FOURTEEN

That Saturday night the moon cast shadows and silhouetted trees. The scent of crushed magnolia blossoms and honeysuckle filled the humid air with an overpowering sweetness. The air was hot and sticky. Moisture clung to Martha and mosquitoes buzzed around her, in spite of smoke rising from rags set to smolder. In the heat and stillness the least noise was heightened.

Drumbeats were heard throughout the island. Laughter and occasional shouts brought the gaiety of Cora’s toe-party to Martha’s front porch. Martha felt a loneliness tugging at her that she could not dispel. She did not want to go to Cora’s party, would not have gone had she been invited; but being treated as if she did not exist was taking its toll. Martha sighed.

It had been more than a week now and no word had come from her teacher in response to her letter. Not even acknowledgement of receipt. It was hard for her to refrain from asking Ovide if he had delivered it. She hoped he had given it to Miss Boudreaux right away.

Now she was more worried than ever that she would never get away from the Gulf, from the woods, and the women who could never understand her longings.

The tempo of the drums increased and laughter and shouts grew louder. Martha worried that the noise might disturb Titay, who had gone to bed earlier. Her grandmother had not been herself since Ocie called her unfit to serve as midwife. Titay’s reason for being was to serve.

Martha thought of Titay’s pleading with her to bring peace to the island. She felt sorry that she still had not convinced her grandmother that it was best for her to go away. What if she did not find a place? She didn’t see how she could say she had sinned, have a quilting and get married. Suddenly she felt that fate had dealt too serious a blow to one who only wanted to know what was beyond this little island.

Sustained shouts and laughter led her to believe that toe-buying was underway at Cora’s party. The women, behind a curtain, would show only their toes. A man could choose toes and claim the lady for a dance after paying a price. Was Ocie there? Maybe Beau and Hal were there too, laughing and enjoying the fun. She imagined Beau choosing toes, seeing to whom they belonged, and refusing to buy.

Ocie’s large sad eyes loomed in Martha’s mind. Ocie’s baby was overdue now. Her hands, feet and legs were terribly swollen and she lacked that glow that crowns many women in the last stages of pregnancy. But Ocie had been grieved, alone and lonely. This thought made Martha sad. She hoped Ocie was at the party having fun too.

It was almost midnight when Martha left her porch for bed. The driving rhythm of the drums, laughter and the rolling Gulf filled the island with a droning sound of happiness.

Titay had already gone to church when Martha woke. It was still hot and sticky; the village quiet was in sharp contrast to the gay sounds of the night before. Martha busied herself preparing the Sunday dinner.

If only there was something to do, some place to go. She recalled how, as children she and Ocie went on long Sunday afternoon walks with Tee and Beau to pick flowers and play games in wooded meadows. What had happened now that they were men and women with nothing fun to do? How did this happen to them? Too few of us, she thought. Or maybe it was the way of the island. Could she be friends with Beau without being his wife? Or anybody’s wife?

When she had finished preparing the food she wished to escape her hot house and sit in the shade of the chinaberry tree. But she did not want to risk an encounter, especially with the churchgoers.

As she stood in her front door, listening to the waves rolling in and out, she dreamed she was miles away.

Afternoon crawled toward evening. Titay did not come for dinner. When Martha finally decided to eat alone, the food was cold. Why didn’t someone come by to ask for her grandmother, or just to say hello? She sat on the back porch trying to catch a cool breeze, but there was no air stirring.

Then the silence was shattered by a knock on her front door and a frantic call for Titay. Gert was there, in worn house shoes, her hair uncombed.

“Where Titay?”

“She ain’t come home all day. Not since church, no.”

“Where she at?” Gert cried.

“Yuh know Granma. She could be anywhere.”

“If she come heah, quick, tell er Ocie been laborin two days n one night. I want Titay. She mus come.” Gert left running, her shoes making a flopping sound.

Two days. Can’t be, Martha thought. Cora had a party last night. Surely she would have been with Ocie. Then Martha was ashamed of having thought Cora would neglect her patient. Ocie probably had false alarms and there had been plenty of time for Cora to go back and forth to make sure all was well. But Titay was a constant midwife who liked to be completely free when a mother was even near labor.

Big moths fluttered against the screen door. She watched, wishing her grandmother would come home.

Finally Titay came. She greeted Martha and started toward her room. The old heaviness rose in Martha’s chest and she longed to cry out to her grandmother. Care bout me. I can’t help the way I am. Try, Granma, you all I got. But she said only, “Good night, Granma.” Then suddenly she cried out, “Ocie need you!”

“I know Ocie in labor. Gert found me.”

“You not go?”

“I go if Ocie or her midwife send fuh me.”

“It might be bad, Granma.”

“Yuh mus know I don’t choose. A midwife is choosed; she can’t force a mother. If Ocie call, I go.”

“But Ocie might not know better.”

“In life ignance no excuse. I say t’ er, come see me. That I do. That’s all. She choosed Cora. I bide by that.” Titay went into her room.

When Titay closed her door the house seemed more silent than ever, and Martha felt the full force of her grandmother’s independence. Did she have a right to refuse to go unless called? Then Martha remembered the day she had heard Ocie say Titay could do nothing for her. But Cora was not a safe midwife. Women who wanted children did not go to Cora.…

Martha lay on her bed in the darkness listening to the familiar sounds that crept into her silent world. Ocie need her husband, she thought, and it was hard for her to hold back the tears.

Martha clapped her hands and stamped her feet, urging the couple on. Ocie was dancing the courting dance. She was dancing the part of the man, doing all kinds of intricate steps, turning, twisting and twirling to the beat of the drums. The drums beat faster, then faster, faster still.

Why was Ocie’s partner doing the woman’s dance? Then Ocie’s partner fell down and cried, “Hep me, dance fuh me.” Martha knew she must help. She pushed but the crowd held her back. The partner cried again, “Martha, hep me.” Martha knew it was Tee and she pushed and shoved to get to him as his voice became louder and louder.

Martha sprang up in her bed, drenched with sweat. Her room was flooded with the light of the moon. She realized she had gone to sleep fully clothed. Remembering the dream, she shivered in the heat.

She lay back down on her bed but could not rest. Finally she went into the front of the house. There were no crickets, no frogs sounding their songs. The quiet was eerie. It was as though nature was holding. The light of the moon cast deep blue shadows and Martha felt that she was alone in the world.

Suddenly there was a long shrill wail that pierced the calm of the village. Martha’s heart stopped for a second and then she cried, “Ocie!”

She rushed to her grandmother’s door. But before she knocked the door opened. Martha was surprised: her grandmother too was fully dressed. Before words passed between, another unceasing scream broke into cries that filled Martha with anguish and urgency. “That’s Ocie, Granma. You gotta hep.”

“I’m ready, but they gotta call.”

“How can yuh say that? Go!”

“Don’t yuh judge me. You learn this now. I can’t go. What if I’m not wanted n be in the way? I can’t vilate no other midwife. I won’t go lessen I’m called.”

The cries stopped. Martha stood ready to shield herself from the possible recurrence of the wracking scream. Then came the sound of running footsteps, headed toward their door. The heavy steps were combined with a deep voice calling, “Miss Titay, Miss Titay!”

Ocie’s father burst through the open door. “Please come. Save Ocie.” Then he broke into sobs.

“I’ll come too, Granma,” Martha said.

When they arrived Martha was shocked at the lack of concerned activity. Ocie’s mother sat in the kitchen, off in a corner, dazed, while Gert sat at the table, moaning softly. Cora rushed from the bedroom where Ocie lay. “Why you heah?” she demanded. “Who call fuh you?”

“I brung er. Now you move out the way.” Ocie’s father spoke with such force that Cora scurried from the door. Titay rushed in.

Martha gasped when she saw Ocie weakly thrashing, entangled in the bedding. Her eyes were closed.

“Oh, my God,” Martha cried. “We too late, Granma.”

Titay was already assessing, looking for signs of life. Ocie opened her eyes and tried to speak. Her mouth opened, but no sound came. Her eyes were pleading when she issued a long sigh.

“Le’s git busy n save this baby,” Titay said.

Martha helped Titay prepare for the delicate but strenuous task of turning and withdrawing the baby from its mother. There was not the usual quiet, tender, relaxed timing. Titay barked orders and Martha obeyed. Then there was a small boy quickly severed from the cord. Titay labored frantically to give him life. “Get Gert,” she cried. When Martha returned with Gert, Titay had a crying baby, wrapped. “Heah, hold im in yo arms, caress im now. Touch im, hold im close. His mama’s no mo.”

Titay turned away from Gert. Martha rushed to her grandmother and took her in her arms and the two women let their pent-up anguish dissolve in their tears. Finally as Titay was leaving, she said to Martha, “Take charge o’ cleanin up heah now.”

Tears stole silently down Martha’s cheeks while her mind raged. She was tormented by angry questions for Cora and the women who had stood by as Ocie moved steadily toward this tragic ordeal. But she had no time now for grief, no time for anger. This one time in her life she was glad for the ritual, and she plunged in to do the things she thought made no sense, things that had never been explained so that she understood.

Quickly she covered all the mirrors in the house. It was urgent that Ocie’s spirit depart without its reflection being trapped in them. While covering the mirrors she called for someone to go for Cam, who could serve as a wet nurse. As Ocie’s baby snuggled to Cam’s breast, Martha was satisfied: he was a strong, eager eater. He would survive.

In no time at all other women were there to help. At first they stood around, skeptical of Martha, wanting to know why Titay was not there.

As Martha assigned duties it was as if she were now trapped in Titay’s ways. Her voice and her body movements were alien to her. Step by step, she prepared Ocie’s body for the wake to be held that night and for the burial that would follow the next day. Balm oil and spices were mixed for anointing; the winding sheet folded and draped. When the body was laid face toward the rising sun, Martha slipped a picture of Tee and a pair of knitted boots Ocie had made for the baby into Ocie’s hands. They would make her journey less lonely.

Then the house had to be cleansed thoroughly. The room in which Ocie had died had to be emptied of all furnishings, the bed placed in the sun for purification and the walls and floor scrubbed. Now the women worked with ease, but with some awe at Martha’s efficiency.

“Ain’t that girl jus like Titay?” one of them said.

“Lord, that’s the sho nuff truth,” another replied.

It was dark before Martha was free to leave. People were beginning to arrive for the long night vigil with the dead. Martha was exhausted but satisfied that she had done all the things Titay had taught her—all the things the people believed were necessary to release Ocie’s spirit from the house and send it on its long journey.

Ocie’s house was filled with neighbors and friends when Martha slipped away home. Titay had left water on the stove for Martha’s bath, but Martha was too tired to bring in the galvanized tub and prepare the water. She washed her hands and face at the pump and stretched out on the back porch, ignoring the heat and mosquitoes. Suddenly she was back in her own mind, and she remembered her dream about Tee and the dancing. Her mind filled with Ocie’s screams and she felt hopeless. She could now see the faces of the women as they went through the ritual of shrouding. They seemed sorry that Ocie had died, but not a one seemed to understand that the death need not have happened. Anger flared in her as scalding tears burned her eyes and cheeks.

Then she was trapped in a dark place where silence filled the space and touched her every nerve. Yet she could not move, not even twitch, and knew she had to give in to this darkness. She was sinking. Suddenly there was a burst of light. She opened her eyes and the sun was beaming down hot and she was drenched with sweat. She remembered the dream and became alarmed. Maybe her life, like her friend’s, would end in this place.

Days after Ocie’s funeral the village settled to its rumors. Cora was said to be hiding in the woods biding time to return and take revenge against Ocie’s father. Her few followers believed that if Cora had been left in charge, Ocie would have lived.

Martha knew that Ocie’s father was out to avenge Ocie’s death. She also knew that Cora would never be seen on the island again. Cora had been warned, and on the night of Ocie’s wake Ovide ferried her away. Martha did not know where she had gone.

Weeks went by, and rumors about Cora gave way to speculations that Martha would soon show her quilting pattern. Her hand would be out for marrying. Beau and Hal were the two most often mentioned suitors, but there were older men on the island who were said to be hopeful.

When the women met at the commissary or under the chinaberry tree, their talk was about Martha. Hadn’t she been most helpful in the preparations for Ocie’s burial? Her way had been Titay’s way and surely Titay’s way was theirs. Martha would make a wonderful midwife and a beautiful bride. There was not enough praise for how she had covered the mirrors when they had believed all along that Martha thought herself above such a practice.

However, as the weeks sped by the women became confounded. Martha moved among them in silence. She spoke only when it was necessary, and often the look in her eyes seem to pass through them without seeing.

The dream of dark silence returned again and again. She often woke shattered by screams that brought her out of troubled sleep to find that nothing in her life had changed.

She began to shrug away thoughts of a response from her teacher and of leaving Blue Isle. Her teacher had failed her as she had failed Ocie. She could not dismiss the idea that if only she had talked to Ocie and warned her, then maybe Ocie would have come to see Titay. She told herself over and over again, Ocie blieved I thought mahself better.

Her mind was so riddled with turmoil that she could neither eat nor sleep. Loss of weight made her face small and drawn and her eyes large and unusually bright. But each day she made the rounds, throwing herself into the routine as if she had settled on this as her life’s work.

Martha often caught her grandmother looking at her worriedly. With a hand lightly on Martha’s shoulder, Titay would shake her head, but say nothing. Martha felt that her grandmother was giving her plenty of time, waiting for her to open up and share what was on her mind. She longed to tell Titay about the letter and her doubts and hopes. Yet because she had not heard from her teacher, she was glad that Titay didn’t ask questions.

Then one day she stopped by the commissary to see if there was any mail. When told there was none, she burst into tears. She bolted out the door toward the trail that led to the Gulf. Then she stopped, angry at herself. Why had she put all her hope and trust in Miss Boudreaux? She should have known better. Why would her teacher think that someone like her would succeed away from the island? No young person she knew had ever left that place except by death.

She recalled the day Ocie died. It had been easy to forget all the questions, all the doubts, and act like Titay—to do things the way the women wanted and expected them to be done. There was no uneasiness, no fear, no one reminding her that she had been born to trouble. That day she had not been trouble’s child. She had been one with them: one of their own. They had been joined in that ritual with only one thing in mind: the passage of Ocie’s soul on its journey.

That day had been easy. But did she want the easy way? She cupped her face in her hands to stifle the sobs. Suddenly she was blocked on the trail, and looked up to see Hal. She turned to flee, but he grabbed her wrist and held her.

“Listen, I’m fed up with your treating me like I’m the enemy. Why are you doing this to me?”

She was surprised at the tone of hurt and anger.

“If you’re upset because I said I’d marry you, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what you had told your grandmother.”

She remembered that day. The humiliation she had felt returned and she was angry. “Yuh coulda ast.”

“Do you know what it’s like facing your grandmother? The only thing I could think of then was doing what she thought was right.”

Martha laughed. “So you didn’t want t’ marry, no?”

By the change in his expression she could tell he had said more than he wanted her to know. She said, “I don’t think you no enemy.”

“You won’t believe this, but I was on my way to ask your grandmother to let me talk to you. I finally got news about schools for you.”

“I don’t need no news bout schools. Too late fuh that.”

“What you mean, too late?”

“I ain’t goin nowhere.”

“Why did you change your mind?”

“Cause o’ Ocie. If I’d never said I was gon go way, mebbe she’d come t’ Granma and be live tday.”

“Oh Martha, you don’t believe that, do you?”

“Whyn’t she come? I know. Tis cause she blieved I thought mahself better’n her.”

“Oh Martha … I …”

“She tole me so erself.”

“That’s no reason to think you caused her death. Even if she had come to Titay, things could have gone wrong.”

“I don’t know. But I can’t fogit I didn’t try t’ bring peace after I went on yo boat.”

“I don’t see how anybody can blame you. You’re being too hard on yourself.”

“The women, they don’t seem t’ know that it needn’t happen atall. Oh, if only she’d took care erself.”

Hal sighed. “Hey, listen to the news I brought, okay?”

“If you wanna tell it.”

He told her about schools of nursing and midwifery in places not too far away from the island. “Now you’ll have to finish high school.”

“I tell yuh, I ain’t gon go, no. They need me heah. They want me, yes. So I’m gon stay.”

“Martha, when you told me you wanted to see this place with two eyes, I thought you meant you wanted to go away to learn some new things. That you wanted to give to the women here some other ways of looking at their lives.”

At once Martha knew that was what she wanted, though she could not have said it that way. And there was nothing she could do about it. There was no one to help her even finish high school. She looked at Hal. “When I said that I thought I could, but I can’t now.”

“But you must! Can’t you see they need to know that maybe Ocie should not have died? If you stay here, Martha, how will you help them? You’ll settle in their way and become comfortable knowing nothing more than what’s here. I was so impressed with your wanting to be different. Don’t give that up.”

How could she tell him that she had no one to turn to. She knew no place to go and she had depended upon her teacher with no results. She lowered her eyes and said nothing. There was a long silence. Finally she said, “When I said that, I really blieved I could. I can’t now.”

“I’m leaving the island, Martha, soon.”

She looked at him, pained. “Oh, yuh have t’?”

“Yes. I hadn’t planned to tell you that today. But I’m going back to finish school. I want to be a marine biologist. I rented the boat to come here to collect those things and now I think I have enough money to get my degree.”

Martha felt a sudden loss. “So I won’t see yuh, no?”

“Change your mind and come to Florida for nurse midwifery. I’ll help you all I can.”

She thought of her teacher and the letter: For the sake of my life. She held her bottom lip between her teeth, trying to hold back the tears, but they splashed her cheeks.

“Come on …” He took her hands and held them firmly. “It’s not that bad. We’ll find a way.”

She looked up at him and smiled. She knew what she had to do. Reluctantly she withdrew her hands and hurried back along the trail.

At home, Titay called, “Mat, come heah. I was waitin t’ tell yuh, I’m gon invite the village soon t’ nounce yo quiltin. You’s fifteen and a bit mo. We ain’t gon wait no longer.”

“But Granma …”

“Now you listen. Yuh done proved yuhself good. I mus say I never thought you’d make the woman you’s made. I’m glad t’ gi’e yuh up fuh marryin.”

Martha sighed and said nothing.

“Now I’m gon call the women. We gon git this quiltin on, yuh hear me?”

What could Martha say? Maybe she should be grateful. Titay would show her pattern and she’d be married. She was weary of going against her grandmother when she had nothing definite to back up her own will.