Читать книгу Even As We Breathe - Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle - Страница 12

Chapter Four

The rattling gearshift seemed to rise between us, expanding into a border separating our two worlds. She smelled of lavender and honeysuckle, a scent that defied all boundaries and invaded my awareness. So I revved the engine, forgetting what my uncle had taught me: “Clutch is clutch, dammit!”

Despite my nervousness around her, we had practically grown up together, caught in the slow churn of the Qualla Boundary, tiny Cherokee, North Carolina, hours away from Asheville, the nearest city anyone could call such. We were products of “the reservation,” pronounced low and quickly by us—rezervashun. Broken into at least five whispered syllables when spoken by visitors or neighbors across the mountain—thuh-rez-her-vay-shuuun.

We were “cousins of cousins’ cousins, or something like that,” Lishie often recalled. A classification less about tree branches and more about confined timeless existence.

Of course, I instinctively knew who she was. I was fairly certain I knew who she would become. Watching her was like watching a summer storm’s lightning charge, the flash that illuminates the sky. She was the bolt that strikes fast across the horizon, downward toward its target, an unsuspecting lone tree whose roots are no longer its security, but rather become the very circuit for which the charge swells. The energy’s force overcomes everything idle and ordinary. And you know it from the moment the air vibrates with warning thunder. Her future, everything that would come after her nineteen-year-old reality, was too powerful for most of us to follow.

I knew this the first day I saw her, over a decade prior to our trip. She was a child of maybe seven or eight playing in the cool shallows of the Oconaluftee River, downstream from where I fished for speckled trout and dug ruddy crayfish from beneath mossy rocks. Her goldenrod skirt was hiked up to just above her scarred knees, and dark strands of hair fell ragged along the slopes of her downward-peering face. She, too, was searching for fish, but not to snare as I had set out to do. While I was dedicated to their capture, she was more concerned with studying the free movement of the fish that maneuvered past her stick-thin legs. Out of a patient stillness, she darted after a quick-moving knotty head, marveling at its agile speed, then snatched it from the water, only to release it immediately. Within minutes by the river, I had slipped on the filmy rocks and busted my ass. I was soaked. Though she took far fewer precautions, she never fell. She never even seemed to come unbalanced.

However, judging from the way she introduced herself on the sagging porch of her father’s cabin all these years later, she remembered nothing of me. And judging from the past fifteen minutes of this car ride from Cherokee to Asheville, she did not care to.

The sum of her words amounted to “Hello. Pleased to meet you. I’m Essie Stamper. Thank you very kindly for the ride.”

I’d done my best to conceal my excitement when the request came from Preacherman to help Essie arrive safely at her summer job at the Grove Park Inn. I wanted credit for a burden borne, and to earn that I had to at least appear as if I were actually burdened. I figured it could help to pardon me from a few Sunday or Wednesday nights’ church services. Despite my resolve, it was still difficult to shoo away the grin as I loaded her suitcases into the car’s trunk. I felt something intimate about preparing for a trip together, even if others had arranged most of the preparation.

Preacherman told me that Essie was just working at the inn for the summer to earn money for college. “One smart cookie,” he offered one day after church. “If you keep your mouth shut and ears open, you might just learn a thing or two.”

I hoped that Preacherman did not provide Essie with an overview of my own background, which would include a failed attempt at Oak Ridge Junior College (an institution I’d only been accepted into as recognition of my father’s World War I service and been able to afford with federal relief aid dollars), and the last year of my nineteen-year-old existence working odd jobs in Cherokee. I coveted this opportunity to introduce myself on my own terms, to present the Cowney detached from family binds or awkward tales of my fumbling youth. Though I was unsure if she had any impression of me at all, I wanted desperately to craft one for her. I wanted us to be immediate confidants, as if we shared years of inside jokes, had nicknames for each other, could speak without vocalizing words. I wanted to assume that Lishie’s recollection of being distant cousins was merely the ramblings of an aging grandmother insistent that the whole damn reservation was related. I wanted to speak to her like I am speaking to you now. I wanted her to have never heard anyone else’s opinion of me save, perhaps, my mother’s and Jesus Christ’s.

Some apparent nervousness pinched the tint from her lips. We were well into our two-hour drive and she hadn’t uttered more than her initial introduction. She clutched her black purse on her lap and left her ankles uncrossed, though seemingly fused together.

The silence pressed deep into my chest. I waited for a change in her demeanor as if I was checking the ripening of a Cherokee purple, unsure of the perfect time to pry it from the vine when it peaks—before it spoils.

Oh well, I rationalized. No better way than to just jump in.

I leaned over and gave her a sideways glance. “There’s rumors about this place, you know.” I shrugged. “Heard it’s built on graves.”

The car’s vibration unnerved my voice.

She feigned interest. “Oh. Whose?”

At least maybe she wanted to pass the time as much as I did. Optimism grew. “I don’t know. People’s, I guess.”

“No. Which people? Indian? White? Your great-aunt Sally?” Essie sighed as if exhausted with her own questions.

“Cherokee,” I gushed. Grateful I had an answer. “That’s what they say.”

“They do, huh?” From the corner of my eye I saw her slip out a smile too glassy for me to grasp.

“Yeah. Lots of people. Heard it’s built on graves.”

The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Of course it is. White folks with money tend to find moving dead Indians easy.”

“Ah, they’re not all bad,” I offered, thinking she might like to hear me acting diplomatic.

“That’s true. But they sure don’t like to be reminded of us.”

I felt a warm, wet embarrassment wash over me because of how confidently she spoke when I was always grasping just to stay in the conversation. I had pissed away my opportunity. Preacherman was right. Anyone could tell by the way she cut her dark, Greta Garbo eyes toward me that Essie was smart or mean or both. I knew I had better figure out which one as quickly as possible or the rest of the ride would be miserable. More troublesome, there would be no second ride, and I could not imagine an existence without at least the possibility of seeing how fully Essie’s long, perfectly curved body would fill out the baby blue maid’s uniform at the inn. These daydreams did not help my execution of words.

“Anyway. Makes sense given some of the rumors about that place at night.”

“Oh, you have friends there?”

“No. People just tell you things when you say you are going to a place like that.” The truth was, if I didn’t have friends in Cherokee, which I didn’t, then I sure as hell didn’t have any in Asheville.

“What kind of things do they say?”

At least she was listening.

Essie stared out the window at the blurred crimsons, gingers, auburns, and verdant greens of the budding trees, a Monet masterpiece appearing through the Model T’s passenger window.

“You’ve heard the stories, right?”

She still did not turn. “What stories?”

“Of those people staying at the inn. Of why they’re there and why the owners can’t keep no help longer than a few weeks.” This would get her.

Essie turned her face toward me, but did not commit her body to the same engagement. “Any,” she responded. It wasn’t a question and she noted my confusion. “Any. They can’t keep any help.” Her tone was sharp.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Anyway, you’ve heard rumors of those death camps? These are the types of people who run those places. Higher-ups. You think they just left all that behind when they got captured? It’s like a blood thirst.” My hands gripped the steering wheel as if I was driving a tank myself.

“So you’re telling me they’re some sort of German vampires?” She had a way of twisting my words to make me sound fool-ignorant.

I loosened my grip. “Never mind.” I looked into my rearview mirror so she’d know I was too busy to be chided.

“No … I’m sorry, Cowney.”

She remembered my name.

“Go on. Tell me what you think. I need to get as much background as I can if I am going to work there.”

I was beginning to see that this was typical for Essie. That she was somehow cold without wanting to be, just needing to be. My early impressions of her could have been wrong. Maybe all those years ago she wasn’t scowling down at the river but shielding the summer sun from her eyes so that she could better locate the fish. Walking into town alone, speaking to no one, was not chosen isolation. Maybe she was concentrating on the shopping list streaming through her head or, like me, she feared straying too far from explicit instructions, leading to an inevitable whipping, maybe even beating. For me it was the difference in who sent me—Lishie or my uncle Bud. For Essie, maybe there was no option.

Regardless of how I justified her coolness, I wanted to believe that I had something to do with her warming. I wanted to believe that years ago I had distracted the fish in the river so that they all swam her way. I wanted to believe that my shying away from the beautiful girl in the trading post allowed her to complete her purchase with accuracy. I was her space to breathe, her freedom to warm in the margin I left for sunlight.

“Well, there’s been children come in to work with their folks, but you never see them leave. Staff can’t report it ’cause they’re not supposed to have kids around anyway.” I took my eyes from the road so as to better gauge her reaction.

“Oh, Cowney. Do you really believe someone would just keep their mouth shut when they’ve lost their own child just so they don’t lose their job?” She rolled her eyes like she’d been practicing the motion her whole life.

Of course I did not believe much of what I found myself telling her, but it seemed to keep her attention and that was motivation enough to continue. “All I know is there ain’t a helluva lot of jobs floatin’ around and maybe they’re afraid for their own lives. Who knows why people do what they do.”

“So why are you going to work in a place like that?”

“Correction. I work for a place like that. I won’t set foot inside unless I have to. And even then, I sure as hell won’t go up to the guest floors. Excuse my language.”

“So I guess I’m just a fool, huh?” Her lips pursed again.

“Oh, gee. No. That’s not what I meant. Ahh. I just wanted to tell you about the place. I didn’t mean to scare you. We all have to work somewhere. It’s probably nothing. Plus, they have all kinds of security at the place. US Army detail scattered like ants on a hill.”

“Are they really prisoners?”

“The guests? Yeah, but not like soldier prisoners. That’s why they call them guests, by the way. Best to remember that. Have to call ’em guests. The way it’s been explained to me in the letter I got last week, they’re foreign diplomats and foreign nationals. Not American, but not Hitler’s frontline henchmen either. Been in the United States for some time, but had to be moved during the war.”

“Diplomats? I thought you said they were bloodthirsty vampires running death camps.”

“Oh, here we go again. You said that. Not me. Just tryin’ to hold a conversation.” I checked my side mirror needlessly. The steep, green banks hugged the car as we bumped along what were little more than plowed dirt paths. A sweet honeysuckle scent seeped in through the cracked windows, fighting its way past the swirling dust. I mentally marked the point in case Lishie needed vines for new baskets. There were only a few wooden guardrails periodically placed, and I worried that I’d take a curve too liberally and we would careen off the bank and roll down into a ravine—possibly never to be seen again. “The manager will tell you all you need to know anyway,” I conceded.

“I’m sorry, Cowney. Sometimes I poke fun when I’m on edge.” Essie settled deeper into her seat and pulled a small, golden mirror from her handbag. She drew an errant strand of dark, chestnut hair from her left cheek and tucked it behind her ear. With her other hand, she steadied the compact in front of her and admired the reflection of the procedure. If she had been like most girls I knew, her next move would be to produce a shiny tube of deep red lipstick and slowly apply it as I wiped away the beads of sweat forming on my own upper lip. Unfortunately, at least in this moment, Essie was not like most other girls. She tucked the mirror back into her black bag and balanced her chin in the palm of her hand, resting her right elbow on the passenger side door.

And still the perspiration came. It edged its way up my spine, forcing me to pull my chest forward into the steering wheel so that fresh air could dry the back of my damp shirt. The sweat then ringed my collar and finally framed my hairline. I rubbed my face as if I was still sleepy from the early-morning departure, but the foggy embarrassment was too much to absorb. Until now, I assumed that I looked at Essie like I looked at every female of a certain age. There was little distinction in my immature lust, not that I had the right to be discerning. She did nothing to evoke a deep longing. She sat prudishly, reserved and so utterly unaware of her femininity that it was as if I was compelled to seek it out on my own. Though I was slightly older, I felt ingenuous in her presence.

From the margins of my peripheral vision, she appeared almost wistful. The car’s right two tires grumbled across the rocky shoulder of the road, and I eased the steering wheel straight so as not to worry her. I was sure the awkwardness of my lame foot anywhere near the gas pedal had already done enough of that, and I didn’t need her questioning my equilibrium on top of everything else.

“It’s okay. I talk too much. Everybody tells me that.”

“No. I mean, it’s a long ride, right? Tell me more. I like a mystery.” Essie smiled, crossing her arms and leaning back.

Fresh air in the car gently circulated and for the first time during the whole ride, I began to really see Essie for who she might want to be: a respected lady rather than a respectable lady. Maybe she would be a detective, a mystery writer, or a scientist. Maybe we would both become scientists, discover cures to childhood diseases and deformities together in our shared laboratory. The possibilities coursed through my thoughts, but I forced myself to confine them there. I gave her that moment. Shut my big mouth and just nodded.

Within half an hour, Essie was drifting in and out of sleep, jerking her head upright periodically and fumbling to make a pillow of her clenched hands. There was a sweet innocence in her uncontrolled movements. It was a vulnerability that made me feel that at least her unconscious self had some level of trust in me, that maybe she wasn’t worried that my gimp foot would cause us to wreck or that my unsophisticated ways would lead us down the wrong road.

The only two people who had ever trusted me to drive them before were Lishie and my uncle Bud, and Bud had to be pretty damn desperate or incapacitated to allow someone else to drive him anywhere. He would huff like a deflating balloon because I was driving too fast or sigh, with a slow leak, because I was driving too cautiously. We shared the car between the three of us, so with me working in Asheville, Bud would have to get used to walking while I was away or get his broken-down pickup fixed after three years sitting idle in the yard. But Essie’s trust, that was something far better than Lishie or Bud could provide, and even though she didn’t say another word to me on the drive for quite some time, I still relished knowing she might be dreaming next to me.

When Essie and I arrived in Asheville proper not long after, she yawned, arched her back, and smiled again. The sidewalks on either side of us seemed to move like conveyor belts as sharply dressed men fell into office buildings and tightly dressed women pulled small children behind them, careful not to drop purses or their early-morning purchases. An almost rhythmic opus of car horns signaled lackadaisical street-crossers and distracted drivers. A haze of dust and cigarette smoke billowed from passing cars. The starched pallor of city dappers (as my uncle liked to call them) was threatened with each turn of the steering wheel or application of the squeaking brake pads. Emerging sunlight sparkled off copper guttering and art deco tile designs framing doorways. I wished desperately that I could tune a car radio to mellow jazz. One of the first items on my list after a few paychecks was to buy a radio. I wouldn’t be able to buy one just for the car, but maybe I could take it with me on long rides if I stockpiled enough batteries. In truth, I didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about jazz, but there was no denying that one true fact—Asheville was a jazz city. It breathed blue notes.

By the turn of the second signal light, I was swerving consistently to avoid an errant stray dog or misguided fruit cart. The tempo had taken a strong upturn. Essie, now fully awake, gripped her purse with one hand and the edge of the seat with her other, signaling her distaste for my navigational talents. “We’re not in that big of a hurry, are we? I think we could have bypassed some of this. That way you wouldn’t be in such a rush.”

I had little time to consider her comforts, not entirely sure of my route, though I had navigated the streets before. In truth, this was not the most direct route to the resort, but I thought the excitement of downtown might conjure a smile from Essie. She seemed more “city” than any other girl I knew back home. I gambled on her inborn metropolitan inclination.

My foot ached from the constant stop-and-go pressure on the brake and clutch. I needed to stretch my legs. My toes started to go numb. I was quickly regretting my decision to prolong the ride. The slow traffic allowed me the opportunity to fully sense a distinct nervousness about Essie as well. She lifted her chin as she looked out the windows, as if to imply to the passersby that I was most certainly her driver and that was all. She brushed the skirt of her dress flat and patted the sides of her head, sticking her up-do into permanent alignment. None of this was for my benefit. Her breathing became deep and rhythmic, in the way that nearly forced me to mimic it myself. She was calming herself. I never would have thought a girl like that got nervous.

By the third traffic light, as we now eased into the heart of Asheville’s downtown, Essie sighed again; but this time it was different. The tall buildings folded around us, concrete sisters of the Smoky Mountains edging the horizon. Essie squared her shoulders. A peaceful energy surrounded her. It was almost as if she had finally aligned herself with the morning sunrise, a calm after an invisible storm. The golden glow cocooned her body.

Given the week I had in Cherokee under Bud’s surveillance before Essie and I made our trip to Asheville, though I know now I was wrong, I would have thought it was sheer luck or divinity that placed me in the driver’s seat. Try and relax, I told myself. Perhaps it was the discussion about the inn’s rumors or what it might be built upon, but the road ahead felt uneasy in more ways than one—as if the wheels of the car were rolling over secrets.