Cion (21 page)

The sitar. It’s been days since I heard it. Here it comes again tonight. Midnight. The sounds seep through the walls to my cellar. Muted. Up to now I had thought that a trumpet was able to transmit melancholy better than any other instrument. I was wrong. The sitar in the hands of Orpah achieves just as much. Or better. She has managed to make the sitar speak a new language.

I am aroused to a point of madness. I want to hear the sitar in all its glory. I wake up, put on my robe and walk outside. I stand behind Mr. Quigley’s sole shrub and begin to abuse myself, to the extent that if I was living in an earlier era I would have been committed to the mental asylum at The Ridges. I go with the rhythm of the sitar, but stop immediately when I see a dark figure appear from the corner of the wrap-around porch. It is Mahlon Quigley. He is in a period costume of some kind. He looks like a pirate of the high seas with a tricorne hat and a patch on one eye. He wears a bandolier over his shoulders and as it falls across his chest I can see that it is empty. He holds a gleaming cutlass in one hand and a tray of food in the other. He walks gingerly until he gets to Orpah’s door. He taps at the door with his sword. The music stops and my hard-on unceremoniously dies. The door opens and against the light there is Orpah still holding her sitar. Even though I can only see her outline because of the backlight she is a pirate girl in a short dress and a big hat, which is likely to be a tricorne as well. Mahlon waltzes into the room and shuts the door.

For some time there is silence. Then a lot of giggling. I walk closer to the window. Mumbling. Singing. One voice. Two voices. Male and female. Laughter. Moans. Giggling. My God! I walk away in disgust.

The next morning Obed wakes me up with a rude knock. I have a call. I grab my robe and rush to the living room. I suspect it is Beth Eddy because she is the only person who has ever called me here. It is Barbara Parsons at the Center. “I’d like for you to come to our Christmas dinner,” she says. I thank her. I was going to go in any case. Everyone in Kilvert is going. Everyone but Ruth, who is still nursing resentment against the Center women.

And there is Mahlon sitting on the swing looking as innocent and serene as the wooden Jesus in his garden. I look at him and suddenly my stomach churns.

“What was the call about,” Obed asks.

“It was just the women at the Center,” I say.

“I thought it was Beth.”

“With a voice like that? Why don’t you call her?”

He looks at me as if I have asked him the dumbest question ever. But I am interested in Mahlon Quigley. I want to know more about this man.

“Why?” asks Obed.

“I find him intriguing.”

“My old man intriguing?”

“Don’t you people know what happens under your own roof at night?” I was getting agitated.

“Oh, you mean about him and Orpah? Of course we know. Everyone knows. They have been doing it since she was little. Since I was little too. But I outgrew it. Orpah’s still a child at heart.”

Then he walks away.

Mahlon Quigley, I learn from the women at the Center later that day as I help arrange the chairs in the hall, is a respected elder in the community despite his silence. On the rare occasions he utters something everyone listens and takes note. They don’t remember when and how his silence started; it just crept on them. They do have a memory of a much younger and vibrant Mahlon though. He and Ruth used to live on a small farm when Obed and Orpah were little. They raised all their food, including meat. They slaughtered hogs and chickens. They raised their own eggs too. But, alas, farms were commercialized and the family had to leave the land.

But no one could take the farmer out of Mahlon. Even when he had moved to the village he kept cows. “He got them as calves and then grew them up till they was big and then sold them for beef,” said Irene. Sometimes he had up to eight cows at a time. He had two or three pigs and a few chickens as well. “Back in them days you could keep them animals in your backyard without the government whupping your ass,” adds a man who had joined us helping set the place up for the party.

A strange disease attacked his animals; many of them died and others had to be put down. This pained him very much and he decided he would never again grow anything that would die. Hence his garden has gnomes and flags and statues. The only living thing is the bush that has survived for generations and is not likely to die in his lifetime. When women talk of him their eyes become moist and their voices drip honey. One senses awe in the men’s tones. Everyone is in agreement: there has never been a gentleman like Mahlon Quigley seen in these parts.

And there is this business about his mother, which the people here would rather whisper. She was a white woman from Stewart who fell in love with a colored man from Kilvert. Naturally her parents objected. She fell pregnant with Mahlon and had to run away to Kilvert to be with her man. She was only in her teens at the time. She found that in Kilvert she was not quite welcome either. People resented the fact that she was from Stewart first and foremost, and secondly that she was white. It was in the early 1940s, Irene reminds me, and prejudice was the order of the day. Why, even today you will still find it!

This intolerance by a community founded on the basis of fighting against intolerance is very sad. Something terrible must have happened to the poor woman. I remember Ruth telling me when we were still great buddies that her greatest wish at the moment was to get a proper tombstone on the presently nameless grave of Mr. Quigley’s mother.

Christmas dinner at the Kilvert Community Center. Five days before Christmas day. Everyone laments that it is not going to be a white Christmas. The rainbow people of the village have gathered and the hall is full. Little girls in red and white Christmas dresses. Little boys playing pranks on other little boys. Big and slender teenage girls with lipstick smeared thickly on their lips standing in a group next to a Christmas tree with red and white decorations. They are holding their babies in their arms. They are all in the latest of designer jeans. Grandmothers feeding their grandchildren. It strikes me that the children have become lighter in complexion than their parents down the generations. Some look totally Caucasian.

There is Margaret Tabler standing behind a long table under the picture of Martin Luther King Jr., directing the traffic that has lined up for the food. The table is bedecked with trays of cookies and cakes and pretzels and sandwiches and candy and hot dogs and chips and cans of pop. Irene insists that I must fill my paper plate many times over.

There are Nathan and Orpah sitting on a couch by the door. He waves at me and I wave back. They are laughing at something Nathan has said. Yes, Orpah is actually laughing. I am happy that she has been persuaded to come out and enjoy herself with other human beings. But also there is a slight pang of jealousy that she is with Nathan. I should have been brave enough to ask her out for this dinner. Who knows? She might have said yes. They look good together though: Orpah and Nathan. I am sure Ruth is happy too. She has been encouraging Orpah to go for Nathan because Nathan is a good man and Nathan is a hard-working man and Nathan is a responsible man who will look after her and Nathan will bring some sanity into her life.

“Nathan’s a wild man, Ruth,” that’s what Orpah said the last time I heard them talk about him.

“She’s looking for a tame man. They’re hard to come by. She’s gotta tame one for herself,” said Ruth, not addressing her daughter directly but looking at me for confirmation.

“I am not looking for no man, period,” that was Orpah’s response as she walked away.

And now here they are, Nathan and Orpah, laughing together under a red and white banner with a gold star of Bethlehem and the three wise men on camels.

There is Santa Claus sitting on a chair next to two big boxes with presents wrapped in colorful paper. The children are lining up for their gifts. A child sits on his lap and they exchange a few words, I don’t know about what, and then he selects a present from one or the other box depending on the sex of the child. Older children don’t sit on his lap but receive their presents while standing in front of him. Santa spots me and waves at me with a big grin. I can see Obed under that sloppy white beard and red and white hat. The scoundrel can be useful when he wants. It is amazing how he is able to bring out a giggle even from the shy kids.

There is Mahlon Quigley sitting with men who are obviously much older than him. Two men are trying to charm an equally senior citizen whose face and neck are mapped with deep furrows of wisdom. She is giggling like a teenage girl and her blue eyes glisten with tears. I think she has been laughing her dear little heart out. Mahlon for his part is just smiling as always.

Once again I wonder what goes on in that head. Especially after what I saw last night. I cannot understand why even the stormy Ruth holds this man in such awe and reverently refers to him as Mr. Quigley and never Mahlon. Mr. Quigley this, Mr. Quigley that, and Mr. Quigley needs to be well fed. He turns his head and looks at me. Maybe it is my imagination but I think the smile faded a bit. I get the feeling that if I were to compete for Orpah’s attention at all it would not be with Nathan but with Mahlon Quigley.

The thought sickens me and I slip out of the room. I walk among the many cars and SUVs parked in the yard to the gate and stand there alone. Why on earth would I think of competing for any woman in Kilvert? I think I am getting too comfortable in Tabler Town. I have forgotten my mission. I came here in search of mourning. Not to fight duels with fathers over their daughters. And how presumptuous of me to imagine that a woman like Orpah would be remotely interested in someone like me!

The sciolist nagged me until he got tired:
Toloki, you are a professional mourner. You have a vocation to fulfill. Do not be seduced by the life in Kilvert. We must see that you are here for a reason. We must see why you are a professional mourner and not just a man from South Africa who finds himself in a southeast Ohio hamlet
. That voice has since gone silent.

Santa Claus walks out of the building and is about to take off his costume behind one of the SUVs when he sees me. I join him.

“Why would you strip naked in this cold?” I ask.

If he strips in the hall he will spoil the illusion for the kids.

“You think those kids are dumb? They know who you are.”

It is too cold, so he decides that he will take the costume off at home. The party is not over but his part is done. He would stay only if there was beer.

“I’ll walk with you,” I tell him.

We walk slowly past the little church. I am suddenly overwhelmed by an urge to mourn. My whole body cries for mourning. I tell Obed that I’ll find him at home. I need to go to the cemetery. He insists that he is coming with me. He has seen me mourn a few times and claims he finds the experience inspiring. But we don’t go into the cemetery. We walk toward the woods instead. We are drawn by the ghost tree gleaming among the maples and elms and walnuts. We tread lightly into the woods. Everything is still. Only our boots disturb the silence. I think Obed is warm enough in his Santa suit since it is stuffed with old clothes to give him a round figure. I am cold in my Windbreaker, which I am wearing over a light shirt that was never meant for such a chilly winter night.