The Healing (34 page)

When Polly didn’t respond, Rubina laid it out clear. “
He
been laying with me since I was little as that girl there,” she said, motioning her head toward Granada. “You understanding now? My babies is
his
babies.”

Polly nodded calmly, but Granada could see the clench in the old woman’s jaw. Granada sensed that whatever was going on between Polly and Rubina had something to do with all the whispering and eye-cutting that arose every time one of the house servants mentioned the green-eyed girl.

“It’s the mistress,” Rubina continued. “She say she don’t want to never lay eyes on none of my children. She make the master get my babies off the place as soon as the cord been cut. Mr. Bridger come down with a wet nurse and take my babies out my arms. Done that first two times I was a momma.”

For a moment neither woman spoke. Then the old woman asked, “But they couldn’t sell off the last one, could they, Rubina?”

Polly had taken on such a tenderness, a moment passed before Granada flinched at the cruelty of the words.

If the woman was hurt, she didn’t show it. She smiled that reckless, crooked smile again. “No, ma’am! My baby girl never left her momma’s side. And she went to Jesus with the name
her momma
give her.”

“And this one. Mistress ain’t going to get this one, neither, is she?”

The woman didn’t answer. No one spoke for several moments, and no eyes met.

Finally Polly laid a hand on Rubina’s arm. “You be still for a spell, now. It might be best if you stay here the night.”

Polly went to the hearth to fix another cup of tea, but Granada noticed that she drew from a different batch. She had poured a strong
potion of sweet gum and jimsonweed. The woman would soon be very drowsy.

She handed Rubina the cup. “Drink this down. It helps you rest.”

Rubina did as she was told.

“Now lay back down and close your eyes,” Polly whispered. “Nobody going to do you bad while you’re in my hospital.”

As the woman lay there, her breathing evened and the muscles of her face relaxed. Again, Polly went to the hearth, which constantly had a pot of water heating, and dipped a gourd full into a tin basin. She reached for a cake of soap and then returned to the woman.

“Granada, come help Rubina out her dress so I can give her a warm soap bath.” Knowing she was not to say a word now, Granada did exactly as she was asked. Nor did the woman resist. The room took on a peculiar sense of inevitability. There would be no more arguing with Polly Shine.

The sun had set and pulled in its last rays. Lantern light flickered across Rubina’s naked body. Polly began speaking to her softly, in a soothing cadence, as she wiped her down with a warm rag.

Next Polly took tallow fat and began applying it to Rubina, massaging it into her skin.

Granada watched things unfold before her like a wondrous vision. There was a magnificence about Polly. Her old hands seemed reborn, lithe and limber, moving gracefully over Rubina’s body. Polly began with the woman’s face, moved down to her neck and shoulders, lifting each arm.

Rubina’s skin glistened and became fluid like the surface of a dark river. Beautiful expanses of rich, silky skin, more beautiful than any of the mistress’s satins, stretching forever in Granada’s mind. In that vast, never-ending river, beneath the shimmering surface, beneath that little mound, was a child. No, Granada thought, not one but multitudes of children. Granada’s own child was there.

Rubina moaned sadly. “What will happen to my baby?”

“I told you. Your baby will be fine. I don’t believe you hurt her.”

“Her?” The woman smiled sadly. Then she shook her head and tears streamed down her cheeks. “Ain’t going to be my baby. Going to be his to sell. Not my baby.”

Granada could not understand the woman’s sadness. Shouldn’t she be happy? Her baby was safe. It wasn’t right. Granada wanted Rubina to be quiet, to stop ruining the magic.

“I can’t,” Rubina cried. “No more. He ain’t going to do it again.”

“Do what, child?”

“I kept hearing the steps, coming to take my baby. God forgive me, I prayed for the last one to die. When I was told to leave the field to go to nurse her, I went to the woods and prayed God to take her. But she wouldn’t die. And I heard them coming. I just couldn’t …”

Rubina was sobbing now. “I give her a name but they was going to give her another. Send her away from me. Going to make her lay up under white men because she’s so fair. Work her until she dies, she never knowing nothing but the name they call her to bed with.” She took Polly’s hand. “Don’t you see? It was a blessing for her to die. It was the only thing I could give her except her chains.” Rubina placed Polly’s hand over her heart. “Kill me, too!” she sobbed.

Polly stroked Rubina’s dampened hair. “You go on to sleep now, Rubina,” the old woman said. “Rest yourself. I understand now.”

For a while Polly continued to work the woman’s body, kneading the fleshy parts of her arms. Then she laid both hands on the woman’s belly, where the baby lay sleeping. She closed her eyes and whispered softly. “In the beginning God created.”

“Polly,” Granada whispered, as not to awaken Rubina. “Want me to go get Lizzie?”

“No,” Polly said. Her countenance had hardened. “Take your blanket and sleep outside on the porch tonight.”

“But Polly,” Granada gasped, not understanding what she had done wrong. “I want to stay. I want to see how you tend to the woman. You said I was ready. You said—”

“I know, Granada. I’m sorry. But I need you outside. If anybody comes up, you call out. You understand?”

Granada glared at her.

“And don’t be coming back in here.”

The scald of anger rushed to Granada’s face. Polly had promised!
Granada, you are a woman now and you no longer have to stay outside of women’s things
.

Granada yanked the blanket from her bed and stomped outside. She took up the place where she had slept her first night with Polly, many months ago. But on this night Granada lay wide awake, her fists clenched and her thoughts dark.

After all the promises! After all the learning! Nothing had changed. Nothing at all.

G
ran Gran stopped her story. She looked over at Violet, and when she saw the rising horror in the girl’s eyes, the old woman noticed the cold terror that had formed in her own chest.

No, she shouldn’t tell the girl any more. It wouldn’t be right to say it aloud. There was no way Violet could be ready. For a while Gran Gran said nothing. There was only the sound of wood knots popping in the stove.

“What happened to Rubina’s baby?” Violet finally asked, breathless.

Gran Gran could not look the girl in the eye now. Since Violet had found her voice, her presence was becoming more real to Gran Gran. The girl wasn’t deaf and dumb. She was understanding exactly, taking the story inside of her and stitching it together with her own thoughts. Those stitches can last forever.

Gran Gran finally found the girl’s eyes. “She had her a beautiful little girl, Violet.”

“But what happened to—”

“It’s time to get you and me both to bed,” Gran Gran said, her tone final. She could not bear to be around the girl now, not with the memory so near. She heaved herself up from her rocker. “I’m wore out and I bet you are, too.”

After she turned the lantern in the girl’s room down low, Gran Gran stood for a moment and studied her through the dim light. Violet smiled at her and again Gran Gran found herself unable to keep her eyes rested on the girl’s. She had lied to Violet. But it wasn’t just to Violet. That one lie shone a light on so many others.

The old lady said good night and pulled the door behind her, only to return to her rocker by the stove.

Gran Gran sat wide awake, her heart still beating fast from the undammed rush of memory. For so long it had been a distant recollection with no more weight than a story heard in passing—a terrible thing, yes, but something that had happened to someone else. Only tonight did Gran Gran feel its pulse again.

There was no shoving it back into the closet to let the lie sleep another century. The memory was alive tonight, demanding that she look it in the face. There was no choice but to let it take her.

T
he dawn broke with little help from the sun. Clouds hung low over the plantation yard, heavy with the rain the skies had threatened all night. The wagon rumbled up to the hospital, waking Granada from a fitful slumber punctuated by the growl of distant thunder. Through her sleep-bleary eyes, she saw that it was Bridger coming to see about Rubina.

Granada leaped to her feet and scurried into the house to wake the two women, but Polly and Rubina were already sitting at the table as if they had been waiting. Rubina’s head was cast downward. Polly had the woman’s hands in hers.

Bridger entered the room and swaggered up to the table. “You save the child?” he barked.

“Weren’t no child,” Polly said.

“There sure as hell was when I left her here. What did you do?”

“I told you there weren’t no baby. Happens. Woman thinks she got a baby growing inside of her, but her body fools her. Swell up just like she bigged. But Rubina didn’t have no baby growing inside her. I know you seen that before, ain’t you, Mr. Bridger?”

Bridger glared at her, his steel-gray eyes straining in their sockets. He worried the stock of the whip he toted at his hip.

Polly half smiled. “Least now you don’t have to tell Master Ben no hundred-dollar child died under your watch.”

Bridger opened his mouth to speak, but then shut it quickly, scowling in resignation. He stepped back from the doorway and nodded brusquely at Rubina, who got up to leave with him. He snatched her arm, not letting go this time until he had her legs chained to the iron ring on the sideboard of the wagon.

Rubina never spoke a word, but Granada knew. There had been a baby.

After the wagon had pulled away, Granada asked, “What you do with that baby? Did you hide it? Where is she?”

Polly raised her chin and cast her eyes over to the corner. Granada spied the large clay urn with a bloodied rag lying across its mouth. She stepped over to look, but Polly reached for the girl’s arm, pulling her back.

“The baby died?” Granada asked.

Polly was stonily quiet, staring into Granada’s eyes, signaling her the best she could without saying the words. While they stood there frozen in each other’s gaze, a flurry of brittle oak leaves blew into the room on a short gust of wind through the open door. They skittered about them on the floor. The rumbling thunder from the approaching storm was becoming more intense.

It dawned upon the girl what Polly had done. “You killed it!” Granada gasped. She clenched her jaws against the outrage that surged from her belly. She waited for Polly to answer, needing her to deny it all.

Still Polly didn’t speak. She looked haggard, her face ashen, the familiar light having deserted her eyes.

“You’re a liar!” Granada screamed. “You don’t care about the people. That baby was the people. Weren’t it?”

Again there was only Polly’s awful silence.

It was
all
a lie! Granada had lost everything because of this woman and her evil lies.

She slowly backed away, still watching the old woman’s stooped figure, giving her one last chance to rise up and set things right.

Granada turned away, released at last from Polly’s web. “There ain’t no magic,” she spat. “Never was!”

Granada took off in a fevered run across the yard. Raindrops as big as bullets splattered the dust around her.