The Elementals

  “Loose?”

  “I’m talking about black people. The lines were still there then. It wasn’t considered right to have Martha-Ann on the Gulf side where all the white people were. Martha-Ann had to swim in St. Elmo’s Lagoon.”

  “That’s just bullshit!” cried India, offended.

  “I know,” said Luker, “and it wasn’t that anybody actually said anything to the girl. It was just one of those things that was understood. You still see it in Odessa. Odessa would never eat at the table with us, and when she does sit with us, she always sits as far away as possible. It’s not that we wouldn’t have her or anything like that—you know how much Dauphin loves her—it’s just that she’s not comfortable. So one afternoon Martha-Ann was out playing, right in front of the Savage house on the lagoon, where she always played, and she was chasing these birds up and down the beach, trying to feed them or something. And she chased them around to the other side of the third house. Odessa was upstairs working, and sort of watching Martha-Ann out the window, and she called out the window and told her not to go around that way.”

  “Why not?” demanded India.

  “Odessa was afraid she’d go out in the water. Out there beyond the spit, there are lots of funny cross currents. The undertow is terrible. Nobody goes out in that water. It looks shallow, but it’ll drag you right under. And that’s what happened to Martha-Ann. She evidently went out in the water, and she got dragged under. Odessa was going downstairs to bring her back, and she heard Martha-Ann screaming, but by the time she got round in front of the third house, the screams had stopped and Martha-Ann had already drowned. And her body never washed up on shore.”

  “How did Odessa take it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Luker. “I wasn’t here.”

  “How do you know that Martha-Ann drowned?”

  Luker paused before he replied, and India was sorry that in the darkness she could not see the expression on his face. “What do you mean?”

  “How do you know that she drowned?” repeated India. “I mean, nobody saw her go in the water.”

  “What else could have happened to her?”

  “The third house. What if she went inside the third house?”

  “She couldn’t have. The house is locked, it always has been. Besides, she was at the front of the house, and the doors and windows there were already starting to be covered up. And what if she had gone inside, India? She would have come out again. But we never found her body. There was nothing to bury.”

  “What if she’s still inside? Her body, I mean. Nobody looked for her, did they? Nobody went inside the house to see if she was there, did they?”

  “India, you’re being stupid. I’m gone go to bed. I’m freezing my ass off in here—”

  “Why does Dauphin love Odessa so much?” asked India suddenly.

  “Because she’s always been good to him,” said Luker, stopping to give reply to a question that was reasonable. “Odessa loves Dauphin the way Marian Savage should have loved him.”

  “Has Odessa always worked for the Savages?”

  “I don’t know. For at least thirty-five years. Odessa was coming here for years before we even bought this house—Odessa remembers the Hightowers. But when Dauphin was little he came down with something, some kind of fever or something, and they all thought he was gone die. That was in the summer, and we were all here at Beldame—Darnley and Mary-Scot and Leigh and me. But Dauphin stayed in Mobile, and Odessa stayed with him. Darnley and Mary-Scot kept talking about the funeral, because they were all sure he was gone die. Bothwell Savage, Dauphin’s daddy, used to go up to Mobile once a week to see if he was still alive—”

  “What happened?”

  “Odessa cured him. I don’t know how, and he doesn’t know how, but she cured him. Dauphin says she gave him things to eat and they cured him.”

  “Maybe he just got well—maybe the doctors cured him.”

  “India, it was the doctors who said he was gone die.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But the point is that Dauphin thinks that Odessa saved his life, and Dauphin had a pretty good idea even then—I don’t think he could have been more than six or seven years old—that none of the Savages cared whether he lived or died.”

  “Yes, I see,” said India, “but did anybody else believe that Odessa saved his life? Or is that just what Dauphin thought? What did Marian Savage think?”

  “Well,” said Luker, “she said she didn’t believe it. She said that Dauphin was cured by penicillin, but of course Dauphin is allergic to penicillin. Now, Marian Savage never liked Odessa after that, she sort of blamed Odessa for keeping Dauphin alive. I think she wanted to fire Odessa except that Marian Savage wasn’t the kind of woman to drop your acquaintance just because she hated your fucking guts. Anyway, when she got so sick, Marian wouldn’t have anybody wait on her except Odessa. See, she wanted Odessa to cure her. She’d beg Odessa fifty times a day to give her something to eat that would make her well again.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Dauphin told me. Odessa told him.”

  “She really thought Odessa could cure her?”

  Luker nodded. “Marian Savage blamed Dauphin for her getting sick—she said if he hadn’t married Leigh, she wouldn’t have gotten cancer. That’s what she told Leigh too. Half the time she’d blame Leigh and Dauphin, and the other half the time she’d pretend that she wasn’t sick at all, that there wasn’t anything wrong with her.”

  “A real bitch, hunh?”

  “Cast-iron. And then she blamed Odessa because she wasn’t getting any better. She said Odessa wouldn’t give her the things that would make her well again, and then she started saying that Odessa was putting things in her food that actually made her sicker.”

  “I don’t understand why Odessa stayed on then.”

  Luker shrugged. “Because that’s the way it is down here. Odessa wouldn’t any more have thought of leaving Marian Savage than she would of leaving Dauphin and Leigh.”

  “Martyr complex,” said India.

  “No it’s not,” said Luker. “It’s just the way things are done.”

  “If you had been like that, you’d have stayed with Mother.”

  “I know,” he said, “but I’m not entirely like that. I got out in time—I think. Anyway,” Luker went on, “Marian Savage came down here at the end as a last-ditch effort to persuade Odessa to make her well. She said to Odessa, ‘Save me the way you saved Dauphin.’”

  “And what did Odessa do?”

  “Odessa told her that Dauphin was cured by a shot of penicillin.”

  “So Odessa let her die?”

  “India, you just said you didn’t believe that Odessa cured Dauphin . . .”

  India thought this over, but in the end didn’t know what she thought about it all.

  CHAPTER 15

  The following afternoon India left Beldame for the first time in nearly three weeks. Leigh drove her and Odessa to Gulf Shores, dropped them off at the Laundromat, and went on herself to Fairhope to buy a few clothes. When he heard of his daughter’s intention of accompanying his sister and Odessa, Luker warned India: “Listen, I don’t want you cornering Odessa and asking her all kinds of questions about Martha-Ann or anything.”

  “Martha-Ann died almost before I was born. Do you think Odessa is still upset about it?”

  “I think it’s none of your fucking business, is what I think,” replied Luker with a grimace.

  India promised to say nothing.

  Once the clothes had been loaded into the washers, India and Odessa seated themselves at one end of a row of plastic chairs that was bolted into the cement in front of the Laundromat. It was unspeakably hot all over Alabama that day, but nowhere was the heat more intense than in Baldwin County; and in Baldwin County no worse than at Gulf Shores; and at Gulf Shores no more extreme than at the little green concrete building that housed the post office and the Laundromat. A thermometer on a shaded wall read 107 degrees.
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  “Odessa,” began India, “I want to talk to you about something, if it’s all right.”

  “What, child?”

  “The third house.” India watched closely for signs of perturbation, but Odessa was unmoved.

  “What you want to know? You took pictures of it one day.”

  “You showed me which pictures to take.”

  Odessa nodded, and India was at a loss how to proceed.

  “Luker’s afraid of the third house,” India said at last, “and so is Dauphin. I haven’t really talked to Leigh and Big Barbara about it, but—”

  “They scairt too,” said Odessa.

  “Do you know why?”

  Odessa nodded.

  “Why?”

  “’Cause of what’s inside.”

  India’s shoulders contracted. “What do you mean, what’s inside?”

  “They’s some houses that’s got something inside ’em, and some houses that don’t. Don’t you know that?”

  “You mean like a ghost?”

  “No! They’s no such thing. They’s just some houses that got something inside ’em—a spirit like. No ghosts, no such thing as dead people coming back. Dead people go to heaven, dead people go to hell. They don’t hang around. Nothing like that. They’s just something that’s maybe inside a house.”

  “How do you know if it’s there?”

  “Oh, you just feel it! How else would you know! You walk in a house, and you know right off. Don’t mean it’s dangerous or anything, it’s just got something in it.”

  “You mean, like if somebody died inside, then the house gets some kind of spirit attached to it.”

  “No,” said Odessa, “don’t work that way. That’s you talking and thinking about spirits. Spirits don’t work that way, spirits don’t work the way we want ’em to. They don’t go by rules you set up for ’em. Don’t matter if somebody died or got killed, or if the house is all brand-new. It’s got something in it or it don’t, and you can feel it and that’s all there is to it.”

  India nodded her understanding.

  “Now the third house,” Odessa went on, “you don’t have to go inside that one to know there’s something in it, you just know the minute you lay eyes on it. Don’t you, child? You know, don’t you? I’m not sitting here telling you something you don’t know anything about, am I?”

  “No, you’re not,” said India. “I know there’s something inside the house.” She paused for a moment and she and Odessa stared out at the Gulf, visible across the way between the little square houses. The sun was blindingly reflected on the water. Heat rose in distorting waves from the blacktopped road. Someone passed with a large beach umbrella bouncing over her shoulder, and a golden retriever leaped and snapped at it.

  “If there’s something inside the house,” asked India, “can you see it?”

  Odessa glanced at India sharply, then returned her gaze to the Gulf. “Oh, I’ve seen things,” she said slowly.

  “What things?” asked India eagerly.

  “Lights,” she said, “lights in the house. Not lights though, just different kinds of dark. Sometimes I wake up at night and I think I’m just lying in my bed, and then I open up my eyes and I’m not in the bed any more. I’m standing at the window and I’m looking out at the third house and it’s like I see things going room to room. ’Course you cain’t really see anything ’cause it’s all dark, but I see things going room to room, and there’s different kinds of dark inside there and things get shifted around. They’s doors that get shut inside the house. Sometimes things get broke.”

  India drew in her breath sharply, but Odessa chose to ignore this. “But it’s not ghosts,” she said, “they’s no such things. It’s just the spirit in the house, trying to make us believe in ghosts. The spirit wants you to think that the dead come back, and you can talk to ’em and they can tell you where money’s buried and like that—”

  “Why?” demanded India. “Why would the spirit do something like that?”

  “Spirits want to fool you. Some spirits. ’Cause they’s bad—they’s just bad, that’s all.”

  “But is it a spirit that’s inside the house or is it the house itself? I mean, does the spirit have a body—no, not a body, I mean, does it have a shape? Can you look at it? If you saw it, would you know it? Or is just the whole house?”

  “Child,” said Odessa, “you saw something.” She lifted her arms and pried the material away from her perspiration-soaked skin. “You saw something, didn’t you?”

  “I saw more than just the dark,” said India. “I saw something else. I climbed to the top of the dune and I looked in the window. I did it twice, and both times I saw something.”

  “Don’t you tell me!” cried Odessa. “I don’t want to know what you saw, child!”

  The black woman clutched India’s arm, but India said feverishly: “Listen, Odessa, the first time I saw this room it was perfect, I mean it was like it hadn’t been touched in fifty years and then I was looking in and the door shut. Somebody was out in the hall and they pushed the door shut while I was standing outside looking in the window—”

  “Child, don’t tell me!”

  “—and then I went back the next day because I thought I had been dreaming and I looked in the window again and the sand had started to get inside the room because I had knocked out some glass in the window—”

  “No,” said Odessa, reaching to clap her black hand over the child’s mouth.

  India grabbed Odessa’s wrist and pushed it away. “And there was something in the sand,” she whispered. “There was something that was made out of sand. It was lying there under the window, it was part of the dune and it knew I was there. Odessa, it—”

  Up flew Odessa’s other hand, and stopped India’s mouth.

  CHAPTER 16

  A couple of days after Lawton McCray’s visit to Beldame, Dauphin Savage returned to Mobile for the reading of his mother’s will. Leigh had offered to accompany him but he assured her that she need not bother. Since he knew the entire contents of the document, the reading would be only a formality. The will had been drawn up according to his own consultation with the family lawyer, and he had spent three months in persuading his dying mother to sign it. Dauphin told Leigh that she was welcome to go along for the ride; she could shop in town, check on the house, do whatever wanted doing in Mobile after a month’s absence from the city. But Leigh and the others, to whom the invitation was also extended, declined: whatever must be done in Mobile could wait until the following week when, under Lawton’s directive, they must return.

  When, on that morning, India strolled past the jeep parked on the edge of the yard, she was surprised to find Odessa sitting inside, wearing her dark glasses and her straw sun hat.

  “Why are you going?” asked India of the black woman. “Do you have shopping to do?”

  Odessa shook her head.

  “Why, then?” persisted India, when it appeared that Odessa had no intention of answering her question.

  “Ask Mr. Dauphin,” hissed Odessa, and nodded in the direction of the Savage house. Dauphin was coming out the back door.

  “You ready?” he called to Odessa, and she raised a hand in acknowledgment.

  When he came nearer, he said to India, “You sure you don’t want to go? Aren’t you getting tired of this place? Beldame’s not as exciting as New York City, and I know it for a fact!”

  “Why are you taking Odessa?” asked India.

  Dauphin—who seemed dark and unfamiliar because of the suit that he wore—paused before climbing into the jeep. “She’s gone sweep out the mausoleum. Mama was buried a month ago today.”

  Embarrassed that she had forced Dauphin to admit to this piece of filial piety, India asked: “You’re coming back tonight, aren’t you?”

  “I ought to be through at the lawyer’s by four,” said Dauphin, “but don’t ya’ll count on us for supper. We’re probably gone stop on the way.”

  Big Barbara and Luker appeared on the verandah
and waved good-bye as Dauphin started the jeep. “Wait!” cried India, “can you do me a favor in Mobile?”

  Dauphin smiled. “What you want me to get you, India? You want me to bring you a postcard of a traffic jam?”

  “No,” she said, “if you can wait a second, I’ll be right back.”

  Dauphin nodded, and India ran into the house. A few minutes later she reappeared and handed Dauphin two small gray plastic canisters. “It’s film,” she said, “and I’ve got my name on it and everything. Could you take it somewhere and have it developed?”

  “’Course,” replied Dauphin, “but it probably won’t be ready by the time we head back.”

  “That’s all right, I’ll pick it up next week.”

  He nodded, pocketed the canisters and drove off, blowing the horn in farewell.

  Luker said to his daughter at lunch: “You ought not send good film out to some commercial place. They always scratch it. It could have waited until we got back to New York, and I would have done it right.”

  “Those were the pictures I took of the third house,” said India. “You’re the one I wouldn’t trust with that film.”

  Luker laughed.

  Mobile was nearly a two hours’ drive from Beldame; Dauphin and Odessa pulled up into the driveway of the Small House just before noon. Odessa, who had no liking for the two maids employed by Leigh, had looked forward to disturbing them in their well-paid indolence there, but Dauphin had insisted that he call from outside the city and prepare them for his arrival. He would not even allow them to fix him lunch, but stopped at a fried chicken franchise and bought something for himself and Odessa.

  The two maids declared themselves happy to see him again, though in lackluster voices and with drooping shoulders that only a man so willingly deceived as Dauphin would have thought sincere. They turned over to him three shoe boxes filled with mail and a peach crate they had filled with catalogs that had arrived for Leigh. Dauphin and Odessa sat at opposite ends of the long table and ate their chicken. Then an inspection tour of the Great House reassured them that all was in order there.