CHAPTER TWELVE
THE FIRST COAT
Joann throws aside a worn-smooth piece of sandpaper and swipes her damp forehead with the back of her hand. Her fingers are stiff and her back aches, but she hardly notices. She selects new sandpaper with rougher grain and rubs the tabletop with intensity. Rubs away scratches. Rubs away scars and stains. Nearby, a can of primer and a gallon of fresh paint wait unopened.
Nels had objected to her plan. “You’ve got enough goin’ on with all this remodelin’,” he said, when really it was her inordinate intensity over the idea that concerned him. It had taken some persuading on Joann’s part to get him to drive to the hardware store to buy supplies. He almost always complies with her wishes eventually.
Nels. She applies more pressure to her strokes. Why can’t he understand that she must do what must be done? And why hasn’t she thought of doing it before? She welcomes the thought of permanently obliterating the anxieties of childhood that for years have taunted her, haunted her with hellish visions in the night. They will be gone.
Or will they?
Is she doing the right thing?
This table . . . why, oh why is it such a puzzle? She gives her head a jerking twitch as if to shake herself free of confusion, and once again she reviews the past. As an insecure child, the table beckoned her. Sometimes it offered her a place of privacy, where she had hopes and good thoughts. Those times made it sacred to her. At other times, under the table, she was betrayed by darkness and foreboding. A paradox. But perhaps sanding and painting—honest toil—will bring about some understanding, maybe even some peace.
She rearranges the drop cloth she’s placed on the floor to catch sanding dust and paint, then rubs a stubborn mar with intensity. Her loose, uncombed hair falls forward, a labyrinth through which she must look. When scratches diminish, she is heartened. The water stains, however, formed years ago when water splashed from laundry tubs and washboards, resist obliteration. No matter, the paint will do its work.
Yes. This labor will be worth it. She rubs feverishly, prompting quizzical glances from the two workmen who paint window trim in the adjacent living room. They make excuses to walk through the dining room to get a better look at this peculiar woman. She pays them no heed.
When the tabletop is sanded, Joann decides the vine-covered apron needs no attention. Its original varnish is mostly gone, but it has escaped the ravages of time and misuse. She alternately kneels and sits on the floor, sanding away blemishes on each leg. Fatigue takes hold. She’d intended to prepare a more perfectly smooth surface for the primer coat. Perfect, because everything Joann does must meet her standards. But in her eagerness she concludes that the paint—the paint!—will cover all remaining blemishes. She eats a few crackers to renew her energy, then opens the can of primer.
By late afternoon, the primer is dry. The day’s surging emotions and the physical labor have sapped her strength. She will apply the topcoat early in the morning. But she can’t resist prying open the lid, just to look at the paint she has such high hopes for. Its smell assaults her. Why did Nels buy oil-based paint? Doesn’t he know it has a noxious odor? The color, however, is perfect, soft, reassuring. It seems to have a certain quality—a presence. She will dip her brush into it tomorrow.
But first comes night, and another dream . . .
A little girl on a plank floor . . . crude benches . . . whispered conversation . . .
“Lars, Pa’s got the farm insured for lots a money. Hunderds, I’d guess.”
“Hunderds? This here place? You know what boys like us could do with money like that? We’d be rich!”
“It’s not for us, you dummy. It’s fer if somthin’ happens to it, you know, like a cyclone.”
“Cyclone? How ’bout a fire, like another prairie fire?”
“Yeh, Lars, like a fire . . . But it don’t have to be no prairie fire, ya know.”
“Whatcha sayin’, Rolf?” . . . Red-orange flames leap . . . “Whatcha sayin’, Rolf?”
Billows of black smoke mushroom, rise, drift . . . The girl chokes, screams . . .
At 2:00 a.m., Joann, sweat-soaked, rises from her bed and writes shaky lines in her notebook.
What is it, who is it that lifts the torch and bids fire rage from the horizon? Who strikes the match to destroy a farm?
The next morning Joann strokes with wide, sweeping motions. She imagines herself an orchestra conductor, directing, not music, but a flow of color. A flow of healing color. An ointment. Oil-based? Perhaps that was meant to be after all. In spite of its odor, she will believe it to be anointing oil.
Saffee sits on a stool and watches, fascinated, as paint flows from her mother’s brush onto the Norway table. “Can I help?” she asks.