My heart and my flesh

by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

There was a quiet space while she drew at the string, her ear deaf to the tone, but her fingers tinkering knowingly.

“Good-bye,” he said.

She had no reply for this. Her words were caught in her stiff throat, whatever they might have been. He began to walk toward the door, going slowly, on tiptoe, whispering something. He went toward the door aimlessly, moving uncertainly, bent forward under some burden or pain. Then he said, whispering from the doorway:

“Good-bye.

“Good-bye, Theodosia,” still whispering.

“Why, good-bye,” she said aloud, smiling toward him. “Good-bye, Albert. Good-bye.”

Her hands were dull and wooden over the trills and she laid the instrument aside. Fear and pain mounted in her mind and she wandered over the house or sat stiffly in a chair. Fear that had been allayed arose and multiplied, meeting other curious hurts and shames, meeting pride in a vortex of confusion. Toward nightfall she went from the house quickly and walked through Crabtree Lane, away from the chief avenue of the town. She turned into Hill Street and passed among the small cabins that were lined along the unpaved roadway. The people of the street were leaning over their fences or sitting in their doorways. They looked at her searchingly as she went by, their slightly averted eyes asking what had brought her there. When she had passed ten or twelve cabins she saw Americy sitting on a doorstep. There was a low gate before the door of the house, and Theodosia came near to this and laid her hands upon it before she was discovered. Americy was touching the strings of a guitar uncertainly and making a chord or two, and as she strummed she was singing softly. She looked up when the hands were shaken on the gate and stopped her strumming, and when she saw Theodosia she cast her eyes upward in surprised questioning and embarrassment.

“You need one chord more,” Theodosia said. “Let me show you. One chord, like this.” She had gone within the gate and was sitting on the step beside Americy now. “One chord more is all. To make the song go.”

“You needn’t to bother. I don’t play nohow. I was just a-picken a little bit. I can’t play.”

“It’s like this,” Theodosia said. She sat on the step beside Americy and took the guitar out of her hands. “You put in this one, and then the first again, and see, it all rounds out and makes the song go better.” The guitar felt greasy in her hands and it smelt of the brown girl’s fingers. Americy was reticent, not eager to try the chord, afraid or hostile, but Theodosia urged her to take the instrument again. When the new chord was needed she placed the fingers on the strings, and Americy yielded although her mind groped in a gloom and did not learn the new way easily. Her brows were smooth and sharply cut but her mouth was heavy and her chin dull and clumsy. The dark splotches on her face were much less prominent than Theodosia had remembered.