In Calamity's Wake Read Online Free Page B

so long used to silence. For a year my father had been so ill and I had driven away other chatty people to spend my life with my horse or with my father or with books. I had spent so much time being carried over the earth or as a bodiless person treading through memories and stories, I did not know much about real bodies, how solid they were or what size they shouldbe. So when this woman spoke again and pointed I just went where she told me, to a house beside a bridge. I knocked on the door and the woman walked up behind me, opened the door, went inside, closed it, then opened it again and said hello.
    Where can I find lodging? I asked her.
    You can stay here. I knew you were coming. Your father told me.
    My father? My father is dead.
    That must be why his voice was so weak. She shrugged. If you’re looking, you may find someone still among the living tomorrow. You have nothing to lose by taking a look around. What are you called?
    My name is Miette, I told her, although my name is Martha after my mother. Only my father called me Miette and then only when we were alone. Little crumb, it means in French, sweet little thing. It made me happy every time he said my name.
    I N THE house it was as if she had been waiting with everything prepared for me. New candles were so freshly cut and lit in the dining room that the wicks still flared. Two places were set at the table. Baskets of breads and fruit and plates of meat were arranged between the settings. A chipped green vase held wild-flowers that strangely had no scent. That she had doneall this within the second or two of closing the door and then opening it again was impossible. I heard music and I saw by the table a large stand on which sat a black box with a bugle sticking out of it. A tan cylinder rotated, horizontal, on top of the box. Music strained out of the wide brass mouth of the bugle, a human voice singing some song. It was in French.
    It’s Creole music, she said, when she saw me looking at it. It’s a Louis Moreau Gottschalk song. Haven’t you ever seen a phonograph before?
    I shook my head, no. The only music I knew were songs the Blackfoot sang, and hymns.
    She laughed and motioned me into a dark hall where I could barely discern the doorways from the rest of the walls. By the light from the candles on the table behind me I could see bulky shadows loom in otherwise empty rooms, cast by what I could not tell.
    I’m a friend of your father, she said. I have some of his things here. People leave me their things. They stop here on the way to somewhere else and leave behind things for me to store but they never come back. I have had to burn my own furniture to make room for all the odds and ends that people left. I’ll fix you a good mattress and you can stay in the room where I have his belongings. I think he left a bed, a pillow and a chest.
    My father stayed here?
    Yes, he stayed here on his way to the church. We were close friends. How is he?
    He died.
    You said that. He must have thought I had forsaken him. We always promised that we would see each other again and take the last steps of life together. We were the best of friends. Did he ever talk about me?
    No. Are you sure you mean my father?
    I drew his picture from my pocket and showed it to her.
    She smiled and grabbed the little picture and kissed it. Then she held it to her nose and smelled the fading herbs and melting chemicals and my sweat.
    Yes. That’s him. I went with him the day this photo was taken. I said, You should have a picture of yourself so you can remember what you looked like before you left me behind. He was here getting ready to cross the border into Heaven. He crossed a few times before he stayed away. Of course, that was years ago and I was a young girl being wicked. I loved him very much. I loved him very, very much and I ask myself sometimes if I might have married if I’d never met him. I ask myself about the true nature of that deep love. When you let