Canaan's Tongue (31 page)

From Parson’s Day-Book.

In using hair or other parts of the body, it is essential to make sure they
come from the correct person, as is suggested by the cautionary tale of
John
Fian, school-master of Saltpans in Midlothian, which is told in a
pamphlet of 1591, “News from Scotland.”

Fian conceived a passion for the older sister of one his pupils and
persuaded the little boy to bring him one of her pubic hairs. When the boy tried to
take these hairs from the sleeping girl, she awoke and cried out. Their mother
came and, discovering what had happened, took three hairs from the udders of
a young heifer and gave them to the boy, who passed them on to Fian. Fian
“wrought his art upon them” and in a little while the heifer came to him,
“leaping and dancing upon him,” and pursued him everywhere, “to the great
admiration of all the townspeople of Saltpans.”

Last Conference.

COLONEL
—You
asked to see me, Virgil?

VIRGIL
—I’ve
been to the top of the house, Colonel. To the attic.

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—You’ve been to the attic.

VIRGIL
—That’s
right, Colonel. I made a sketch.

COLONEL
—Hold
on a bit, Virgil. You’re carrying on like poor Asa, bless
him. Sit down a moment and catch your air.

VIRGIL
(SHAKES HEAD)—You’ve been keeping clear of the real business
all this time. I know that now—; and I don’t blame you for it. But take a
look at this map of the grounds I’ve drawn. It just might give you pause.

COLONEL
—I
can’t think what you’re getting at. The Redeemer himself
appointed me in charge of—in head of—you know as well as I—

VIRGIL
—What
the Hell have you been interviewing us for?

COLONEL
(INAUDIBLE)

VIRGIL
—What
was that, you old tippler? What was that?

COLONEL
—I—I.
Yes. (PAUSE)—He told me to.

VIRGIL
—Parson?

COLONEL
(QUIETLY)—Please to leave now, Virgil. Please to let me be.

VIRGIL
—You’ll
damn well look at this sketch I’ve drawn. (PAUSE)—And
I’ve got something else to show you. (PULLS BOTTLE OUT OF
COAT POCKET)

COLONEL
—What’s
that now, Virgil? (SMILES)—A bottle of perfume?

VIRGIL
—Your
name is on it, Colonel. There. Just below the stopper.

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—What is it, then? Something pickled—?

VIRGIL
—Have you been letting them take the knife to you, you old imbecile?

COLONEL
(INAUDIBLE)—Ah—
aah
—

VIRGIL
—Here!
Take a closer look. (SHAKES BOTTLE)

COLONEL
—What
is it? Can you tell me? For mercy’s sake—

VIRGIL
—I wouldn’t venture more than a guess. It looks to me like the bottom
of an ear.

COLONEL
—Parson
never touched me, Virgil! Never!

VIRGIL
—Lean forward, grand-dad. Lift your hair a bit.

COLONEL
—Virgil—I’m
telling you—

VIRGIL
—Jesus!

COLONEL
—Yes.
All right. (PAUSE)—Yes.

(SILENCE)

COLONEL
—What
has he got up there, Virgil? Have you seen it?

VIRGIL
—Enough
bottles to open an apothecary. Three or more from each of
us. Mine were empty. Yours, on the other hand, were full.

COLONEL
—It
was Asa I let cut me. The bottles were his. (PAUSE)—He’s
my god-son, after all. I told old Sam Trist that I’d mind him. That I’d
see—that I’d see to his education—

VIRGIL
—I’d
say he’s taken his degree.

COLONEL
—You
have no idea what that child has su fered, Virgil! None!
Even I don’t know the half of it. I mean, little Asa—his
father,
Virgil—
you have no idea—

VIRGIL
—Not yet, Colonel. But I’m learning quick.

COLONEL
—What
do you mean?

VIRGIL
—There’s
but one window in that attic. About eye-level to a boy of six.

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—Yes. The window. Asa told me once. (PAUSE)—He
used to go up there to hide.

VIRGIL
—Have you ever looked out of it?

COLONEL
—Why
the devil should I? I’d barely make the steps in my condition.I shouldn’t wonder if I had a pleurism—

VIRGIL
—Morelle’s put us on a grid, Colonel. He’s made a trellis out of us for
his clambering spirit. Look at this drawing!

COLONEL
—Give
it here. (PAUSE)—Well, Virgil. I see you’ve sketched the
grounds.

VIRGIL
—It’s
the Ladder, Colonel. Look at it carefully.

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—The which?

VIRGIL
—I’ve
made marks where Morelle is buried, and where Harvey is.
And here, where another hole’s been dug—: you see? Look at the play of
paths between the buildings. Morelle is Malkuth, the top of the ladder.
Harvey is Yesod, just below. The hole behind the tobacco-house is Hod. Do
you see it yet? Each circle, each building is placed exactly at a
sephira,
a
stop on the path to earth from heaven. Think of it! (PAUSE)—The next
hole will be behind the smoke-house.

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—Perhaps you’d best sit down a moment, Virgil. Take a
spot of rest—

VIRGIL
—What!
You mean you actually don’t see it?

COLONEL
—You—you’re
not making any
sense,
Virgil. What you’ve drawn
is a map of the grounds.

VIRGIL
(MUMBLING)—The signs were all around me, of course, but I
lacked the eyes to see them. It took poor cracked Asa to enlighten me. The
grounds are a playing field, a grid, a game of Chinese marbles—; and our
cadavers are the pieces. (PAUSE)—The Redeemer’s not dead, Colonel.
Not in any sense that matters. He’ll be back with us directly.

COLONEL
(LOUDLY)—KENNEDY!

VIRGIL
—Don’t
call Kennedy in here, damn you! Just have a look again—
here, at the bottom corner—

COLONEL
—I’ve
looked at it already, Virgil. I see nothing but the grounds.
(CLEARS THROAT)—I’ll have Parson look it over, if you like.

VIRGIL
(QUIETLY)—You’ll have—you’ll have Parson—
(ENTER KENNEDY)

COLONEL
—There
you are, Mr. Kennedy! Please accompany Virgil to his
room.

VIRGIL
(REACHING INTO COAT)—Just you try it, Stuts.

COLONEL
—There’s no
call for
that,
Virgil. Put the pistol by!

VIRGIL
—Back
away from me! (SOFTLY)—You’ve made an error, Colonel.
A right grievous one.

(EXIT VIRGIL)

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—Well, Mr. Kennedy. (SIGHS)—I’m glad I had you by.

KENNEDY
—It
do seem propitious.

COLONEL
—What
do you make of this whole circus—Virgil and the rest?

KENNEDY
—Wouldn’t
cuh!—cuh!—care to hazard, Colonel. (PAUSE)—I
could of warned him off that attic, though.

COLONEL
—You—you’ve
been
there? To the attic?

KENNEDY
—Aye.

COLONEL
(QUIETLY)—When?

KENNEDY
(SHRUGS SHOULDERS)—Some while back.

COLONEL
—You
saw—
all
of it, did you? You saw the bottles?

KENNEDY
—That’s
why I gone up, grand-dad. To liberate my own.
(SMILES)—To Abolitionize ’em.

COLONEL
—You
believe in Parson’s pocus, then.

KENNEDY
(COUGHS)—Superstitious, aren’t I.

(SILENCE)

KENNEDY
—Colonel?
Hey?

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—It’s so hard to follow, Kennedy—it’s so hard to determinewho’s—dependable—

KENNEDY
—You
can always depend on old Stuts Kennedy, guh!—guh!—
grand-paps. You know that much.

COLONEL
—Thank
you, Kennedy. (PAUSE)—I feel worn through, just at
present. (PAUSE)—Would you like to sit beside me for a spell?

KENNEDY
—Be
pleased to, Colonel. (SITS)

COLONEL
(FAINTLY)—Asa. I’d—I’d like Asa to come and sit with me. I
don’t feel well at all. (PAUSE)—Could you fetch him?

KENNEDY
—Not
bloody likely.

COLONEL
—Mr.
Kennedy! I beg of you—

KENNEDY
—I’d
do it straight-away, Colonel, and warmest regards. But it’s
puh!—puh!—placed beyond my powers, I’m afraid.

COLONEL
(PAUSE)—How do you mean—?

KENNEDY
—Young
Asa’s dead as a Christmas goose. I saw him swinging in
the orchard not ten minutes gone.

COLONEL
(RISING)—Asa! Asa!

KENNEDY
—Sit
down, grandfather. You’ll break your arse.

Glory.

I AM SINGING IN A CHORUS, Asa says.

Golden and rosy is the castrato’s chain that hangs from the masters of this world. If I had never dared to climb onto the stage I would not be singing in this choir of white-gold niggers to either side, this stage-set made of sun, this fire, this glow of flames, this house, this baking-oven. What I have not yet told—:
the nigger’s skin is brown
because he came too close to G*d.

Bristly, bistly, silver-and-mossy hairs, glistening and wet, wet eyes, blinking eyes, sack-cloth dresses down about the ankles. Barefoot I stand and without shoes. G*d is passing out the water. It is hot in the oven. All of us waiting in a stinking line making religion. Their religion, religion of cabins and swamp-water and gibbering whispers. Worship of babies and the ovenly future, crossing the Jordan to the heavenly cities, babies sh*tting and weeping and fattening themselves on babies in the cities and my own Dolly who went down too soon under the great nigger-colored river. The brown tumbling-over river, the feeding river, the keel-boats, the working, the Trading, the gray and blue gun-boats tumbling up the river. The War.

G*d moves under it.

Barefoot I stand among them and without shoes. At last I have finished singing, mocked behind my coat, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three times I sing—: Glory to my f*ther in the highest.

Good-will toward niggers, then pardoned.

V

GEBURAH (5
^th
of the sephiroth; female) Which is the sphere of Mars,
and the force appealed to in operations of hatred and destruction. It is the
strict and severe authority of the mother, who disciplines and punishes the
child. It lies behind all destructive energy, hate, rage, cruelty, war, havoc,
retribution; Nature red in tooth and claw.

—Richard Cavendish

“We Are Building a Revolver.”

HELL IS A WORD, says Clementine.

Imagine a place where your life’s errors hold fast. Hold fast for you to fondle and examine them, then be examined in your turn. Hell is a word that all of us were raised on—; fed and fattened on, then fed back to as we grew. But Geburah Plantation is a place.

The R—— himself has shown me this. It is.

There’s to be a marriage, Parson said. He told me on the settee, with the prisoner between us—: Someone is to be married, Clementine. Married to the R——.

There will be an end to things that way, he said. The wedding itself will end things. He laughed. A wedding always does.

Today is the day after. Virgil calls on me at last. He finds me at the window as he did on that first day in Madame Lafargue’s, with my arms stretched out toward the glass. The R—— is there too but Virgil doesn’t see.

“Asa Trist is dead,” he says.

“How?” I say. I turn away from the window. Back of my neck I can feel the R—— escaping.

“By hanging,” he says. “We’ve just cut him down. And D’Ancourt’s gone missing. Kennedy’s searching the grounds.”

He looks around him now and blinks.

“Clem,” he says to me. “My life—”

Damn you, Virgil! I say. But not so loud that he can hear me. Damn you clear to hell.

It’s then that I think—: Hell is a word. Geburah is a place.

“I know what’s happening to us,” Virgil says. He steps past me as if I were a coat-stand or a potted fern and sets himself down on the bed. He pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket. “Look here at this,” he says.

I take the paper and look. “I see.”

“You see it?” he says, disbelieving.

“I see the grounds—”

His voice goes sharp. “And the ladder of the spirit? The
sephiroth,
with the paths run between them?”

“Yes,” I say. Virgil gapes and gawks at me. The R—— has explained it all but of course he cannot know this.

“D’Ancourt thought I’d gone crackers,” he says, passing a hand over his eyes. “So did Kennedy.” He lets out a breath. “So did I.”

“What can it mean?” I ask.

He coughs. “Look here. Where we buried the R——. The old privy. I’ve marked it with an X. You see? And Harvey here.” He snatches back the paper and runs his finger over it. “Asa will get put here, in Dodds’ newest hole. That makes three.” He nods to himself. “Someone’s following the path. It’s all in order.”

“The path?” I say.

His head bobs like a pigeon’s. “The path from the grave up to heaven,” he says. “The ladder of the spirit.” He bites his lip. “Only he’s traveling the path
in reverse.”

“Who is?” I say, cursing him.

“The R——,” he whispers.

I do my best to laugh. “Him?” I say. “Didn’t you and Dodds stuff his body down the—”

“We did. I stabbed him through the neck and watched the blood run out till he was dead.” He says this as though I were arguing with him. He shuts his eyes. “Then Dodds and I dug him under.”

“In that case, he can’t be traveling anywhere.”

Virgil hushes.

“Can he, Virgil?” I say, taking the paper from his hands and crumpling it.

“Someone in the house is helping him,” he says. “Parson, of course.” He looks at me. “Parson and another.”

“It’s Dodds that buries the bodies,” I say. “Not Parson.”

“Parson tells him where.” The old self-pity creeps into his voice. “But you think
I’m
the murderer, don’t you. I’d forgotten.”

“I know you didn’t kill Harvey.”

His brow goes up. “How so, Miss Gilchrist? Did your new
amour
tell you?”

At first I think he means the R—— and the breath catches in my throat. Then I see he only means the boy. I laugh dully. “My new
amour’s
not one for talking,” I reply.

“Ah,” he says. He stares down at the floor. “I see.”

“What do you mean to do about Parson?”

He brightens. He’s been waiting for me to ask. “I brought down all the bottles with your name on them,” he says. “From Parson’s coop.” He brings four cut-glass vials out of his pocket. “This one here has a lock of your hair in brine.” He holds another up to the light, that I can see its yellowishness. “This is yours, too.” He blushes.

“You’re not the only one raiding my chamber-pot at night, I see.”

“These last two have your new friend’s name on them,” he says, paying my joke no mind. He smiles pitifully. “Or is he your old friend by now?”

I sit down next to him. I run my hand lightly through his hair. “You must mean Oliver Delamare, the gentleman who lifts my skirts,” I say.

He does not recoil at this but keeps himself quite still, letting my answer run the length of him. He bows his head that I might stroke it better.

“Until today I thought you wanted him because he was beautiful,” he murmurs. “Or to cause me pain. Now I know better.”

“What do you know?” I ask. My hand hovers at his neck. His nape is soft and pink, with blotches of red under the hair-line.

He holds up a bottle marked “Delamare.” The milky liquor looks so odd inside the glass I can’t imagine what it might be.

“Did Parson come to you with this?” he says. “Did he give it to you empty?”

“Yes,” I say.

He’s above me now, cradling the bottle in his palm. “When was that? After you’d taken your boy to bed the first time, or before?” His hand closes on the bottle. “Did you ask our good Parson what he wanted it for, Clem? Or could it be that you knew already?”

“I know all manner of things,” I hiss. “I know more than you know with that fat white eye of yours. I know what Parson does upstairs and I know who’s going to be next and I know how little meat-and-bones a man is made of. I learn from
listening,
Mr. Ball. I’m a right good listener. And what I’ve heard through these walls would turn your blood to vinegar.”

“Tell me,” he says.

I get to my feet before him. The R—— has explained that he must stay the night.

“I’d thought of this house as our penance,” I say. “Worse than any other thing that could befall. I thought of us each as separate, each in a different cell, together in this house only to make each other suffer.” I smile at him. “I was such a fool!”

I’m close to him now. I pull my arms out of my shift. “I’ve been listening, Aggie. Listening and thinking. I’m much better educated than I was before.”

“It’s true. We aren’t separate,” he says. His eyes fall to my belly. The bruise at his temple goes livid. “Not you, not me—”

“We weren’t brought together as a punishment,” I say. I shrug the shift from my shoulders. “The punishment happened by-the-bye. We weren’t brought together for our
own
sakes at all—: do you see? We’ve been so
selfish,
Aggie, and so vain!”

Now the shift hangs from my hips like a bustle. The cloth is damp and patterned with the sweat of long-forgotten hours. Even this past hour, when the boy was beside me. Sunk away and gone.

“You’ve discovered it too,” I whisper. “You went up and looked through Asa’s little window. You saw how small we are. Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he says. His voice goes tight. “I saw.”

I close my mouth. It’s done. I look up into his face and wait for him to have me. This time it will not destroy me, not make me into another, not split me into halves. The R——’s breath is full and warm inside of me and it will not subside. My body has no more substance than a cloud.

“We’re pieces of pig-iron, Virgil. That’s all we are. But each of us has a purpose and a shape.” I guide his hand downwards. “If you put us together properly, we make a revolver.”

“God, Clem!” he says and brings himself against me. His hand is still closed tightly around the bottle. His mouth opens and his lips push against my own with all the slowness I remember. I feel through his britches that he is ready and I open them at the buckle and bring out his prick and smell the readiness on it. I take it in my left hand at the root and slide my palm upwards. “Clem Clem Clem,” he gasps and sinks white-faced to the bed. The memory of it is crashing over me now like a breaker at sea but it finds no spot on my smooth and weightless body to catch hold of. Still I feel that I am ready too and Virgil pulls aside the bustle and feels it on me and pulls me down. The smell of the boy is still in me and run through my skirts and stockings but. In another breath I am astride of him and his hope is up my belly looking to turn me outsides-in, looking for its twin where I’ve long sheltered it but it finds nothing—! Nothing there at all.

That twin is withered away and vanished. There is nothing in my belly but the R——.

“Oh!” says my mouth.

“Clem!” Virgil says, bucking under me. But Clem is a word.

His eyes fly open, then snap shut. His hand turns and unclenches like a flower.

“We are building a revolver, Virgil,” I breathe into his ear.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes!”

My right hand closes on the bottle.