To his embarrassment Ruth does not stop there. She cared for this boy even when he was in her womb. She went out of her way to eat healthily even when things were difficult and there was no food to go around, which is why the boy is so beautiful and strong. Obed feels he must disagree on something if only to spite the woman. He says boastfully: “It has nothing to do with that, Mama. It’s because I take after Harry Corbett; that’s the only reason I’m big and strong.”
“You seen how the children look here? They walk funny with rickets on their knees. Like your Aunt Madge’s kids. They talk funny too. It’s because their mama didn’t have much to eat when she was pregnant.”
But, as I can well see, her Obed is not like that. And do I know why her Obed is not like that? It’s because she took care of her Obed. Not that the boy was strong and healthy all his life. There was a period when he was a sickly child. But she always managed to nurse him back to health. She remembers when she used to wrap camphor in a piece of cloth which she then tied with a safety pin on the baby’s shirt. Obed breathed in the camphor to ward off colds and the deadly spirits of Kilvert. That’s how he survived vicious winters. Through camphor.
I follow Ruth to the living room where she continues her relentless war on the bugs. Obed decides he has had enough of her nagging and saunters away. I help her move the chairs and the car seats and the metal table with the sewing machine on it. With a feather duster I dislodge those bugs that thought they had found a safe haven in the cracks between the ceiling and the walls. They would be flying away if it were not so cold. Instead they fall on the floor, she sweeps them on to the newspaper and we both stamp on them. She has a firm grip on my shoulder for support since her cane is on the floor. We stamp with a vengeance, continuing our dance long after the creatures have been pulverized. We find this quite funny and we break into peals of silly laughter.
Orpah appears at the door, hesitates, then walks into the room, all the while glaring at Ruth. She has been crying. Her eyes are red. She is still sniveling, in fact. In all the four days I have been here it is the first time I am able to take a good look at her. On two occasions, I think, I saw glimpses of her: once through the window as her plaited head fleeted by and again when I saw her disappear into the bathroom and she stayed there for a long time. I don’t know when she finally came out because Ruth called me to her bedroom to help her with her old quilt box, which she wanted moved to her living room workstation, and to tell me how she had inherited the wonderful chest from her grandmother who had in turn inherited it from her great-grandmother before the Civil War. I have heard her sitar a lot though, and every time it creates in me those strange feelings of nostalgia that I have already told you about.
And here she is, giving me an angry once-over. She must be in her early forties. She has a well-nourished olive skin. I wonder what mysteries are preserved in that teary moonface. She is slightly overweight, with a great potential for obesity — which surprises me quite a bit because she has skipped the three dinners I have eaten with this family. She certainly doesn’t look like someone who will “blow away” any time soon. She is barefoot in her tight blue jeans and white top that hangs loosely on her ample breasts. On her neck hangs a yellow, green and orange gewgaw. On her wrists she wears bangles of gleaming ormolu.
“Orpah, you haven’t met the man from Africa,” says Ruth by way of introduction.
I take a step toward her with my arm stretched out and I say: “My name is Toloki, miss. It is my pleasure to meet you. I am a fan of your beautiful music.”
She recoils, moving backward toward the door, ignoring my hand. She actually pulls her hand away when I try to reach for it. It seems she finds me repulsive and wants to avoid me at all costs. I am wondering what could be the reason for such resentment as she reverses out of the room.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about our Orpah,” says Ruth. “She’s got issues. And no one can do nothing about that.”
Through the window I can see Orpah out there on the swing. She has her head on Mahlon Quigley’s shoulder and is weeping uncontrollably. Mahlon is staring into nothingness and is caressing her arm to the rhythm of the slow-swaying swing.
As usual Orpah is not at the dinner table. And I have not heard her music today. Somehow I miss it. The silence leaves a hole in me. Don’t ask me why. I am sitting with Ruth, Obed and Mahlon Quigley, yet all of a sudden I feel lonely, as if someone very important in my life has suddenly taken leave of me.
Today’s speciality is hot dogs with carrot and cilantro relish. The carrots and the cilantro are from Ruth’s backyard garden. She leaves the carrots in the garden, waiting for the ground to get cold, because the colder the ground the sweeter the carrot. In the morning when we were leaving for Athens I saw her digging them out and now she has made the sweetest of relishes from them. The cilantro, on the other hand, went to seed in the summer and she says she picked it quite early in the fall in order to keep it fresh. She laments that she had to buy tomatoes because she no longer has them in her garden. It is against her principles to buy tomatoes or any kind of vegetable because her people have always raised their own food. Did I know that her people—“them Indian people,” that is — gave the world tomatoes? And corn? And potatoes? I congratulate her on it, and she turns to Obed and orders: “Take some hot dogs to your sister.”
“It won’t help, Ma,” says Obed gleefully, as he takes two buns and puts hot dogs in each of them. “Maybe you should tell her you’re sorry.”
“I ain’t sorry for nothing,” says Ruth adamantly.
Obed takes the hot dogs, ketchup, mustard and relish to Orpah’s room. I don’t know why today Ruth is concerned that Orpah should eat. Usually when she has not turned up for dinner she only exclaims that “the girl will blow away” and then we continue with our meal as if nothing has happened. For some reason today she sends Obed to take her food to her room, as if it is some peace offering.
Ruth wants to hear about my day in Athens. Did I manage to fix my papers? I avoid answering that particular question because I don’t want to lie to her. As it is I am burdened enough already trying to keep Obed’s secret from her — both his misadventure at the sorority house and the mediation. I find the load too heavy to bear and I am unhappy with myself for promising him, after he begged me again and again on our way back from the mediation, that I would keep the secret.
Instead I tell her about the sad demonstration we saw on Court Street.
“Uh-uh, now you gonna get her started, man,” says Obed, dreading another one of his mother’s political lectures.
But there is no stopping Ruth when she is provoked into analyzing the ills of politicians. She believes that you cannot totally trust politicians because politicians crucified Jesus Christ. George W. Bush is an exception. He talks to God. And God talks to him. Very much like the prophets of the Old Testament.
As for Kerry, God would never have allowed him to ruin America because America is a chosen nation. Did we know that Kerry asked the United Nations to rule America? She heard him with her own ears saying so on television.
“How can he ask other nations to rule America when America is a super-nation?” she asks in dismay.
There is no end to Kerry’s wickedness. He supports abortion, which is against the laws of God. He supports marriage between man and man; and between woman and woman. Again, she heard Kerry with her own ears saying this. When Obed argues that Kerry never said such a thing but has insisted that issues pertaining to marriage should be addressed by the states rather than through a constitutional amendment, and that Kerry himself believes in marriage between man and woman, Ruth dismisses him as an ignoramus who never watches the news. It will be a disaster if anyone changes God’s laws of marriage. Some men — and they are already doing it here in Kilvert — will have harems of women, make them all pregnant and collect welfare. The taxpayer will be paying for all this, all because of the likes of Kerry.