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3 NOAH DREAMS, THE MINISTER, A SIMPLE NEGATION LETTER FROM OPAL, INDIAN MOUNDS TROUBLE WITH THE CUB TRACTOR VIRGIL RECITES THE FALL OF HECTOR AU REVOIR NOAH AND THE WASHING MACHINE CANARY FRENCH LESSON, CHERRY TREE, COMPANY, THE FIELDS TICK |
NOAH IS DREAMING. A moment ago he dreamed that he was rolled up tight in a bolt of chilled black cloth that was slowly drying and tightening as it did so, but now the dream has shifted. In the center of the new dream sits a box with a hole in its side. Noah, happy to have the use of his arms again, lifts the box and places the hole against his eye. Inside the box the sun is shining. The ground is covered with snow and there are several trees with black trunks and there is a blue sky. Noah waits with his eye against the hole. Soon he can see a small piece of color moving off in the distance. It moves quickly, darting from trunk to trunk, coming nearer. A male cardinal. It swoops down across the snow then up onto a tree. Back and forth it goes. The red feathers shine against the black trunks. Noah wants to say something. Anything. Cardinal, he wants to say, or Minister or Bishop or King, but he can't speak, only his eye is in the box.
Noah has had other dreams like this one. Usually they involve at least a partial abrogation of the senses: either he can only see or only hear or, more rarely and not for many years, can only speak. In that dream he would invariably be in the presence of ten or twelve elders who sat invisibly waiting. And, just like when at family events his mind had gone blank at his turn to recite or sing, so now in this "speaking" dream, Noah felt his lungs and vocal cords hovering above a wordlessness that could not, even in the sternly expectant half-presence of those elders, be revoked. He could, however, produce sound, which with a sense of great urgency he did—more than once Virgil or Ruby woke him to stop his "babbling and yelling" and "thrashing around." Finally, though Virgil did not approve and would not stay to greet him, the Minister was consulted. Ruby said she couldn't know and did not wish to presume but thought the Lord must be involved in the situation, and the Minister listened with great attention then stood, touched Noah on the shoulder, and said,
It's nothing. Go in peace. The Lord sayeth, "Ye shall dream of Heaven," and you shall.
Almost immediately his "babbling" dreams stopped. Noah associated their cessation not so much with what the Minister had said, but with the Minister's imposing forehead and long arms and strong smell. Nevertheless, for weeks afterwards on Sunday afternoons as they sat on the back porch for dinners of pork chops or stuffed peppers or ham and beans with cucumbers and onions or ham loaf scalloped potatoes tenderloin or fried chicken and gravy or Swiss steak and gravy or okra carl rot and cabbage salad squash or pumpkin blossoms, Noah's favorite, they were fried in ßour and oil, Ruby directed conversation about the morning's sermon, sometimes sending Noah into the living room to fetch her bible, from which Virgil, though not passionately, would read. Noah cannot remember which passages Virgil read, but can remember his own passage, from dinner table to Ruby's large white double-handled handbag, and then the passage, blue then green then red carpet, back through the gently creaking house. One of his parents, either Virgil for Ruby or Ruby for herself, had hung a stained-glass cardinal above the jade plant in the south window of the dining room, and one Sunday, just as he had stepped slowly from living room into dining room, a tight grouping of rays shooting down through the crab apple tree outside transfixed the crimson glass and cut across the top of the jade plant to lay in ßecks across the book and make (he had stopped short) a vague red half-circle at the base of his left thumb. When, a few minutes later, his parents asked him what had happened, he told them he had seen himself as a baby ßoating in the air above the dining room table, and that the baby had been livid and stone silent and that the walls had been shimmering and that after that he had fallen down.
Late one night during this period, Noah stopped outside his parents' room on the way to the toilet. There was a bar of light at the bottom of their door and up out of this bar of light came Virgil's voice, amused but also slightly outraged, saying, You don't really mean to tell me you think when he was having his nightmares and such he was up there? Since there in Noah's mind was a suffocating urge to speak without the prospect of ever again having any access to words, Noah bent to the bar of light and whispered,
a simple negation that Noah, dreaming all these years later, finds himself wishing his lidless eye could insert into the light-filled box, and wondering what the word "no," inserted into such fragile circumstances, would do to the cardinal, the snow, the tall black trunks. Soon, as if in partial answer, the dream, like everything else in Noah's life, has shifted again, the scene has been erased, and Noah finds himself sitting on top of one of the corn bins looking down and out over a bean field intermittently lit by thousands of fireßies, which make of its lush, dark surface a strange, inexplicably liquid, plain of stars.
Dear Noah,
I was bored then a woman came and gave a presentation on those Indian dirt mounds we have here in our wonderful old Indiana. Did you know that Indiana had a Trail of Death, dear Noah? We marched those Indians out of here, out of good old Indiana, and a lot of them died. The woman called that our ugly history. That's what I call it too. She said if you dig in the dirt mounds like she did you found shells and hatchets and pottery and pretty stones. She said you found beads and bowls and knife blades and bones curled up like they were babies sleeping. She said you found fire pits and animal skulls and figurines and sundry charred articles. She said that by looking at the articles and the layers of dirt that both supported and covered them you could figure things out about the people who lived there, what they wore and thought and such. Isn't that a lovely idea? I asked her if the dirt was warm. She said it was surprisingly warm. All day since I've been thinking. They told me I had to quit but I didn't quit. I'll never quit. I've been putting the blanket over my head and curling up and closing my eyes.
NOAH HAS SLEPT and now he is standing at the window looking out through a line he has rubbed along the cold, frost-covered glass. It is a short, thick line just long and wide enough for Noah's eyes and looking out through it makes Noah feel, for a moment, as though he has already slipped on the mask. Outside, the wind is still blowing across the snow and now and then it lifts a small frozen cloud and carries it spinning through the yellow haze of the service lamp. At the edge of the light, half-buried in snow, is a 1948 Cub tractor that has not moved from where it sits since its engine blew up under Virgil in 1963. In the summer, timothy, Queen Anne's lace, goldenrod, and morning glories grow up around the collapsing tractor, and one sun-glazed afternoon last August as they were walking past it, Max said, looks like you have grown yourself a burning bush. Once or twice after Max said this, just on the off chance, Noah went out in the afternoon and stood by it, but he saw nothing. Just the old tractor. Steaming in the yard. And Virgil climbing down off it to come sit by Noah on a stump.
I WAS TRAINED AS A SCHOOLTEACHER, which, as you know, is how I met your mother, she sat in the first row, and even if a lot like you she couldn't get reading and writing down too well she led us all when it was time to discuss or sing. But at any rate I did not belong here at first or perhaps ever but I'd already made a fool out of myself bragging to your great-grandmother's hired men that I could plow a field as well as anyone out of the Old Testament and that meant better than any one of them and being put to prove it and getting dragged right back into the barn plow and all by those horses and for the rest of the day all of them raising their hands and saying Sir and asking to use the facility and then me suggesting to one of them that I might lay the back of my teacher's hand across his face and them finding that funny too and my not at least not right that instant finding that funny and getting near-whipped for it just as the supper bell was ringing and then without even getting up off the grass declaiming Ronsard then reciting the fall of Hector to them and then explaining it and then reciting some of it again and then after that though I reckon there is more to it and likely even much more I guess it will be suffcient to say, whatever my subsequent failings and transgressions, that I might have done near upon anything to be involved with that mother of yours.
NOAH, LOOKING OUT through the line, which is just frosting over again, sees Virgil coming slowly across the corner of the yard on the red tractor, the tractor engine steaming, then a bang and the tractor, forever, stopped, and Virgil climbing down off of it.
What's wrong with it now?
It's broke.You going to fix it?I'm done fixing.What do you mean?I mean I'm done. I'm going. Good-bye. Adieu. Adios.Au revoir.
THERE ARE OTHER THINGS in the yard. Invisible now. Out at the edge of the garden beyond the light, for example, sits an old washing machine. Noah cannot clearly remember how or why the washing machine, which used to sit in the basement, came to be where it is, but all spring and summer as he works in the garden the machine is there, and often as he passes by he hits the hollow metal top with his hand. The sound goes out to the edges of the garden and stops. Sometimes a bird rises. Or a cat is startled. Sometimes, he startles himself. The washing machine has only rusted in one or two spots, and Noah likes to see the white enamel glistening after a rain or gleaming in the moonlight. Every now and then, when the weather permits, and he is feeling, as he puts it to himself, a little more foolish than ordinary, he carries a stool out and sits down in front of the machine and looks into the dark, rusted interior through the cracked glass covering the door.
One night, near the end of her life, Ruby came slowly down the basement steps and found him in a similar position, sitting on a stool, his face lit by the illuminated dial, the machine, gently churning, empty of all but warm water and soap. She stood beside him, holding a hand on his shoulder, her breathing quick and shallow, her reßection joining his in a circle around the edges of the glass door.
What are you doing?Nothing.Ruby nodded.I suppose you're cleaning the inside of that thing.Noah didn't answer.Well it probably needs it.They watched the water move. It rose and fell and
slopped soap against the glass.You seeing anything special?Noah could see things but it didn't matter. He told
Ruby it didn't matter. He could see, even though it didn't
matter, the church basement full of people on a
Sunday evening. Lines of light were coming into the
room through the half-windows. It was the yearly Ham
Supper the older women of the church stood in a row
with shining spoons and aprons. The men and younger
women and children came past carrying plates that the
older women filled with food then they sat and the
Minister a Minister Noah didn't know said grace all he
said was the word grace and that was all they started
eating everything was fine except that little bits of the
people were burning and even that was fine little bits so
they didn't notice but Noah noticed they kept eating and
talking and following the supper children sang one of
them with a small beautiful voice it reminded Noah of
a wren and out of the arms and necks and shoulders of
all of them rose the bright nickels of ßame.Noah told Ruby it didn't matter. He told Ruby he had
never seen anything when it might have helped to see
anything so it didn't matter.You helped the Sheriff those times.That's been a while, a long while.Still.Noah shook his head.It does matter, Ruby said, taking her hand off his
shoulder.It does, she said.She said it once more as she was walking away from
him and Noah watched her reßection race around the
incurved edges of the door. For a moment it mixed with
his and the moment after that it was gone.Why does it matter? Noah asked.Ruby paused at the foot of the stairs beside one of
the empty plant benches and said, your father was the
one had all the answers, I reckon pretty soon we'll have
to carry those jade plants in.Noah nodded. He knew she had not seen him nod.
He had seen himself nod. She walked slowly back up
the red steps and two days later he was sprinkling corn
around her bed.
COULD I SING? Your great-grandmother said I was born with a canary in my throat. She used to have me stand next to her and sing "Amazing Grace." She'd hum, I'd sing. After her it was the Minister who first really noticed. That was our Minister at Hill's Baptist, Reverend Stokes. It was a children's choir. We were singing "The Old Wooden Cross." Mildred Little was playing the piano and just like that Reverend Stokes said, stop. So Mildred stopped. So did we. Then the Reverend told me to step forward. I want everyone else to just listen now, he said. Then he nodded to Mildred and she started playing "Let There Be Peace on Earth," and Reverend Stokes said, now Ruby. Now Ruby, I want you to take another step forward and sing.
ON THE OTHER SIDE of the garden, standing between the hog sheds, is a refrigerator, and directly behind that is a wood-burning oven in which Ruby once baked pies. Near the house stands a half-dead cherry tree that they used to cover with pieces of black net to keep the birds off
in French those are what we call oiseaux
That's what your Father used to call them. He used to sing that. Before we were married. Wazo.
That's right, said Virgil.They were standing in the yard holding pieces of net.L'oiseau se perche dans l'arbre, said Virgil. Il mange
les cérises. Ce n'est pas bien. Il ne faut pas que l'oiseau
mange les cérises.What's a wazo? said Noah.Oiseau, said Virgil. I'm trying to tell you. Without an x
at the end it's singular. That means there's just one of them.
Without an s in the middle it's all vowels. All the vowels.Noah tried saying it. He said it. Wazo.A oiseau landed and stuck its beak in a cherry.Virgil said, partez!Noah said, wazo.Ruby said, it's not a wazo when it's eating my cherries.
It's just a plain old jay.
The three of them took turns climbing the ladder up through the small, cool leaves and plucking big, fat cherries by the bucketful, but most of the time, because she intended to make pies with them and required "just the right ones", it was Ruby. Noah can see her, brow slightly furrowed, carrying the bucket across the yard, then standing by the window in the pantry, her wrists and forearms covered with ßour, her hands in a large white bowl, and he can hear her saying
Like God, a very young Noah pronounced with great solemnity one Sunday dinner after Ruby had, with almost palpable satisfaction, repeated what had become known as her litany, in response to a particularly delicate crust that had, by more than one person, been favorably commented upon.
Why that's right, Aunt Sylvie had said before being
joined in a table-wide burst of laughter, a laughter that
sounded, to Noah, a little like fresh hard rain.They also laughed, though differently, a little less
comfortably, at what Noah said next.No, said Ruby.Why? said Virgil, an interested smile on his face.
Why do you say God is like that?Because he's like dough.Why because he's like dough?Because dough goes in the oven like the Devil and cooks.
Later, when the others had left and Noah sat on his small chair in the corner watching Ruby wash and dry, he asked her why God had rested when down here there was still always so much work.
He didn't really rest, said Ruby. He didn't rest like we
do. He didn't sleep.Does dough rest like we do? Noah asked.I don't know. That's a silly question, Noah.How do we rest?By sleeping. By sitting still.By dreaming?I don't know.Does God dream?I reckon he must.Does the Devil rest?Ruby didn't answer.Am I resting now?No, you are not sitting still.
For years Ruby baked two pies a day, once wondering aloud how many orchards worth of fruit she had picked. Virgil, sitting in his chair by the window had answered, smiling,
and Noah, leaning against the counter, had looked up and seen a forest of fruit trees sprout up and spread out across the kitchen, spill into the walls, into his parents, dark and glowing like a color illustration from The Arabian Nights.
Not long afterwards, Noah rounded a corner and came face to face with an oversize photograph of Virgil swaying gently, as if blown by breezes, beside the daybed in the front hall. As Noah watched, the room around him began to fill with photographs of angels eating photographs of pie with perfect crust. When he looked he saw there were photographs of clocks hung around each of the angels' necks. A photograph of Ruby was there for a moment. And one of Opal. Both of them were wearing photographs of clocks. There was no photograph of a clock, however, hung around Virgil's neck.
and could not find it again
the gently swaying photograph of Virgil wearing his fishing hat and holding his fishing pole said.
Noah hasn't. It surrounds him.
quite clearly ticking,
as if the fields were preparing to explode.