Vivi, 1942
From the top of the water tower, Vivi felt a relief spread through
her. What a sweet small-town thrill, this was, like the delight
of watching a parade from the top of a tall building. She
could see the tangled Spanish moss hanging off the oaks in City
Park. She could make out the camellia bushes and azaleas, the
salvias; she could smell the night-blooming jasmine. Closing her
eyes, she imagined she could look down into her house, into her bedroom
and everything in it. The four-poster bed with the silk canopy
Delia had bought for her in New Orleans; the new vanity her father
bought for her fifteenth birthday, on top of which sat a photo of Jack
clad in his basketball uniform, fiddle in hand; the tall armoire
crammed with loafers and sweater sets; the ceiling fan; the tennis racket propped against the night stand; her tennis
trophies; countless photos of the Ya-Yas, and one of Jimmy Stewart.
Looking away from her parents' house, Vivi imagined she could see the
block she lived on, and then her whole neighborhood. She
conjured all the people she knew and the few she didn't. She saw
them tossing and turning in their beds, too hot to sleep. She saw
lights burning on front porches; slivers of light where ice box doors
were open, someone standing there, reaching for a bottle of milk, just
an excuse to feel the cool air of the icebox. She saw a night
lights in the rooms of the babies who dreamed soft seersucker dreams,
drugged happy with the heat, their pink baby bodies curled against worn
cotton, not fearing Hitler yet, their strong, tiny hearts beating in
unison with the trees and the creeks and the bayous.
Vivi saw the flicker of candles burning at Divine Compassion for the
souls of the dead; she spotted tiny fiery red tips of cigarettes
dangling from the lips of sleep-starved souls seeking the faintest of
breezes in back yards; she caught the soft glow from radio dials left
on all night, in case a warning was broadcast, in case the Nazis or
Japs invaded on this feverish night, executing the horrors that lived
in the town's heart even as the bank opened for business, as the milk
was delivered, as the wafer changed to body and blood.
