Balm (17 page)

“I told you. She talk to the dead. Make her own living.”

It was quiet in the house. The sound of their breath overtook hers. They watched her as if she were the hunted, her next step determining their next step.

“What kind of dead?”

“Do y'all know how far Chicago is from here? And besides, ain't the same woods there?”

“Mmm hm.”

“It's a prairie.”

“A what?”

“Talk to the dead, huh?”

“We ever tell you about our aunt Mary beat to death for not telling?”

“Mmm hm.”

That story had worked on Madge her whole life. Nothing else, they'd preached early on, guaranteed their freedom but their ability to heal. The sisters' secrets were more powerful than the papers hidden in the floorboard because only those secrets could procure new papers should the other ones fail.

“I told you I ain't tell her nothing.”

“Just 'cause she ain't fishing don't mean she ain't got a taste for some trout.”

“Mmm hm.”

Middle-of-the-night quiet settled over them as Madge waited for the final cut. But it did not come. Instead, Baby Sister said, “Nothing you can't do about her eyes?”

Baby Sister had moved the conversation, but now she shrank. She rarely talked, but when she did, she had a way of pulling her body back once she'd spoken, as if stepping away from a conversation she'd begun. Madge had changed since going north, and the aunts regarded this newness skeptically. They had studied the forest long enough to know that they did not know the answer to everything, and at any given moment they might witness unknown effects of the same leaves, stems, barks, roots that they had used their entire lives. The sisters did not preach hope, but they knew it existed.

Madge fingered a pouch. “Nothing,” she said though she wanted to add,
Not yet, anyway
. Knowledge was out there beyond the woods of Tennessee, some of it in fields of wildflowers where the earth did not stop.

Madge had a thought: “She can come back with me. All y'all can. We can figure it out together. 'Sides, y'all getting too old to be down here by yourself.”

“Thought you was here to stay,” said Baby Sister.

Berta Mae laughed. “Besides, what some old women like us do up
there? Girl, I was born in them woods. And when my time come, I carry my behind right out there and die in them.”

“You can't even chop wood,” said a sister.

“Come back here after while and tell me you don't see a fire.”

“What you eat lately other than what you got out that river?” Madge asked softly.

“You the stick.”

“No, she ain't,” Sarah said. “She look good.”

“Shut up. How you know how she look.”

“When the last time y'all healed?”

“You still a child, child.”

Madge turned to her mother. “You remember my hands? What they can do?”

“You still think you something special, don't you,” they said.

“Mama, listen to me. I can be your eyes.”

“We got four eyes right here,” said the eldest. “Don't need two more.”

Baby Sister poked her head forward. “Now Berta.”

A familiar sight: a mother's affection snatched away from a lovesick daughter. Madge thought again of Hemp and how Berta Mae's words had left a pile of dirt on top of Madge's farewell.
Just remember. Ain't no healing brew between your legs
.

M
ADGE HELPED THE SISTERS
. S
TOCKED
the pantry. Picked greens. Fattened the chickens. And, gradually, the sisters' distrust of Sadie's spirit work gave way to curiosity. They wanted to know what kinds of things this widow's spirit talked about, and whether the white woman could make a dead body appear. Even though it was clear they expected answers, they still uttered the questions without an asking tone, as if they already knew the answer, and when Madge hesitated, they shot her a look that said,
I knew it was all a lie
. Three weeks turned into four, and, finally, the sisters cracked open the door, no longer sending Madge outside on chores while they talked to one another. They began to continue conversations after Madge entered the room, even asking her opinion about the beetles crawling on the fava leaves. Madge was reminded that in these woods she was one of them while in Chicago she was an uprooted bush planted in somebody else's garden.

As she returned home one day, she caught movement at the window of the house and knew one of the women was watching for her. A finger of smoke scratched at the sky. The fire was already lit. She had not told them she was bringing home meat, but they had known what kind of girl they raised. As she entered the three-room house, built by slaves who belonged to a white man whose life the girls' mother had saved, she considered the sanctity of western Tennessee. A bona fide place. Not still forming like that city of noise she'd left behind. Inside, Baby Sister took the ham from her. Clearly, the sisters were working on what Madge wanted to believe was finally her homecoming feast. If her arrival had not excited them, the prospect of food did. Madge picked up a bowl of peas that needed snapping. Her mother pulled bugs off the leaves of a cabbage, then dunked it in a bowl of water.

The four women sat down to eat, the smell of salted pork in the air, the sound of their teeth grinding the food. Here was the thing she had missed in Chicago. Even during those years when they had not accepted her, she had lived within shouting distance of this feeling. There was sanctity here.

Once all of the women had their fill, they reclined in the rockers on the porch, the dark curtain of trees behind them. Madge brought out a fourth chair. The flame of a candle inside the house cast a dull light over the women's faces as they quietly spat tobacco juice into the cans at their feet.

“Read,” her mother said.

“What?”

“You heard her, girl. Read,” Berta said.

None of the women knew their letters, so as far back as Madge could remember, they had made their own stories. The sisters watched Madge, waiting to hear what kind of story she could tell after two years of living away.

Madge cleared her throat.

One time, in a place far away, a king's son was given fifty wives, but he didn't love none one of 'em. The poor prince was so sad 'cause he just didn't feel nothing for none of 'em. Then one day, he come up on the daughter of two old turtles. Now this turtle daughter wasn't no ordinary girl. Fact was, she had two faces—one nice and the other evil. That nice face was so beautiful that the prince was struck down by love and he take her right away to the castle and marry her.

Months go by, and the turtle princess start to kill off the other wives one by one with a poison stew. She kill 'em all until only one other wife left. That poor scared woman go to the prince to tell him about the evil side of the turtle princess, but he just can't believe it. When he go to find the two-faced wife, he can't find her, so he go to the turtle parents. Shamed by their daughter, they confess how she was born with two faces and how they hid it from him. The prince's heart was broke right in two.

He go looking for the turtle princess, and he find her in the woods busy cooking a stew to kill off the last wife. He want to tell her how he know all about her two faces, but he can't because he get caught up in that pretty side again. Fact was, one of the faces so beautiful he can't hardly stand it. The princess go off into the woods to remove her dress so he can take her right there on the forest floor. While the prince wait for her, he get hungry and sip from her stew. And it sure was good. He eat until he can't eat no more. When the turtle princess get back, that prince dead on the ground. She lay down beside him crying, distraught over what she done.

When the people of the kingdom find out, they chase the girl out of that place forever. That last wife, the one she never got to kill, marry the prince brother, and the two became king and queen and the turtle princess was never seen or heard from again.

She stopped.

“You ain't planning to marry, is you?” her mother said.

“Don't she need somebody to marry first?”

“Something happen up there in that city, girl? Something you want to share?”

“Oh, Lord, she done killed somebody wife.”

“Why you wear that mourning dress, anyway?”

“Maybe she lost a baby.”

“But she say she ain't have no husband.”

“Yea though I walk.”

Madge interrupted. She had done it the way they always did it, spinning around a story she had heard as a child. This story had nothing to do with her life. She had done something bad, but she sure hadn't killed anybody. “Now y'all stop it. I said, it's just a dress.”

She caught her breath. Maybe she did have a secret hankering to kill Hemp's wife. It sure would save her a lot of trouble. She had no business wanting him, but she still did. It wasn't fair. She was flesh and bone. Annie was nothing but a ghost memory. Madge wanted to take him over, his hands, his arms, but he was a man who had always been owned, and though she knew better than to conflate the ownership of love with the ownership of greed, she understood that, for Hemp, the first breath of freedom contained the joy of self-possession.

Hemp's body had been so willing when she lay with him. It made her resent Annie, hate her, even though Madge had never set eyes on the woman. Hemp was the one who proved the sisters wrong. He was a good man. She had to believe him when he said he had only kissed the girl. Still, Madge could not have him. Over and over, she'd considered how the very honor that disproved the sisters' ideas about men was the same virtue that kept him from her. What the sisters had left out was that sometimes women were the ones to do the wounding.

“You hear me talking, Madge? What happened up there?”

Sarah did not wait for an answer. She rose and felt for the doorway to her room. Madge looked at her mother's back and started to
say,
This story ain't have nothing to do with me
, but nothing came to her lips.

T
HE BEGINNING OF
J
ULY ARRIVED
, the annual time for the sisters to forage for bark. They tied pouches around their waists and took out pickaxes from under the beds. Madge filled their canteens with water, shelled nuts for a midday meal, sharpened their blades, and the four marched through the yard, swatting at flies. Sarah held on to Madge's elbow.

To the sisters, the woods were a sanctuary, and God dwelled upon its grounds. As they walked, they preached to Madge, repeating old lessons:
Wait till the sap done rose before pulling the bark. When you pull it, make sure you strip off the outer part, scrape at the tree's underbelly. A tree bark like skin, so handle it gentle. Never skin a tree all the way 'round its trunk or you kill it. When you can, take bark from the branch and not the trunk. Gather roots in fall. If you pull roots in spring, get ready to wait for 'em to dry out real good. Make sure to wait for the plant's seeds to age. If the plant still growing, let it alone. Pick leaves from plants just as they start to flower. Pick flowers at full bloom. Always pick leaves and flowers in the morning, but wait till the dew dry. Gather seeds when they ripe. You got to know your trees. Know the difference 'tween a beech and a oak, a mulberry and a magnolia. Once you take note of your trees, move on to the smaller stuff: bushes, shrubs, plants. The woods will teach you. In the right weather, on the right day, ain't no other place. See that bark? It's weak, so you need a lot of it. Put some in your pouch. Boil it long and slow, and that tea work a miracle. Headaches, stomachaches, diarrhea, piles. Toss it 'round in your throat when it's sore. Pour it on rashes and burns. If you want a stronger bark, you got to find a white oak rather than a red oak. See that tree? Chew the bark and you get rid of a toothache. Boil it and the tea will empty you out. Here come a tree every healer need to know. This here is gum. You chew
on this for all kind of ailments. Rub it in your sores and wounds. Boil it in milk and give it to a baby.

They talked as they worked, played a game where Sarah tried to recognize trees by smell and touch, laughing when she got it right, teasing when she got it wrong.
You done lost your touch, Say-ruh
.
Never needed no eyes before.
They filled their pouches. A canopy of green protected them from the worst of the sun, and the rough brush stabbed at their ankles. Later, they lay out their discoveries on the table. Madge boiled a pot of water, then pulled a worm from her mother's hair. Sarah Louise held a piece of bark to her nose, commented on its sweet odor, bit into it, and chewed thoughtfully.

“Now come on, Say-ruh Lou. We ain't done with you yet. Tell us what this is,” Baby Sister said, pushing a chip toward her older sister. Baby Sister's chest caved inward, and she sat back as if she had not asked the question.

Sarah rubbed it between her thumb and index finger, pressed it to her nose, and declared, “Child, you got to do better than that. That's mamaroot.”

“What about this one.”

“I'm gone beat you with a stick.”

“We got to keep you going,” Berta said.

“You know I can still beat you with no eyes and two hands tied behind my back.”

Madge dropped a piece of wood into the boiling water. When she sat down again, she said, “I be heading back soon.” The words came out before she'd had a chance to think. She had not known until that moment, listening to the sisters talk, that this was no longer her home.

“Heading to what.” The laughter was gone from Berta's voice.

Madge felt something coming her way and blurted, “To a life,” when she'd meant to say “to my life.” What she had in Tennessee was a life, too, but it was not the one she had made. Occasionally, Baby
Sister's lips moved as if about to say something, but Madge could see the motion was involuntary.

Madge tried to turn the mood. “Read to me. Read to me about the man with the short arm.” None of the sisters answered, and Madge knew there would be no more stories. They had shared with her all they could. What she knew already would have to suffice. She looked down at her tea, thinking of the life she would make. She would advertise herself as a “doctor,” but she planned to heal more than the body. She wanted to make amulets, healing balms, things that worked because people believed in them.

Madge was clear on her vision for herself, so why did she still feel so bad? She looked over at the women. All their eyes were on her, even the glassy, unseeing eyes of her mother.

T
HE NIGHT BEFORE SHE LEFT
, Madge rubbed the balm onto her mother's neck, shoulders, and arms. She massaged the joints, rubbing out the knots. The house was quiet, and the mother and daughter shared the moment undisturbed. When she was done, Madge lay beside her.

“You know y'all got to heal again. You can't eat if you don't,” Madge whispered.

“I lost my sight when nem mens came.”

“Buzzards.”

“Lord only knows why they come this way to take out they anger on us.”

Madge's dream had been unfinished: the sisters were alive, the house still standing. The untold scene was that her mother had lost her eyes. She wished with a sudden, deep longing that her hands had the power to do more than pronounce. She wished they could heal. She placed a hand over her mother's eyes and prayed for something to flow through them.

With Madge's hands still closed over her face, Sarah continued talking: “They bust in here and they bust me, too. Struck me in my eye with a stick. I seen light and then dark.”

Madge ran her other hand down the groove of Sarah's neck.

“Hit me right in the eye. Feel like it was knocked clean out of my head. Feel like somebody done set fire to it. The other eye still work, so I pick myself up and see about my sisters.”

Madge could not help but think: What would have happened had she been there? Who would her mother have worried over more if forced to choose? Ridiculous—this jealous feeling of aunts. Nothing but the selfish thoughts of a child. Yet her doubt persisted. Had she been there, she knew what she would have done: taken the blow for her mother. Defended her without a second thought.

“I found 'em both up under the bed. Too scared to come out even though the mens was long gone. Ain't never seen my sisters in such a fright, 'specially Berta. She ain't as tough as you think. Us don't work no black magic. Mama said it ain't right. But everybody know what the other thinking.”

“What they take?”

“Don't matter. We make out fine in the wash. Excepting me. I lean on that one eye so hard them first few days, I reckon I lean too hard. Pretty soon it start to follow the other one, like neither one wanting to see the world no more. We so foolish thinking they come here to protect us. White folks round here ain't never messed with us none. One of 'em was hurt when they walked up. We could've helped him. 'Fore long, we knowed they wasn't up to no good.”

“Why he hit you?”

“He try to take this.” She reached under the mattress, held something in her fist, passed it over to Madge. A small picture in a frame hung on a chain that had turned green long ago. Madge remembered that summer; she had been barely fourteen years old when Sarah
squeezed ointment in the eye of a man traveling through town with a camera. He had taken Madge's picture in payment.