Pew(43)

I guess you’re s’posed to take your pick, Dr. Corbin said, looking at the clothes. The robe—that’s useful though—you’ll need that today.
The bathrobe had a few little holes at the seam of one sleeve. I stood, put myself inside the robe, tied the white sash around my body, and sat down again. Dr. Corbin sat, too, each of us drinking that bitter coffee, listening to birds.
It starts in a few hours, he said after some time had passed between us. You know—I was a part of the group that started it all those years ago, started the festival. And I believed it was what we all needed—I believed in it then. Now, though, I can’t say I am altogether sure I understand what it does to people … I felt so sure then—of course I was younger. It’s easier to be certain of things then—and the older you get, the more you see how certainty depends on one blindness or another.
A bird landed on the railing and Dr. Corbin stopped talking to look at him. The bird turned his head one way, then the other. He stooped, widened his wings, and went away.
Forgiveness is sometimes just a costume for forgetting. I don’t want it to be so—but every year, just before it begins, I start to feel this way. And then what? I forget about it.
In the street several policemen marched by, dressed in white and carrying white guns.
Hey there, little possum, Dr. Corbin said to a girl sprinting up the stairs.
I’m not a possum! She climbed into his lap. Mama told me to come over here. She stood on his knees and took his ears in each of her little hands.
Why are your ears so big?
So I can hear when a little possum sneaks up on me, Dr. Corbin said.
Who is that?
This is our friend Pew.
Why does she look like that? Her voice lowered as she turned away from me.
Dr. Corbin gave no answer, picked up the child, and went inside, calling out for Binnie, telling her a little possum called JJ had come by looking for breakfast. The door shut, and for a few minutes I could hear the muted sounds of lives being passed inside the house—a chime of fork on plate, doors opened or shut, words muffled through walls.
I’m not sure what I can even explain about it, Dr. Corbin said as he joined me on the porch again. It became something I didn’t mean for it to be … maybe it means something to them that keep doing it—I don’t know. I guess Steven already told you what you need to know—and anyway, I guess you’ll see when you’re there. There’s hardly any use in explaining it. It’s a ritual. We make them, people make them, and they don’t really mean anything, even the ones that supposedly mean something—even they don’t really mean anything. They’re just something to do.
A white police car drove by slowly; Dr. Corbin waved.
Well, I guess I ought to take you that direction about now.
On the drive I saw families on the sidewalks in white, girls in white dresses and white stockings, white suits on the fathers, mothers draped in white. White hats and white shoes. Someone pushed a wheelchair that held someone draped with a white blanket, and boys were in white short pants, babies were swaddled in white, white vests were over white shirts, white scarves.
A few white trucks carried children in their beds. On the back of one truck was a sign, red letters on white—
ALL LIVING THINGS

ARE BROKEN THINGS

A large group of boys all together carried one wide sign—
ALL FAILURES

ARE FORGIVEN

And a group of girls carried another behind them—
ALL FAILURES

ARE FORGOTTEN

We’re here, Dr. Corbin said. Just follow the crowd where they go. I can’t drive up any closer. I’ll meet you right here once it’s over. I looked at him for a while. It was hard to feel as if I’d ever see anyone again. The day was peeled back like that, something raw and ending.
The crowd was all walking in the same direction, a synchronized flood. Small children and babies hung in the arms of the larger people, unaware and unable, and a spare cough or sneeze sometimes broke through the warm silence, as the body has its ways to speak without speaking.
The crowd become more dense, slower. The trucks rolled along with us. Church bells were ringing and sirens sang in the distance as we approached a large dark building in the center of the parking lot. Above a doorway wide enough for many cattle to pass through, a large flap of canvas hung—
MAY WE FORGET

ALL WE FORGIVE

Just inside the entrance, children were being left in a large room full of children, some weeping, some gleeful, most sitting bored and quiet on the floor. In a glimpse I saw a few women—some pregnant, some carrying a baby in each arm—moving among the crawling and mumbling children. I kept in step with the crowd as we went deeper into the building. No one looked into anyone’s eyes. The silence became more silent, more silent still.
At the end of the hallway—a massive space. The ceiling was higher than any church I’d ever known. The tall windows on one side of the room were fogged with dark soot, and the walls were the color of molasses, and the wooden floor creaked with our steps. Wide ceiling fans spun above us. The robe I’d almost forgotten had come slightly undone. I tightened it. Some people were taking others by the shoulders and leading them to specific points around the room, putting them in some kind of formation. A set of hands guided me to a spot and set me there.
Through the crowd, in profile, I saw Hilda in a white dress. Her face looked smaller and softer and less clear than I remembered. I wondered what she would say, but I didn’t want to hear her say it. Did she feel she’d wronged or been wronged more in her life? Did anyone ever know which was true? How much harm did we cause without knowing it? How much harm did we cause when we were certain we were doing such good?