Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [67]
I wonder what you are giving Turtle now that she can keep. Soon she’s going to hear from someone that she isn’t white. Some boy will show her that third-grade joke, the Land O’Lakes Margarine squaw with a flap cut in her chest, the breasts drawn in behind the flap, and ask her, “Where does butter come from?” On the night of the junior prom, Turtle will need to understand why no white boy’s parents are happy to take her picture on their son’s arm. What does she have that will see her through this into a peaceful womanhood? As a citizen of Turtle’s nation, as the sister of Gabriel Fourkiller, I want you to understand why she can’t belong to you.
Yours sincerely,
Annawake Fourkiller
15
Communion
“IT’S NOT SUCH A HARD NAME, Teebadoe,” Gundi says. “It’s Cajun, right? A bayou name.” The turquoise cushions are on the floor around them, and Jax’s head is in her lap. The raspberry tea is gone; they are past that stage of the consolation.
“My daddy was an alligator,” Jax tells her, enjoying the pity. “He only bit once.”
“What do people usually say, when they get your name wrong?”
“Thimble Dukes.”
“And your girlfriend, what does she say?”
“She says, ‘Jax, honey, get your butt in here please and pick up your socks.’” He rests his long hands on his face and rubs his eye sockets deeply.
Gundi strokes Jax’s hair. “I’m very sorry for this strange disaster that has entered your life.”
“I’m sorry too.” Jax sits up, putting a few inches of turquoise cushion between himself and Gundi. She talks like a nineteenth-century romance novel with twentieth-century intentions. “I’m sorry Taylor and Turtle are living in a Dodge Corona. That part I know is a disaster. The rest I’m not sure about.” He picks up his cup and cradles its warmth in his palms. They’re drinking saki. Gundi believes in drinking warm things on warm days. The afternoon sun through the west windows is finally losing some of its hostility, but Jax’s skin remains salty from his session in Gundi’s Fiat. She commented on his taste, earlier, when she put a teacup in his hands and kissed his forehead.
“What if this Fourkiller is right?” he asks. “Just as an exercise in giving equal consideration to out-there points of view. What if the best thing for Turtle is to go back?”
“You mean go back permanently?”
“I think that’s what she means.”
“Isn’t there another path?” Gundi asks. She says pahth, and moves her head in a large, lazy loop so that her light hair slides out of her eyes. Her earrings are made of beads that glitter like small metallic sparks. “The I Ching advises the moderate path,” she says.
“Unfortunately, skin color doesn’t come in ‘moderate.’ It comes in ‘white’ and ‘other.’”
“I don’t know about this. When I was a girl in Germany we read a little story in school about the Hopi, and I wanted to grow up to be an Indian. I think that’s why I came here to Arizona, because of unconscious desires. I wanted my paintings to be touched by the primeval spirits of the land.”
On the wall behind her, facing Jax, is a full-length portrait of nude Gundi with a saguaro. She stands in profile, her arms outstretched, so close to the cactus that her chin and other parts of her body appear to be recklessly touching its spines. The painting is more realistic than those in her previous series, which represented the moods of water. It will sell for more money, too.
“Do you think people like you and me can understand the value of belonging to a tribe?”
She looks at him, tilting her head. “Of course. We all long for connection.”
“What do you want most in the world?” he asks.
“For my paintings to be extraordinary and great,” she says without hesitation.
“And you write your name on every one.”
“Well, I paint it on there. With a fine brush. Yes. Does that