“Egyptians are Africans, Ruth,” I feebly correct her.
“Ain’t no Africans in the Bible,” she says, not looking at me but continuing with the sewing that she has been doing even before I woke up. “You should have gone with them men instead of sitting here getting to be so smarty-pants.”
The men — Mahlon and Obed — have gone turkey hunting deeper into the Wayne National Forest. They left in the GMC at dawn armed with shotguns and a crossbow. Ruth inspected them with pride, making sure that Mr. Quigley’s camo hunter orange jacket sat on him well and that Obed’s orange T-shirt with “Got Deer” printed on it was clean. She fussed over the fact that her son was not wearing any jacket. What was the point of wearing a hunter orange camo hat with ear covers if one was not wearing a jacket? But Obed was just as stubborn. It was going to be hot, he said. The only thing he needed was his orange shoulder bag for the packed lunch and water.
Last night Obed invited me to come along but I confessed my squeamishness. I enjoy meat as well as any man, but I’d rather someone does the killing for me, preferably in my absence. He thought I was being unmanly, but then again remembered that as a shaman I had my own habits that he was not qualified to question. I stood next to Ruth and watched them drive away. I was pleased to see that at least there were things that father and son do together. Ruth had a big smile on her face.
“I’d rather go to the Center and put in some quilting,” I tell Ruth. I know she does not like this one bit, but she must get used to the idea that I am my own man. She stops sewing and looks at me closely.
“Men are out in them woods doing man things, and you going quilting?”
“You heard what Obed said the other day. These are equal opportunity days. Professional mourning used to be a woman thing too, but now I am doing it.”
“Since when do you listen to Obed?”
“Since the funeral. There’s a brain in that head.”
Ruth smiles. Not openly. She dare not show me that she is proud of her son…that even she recognizes that he is not a total loss but is good for something.
“I never knew he knows the Bible so well. Maybe one of them days he’s gonna be a pastor. God does work miracles.”
I am tempted to observe that if Obed were to be a pastor she would surely insist on writing his sermons. But I am smart enough to keep that opinion to myself.
“He gets it from you, Ruth,” I say instead, hoping that she won’t detect a sarcastic tone in my voice. I told you I have become as much of a scoundrel as Obed. “Where else would he learn so much about the Bible but from his mama?”
Ruth takes the flattery in her stride. She is undoing a stitch that has gone awry when I walk out of the living room for my first quilting lesson.
I find the women at the Center sitting at one of the long tables discussing the state of the nation. This is what I have been telling the sciolist when he was beginning to haunt my dreams complaining that the story of my life in Kilvert was becoming too political instead of focusing on the psychological motivations of my friends and hosts. Politics dominates the conversation of the people here. Even as the five women are sitting at the table, with Barbara cutting the blocks on some brown material, Irene paging through a magazine with patterns of dresses and three other women just relaxing on what is obviously a social call for them, they are talking about Social Security and why George W. Bush wants to change it.
“He says people should gamble with it on the stock market,” says one of the women.
“The stock market has been there all along and never did nobody no good,” says Irene.
Barbara does not comment. I have noticed on previous visits that she never participates when others attack Mr. Bush. Like Ruth, she must be a lone Republican in a sea of rabid Democrats.
The women are excited that I actually made it for my first quilting class. At first they thought that I was joking when I said I wanted to learn how to quilt. Even after I had given money to Barbara to buy the necessary fabric, some of them still didn’t believe I would go on with it. One says she didn’t think Ruth would allow me. I tell her that it is not for Ruth to allow me or not, even though the communal wisdom is that I am her African. Yes, she is not enamored of the idea and she blames the Center for stealing her African. First they tried to steal her daughter and failed. But now they have succeeded with the African, who is in fact an Egyptian as has been revealed—“And we all know what the Bible says about them Egyptians.”
Barbara has already cut some of the blocks for me. When I express the wish that I would have liked to start there, to learn how to cut the blocks myself, she says she did not want me to have a difficult time on my first day. However, she teaches me how to cut a block on cardboard, and how to use that to draw lines with a pencil on the fabric. Then I cut the fabric, keeping the scissors sliding on the top of the table so as to cut straight. Mine is the four-inch block because, according to Barbara, four-inch blocks are prettier than three-inch ones and are easier to work with. Then she teaches me how to handle the machine and how to thread the bobbin. She issues one instruction after another as I struggle to figure out what she wants me to do exactly: “Put the color face to face when you start sewing. Raise your presser foot — the lever at the back. Pin the seams together. Always put your presser foot down before you sew.”
In no time I am sewing together two blocks. My stops and starts are not clean at all, and my first block is a bit messy. But the women cheer and are encouraging. They claim that my first attempt is better than their own first attempts when they were learning to quilt as little girls, even though the blocks have come out uneven because my seams are not equal. Barbara teaches me how to correct this by having a pin between the seams when sewing blocks together.
As I am beginning to enjoy this, a tall graceful middle-aged woman enters and announces in a husky voice that she has come to see how her relatives are doing. She is obviously one of the daughters of Kilvert who have done well and live in a city somewhere. Everyone is excited to see her. Her name is Marge, I am told.
“His name is Toloki,” Irene tells Marge. “We’re learning him how to sew.”
At least now I am not just Ruth’s African.
Marge is pleased to see me and wants to know how I discovered Kilvert. But even before I can answer she breaks into a song. She is a happy soul, this Marge. She goes to the piano in the corner, uncovers it with a flourish and starts playing. She sings in a beautifully robust voice: Why should my heart be lonely? When she gets to the chorus they all join her and sing in unison: I sing because I am happy. Oh, yes, I sing because I am free. There are unshed tears in my eyes. I love these people. I join in the chorus. No one cares that my voice was not made for singing. What matters is that the song moves me. It is very much unlike the music I heard at the chocolate church the other day.