The Truest Pleasure (18 page)

Something stirred in the air, but I couldn't see a thing. It's true the light was dim, but my eyes was used to it. It was breath stirring. Something moved in the air, but I couldn't see it.

“What is there?” I said.

It moved around the room and come close. I couldn't hear it, but knowed it was there. I could feel it, the way you sometimes know something is in the dark. But there wasn't anything to see.

“Who are you?” I said.

I wondered was it the spirit of the baby come back because she didn't have a name. She couldn't leave the earth without a name; she couldn't get to heaven unless she was called something.

“We will call you Alice,” I said. But I was being silly. There wasn't anything in the air, and I was so tired I couldn't hardly hold my eyes open. I tried to think of them singing in the sunshine on the hill. They would stand by the grave and sing “Beautiful, beautiful Zion” and “By Jordan's Stormy Banks.” Their voices would echo from trees on the curve of the hill. People would put flowers on the raw dirt, and stand in the sun talking before they started back down the hill. They would pat Tom on the back and touch his elbow. They would pick up Moody and pinch Jewel's cheeks.

Whatever it was crossed the room to the corner. It stayed there, like a bat hanging upsidedown, or a snake in a hole. I could feel it watching. Its eyes was on my mind. It was a hole in the air, a coldness. It was sucking everything to itself.

“What do you want?” I said. But of course it didn't answer.

“Go away,” I said, because I saw it wasn't the spirit of the little baby. It didn't mean any good, whatever it was.

And then it moved again. I saw it stir a curtain, and cross the room to trouble the clothes in the wardrobe. It was a little wind that set things swinging.

“Don't knock things over,” I said, and reached out for the dresser top. But it was too late. The perfume bottle fell over with a thump. I set it upright. The lid was still tight. It fell over again. I set it up again. My hand was shaking.

I tried to see what was there. It felt like a shadow inside the air, but you couldn't see a thing. It was like the breath of a
snake, an emptiness that wanted to suck warmth to itself. It was a clear blackness that wanted to leach away color and heat, any feeling or thought.

“Get away!” I said, and slapped at it.

It swooped like a bat closer, and away. And then the room was quiet. I couldn't hear a thing in the whole house except the clock ticking in the next room. I figured it was time for Tom and Pa and the younguns to get back from the funeral. I listened for the sound of feet on the road. I knowed the kitchen table was piled with dishes neighbors had brought. I could smell the hams and chicken, the slaw and candied sweet taters. It made me sick at my stomach just to think of all the victuals.

The room was so still I thought whatever it was must have gone. The bugs was loud outside. And then something breathed right beside my ear. I jerked around and slapped the air to push it away, but it was like trying to stop wind with your fingers. The blackness lashed at my head with tongues and claws.

“No!” I hollered.

It was throwing a net of wires over me, pulling them tight. The wires was cold, sharp as razors. “No!” I yelled again.

“What is it?” Tom said. He was standing in the door. He looked sweaty and his face was red from walking in the sun. His collar was tight and damp with sweat.

“Come here,” I said.

He walked over and stood by the bed and I took his hand. It was a big rough and callused hand. The knuckles was swelled from so much hard work. “I'm glad to see you,” I said.

Like I said, my sister-in-law Lily never irritated me the way she did Tom and Florrie. I was not especially friendly with Lily, but at least I thought I understood her. And when you feel you understand somebody you tend to go the second mile with them. And maybe the fact that Florrie detested her and Tom disliked her made me prone to forgive. I don't know; families are strange. Maybe I was just doing the Christian thing and giving her the benefit of the doubt. I hope that's what I was doing. I'll be the first to admit Lily could act foolish and put on airs. It was just part of her disposition to be silly.

One time after Jewel was born Tom picked three bushels of peaches on the mountain. On Sunday Florrie told me she would come over the next day and help peel the peaches and put them up. Lily heard her and said, “I'll come over, Ginny, and help you too.” She said it when Pa was listening. She never missed a chance to impress him with how pretty she was and how kind and loving.

“The old kitchen's too small for three to work in,” Florrie said and smiled.

“Well, if my help's not needed,” Lily said.

“It would be kind of you to help us,” I said. Everybody in the churchyard was listening.

“I want to put up peaches for Pa to eat,” Lily said, and took Pa by the arm.

The next morning Florrie walked over the hill and we had peeled half a bushel of the peaches and sliced them before Lily arrived. I had tied a bandage on my thumb to protect it from the knife and the rag was already soaked with streaming juice.

“Sorry to be late,” Lily said, taking off her yellow bonnet. She patted her hair in place. “I was looking for my purse. I seem to have lost it walking back from church yesterday.”

“How awful,” Florrie said, and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her wrist.

“I had the ten-dollar gold piece Pa give me in it,” Lily said. “But it wasn't the money I minded losing so much. It was my earrings and my silver comb, and my picture of Mama.”

“Certainly the money is a trifle,” Florrie said.

“Do you have an apron?” Lily said. “This old frock is just a rag, but I'd rather not get peach juice on it. Ain't peach juice hard to get out, Florrie?”

“It is indeed,” Florrie said. Both Florrie and me was wearing our oldest work dresses. Lily had on a white and yellow dress she liked to wear to prayer meetings.

I handed Lily an apron and she tied it on and set down by the basket. She took a peach and held it out from her lap to peel. She cut off a wide band which took with it a lot of sweet flesh.

“Better to peel a narrow strip,” Florrie said. Florrie's hands spun a peach and lowered a coil of peel into the bucket.

“Oh, I forgot,” Lily said and blushed.

“Did you find it?” I said to her.

“What, dear?”

“Did you find your purse?”

“When I found it gone I said to Joe we've got to go back up the road to look. He said somebody would already have found it.”

“Did it have your name in it?” I said.

Lily finished the peach and sliced it into the dishpan, but dropped the stone into the pan. “Oh how clumsy,” she said.

“Maybe a stone would flavor the peaches,” Florrie said.

“No, my name was not in the purse,” Lily said. “But anybody in the valley would know those earrings was mine.”

“I'm sure they would,” Florrie said.

Florrie and me finished the first bushel and started on the second while Lily was peeling her second peach. Lily had powder on her face and when she begun to sweat she patted at the drops with the back of her hand, trying not to disturb the makeup.

“I guess they don't teach peach peeling at finishing school,” Florrie said.

“So you didn't find your purse?” I said.

Lily halved the second peach and dropped it into the dishpan. I got up to get another pan.

“Should I be washing some jars, Ginny?” Florrie said.

“I've already got most of them done,” I said. The washed jars was waiting on the counter to be packed with peach halves. The rest would have to be carried up from the cellar and cleaned. I put another kettle on the stove to heat.

“I said to Joe,” Lily said, “I said go out and look along the road where we walked back from church. He wanted to argue but I told him to go right ahead. If it was out there he still might find it before some peddler or stranger come along and got it.”

“It's a good thing men do what they are told,” Florrie said.

“Why don't you start packing?” I said to Florrie. I wanted to get her away from Lily, and I didn't trust Lily to pack them. Peach halves can be bruised. They have to be packed in jars before they brown, still firm and yellow. That's why canning peaches is such work. Everything has to be done almost at once.

“Have you got enough wood toted in?” Florrie said.

“Tom carried in the box full this morning,” I said, and pointed to the stacked woodbox. When she got busy working Florrie always acted like the older sister. She tried to take charge even in my own house and kitchen.

“Have you got the syrup made?” she said.

“I'll make that while you're packing the jars,” I said.

“Then who will do the peeling?” she said.

“We'll all peel after the first run is on the stove,” I said.

Suddenly Jewel started crying in the bedroom. I wiped my hands and run to get her, then set down by the stove to let her nurse.

“Ginny, have you got the lids ready?” Florrie said.

“I have a box right over there.” I nodded toward the table.

“I don't see any rubbers,” Florrie said.

“They are in the drawer,” I said. “Tom got them on Saturday.”

“Tom is the kind of man that helps out,” Florrie said.

“It's a good thing he is,” I said.

“And whatever he does is done right,” Florrie said.

While Jewel was suckling there wasn't much I could do to help. But I did reach to the drawer and take out the box of new canning rubbers. The kettle was beginning to steam.

“Have you got the boilers ready?” Florrie said.

“They're out on the porch,” I said.

“And we're going to need water to fill them,” Florrie said.

“Tom carried three buckets this morning,” I said.

“Wouldn't hurt to have another bucket,” Florrie said.

“I don't think we have another bucket,” I said, “unless it's the milk bucket.”

“I can always wash the chamberpot and use it,” Florrie said.

“That's awful,” Lily said. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

“I think I am too,” Florrie said.

Because of the heat Jewel went to sleep while still feeding. I put her on my shoulder until she belched and then took her to the bedroom. Soon as I got back I took a saucepan off the shelf and poured a pint of syrup in it, then mixed in water and half a cup of brown sugar and stirred them together over the stove.

“You mean you put brown sugar in peach syrup?” Lily said.

“It gives just a touch more flavor,” I said.

“I use only white syrup,” Lily said. “I want to keep the juice clear and light.”

Florrie rolled her eyes as she went to get the boilers. There was two of them, big copper pots longer than they was wide that Pa had bought in Greenville after him and Mama got married. Florrie set one on the stove and lifted a bucket to pour into it.

“I can help with that,” I said.

“If I break, it's only a back,” Florrie said.

Steam from the kettle and from the syrup begun filling the room. It was already hot and the kitchen started to feel clammier. That's one thing I hate about canning, how hot it is. With fire in
the stove and the air full of steam and peach juice over everything you feel you're going to drown in sweat. Peelings fall out of the pan and get stepped on. After a while the floor is covered with a peach mud that tracks everything and sticks to everything. At the end of the day you have to scrape off the floor and then mop the kitchen. It is so hot sweat gets mixed with the dirt, and the muck and trash is salty and oily. No wonder Florrie was happy to go to the springhouse for more water, then to the cellar for more jars.

“These are mighty pretty peaches,” Lily said.

“The trees have done better since Tom pruned them,” I said. “They had never been pruned before.”

“Everybody has a talent,” Lily said. “That's what the Bible says. Everybody has a talent and a duty to multiply it.”

“If they know what it is,” I said.

Florrie come in with the basket of jars and put them on the counter. She begun scrubbing them with a bottle brush.

“Some people have a talent for music, and some for preaching. And some that want to preach don't have a talent for it. But the Lord knows what he is doing,” Lily said.

“Some people have a talent for talking,” Florrie said. She emptied a jar with a gush and gurgle into the dishpan.

“Did David preach at Mount Olivet last week?” Lily said.

“He was too weak,” Florrie said. “He had the cough in his chest.”

“It's a shame he can't get a church,” Lily said. “He is so good at visiting the sick and he studies so hard.”

“Who says he can't get a church?” Florrie said. She begun to dry the row of jars with a towel.

“I'm only saying I wish he could,” Lily said.

“He will find a church as soon as he gets over his cold.”

“Did you find your purse?” I said to Lily. I put the rubbers and lids on the jars Florrie had already filled and begun stacking them in the boiler.

“Oh it was under some clothes,” Lily said. “Soon as Joe was gone I started picking up clothes in the bedroom and there the purse was under my petticoat.”

“Glory be,” Florrie said.

I've noticed that when people work together they sooner or later get more friendly. It's natural that once you are sweating and straining together you begin to feel like a team. Even Lily and Florrie started to act agreeable as we worked that morning.

“I hear Bertha Lindsay is expecting again,” Lily said when we put on the first boiler and set down to peel the second bushel. Lily had peeled and sliced maybe a dozen peaches on her own. Florrie and me took up our paring knives and got to work.