She stands back to admire the quilts.
“Them old-timers knew what they was doing,” she says.
Unlike the quilts that Orpah tried to make from her silly sketches, these have profound meaning. They speak a secret language. I do not want to upset her by defending Orpah’s work. I do not tell her that though I may not understand what Orpah is trying to tell the world her work is powerful enough to invoke in me strong emotions. For me that is enough.
Of course the quilts on the clothesline move me too. In a different way. Whether or not one believes that the geography of freedom is mapped on the quilts, one cannot but be moved by them, especially when they are spread out like this in the sun. Even if the Drunkard’s Path did not — according to skeptics — map out a specific zigzag path, there is no reason it would not serve as a general reminder to the escapees of the wisdom of indirect and circuitous routes. It does not matter if the codes did or did not contain specific instructions to be followed to the letter for specific escapes, and if they did not conceal actual signposts marking actual routes. It should be enough even for people like Brother Michael that these wonderful patterns, designs, stitches and knots were at one time used as celebration of escapes, or even as records of stories of escape. They were a source of inspiration for future escapes. After all, memory is what you make of it. If Ruth believes this is how it happened, then it is how it happened. Whether there is historical evidence or not that the likes of Abdenego and Nicodemus used the quilts to escape from slavery is not important. What matters is that their descendants believe that they did, and therefore they did. We all construct our past as we go along.
As for the image of the first Quigley, Lord have mercy on him, it remained intact even when she used buttermilk to wash the quilt. Even when the “old-timers” used lye soap the first Quigley stubbornly stayed where he belonged. Doesn’t that convince me that the first Quigley, Lord have mercy on him, was a man of God? He was a great prophet who used to read the future from a red scroll. He was able to decipher figures and symbols that revealed the lives of future generations. The life of the family as it unfolded was all written in the Quigley scroll. Unfortunately the scroll was buried with him.
“And no one knew a darn thing about nothing since then,” she says.
“But since we discovered his grave surely we can dig the scroll out,” I say. Of course, I am just bullshitting the dear heart.
She is greatly alarmed by my suggested sacrilege. It is unheard of to disturb the dead from their rest or to rob their graves. Her people do not behave like what she refers to as my people, the Egyptians, who have allowed wholesale robberies of the dead pharaohs. Digging out the scroll would enrage the first Quigley. He is not totally happy with the family, as it is.
“Like now he ain’t too pleased I don’t go to church no more,” she adds ruefully. “But he understands. The first Quigley, Lord have mercy on him, understands.”
“Maybe you should forgive Brother Michael and go to church,” I say. “You’re not going there for him, after all. He doesn’t own the church.”
She says she is determined to stand her ground. Brother Michael would think he has won if she went to that church. In the meantime her soul is nourished by televangelists. There are so many wonderful programs screened these days no soul needs to starve. Her favorite is one Pat Robertson. She has followed his sermons for years, even when she was still a regular at the chocolate church. What she likes most about the holy man is that he looks after the good people of America. A few days ago the holy man spoke of the wrath of God against a man called Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. She is not quite sure what this Chávez has done but Mr. Robertson has declared that he must be killed.
“He done something,” says Ruth. “Pat Robertson is a man of God. He don’t wanna kill you if you don’t do nothing bad.”
I chuckle a bit, but stop myself when Ruth looks at me disapprovingly. I don’t want her to think I am beyond redemption, but her story reminds me of a fatwa that was once issued by a powerful ayatollah for the death of a writer whose novel he did not like. Ruth’s land is the land of powerful Christian ayatollahs. Old Testament fundamentalists who serve a wrathful and vengeful God. And like all ayatollahs of the world they get their instructions directly from Him. I do not know though if anyone will carry out Mr. Robertson’s fatwa since he can’t dangle seventy-two virgins in front of the eyes of prospective executioners. His religion lacks such juicy incentives. But at a secular level oil is juicy enough.
Ruth contemplates Quigley’s image on the quilt and says, “Oh, yeah, he was a man of God. Them children are full-blooded Quigleys ’cause both me and Mr. Quigley are descendants of the first Quigley, Lord have mercy on him. But God only knows why they don’t have none of his strength, his faith, his goodness. And they don’t have none of the strength and goodness of me and Mr. Quigley neither.”
This is my opportunity to tell her of my plan to look for Mahlon’s mother’s grave. What did she think of the idea? Would she give me her blessing?
“What for?” she asks, looking at me with suspicion.
I follow her back to the porch.
“Because I won’t do it if you don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why you wanna look for the grave?”
She sits on the swing but does not invite me to sit next to her as she used to.
“I like you and Mahlon and your son and daughter. I want to help. You once told me it would make all the difference in Mahlon’s life if the grave was located and a tombstone was erected on it.”
“Mr. Quigley don’t have no time for you…you know that. He’s gonna kill you one of them days.”
I laugh and say, “Mahlon Quigley can’t kill anybody.”
“He’s a good man,” she says, looking at me pityingly, “but if you piss him off too much you never know what he’s gonna do.”
It is an empty threat and she knows I know it. I can see it in her expression that even as she makes it she is aware that I don’t believe her. The nighttime performances have shown me how much of a gentle soul Mahlon Quigley is.
“No one who tells such wonderful stories can kill anybody,” Isay.
“How you gonna find the grave? You come all the way from Africa and you think you can find graves here in the good ol’ U. S. of A.?”
“I have a grave-radar,” I say jokingly. “Remember, I found Niall Quigley’s African grave under a tree in the woods.”
Of course she remembers. Was she not the one who decreed that it must not be disturbed but must be left as it was? Didn’t she overrule Obed, who wanted to turn it into a shrine for his heathen practices or even a tourist attraction to be advertised in the Athens News so that people could come and pay money to see it? How would the first Quigley, Lord have mercy on him, rest in peace with all those crude eyes ogling his resting place?
“You stealing my kids away and now you say you wanna help find their grandma’s grave?”
I don’t see the connection, but Ruth will always be Ruth.
“They’re not children, Ruth. They’re adults. You don’t steal adults away.”
“I hear Orpah is always in your RV. God knows what you do there. And Obed, we don’t see him no more ’cause your meddling got him together with that Beth Eddy or whatever. He says she’s gotten him a job or something. And now they shack together, which is a sin against the Bible.”
Throughout my stay here Ruth has been complaining that Obed doesn’t want to make anything of his life. Yet she wants to maintain a strong hold on him and doesn’t want to let him go. The specter of his independence scares her.