The Poisonwood Bible
Page 129
“Ruth May, honey, it’s all right,” I said. “The bad snake is gone.” I knelt down beside her, gently taking hold of her shoulder. “Don’t be scared. It’s gone.”
Nelson knelt too, putting his face close to hers. He opened his mouth to speak, to reassure her, I imagine, for he loved Ruth May. I know this. I’ve seen how he sings to her and protects her. But the terrible silence took hold of Nelson, too, and no words came. His eyes grew wide as we all watched her face change to a pale blue mask pulled down from her hairline to her swollen lips. No eyes. What I mean is that no one we recognized was looking out through her eyes.
“Ruth May, what is it? What! What did you see’?” In my panic I shook her hard, and I think I must have screamed those words at her. I can’t change what I did: I shook her too hard, and screamed at her. Maybe that was the last she knew of her sister Leah.
Nelson shoved me away. He’d come to life again suddenly and spoke so fast in Kikongo I couldn’t think how to understand. He tore her blouse open, just ripped it, and put his face against her chest. Then drew back in horror. As we watched in dismay I remember thinking I should pay attention to where the buttons fell, so I could help her sew them back on later. Buttons are so precious here. The strangest things I thought of, so ridiculous. Because I couldn’t look at what was in front of me.
“Midiki!” he screamed at me. I waited for the word to pierce my dumb, thick brain and begin to mean something. “Milk,” he was shouting. “Get milk. Of a goat, a dog, any kind, to draw out the poison. Get Mama Nguza,” he said, “she will know what to do, she saved her son from a green mamba once. Kakakaka, go!”
But I found I couldn’t move. I felt hot and breathless and stung, like an antelope struck with an arrow. I could only stare at Ruth May’s bare left shoulder, where two red puncture wounds stood out like red beads on her flesh. Two dots an inch apart, as small and tidy as punctuation marks at the end of a sentence none of us could read. The sentence would have started somewhere just above her heart.
Adah
BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR. DEATH—He kindly stopped for me. I was not present at Ruth May’s birth but I have seen it now, because I saw each step of it played out in reverse at the end of her life. The closing parenthesis, at the end of the palindrome that was Ruth May. Her final gulp of air as hungry as a baby’s first breath. That last howling scream, exactly like the first, and then at the end a fixed, steadfast moving backward out of this world. After the howl, wide-eyed silence without breath. Her bluish face creased with a pressure closing in, the near proximity of the other-than-life that crowds down around the edges of living. Her eyes closed up tightly, and her swollen lips clamped shut. Her spine curved, and her limbs drew in more and more tightly until she seemed impossibly small. While we watched without comprehension, she moved away to where none of us wanted to follow. Ruth May shrank back through the narrow passage between this brief fabric of light and all the rest of what there is for us: the long waiting. Now she will wait the rest of the time. It will be exactly as long as the time that passed before she was born.
Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me, or paused at least to strike a glancing blow with his sky-blue mouth as he passed. A lightning that cannot strike twice, our lesson learned in the hateful speed of light. A bite at light at Ruth a truth a sky-blue presentiment and oh how dear we are to ourselves when it comes, it comes, that long, long shadow in the grass.
Rachel
THERE’S A STRANGE MOMENT IN TIME, after something horrible happens, when you know it’s true but you haven’t told anyone yet. Of all things, that is what I remember most. It was so quiet. And I thought: Now we have to go in and tell Mother. That Ruth May is, oh, sweet Jesus. Ruth May is gone. We had to tell our parents, and they were still in bed, asleep.
I didn’t cry at first, and then, I don’t know why, but I fell apart when I thought of Mother in bed sleeping.. Mothers dark hair would be all askew on the pillow and her face, sweet and quiet. Her whole body just not knowing yet. Her body that had carried and given birth to Ruth May last of all. Mother asletep in her nightgown, still believing she had four living daughters. Now we were going to put one foot in front of the other, walk to the back door, go in the house, stand beside our parents’ bed, wake up Mother, say to her the words Ruth May, say the word dead.Tell her, Mother wake up!
The whole world would change then, and nothing would ever be all right again. Not for our family. All the other people in the whole wide world might go on about their business, but for us it would never be normal again.
Nelson knelt too, putting his face close to hers. He opened his mouth to speak, to reassure her, I imagine, for he loved Ruth May. I know this. I’ve seen how he sings to her and protects her. But the terrible silence took hold of Nelson, too, and no words came. His eyes grew wide as we all watched her face change to a pale blue mask pulled down from her hairline to her swollen lips. No eyes. What I mean is that no one we recognized was looking out through her eyes.
“Ruth May, what is it? What! What did you see’?” In my panic I shook her hard, and I think I must have screamed those words at her. I can’t change what I did: I shook her too hard, and screamed at her. Maybe that was the last she knew of her sister Leah.
Nelson shoved me away. He’d come to life again suddenly and spoke so fast in Kikongo I couldn’t think how to understand. He tore her blouse open, just ripped it, and put his face against her chest. Then drew back in horror. As we watched in dismay I remember thinking I should pay attention to where the buttons fell, so I could help her sew them back on later. Buttons are so precious here. The strangest things I thought of, so ridiculous. Because I couldn’t look at what was in front of me.
“Midiki!” he screamed at me. I waited for the word to pierce my dumb, thick brain and begin to mean something. “Milk,” he was shouting. “Get milk. Of a goat, a dog, any kind, to draw out the poison. Get Mama Nguza,” he said, “she will know what to do, she saved her son from a green mamba once. Kakakaka, go!”
But I found I couldn’t move. I felt hot and breathless and stung, like an antelope struck with an arrow. I could only stare at Ruth May’s bare left shoulder, where two red puncture wounds stood out like red beads on her flesh. Two dots an inch apart, as small and tidy as punctuation marks at the end of a sentence none of us could read. The sentence would have started somewhere just above her heart.
Adah
BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR. DEATH—He kindly stopped for me. I was not present at Ruth May’s birth but I have seen it now, because I saw each step of it played out in reverse at the end of her life. The closing parenthesis, at the end of the palindrome that was Ruth May. Her final gulp of air as hungry as a baby’s first breath. That last howling scream, exactly like the first, and then at the end a fixed, steadfast moving backward out of this world. After the howl, wide-eyed silence without breath. Her bluish face creased with a pressure closing in, the near proximity of the other-than-life that crowds down around the edges of living. Her eyes closed up tightly, and her swollen lips clamped shut. Her spine curved, and her limbs drew in more and more tightly until she seemed impossibly small. While we watched without comprehension, she moved away to where none of us wanted to follow. Ruth May shrank back through the narrow passage between this brief fabric of light and all the rest of what there is for us: the long waiting. Now she will wait the rest of the time. It will be exactly as long as the time that passed before she was born.
Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me, or paused at least to strike a glancing blow with his sky-blue mouth as he passed. A lightning that cannot strike twice, our lesson learned in the hateful speed of light. A bite at light at Ruth a truth a sky-blue presentiment and oh how dear we are to ourselves when it comes, it comes, that long, long shadow in the grass.
Rachel
THERE’S A STRANGE MOMENT IN TIME, after something horrible happens, when you know it’s true but you haven’t told anyone yet. Of all things, that is what I remember most. It was so quiet. And I thought: Now we have to go in and tell Mother. That Ruth May is, oh, sweet Jesus. Ruth May is gone. We had to tell our parents, and they were still in bed, asleep.
I didn’t cry at first, and then, I don’t know why, but I fell apart when I thought of Mother in bed sleeping.. Mothers dark hair would be all askew on the pillow and her face, sweet and quiet. Her whole body just not knowing yet. Her body that had carried and given birth to Ruth May last of all. Mother asletep in her nightgown, still believing she had four living daughters. Now we were going to put one foot in front of the other, walk to the back door, go in the house, stand beside our parents’ bed, wake up Mother, say to her the words Ruth May, say the word dead.Tell her, Mother wake up!
The whole world would change then, and nothing would ever be all right again. Not for our family. All the other people in the whole wide world might go on about their business, but for us it would never be normal again.
