The Gilda Stories (19 page)

“I'll put together a few extra bucks. Ain't no point goin' home broke. Shit, that's all those yokels down home have to talk about!” Savannah continued.

They were both silent after the meeting time was arranged. Gilda finished the neat rows of white curls, then combed out Savannah's hair peremptorily. Savannah didn't glance in the mirror twice. She glanced at the locked storeroom door and gathered herself to hit the streets. The strain of fear made her look a bit older now, yet her smile was still brilliant.

“I better get in the wind. A few extra johns and Toya will go home in style. Let me out of this joint, Miss Square.” It was an affectionate term between them. Savannah knew that Gilda had worked in a whorehouse in the past. She didn't know it had been one hundred years ago.

When Savannah was gone, Gilda mechanically swept the hair from the floor and put away her combs, irons, and brushes. She looked around the strangely appointed room, relaxing easily among thick, cold chairs with alien dryers mounted on their backs, the linoleum worn thin by mary janes and stiletto heels. On the chrome coatrack hung sweaters and extra uniforms the other women left behind, just as they did their slippers beside their beds at home. The curled edges of the
Saturday Evening Post, Bronze Thrills,
and
Photoplay
were as much a fixture as the glaring lights and polished mirrors. A woman's place, open and intimate, utilitarian like a kitchen but so easily transformed by heat and laughter. Women came here to be massaged by other women, made beautiful by other women.

Gilda checked the back door, listening for noise from Toya but hearing nothing. As she started to leave there was a firm knock at the other door. Gilda walked angrily to the front of the shop. She jerked the door open, unsure that she could keep her resolve to act calmly and naturally. Her impulse was to leave Fox with wounds as deep as those on Toya's face. But in the doorway stood a woman with brown skin. She was the same height as Gilda, and her dark eyes peered unblinking into Gilda's own. Her hair was in two braids pulled up and pinned across the top of her head. A leather band circled her throat, and earrings made from slender quills and tiny beads hung from her ears.

She stood still, taking Gilda in. There was no evidence of change in either of them, yet the time that had passed begged for some sign of difference, some outward indication they had been separated for so long. Gilda felt her breath leave her as if she'd been hit. Her mouth moved silently as she tried to speak the name,
Bird.

Gilda backed up as Bird stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. Gilda was the child she had been years ago, like Toya hiding in the storeroom. She had thought of Bird every day, never certain when she would see her again but sure she was ready for this moment. Now that it was here she realized how unprepared she was. She found it difficult to accept the ancient reality of Bird here in this place. In her imaginings, Anthony and Sorel might easily have walked through the door of her shop, as they frequently threatened to do in their letters to her. But Bird always returned to her—in her mind—in a place untouched by the new, the transient commodities called modern.

She gasped for air and sobbed dryly. They breathed together until the air moved in unison between them. Gilda pressed her dark cheek against Bird's bronze face. She forgot about Toya sleeping in the tiny room and forgot her anger at Fox. She only wanted Bird to hold her.

“It's to a timeless place I wish to return, to the place in your heart where I hope always to belong,” Bird said, hearing Gilda's thoughts. The ancient rhythms of the Lakota and Fulani peoples vibrated in the air around them as they rocked together in each other's arms, making quiet sounds that were without tears. Through each ran the questions about the past, but there was no room for the answers yet.

The deepening night reminded them that it was time to hunt for the blood. Without speaking, they turned out the lights and left the shop. Specifics of the past or their plans for the future were unimportant as Gilda and Bird hunted together for the first time in many years.

They returned to Gilda's apartment, not far from the shop, languorous with the blood but not yet at peace. Bird deposited a small sachel and pallet as Gilda pointed out the comforts of her three, small basement rooms, but she sensed Bird had already been here and examined them closely. As Gilda moved about the living room and bedroom she could feel the imperceptible shift in her belongings—the brush, the soap, the linen, the books all had been moved and returned to their places. No dust was disturbed, no order rearranged, yet Gilda could feel the difference. As a child she had examined the farmhouse rooms in much the same way, lifting and looking at everything, afraid to disturb, driven to know. She was not sure what she had been seeking but was desperate to look for an answer.

Now Bird circled the rooms anxiously, letting silence envelop her thoughts. Gilda sat on the couch resting her head on its back, surprised at her calm as she watched Bird move around the room. She had unpinned the black braids so they hung to her shoulders. Her slender body looked even smaller inside the loose-fitting coveralls she wore. The tight skin across her broad forehead was marred only by the tiny scar above her left eyebrow that Gilda remembered so well. Gilda closed her eyes, not thinking of Bird's rejection years before but of the woman who had loved them both, who'd brought them together, then taken the true death.

The rich colors of Woodard's and the muted light of Bird's sitting room where they'd shared each other's stories every afternoon were still alive for her. She smiled, recalling how one of the girls in the brothel had warned Gilda to be careful around Bird, and at how easy it had been to give herself over to Bird's loving care. She almost laughed out loud at the pinpricks she had suffered when Bird taught her to sew, and the saddle sores from her riding lessons. These were mild, childhood wounds that reminded her of the grief she'd known since they'd separated.

They faced each other, unable to move apart as night closed around them. Bird finally went to the unlocked sleeping room. There she threw her pallet atop Gilda's.

“We should lie together now,” she said softly.

Gilda dropped her white uniform at the foot of the bed, and stepped out of the soft leather shoes that made her appear slightly taller than she really was. Bird stood before her naked, in the total darkness, watching as if she saw the small, frightened girl of long ago. She was so shaken by her own need to hold Gilda, she barely remembered why she'd needed to run away. The isolation had helped give her a clearer vision of what her future might be, but it also left her tight with anxiety. There had been no one with whom to share her past except Gilda. She locked the thick bedroom door and threw the bolt at its base. Gilda lay on her back opening herself. She closed her eyes with the understanding that this left her vulnerable to whatever Bird might wish. She wasn't certain yet whether Bird still held her responsible for the other's death, or if she had returned to offer her love. She knew the question was soon to be answered.

Gilda folded her hands across her breasts, making her appear much as she would have if she were really dead. She thought of her mother and the other woman who'd rescued her, both of whom had given her life, and of Bird who had completed the final change, making her live as she did now. Sorel and Anthony floated through her mind. She had hoped to see them again, to share with them all the things she'd learned since living with them. She thought of Toya, so small and young, locked inside the back room of her shop. She felt Bird probing her mind, knowing everything she knew, even the plan to take Toya to safety.

She let her mind rest as she waited for Bird to decide on life or destruction. She owed her more than her life, yet she knew she need not search for words to tell Bird how much she had meant to her when she was young. She merely waited, her eyes closed, leaving herself vulnerable to Bird's powers. The soft touch of Bird's hand on her brow felt, for a moment, as if it were her mother's. Bird then stroked her neck, slipping softly to her back and rubbing the tender spot just below the hairline where the nerves came together, sparking a tingle inside her thighs. There was no sound in the room except their breathing: Gilda's was slow, almost imperceptible; Bird's deeper, as if she were preparing to run. When Bird kissed her forehead Gilda was startled by the shock of closeness. Until now she hadn't thought about how much time had passed since she'd slept next to anyone. Bird kissed her cheek softly, then moved to her ear.

She began to whisper in a low tone that held Gilda like the mesmerizing gaze they both had in their power. Her words were soft and even. She spoke of her life and aloneness, her fear of being without anyone, always pushing away those she loved. She moved from Gilda's ear down to her breast, knowing words meant little. Gilda's was a full body, and Bird was enthralled by the reality of it. She sliced beneath the right breast and watched, through the thick darkness, the blood which stood even thicker against Gilda's dark skin. She hungrily drew the life through her parted lips into her body.

This was a desire not unlike their need for the blood, but she had already had her share. It was not unlike lust but less single-minded. She felt the love almost as motherly affection, yet there was more. As the blood flowed from Gilda's body into Bird's they both understood the need—it was for completion. They had come together but never taken each other in as fully as they could, cementing their family bond. Gilda felt the life flowing from her.

A peculiar serenity settled on the room, pressing itself firmly against Gilda's body. She had lived as it was meant she should, surviving evil of different sorts, beginning to understand the frailty of mortal life and the responsibility of her own. Her muscles relaxed, her bones sinking toward the mattress. Whether Bird would let her live was no longer a concern. Her body felt warm and light in spite of Bird's weight on her chest. She barely perceived Bird's touch.

Her head was filled with a kaleidoscope of images pulled forward from more than one hundred years of memories. The present no longer existed: her life was a line stretched through time-humming with the wind, taut and delicate, strong and wiry. The faces that sang on the line were clear and immediate, no longer fuzzy images from her childhood. Her mother sang the same song she used to sing when she rocked the Girl to sleep on their hard pallet beside the stove. Her sisters, all there with the same smiles, perspiration gathering around their upper lips, moved down the endless open rows under the unrelenting sun. They smiled, too young to know they were held captive. She returned to the night in the farmhouse when Bird had completed Gilda's transformation wordlessly, then taken her out for her first hunt.

Bird drew blood from Gilda, much as she had done then. Gilda felt life slipping away from her. The faces of Anthony, Sorel, and Aurelia flared before her, then faded. Her body became a vessel, emptying itself, purging, turning inside out. The smell of blood oppressively filled the room like flowers too sweet with dying. Bird lifted her weight from Gilda, who lay, waiting for death to finish its claim. She thought she understood why Bird might want her to die: it would give the past a final end. Now it did not matter. Nothing held any consequence as the muscle in her body slipped away from the bone.

Then she felt herself being lifted gently. She wondered if it could be done so quickly, if she was dead and Bird was removing her body. Bird pulled Gilda across her chest and sliced the skin beneath her own breast.

She pressed Gilda's mouth to the red slash, letting the blood wash across Gilda's face. Soon Gilda drank eagerly, filling herself, and as she did her hand massaged Bird's breast, first touching the nipple gently with curiosity, then roughly. She wanted to know this body that gave her life. Her heart swelled with their blood, a tide between two shores. To an outsider the sight may have been one of horror: their faces red and shining, their eyes unfocused and black, the sound of their bodies slick with wetness, tight with life. Yet it was a birth. The mother finally able to bring her child into the world, to look at her. It was not death that claimed Gilda. It was Bird.

She wiped Gilda's body with a sponge, washing away the blood and sweat. She lingered over her as she would a child. She whispered sweet words to her as she might a lover. They lay on their backs, their eyes staring into the darkness around them.

“You've forgiven me the other's death?”

“No,” Bird responded. “I learned there was no need for forgiveness. She had always spoken of death and its part in our lives. I chose not to hear her. Even when I felt her embracing her death with joy that midday, I refused to hear her. I stood in the farmhouse parlor listening for her until she opened herself. Now I know it was for me to hear her become one with the waves and the sunlight. She was greedy for their touch, to feel her flesh dissolve and her consciousness slip away. She was happy, but I was too selfish to hear. All along I had been refusing her the final right that was hers, to die when and where she wished. It's the most elemental power.” Bird stopped, ashamed.

“Where have you been?” Gilda had begun to understand Bird's grief.

“I've always been behind you. I returned to those of my people who survived the terrible years. Offering my knowledge and strength where it might help, relearning how to be with my own people. How to be alone. Even there on the plains I listened for you.”

“She wanted me to be your family. Unless you could forgive me I would have failed her.” Gilda's voice was again that of the girl learning her lessons back at Woodard's.

“You're not one to fail, my girl.”

“I realized that soon after you left and I learned to live alone. It was when I tried to live again with others that I doubted myself. I didn't think I could without knowing for certain what you felt, but it has become easier. My time with Sorel and Anthony helped to heal the past.”