No Eye Can See (29 page)

Once outside on the porch painted red, the new husband handed Mei-Ling a white chrysanthemum he pulled out of his wide sleeve. “I wonder how he's kept that alive,” Seth said. Naomi held her finger to her lips to shush him. He watched Mei-Ling take the blossom in her hand, bury her face in it, and inhale. She looked up with tears in her eyes and a smile across her porcelain face, and Seth said, “You're right, Naomi. She looks contented.”

After the ceremony, Mei-Ling stepped over in her quick-quick way
and pressed a red envelope into Seths hands. “For help teach English,” she said. “Husband very happy I speak.”

“I think the custom here is for me to be giving you a gift,” he said.

“No, no. You give gift by take this,” she said and bowed, her hands together. “Someday come visit bees.”

Inside the envelope, he found a golden eagle coin and something written in Chinese. “For give…crisis,” she said, lowering her eyes.

“Crisis? What kind of crisis did I give you?”

She looked confused, motioned for her husband to come forward, spoke rapidly in Cantonese, showed him the characters she'd written. A-He bowed to Seth. “Wife say you help bring her through crisis. Word in Chinese formed by two characters: danger and opportunity. You help take from danger to opportunity. Help through crisis.”

Mei-Ling had tears spilling from her almond eyes. “You and women. All together. My heart is empty for them already.” She stood as tall as she could to pull him to her, her lips just brushing his cheek while he held her gift in his hands.

“There, there,” Seth said, patting her thin back. “I just did what I could.” He felt like a father, the idea passing through him with an ache.

“Looks to me like she's in good hands,” Seth said later as they sat at the plank table of the boardinghouse Esther had located in Sacramento. Naomi had retired, and the other boarders were already asleep. Usually, he headed to the gambling houses to fatten his purse, but tonight that idea didn't satisfy as much as taking tea with Esther. “You did well, Esther. A-He's garden must be pretty lucrative. Looked like a man of some wealth.”

“He sells to the hotels and such,” she said. “He seems well respected among the Chinese here. And not disliked by the residents.”

“Get Naomi married off as well and you can pat yourself on your back just fine and rest a bit.”

Esther sipped her tea. “Naomi's husband has not responded to my inquiry, even after all this time,” she said. “That's worrisome.”

“Is he Chinese? Or some Californian who ordered up a bride, a miner or rancher living up in the hills?”

“I have to say,” she said, straightening, “that those we hired to check these people out did a poorer job than I or my brothers would have done, given half the chance. I'm more than a little concerned that we undertook a cross-country journey with such poor information. A-He was the name given for Zilah's suitor. Yes,” she said, nodding to Seth's raised eyebrows. “Mei-Ling's husband was a man of the soil, but he had found another wife, an Indian, I believe. He wished his money back, and Mei-Ling had no husband. It was a gift from God that A-He bought Mei-Ling's contract. Fortunately, both were men of the soil.” She sighed. “Still, I must pay back the advance.”

“Too bad Naomi cant stay with you. Once she goes, you'll be all alone.”

“Don't wish another failure on me,” Esther said. “It will be many years of my effort to pay back Zilah's contract. I don't want to have to pay back Naomi's, too.”

“I'm gonna miss ‘em,” Seth said. “Been something soothing in this process.”

“An obligation to be met, a promise needing to be kept. We usually are more at peace, we humans, with a commitment of some importance waiting for us. I suspect you'll find that out someday.” She smiled.

He didn't smile back.

Ruth heard them whispering, probably about her. Scurrying sounds followed by silence. She should turn over, face them. They'd be joining Mazy and Lura and all the rest for Christmas dinner. A “family meal,” Elizabeth called it. She wondered again why she'd agreed to go. Mariah joined her mother this Christmas, so Ruth needed to get up, stoke the
fire. She grunted, prepared to push back the quilt, dress, and tend the horses and Mazy's cows. Sarah called out to her before she could leave.

“Auntie! Wake up!”

What now?
Ruth thought.

She turned and was met with a crush of children pressing against her, pushing her down with Jessie scrambling behind her. “What are you—?”

“Time to get up,” Jason said, taking one hand then and pulling her to sitting. Ned grabbed her other while Jessie slipped a ribbon over her face. “My eyes…”

“I wont hurt you,” Jessie said. “You can't see your surprise.”

They pulled at her until her bare toes felt the cold floor. Maybe not as cold as usual, as she felt heat shed into the room as they led her. She smelled something fragrant with lemon, felt Jessie's fingers against her back. Their touches tugged at her heart. Jason settled her onto something that felt rough against her flannel gown. A cold tin arrived in her hands. Then Jessie unfurled the ribbon.

“Oh,” Ruth said, gazing. “When did you…how…?

“We been planning it for weeks,” Ned said. “Do you like it?”

“I made the chair. From an old stump,” Jason said. “Filed away the axe marks best I could.”

“I folded the flowers. From paper. ‘Lisbeth showed me,” Jessie said holding up the rose
on
the tray Ruth held.

“Do you like the food?” Sarah said. “Its called Angel Pie. ‘Lisbeth said we could have sweets for breakfast on Christmas morning. We did extra chores for Mazy so's we could get the lemons.”

“I wrote you a song,” Ned said. “I didn't write the music part. That's ‘Morning Has Broken.’ Suzanne told me the tune.
We need you, dear Auntie, to make us our home. We need you, dear Auntie, so were not alone.
The words are mine. Well, all of us like the words.”

“I love it,” Ruth said, feeling a smile break onto her face, tears catch in her throat.

Zane could see if Suzanne was home by watching her house through his telescoping glass. He'd complained to the owner of the St. Charles Hotel that he wanted the same cot beneath the same window in the huge open-spaced second floor every evening and was willing to pay more than the usual five dollars a night for the privilege. Finally the little German had agreed. He even insisted that the Chinese laundry mark the sheets with a character indicating that they were his. Two hundred and fifty cots were set up nightly. Zane liked the anonymity of the numbers, something a boardinghouse with eight or ten curious bodies hovering close could never provide.

From his place at the St. Charles, he had a view out the small side window. He couldn't actually see Suzanne's door. The heavy pines shaded it. But he could see the gate and who came and went and when a horse was tied there. He knew whenever she was alone. He knew when she shuffled out with the children and the dog. That's when he would enter her home and leave things for her.

Once, she'd returned with him still there. The day he brought her the table. The dog had growled low.

He liked watching her for that moment when she knew something was wrong, liked staring as her perfect teeth pressed hard against her full lip, the rise of her chest as her breathing increased, her hand fluttered at her throat. It kept him in practice, this watching. When he'd had his fill of gazing, he'd tempered her fear by calling her name and leading her to the table, placing his hands over hers when she felt the smooth top.

“Oh,” Suzanne had said, her fingers reaching for her throat. “You had me frightened.”

She asked him not to do that again, not to come in when she wasn't there.

“It…it violates me,” she said. “My home is my sanctuary. An extension of me. Your coming in uninvited…crosses a boundary.”

He'd kissed the back of her hand. “But I love to surprise you with gifts, Suzanne. If you were sighted, you'd love it.”

She'd pulled back, winced as though he'd struck her. He held her hand tight.

“You accepted the cookstove. From a perfect stranger.”

“The former owner had paid for it. It belonged to the house. The way you give me things…invades me,” she said, tugging her hand free. “It would unsettle any woman.”

He sneered, then lied, as he twisted the dog's ear. “In the future, my dear, I promise to honor your request.”

Suzanne was home today. He put away the telescoping glass. He would ride toward his other prey instead.

He had seen Ruth. From a distance, through that glass. He knew where his wife stayed, taunting him with her presence. She lived there in broad daylight at a place called Poverty Flat. He'd ridden out before snow fell, nodded to travelers making their way from the Emigrant Ferry. His heart pounded in delicious anticipation. He skirted the meadow, stayed in the trees’ shadows and waited, staring at the cabin, wondering how it would be to see her after all this time. She'd stepped out of the barn, carrying…a bridle. He might have known. Through his eye magnifying glass, he caught the concentration of her betraying face. She looked…content, peaceful. No worries. Just a woman walking, having tended her horses.

He heard his breathing, calmed himself. Let her be serene as a still pond. No need to rush. He would stir the waters slowly. He knew what it took to drown. He controlled the invasion of her life, the slow strangulation.

Today was Christmas Day. He was sure Ruth and the Barnard children and a Mariah—Suzanne said her name was—would head for dinner at the Kossuth House. Suzanne would join them, giving him two invasions in one day.

At the edge of the meadow where Ruth's animals pawed at the
snow, he halted. He heard his breathing change as he watched Ruth. Children piled into a wagon. His nieces and nephew, he guessed, the eldest boy having gone out to help yoke up the oxen. A girl with a limp. She looked to be he same age as his child would have been. Could that be
his
Jessie? She was the youngest, hopped on last, and they rode out giving him what he figured would be several hours of exploring time.

He left his horse a good distance from the cabin so as not to leave tracks in the snow. He wore skins over his own boots to cover his footsteps, made his way under cover of timber, looking out at the meadow where the road skirted in a wide arc before heading west into town. Then he simply walked through the unlatched door.

He heard his breathing change. The smell of her was there, a mixture of leather and horse, of homemade soap and liniment she might rub on an animals sore leg. He could picture her slender hands, the hands he'd seen hold a lithograph she'd done with such perfection. He imagined those fingers running down the leg bone of her horse, lifting the foot in tender healing. Then she'd come inside, to this place, through this door, to wash her hands.

He looked for a basin, found a porcelain bowl set on the bench by the stove. A white pitcher sat near it. He took the hides from his boot, laid them by the door, then walked to the bowl. The water felt cool when he dipped his hands into it, dabbed some on his eyes, at the sweat on his neck. He swirled his hands in the water then, and smiled, knowing she would later splash the ripples he left, splash his scent on her own face without ever knowing. He would think ofthat back in his hotel, of how he touched her without her knowing.