The Gilda Stories Page 6

  The Girl looked at Gilda’s face, the skin drawn tightly across the tiny bones, her eyes glistening with flecks of orange. She wanted to comfort this woman who’d lifted her out of her nightmares.

  “You must want to stay. You must need to live. Will you trust me?”

  “I never thought to leave you or the house. My home is here as long as you’ll have me,” the Girl said in a clear voice.

  “What I ask is not an easy thing. You may feel you have nothing to go back to, but sooner or later we all want to go back to something. Usually some inconsequential thing to which we’ve never given much thought before. But it will loom there in our past entreating us cruelly because there is no way to ever go back. In asking this of you, and in the future should you ask it of others, you must be certain that you—that others—are strong enough to withstand the complete loss of those intangibles that make the past so alluring.”

  The Girl said nothing, not really certain what Gilda meant. She felt a change in the room—the air was taut with energy.

  “There are only inadequate words to speak for who we are. The language is crude, the history false. You must look to me and know who I am and if the life I offer is the life you choose. In choosing you must pledge yourself to pursue only life, never bitterness or cruelty.”

  The Girl peered deeply into the swirling brown and flickering orange of Gilda’s eyes, feeling herself opening to ideas and sensations she had never fully admitted before. She drew back, startled at the weight of time she saw behind those eyes.

  “Don’t be frightened by the idea of death; it is part of life in all things. It will only become worrisome when you decide that its time has come. Power is the frightening thing, not death. And the blood, it is a shared thing. Something we must all learn to share or simply spill onto battlefields.” Gilda stopped, feeling the weight of all she wanted to say; knowing it would be too much at once. She would leave the rest to Bird.

  The Girl listened to the words. She tried to look again into the world behind Gilda’s eyes and understand what was being asked of her. What she saw was open space, no barriers. She saw a dusty road and heard the silence of determination as she felt the tribe close around her as it had closed around Gilda, the child. She saw forests spanning a distance of green too remote for even Gilda to remember.

  “My dream was to see the world, over time. The real dream is to make a world—to see the people and still want to make a world.”

  “I haven’t seen much, but what I’ve seen doesn’t give me much appetite,” the Girl said, remembering the chill she felt from Bernice’s words about the war’s aftermath.

  “But what of the people?” Gilda’s voice rose slightly. “Put aside the faces of those who’ve hunted you, who’ve hurt you. What of the people you’ve loved? Those you could love tomorrow?”

  The Girl drew back from the fire in Gilda’s voice. Her mother’s hands reaching down to pull the cloth up to her chin as she lay on the mattress filled her vision. Her mother’s darkened knuckles had loomed large and solid, something she had not articulated her love for. She remembered hearing Bird’s voice for the first time below her in the house announcing the entertainment. The deep resonance sent a thrill through her body. Minta’s soft warning was all but forgotten, but her tender concern which showed in the bend of her body filled the Girl with joy. The wary, protective way Bernice had watched her grow, their evenings alone in the kitchen talking about the ways of the world—these were things of value. She opened her eyes and looked into Gilda’s. She found love there, too. And exhaustion beyond exploration. She could see no future in them although this was what Gilda wanted to promise her.

  Reading the thoughts that Gilda tried to communicate, the Girl picked her way through. “You’re offerin’ me time that’s not really time? Time that’s gonna leave me by myself?”

  “I’ve seen this world moving on many different paths. I’ve walked each road with curiosity, anxious to see what we would make of our world. In Europe and to the south of us here have been much the same. When I came here the world was much larger, and the trip I had to make into the new world was as fearful as the one you’ve made. I was a girl, too, much too young to even be afraid.

  “Each time I thought taking a stand, fighting a war would bring the solution to the demons that haunted us. Each time I thought slavery or fanaticism could be banished from the earth with a law or a battle. Each time I’ve been wrong. I’ve run out of that youthful caring, and I know we must believe in possibilities in order to go on. I no longer believe. At least for myself.”

  “But the war is important. People have got to be free to live.”

  “Yes, and that will no doubt be accomplished. But for men to need war to make freedom… I have never understood. Now I am tired of trying to understand. There are those of our kind who kill every time they go out into the night. They say they need this exhiliration in order to live this life. They are simply murderers. They have no special need; they are rabid children. In our life, we who live by sharing the life blood of others have no need to kill. It is through our connection with life, not death, that we live.”

  Both women were silent. The Girl was uncertain what questions she might even ask. It was like learning a new language. When she looked again into Gilda’s eyes she felt the pulsing of blood beneath the skin. She also sensed a rising excitement that was unfamiliar to her.

  “There is a joy to the exchange we make. We draw life into ourselves, yet we give life as well. We give what’s needed—energy, dreams, ideas. It’s a fair exchange in a world full of cheaters. And when we feel it is right, when the need is great on both sides, we can re-create others like ourselves to share life with us. It is not a bad life,” Gilda said.

  The Girl heard the edge in Gilda’s voice but was fascinated by the pulsing blood and the swirling colors in Gilda’s eyes.

  “I am on the road I’ve chosen, the one that is right for me. You must choose your path again just as you did when you ran from the plantation in Mississippi. Death or worse might have met you on that road, but you knew it was the one you had to take. Will you trust me?” Gilda closed her eyes and drew back a little, freeing the Girl from her hypnotic gaze.

  The Girl felt a chill, as if Gilda’s lowered lids had shut off the sun, and for a moment she was afraid. The room was all shadows and unnatural silence as Gilda disappeared behind her closed eyes. Finally, confusion lifted from the Girl who was intent on listening to more than the words: the highs and lows, the pitch, the rhythm were all molded by a kind of faith the Girl hoped she would reach. It was larger than simply a long life. It was a grand adventure for which her flight into freedom had only begun to prepare her.

  “Yes,” the Girl whispered.

  Gilda opened her eyes, and the Girl felt herself drawn into the flowing energy. Her arms and legs became weak. She heard a soft humming that sounded like her mother. She couldn’t look away from Gilda’s gaze which held her motionless. Yet she felt free and would have laughed if she had had the strength to open her mouth. She sensed rather than felt Gilda pull her into her arms. She closed her eyes, her muscles softened under the touch of Gilda’s hand on her arm. She curled her long body in Gilda’s lap like a child safe in her mother’s arms.

  She felt a sharpness at her neck and heard the soothing song. Gilda kissed her on the forehead and neck where the pain had been, catching her in a powerful undertow. She clung to Gilda, sinking deeper into a dream, barely hearing Gilda as she said, “Now you must drink.” She held the Girl’s head to her breast and in a quick gesture opened the skin of her chest. She pressed the Girl’s mouth to the red life that seeped from her.

  Soon the flow was a tide that left Gilda weak. She pulled the suckling girl away and closed the wound. Gilda sat with the Girl curled in her lap until the fire died. As the sun crept into the dark room she carried the Girl upstairs to the bedroom, where they slept the day through. Gilda awoke at dusk, the Girl still tight in her arms. She slipped from the bed and went downstairs
to put a tub of water to boil. When she returned to finish dressing, the Girl watched her silently.

  “I’m not well,” the Girl said, feeling the gorge rising in her throat.

  “Yes, you’ll be fine soon,” Gilda said, taking her into her arms and carrying her downstairs and outside. The evening air made the Girl tremble in her thin shirt. Gilda held the Girl’s head down over the dirt, then left her sitting alone on the back stairs. She returned with a wet cloth and wiped her mouth and face, then led her inside again. She helped her remove her clothes and lifted her into the large tub standing beside the kitchen table. Then she soaped, rinsed, and massaged the Girl into restfulness, drawing out the fear and pain with her strong, thin hands as she hummed the tune from the Girl’s childhood. She dressed her in a fresh gown, one of her own bordered with eyelet lace, smelling of lavender, then put her back to bed.

  “Bird will return soon. You mustn’t be afraid. You will ask her to complete the circle. It is she who will make you our daughter. Will you remember that?”

  “Yes,” the Girl said weakly.

  “You must also remember, later, when time weighs on you like hard earthenware strapped to your back, it is for love that we do this.” Gilda’s eyes were fiery and unfocused. The power of them lulled the Girl into sleep, although she felt a pang of unease and hunger inside of her. Gilda’s lips again brushed her forehead. Then she slept without dreaming.

  She awoke abruptly to find Bird standing over her in darkness shadowed even further by a look of destructive anger, her eyes unblinking and dry.

  “When did she leave you?” Bird’s voice was tight with control although her hands shook as they clutched several crumpled sheets of paper.

  Gilda had said don’t be afraid and she wasn’t, only anxious to understand what would happen now. “It seems long ago, before dark. She wore her walking clothes and said you would complete the circle. I was to be sure and tell you that.”

  Bird stalked from the room. Downstairs she stood on the porch, turning east and west as if listening to thoughts on the wind. She ran to the west, through the field, and disappeared for three hours. Her clothes were full of brambles when she returned. She went to the cellar and climbed part way through the door. She could see the new sacks of fresh soil stacked beside the ones she and Gilda had prepared so long ago. She stepped back outside and let the cellar door drop with a resounding thud, then came into the house where the Girl lay weak, unmoving except for her eyes, now dark brown flecked with pale yellow.

  Bird looked down at her as if she were a stranger, turned away, and lit a lantern. Again she read the crumpled pages she’d dropped to the floor, then paced, trying not to listen to the Girl’s shallow breathing. The darkest part of night passed. Bird stood on the porch again and peered at the stars as if one might signal her.

  When the sun began its rise Bird retreated to the shadows of the house, moving anxiously from corner to corner, listening. She was uncertain what to expect, perhaps a ripping sound or scream of pain inside her head. She felt only the Girl weakening upstairs and a cloying uneasiness. In her head she replayed recent conversations with Gilda. Each one came closer and closer to the core.

  Gilda had needed Bird to step away so she could end this long life with the peace she sought. And each time Bird had resisted, afraid of losing the love of a woman who was the center of her world. Upstairs was the Girl, now in her charge, the one who’d given that permission for which Gilda had yearned.

  Full daylight came behind the closed drapes. Bird stood tense, her body a bronze rod, dull and aching, her full length of flesh and hair calling out for hours. The answer came like the sunlight it was. She felt Gilda lying naked in the water, marveling at its coolness and silence. Then she dove into the darkness of the tide. Without the power of her native soil woven into her breeches, she surrendered easily. The air was squeezed from her lungs and she eagerly embraced her rest. Bird felt a moment of the sun’s warmth, her head filled with Gilda’s scent. In her ear was the soft sigh of pleasure she recognized from many mornings of their past together, the low whisper of her name, then silence. She knew the knife-edged sun rays stripped the flesh from Gilda’s bones. The heat seared through Bird, lightning on her skin and in her marrow. Then, like the gradual receding of menstrual pain, Bird’s muscles slackened and her breathing slowed. The crackling was silenced. It was over. Gilda was in the air no more.

  Bird went upstairs to the Girl whose face was ashen, her dark eyes now flecked with orange. A frost of perspiration covered her body, and tears ran down the sides of her face. She opened her mouth but no sounds came out. Bird sat against the pillows and pulled the Girl into her arms. She was relieved by the cool tears washing over her brown arm as if she were weeping herself. Bird pulled aside her woolen shirt and bared her breasts.

  She made a small incision beneath the right one and pressed the Girl’s mouth to it. The throbbing in her chest became synchronous with the Girl’s breathing. Soon the strength returned to the Girl’s body; she no longer looked so small.

  Bird repeated the exchange, taking from her as Gilda had done and returning the blood to complete the process. She finally lay her head back on the pillows, holding the Girl in her arms, and rested. Their breathing and heartbeats sounded as one for an hour or more before their bodies again found their own rhythms. Even then, Bird remained silent.

  “She’s gone then?” Bird heard her ask. She only nodded and eased her arms from around the Girl’s body.

  “I’ll build a fire,” she said and rose quickly from the bed. Alone in the room Bird found the crumpled letter and returned it to the box Gilda had left on the dressing table. She heard the sound of a robe brushing the carpet below as the Girl moved about laying wood on the fire, then settling the kettle atop the stove in the kitchen. She called to Bird to come down. Her voice, now strong and vibrant, was a shock in the late afternoon quiet without Gilda.

  They sat in the twilight in front of the low flames, not speaking for some time. Then Bird said, “She wanted you to be called Gilda.”

  “I know.”

  “Will you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It will be dark soon–we must go out. Are you afraid?”

  “She said there’s little to fear and you’ll teach me, as always.” They were quiet again.

  “She loved you very much, Bird.”

  “Loved me so much that she traded her life for yours?” Bird almost shouted. In all else there’d been some reasoning, but she could find none in this. Here in the place of the woman to whom she’d given her life sat a child.

  “I’m not a child, Bird. If I can hear her words and understand her need, why can’t you? I didn’t steal her life. She took her road to freedom—just like I did, just like you did. She made a fair exchange. For your sake.”

  “Fair exchange?” Bird was unnerved by the words she had heard so often in the past when she had been learning the manner of taking the blood and leaving something in return—how to partake of life and be certain not to take life. She chafed under the familiar words and inflection. “You for her?” Bird spit it out. “Hundreds of years of knowledge and wit in exchange for a girl who hasn’t lived one lifetime yet.”

  “It’s not just me, it’s you. Her life, her freedom for our future. You are as much a part of the bargain as I am. She brought me to this place for your need as well as for mine. It’s us seeing the future together that satisfies her needs.”

  Bird heard the past speaking to her, words she had chosen to ignore. Tonight she stood face to face with their meaning: Gilda’s power over her own death was sacred, a decision all others were honor bound to respect. Bird had denied Gilda’s right to her quietus and refused to even acknowledge that decison. It was a failure she could not wear easily.

  Darkness seeped through the drawn curtains of the parlor. The glow of the almost-steady flame burned orange in the room, creating movement where there was none. The two women sat together as if they were still at their reading lessons.
Finally Bird spoke.

  “Gilda?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s time now.”

  They dressed in the warm breeches and dark shirts. Bird took Gilda’s hand and looked into the face of the woman who had been her pupil and saw the childlike roundness of her had melted away. Hunger filled her eyes.

  “It is done much as it was done here. Your body will speak to you. Do not return to take from anyone too soon again: it can create the hunger in them. They will recover though, if it is not fed. And as you take from them you must reach inside. Feel what they are needing, not what you are hungering for. You leave them with something new and fresh, something wanted. Let their joy fill you. This is the only way to share and not to rob. It will also keep you on your guard so you don’t drain life away.”

  “Yes, these are things she wanted me to know.”

  “I will teach you how to move about in indirect sunlight, as you’ve seen us do, and how to take your rest. Already your body sheds its mortal softness. You’ll move faster than anyone, have the strength of many. It’s that strength that you must learn to control. But we will talk more of these things later. It is better to begin before there is pain.”

  Gilda and Bird turned west. Their path through the flat field was invisible. Bird pushed aside all thoughts for the moment, remembering only her need to instruct, to insure that the girl gained enough knowledge for her survival. Gilda allowed the feeling of loss to drift through her as they sped into the darkness. Along with it came a sense of completion, too. There was certain knowledge of the world around her, excitement about the unknown that lay ahead, and comfort with her new life. She looked back over her shoulder, but they had moved so quickly that the farmhouse was all but invisible. Inside, the fire was banked low, waiting for their return.