To say Bea Van Klay is "haunted" by memories is going too far. The memories stick with her, in part, because they feed her anger at her parents for what she thinks of as their abandonment, their deep conviction that bringing the gospel to the Navajo is a far more important task than raising their children. Did they love their daughter?--without a doubt, they did. They were merely following conviction and convention, and I'm sure that her rebellion against them and their way of life was devastating.
Meanwhile, it's Christmas, she's refinishing her parents' old dining room table, an antique, while her husband is out playing Santa to his work crew. Her daughter has called and unloaded on her, telling her she doesn't want her children to go through a childhood like she did--without grandparents.
Her situation prompts her memory to replay some of the ancient offenses, the ones that she relies on to fuel her very human anger. Throughout her life, Bea has lost her faith, but I want to do with the story is at least begin to bring her back. We reenter the story with a flashback.
I was refinishing a table when I wrote the story, and I remember thinking that something as old as the table I was working on held secrets, had to. Okay, what if, long ago, someone deliberately hid something beneath the linoleum covers people put on their tables back then? What might it be and why was it there. Fiction is often a matter of "what if?"
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In the middle of the night her parents are awake. She hears the bed wince as they rise together, the closet doors shiver open, clothes rustle. They wake her, tell her they must leave. They'll be back, they tell her, her father's stark outline bathed in the light from the hallways as he stands at the foot of her bed. They leave, and she and Peter are alone.
"Just about your age," her mother told her, "and so much like you--your height almost. Dark eyes. Esther Nez. She'd found peace, sweetheart. She's been forgiven. Isn't it wonderful?"
The table stood between them. When she wouldn't answer their question, her mother drew back from her father's arms, brought her hands up to her eyes.
"Do you know the Lord, Bea?" her father asked. "That's what we need to know," he said. "Do you know Jesus?"
She felt her father's eyes planted. They never shifted, even when she gathered her strength and stared back at him, as if cursing. "Yes, of course. Of course, I do."
The arrogance of her answer kept them from asking again.
Mutton they had for dinner that Christmas Day because everywhere you looked in those days sheep wandered the reservation. Mutton and beans. Bread and coffee.
She pulled another putty-knife from the rack, a small one, then plugged in the emery wheel on the workbench and slid the edge of the knife across the whirr, shooting sparks up toward the calendar girl Myron had pinned up on the tagboard years ago. She had to be careful because she didn't want to gouge the surface, even though she could sand away light slips easily enough.
A half dozen linoleum strips still stuck to the table. She lay the edge of the putty-knife at the point of the largest chunk, raised her wrist against the play of the blade, jammed it into the seam, lifting the linoleum, then picked up the corner once it was loose enough to grab with her fingers.
"What she'd done," Bea thought, just because Char thinks it's her job to bring peace now that she's found Reverend Van's Jesus. But it won't happen, not with both of them dead, her mother years ago already and now her father too, laid on that slope above the shacks in the little town he'd made up his mind never to leave, both of them asleep in the cemetery where food offerings for the dead littered the ground with pagan honor.
She pushed the blade beneath the biggest chunk and grabbed what she'd turned up, then jerked the knife along--like skinning an animal, the way the Indian boys used to tug the bluish pelt from a rabbit's back with a wet ripping sound. She curled the piece into her fingers, put down the knife and wrapped her other hand around her wrist, then leaned over the table to balance herself, jerked hard, and the whole diamond-shaped piece came off in her hands, wide as a book cover.
She tossed it in the shopping bag with the rest of what she'd already scraped, but it twisted as it fell, and she saw something shiny, glimmering as if wet. She reached down into the bag and when she pulled it out again she found a star in a cellophane wrapper stuck to the back of the linoleum.
At first glance she thought it was something scissors-cut from very delicate paper, but when she tore it loose from the back of the linoleum it was thicker than paper-something fabric instead, or woven. Tatting, that's what it was--a tatted medallion star.
She looked back at the table, at the spot where it had come up, and found no trace of adhesive, the dull, unsullied grain where it had lain the only clean spot on the surface. That star had been wrapped in cellophane and laid purposely under the thick linoleum. It was small enough to fit easily in the bowl of her palm, its points done in some intricate and personal weave like some language not yet written. Years before, her mother had worked sometimes at night, in those dark evening hours of winter, the shuttle a glint of silver passing expertly in and out of her open fingers as she nimbly turned out a cluster of tightened stitches, doilies, edging from handkerchiefs, and sometimes antimacassars--like the linoleum, to protect the back or arms of the sofa. A star in the desert, she thought, a hidden medallion star buried beneath the tabletop. Her mother's work. She removed it from the brittle cellophane. Its ecru knots, small, hardened fists, were shaped into a design so fine that one could easily forget the hours it took to create its delicate edges.
But why would her mother have buried it that way, laid a little piece of lace beneath her own tabletop?--a star, she thought, a desert star like a miracle from the bottom of the table, something unexpected, a little glint of beauty like a sign, she thought. Maybe like a testimony. It didn't really matter who would eventually strip back the linoleum and find her little miracle underneath--it could be Mother Van's only daughter or any of a hundred Esthers. She'd put the star there like a Bible story, like the gospel tracts she'd always leave in the Albuquerque bus station, a testimony planted for some wayward soul lost in the wilderness. She'd put it there so she could go to her death knowing that she still had one last tatted voice pointing to Jesus. Just more of the same, Bea thought.
When she opened the stripper, the can exhaled fumes that stung her eyes. She pulled on her rubber gloves and poured it over the table surface, the brash smell lining her nose as she spread clumps flat over the wood, the last slivers of linoleum, and the tracks of the adhesive. It was so much like her mother she almost had to laugh, a bad joke on her daughter. The one thing of her mother's she had touched in more than forty years, and it comes up as just another sermon. The stripper soaked up the old surface and turned cold where it dirtied her gloves.
But how could she know it would be her daughter? Maybe preaching wasn't the idea. After all, only someone already a Christian could read the symbol right. It would mean little to a Navajo. Besides, if her mother wanted to bury a tract, she could have. Maybe as a young bride she buried it the way the hired man in the parable buried the one talent the master had given him--because she feared the stiffness of her husband's commitment, was afraid of what he might say about silly lace. Over the years, maybe her mother had taught herself to mistrust something which existed for beauty's sake alone, as if her medallion were a token of selfish pleasure. Maybe she'd buried it because it was only beauty.
In the middle of the night her parents are awake. She hears the bed wince as they rise together, the closet doors shiver open, clothes rustle. They wake her, tell her they must leave. They'll be back, they tell her, her father's stark outline bathed in the light from the hallways as he stands at the foot of her bed. They leave, and she and Peter are alone.
"Just about your age," her mother told her, "and so much like you--your height almost. Dark eyes. Esther Nez. She'd found peace, sweetheart. She's been forgiven. Isn't it wonderful?"
The table stood between them. When she wouldn't answer their question, her mother drew back from her father's arms, brought her hands up to her eyes.
"Do you know the Lord, Bea?" her father asked. "That's what we need to know," he said. "Do you know Jesus?"
She felt her father's eyes planted. They never shifted, even when she gathered her strength and stared back at him, as if cursing. "Yes, of course. Of course, I do."
The arrogance of her answer kept them from asking again.
Mutton they had for dinner that Christmas Day because everywhere you looked in those days sheep wandered the reservation. Mutton and beans. Bread and coffee.
She pulled another putty-knife from the rack, a small one, then plugged in the emery wheel on the workbench and slid the edge of the knife across the whirr, shooting sparks up toward the calendar girl Myron had pinned up on the tagboard years ago. She had to be careful because she didn't want to gouge the surface, even though she could sand away light slips easily enough.
A half dozen linoleum strips still stuck to the table. She lay the edge of the putty-knife at the point of the largest chunk, raised her wrist against the play of the blade, jammed it into the seam, lifting the linoleum, then picked up the corner once it was loose enough to grab with her fingers.
"What she'd done," Bea thought, just because Char thinks it's her job to bring peace now that she's found Reverend Van's Jesus. But it won't happen, not with both of them dead, her mother years ago already and now her father too, laid on that slope above the shacks in the little town he'd made up his mind never to leave, both of them asleep in the cemetery where food offerings for the dead littered the ground with pagan honor.
She pushed the blade beneath the biggest chunk and grabbed what she'd turned up, then jerked the knife along--like skinning an animal, the way the Indian boys used to tug the bluish pelt from a rabbit's back with a wet ripping sound. She curled the piece into her fingers, put down the knife and wrapped her other hand around her wrist, then leaned over the table to balance herself, jerked hard, and the whole diamond-shaped piece came off in her hands, wide as a book cover.
She tossed it in the shopping bag with the rest of what she'd already scraped, but it twisted as it fell, and she saw something shiny, glimmering as if wet. She reached down into the bag and when she pulled it out again she found a star in a cellophane wrapper stuck to the back of the linoleum.
At first glance she thought it was something scissors-cut from very delicate paper, but when she tore it loose from the back of the linoleum it was thicker than paper-something fabric instead, or woven. Tatting, that's what it was--a tatted medallion star.
She looked back at the table, at the spot where it had come up, and found no trace of adhesive, the dull, unsullied grain where it had lain the only clean spot on the surface. That star had been wrapped in cellophane and laid purposely under the thick linoleum. It was small enough to fit easily in the bowl of her palm, its points done in some intricate and personal weave like some language not yet written. Years before, her mother had worked sometimes at night, in those dark evening hours of winter, the shuttle a glint of silver passing expertly in and out of her open fingers as she nimbly turned out a cluster of tightened stitches, doilies, edging from handkerchiefs, and sometimes antimacassars--like the linoleum, to protect the back or arms of the sofa. A star in the desert, she thought, a hidden medallion star buried beneath the tabletop. Her mother's work. She removed it from the brittle cellophane. Its ecru knots, small, hardened fists, were shaped into a design so fine that one could easily forget the hours it took to create its delicate edges.
But why would her mother have buried it that way, laid a little piece of lace beneath her own tabletop?--a star, she thought, a desert star like a miracle from the bottom of the table, something unexpected, a little glint of beauty like a sign, she thought. Maybe like a testimony. It didn't really matter who would eventually strip back the linoleum and find her little miracle underneath--it could be Mother Van's only daughter or any of a hundred Esthers. She'd put the star there like a Bible story, like the gospel tracts she'd always leave in the Albuquerque bus station, a testimony planted for some wayward soul lost in the wilderness. She'd put it there so she could go to her death knowing that she still had one last tatted voice pointing to Jesus. Just more of the same, Bea thought.
When she opened the stripper, the can exhaled fumes that stung her eyes. She pulled on her rubber gloves and poured it over the table surface, the brash smell lining her nose as she spread clumps flat over the wood, the last slivers of linoleum, and the tracks of the adhesive. It was so much like her mother she almost had to laugh, a bad joke on her daughter. The one thing of her mother's she had touched in more than forty years, and it comes up as just another sermon. The stripper soaked up the old surface and turned cold where it dirtied her gloves.
But how could she know it would be her daughter? Maybe preaching wasn't the idea. After all, only someone already a Christian could read the symbol right. It would mean little to a Navajo. Besides, if her mother wanted to bury a tract, she could have. Maybe as a young bride she buried it the way the hired man in the parable buried the one talent the master had given him--because she feared the stiffness of her husband's commitment, was afraid of what he might say about silly lace. Over the years, maybe her mother had taught herself to mistrust something which existed for beauty's sake alone, as if her medallion were a token of selfish pleasure. Maybe she'd buried it because it was only beauty.
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