Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy [76]
Aspen rose and said more composedly, “I’ll go at once and cut it.” She trotted off.
“Why did you do that, you witch?” Jackrabbit said. “That was mean.”
“Person was bothering me. It’s my dying.” Sappho lay breathing hoarsely. “Besides, will make per feel better. You’ll see.”
“Who was Louise-Michel?” Jackrabbit asked.
“Second lover. Good friend. Person had long hair too, but person was strong … . Died diving accident … . I should not have taken a pillowfriend so late. It was vanity. Had little to give … . Same with Swallow. Too late to put in for another child … . Vanity.”
“Not true,” Jackrabbit said. “The power in you has stayed strong. Bolivar has much of you inside that I love.”
“I have made some good tales, no?”
“They will outlive you many generations,” White Oak said from the foot of the cot.
“Luciente!” Connie tugged at her elbow. “If she’s dying, why is she out in the rain?”
“But Sappho is under a tent. Person wants to die beside the river.”
“But why isn’t there a doctor? If she was in a hospital, she might not die, Luciente. She might live longer.”
“But why not die?” Luciente stared at her, with incomprehension on her broad peasant face. “Sappho is eighty-two. A good time to give back.”
“You’re just going to let her lie here in the chilly air until she dies?”
“But why not?” Luciente scowled with confusion. “Everybody gives back. We all carry our death at the core—if you don’t know that, your life is hollow, no? This is a good death. I hope Swallow gets—Now Sappho’s got me doing that. Person’s so wicked and mischievous; Sappho insists today on using Bolivar’s childhood name.”
“Auntie Sappho!” A little kid was tugging at her slack hand. “I come to say goodbye.”
“Who is it?” Sappho’s eyes were shut and she did not open them. “What chipmunk nibbles at my hand?”
“It’s me—Luna. Won’t you tell us stories anymore?”
“Never! Somebody else. But not like me!” A light spasm shook her and left her with her mouth slightly opened.
“In hundreds, in thousands of children your stories have made strong patterns,” White Oak said. “Your stories have altered our dreams.”
Sappho did not speak for a long time. Then she said, “Take me nearer the river. I can’t hear it.”
Jackrabbit and White Oak carried her cot between them. White Oak asked, “Sappho, old darling, is this near enough?”
Sappho did not answer directly but twisted her head. “Take me nearer. I can’t hear it.”
They carried her cot as near as they dared, but still she complained. “Per hearing is gone,” White Oak said. “Lift Sappho carefully and we’ll dip per fingers in. Person will understand.”
Jackrabbit picked her up gently, with grave care, and then slowly knelt, still holding her, while White Oak brought Sappho’s hand down to the water and held it in the current. The fingers unclenched, the hand slowly opened. “Ah,” she muttered. “The tide is going out.”
“Bolivar’s not going to make it,” White Oak said softly, although Sappho could no longer hear.
Jackrabbit sputtered into his kenner, “Bolivar! Sappho is dying now!”
“Ten minutes, comrade, ten lousy minutes!”
Aspen returned with her hair cut off. She knelt beside the cot, where Jackrabbit had stretched Sappho’s husk of body. Understanding after a moment that Sappho could no longer hear her, she pressed her shorn hair into the old woman’s lax hand. Sappho’s hand clasped about the hair and again her mouth twitched in a faint grimace of smile. “Aspen, child … plant a mulberry tree for the birds that love fruit.”
“Sappho’s not gonna last till Bolivar comes.” A woman’s low voice with the penetration of something worked to a lethal point. “Aspen, sit by that pole. Hush your crying—you cloud my cone.”
“Erzulia, you should have come sooner!” Luciente spoke with reproach. “You’re not in regalia?”
“Person did not send for me. I come only for the death. In respect. Sappho’s far, far into the past, the old loving.”
White Oak said, “Erzulia, can you hold Sappho till Bolivar comes?”
“Scamp to the floater pad.