The thread collectors, p.9
The Thread Collectors, page 9
Quietly, Jacob tuned it until it sounded perfect. He placed the instrument beneath his chin and began to play, despite not having done so for nearly a decade.
His mother’s face softened to the music. Her eyes closed, her lips turned into the faintest smile, and most importantly, Jacob heard her breathing relax as the notes filled the air.
He played the music of Samuel and his childhood. The Bavarian waltzes and the slow, haunting Romani music that was easy enough to improvise.
But he put something else into his playing because it was all he had to give her at this moment. He put into each note the only true thing a son could offer to his mother: his heart.
And when he put down the bow and came closer to Kati’s bedside one last time, he folded his hand on top of hers.
She did not say either Samuel’s name or his. Her eyes were closed, her lips curled into a peaceful smile. She simply whispered, her last few words: “Ich liebe dich, mein Sohn.”
“I love you, my son.”
18
Several weeks had passed since Stella first suspected she might be with child. Now, after missing her second monthly in a row, she and Ammanee both knew her pregnancy was almost a certainty.
When Miss Hyacinth rapped on Stella’s door and asked to speak with her privately, Stella was still bleary-eyed from a midday nap. The weather had become particularly muggy for early spring, and despite her sincere intentions of helping Ammanee with some of the housework, she had fallen asleep yet again.
“How can I help you?” Stella asked as she stood up and tried to arrange herself.
“It’s not me,” Hyacinth whispered as she pushed herself inside. “It’s Emilienne’s brother...” She entered the threshold with her head held high, the sound of her skirt recalling a bird’s rustling feathers. “We’re wonderin’ if you might do the same sort of stitching for him that you did for my Jonah.”
Stella stood quiet as she took in the sight of Hyacinth. The woman, now close to fifty, was tall like an empress. Her cinnamon complexion, celadon eyes, and long neck all created an aura that evoked another time, another place, one better than Rampart Street in the middle of a war. Stella now understood why some of the other women had coined the nickname Queenie for Hyacinth, and why her own mother had never adopted that moniker for herself. As lovely as Janie was, she certainly didn’t have the same regal quality.
“Emilienne’s brother, he’s going to run, too...”
Stella clasped her hands in front of her, ringing her fingers together. Frye had visited just two days prior and he had been as loose-lipped as ever, prattling on about where he was shifting supplies to next. But she hadn’t been listening as intently as the last time. Instead, she’d been preoccupied with concerns that he might notice the swelling of her breasts, or the darkening of her nipples. Stella had prayed he would be oblivious to the signs of pregnancy that another woman would know so well.
“I’m just not as sure about the information as I was the last time. I wasn’t listening for the sake of remembering,” she cautioned. “I wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for bringing harm to the man.”
Hyacinth’s gaze was intense, her voice calm and measured. “No one would ever think that, child. We only askin’ because anythin’ you can remember might aid her brother. I gotta believe the one you gave my Jonah musta helped him.”
Stella’s eyes lowered. It all came down to faith. As was the case with Willie, they would likely receive no letters or messages ever letting them know if their beloveds had indeed reached safety.
“We’ve had our own ways, always...you know that, Stella.” Hyacinth stepped closer and reached for her hands. The warmth of her touch radiated through Stella. “Why you think we paint our doors blue, or hang bottles from our trees? Or put a broom by the back door? We gotta trap those haints, and protect who we love.” Hyacinth sucked in her breath. “Us sistas of Rampart believe your needle and thread can protect our boys...”
Her words sounded like a proclamation in Stella’s ears. She still was full of worry that her stitches could lead one of their own down the wrong path. But Ammanee’s initial urgings rang true in her ears. Stella had the ability to help.
“I’m going to need to find some mo’ thread,” she finally said. “I used an old purse the last time, but there’s hardly anything left to it now.”
Hyacinth considered the request. “I’m not sure if it’ll work, but I got a small shawl. Woven real loose...with a lot of different colors in it. Maybe you could use that.”
Stella had one herself, but it was only in a natural shade of oatmeal. It had once belonged to Janie, and now she often wrapped it around her shoulders on cool days.
“That will do just fine,” Stella replied, as she imagined how she’d untangle the fibers and thread her needle.
“We gotta use everything we have,” Hyacinth reminded her. “Help the boys get their freedom. Then maybe, God willing, they come back to get us so we can get ours.”
* * *
Stitch by stitch, Stella pulled the last threads from her old purse. She wanted to make sure to take every last bit from it before moving on to Miss Hyacinth’s shawl.
In her hand, the large scarf felt almost weightless, the cotton weave as light as gossamer. She loosened the grid-like pattern that made up the loomed cloth, and then slowly began removing one thread at a time. First the green, then the blue, and lastly the red. The scarf consisted of hundreds of fibers, so Stella didn’t need to use all the colors there. After she had finished, the yellow, black and lavender threads remained, bountiful and in place, and Stella was happy to have something to return to if another map was ever needed.
She hadn’t used her own cotton cloth for the backdrop, and instead took an old burlap flour sack. Its coarse fabric was in sharp contrast to the delicateness of the shawl. But it was easy to use and cost nothing, and while Emilienne would have surely offered up a swatch of material from one of her petticoats, Stella had thought the brown burlap would work just as well.
With the job completed, she folded the map like a napkin and placed it in the pocket of her skirt.
“I’m finished now,” Stella informed Ammanee when she found her up the next day sweeping the kitchen floor. She did not speak aloud of the map, but her sister still understood the meaning of her words. “I’m going to stop by Emilienne’s cottage and give it to her. I don’t want to delay.”
Ammanee set down her broom. Her hair was wrapped in a kerchief, and her wide brown eyes looked over her sister, appraising her health. She didn’t want Stella venturing out if she was feeling weak again.
“You’ve been up most of the night. Maybe I should take it...”
Stella shook her head. “The walk will do me good.” She cupped her hand to the small of her back.
“I could come with you...”
“Don’t worry, sister,” Stella insisted. “And it’s been days since I saw Mama. I’ll visit her afterward.”
* * *
The morning sun warmed Stella’s face, and she soaked it up like a thirsty sponge. Days of rain had brought forth the budding of fruit trees and birdsong. Despite the paucity of the cupboards and the stresses of a city under occupation, nature was still pushing forth.
Emilienne’s cottage was close to Janie’s, on the far end of Rampart Street, just steps from the church of St. Anthony of Padua. Next to its wrought iron gate, an enormous magnolia tree grew with large, globe-like pink flowers. Stella smiled, remembering how she used to gather the fallen petals in her basket when she was a little girl and her mother would pickle them or make them into tea.
Her sister had always loved the church, with its three symmetrical arches, a tall steeple with a clock in its center. Ammanee still volunteered to sweep the choir hall and bring flowers for the altar. Stella was baffled that her sister still kept her allegiance to the place, for its once beloved chaplain, a Frenchman by the name of Turgis, who had spent his early days at the church preaching against the evils of keeping men and women in bondage, had turned his back on the enslaved. In the past few years, he’d spent his time ministering to the Confederate army. But in spite of all this, and how fiercely she condemned the Rebs, Ammanee continued to visit and do her weekly chores there.
Stella could hardly contain her contempt when Frye mentioned that he and some officers were going to meet at the old church after his recent visit with her.
They’re gonna start using the place to have Rebel meetings, can you believe that? she’d told her sister, dismayed to think of a holy place being defiled in such a way.
But Ammanee hadn’t answered. She just raised an eyebrow and a strange, almost cunning smile emerged on her lips.
* * *
The exterior walls of Emilienne’s place were a deep shade of carnelian red. Stella knocked on the black door, noting that much of the dark pigment had faded during the war.
“Who’s there?” a low voice emerged through the cracked window.
“It’s Stella, ma’am.” She patted her pocket, warming the map with her hand. “I’ve brought you something...”
The door opened and Emilienne ushered her inside. Short and plump with an enormous bosom, Emilienne was the complete opposite of her friend Hyacinth. Her tiny hands reached to grip Stella’s. “Thank you, chère, for doing this for me.”
Stella pulled the folded burlap from her pocket. “As I told Miss Hyacinth, I’m not sure it will help your brother, but I’ve stitched it with what I know...”
Emilienne touched the material, her palm covering it like it was something holy. “Give ’em some knowledge. Give ’em some protection. That’s all we can do, right?”
Stella nodded. She still felt the butterflies in her stomach, the nausea afflicting her worse in the mornings. But working on the latest map had offered solace from her own troubles, her own constant worrying. Stitch by stitch, she felt she was channeling the maternal love that was growing inside her. There was so much she could not control, but sewing a path through the darkness, how could that not be good?
19
At first, Lily had turned her nose up at Ernestine’s suggestion that she corral the young women of her social set to stitch coverlets for Union hospitals or charity auction events.
“I realize that kind of work is important, but I think my skills would be better suited to helping you with the Liberator newspaper,” Lily said. “I’m a far better writer than seamstress, Ernestine.”
“I know you’d rather use your pen than a needle and thread, but there’s more than one way to fight a war, Lily,” Ernestine countered. “Think of how you’ll be aiding the soldiers who are laying down their lives to rid the country of slavery. It is abolitionist work at its core, my dear child.”
Lily wasn’t completely convinced, but she forced herself to find deeper meaning in the challenge. “Perhaps I can embroider in a line or two from Frederick Douglass,” she mused aloud. “‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July’?”
“Now, that’s my girl.” Ernestine’s face brightened. “Your efforts will inspire our men and give them even more courage. In the meantime, round up as many women as you can find and get to work. I’ve promised the Sanitary Commission twenty quilts by Christmas!”
“Will you be joining, too?” Lily asked.
Ernestine lifted her swollen hands. “My arthritis makes it impossible, so I’m handing the torch to the young.”
* * *
Sixteen ladies now sat in a large circle in the parlor of Lily’s apartment, with colorful patchwork blankets spread over their laps. Baskets of raw materials rested at their sides. Nearly all of their husbands were away fighting, and each of them was eager to contribute something to the war effort.
“Thank you for organizing this,” Adeline Levi said as she worked on her stitches. She was the quickest and most accomplished sewer in the group, and within a matter of days was already on to her second quilt.
Lily’s first effort had not come out as seamlessly as she’d hoped. She had created a simple pattern of crimson and white squares, but soon discovered that she was short of the amount of red material she’d require. Around her ankles, scraps of fabric carelessly cut collected like fallen leaves.
“You need to sketch out your design before you start working on the actual quilt,” one of the women reminded her. “Didn’t your mother teach you that when you were little?”
A hard lump formed in Lily’s throat. “No, she didn’t, unfortunately,” she replied softly as she plucked out the threads to start anew, this time adding a third color into the design to make up for the missing red. She looked up and saw Jenny Roth place a palm on her belly and smile with maternal beneficence, as if to suggest that her babe was learning to sew right there in the room along with them.
A terrible, unspeakable ache suddenly seized Lily, one of the many painful longings she’d endured throughout her life as a motherless child. Had her mother lived, would she be as skilled as all of the other women in the room, who seemed to be able to quilt with their eyes closed? Each row of stitches took her three times as long, and she lacked the confidence they had. This was exactly the reason she had not wanted to organize the sewing circle in the first place. Why hadn’t Ernestine let her just contribute to the newsletter or help with her speech writing? She was clumsy wielding a needle, but her pen had always felt like a sword in her hands.
The soft-spoken Henrietta Byrd noticed Lily’s frustration, and quietly set out to aid her.
“Switch seats with me,” she told the woman sitting next to Lily.
Henrietta sat down and took Lily’s quilt into her lap. “Think of it as a grid,” she instructed kindly, “and all you need to do is secure one square to the next. Use the running stitch—it’s the easiest one. Just rock your needle in and out, then up and down.”
Lily watched Henrietta’s slow, methodical sewing while rubbing her sore thumb.
“Do you have a thimble?” she asked Lily. She reached into the pocket of her skirt. “Here, I have an extra.”
Lily took the thimble and Henrietta then handed the quilt back to her. “You’re going to get the hang of it, I promise.”
* * *
Henrietta was right. With further practice, Lily’s stitches became more even and soon her confidence grew. On the back of her first quilt, she painstakingly embroidered the words of Frederick Douglass, not knowing if the recipient would ever notice the poignant message sewn near the border. But she did it anyway, as a reminder to herself of the broader work that needed to be done. A quiet satisfaction came over her as her finger traced the letters.
She turned next to the quilt she made for Jacob, which would always be different from the ones she made with the sewing group. Lily had carefully selected the fabric, with each piece of cloth specifically connected to her and her husband’s history. From the linen closet of her father’s home, she pilfered the navy cotton tablecloth she and Jacob had used for their first Shabbat dinner together. She immediately imagined it cut into squares for the blanket’s midnight-colored background. From her own armoire, she took the cherished white bedsheet from their wedding night, knowing she could use it to create the myriad of stars in the design.
As the women in the sewing circle had taught her, she sketched out the pattern first. Studying the rough drawing, she realized she wanted to add yet another layer of love, so Lily planned on stitching a heart-shaped amulet made from the hem of her nightgown, to be placed beneath the quilt’s center panel.
She did not expect Jacob to recognize the source of the materials she used, particularly since she hardly ever showed him her more sentimental side, preferring to hide behind a veneer of practicality and strength. She knew he would only see constellations atop the interlocking of dark blue squares that made up the night sky. But since the war began, she knew the importance of putting her entire spirit into every endeavor. So as she fashioned the only protection she could now give him, she sewed her soul into every stitch.
20
The next day, as the officers relaxed within their tents, William pondered what music he would perform for them that evening. His mind traveled backward to a time when he was still under the yoke of Mas’ Frye. When he had his Sundays off and he’d secretly meet Stella in Congo Square, just across Rampart Street north of the French Quarter.
It was the perfect venue for their rendezvous, as the square bustled with crowds, music and dance. For almost a half century, Congo Square was the only place the slaves of New Orleans could congregate on Sundays, their single day of reprieve as written into the law. From the moment William arrived in the city, he was drawn to the square. He savored the active marketplace, the scents of spices and the joyful chatter.
But William particularly relished the sounds of the instruments that filled the air. Men pounded on drums of all shapes and sizes, dried gourd rattles shook and calloused fingers strummed banjos. Most poignant to William was the melody coming from the reed pipes, filling him with a nostalgia for the hand-carved flute that Abraham had made for him back on Sapelo Island. Those afternoons when he waited there for Stella were his life’s sustenance. Not only because he was finally able to see his girl, but also because he relished the rhythms that floated through the square. The music of his African ancestors breathed a new vitality into him and brought him close to the memory of his mother.
It was still so easy to imagine Stella arriving on the arm of her sister, each with a basket on her wrist, his beloved’s smile a ray of sunshine. He’d follow Ammanee’s lead as she wandered through the crowd and led them to a place she knew her sister could remain undetected for an hour or two. Their transient shelter was often a deserted warehouse or cellar, places that were almost always damp and unsightly. But neither he nor Stella cared about the shabbiness of the conditions. All they yearned for was the warmth of the other’s embrace.
