Joanna Ruocco: The Mothering Coven

Leaves used to pile on one side of the house, and now they pile on the other. The wind has changed direction. And who is subscribing to all these magazines?

Agnes closes the kitchen window. She checks the herring. No bubbles.

“The oven isn’t even on,” says Agnes.

“It must be a Bismarck,” says Mrs. Borage. “You never cook a Bismarck.”

Mrs. Borage has a logical mind. She sits in her rocking chair, snipping pictures from The Helsinki Winki . The pictures are better than the articles. Mrs. Borage wonders if it is the Finnish language that she finds objectionable.

“Or else I don’t have the patience for very long words anymore,” thinks Mrs. Borage. Mrs. Borage stands up.

“I caught a herring once,” announces Mrs. Borage, “in Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.” Mrs. Borage sits down.

“That felt wonderful,” says Mrs. Borage. It’s settled then; she objects to the Finnish language.

Mrs. Borage picks up her scissors. She is snipping pictures of the Finnish National Hockey Team. Mrs. Borage does not object to Finnish hockey players. Mrs. Borage is about to turn one hundred, but she can still appreciate a Schatzilein.

[:]

Agnes folds the laundry — Bertrand’s crimson gambeson — she’s washed it again. Laces, broken. Stuffing coming out. Is that mildew? Agnes looks closer. Death caps have sprouted along the quilting. Pale green diamonds on a crimson field. The sickly yellow fringe, that’s honey tuft, and the leather collar, trompette des morts. Agnes heaves the gambeson back into the dryer drum.

“The tenth, or tithe, is often given to the Imperium,” says Agnes, to no one in particular.

“But we weren’t ten,” says Bryce.

“Agnes, Bertrand, Bryce, Fiona, Dorcas, Hildegard, and Ozark,” says Dorcas. “Mrs. Borage, eight.”

Besides, is Europe still the Imperium? There are so many abandoned castles, so many unemployed knights, entire orders in desuetude. The Esoteric Order of Night-Blooming Phlox. The Order of Brücken. The Noble Order of Girdle. The Order of Pussy Willow. The Order of Radish.

[:]

What is missing from the Bismarck? Not the chemical transformation brought about by heat, certainly not. Then what? Agnes puts her fingertips to her temples.

“Bertrand’s herbs!” thinks Agnes. She inspects the spice rack, the little, dim jars. She unscrews a lid.

“Parsley?” asks Agnes. “Or Paris green?”

“Does it make a difference?” asks Fiona.

“Paris,” sighs Mrs. Borage. “I received a standing ovation in Paris, decades ago, at the Burgtheater. Tell me, dear, did Bertrand leave the tin of caramel corn?” Agnes takes the tins down from the cupboard. She wipes the labels.

“Calf’s mugget,” reads Agnes. “Splat-mutton. Hare lights. Creamed kid with laurel.”

“No corn,” says Mrs. Borage. “Pity.”

“There is stubble goose,” says Agnes.

“Geese in the theater,” gasps Mrs. Borage. She remembers sheep, of course, in comic opera. Arias sung on horseback.

“And Grimaldi’s rabbit,” says Mrs. Borage. “That rabbit had an enviable command on stage. The way she grazed the green-baize carpet.” Mrs. Borage remembers dying beneath the darkened arch, her bloodied skirts in disarray upon the drugget. Mrs. Borage stands up. She shakes her fist.

“Fie!” says Mrs. Borage. “Fie!” She drops back down into the rocker. Mrs. Borage remembers expiring to thunderous applause. She remembers the dagger smoking in her breast, roses falling from the balconies. The noblesse d’épée — they were leaping to their feet. They were stamping their heels. They banged their sword hilts on the balustrades! They could not whistle; their mouths were filled with caramel corn.

“They never whistled,” says Mrs. Borage. “Whistling has rare incidence in bourgeois theater. They have no use for it, or for any metaphysical language that subverts meaning.”

[:]

Bryce has taped Bertrand’s postcards to the refrigerator door, to the microwave door, to the television screen. Now she is coating them with polyurethane. She adds a bit of moss to Lake Nero, to simulate an algal bloom. Over here — silica flakes! They give a badly needed glimmer to the deserts of Poland.

Bryce imagines Bertrand in the deserts of Poland. Will Bertrand see the white and gold Polish eagle? Will she see Queen Wanda the Drowned?

The moss absorbs a good deal of polyurethane. Bryce has a terrible headache. Headaches are always the danger with the plastic arts.

[:]

The telephone on the mantel is tiled with mirrors, sunflower seeds, golden nuggets of bee pollen, and, of course, the delicate skins of glue Bryce peels from her fingers, nine whorls and a pollex loop, repeating. Agnes has a sudden urge to pick it up.

“Hello?” says Agnes.

“ZZZZZZZZZ!” says a collective voice. Agnes hangs up, puzzled.

“A dial tone?” asks Agnes. As far as Agnes knows, the phone has never been connected.

[:]

Where is everyone? The house seems larger. Was there always a ceiling medallion in the dining room? Were there always wall sconces? Crown molding? Agnes is reminded of something.

“The Grand Hotel of Concentrated Virtue!” cries Agnes. But can it still be in business? Surely not. Not when even houses have vacancies.

Mrs. Borage is in the yard, raking leaves into enormous piles. The wind keeps carrying the leaves away. They fly back and forth past the dining-room window.

“Should we help her?” asks Bryce.

“Her movements are so regular,” says Fiona. “It must be a form of raking meditation.”

Now Mrs. Borage is carrying rocks from the garden, rocks and cabbage heads and dried pumpkin vines and red lettuce hearts, big armfuls.

“She’s weighing down the piles,” says Dorcas. “That’s very clever.”

Mrs. Borage goes back and forth, back and forth, from the piles to the garden.

“It looks fun,” says Ozark. Bryce is putting on her green mackintosh. She’s been meaning to make leaf lapel pins for quite a while now, and maybe a catkin sash.

“I’ll get the wheelbarrow,” cries Dorcas. Fiona blocks the doorway. We look at her.

“No sudden moves,” says Fiona. “We can’t interfere with the Theta-brain.”

“The Theta-brain,” says Dorcas. “Of course.” We cluster again at the dining-room window. We try to peer less obtrusively. This involves curtains.

“Achoo,” sneezes Ozark. Fiona glares. We glare. We peer between the curtains.

If Mrs. Borage is jolted from her trance too soon, she could be trapped: her soul on a shamanic journey, her body piling cabbage heads on oak leaves, back and forth, back and forth, for all of time.

[:]

Suddenly, Mrs. Borage stops, her arms filled with bottle gourds. She realizes that she has built eight cairns on the front lawn. They give the property a somber aspect. This is not at all what she intended.

“Fiddlesticks,” curses Mrs. Borage. Mr. Henderson comes out of the Colonial next door, covered in clay. He is a potter and very fond of Mrs. Borage.

“Hello, Mrs. Borage,” says Mr. Henderson. He regards the compost heaps, towers of harvest vegetables, rotting. He has a feeling that death is near.

Mr. Henderson thinks about death a great deal, alone in his garage, spinning and spinning his bowls until they’re so thin he can see his hands through the walls, like the bowls are made of glass. He pulls the walls up, higher and higher, narrow shafts that hold for an instant, tall and translucent — glass reeds, glass flutes — before collapsing again, into mud.