The Necessary Beggar (15 page)

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Authors: Susan Palwick

BOOK: The Necessary Beggar
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“I'll buy another one for pie,” she said, easing it gently onto the table. “I'll make you some pumpkin pie, Stan. I know how much you like it. With vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. But first we're making a jack-o'lantern.”
Stan grew pale. “Lisa, we're Christians.”
“Yes, we surely are.” Her voice was calm. “Okay, so which of you kids wants to take a pencil and draw the face?”
“Lisa! This is Satanic supersti—”
“Stan Buttle, it's no such thing! It's fun, that's all! Now look here, every single year kids come to our door on Halloween, and you never said I couldn't give them candy. You think some of those costumes are cute. You know you do. Remember that itty bitty girl dressed up as a ladybug last year? You liked that costume as much as I did.”
“She was a ladybug, not a devil! And we give out candy with Scripture verses on the wrappers!”
“And how many of those kids read them, do you think? Stan, be reasonable. You went trick-or-treating when you were a kid and so did I, and neither of us got struck down by God. Come on, now. Jesus has more important things to worry about than jack-o'-lanterns.”
“Since we have taken in this family,” Stan said stiffly, “it is our responsibility to make sure that they learn Godly ways—”
“And it's our responsibility to make sure they learn American ways, too, and if Halloween's ungodly, I'll eat my hat. Sure, some people use it as an excuse to do bad things. Some people do bad things with Christmas. Is that ungodly too, Stan?”
“I want to dress up as an aardvark,” Poliniana said happily.
“I want to draw the face on the pumpkin,” said Jamfret.
“No,” Rikko said, “Zamatryna should draw the face, because she's the oldest, and anyway she's the best drawer.” Zamatryna flushed with pride.
Stan cleared his throat. “I'm sorry, Lisa. I can't permit—”
“Stan.” Timbor stood in the doorway. “Stan, friend, how can the children do this so you will be happy with it? If they dress as ladybugs instead of devils, will that be all right? Or if you bless the pumpkin?”
Stan blinked. Lisa grinned. “Okay, there you go. No monster costumes. Princesses and butterflies and, oh, knights or football players or something for the boys. How's that, Stan?”
“I know,” Rikko said, hopping on one foot, “I know! We can be the Marx Brothers! There are four of us!”
“I can be Charlie Chaplin,” Poliniana said. “But I want to be an aardvark, too! Lisa—”
“Honey, Halloween conies around every year. You can be an aardvark this year and Charlie Chaplin next year. Okay?”
“Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers are actors,” Timbor said. “You explained that to me, Stan. So the children will be actors too. And that is not evil, is it? You do not think the movies with those actors are ungodly.”
“And aardvarks aren't evil, because they're animals, and they were on the ark, and that means God loves them,” Poliniana said, looking winsomely up at Stan. He had told them the story of the Flood the previous Sunday, and all the children had been enchanted by the tale of brave Noah rescuing two of every kind of animal. They had talked about it later, among themselves, wondering if there had been enough animals to hold the souls of all the poor drowned people.
Stan looked very unhappy. “The Devil wears a fair face.”
“And cannot withstand prayers, or so you have said,” Timbor answered smoothly. “If you pray over the pumpkin, and over the children before they go out in their costumes, will that be all right?”
Stan looked at him, because Timbor had never invited him to say prayers before. Timbor looked back, and smiled. Zamatryna, watching both of them, knew that Stan was afraid, and that Timbor was trying to comfort him. But Macsofo and Erolorit, who had just come into the kitchen, both looked worried.
“Father,” Erolorit said in their own tongue, “what of our own blessings?”
“We will have both,” Timbor answered, and then in English, “We will offer our own prayers that these things be done well and with love and kindness, and you will offer yours, and that way our children will be doubly protected, Stan, yes?”
Stan had stiffened. “Yours might—your incantations might—yours might just invite the De—”
“Stan,” Lisa said. “Stan. Baby steps, Stan. Mysterious ways, Stan.” She looked at Timbor and said, “I think that's a fabulous idea. You do your prayers first, and then Stan will do ours. Two blessings.”
Zamatryna gasped. They all looked at her. “Hallow!” she said, squirming with pleasure at the connection she'd just made. “Hallow in the dictionary means ‘to make holy or set apart for holy use'! And that's what blessings do! And that word's the first part of Halloween! Lisa, am I right?” She knew that English was deceptive sometimes, and that words that sounded alike sometimes were not, like horse, which was an animal, and hoarse, which meant unable to speak, and hearse, which was a carriage for dead bodies, and whores, which was such a very bad word that Lisa refused to tell her what it meant. She would find out when she got to that part of the dictionary.
“Yes,” Lisa said. “Yes, that's exactly right. Very good, Zamatryna. Very good. Timbor, would you bless the pumpkin, please?”
Timbor held up his hands, and the family said in their own language,
Spirits of the dead, thank you for succoring us, that we may remain among the living
. Repeating the familiar words, Zamatryna wondered whose spirit was in the pumpkin, and what that spirit was learning, and how it would feel about having a face carved into it.
“Thank you,” Lisa said. “Now, Reverend Stan, would you favor us with a prayer?”
She and Stan bent their heads and clasped their hands in front of them. “Dear Lord God Almighty,” Stan said, his voice rough, “protect these innocent little children from all the evils of the world. Keep them safe from the Devil, Lord, and from heresy and unbelief and idolatry. As they carve this here jack-o'-lantern, let it be a window for them into your own eternal truth, not into the falsehoods of Satan, and when we put the candle in the pumpkin, may that flame be for them your own glorious light of revelation in the Spirit, not the scathing and unquenchable fires of Hell, which burn forever where no balm or comfort is. This we ask in the name of your only son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, who harrowed the righteous souls from the miseries of Hell and brought them into the blessedness of Heaven. Amen.”
“Amen,” Lisa said cheerfully, although to Zamatryna, Stan's prayer was far scarier than the pumpkin itself could ever be. “All right, kids. We've got ourselves one holy pumpkin here. And now we have to carve some holes in it.” Zamatryna giggled: more fun with English. “I'll go get a pencil, and you kids decide who's going to draw the face.”
The cousins unanimously elected Zamatryna. She sat at the kitchen table, clutching her pencil and studying the pumpkin. What kind of face should she give it? A happy face, to make Stan happy, but whose?
Darroti's. It should be Darroti's face, because she wanted him to be happy wherever he was now; not miserable and roasting like a chicken. She would draw Darroti as he used to be, before he became a crook and began crying all the time. Darroti laughing, juggling pieces of fruit while he hopped on one foot. Darroti giving her a doll.
So she began drawing Darroti's funny lop-sided eyebrows, his sideways grin, the mole on his cheek that was shaped like a starfish. She drew Darroti happier than he had ever looked at his happiest when he was alive. She concentrated very hard as she drew, and the adults watched her quietly. When she was done, Lisa said, “That's sure a happy face, Zamatryna. It looks a little like one of Mama's clowns. Is that a clown?”
“Yes,” Timbor said quietly. “A clown. Happy outside and sad inside.”
Zamatryna looked up. “Grandfather, was it the wrong face to draw?”
“It is a wonderful face,” he said, his voice thick. He bent and kissed her. “Thank you, child.”
Lisa did the carving, and then they put the candle inside, and Darroti's grin flickered and leapt with the flame; the cousins clapped their hands, and even Stan smiled.
“Now that the pumpkin's done,” Lisa said briskly, “we need to start thinking about costumes. Poliniana, you want to be an aardvark, right? I'm not sure how I'm going to make that costume, honey, but I'll do my best.”
Lisa and Aliniana wound up making the aardvark costume out of paper plates and bags. Zamatryna thought it looked like a shapeless mess, but it was purple, and Poliniana loved it. Zamatryna herself had thought of being a ladybug, since Lisa had said that Stan had liked that costume, but a ladybug was a kind of beetle, and pretending to be a beetle made her too uneasy, as if somehow it would be breaking Mim-Bim's silence. So she decided to be a princess instead, because that meant she got to wear her prettiest dress—a frilly thing with sequins and bows that Lisa had found in a thrift store—and lots of perfume. Jamfret, stealing Poliniana's idea, decided to be Charlie Chaplin, and Rikko chose to be Harpo Marx; Lisa made him a cardboard harp.
On Halloween, they put on their costumes and got into the van for the trip to Lisa and Stan's neighborhood. “I told the neighbors we had some friends visiting,” Lisa said. “It's not even a lie. Just, if they ask you questions, stay in character, okay? Here, kids. I've got bags for you.”
Zamatryna liked Halloween, the candy and the admiring ooohs and aaahs of the grown-ups who handed it out. Everyone told her how pretty she was, and they laughed at Jamfret and Rikko. Poliniana's aardvark was less successful; the more tactful adults asked her what she was, but some of the others hurt her feelings without meaning to. “My, what's this, the Incredible Purple Blob? Ooooh, I'm scared!”
“I'm not scary!” Poliniana said indignantly. “I don't want to be scary! I'm an aardvark!”
“Ooooh, an aardvark,” the grown-ups said, scratching their heads. “Well here you go, aardvark. Here's some candy for you.”
They encountered other children wearing other costumes. Some had green makeup and fake pegs sticking out of their necks; some had capes and very long teeth; some were furry and growled. A number of children were wearing white sheets. “What are you?” Zamatryna asked one of these draped figures, when they had arrived at someone's door at the same time.
“I'm a ghost! Boo!”
“What is a ghost, please?”
The other child, who was very small, only giggled and said “Boo!” again; its mother looked at Zamatryna and said, “Not from around here, are you?”
When that family had gone away and Lisa was leading Zamatryna and her cousins to the next house, Zamatryna said, “Lisa, what is a ghost, please?”
“The spirit of a dead person, honey, but that's just a story. Ghosts aren't real.”
“Dead people live in sheets here?” Zamatryna asked doubtfully. “I thought they lived in the sky, and had wings.”
“That's right. They live in Heaven. Some folks believe in ghosts, but that's just a scare story. You don't have to be scared of any ghosts.”
“What do ghosts do that is scary, Lisa?”
“Nothing, honey. They don't do anything, because they aren't real.”
This wasn't a very satisfying answer, but Zamatryna soon forgot about it in the excitement of making herself sick on Halloween candy. Quickly after that there was the excitement of making herself sick on turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce, and then the delirium of Christmas—a holiday of which even Stan seemed to approve, for a change—with its beautiful trees and ornaments and piles of presents, its stories about angels and sheep and Baby Jesus. When Zamatryna heard the story about the angel who came to say that Baby Jesus had been born, and who told the shepherds not to be afraid, she asked Lisa, “Was that angel a ghost? Is that why it said not to be afraid? Because ghosts are scary?”
Lisa paused in her task of pressing red-hot buttons into gingerbread dough, and said, “The angel was a messenger of God, honey, not a dead person. And ghosts aren't real. I don't want you to be scared of ghosts. Angels are real, and ghosts aren't.”
“But why did it say not to be afraid?”
“Because people are always scared by what's bigger than they are, and God's plan for us is bigger than anything.”
“Oh,” said Zamatryna, and ate a red-hot.
Lisa smiled and handed her another one. “So how do you feel about starting school, eh? Now that you all have your papers? Are you excited?”
“Oh, yes,” Zamatryna said, and indeed she was. Stan and Lisa had debated the wisdom of having her and the cousins start school mid-year, when all the other children would already know each other, but finally they had decided that it was more important for the children to get established as quickly as they could. Zamatryna and the cousins had taken a number of very easy tests; Zamatryna would begin fourth grade, where the other students
would be a year older than she was. Lisa seemed a little worried about this; Zamatryna didn't know why. She was older than her cousins, but they still all loved each other. And she had gone to school in the camp and done very well.

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