Lasher

I heard the great faint and undeniable sound of weeping. Not audible you understand, not through the ear. Only through my soul, a heartbroken weeping.

There was more than sorrow in it. There was a dignity. There was a great depth, more terrible than any smile or expression of face it had ever made to fright me. And the sorrow mingled in my soul with that remembered euphoria.

Latin words came to my mind, but I didn’t really know them. They sprang from me as if I were a priest and I were saying a litany. I heard the sound of pipes; I heard the bells ring.

“It’s the Devil’s Knell,” someone said. “All Christmas Eve the bells will ring to drive the devils from the glen, to fright the little people!”

And then the sky was quiet I was alone. The garden was still, it was simply New Orleans again, and the warm southern sun was shining down upon me. The priest peeped out from the door.

“Merci, Mon Pere,“ I said, tipped my hat and left.

The streets were soft with sunshine and breeze. I walked home through the Garden District to the First Street house, and there was my beautiful Mary Beth sitting on the steps, and he was with her, a shadow, a thing of air, and both seemed glad to see me.

Eighteen

THE BRIGHT FLUORESCENT lights of the station made an island in the dark swampland. The little phone booth was no more than a fold of plastic around a single chrome phone. The tiny square numbers were now a blur. She could no longer make them out, no matter what she did.

Again came the busy signal. “Please try to cut in again,” she asked the operator. “I have to reach Mayfair and Mayfair. There is more than one line. Please try for me. Say it is an emergency call from Rowan Mayfair.”

“Ma’am, they will not accept the interrupt. They are getting requests for interrupts from all over.”

The driver had climbed back up in his cab. She heard the engine start. She made a motion for him to wait, and hastily gave the operator the house number. “This is my home, punch it in for me, please. I can’t…can’t read the numbers.”

The pain came again, the tight wire of wraparound pain, so like a menstrual cramp, yet far worse than any she’d ever experienced.

“Michael, please answer. Michael, please…”

On and on it rang.

“Ma’am, we’ve rung twenty times.”

“Listen, I have to reach somebody. Do this for me. Keep calling. Tell them…”

Some official objection was coming back. But the huge jarring noise of the truck’s diesel engines obliterated everything. Smoke came out of the little pipe at the front of the cab.

When she turned around, the receiver slipped out of her fingers and banged against the plastic enclosure. The driver appeared to be beckoning for her to come.

Mother, help me. Where is Father?

We are all right, Emaleth. Be still, be quiet. Be patient with me.

She stepped forward, one moment sure of the ground and the distance, and all points of reference, and the next minute plunging to the asphalt Her knees struck with a fierce pain, and she felt herself going over. Mother, I am frightened.

“Hang on, baby girl,” she said. “Hang on.” She had her hands out on the ground to steady herself. Only her knees had been hurt. Two men were running towards her from the office of the filling station, and the truck driver had come down and around to help her.

“Are you OK, lady?” he said.

“Yes, let’s go,” she said. She looked up in the man’s face. “We have to hurry!” The truth was-if they hadn’t been pulling her up, she couldn’t have risen. She leant on the truck driver’s arm. The sky beyond the swamps was purple.

“Couldn’t get them?”

“No,” she said, “but we have to push on.”

“Lady, I have to make my stop in St. Martinville. No way around it, I have to pick up…”

“I understand. I’ll call from there again. Just drive, please. Go. Take us away from here.”

Here. The isolated gas station on the swamp’s edge, the sky purple overhead, the stars peeping through and a great bright moon rising.

He lilted her with considerable ease and set her down on the seat, then came around, released the emergency brake and let the big truck creak and wheeze before he slammed the door and pressed on the accelerator. They were turning back to the marginless road.

“We still in Texas?”

“No, ma’am. Louisiana. I sure wish you’d let me take you to the doctor.”

“I’ll be all right.”

Just as she said it the pain again clamped tight, and made her nearly cry out. She felt the sharp jab from within.

Emaleth, for the love of God and Mother.

But Mother, it gets smaller and smaller. Mother. I’m frightened. Where is Father? Can I be born into the world without Father?

Not yet, Emaleth. She sighed. She turned her head to the road. The big truck was racing along now at ninety on the narrow road with its battered shoulders and ditches, and the purple sky darkened above as the trees closed in and grew higher. The headlamps made a bright path ahead. The driver whistled to himself.

“Mind if I play the radio, ma’am?”

“Please do,” she said.

There came another jab. The smooth dark voices of the Judds came out of the little grill. She smiled. Devil’s music. Another jab, and she pitched forward, steadying herself on the dashboard. Then she realized she had never put on the seat belt. Terrible, and she a mother carrying a child.

Mother…

I’m here, Emaleth.

The time is coming.

That can’t be yet. Stay quiet. Wait until we are both certain.

But another circle of pain wrapped tight around her middle. It pressed white-hot against the small of her back. And there came another jab and a soundless sense of something breaking. Fluid leaked between her legs. She felt the wetness and at the same time the blood seemed to drain from her face. That awful lightheaded feeling- you’re going to pass out.

“Stop the truck now here,” she said.

At first he didn’t understand.

“You need help, lady?”

“No. Stop the truck. See those lights? Stop there. That’s where I’m going. Stop the truck!” She flashed her eyes on him. She saw the intimidation, the fear, yet he eased into the stop.

“Do you know who lives back up in there?”

“Course I do.” She opened the door, and got out, stumbling over the step. Her dress was soaked. No doubt the seat behind her was wet, and now in the glare of oncoming lights he could see it. Poor man. How disgusting it must all seem to him. That she had lost control of her bladder, when that wasn’t it at all.

“Go on, now, thanks.” She slammed the cab door. But she heard him hollering from inside.

“Ma’am, your purse. Here. No, no, that’s OK, you already give me plenty money.”

The truck wouldn’t move on. She cut across the ditch, hurriedly, and climbed up into the high grass on the other side, and passed into the dense bank of trees, into the soft relentless chorus of the tree frogs. Up ahead she saw light, and she moved towards it, at last hearing the sound of the truck drive away and vanish within seconds in