“I’ll check on Mama.” Virginia was gone only a moment. “As far as I can remember,” she whispered, “there’s the front door, the back door—” she ticked them off on her fingers. “The basement, and Miss Portia’s room.”
“Miss Portia’s room?”
Virginia shrugged.
Red took a resolute breath. “Is your mother a heavy sleeper?”
“Yeah…”
They tiptoed past the dining room, wincing at each creaking board. Matilda sat back, breathing heavily, her work-worn hands draped over the arms of the rocker, a half-finished doily in her lap. Portia looked like a corpse, engulfed in featherbeds and lying on a canopy bed that nearly swallowed the small room. Red crept toward the open door, ready to bolt. She slid the key from her pocket, and placed it against the lock. It bumped in halfway, then it resisted. Red pressed the key harder, to make sure. Nope. This wasn’t the lock.
She shook her head for Virginia’s benefit, then tugged. The key wouldn’t budge.
Fear lanced through her and she yanked hard, pulling the key free and bumping the glass doorknob. Red and Virginia froze, staring at the sleeping women. Matilda’s snoring never broke rhythm. But for one second, Red thought she saw Portia’s eyes, open and clear, then shutting quickly as they retreated, quaking in their sneakers.
“Something tells me this key won’t fit the front door or the back door,” whispered Red.
“You just don’t wanna be here.”
Red giggled, and so did Virginia, cupping a hand over her mouth.
“Well,” said Virginia, “we could try the basement. It’s outside.”
It wasn’t such an adventure now, and Red stood for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. We’ve come this far, right?”
They nodded together and went to the back of Miss Portia’s house. There were steps leading down to the door, and it struck Red as odd, that the steps were swept clean and well used. Lydia’s basement steps were grimy. Just out of curiosity, Red turned the knob on the door, and to her surprise, it opened.
“Try the key anyway,” said Virginia.
Red pushed the key against the lock and shook her head.
They crept down the stairs, smelling the mustiness of an underground room—but it wasn’t a room, it was a short passage with a door off one side. It was dark, so dark all Red could tell when she put her hand against the door was that it was smooth metal, cool to the touch. A snap, a light came on, and her heart nearly leapt out of her chest. It was only Virginia, her hand on the light switch.
“Look at this!” said Red. There was a rocking chair next to the door, and a small table which held a ring of keys and a quietly ticking clock. On the floor next to the chair was a small basket, filled with yarn and knitting needles.
“That’s my mama’s knitting,” said Virginia very quietly. “I have a lot of sweaters.”
The metal door was dull gray with a peephole, several heavy bolts, a handle—and a lock. Red put her weight against one of the bolts and it shot back easily. Oil glistened on the workings. It was the same with the other one… and then she tried her key, which went in easily, turning with buttery smoothness. The door swung in, and she groped for a light. Nothing.
“It’s here,” said Virginia from the hall. She snapped it on, and they beheld the tiny, stark, concrete room. Against the far wall was a very strange bed with a series of hinged clamps contoured to the shape of a body, each with its own lock. There was a light set into the ceiling, covered with bars.
The walls. Crisscrossed with parallel grooves… Red crept into the room and ran her hand over the jagged furrows. “Claw marks,” she whispered. She looked back at the door, struck by how thick the wall was at the lintel. A foot deep. And as she drew in breath she felt a pulse of unreasoning fear.
“Let’s get outta here,” she said.
Virginia stood with her hand poised on the light switch as Red backed out and locked up. She nodded and Virginia turned off that light, and the one for the hall. With their last reserve of stealth, they pushed the basement door shut and dashed for the sunlight.
“White folks can be cruel,” said Matilda several days later, in the afternoon.
Red, Virginia, and Matilda sat on Lydia’s back porch, stringing pole beans. The tired black fan heaved itself back and forth, its faint breeze hushing by their clammy faces. Matilda had put them to work on the bushel basket that never seemed to get any emptier.
“Miss Lydia isn’t the only lady I work for,” Matilda elaborated. “The other ladies, they’re supposed to serve me lunch, and all they ever have on my day is hot dogs. You know those folks only eat hot dogs when I come, so they don’t have to serve me anything decent.”
Matilda glared and sweated, and Red wondered if it was somehow her fault. It took her a moment to think of something to say. “My grandmother—Lydia—she aways has good food.”
“Yes, child, Miss Lydia’s a good woman. You think she grows so many pole beans just to feed herself and Miss Portia?”
Red stared down at the beans.
“All summer I put up what she grows out there, and she only takes a few of the jars for herself. The rest is for my folks—hold on there, you missed that end.”
Red looked down and snapped the end, peeling the string down the length of the bean.
“Miss Portia, now…” Red watched her tired, blunt features as she struggled with the right words. “She’s a woman who’s mighty tired of life. Mightly tired. I wish Miss Lydia would do right by her.”
“Yvette?” Lydia appeared around the corner. “Great-grandmother Portia would like some company while I trim the hedges.”
Red got up a little guiltily, leaving Matilda and Virginia with the pole beans.
She sat across the table in the stifling dining room and couldn’t think of a thing to say. Gramma Portia clinked the little spoon against her flowered china cup and sipped her tea. Red looked down at hers and wondered if she dared touch it. Cautiously, she held the handle and took a sip. No match for Coca-Cola. Suddenly Portia looked straight at Red and said, “I think Lydia’s out of earshot. Can you check?”
Red blinked, then crept to the kitchen door and listened. She could hear the snick-snick of Lydia’s hedge clippers.
“All clear,” said Red breathlessly, coming back to her seat.
“Well then,” said Portia. “How did you like that little box I gave you?”
Red knew what she meant. “We found the key.”
“We?”
“Me and Virginia.”
“Virginia and I. Go on, then.”
“We tried all the doors we could, until we finally thought about the cellar. And we went down there.” And saw the stark walls and clawmarks.
“They keep me in there when I have one of my spells. No, don’t stare at me so, it’s not cruel. Just necessary. And I’ve been in smaller places… much smaller.”
“Like what?”
“Did they teach in school about the time General Grant came down to Vicksburg and laid siege to our city?”
“Um… only a little,” said Red, to keep Portia going.
“That Yankee Grant was a daring man, I’ll give him that. Crossed the Mississippi and surrounded us. But he couldn’t storm our barricades! So he fired his big guns at us, shells were falling every day, but no one talked of surrender.” Portia’s voice had grown softer, her face less wizened. “There I was, an old maid of twenty, living with Papa and the servants who had stayed, in our house in Vicksburg. A shell hit tbe roof; nothing as terrible as some of our neighbors, but it stirred Papa to action. ‘We shall dig into the bluffs like everyone else,’ he said. ‘It would probably be better for my little Portia, anyway.’ He thought me frail.