forks and slid the scissors through the crepe. She sewed it by hand. The Singer would raise the dead with its creaking treadle. They kept the radio low.
Hitler marched into the Rhineland and made all other political parties illegal in Germany. He invaded when the crops were ripe in the fields; tanks plowed through the rye and oats and wheat and any human beings who stood in their way. Jeanine’s father listened to the news broadcasts with his hands in his lap, nodding, saying We’d better not get into this. Stay out of it is what I say.
AT NIGHT BEA sat with her striped cat at the kitchen table with her schoolbooks and her reading. The cat was not content unless he was with her and at night he slept on her head with a roaring purr. Her teacher had given her a book of poetry, The Family Album of Favorite Poems . She sat in front of the coal-oil lamp and read. Books contained speech without noise, human voices that spoke as loudly and as freely as they wished without being told to hush, hush. Mayme wrote to her young man in Conroe who worked for the Conroe-Lufkin Telephone Company. The letter was very long. Her pen made loud scratching noises. Jack Stoddard developed a strange, haughty air and spent the hot evenings sitting by the door, looking at something out in the night. He stared at his still-handsome facein the mirror on the back porch and shaved himself with slow strokes. He sat at the table in silence leafing through the women’s underwear section of the Sears Roebuck catalog until Jeanine took it away from him to use in the outhouse.
Bea came in from the girls’ bedroom with Prince Albert in her arms and her journal tucked beneath her elbow. The striped cat jumped down onto the kitchen floor and then into Jack Stoddard’s lap. Bea watched with an open mouth as her father snatched Albert up by the scruff of the neck, the fur wadded in his fist, and drew back and punched the cat directly on his nose. Bea threw down the journal and screamed. Albert made a gasping, snorting sound. Jack released him. He laughed when the cat thrashed in snakelike motions on the floor as if its back were broken. Albert gained his balance somehow and fled, weaving, toward the door and their father kept on laughing.
Elizabeth came running in from the back porch, asking what was the matter in a controlled voice. Jeanine threw open the kitchen window. Albert bolted through it.
BEA SAT IN the old shed for hours that hot September night calling over and over in a sweet, enticing voice. Finally Albert crept out of a corner toward her. His nose and mouth were crusted with dried blood. He crawled into her lap and blinked up at her with furtive glances, as if he were begging for forgiveness. Bea held him and told him she would protect him and that pretty soon her father would have a brain hemorrhage and die. Bea stared into the dark of the shed and felt they were all in mortal danger and that nobody cared and they were alone on the earth.
JEANINE SLEPT ON the floor to keep cool. It was much cooler onthe boards than on the bed next to Mayme. She walked through intense dreams each night and she remembered them every morning before dawn. She dreamed of her father in a shining new truck and his eyes were as red as rubies. He was holding his head aloft so that everyone would look at him and he could look at them out of the crude scarlet of his eyes. He was saying eye eye oh eye or maybe it was I I oh I. Ross Everett sat unmoved in a burning building with an onion in his hand. Smoky Joe stood in the middle of a pasture of brown grasses, his ragged tail flying in the wind, and he was speaking to her. She woke up. It was near midnight and the air had turned cool.
Mayme said, “What are you doing, Jenny?” And then rolled over and went back to sleep.
Jeanine pulled on her striped dress and went to the window. She saw smoke rising in the chilled moonlight. It was coming from the shed. The shed was on fire.
She took up the hosiery rug from the
Hitler marched into the Rhineland and made all other political parties illegal in Germany. He invaded when the crops were ripe in the fields; tanks plowed through the rye and oats and wheat and any human beings who stood in their way. Jeanine’s father listened to the news broadcasts with his hands in his lap, nodding, saying We’d better not get into this. Stay out of it is what I say.
AT NIGHT BEA sat with her striped cat at the kitchen table with her schoolbooks and her reading. The cat was not content unless he was with her and at night he slept on her head with a roaring purr. Her teacher had given her a book of poetry, The Family Album of Favorite Poems . She sat in front of the coal-oil lamp and read. Books contained speech without noise, human voices that spoke as loudly and as freely as they wished without being told to hush, hush. Mayme wrote to her young man in Conroe who worked for the Conroe-Lufkin Telephone Company. The letter was very long. Her pen made loud scratching noises. Jack Stoddard developed a strange, haughty air and spent the hot evenings sitting by the door, looking at something out in the night. He stared at his still-handsome facein the mirror on the back porch and shaved himself with slow strokes. He sat at the table in silence leafing through the women’s underwear section of the Sears Roebuck catalog until Jeanine took it away from him to use in the outhouse.
Bea came in from the girls’ bedroom with Prince Albert in her arms and her journal tucked beneath her elbow. The striped cat jumped down onto the kitchen floor and then into Jack Stoddard’s lap. Bea watched with an open mouth as her father snatched Albert up by the scruff of the neck, the fur wadded in his fist, and drew back and punched the cat directly on his nose. Bea threw down the journal and screamed. Albert made a gasping, snorting sound. Jack released him. He laughed when the cat thrashed in snakelike motions on the floor as if its back were broken. Albert gained his balance somehow and fled, weaving, toward the door and their father kept on laughing.
Elizabeth came running in from the back porch, asking what was the matter in a controlled voice. Jeanine threw open the kitchen window. Albert bolted through it.
BEA SAT IN the old shed for hours that hot September night calling over and over in a sweet, enticing voice. Finally Albert crept out of a corner toward her. His nose and mouth were crusted with dried blood. He crawled into her lap and blinked up at her with furtive glances, as if he were begging for forgiveness. Bea held him and told him she would protect him and that pretty soon her father would have a brain hemorrhage and die. Bea stared into the dark of the shed and felt they were all in mortal danger and that nobody cared and they were alone on the earth.
JEANINE SLEPT ON the floor to keep cool. It was much cooler onthe boards than on the bed next to Mayme. She walked through intense dreams each night and she remembered them every morning before dawn. She dreamed of her father in a shining new truck and his eyes were as red as rubies. He was holding his head aloft so that everyone would look at him and he could look at them out of the crude scarlet of his eyes. He was saying eye eye oh eye or maybe it was I I oh I. Ross Everett sat unmoved in a burning building with an onion in his hand. Smoky Joe stood in the middle of a pasture of brown grasses, his ragged tail flying in the wind, and he was speaking to her. She woke up. It was near midnight and the air had turned cool.
Mayme said, “What are you doing, Jenny?” And then rolled over and went back to sleep.
Jeanine pulled on her striped dress and went to the window. She saw smoke rising in the chilled moonlight. It was coming from the shed. The shed was on fire.
She took up the hosiery rug from the
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