The Six Granddaughters of Cecil Slaughter

Copyright © by 2012 Susan Hahn.

All rights reserved. No text or photograph may be used or reproduced in any form or medium without written permission.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is coincidental.

Published in 2012. First Edition.

Printed in the United States on acid-free paper.

Fifth Star Press

1333 West Devon Avenue, Suite 221

Chicago, Illinois 60660

Distributed by Small Press United.

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-0-9846510-0-9

For Fred and Rick

The two great gifts

of my life

and

For Jean and Jacob and Charlie

The three great gifts

of years more recent

I tie a string of bells around my ankle.

I am told I make a jingle

of delight. Sometimes, when I dance

I think my feet might burst.

Yet, I toll of my own accord.

I am not the maiden who threw herself

into the melting pot so that the metals

would fuse—perfect the sound—

make the air notes sweet and strong.

I am not that sacrifice.

Still, when my toes toss off

the earth, I can frighten away

the browsing snake.

I know someday I might break

and close my eyes to that scare,

pretend I glow like ruby and sapphire,

am a choir of tinkle and chime—

dainty, joyful, charmed, and wayward.

c. slaughter

Cross my fingers, cross my heart,

arms extended, legs together, not apart,

I make of myself a cross.

In my pockets bright blue beads,

small clay gods, scarabs,

four leaf clovers, bejeweled mezziahs.

In my hat cockleshells

to exorcize the demons,

to keep hidden the seventh chakra,

the tonsure, the bald compulsion.

Cross my fingers, cross my heart,

arms extended, legs together, not apart
.

In my ears little bells of confusion,

to frighten away eyes of evil.

On my breast a foul sachet

to repel the lick of the Devil.

Cross my fingers, cross my heart
.

In my window a glass witch ball

to guard against the shatter

from intruders.

Cross my fingers
.

c. slaughter

Widdershins I

Flowers

Widdershins II

Queen Bee

Trichotillomania

No Sad Songs Sung Here

The Interior of the Sun

The Devil's Legs

Yom Kippur Night Dance

The Sin-Eater of the Family

Confession

Nijinsky's Dog

The Lovers

Mania

If I Set up the Chairs

Small Green

Mens Rea

Paranoia

The Crosses I

Clean

Widdershins III

Acknowledgments

Turn counter to the clock

tick, its annoying tic,

stir the pot

left to right, set

the table west to east,

steer the small boat

from the harbor

against the sun path.

Traveling the heavens

has not led to protection.

c. slaughter

W
HEN
I F
INALLY FELT
the full impact of the death of Herr M and the awfulness that came after—that a member of my family was involved—I fled to Lao Tzu for advice. I
knew
there was nothing I could have done to stop it, but I needed specific instructions as to what to do
now.
“What should I do?” were my exact words as my mind went running off. It was an impulsive action—this mind-running—and even though I knew it was wrong-spirited at the time, I did not think to stop myself.

Here, far below the earth's surface, I continue to discover mountains where the glory of all seasons converge and burst into full bloom—the English oaks, German silver firs, Burmese banyan figs, and African acacias, all in their
quiet dignity, existing together—and the lakes where still waters throw a perfect reflection and where the limestone resembles majestic waterfalls. A world I had now—with this news—temporarily abandoned, my mind and sight not focused on all the beauty I had come to find on this path to visit Lao Tzu.

I ran past the jubilant summer gardens filled with flowers crowded together without outline—boneless—existing with riotous exuberance and ease, past the venerable plum trees, gnarled and lichen covered, and the lotus flowers floating in the rivers, past the peach trees in the full glory of their blush and fragrance, past the flowering almond ones, their rosy blossoms dusting the ground beneath my feet as I ran faster and faster to Lao Tzu for advice.

Clearly, my alarmed reaction was an above-the-ground one, my emotional, panicky leap up there—my “trip up”—a backward step. But I had my reasons. I always felt, because I was the eldest of my cousins, that as the years passed and I grew wiser I would be able to fix things for them, and for that matter for others in my family. I wanted to polish the egos of those left so tarnished and dim the lights on those so focused upon the gloss of themselves and their possessions, much of the damage having been done by my father and my mother. But my life was cut off, shut down midcourse and therefore all my hopes for this—whether they were altruistic or egocentric or some combination of both—were thwarted.

When the long journey of my illness concluded with my forced detour to beneath the ground, intruding on all my good intentions, it was inevitable that I carried with me this over-responsibility, this overburdening of concern and resolve and however much I try not to, I continue,
even at this distance, to assume the quiet, watchful role of the Slaughter family's night nurse.

Now, I excuse myself for many reasons, starting with the fact that my time spent in eternity has been short and therefore my behavior, especially when I am under extreme pressure, is still more blatantly alarmist-human than otherworldly calm. Also, there was the act itself—that Herr M had been murdered. And a murder was definitely on the far side of that which goes against the natural life flow. Yes, everything I did after the instant of my full knowledge of what had happened—of
all
that I had witnessed—seemed to be going in reverse.

With her thumbs she'd press at the beginning

stems, try to push them back into her chest

as if that could arrest the budding.

Not wanting anyone to see,

so they couldn't point, make fun,

she'd stretch her sweaters

down around her knees,

the yarn slackened and blanketing

her body. She didn't know then that

a young man would come with flowers

which felt like the soft skin

of her own grown breasts, their areolas

knowing how to roughen into crinkled leaves,

nipples ruddy. She didn't realize how easily

they all could decay,

that someday they'd be taken from her,

the way she imagined her caller stole

each bloom from its stem, a risk

he took for the fantasy of touching her,

his fingers working carefully, anxious

that he'd get in trouble, have to stop—

all blossoms plucked from their hands.

c. slaughter

I
AM SURE MY
mother knew that her nieces hated her and that she understood it to a point. She knew her nick-name—the one her brothers called her openly, and often to her face—“American Beauty Rose”—got to them, irritated and upset them. She understood why not only her nieces, but I too—her own daughter—would go through our lives always troubled by having such beauty in the family. She knew she was the standard-bearer of beauty not just for us, but for any female who encountered her, and that no matter what any of them did to copy her or rebel against such beauty, she believed no one could compete. Consequently, she, as burden or blessing depending on who you were, remained unfazed and moved forward with her life.

Since I was born homely, I gave up rather early on how I looked, refusing makeup, not watching my weight, barely combing my intentionally chopped-up hair, and most certainly giving no thought to what I wore. Eventually my parents accepted how I looked and set me on a different path. I was to become a famous philosopher
—a true scholar.
I would equal or surpass Grandfather Cecil.

All of the female offspring were named after him—me (Ceci), Cecilia, Cecily, Celine, Celie, and Celeste—a fact that Cecilia thought really dumb and voiced to me. She believed it ridiculous to pay such homage to a man when there was only anecdotal evidence—“glory stories,” she called them—of his brilliance. “Frankly,” she told me when she was ten and I was twelve, “it's Grandmother Idyth whom they should have honored—that woman locked away for all these years—her impressive stamina for a long life, however much the doctors drugged her.” When she talked like this my eyes would grow so big they
felt like they might burst. And Cecilia talked like this a lot. Especially to me, because of how well I listened and laughed at what she said, for deep inside me, there was a rebel—an iconoclast—but I just could not quite bring it forth. Only Cecilia allowed herself to be free enough to give such ideas voice, however quietly she whispered them. She felt with me a safe place, which made our relationship special, for she did not feel there were many safe places in this world for her.

My parents liked to compare things and people to flowers. They would brag unrelentingly about Cecil's genius—say my mind was so similar, compare it to a rare and gorgeous orchid. At the Passover Seder each year where my father presided with great authority, I was always given the role of the Wise Son, which made me flush terribly with discomfort and guilt. Cecilia was predictably and painfully designated the Wicked Son, and the Simple Son was alternately assigned to Celie, Celine, or Cecily. Joshua and Jeremy, Celie's brothers, were far younger than the rest of us—either had not yet been born or were too little to be called upon. My father always spoke with great pedantic pleasure on behalf of the Son Who Does Not Know How to Ask.

Once, they called Cecilia a dandelion—which, as everyone knows, is just a weed. It got back to Aunt Lettie—Cecilia's mother. So directly and quietly, with a sadness and dismay in her voice, she asked, “Ceci, is it
true
that your parents called Cecilia this?” Telling Aunt Lettie, “It is,” made me sick.

Rather quickly the dandelion comparison made its convoluted path to Cecilia and she cried. She was six. It tangled her mind—bound her to awful bottom thoughts
about herself—snarled through her body and knotted it. However, when she was old enough, she looked up “dandelion” in the dictionary and discovered the root was from the French,
dent de lion
—meaning “lion's tooth.” From that moment, she felt a little stronger and happier. She found it, perhaps, a divine message. Cecilia thought like that. And she waited …