Ceremony of the Innocent (5 page)

She took the washed and wet towels and sheets out to the clothesline in the yellowing backyard. This yard had a low picket fence which May had zealously whitewashed; the outhouse was also whitewashed and stood proudly at the rear. Ellen hung the cloths on the line, and her only other summer dress, a gay pink cotton, worn only on the most elevated occasions, such as visiting the park on Sundays to hear the band concert. It was nearly three years old and had been made by May, and the telltale hem had been covered by a rickrack braid also made by May. It had a flounce about the neck and flounces on the sleeves, and a narrow blue ribbon sash. Ellen had just washed it carefully, for it was to be worn on the Fourth of July, at the church picnic. Ellen regarded it fondly; she believed it made her almost pretty and acceptable.

She heard a woman’s bass voice chuckling, and turned her head. Old Mrs. Schwartz, gigantically fat and squat, and with a thin face like the blade of a knife, was leaning on May’s picket fence. She had a raveling mass of dyed hair, frankly of an unlikely shade of auburn, and little glittering sherry-colored eyes, a long and very protruding nose, and a mouth always twisted sardonically. She made her living by “fortune-telling,” and scrubbing and “helping out” at village parties, and was believed to be a witch. She was also an excellent cook and had often been kind enough to recommend May for household tasks and washing and ironing. But May was both afraid of her and hostile towards her, for all her frequent kindliness. “I don’t like her heathenish and unchristian fortune-telling,” she would say to Ellen.

“Pagan, it is. Keep away from her, Ellen. She can bring you bad luck if she has a mind to.”

Ellen thought her fascinating. There was, to the young girl, something gay and inspiriting about the old woman, something antic if very malicious. She had a ruffianly way of speaking and gesturing, which appeared to the innate honesty of the girl. Mrs. Schwartz was never “mealy-mouthed” or “nice.” She never said polite things, and all her rude remarks were underlined by significant sneers. She held a book with a broken cover in her spotted hands now, and she poked it in Ellen’s direction.

“Got you something, gal,” she said. “To wear out those pretty eyes of yours.”

Ellen ran to her eagerly and received the book and held it in reverent hands. “
Walden and Other Writings
, by Henry David Thoreau.” She opened the stained and darkened pages gently so as not to break them. Mrs. Schwartz watched her cunningly; she saw the radiance on the young face and pursed her satirical lips and nodded to herself with a sort of fatality. She pointed to a page Ellen was skimming. “Read that,” she said.

Ellen read aloud:

“Mourning untimely consumes the sad;

Few are their days in the land of the living,

Beautiful daughter of Toscar.”

The girl could not fully comprehend what she had read, but she experienced that old and familiar stab of sorrow.

“‘Beautiful daughter of Toscar,’” said Mrs. Schwartz, gazing at Ellen and again nodding her head. “That’s what I always call you, Ellen my gal.”

Bemused, yet puzzled, Ellen glanced at her briefly and continued to turn the pages as an avid man examines the meal put before him.

“That man, Thoreau, wasn’t no coward,” said Mrs. Schwartz. “I don’t believe in any unpardonable sin, but if there’s one, it’s being a coward. Afraid of your own shadow; smirking and cajoling just so folks’ll like you, and won’t stick a knife in you—the way people do when they get the chance. Afraid to offend the Devil, or them that comes in his form, all smiles and teeth and talk of ‘love.’ That’s really wicked, Ellen. Nothing so wicked as them that calls themselves ‘a brother of mankind.’ You got to watch out for them all the time, and run like a rabbit when you sees one. Yes, sir.”

Something distressful and faintly denying rose in Ellen, and she was struck with a vague despondency though she did not know why. But she said, “Thank you, Mrs. Schwartz. I’ll return the book after I’ve read it.”

“No, it’s for you, my dear. Found it among the rubbish in my cellar this morning. Thought you’d like it. You’ll like it better as you grows. I did, long ago.” She smiled at Ellen with a wry fondness. “‘Daughter of Toscar,’” she repeated.

“Why do you call me that?” asked Ellen.

“Because you are, seems to me.” She looked at the pink cotton dress on the line, and heaved a gusty sigh and for a moment dropped her head. Then she stared at Ellen and her formidable eyes, so compelling and insistent, so knowing, moistened. “Ach,” she muttered. “Those damned gnats.” She rubbed her furrowed eyelids. “What an innocent you are. Probably nobody can help you, not even me. Doomed—that’s what you are. Innocent.”

Ellen looked at her in baffled silence. Mrs. Schwartz returned the lucent gaze piercingly. “I know your aunt don’t cotton to fortune-telling. She thinks it’s heathen or something even worse. She won’t fight ‘less she’s pushed to the wall. Not genteel, she thinks. Well, poor woman. A good woman, too. Very sad. Ellen, don’t you ever trust nobody, and keep your love careful, like gold too valuable to spend on the worthless. That means almost everybody. Know what the Bible says? ‘None save God is good,’ and sometimes I don’t believe that either. Or the world wouldn’t be so stinking a place. Never mind. I’m a heathen, a Romany they calls me, though I come of German stock. But I got eyes to see and ears to hear. Read something by a heathen poet:

“O Thou who man of basest earth did make,

And e’en with Paradise devised the snake,

For all the sins the face of man is black with,

Man’s forgiveness give, and take.”

She chuckled at Ellen’s young face, so suddenly alarmed and sober. “Gets down to your heart, don’t it? It’s something to remember, always. That’s why I got my doubts about God. But not about the Devil! He’s real. What does the Bible call him? ‘Prince of this world.’ Couldn’t be righter. I’m telling you this, Ellen, because I’m scared about you. Give me your left hand,” she added abruptly.

Ellen hesitated. Was Mrs. Schwartz “of the Devil,” as the neighbors said? Then she gave Mrs. Schwartz her long and slender hand, so lovingly formed, and Mrs. Schwartz looked at the calluses on it and she no longer grinned.

“Yes, a borned innocent,” she said, and her voice roughened as if she were attempting to restrain some anguish. “An innocent-cursed. But that was always true. The innocent are cursed. They never learn what this world is, and all the people in it. Kill ‘em, and they’ll only look surprised—never learning. Stupid, I call it. And yet”—she paused a moment—“maybe if there’s a God He put the innocent here as a ‘reproach,’ as the Bible calls it. He don’t have real sympathy for them, seems like. Just kind of victims to prove something we don’t understand, and never will.” Her lips contorted as if she had tasted something infinitely acrid. “Maybe the Devil, and God, understands. Nobody else will.”

She began to scrutinize Ellen’s work-scarred hand. Ellen said, “The minister today said we’ve got to love and trust.”

Mrs. Schwartz glanced up and her eyes were fiery and her grin was malevolent.

“He did, eh? What does he know about it? ‘Love and trust.’ Formula, as I would say, for death. Cruel death—in this world. Yes, it’s right here in your palm, my child. Written out clear, and terrible. Terrible. Hate and suspect—that’s how you can prosper in this world, and it’s the only way. Afraid you’ll never find out, and that’s what’s terrible, for somebody like you.”

Again she studied Ellen’s palm. “Not all bad. You got some luck here, and very soon, too. But won’t lead to what the silly world calls happiness. And, money! Lots of money, lots and lots. That’s one consolation. Ain’t no substitute for money, ever. Not love, not joy. Just money. Well, that kind of satisfies me. But money can be a curse, too—for the innocent. ‘Daughter of Toscar.’”

But Ellen was naively pleased. She studied her palm also. “Well, I’d like to help Aunt May, with money. When will I get it?”

“Not for some years, gal, but you’ll get it, that’s for sure.”

She stared for a long minute or two at the rosy palm. Then she uttered a short hard sound as if frightened, and dropped the hand. Her eyes leaped violently. “Don’t mind what I said, even if it’s true. I got just one thing more to say and that’s don’t ever trust and give your heart fully. Not that you’ll remember. Innocents never remember anything that hurts them. Like a snail without its shell, that’s what you are. Snatched up for eating. What else can I tell you, that’s the truth? An innocent pays no mind to truth. It likes to dream, and believe.”

She turned away, and despite her bulk she hurried as if she had seen a fearful sight and must flee. Ellen watched her go, more baffled than ever. At the door of her battered house, which was hardly larger than May Watson’s, Mrs. Schwartz stopped and looked back at Ellen. “Know what the Bible says, gal? ‘The wicked flourish like a green bay tree.’ And something else: ‘The children of the wicked dance in the streets with joy.’ Keep that in mind. Might help you when you most need it.” She shook her head, and disappeared into her house.

Ellen examined her palm. It told her nothing. But Mrs. Schwartz had spoken about money, and money would help Aunt May, and that was all that mattered. Money would take away the chronic misery from her aunt’s face, the weariness, the tight despair. Yes, that was all the mattered. Elated, Ellen went singing into the house.

She looked in the kitchen safe but kept her eyes away from the tempting yellow bowl. Her aunt was always complaining that she was hungry, and she supposed she was. There was a morsel of cracked cheese, a spoonful of tea and a slice of bread and a bit of wizened cake for her supper. It was enough, she said valiantly to herself. Why did she want to eat all the time, anyway? Her heart was still uplifted by what Mrs. Schwartz had said. Soon—there would be money for both her aunt and herself. She leaned against the scrubbed kitchen table and devoured the cheese and the bread and the cake, while the kettle seethed with hot water for a cup of tea.

The sun was beginning to set. All at once Ellen decided to go into the parlor and sit near the window. She ran into the other room and threw herself into the chair. The window faced west, and now the falling sun lay on the side of the cracked clapboard of the corner of the house, showing every stain, every bulge, every blister. It was a lonely sight, lonely and still, and Ellen was struck into that profound melancholy which she did not understand, but which pervaded her whole spirit. The street was silent for once; only the bleak light was clear and lamentable and foreboding on the clapboards.

Then Ellen’s gaze mysteriously shifted and she was looking through a tall, narrow leaded window which revealed rosy brick beyond its damask red draperies, and the lonely light stood there on the wall and not even the climbing rose bushes on their trellises could dim its ominousness. The girl stared, half holding her breath. The light deepened, even brightened, but its cheerlessness only increased on that motionless brick wall. Ellen felt a large room behind her, dim with evening, and utterly silent though tenated by bulky masses of excellent furniture, and glimmering mirrors in tall gilt, and a vast unlit chandelier of crystal.

Ellen uttered a faint cry of fear, and the scene changed again and there was only the clapboard wall and the descending light and the echoing stillness. I was dreaming, she thought, and glanced around the little dolorous room in which she sat. I was dreaming, she thought again. The melancholy lay in her breast like a crushing disease which would kill her, like a direful memory which was not part of her experience, of a life she had never known, of something she had never seen. It fell upon her with devastation, and she jumped to her feet and ran into her bedroom and threw herself upon her hard little bed, and whimpered.

She was awakened by a sound and sat up on her bed in darkness, for she had slept. “Aunt May?” she called.

“Yes, and where are you, Ellen? It’s half past ten.”

Ellen ran into the kitchen. May Watson was lighting the kerosene lamp on the table. “I’ve had an awful dream,” said Ellen.

“Haven’t you anything else to do but dream?” asked May with vexation. “Oh, dear heaven. I’m awful tired.” The lamp jumped pale jaundiced streaks about the desolate kitchen. “Here. I brought you a slice of pie, a piece of bread and a smidgen of ham, and a hand of strawberries.” She emptied her apron pocket, and Ellen exclaimed with glee and May smiled reluctantly. “What an appetite you always have,” she said, and she reached out her scored hand and fondly touched that mass of turbulent red hair. Ellen might be ugly but she was only a child after all, and loved eating like the greedy little pig she was. Ellen began to stuff the food into her mouth and May watched with faintly smiling compassion.

“I’ve got good news,” she said. “You are going to work for Mrs. Porter as her housemaid all summer. Seventy-five cents a week, and a supper. Beginning tomorrow. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Oh, Auntie May! Mrs. Schwartz just told me this afternoon that I was going to have lots and lots of money! She was right!”

“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from that awful witch? She can bring you bad luck, but you never pay attention to what I say, Ellen.”

Ellen tossed back her hair and smiled wildly, the strawberries staining her white teeth.

“But it’s good luck! And she gave me a book, a marvelous book, to have as my own.”

May Watson took her gloves and her hat and stood, sagging, in the center of the kitchen. “Oh, Ellen, Ellen,” she murmured. Then she straightened. “And I got fifty cents extra today and you can get those shoes from the secondhand. Be sure they are big and wide enough to fit you for a year or more. Ellen, Ellen.”

Ellen stopped eating and stared deeply at her aunt, then ran to her and embraced her, almost crying, bending down to enfold her smaller relative.

“Don’t worry,” she murmured. “Please don’t worry. Everything is good, so good for us.”

“Nothing is ever good for our kind,” said May Watson, and suddenly she was passionately exasperated at the girl, for she was exhausted, her feet swollen and throbbing, her shoulders aching, and her hands smarting from strong soap. She pushed Ellen from her and Ellen stepped back and regarded her aunt anxiously, and with the now familiar sinking of guilt in her heart. “You got to learn that, Ellen, before you’re much older. Don’t ever expect anything from this world, ever.” May’s squirrel-gray eyes darted little lights of anger, and yet she wanted to cry.