Zakes Mda - Cion

And the nakedness extended into the nights at our RV. The tinge of guilt continued with our romps; as if I was betraying the memory of Noria. Things used to be different with Noria. The connection was more of a spiritual nature. I do not recall any memorable orgasms. With Orpah, on the other hand, every night brought with it earth tremors and sounds that could only be unworldly. She was no longer afraid of the mark of the Irishman. She was no longer ashamed of it. She danced in front of me naked and said: “Admit it; this is the most beautiful pussy you’ve ever seen.”

“It looks like an angel’s,” I said.

And that, of course, gave rise to more numinous sounds.

It was these sounds that we tried to reproduce as we went through our routine at the first Quigley’s grave. Here at the hands of Orpah I was developing from mere professional mourner to performer. After all, the roots of tragedy lie in mourning. I am talking here of tragedy on the stage. For the ancient Greeks dramatic tragedy was a ritual that took the songs of professional mourners at funerals to the levels of performance. It gave the dead a voice since the corpses could not utter a sound anymore. Like actors who steal the voices of those who cannot speak for themselves, professional mourners are hypocrites who weep for those who never belonged to them in the first place. Through Orpah’s direction the hypocrisy of the actor and of the professional mourner converged. And the movements that resulted from that union were intense and stirring.

All this mourning heightened our appreciation for each other. Sometimes in the middle of a movement we were so possessed by the demons of the flesh that we had to repair to the RV to relieve the tensions. We could only hope that the visitors to the Center did not wonder about the strange movements of the vehicle.

Throughout this period of our perfecting our act and of reveling in each other’s bodies we did not see Obed. I think we forgot about him altogether.

One day a man came to the Center while I was putting together one of Orpah’s collages. The women knew him at once, and one told me he was one of the greatest dulcimer players in southeast Ohio. After having a good laugh at what he considered pieces of ugly rags that I was sewing together he said that he had come to invite Orpah to play with his bluegrass band at a fund-raising event for the victims of Katrina — the hurricane that had destroyed New Orleans at the end of August.

“I don’t wanna play no gig,” said Orpah even before the man finished his story.

“Where’s this going to be held?” I asked.

“At the Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville,” said the man.

“We got our own gig on the road, baby,” said Orpah.

“It’s for a good cause, Orpah,” said the man looking at me for support. But I have no intention of involving myself in this. I saw what happened to Nathan when he tried to be Orpah’s “manager.” The women thought it would be a good idea if Orpah took part in the concert — it would be the American thing to do. She said she would think about it and contact the man later.

That evening Orpah decided she would participate at the fund-raiser provided the bluegrass guys picked her up from Kilvert and returned her after the show. This would only be her second time playing for the public and she would be more comfortable if Obed was there as well. She needed his moral support, especially after I told her I would not attend the event myself since I had to catch up with a lot of sewing before we hit the road. Many of Orpah’s drawings demanded to be translated into quilts. There were those I felt were so essential in our lamentations that I just had to re-create them before we left.

The next morning after our mourning rehearsal we went to Ruth’s. The first thing that struck me was Mahlon’s garden. There was something different about it. For a while I couldn’t put my finger on it until Orpah pointed out that her daddy had gone back to having living things in his garden. And there I could see rose bushes among the gnomes. Some of the mini flags were still there, planted on the grass, but most were now decorating the bushes. The Bush gnome stood on its pedestal. But this time it held neither gun nor flag.

Orpah went to her mother-in-law room while I knocked at the living room door. I knew that her Marilyn Monroes missed her. That was how she usually put it, rather than the other way round. I worried a lot about those Marilyn Monroes. I dreaded her taking them with us on the road.

Ruth sat at her station cutting some glittering fabric. Not with the scissors, but with the rotary cutter I gave her as a present months before. She tried to hide it under the fabric when she saw it was me, but it was too late.

“It does a nice job, doesn’t it,” I said.

“You shacking with Orpah full time now and you ain’t even ashamed of it,” she said. “You living in sin and the Bible don’t like it no ways. Mr. Quigley too.”

“Orpah has all her stuff here, Ruth,” I said, hoping it would be some comfort. “She only goes to the RV to visit. We’re on to big things with Orpah. We’re going to conquer the world.”

“That’s what you think, mister,” she said. “Mr. Quigley won’t let you mess our girl’s life no ways.”

“I haven’t seen Mahlon for a while,” I said. “How is he? And Obed? Actually I’ve come to find out about Obed. Do you know how I can get in touch with him?”

“She’s gonna be sorry, you know? Orpah is gonna be very sorry. She ain’t like Obed. Obed has turned out so good. He’s now a man of God.”

Obed a man of God?

Ruth gushes on about her Obed: he came here with Beth Eddy the other day. Beth Eddy was a nice girl and no one could hold it against her that she was Caucasian. In any event she was going to lighten her long-awaited grandchildren. But that was not the most important thing. The most important thing was that Obed was going to Bible School to be a pastor. He was going to take over Brother Michael’s church. It was high time the church was in the hands of a son of Kilvert, a son who had not been soiled by adultery, a son who would respect the culture of his people and would not dismiss the heritage they held dear as false and meaningless.

“So the hoofing he used to do as a kid has paid off,” I said laughing. I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.

“It ain’t no laughing matter ’cause if you laugh you laughing at God.”

That, of course, stopped my foolish chuckles immediately. I don’t want to laugh at God.

Obed’s conversion did not end there. In August he went gleaning with a Bible study group to which he and Beth Eddy belonged. They joined the Appalachia Harvest gleaning group for a successful harvest of corn. They handpicked thousands of ears of sweet corn that were left on the field after harvest and would have otherwise gone to waste. The corn was then transported to local food pantries, including the Kilvert Community Center, for distribution to the poor and for community dinners. Late in August they gleaned tomatoes which the group processed into pasta sauce and salsa, also for distribution to food pantries. When he came here with Beth Eddy they brought some of the sauce and salsa with them.

To prove her point Ruth stood up and waddled to the kitchen. She brought back a bottle of pasta sauce which she said I could take to my sinful RV and taste what the hand of the Lord had brought. I was just happy to hear that my favorite scoundrel had changed so much. But how come I didn’t know anything about it?

“What about his casino? What about the Shawnee claim? Has he given up on his casino?” I asked.

“What part of he’s-a-man-of-God don’t you understand?”

“Do you have his number, Ruth?” I asked.