Southern Gods (6 page)

When she was younger, Alice watched after her, a glorified babysitter, a companion, vigilant and ever-watchful for dangers to body and soul and virtue. Once, when the Alexander boy asked to go walking with Sarah in the grove, and Sarah’s father nodded once in response, the boy took her hand and they walked into the trees, the smell of burning fields filling the autumn air. Out of sight of the Big House, they kissed, even though Sarah had been a little too young to understand the demands of a young man’s body. He held her close, pressing his body tightly to hers, his mouth heavy. He had tasted of peppermints and tobacco, not altogether unpleasant, and Sarah hadn’t really minded the kissing, the tight embrace. But then his hands moved on her back and she felt a little uncomfortable, then more uncomfortable when he pressed his pelvis tight to her waist. She pushed him away, just a little too hard, and he fell on his back, face clouding with anger, then surprise, his eyes locked on something behind her. Sarah almost knew, when she turned, what she would see. Alice, standing quietly by a pecan tree not ten feet away, staring at the Alexander boy, a heavy branch clasped in her fist, her calico dress ruffling slightly with the breeze. There was no doubt in Sarah’s mind what she’d have done with the branch if he’d gone too far. The boy had run away.

Best of friends, Sarah heard them say, the folks in the town’s main street, as she walked by, that Rheinhart girl and her colored servant. Like she got herself a slave. Which hurt Sarah more than anything. She had never asked Alice for anything—protection, service—nothing except love and that was all she offered in return. Indeed, Sarah thought, if anyone owns anyone in this relationship, she owns me. I’m her girl, always returning to her, coming back to the home she provides.

Now, in the kitchen, Alice gripped her tight and said, “You know, I ain’t gone let nothing happen to my girl. And that Franny! Whoo-ee. You sure make a pretty baby.” She shook her head. “Jim weren’t always so hard, was he? It’d kill me if all this time you spent away from me was… I don’t know… wasted.”

“He’s… all right. He works hard.” She tried to keep the tears back. “I love him, but… no more. He’s not the man I married. Something in him was broken. Over there. In the war.”

“Drinks too much as well, I hear.”

“How can you hear that? You’re three hours away.”

“Shoot, girl, you know I got my doodlebugs.” An old joke between them; Alice, since she was a child, claimed she had the
gris-gris
, the hoodoo charms that her grandmother and mother passed down to her. And the doodlebugs were, as far as Sarah could understand, the invisible familiars that Alice used to discover things. Sarah imagined them as little floating points of light that wafted out into the world and took in information, then returned to Alice and reported, like sentient will-o-wisps.

Sarah, suddenly glad to be home and with Jim behind her, laughed.

Alice joined her, laughing. “Well, you know I gotta check in on you every once in a while, since you run away from me… Shoot, girl, I understood why, though. That Jim, ain’t been a better lookin’ man round these parts in an age. Hard to believe he’d go so sour.”

Sarah blushed; yes, Jim had been gorgeous, but less so every day.

“He’s fair seeming.”

“Easy to seem fair.” Alice sucked her teeth. “If I ever see him again, he’ll find a knife in his damned belly.”

Sarah was caught between worry and gratitude; she had no doubt Alice would do what she said.

“So, you ever hear from… Calvin?” Sarah hoped that was the right name.

“Shoot, he ran off with some other woman, I guess. I shouldn’t never have fallen in love with no blues man. Always on the road. Every night, a different town, different juke joint, lots of ladies to choose from. He vanished a couple of years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said.

“Only person who’s sorry should be Calvin.”

“But what about the kids, don’t they miss him?”

“He weren’t ever around here enough for them to give a damn. Occasionally Fisk asks after him, takes out the guitar Calvin left and picks a little bit, but he’s the youngest and didn’t have his heart broken as much as Lenora.”

Alice paused, then moved to the counter.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“No. I better go see my mother.”

“Ain’t no easy way to say this, but she looks horrible. Her skin has got all dark, you know, how the disease works. Doc Polk said this might happen. Anywho, it’s tight and hard, her voice is all ripped up, and well… she’s dying, ain’t no secret. She’s been drinking plenty too. To ease the pain, you know?”

“How much?”

Alice brushed her apron and looked down. “I guess maybe ’bout… oh… maybe a bottle of port every couple of days.” Alice wouldn’t meet Sarah’s eyes.

Sarah nodded. A strange numbness came on her; her mother was dying and a drunk now as well. “She due for another dose, Alice? And why doesn’t the doctor prescribe something for her, to ease the pain?”

“Doc Polk did, but it made her vomit and he ain’t been back since. Might’ve been that your momma might’ve acted like your momma.”

“What, haughty and imperious?” Sarah said.

“What? No, just bossy and rude, you know, like she always been.” Alice smiled.

Sarah laughed. “Yes. Well, show me where the port is and I’ll take it up there. If you could check on Franny, I’d really appreciate it.”

Alice touched Sarah’s hand, resting on the block. “It’s gonna be all right. You be strong, and when you come back down, I’ll have you a nice piece of minced meat pie and a pot of some strong hot coffee. How’s that sound?”

Sarah smiled, and put her other hand on top of Alice’s and squeezed. “Alice… I’m so glad to be home. With you.”

Alice winked at her and said, “Go on, now. It’s a hard thing you have to do, so you better go on and do it. The port’s in the library, where it’s always been. There’s a tray there, clean glasses and the bottle. There’s extra bottles below the dry bar.”

Sarah walked down the hall, away from the kitchen, toward the library. The library doors stood shut like she remembered from childhood. How many times had she walked this hall with dread? Waiting for her father or, when she was even younger, her grandfather? Or her Uncle Geeg? Happy Gregor.

She slid the doors back, into the pockets in the walls. The library was still, filled with light slanting in from the big bay windows facing the south fields. On the northern wall stood books—hundreds, thousands of books from floor to ceiling—their dark bindings gathering weight and gloom in the otherwise bright room. A desk, solid cherry wood with lion’s paws for feet, sat in the center of the room with a small green shaded light and leather chair.

Sarah remembered when she was a little girl and her grandfather, Gregor, and her father closeted themselves in here, surrounded by books, pipes filling the room with smoke redolent of cherry and brimstone. Her mother would bring her in once the sun set, and she kissed each man in turn, their whiskers tickling her nose, the musky smell of the books mixing with their pipes and the Scotch they drank in leaded tumblers. Gregor, brightly dressed in greens contrasting with his red hair, his pot-belly popping over his belt, forked beard jutting wildly, would exclaim over her. He would touch her cheek, or her hair—which had been at least as flaxen as Franny’s—and then grab her in a big bear hug and twirl her around until she felt dizzy, laughing while her father watched, unspeaking. Daddy would often turn back to his book then, while Gregor spoke to her with soft questions and smiles, asking about her days, what she had learned at school. And then he’d cocoon her in his arms, lift her up, and carry her to bed. As her eyelids drooped and breath came heavy, he’d sing, sometimes in French, sometimes in German, sometimes in English, a big silhouette sitting comfortably by her in the dark.

Don’t say a word. Mockingbird. Don’t sing. Diamond ring. Don’t shine. Silver mine. Her Gregor, her Ungle Geeg.

As she grew older, she’d listen at the doors before going in, eavesdropping on their conversations; but she never understood. Gregor had a keen interest in books and spices and language while her father always seemed to want to find something or someone. Her grandfather just seemed lost.

I wish Gregor was here now, to kiss me with his whiskers and take me upstairs and tuck me in
.

She sighed and walked over to the dry bar, a small waist-high cabinet inset into the vast wall of books. Inside she found a row of crystal decanters, each bearing a wrought silver tag. Scotch. Bourbon. Port. Brandy. And, alone, a name-brand bottle.
Wellings Fine, A Spanish Fortified Wine
read the label. It sat on a tray with a delicate stemmed glass, rimed with gold. Sarah took the tray and went back toward the kitchen, through the dining room to the great stair.

She walked up the grand staircase, moving down the gallery overlooking the first floor atrium, the fine Persian rugs lining the wooden floors and muffling her footsteps. Sarah had forgotten the beauty of her old home, the delicate
fleur di lis
and intricate trellis work adorning the wood of the upper gallery, the crystal facets of the now-dark chandelier hanging parallel with her as she looked down over the front atrium, the rich paintings of the old scions and merchantmen of the Rheinhart clan. Her ancestors.

At her mother’s door, she stopped, breathing deeply, the silence of the house surrounding her, calming her. She knocked twice, softly, and entered.

The room smelled foul, like alcohol and urine.

It was dark, the curtain drawn, and as she moved forward, her foot caught on something that went clattering.

“
Unn
. Alice? That you? What time is it?” The voice was scratchy and hoarse, but still her mother.

Sarah realized she was holding her breath and exhaled. “No, Momma. It’s not Alice. It’s me.”

Silence. Then an indrawn breath. “Sarah?
My
Sarah? It’s been so long. I don’t know if I even remember what you look like.”

Sarah placed the tray on the bed and went to draw the curtains. For a moment, just before she pulled them apart, Sarah had the most bizarre feeling. A phantom of her lonely mind maybe, but she was certain that instead of her mother, there was a grinning, slavering wolf panting there in the dark, grinning at her. Sarah grabbed the curtains, the small of her back itching, and pulled them aside, flooding the room with light.

It wasn’t as bad as she had imagined, but the lupus had taken its toll on her mother. Elizabeth Werner Rheinhart’s face had darkened into a leather mask, the flesh of her cheeks, her nose and chin and lips a dark, mottled red. Elizabeth’s eyes were crimson as well, throughout what would have normally been the white part of the eye. Her body was wasted, thin. But the only truly frightening thing about her mother, was, as always, her gaze, the intense scrutiny that stripped Sarah to bone, seeing through her, judging.

“Oh, baby, it’s okay. The doctor said this is just passing. Just a passing phase. I’m gonna get over this. Did you bring up my afternoon sip?”

“Yes, Momma. Here it is.” Sarah poured the glass full of amber liquid and placed it in her mother’s white hand.

Her mother downed it quickly, and said, “Ah,” and settled deeper into the cushions of the bed. “One more.” Elizabeth nodded at the bottle.

As Sarah refilled the glass, she asked, “How are you… um… how are you feeling?”

Elizabeth took the glass and looked at Sarah, face inscrutable from the mask of lupus. “How the hell you think I feel, you ninny? Like hammered shit.”

The older woman blinked owlishly, shook her head, then said, “I’m sorry, baby. I’ve always been such an old crab-apple to you. And now… now that I’m sick, I haven’t gotten any better.”

Sarah looked down at her mother’s hands, resting on the comforter.

Elizabeth shook her head, sighed, and said softly, “It’s bad, honey. I can feel my heart twitching in my chest, and it’s hard to breathe sometimes. My joints have all swollen to the size of grapefruits, and it’s a bitch to walk, even to my vanity. But I’ve got my peafowl, and I’ve got Alice, who’s a savior, though she don’t know it and I’m not gonna tell her.” Elizabeth downed the second glass of port and put the glass on the tray.

She looked around the room as if checking for visitors. “And I’ve been seeing things,” she whispered. “Bloody footprints all through the house. Sometimes I hear someone banging on the piano. At first—”

She held out her hand for another glass. Sarah refilled it and handed it to Elizabeth.

“At first I just thought it was Fisk or Lenora, but Alice assures me that they’re prohibited from going into the parlor. I told her I’d terminate her employment if I ever found them in there.”

“Momma! You didn’t.”

“Hell, yes, I did, Sarah. They have to know some limits.” She sipped. “Sometimes I hear whisperings, coming from the library. But when I go in, they stop.”

Sarah slowly shook her head.

“Momma, you’re just tired is all. And in pain.”

“No, you ninny. There’s something going on.” She gave a weak smile, showing yellow teeth. “Sorry.”

Sarah reached out and touched her mother on the cheek, the dark part.

“Don’t cry, baby. I’m gonna be all right.”

Sarah reached up and discovered her own cheek wet with tears.

“Baby, it’s gonna be okay,” her mother said. “We’ll figure it out, now that you’re here. Maybe it’s just my imagination.”