The Healing

Chapter 38





Polly and Granada were working together in the hospital, the girl preparing a batch of rattlesnake root for one of the gin hands, Polly mixing another tincture for Silas’s dropsy. He had not asked for it, but Polly knew he was taking it. He had to be, from the way his breathing had eased and his walk had become as spry as a pullet’s. He was even wearing shoes again.

Of course he probably wouldn’t give Polly a “thank you” or a “go to hell,” either one, but now at least he took the cure directly from her hand. Polly said that was as close to working a miracle as she had ever come. In fact, Granada had noticed that Polly and Silas’s visits were becoming longer and longer, their nods more intimate in passing, as they caught and held each other’s eye.

The late-afternoon heat of the cloudless October day, along with the fire that blazed in the hearth, made the room unbearable. When Polly left to see about Silas, Granada got the root to boiling and then stepped outside the hospital to catch an early-evening breeze. The days had been hot and dry without the hint of rain, but now on the horizon, the sun was setting behind a slate-gray thunderhead. Down by the cabins the light fluff from the creek-side trees rode a gentle wind like snow flurries.

As she stood outside the door fanning herself with the hem of her apron, the dogs started whining. Charity strolled with her baby over by the hound yard. The woman was so proud of her daughter she walked the miracle baby around the grounds each morning and afternoon, showing off Jolydia to everybody she came across. Even the dogs, instead of growling ferociously like they did with everyone else, whimpered when she approached. Maybe Polly was right. Maybe this child was blessed.

Granada glanced over at the ginhouse to see Master Ben reaching deep into a wagon heaped with cotton and retrieve a fistful of the fleecy white stuff. He pulled at the fibers like they were threads of gold, then scribbled a few notes in his leather-bound journal. Shutting the book, he gazed at the rain-threatening horizon and did a quick survey of the loaded wagons lined up in the yard. As if hearing his name, he abruptly shifted his gaze to the great house.

There she stood, the mistress, board-straight, fingers gripping the wrought-iron railing of the gallery. Just as Silas had predicted, the master had fetched his wife and brought her back. But she had not returned grateful. Even in the shadow of her bonnet, the mistress’s stare was fixed hard on her husband.

When the mistress first arrived, Granada had been surprised to see that the woman’s eyes were no longer clouded over, aimlessly wandering. The muddled expression had vanished. The watery bluish tint of her irises had intensified into a piercing violet and her face had darkened to a lustrous vinegar brown. Her look was focused but patient, like a panther waiting to pounce.

Granada held her hand to her heart, trying to remember, to see what distressed the mistress so. She still wished there was something she could do to mend her grief.

But nothing came. Polly would say Granada’s own needs of the mistress were still too recent. “It’s only when you don’t want nothing from a body that you can see who they are,” Polly had said. “It’s strange, but when you don’t want nothing, seems like you can give everything you got.”

It was true. Sometimes she thought about the dresses and the sheen and shine of the fine things that surrounded the family. The embrace from Little Lord still found its way into her daydreaming. But less each day.

Granada heard a rumbling in the distance. A fast-moving wagon was hurtling up the levee road. It swung past the house, throwing up a storm of dust over the yard, before finally coming to stop a few feet from where she stood on the porch.

“Get out here, Polly!” said Bridger. Granada was about to tell him Polly wasn’t back yet when she came scurrying around the corner.

“Give me a hand with this wench!” he ordered.

Polly and Granada stepped up to the wagon and looked over the sideboard. A woman was stretched out in the wagon bed, holding on to her belly with one hand and the sideboard of the wagon with the other.

She was lean but muscled, in a dirty tatter of a dress, her hair hidden beneath a head rag. The overseer was tugging at her dirt-encrusted legs, trying to drag her out from the endgate, but she held fiercely to the wagon, kicking at the white man.

“Goddamn you!” he shouted. Then he checked himself, casting a glance over at the ginhouse where the master seemed otherwise occupied. Under his breath Bridger spat, “Don’t matter whose bastard you carrying. I can still lash your back. Let go that wagon.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with me!” she shouted. “Take me back to the field, Mr. Bridger. Please, sir.”

“You sure sounded like something was wrong with you when I found you fell out between the rows and crying out to good God Almighty. I swear if you shirking, I’ll sure enough cut you with my whip. Now get out the wagon.” He jerked again on her legs.

“Please, Mr. Bridger! Don’t leave me with no hoodoo woman. Let me be!” She kicked hard at the overseer.

Only when her greenish eyes flashed like a jewel in the dying sun did Granada recognize her. What had happened to the high-stepping, proud woman she had seen at Preaching Sunday? Then Granada understood. This is what she had seen beneath the pleasing face: fear and suffering.

“Leave her to me, Mr. Bridger,” Polly said firmly.

The overseer scowled but released his grip on Rubina’s ankles. “Just hurry it up and get her inside before the master’s wife sees her.”

“Get on up now, gal,” Polly said evenly. “I suspect you can use your legs a lot easier than us grappling over you like a buffalo cat. Just as well come on in under your own steam. Either way, you going to end up in the same place.”

The woman reluctantly lifted herself and then eased down from the wagon. Polly walked her to the cabin, the overseer following behind. Though her face was streaked with dirt and tears, and the shift she wore was raggedy, Granada couldn’t help notice once more how beautiful she was.

“What happened to this child?” Polly asked.

“Said the plow jumped up and hit her in the belly.” He spat on the ground. “She better not lose this one,” he said. “She been a good breeder, but she ain’t no natural mother.”

“What’s your meaning?” Polly asked.

“Good God!” he said with a disgusted snarl. “Last time she birthed, instead of taking the hour I give her to leave the fields and go home to nurse the child, she stole off to the woods and slept. Had to threaten the lazy wench with the whip to feed her own baby. Then, by God, she rolled over and mashed the child in her sleep. Already had it sold for a hundred dollars when we found it dead underneath her. Mr. Satterfield is liable to take it out on both me and you if she loses another. Probably sell her to boot.”

Killing your own baby! Granada thought. How could a woman ever survive that? No wonder Rubina was the very first person Granada had been able to read. Her pain must be unbearable.

As Polly carefully led the woman toward the open door, Granada caught the reckless look in the woman’s eye. It was then that Rubina broke loose, sidestepped Bridger, jumped the porch, and staggered as fast as she could in the direction of the great house.

“Momma!” she screamed out, just before Bridger’s whip caught her at the ankle and yanked her to the ground.

The overseer reached down and picked her up, roughly hoisting Rubina onto his shoulder, and then rushed her through the cabin door before either Lizzie or the mistress could check on the commotion.

• • •

When he dumped her onto the floor, Rubina lay there not looking any the more submissive, and Granada could tell the woman didn’t care what the next words out of her mouth were going to be. But before she could utter them, Polly quickly thanked the man and then turned her back on him, half pulling and half pushing Rubina to get her across the room and onto the corn-shuck tick.

While Bridger eyed them closely from the doorway, Polly bent down and whispered fiercely into the woman’s ear, “Be still and shut your fool mouth!” and then looked up sweetly to tell Granada to kindly close the door behind the overseer. That everything was just fine now.

Bridger’s footsteps pounded the porch after being dismissed by a Negro.

Polly stood over Rubina for a long time but didn’t touch her. The woman’s face was glistening with sweat, contorted by pain and rage. Polly studied her like one would an animal of questionable temperament.

“Leave me be,” Rubina finally said, her voice hoarse from screaming. “Just let me lay here for a spell.”

Polly rested her hand on Rubina’s belly, but she fiercely slapped it away. “Don’t you put your devil hooves on me,” she spat. “I already told you I don’t need nothing from you, old woman.”

Granada watched with growing unease. She had never seen anyone take on Polly with such ferocity.

“The devil ain’t nowhere in this here room,” Polly said calmly. “Just us gals. Now you let us do our work. I’d sure hate to get somebody in here to bind you.”

Polly did not relent under Rubina’s scalding gaze. The young woman removed her hand from her belly.

“Now let me have a look-see.” Polly lifted up the woman’s filthy shift by the hem and pulled it back, revealing smooth cinnamon legs. Granada spied the dark nest between her thighs. Rubina made a motion to snatch her dress back down, but thought better of it.

Granada stood entranced. She watched as Polly laid the flat of her hand on the woman’s rounded belly. It was not long ago that Granada believed the stories Chester told her about finding babies in stumps. Now she realized he told those more for the fun of the house servants than to satisfy her questions. Granada had seen her flowers. She was a woman now, and women knew the secrets of such things. Today she would learn more.

She shoved her hands into her apron pocket and fingered each item, wanting to be quick if Polly should need anything.

“Plowing under cornstalks, was you?” Polly said. “Where that plow get you at?”

Trembling, the woman touched low on her belly.

Polly nodded and gently probed the spot where the woman had indicated. Next she laid her ear against the woman’s belly and listened to her insides.

“Ain’t so keen with a plow, is you?” Polly laughed, rising up. “You must be just a quarter hand.”

The woman’s thin nostrils flared. “I can carry a row better than any man!”

“And you let the plow get you? How could that happen if you so keen?”

The woman became sullen and looked away. “Plow just jumped up on its own. Must of grabbed a root.”

“Well,” Polly said after a few moments, “I don’t know, but maybe we can save your baby.”

Granada giggled at the news. She wanted to join Polly at the bedside and smooth the woman’s hair and hold her hand, to share her happiness. Perhaps even risk Bridger’s whip and run up to the great house to bring Lizzie down to be with her daughter.

But Rubina’s reaction made Granada stop short. Her stare was hard and straight, her face as unflinching as stone.

Polly pulled the dress back down and then eased herself over to her rocker. She fell back with a groan. “Granada, get Rubina a cup of sassafras tea. Stir in a spoon of sugar.” She smiled at Rubina. “Will you like that, child?”

“It ain’t got no potion in it, do it?”

Polly laughed. “I ain’t no conjure woman. And Granada, get this gal some corn bread with a little molasses poured on it. I know you like that, don’t you, gal?”

Rubina’s eyes widened. Then she lifted up on the mattress, placing the flat of her back against the wall.

From where she sat, Polly quietly studied the woman as she drank the tea and devoured the bread, and then carefully wiped the crumbs from her mouth with the back of her hand. She finished those off with hungry flicks of her tongue.

“Now weren’t that good?” Polly asked. “Ol’ Polly ain’t so bad now, is she?”

For the first time the woman smiled a bit.

“I reckon we just got off to a rough start, but we’re doing fine now, ain’t we? You want more bread?”

The woman nodded slightly, and Granada brought it to her.

“Bridger called you a good breeder, Rubina,” Polly said. “How many children you birthed?”

“Three,” Rubina said, lifting the cup to her lips.

“Hmm. Where they at? I ain’t never seen them.”

Rubina lay a palm on her belly. For the first time her face showed a hint of softness. “I ain’t seen ’em, neither,” she said quietly.

“Master put your babies on the block?”

She shook her head sharply. “Never made it to no block. Bridger said my babies so pretty and white, like me, the master had them sold before they left my belly.”

“Never heard of selling no baby before it even been birthed.”

“They his babies,” Rubina hissed angrily.

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.