The Girl in the Flammable Skirt_ Stories - Aimee Bender [44]
“You’re a good girl, Celia,” he said. “You’re a little prize just waiting to be discovered.”
“Oh,” I said quickly, somewhat annoyed, “I’m not waiting for anything.” Closing the door gently, I went into the kitchen and stared at things. Then I wiped the stove down until it waxed white and pearly under my cloth.
• • •
In the concentration-camp museum in Los Angeles you had to pretend you were a deportee, and choose between two doors: one for the young and healthy and another for feebler people that used to go straight to a gas chamber. I chose the “able-bodied” door and found myself in a stone room with twenty other Jews, all of us picking at our clothing. I didn’t really understand why I was there, suffering through yet another museum, until I caught myself sending a hello to the ceiling. And then I knew I was visiting the dead people. I wanted to let them know I’d come back. That for some reason, no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t leave them behind, loosened on the ceiling, like invisible sad smoke.
One day the old man and the old woman woke in a panic. They looked at each other and babbled something in Polish, the language they only used when they were scared. They rushed onto the porch and alerted a young gardener who was planting azaleas across the street.
“You,” the old man cried. “Stop!”
The townspeople passing by, who revered the old man and the old woman as minor prophets due to the pig phenomenon, stopped and listened. The gardener wiped his dirty hands on the grass. The old woman was spluttering, her body stooped and visible through a soft yellow nightgown.
“No other gods before me. Or we’re all dead. Town will die, die, die!” she cried shrilly, then fell back into her wicker chair.
The townspeople were instantly alarmed by the prophecy. They ran to the mayor who listened with studied concentration, stared at the floor, and then spoke.
“Town meeting,” he announced in a firm, authoritative voice previously used only for the dog when it peed on the carpet. “We must hold a town meeting.”
In a flurry, the townspeople were assembled. The gardener paraphrased what he’d heard. “ ‘No other gods before me or we’re all dead, dead, dead,’ she said.” Due to all the anxiety, no one could really make any sense of the obvious until Sylvie Johnson, a Catholic who owned the potato store (all kinds—red, white, brown), spoke up.
“It’s Commandment Two,” she said calmly, pleased to demonstrate her Bible knowledge.
The crowd murmured in both recognition and feigned recognition.
“What do they mean by dead?” asked an older banker.
Everyone looked up at the mayor for some guidance.
“Hmmm,” he said. “Hmmm.” He looked out over the people. “Just follow it.” He was humbled by the possible presence of God in his congregation. “Town dismissed.”
Everyone streamed out of the gymnasium. By nightfall, garbage bins all over the city were overflowing with sculptures from Africa and colorful masks from Mexico, anything that even slightly resembled Another God Before Him. There was much concern over the Greek god statue in the park; its base was wedged several feet into the ground, and therefore extremely difficult to move. Finally the mayor draped a white sheet over it, which seemed to satisfy the worried public. It looked like a piece of long-awaited artwork, waiting to be revealed.
My mother began taking long walks to nowhere. She would leave the house in the afternoon and call me two or three hours later from a phone booth. I would drive and get her. When we returned home, she would go straight into my father’s room and for ten minutes she would love him beautifully, holding his cheeks, playing melodies on his hair.
I often wanted to be like my mother because she had long hair with red in it and to me that proved she was crackling inside. Somewhere in her