Four Times Blessed, page 12
Through the rows and columns of the base personnel are perfect aisles of invisible soldiers, standing at attention just like us. The inspectors mill over them, yanking on collars, eyeing belts, sniffing helmets. Every so often, one will stride into a block and have someone step out for a close inspection.
We stand out there at attention while the bells toll the start of a new hour two times, and move on for a third. Meanwhile, the July sun roasts us good. My tongue is thick and sticky, and I’m not sure if my vision is blurry or if that’s just the hot air roiling as it dreams of the sea.
The men around me are dripping wet, and they keep breaking form to swipe the sweat from their eyes, or to pinch damp shirts away from their bodies. And they smell. Manly. Of course, the academic sector isn’t exactly known for our hygiene. I mean, when I was in school the fact that I took a bath every day caught the attention of a ridiculous amount of kids. Yup, that was me. The weird girl who took lots of baths. I didn’t mind the curious ones, but I didn’t like some of the ugly whispered reasons I’d overheard in the common room once or twice. Those stung. And the loud speeches about wasting resources were just annoying.
But after this inspection, I think everyone could use a bath. A lot of these guys won’t take one, though. That’s just how a lot of these people are. They probably don’t even smell their own stink. They’ll just wander past the closing banquet and go right back to work.
An inspector crunches the grass at the head of my block. Even after all this time, my heart thuds faster. I think I’m dehydrated because it makes me feel lightheaded. I stare ahead and freeze, every muscle aching and burning as soon as I hit the correct pose. The sweat dribbles over my skin, clawing and itching as it goes.
I stop breathing when the inspector moves into a row a couple ahead of mine. That’s good. If he does that one for his close inspection, then he won’t come to mine. I want to close my eyes and let the relief wash through my steaming body. I don’t, but this makes a dark haze fall over me, and I do feel cooler.
“You,” the inspector says. He lifts his marker and prods a man in the chest. The man chokes and hits the dry grass on one knee. “Join the collection at the bell tower at dismissal.”
“You. You. You. You. What is wrong with you people?” He prods another man, right in the sky blue sweat spot under his arm, and the academic drops heavily onto his backside.
Glinting, he rasps, “You represent your country! You are the best of the best! People see you, and think that! And you all look like a bunch of slobbering dogs!” He whacks downward, connecting with a middle-aged lady’s shoulder. She cries out into the ripe silence, and it carries through the field, right up to the cement walls.
Then the inspector turns right around that row and marches up the next one, poking each person. The man in front of me crumples to his knees, and I feel exposed, nothing between me and the inspector. My heart thunders away as he continues.
He turns down my row. Now he’s talking to himself, and seems to be randomly winging the marker around. He gets one, then two men, but he misses most. People are ducking. Then he’s on me, and his arm is in the air.
“Hair,” I hear him say, and there is a fierce sting on my ear. It’s a reflex when I cringe and crumple, disconnecting from the bolt that felt so much thicker than the marker itself.
The pain’s gone, then, drained away, just barely swirling around the rim of the pool it made and left so quickly. My ears ring and it’s so hot, I want to throw up. I start pretending I don’t.
The inspection doesn’t go on for much longer after that. Those who have passed go to the side buildings for refreshments and closing ceremonies, while the ones who were flagged are rounded up around the base of the main tower.
I stand there as my section breaks. I’m not sure which of those groups I should be in.
In the shade, I rub the gooseflesh under my sleeves as a white haired man talks into a microphone and his voice comes from all around the courtyard. He starts announcing violation numbers and the corresponding work detail groups.
I bite my lip. Hair is a violation, yes. But it’s not a number, is it. So it’s really not my fault. I enter the main tower through the maintenance entrance in the back, ignore the men in aprons that are smoking, and dart down to my lab.
I make it to the main floor at my usual time, but it takes ten minutes for me to get out the door. There’s a traffic jam in the lobby. A repeating announcement. Workers roll in cardboard boxes and peel them open, punctuating the announcements with their long rips.
They’ve delivered us dinner. The packed lobby rolls forward, and I’m lucky to snatch a water bottle and a meal bar before being extruded into the courtyard.
“Orders are to go straight to your barracks. There was an incident in the courtyard and the area is restricted until further notice. Dismissed.”
I have to stay in the women’s barracks that night. At least there’s an elevator. As I’m washing up, I hear what happened. I guess a young military man on a disciplinary work detail climbed over the plate glass in the belfry and he jumped. When I walked past earlier, all I saw was lots of officers standing around, and trucks parked on the grass, but I guess they had to do a whole investigation and they couldn’t disturb the body for a while.
It’s even mentioned on the national news half-hour, with the main anchors taking over the weather report by questioning the meteorologist, who is here somewhere. I’m glad of this because at least my zizi will know I’m ok and that I just got held up.
A lady from communications-broadcasting tries to start a conversation with me during the commercial break, but I shrug and get into bed. She turns around and goes on and on with some other woman, though, so it’s impossible for me to actually sleep until they’re done.
It’s with an aching elbow and a headache that I finally get off base and start the walk home the next morning. I follow the decline head on through the woods instead of rambling around in circles on the path, just wanting to get into my own bed as soon as possible.
A few minutes later, I stop. My ankle is itching something fierce. There’s a white bump in the middle of a red splotch. Spider bite, I bet. Stupid of me to go through the underbrush like this. I probably have tics all over me.
To make things even better, I come out way down the road and have to backtrack, uphill, to the meetinghouse. We call this road the old walls path, as two old rock walls slither along either side of it.
There’s also the creek path, the well path, the wetlands path, the circle on the green, the path down (of which there are about five depending on who you talk to), the one along the beach, the north side ones, and the little trail i.e. the path that goes up to the base. Those are just the names that people are in the habit of using. Of course, a lot of the time someone will come up with their own name, and then they’ll get someone else lost on some deer trail out in the woods.
I drag myself through the middle of the green instead of going around on the circle. It’s overgrown, but I already have to check myself for ticks so a few more won’t make a difference.
I walk in the front doors and consider taking a nap right there.
“Sweet Lord, honey, go check yourself for ticks. I saw you walk right through all that grass. What were you thinking?”
“Nothing. I was already doing that.”
“I was just reminding you.”
“Ok.”
“Ok, then.”
I trudge across the meetinghall, “Can you not run the water, zizi? I want a bath before I go back.”
“Fine. You look awful, by the way. But when you do go again, take one of your cousins. I don’t want you running around the island by yourself now that you’re engaged.”
She’s still grumbling to herself when I finally get out of her sight at the top of the stairs. I go into the bathroom and strip all my clothes, checking each fold and crease for little black specks. Then I spend a long time with the handmirror checking my back and my underarms, the backs of my knees, between my thighs, under my breasts, my neck, all the warm places ticks love.
Then I scratch my fingers through every millimeter of scalp, shivering while I imagine them crawling all over my head. Getting so full of blood that they feel like fresh corn kernels when you do find them. Giving you lyme disease. All those little legs flailing while their faces are clamped onto you, sucking. Uck.
I find three of the little puppies, and I crush the living daylights out of them with one of my zizi’s decorative shells. Then, while I bathe, I give them a bath too, drowning them in a cup of water for about ten minutes, and pouring them out the window for good measure. You have to make sure they’re dead or they’ll just come back and suck on someone again.
I tear up while I’m waiting for the ticks to drown, keeping a close watch just incase any decide to come back to life and make a break for it. One reason is because the tepid bathwater feels so good, slurping all the itchy July heat out of my body. Also, I’m thinking about the young man that’s dead. Which is silly of me, because I didn’t even know him.
I decide I am so not putting this tick-infested uniform on ever again, so I dodge across the hall into my room as I am. It must be later in the morning, because there are lots of voices rising up the stairs, but maybe I’m just being paranoid because I’m naked.
I open my closet. And throw on a sundress. I open a dresser drawer, take out my slate, and code my attendance record to show I’m out doing fieldwork today.
I want to go out somewhere. I’ll visit Cassie, I decide, slipping on my sandals. She’s just who I want to see right now. I can tell her I’m miserable and she won’t even mind it, and then we can talk about mindless things and have some snacks and maybe play a card game.
I dart through the kitchen full of people before anyone can say anything to me. I run all the way- around- the green and down the stonewall path. We keep each other company until we remark that we can’t believe the stars are still out. She gives me a big shirt to change into, and we sprawl out over the covers on her bed. She settles in so easily. I just can’t help myself. I tell her I found five ticks on myself today.
“Aaah!”
She tumbles right off the edge.
The next day is the second Saturday of July. There’s a party today because a while back nobody’s birthday was in July, and people felt strange going so long without a birthday party, especially with the nights being so beautiful apart from the bugs, so it’s become a tradition to decide the weekend before that the next weekend we’ll all meet up for supper down at the one spot on the beach with actual sand.
It’s barely dawn when I walk in to the smell of onions and something astringent. I scrunch up my nose and find my zizi chugging around in the back.
“What are you cooking?”
“Pasta salad for tonight, you want to taste?”
“No, it smells really disgusting,” I say without breathing.
“What? No it doesn’t.” She sniffs, then nods in confirmation. “Things smell bad when you’re pregnant, you know.”
“I’m not pregnant.”
“I know, I know. I’m just telling you for later. Now you know what it’ll be like.”
“I’ll get a gas mask before I get pregnant, if this is how it smells. Ugh, I think I’m going to throw up.”
“It’s really not that bad. If you can’t stand it then don’t stay in here.”
“I’ll still be able to smell it,” I groan, rolling my forehead on a countertop.
“You just have to take your mind off it. Go milk the cows for me. I also need someone to feed them. Then go smell some flowers or something, for your delicate little nose. Then you can…”
“Ok, ok, I’m going.” I roll my eyes as I make my way to the back door.
“I’m just trying to help you, sweetheart. I have lots more ideas for what you can do if you get bored again. Now, are you going to the barn or not? Because I need some of that milk. Oh! Take someone with you. Sal, go!”
I pretend I didn’t hear that last part and hope my cousin Sal is no more awake than he looked. Instead, I slip to the door, still barefoot and in Cassie’s shirt, hair already sticking to my pinkened neck in the thickness.
“Leave that door open,” my zizi calls. “Salvatore, what are you doing? I didn’t ask you to sweep the floor.” There’s a sizzle as she squeezes a half of a lemon into her cauldron. It adds a bitter, acrid flare to the muddy smell of a moment ago.
I hold my breath, grab a hunk of bread, and get out of there.
Once in the yard, I take a few thin-skinned strawberries from the bush and amble through the trees to the old graveyard. I sink down and bite into a berry. Ah. It’s cooler with my back on the rocks. I roll my legs back and forth over the damp, tender grass.
I can hear my cousin Cecilia outside of her house informing two of my uncles that she specifically asked for the best mussels, not the half-dead ones they’ve brought her. I smile at a headstone.
Her mussels will go along with my Uncle Westerly’s bread for tonight. We’ll have that plus my zizi’s pasta salad with lemon and oil and marinated vegetables and little nuts, someone will make a crumble and someone else will make the whipped cream, and my Uncle Avery will have his lemonade for us.
That’s what we usually make for this party. Plus other unexpected things that people want to bring. I think I smell my grandfather Pawcatuck’s firepit, and I wonder if he’ll be cooking some sausages. Last time I didn’t like them, they were way too spicy.
Either way though, the food will be good. The weather is supposed be nice.
I’m looking forward to it.
“Crusa, honey, there you are.”
“Huh?” I start, even though the voice is familiar. My Uncle Groton lifts one leg over the dilapidated wall. I stand up. I have no idea why he’s out here. Nobody comes out here. Except for me. For no real reason, I feel I’ve been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to.
“Hi, I was just-”
“How are you dear?” my uncle holds open his arms for a hug, so I go to him. He pinches my chin gently.
“What are you doing out here?” he wonders.
“Uh…”
“You know these people have been dead a very long time. There’s one here that’s sixteen-hundreds.”
“Yeah.” It’s the stamp-like one right over there. It’s a little odd getting a tour of my own secret hideout.
“Crusa, dear, I want to tell you something. I’m getting you a guard.”
He’s not surprised when I’m confused. He just says it all again, slower this time, and adds a bright smile. None of this really helps, though.
A guard? I’ve had chaperones. Babysitters, someone to walk with me through the wooded paths at night, and my zizi of course to keep track of me always, but the word guard seems, I don’t know, a bit much. Especially here, on the island.
“Ah,” my Uncle Groton puts an arm around me, taking my fingers in his hand. He holds them lightly, in no hurry, I guess, because instead of going on, he bounces my hand around. Then he strokes each finger.
He starts humming to himself, nudging and tapping my nails with a calloused fingertip, as if fascinated. I guess because compared to his, so hearty they have bristles, mine are no more substantial than a ghost’s. Or maybe he’s just bored.
“I’ve brought him to you, since you ran in and out so fast this morning. You were in such a hurry. You should slow down, dear. Let’s see, he’s around here somewhere…Lium!” he calls. And the boy in question wanders out from behind a large tree. What the…?
He strolls through the clearing, gawking at everything.
Spiraling over to us, he says, “Hey, sweetie.”
“I’m not sweet.”
My uncle laughs, “Yes, you are, so you really can’t fuss about being called it. Niece, this is your guard. His name is Lium. I’ve tested him out and I think he’ll be perfect for you. Plus, he has a brother already, so if you end up needing two, there you go. Although I have that one busy for me right now, so try just to need one, ok?”
“I don’t need a guard. Any guard.”
“Honey. Sweetie,” I think he winks over my head. Dumb men. “I don’t want anything to happen to you now that you’re engaged. I didn’t want to tell you, but your zizi, she worries. The other side of the family, you never know. They say to me many things. They sometimes say they will kidnap my niece, so she cannot marry the rich foreign man. They say they have someone of theirs for her, but they really just want the gifts your husband’s family is so generous to send here, for him to share with his new family. But if they take you over there, then they think they will get all this. That would never happen, but they think it, still.
“So you see, they talk too much. They make me myself worry about you, my own lovely young niece who I love more than anything. It’s very cruel. So, I found a strong man to watch over you, to ease my mind, and there you go. Now we can all rest in peace,” his eyes glimmer.
Good God.
“Uncle Groton. Nobody’s going to kidnap me. People haven’t done kidnapping for years.”
“Years are not that long ago, to an old man like me. What’s wrong with him? Do you not like the one I chose?” he seems hurt.
I examine Lium. Smiling like my grandmothers at a pleasant garden party. He lifts his eyebrows.
“He doesn’t want to do this,” I tell my uncle.
“Nonsense. It’s an honor to do this.”
I open my mouth to say something, but then I have only enough time to skirt my gaze to my side, as Lium has already interrupted me.
“Yup, an honor. Also, following a…you…” he bows, “around is much better than shop duty, which your uncle said was my other option.”
Awesome. Good to know I’m preferable to fish guts and miniscule beads on hooks. Confidence booster, there.
I sigh and say calmly, “I’m going to talk to Zizi.”
