Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart_ A Novel - Alice Walker [53]
There had been only two sessions with Grandmother left. During the circle before, Rick had acted out as usual, pretending to be an orangutan, grunting and rutting around the floor. Everyone else was quiet, immersed in their own journeys. Kate sat as usual completely still, as though she had also taken the medicine. Her eyes were open though. She watched as Rick rose from his seat, a low-slung, rope-backed, wooden chair like all the others, and, after studying it for a moment, deliberately turned it over. He then proceeded to sit on the floor and to attempt to sprinkle dust from the floor over his head. There was little of this because the earthen floor was covered with a thick straw carpet. He kept his right arm looped over his head, however, which gave him a distinctly simian look. Only it wasn’t amusing. He was disturbing the other participants who, distracted by the noise and movement of Rick, began to squirm in their seats. Armando and Cosmi tried during each session to work with Rick, to ease him along on his journey, a journey it was clear he was afraid to make. They did not wish to exclude him from the circle because, as they had explained to the group, what makes a circle sacred is that those who show up for it are the ones who belong in it. Casting anyone out, no matter how bizarre their behavior, drained the energy of the circle. However, Kate could see they were getting fed up with Rick. After singing to him and blowing smoke over him and finally sprinkling him with agua florida, Armando strode away in disgust. Rick was now starting to drool and to make motions that suggested other forms of regression.
Kate closed her eyes for a moment and let the image of Rick as he was crawling around on the floor before her merge with the cool, tense, intellectual Rick who always seemed to have control of himself. What she saw was an empty space. Rick was invisible. Or at least he thought he was.
When she opened her eyes he was on his knees, like a two-year-old, right in front of her. He was looking at her with a look that dared her to do something. Instinctively, she knew what it was.
Looking him directly in the eye she had said to him, enunciating very clearly: I see you.
A shock went through his body, and the selves or pieces of selves that had internally been lying all over the floor coalesced.
She repeated: I see you.
He made one last crawling turn around the floor as if to escape the radar of her gaze, but the circle was very small and eventually he was right in front of her again.
I still see you, she said.
Rick stood up, looked self-consciously around the circle, and departed. He was gone all the next day.
It was my father who Anglicized our name, he said. Richards, he said, when he thoughtfully and quietly joined them again.
What was it before? asked Kate.
I’m embarrassed to tell you, he said. Not Corleone.
Oh, I remember them, said Lalika. Those people in The Godfather. They thought selling dope to black people didn’t matter because we’re animals.
There was silence. Kate took Lalika’s other foot and tugged at her toes.
I have a friend who had a heart attack from crack, Lalika continued. She said crack kept her from remembering.
Saartjie? Kate asked.
There was a long silence, as Kate stroked the sides of Lalika’s foot.
Yes, said Lalika, sighing. I told her to try to hold on, to remember Saint Saartjie. She paused. The people who got us out of jail kept wanting us to tell our story. So we could raise money to pay for the huge legal expense. We must have told it to a couple of hundred different groups and to television and the newspapers. How the policeman tried to rape us both. How I defended Gloria. How they beat us, locked us up. Raped us over and over, jailers and inmates alike. Filmed everything. Sold the film all over the world, as far as we knew. The sadness on her beautiful face made tears come to Kate’s eyes. Saint Saartjie disappeared and just the regular old Saartjie, dragged around for folks