. Kassandra, as always, had been careful to spread up her own covers, taking special pride and care in keeping her room tidy. But no matter how much attention she paid to detail, Clara always came in behind her and found one crease to straighten or one speck of dust to wipe clean.

Reverend Joseph tapped his spoon around the circumference of the egg. “Tell me, Kassandra, do you have your piece memorized for your recitation today?”

“Of course,” Kassandra replied, taking a tiny nibble off the corner of her toast.

“Look at you. You even eat like a little sparrow”

Kassandra smiled. Reverend Joseph always called her his little Sparrow. He said she looked like a baby bird that first afternoon—her head bald, her eyes swollen, her skin a mass of tiny bumps in the after-bath chill.

“I am not much like a sparrow anymore,” Kassandra said. “More like a goose. I’m taller than any other girl my age.”

“Now, now—”

“And I am ugly.”

“Nonsense.”

“I have a face like a horse. Everybody says so.”

“The most important thing,” Reverend Joseph said, dipping his spoon into his egg, “is the beauty that is inside of you. The love of Christ in your heart. Now, let me hear your recitation.”

Kassandra brought a napkin up to brush the toast crumbs from the corners of her mouth and stood behind her chair, clasping her hands primly in front of her just as Miss Bradstreet, her teacher, taught her. She cleared her throat, cleared her mind, focused her gaze on the shelf just above Reverend Joseph’s head, and began.

“At Christ’s right hand the sheep do stand,

His holy martyrs, who

For His dear name suffering shame,

calamity and woe,

Like champions stood, and with their blood

their testimony sealed;

Whose innocence without offense,

to Christ their Judge appealed.”

She moved seamlessly through the next five stanzas about those who remained true to Christ despite their afflictions, those who suffered great sacrifice for Him; those who grew in His grace. When she came to the lines—

“And them among an infant throng

of babes, for whom Christ died;

Whom for His own, by ways unknown

to men, He sanctified.”

—she unclasped her hands and turned them into a tiny cradle, swaying it with the rhythm of the words, returning them to their proper recitation gesture for the final lines.

“O glorious sight! Behold how bright

dust heaps are made to shine,

Conformed so to their Lord unto, whose glory is divine.”

“Them’s sure some fancy words comin’ out of that mouth,” Clara said, having come into the room in that silent way she was capable of when she wanted. “But this child needs to use her mouth to finish her breakfast so’s I can get to cleanin’ up this kitchen.”

“Yes, Clara.” Kassandra took another bite of her toast, chewed it thoughtfully and swallowed before speaking again. “Sarah James gets to do the verses about the pits and sufferings of hell, but I think my part is much nicer, don’t you?”

“Of course,” said Reverend Joseph, blowing on a spoonful of porridge to cool it.

“Besides, she does not understand what most of the words mean. She pretends to be smart because her father is rich, but she is really quite stupid, and—”

“Now you watch yourself,” Clara said. “It weren’t so long ago that you wouldn’a known any part of them verses yourself. Don’t be thinkin’ that because you got some knowledge in yo’ head and some ribbons in yo’ hair that you’re any better than anybody else.”

Kassandra wanted to explain that she could never be better than Sarah James, who was dainty and pretty and had not only ribbons but
silk
ribbons in her hair, but she knew that any such remark would be taken as ingratitude, so she chose instead to pick up her spoon and heap a generous portion of blackberry preserves on the remainder of her toast.

“Your recitation was perfect,” Reverend Joseph said, sending a pointed and protective glare toward Clara, who turned to busy herself at the sink. “But you shouldn’t be so critical of young Sarah. Perhaps you and she can practice together, and you can help her understand the poems meaning.”

“She does not ever talk to me,” Kassandra said, dropping a glop of preserves on her chin.

Reverend Joseph smiled and reached across the table to wipe it off with his own napkin. “You should try. Who knows? Perhaps you will be a great teacher someday.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Why not? You are quick and intelligent and thoughtful. Look how much you have learned in just these few short years.”

He rose from the table and left to his study to work on his sermon for the upcoming Sunday When he was gone, Clara walked over to the table and stood there until Kassandra looked up at her.

“Reverend’s right,” Clara said. “You are smart. Know what you need to know to fit in. To survive.”

Kassandra squirmed under her gaze.

“But, child, don’t you forget where you come from. What you was. And whatsoever the Lord giveth, He can taketh away. And don’t think He won’t slap down the prideful and send them back to the mud He pulled them out of.”

The last crust of toast seemed lodged in the back of Kassandra’s throat, and she reached for Reverend Joseph’s own teacup to wash it down. But Clara snatched the cup off the table before Kassandra could take hold of it, saying, “No time for tea this mornin’, girl. You got a poem to say.”